Police shoot, kill unarmed bookie

[NineseveN]

Incompetent people are in every profession all over the country. When one surgeon leaves a hemostat in a patient's abdomen, do we immediately label
all surgeons as morons? No. We deal with that surgeon and that incident.

If it was standard practice for Surgeons not to take inventory of all of their tools before starting a surgery and before closing the entry and such a thing as you describe happened on a regular basis, there would be, and has been the exact same amount of concern and outrage.

Not picking on ya, and I know you were't responding to me, but I had to make that point.

 

[buzz_knox]

Not condoning or excusing what happened. Just pointing out that cops and robbers is a dangerous game for both sides. Don't want to have trouble from a cop...competent or otherwise? Don't engage in known illegal activities, because if it's a felony...and you're confronted...you're probably gonna be lookin' at the wrong end of a gun. You're nervous...He's nervous... and all it takes is a wrong move or the perception of non-compliance to tighten his finger on the trigger.

I stopped disobeying speed limits several years ago...and I stopped getting tickets along about the same time. Amazin' how that works.

And:

Incompetent people are in every profession all over the country. When one surgeon leaves a hemostat in a patient's abdomen, do we immediately label
all surgeons as morons? No. We deal with that surgeon and that incident.

1. I've been on the receiving end of police attention despite not having had any involvement in criminal activity. So the "if you keep your nose clean, you won't have trouble" stuff doesn't wash.

2. Obeying the speed limit isn't necessarily a guarantee of no ticket, especially when our dear Gov. announces another one of his ticket quotas. There are too many traffic laws not to be breaking at least one or two at any given moment. Checked to make sure that your tail lights are the proper shade of red? That was a $100+ ticket for my father, whose tail light was intact but "not red enough" for the cop's tastes.

3. There are certainly incompetent people. But when a surgeon or lawyer screws up, there is considerable liability on him personally. Cops typically don't face that. And most surgeons and lawyers I know hate the bad ones, and publicly bad mouth them. I certainly do when there's a bad lawyer. And you'll never find me on a board explaining how the client asked to get screwed, or how we have to understand where the lawyer was coming from.

 

[gripper]

I gotta concur....I'm currently the recipient of some less than favorable( or deserved) LEO attention.I AM trying to not let it completely sour my outlook on them in general,but it does tend to color ones perceptions.

 

[1911Tuner]

If it was standard practice for Surgeons not to take inventory of all of their tools before starting a surgery and before closing the entry and such a thing as you describe happened on a regular basis, there would be, and has been the exact same amount of concern and outrage.

Not picking on ya, and I know you were't responding to me, but I had to make that point.

Oh...It happens more than you hear about, mah fren. It's usually handled on the QT on the hospital level...with money changing ands, no doubt. Livin' with a trauma floor nurse has made me nervous about hospitals.

Not pickin' on anybody either. Just saw the thread going from:
"Dumbazz cop kills unarmed man" to "All cops are dumbazzes" and headed toward: "All cops are trigger-happy and lookin' for a reason to shoot somebody."

So...one incompetent cop shoots a basically decent guy who allegedly happens to be running a black market bookmaking operation, and it turns into
Chicken Little hollerin' at Turkey Lurkey to run and hide 'cause the sky is falling. The sky isn't falling. It was one acorn dropped from one tree by one butterfingered squirrel.

 

[jd25q]

1911, your right on the money here.

3. There are certainly incompetent people. But when a surgeon or lawyer screws up, there is considerable liability on him personally. Cops typically don't face that. And most surgeons and lawyers I know hate the bad ones, and publicly bad mouth them. I certainly do when there's a bad lawyer. And you'll never find me on a board explaining how the client asked to get screwed, or how we have to understand where the lawyer was coming from.

1. Police have enhanced liability in a situation such as this. That is more than the non-LEO citizen. I don't know why all you people think he's going to be back at work in a week. That's ridiculous and it's not going to happen.

2. I haven't seen anyone defending what this guy did, myself included. He clearly screwed up and will face the consequences for it. My point is that you can't condemn the practice because one guy screws it up. That starts to sound like a familiar argument (can we really allow an armed citizenry when we have a school shooting?).

 

[jd25q]

...but I still think that if your using a rifle or pistol in place of a megaphone, it dosnt belong aimed at someones torso --unless-- you think they might need to be taken out.

MIGHT? That's exactly my point. In the real world you don't know, but when conditions get to a certain point in pays to be prepared. I've seen a couple of you paint black and white pictures of when it's ok and when it's not. Typical Monday morning stuff. Problem is there is no black and white in reality and only one chance to get it right.

 

[buzz_knox]

1911, your right on the money here.



1. Police have enhanced liability in a situation such as this. That is more than the non-LEO citizen. I don't know why all you people think he's going to be back at work in a week. That's ridiculous and it's not going to happen.

2. I haven't seen anyone defending what this guy did, myself included. He clearly screwed up and will face the consequences for it. My point is that you can't condemn the practice because one guy screws it up. That starts to sound like a familiar argument (can we really allow an armed citizenry when we have a school shooting?).

Enhanced liability? Pray tell, how? A non-LEO citizen is 100% exposed to civil suit. The officer has the benefit of the union in terms of providing counsel, along with the respondeat superior doctrine by which the department is reponsible for his actions. Further, lawsuits typically target departments because they are deep pockets, under the theory of negligent training. Individual officers are almost a side thought. We won't even go into the issue of the threat of criminal liabilty, which tends to be lower for police than a non-LEO who commited the same crime.

 

[buzz_knox]

MIGHT? That's exactly my point. In the real world you don't know, but when conditions get to a certain point in pays to be prepared. I've seen a couple of you paint black and white pictures of when it's ok and when it's not. Typical Monday morning stuff. Problem is there is no black and white in reality and only one chance to get it right.

You know, it's been shown that there due to reaction time, there's little difference in having your weapon aimed at the target and having it aimed away. Louis Awerbuck has demonstrated this time and time again. So, the idea that being prepared means aiming your weapon directly at someone who is not posing an immediate threat is not exactly valid.

And this isn't Monday morning quarterbacking. The cop's boss said he screwed up. We're just trying to figure out how to prevent it from happening again, rather than trying to justify future screwups.

 

[jd25q]

Enhanced liability? Pray tell, how? A non-LEO citizen is 100% exposed to civil suit.

And how is the police officer any different?

The officer has the benefit of the union in terms of providing counsel, along with the respondeat superior doctrine by which the department is reponsible for his actions.

As long as he is following department policy. I don't think shooting an unarmed man is the the Fairfax PD policy manual.

Further, lawsuits typically target departments because they are deep pockets, under the theory of negligent training.

Blame that on the trial lawyers who are in it for the money rather than justice.

Individual officers are almost a side thought. We won't even go into the issue of the threat of criminal liabilty, which tends to be lower for police than a non-LEO who commited the same crime.

How does it tend to be? Maybe the sentences seem shorter for a given crime. That is most often due to the fact that courts to a large part base sentencing decisions on past criminal behavior. As a Police Officer clearly would have none you would expect sentences to be shorter.

Every hear of a section 1983 suit. That makes the police civilly and criminally liable for violating someone's civil rights. This does not apply to non-LEO's. Enhanced liability.

 

[NineseveN]

MIGHT? That's exactly my point. In the real world you don't know, but when conditions get to a certain point in pays to be prepared. I've seen a couple of you paint black and white pictures of when it's ok and when it's not. Typical Monday morning stuff. Problem is there is no black and white in reality and only one chance to get it right.

Typical Cop Attitude, again, your life is more important because everyone is a violent felon until they prove otherwise.


Yes, you have one chance to get it right, and that goes both ways.

If you don't draw and cover, you might not be able to outdraw a violent felon that will try to draw and fire on you despite the endless training you should have engaged in because firearms proficiency is a key aspect of your job duties...if you get that wrong, you might die.

If you draw and cover, and make a mistake, become negligent or any other number of things that happen to trigger things such as what we are discussing in this thread despite the endless training you should have engaged in because firearms proficiency is a key aspect of your job duties, you get to go home, but an innocent person, or perhaps even a criminal that did not commit a crime deserving the death penalty or was not a violent threat gets to take a state-sponsored dirt nap.

The thing is, you chose to be a cop, they may or may not have chosen to break the law (they might have broken it, might not have, that's for the Jury to decide), so to me, to go off and cover folks that pose no credible or visible threat is a despicable practice.

 

[NineseveN]

And how is the police officer any different?

Sir, I would encourage you to read the threads on this very site that report stories such as the one where the female off-duty cop shot and killed a man tryning to steal her car. She did not stand trial or go to jail, whereas we all know I, as a lowly common citizen would be facing charges. In fact, read the threads about common citizens defending themselves in 'gray cases' where they end up being charged. There are quite a few around here and other forums on the net. Take your time, and come back to us when you're done.

I bet the LEO from this very thread won't be seeing jail time...if he or she does, I will tip my hat to this particular district and PD...but I ain't holding my breath. If I had done the same thing as a private citizen, perhaps even on my own property, I would be sitting in front of a jury.

 

[Smurfslayer]

1911, your right on the money here.



1. Police have enhanced liability in a situation such as this. That is more than the non-LEO citizen. I don't know why all you people think he's going to be back at work in a week. That's ridiculous and it's not going to happen.

2. I haven't seen anyone defending what this guy did, myself included. He clearly screwed up and will face the consequences for it. My point is that you can't condemn the practice because one guy screws it up. That starts to sound like a familiar argument (can we really allow an armed citizenry when we have a school shooting?).

just out of curiosity, this being a property crime, and all... Why the "overwhelming force" that you would typically see in say... Fallujah?

We don't know all the intel involved here, but OTOH, we're NEVER going to know the defendant's side. What if the intel shows this was purely a bookmaking operation, no indication of violence or tendency?

Doesn't that make you question whether or not you want your local PD sending in the "Tac team" for events like this?

 

[jd25q]

I tell you what I see on this forum. It's a real paranoid anti-law enforcement bias on many parts. You've got to come out in the real world every now and again and see what's going on. It's like you sit here and see all these conspiracies and pretty soon you start to believe them.

I'll never tell you there aren't bad, incompetent, and dirty LEO's out there. You'll find this in every profession. But some times things are exactly as they seem, in my experience more often than not. These things happen, and I don't say that to excuse it. But there's something like 4 million of us out here who do a decent job every day and just want to come home after the shift.

A lot of you attack law enforcement with the same tactics the anti-Second Amendment people use. They take a few well publicized events and use that to paint all gun owners in the same light. Good luck with all this, I've wasted enough time here.

 

[NineseveN]

A lot of you attack law enforcement with the same tactics the anti-Second Amendment people use. They take a few well publicized events and use that to paint all gun owners in the same light. Good luck with all this, I've wasted enough time here.

Um, wha....?

If criticizing the procedures LEOs are allowed to use is "atacking law enforcement", I don't know what to say. Some of my better friends are LEO's, but this is a procedure that is crap and they agree (as did the article posted earlier). You defended that procedure, and when were trying to tell you why we thought this type of procedure was bad, you took it from an LEO-only standpoint and came off like somehow everyone is felon and that your life is more important than a regular citizen's...then you start with the "cop bashing stuff".

Maybe I'm not reading all of the replies, I have not bashed cops in general in this thread.


Oh well. *sigh*

 

[cordex]

An officer screwed up and killed a cooperative suspect. That much we know.

It is possible that the training the officer received from his department contributed to the negligent discharge. It is also possible that the officer failed to heed the training he received. At this point we don't know, as we don't know how he was trained.

Some officers here have said that it is entirely reasonable to train to cover most suspects - even ones appearing to be cooperative - as long as their finger is off the trigger. I'd say that in so doing one accepts the potential fallout from negligently killing someone as in this case - and there should be serious fallout from an negligent killing.

In any analogous situation, chances are extremely good that a non-LEO would serve time. At this point, we don't know what is going to happen to this officer except that he is currently on paid leave (as is utterly typical of an officer involved in a shooting). Until we know what will happen to the officer, it is pretty pointless to get worked up about their possible fates.

If and when we hear that Officer Friendly is going to go home with a slap on the wrist and a promotion, let's all get mad as hell. If and when we hear that the shooter is going to spend some serious time behind bars, let's remember that LEO doesn't always mean Let 'Em Off next time we're prognosticating on the outcome of an apparent police screwup, eh wot?

For those of you who are most upset about this situation, watch it and reply to this thread with what happens in six months or a year. It's easy to say "Nothing bad will happen to the cop because he's a cop," and it may often appear to work that way, but here's a chance to prove your point one way or another. The administration admits the cop screwed up. Let's see what happens.

 

[Maxwell]

That's exactly my point. In the real world you don't know, but when conditions get to a certain point in pays to be prepared.

I believe the 2nd amendment was meant to apply to everyone.
I also believe that the rules of firearms safety apply to everyone.

Yes in the real world there are times when officers or soldiers might want to take shortcuts, and accidents will happen because of that, but they are not then absolved for ignoring the rules because they "had better training". If you point a gun at something and magicly goes off on its own, your still held responsable for that shot.

You dont hold a loaded weapon to your head no matter how much faith you have in its trigger assembly, why would you do that to someone else if you have no intention of shooting them?

 

[1911Tuner]

Loaded Gun

Maxwell:

>You dont hold a loaded weapon to your head no matter how much faith you have in its trigger assembly, why would you do that to someone else if you have no intention of shooting them?<
******************************

I don't think it's a question of holding a gun on somebody with the intent of shooting...but rather one of holding somebody at gunpoint in hopes that you won't HAVE to shoot him, but conveying that you're ready and willing to do so if it comes to that.

In agreement with others who are watching to see what the outcome is...and any disciplinary action taken against the officer involved. I think that there should be...but there's no way of knowing. I tend to think that...with the negative publicity this has generated...there must be. Heads, we must assume, will roll.

 

[duckslayer]

So why is the suspect's identity allowed to be disclosed to the public, while the LEO who shot him is not publicly ID'd?

If he is not charged with a crime, I suppose the people of Fairfax will never know who the negligent officer was?

 

[Maxwell]

holding somebody at gunpoint in hopes that you won't HAVE to shoot him

That answer sounds indecisive about something you should be more sure of when bringing lethal force to bear.
If I approached an officer with a weapon pointed at his face, he would have full authority to kill me. If he approaches me with a weapon to MY face, what should my response be?

As you said, things are not always 100% clear. What if I dont know its a cop and all I see is someone jumping out a car with a gun to my head?

If I shot him accidentally with a ccw piece, I'd be in a world of trouble.
If he shot me, its just an accident?

I think rules should work for everyone, not just weighed on me when Im trying to get police approval to carry a weapon.

 

[azredhawk44]

Do unintentional shootings occur? Absolutely. We're humans, and these kind of things do occur.

Hey, I'm a human too. Does that mean I can F*** up and off somebody and write it off as an accident? Heck no.

There's some dirty laundry here, methinks.

 

[1911Tuner]

Decisive

Maxwell:

>That answer sounds indecisive about something you should be more sure of when bringing lethal force to bear.<
***************************

During a threat management action, the absolute decision to fire hasn't been made. It's on the table, but held in reserve. The move is made in hopes that the covered party will comply, and firing won't be necessary. Make no mistake about it, though...If the situation is potentially serious enough for me to level a loaded weapon at someone, there's no indecision on my part. From that point, it's largely up to him what happens, and though I would much prefer not to fire...I will if he forces my hand. If he surrenders or stands down...he doesn't get shot. Another point that has been made...If a cop or private citizen waits to go for the weapon until firing is a certainty...there's a good chance that it'll be too late. It's tough to beat the drop, especially from a retention rig.

The cop's job is to take control of the scene. By intimidation if he can...By force if necessary.

 

[Maxwell]

If a cop or private citizen waits to go for the weapon until firing is a certainty...there's a good chance that it'll be too late.

Thats understood when you draw the weapon on someone who is most likely a threat. Question here is what happens when your pulling a gun just to get a submissive response?

Back to the rules.

A gun is not a pointing device, its not a badge and its not a megaphone. If you point it at someone, you should be ready to accept the consequences of shooting that person.

If you pull a gun on some punk just to make him kow-tow, and the thing goes off and hits him, your still responsable for breaking the basic rules of firearm safety.
Being a police officer or being under stress dosnt change anything.

You treated a loaded weapon as if it was "safe", you pointed it at a human being you did not intend to kill, and you put your finger on the trigger before you were ready to fire.

 

[1911Tuner]

re:

Quotes:

Thats understood when you draw the weapon on someone who is most likely a threat. Question here is what happens when your pulling a gun just to get a submissive response?

>Back to the rules.<

Okay...
*************

>A gun is not a pointing device, its not a badge and its not a megaphone. If you point it at someone, you should be ready to accept the consequences of shooting that person.<

Agreed.
****************

>If you pull a gun on some punk just to make him kow-tow, and the thing goes off and hits him, your still responsable for breaking the basic rules of firearm safety. Being a police officer or being under stress dosnt change anything.<

You're making assumptions that are a little wide of the mark aren't you?
The gun isn't pulled to make some punk kow-tow. It's pulled because
there's a high threat level, and reason to believe that the "punk" will likely
use his own weapon. Sorry to inform you that some of'em absolutely will
not comply to a verbal command, and many will start firing at a cop or anybody else who tries to impede his progress. Note the number of police officers that have died at the hands of such citizens. How many would be alive if thay had covered the suspect beforehand?
***********************************
>You treated a loaded weapon as if it was "safe", you pointed it at a human being you did not intend to kill, and you put your finger on the trigger before you were ready to fire.<

You're still making asumptions. The cop in question put his finger on the trigger and fired before there was a real reason to do so. That's not an indication that every cop who covers a suspect has his finger on the trigger
and applying pressure...conciously or not. There are incompetent cops just like there are incompetent barbers. There are also many good ones out there
who don't walk around hoping that some punk will make his day...but they'll still cover him just in case he makes them feel that he's a potential cop-killer.
See...Cops don't want to get shot any more than you do.

A question to you is in order...

Suppose you catch a guy coming into your house. You have the drop on him,
and he seems to be just some harmless druggie trying to steal something to fund his habit. Do you hold a gun on him until you can call 911? Do you
holster the gun and make the call? Do you pull the gun at all? Or do you go ahead and kill him just because you have legal justification. Killing is easy. All it takes is a twitch of a finger. Living with it afterward is the hard part.

Armchair quarterbacking is easy. Playing the game for real is much less so.

 

[stevelyn]

Said it before, will say it again. Glocks and similar weapons are inherently unsafe, and manufacturers should be sued out of existence. Sadly, that now includes S&W. Those weapons are especially dangerous when placed in the hands of slightly trained LEOs who routinely point weapons at people for any excuse or no excuse with impunity.

Yeah..........Let's blame the tool rather than the tool holding it.
However, I would have to agree there is a "lets get in on the gunplay" attitude.

Rule #2 does NOT apply in Law Enforcement. I've covered many people that I didn't not intend to shoot. Rule #3 is modified "until you are ready to shoot".

Road Apples! Rule #2 DOES apply in law enforcement. Ever hear the term "Guard Position" or "Guard"? Gun out, muzzle down at 45 degrees, finger off trigger.
The only "modification" to Rule #3 is that if you have to shoot, you take the slack up on the trigger as you come up on the target.
Sounds like someone needs to go back to gun scrool for remedial training.

All hail another "victory" in the War on Victimless crimes.

 

[Justin]

I don't see this one going anywhere but downhill.