Woman not a criminal, doesn't own gun

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PennsyPlinker

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http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/jan/15/no-headline-15sgfcol/

I didn't see this posted anywhere else, so I hope to evade the duplicate police. :neener:

But it does make me at least a little angry. According to the journalist, owning a gun is pretty much a defining characteristic for being a criminal. See the bold section in the quote below.

For 15 minutes Friday, Christine McKenzie knew what it felt like to be Public Enemy No. 1.

"They had all their guns pointed at me and they were yelling 'put both your hands out the window.' I was surrounded," McKenzie recalls.

The events destined to put McKenzie at the business end of half a dozen Glocks began less than an hour earlier as she was getting ready for her lunch break at a local bank where she processes loan documents.

Half a mile east of her in front of a duplex on Dixie Highway Levi Dwight Starks, 19, lay dying in a pool of blood, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a fight between two other men.

At about the same time, McKenzie was pulling away from the bank the call went out for police and deputies to look for the suspected shooter's car.

For McKenzie, oblivious to the violence a short distance away, it was just another day.

"I was headed south on U.S. 1 to the Winn Dixie store where I was going to pick up a few things," McKenzie said.

What she had no way of knowing was her car, a champagne-colored Lexus SUV, matched the description of the getaway car.

"When I saw the flashing lights the first thing that went through my mind was 'what did I do wrong?' I know I wasn't speeding,'"

She pulled over in the Regency Square parking lot on the southwest corner of U.S. 1 and Monterey.

And from her point of view, all hell broke loose.

"They were shouting 'let me see your hands. Get both hands up, get your hands out the window!'" McKenzie said.

"Everywhere I looked there was just guns, pointed at me, pointed at my head," McKenzie said.

"I thought, my God, what did I do?" she said.

McKenzie, 56, is the furthest thing from a criminal you could imagine. She's so soft spoken you have to lean toward her to hear what she's saying. She's never owned a gun in her life.

"I hate them. I wouldn't know what to do with one, and I have never had one. Certainly not!," McKenzie said.

"I thought I was going to die right there," McKenzie said.

She was ordered out of the car and told to back toward deputies. As she was being handcuffed the bewildered woman kept asking what she had done "and all they would tell me is it would all be sorted out," McKenzie said.

"I begged them not to put the handcuffs on me. I told them I had high blood pressure and asked them to please, please, just call my supervisor and she could tell them I'd just left my office," McKenzie said.

She stood like that while her car was searched and eventually, it could have been 15 minutes but McKenzie feels it was longer, someone said she wasn't their suspect.

"And the deputy took the handcuffs off. She apologized and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, I was crying and shaking so bad," McKenzie said.

She asked them to call her supervisor to explain she wouldn't be in for a while.

"I just had to get away from there. I went somewhere and just sat and cried," McKenzie said.

"I know what they do is dangerous. I know they have to be careful," McKenzie said.

"But what happened, I don't know," McKenzie said.

"It changes your life."

Martin County columnist Geoff Oldfather can be reached at (772) 221-4217 or [email protected]. Catch Geoff Sunday mornings live (not pre-recorded) from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on The Coast, 101.3 FM, for the Coast Forum. The Coast Live Line is (772) 344-1999.
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never even owned a gun in her life! the poor thing, how could anyone mistake someone who hates guns for a murderer?
 
She asked them to call her supervisor to explain she wouldn't be in for a while.

"I just had to get away from there. I went somewhere and just sat and cried," McKenzie said.

"I know what they do is dangerous. I know they have to be careful," McKenzie said.

"But what happened, I don't know," McKenzie said.

"It changes your life."
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I have empathy for her being upset. Bit this woman, as they say, sleeps peacefully because "rough men [and women] stand ready to do violence" on her behalf. I hope the result is a new-found respect for them.
 
Stops

Some years ago this sort of a stop happened to me. Fortunately I had brown hair and a beard as opposed to the guy they were really looking for who was blond and clean shaven. Turns out that while my friend and I were having dinner in a resturant our blond and clean shaven friend was pulling off a stickup at the convenience store next door. We were in the first car the police saw leaving the scene.
 
What she had no way of knowing was her car, a champagne-colored Lexus SUV, matched the description of the getaway car.
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A few (well maybe more than just a few) years ago cops did the same thing in Chicago. Turned out they pulled some lady doctor out of her car and dragged her around in the mud for a while. Had a good time I suppose. They later claimed it was because her car was similar to a suspicious vehicle they were searching for. No dispatch records of any such vehicles could ever be found. I guess the cops were sending the description around by telepathy.

It does seem unfair and unreasonable that someone could be yanked from their vehicle like that, when the supposed PC was pretty much non-existent. There seems to be a big difference between the thinnest of reasoning that cops will take to be PC and what any non-cop considers PC.

A license plate number - yes. A vague description of a car - probably not.

She survived the encounter. Hopefully she will blame the real villians in the story - that would be those in political power who allow this kind of travesty.

The real perp probably got away while the cops were off on their self-induced wild goose chase.
 
I think people accidentally jacked up like that should get mandatory compensation somehow. "Sorry" just doesn't sound like enough.
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Certanly sorry doesn't seem like enough, but as stated earlier, at least she got an appology.
They didn't tear-gas her out of the car. Or follow her home to catch her accomplices, wait a while for the swat team to arrive, bust in with the flash-bangs, and burn her house down.

I can see how they would treat anyone in a car fitting the description as an armed suspect, and at least they made the effort to sort it out ASAP, rather than taking her to lock-up and sorting it out there. If it had been a guy, he'd probably be taken in first.

The story is written to force the most emotion possible. It's designed to show that the cops are on the beat, but you need to watch yourself anyway. Be squeaky clean, and not own a gun, or they'll get you. :uhoh:

Oh yeah. And when you see a gun, you should panic, 'cause that helps things. :banghead:
 
You are a LEO and you see a vehicle that matches the vehicle used in a murder, license plate not noted. Description of driver not positive, what would you do.
This is a procedure and it was followed, she was not injured and released once she was identified as not being the suspect.
It is life and like it or not it happens but the bad guys do get caught.
 
dad and his friend once got pulled over in a similar circumstance and were treated as felons. later they found out that guys matching there discription had just robbed a store.
i don't think dad has held a grudge. in fact later, the same officer was called out to a fender bender with with them and they screwed with him by going down on the ground with their hands on the back of their heads.
its hard to paint the cops as bad guys when they are trying to do there jobs.
dad later (months later) told that same cop that he was lucky dad and his friend wern't the bad guys, becuase if they had been, the cop wouldn't have been standing there.
thats something police live with everyday. how on earth do you make it so nobody's feelings get hurt?
 
I think the point isn't about the stop, but rather the writer's implication that only criminals would own a gun.
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That is exactly it Blackbeard! Yeah, it kind of stinks that the lady got handled a little rough, but the cops were just doing their job as best they could. My reason for posting the article was because the writer seemed to be making it a point that of course she wasn't a criminal because she didn't even own a gun!
 
Had a woman call and file a complaint on me off a traffic stop. She refused to stop for a neighboring agency. Several units got involved and she finally pulled over after several miles at Wal-mart. She never tried to elude just refused to stop.

They had their guns out but down to their sides. She was never jerked out and she stated she didnt think all these units were the police. I stayed towards the back and never made eye contact or spoke. Everyone reholstered almost immediately.

She filed a complaint with that agency. Their chief brought everyone in for statements. Reviewed all in dash cameras then went and looked at Wal-marts cameras outside to see what in dash didnt show.

Her lawyer husband also reviewed the tapes. His stated the camera footage didnt match the story his wife told him

She never knew i was there. Camera showed i was there less than a minute. I was never closer than a car length from her.She called my captain and wanted an apology.

My Capt is an ex marine drill instructor. He's single and in his 50s. He is an intimidating individual. He never jumps to conclusions and has ALL the info. when he confronts someone.

He spoke with the lady and asked her if she refused to stop.She stated yes. He asked her if the officers reholstered when they realized she wasnt a threat.She stated yes. He asked if i threatned her. She stated no (i never spoke with her) He told her from her own statements his deputy did exactly what he was supposed to do and would not apologize to her for anything.

Turns out when the neighboring agency's chief saw my car on video he told her she would have to go to the sheriff to complain.
 
Erm, I don't see the problem here. The cops, for reasons only known to them, believe that she had something to do with the shooting of some guy. The journalist defends her by saying that not only was she not involved, she COULDN'T have been involved in the shooting as she's never owned a firearm.
Just because someone refers to firearms as one of many tools of death doesn't make them anti-gun.
 
The journalist defends her by saying that not only was she not involved, she COULDN'T have been involved in the shooting as she's never owned a firearm.
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OK, that helps. I was having trouble with the story as written. Now I think I get it - the writer (and his/her editor) did a poor job of linking the comments about never owning a gun back to the shooting. Where the quote was within the story was out of context. So it looked like it was just stuck in there.

Yah, looks like the writer was simply trying to paint a picture of the lady in that she is gun ignorant, not that only criminals have guns. And the line about "she's never owned a gun before" is a bit naked.

ETA: FWIW the writer/columnist says he likes to hunt: http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/news_columnists/article/0,2820,TCP_24522_5589825,00.html
 
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The reporter seemed to have accepted the police view that the car in question matched a suspect car very closely, or at least closely enough to put an innocent citzen at grave risk, but nothing in the story indicates that he ever did any fact checking on that issue.

When a story is written in such a way as to deliberately obscure a central issue, it makes me suspicious that the reporter mostly did a cut and paste from the police PR guy. Thats what passes for news reporting these days.

As for the gun side of it, its like claiming you couldn't have run over a little old lady because you don't own a car. Its meaningless, but understandable to someone who was accosted by a band of armed men who are supposed to be protecting her.

<added> BTW, for those of you who might be inclined to think this post is cop bashing, its not. Its mostly reporter bashing.

Half a mile east of her in front of a duplex on Dixie Highway Levi Dwight Starks, 19, lay dying in a pool of blood, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a fight between two other men.
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What she had no way of knowing was her car, a champagne-colored Lexus SUV, matched the description of the getaway car.
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Note the careful parsing of words here. It does not say the suspect car was a champagne-colored lexus. In fact, it cleverly avoids saying that. If the suspects were men, why was she even stopped?
 
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