SouthpawShootr
Member
Secondly, we shouldn't be "Armchair Quarterbacking" this event based off of a single-source (The Virginian-Pilot Newspaper) initial report. I'm not calling into question the veracity or reliability of the paper, but simply stating more information is needed for better analysis.
This is a local thing for me (I live in Chesapeake & work in Norfolk about a quarter mile away from where this happened). This story have changed significantly several times. I read in this morning's paper that the FBI is starting a preliminary civil rights investigation relating to this matter. That's preposterous. Also this morning, the officer's uncle, a former deputy police chief in Norfolk as well as the interim chief of police in Norfolk immediately preceding the installation of the current chief, had some highly critical things to say about this incident. Mostly, it was safety related stuff involving plain clothes duty. They were looking for someone who had shot at least one person in the area (actually turned out to be 2), so this was more of a case of mistaken identity than anything else. I'm sure the officer who fired saw a man with a gun in close proximity to uniformed officers and acted on it. This situation was chaotic and noisy by all accounts (I'd still like to know why the heck all these people had to be outside in the middle of this), so it's very likely that Darden was told to drop his weapon but didn't hear.
Clearly some changes are in order regarding plain clothes response to these incidents. Maybe all the guys on plain clothes duty should have jackets marked POLICE or something like that and be required to don these when responding to a call where it isn't necessary to maintain anonymity of the officer. Now, I'm not putting any blame on Darden. This was most likely a problem going back to the city's police procedures, which I hope will now be revised.