This world has gone crazy.

[2dumb2kwit]

Is this what this world is coming to? A person calls police. Tells them that a man is sitting on a near by porch, and tells them that he's drunk and has a gun. When the 911 dispatcher asked him what the guy was doing, he said " he's just waving it back and forth. When asked what kind of gun the guy had, the caller said that he didn't know. It's small.

Turns out, the drunk was waiting for his friend to get home, and was passing time by watering his lawn. The so called gun, was the nozzle of the water hose.

When the police got there, they shot and killed the man, claiming that he pointed what turned out to be the water hose, at an officer. They never even told him to drop it.


http://www.realfarmacy.com/man-shot-...A2v0jowfrgv.01

[BENESSE]

The caller was obviously a paranoid schizophrenic. That's what happens when you try to sweep mental illness under the rug.

[LowKey]

And your explanation for the police response?
By the way, this occured in 2010.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr...oting-20130404
Shot twelve times.
The city paid out $6.5mil for that little error in judgment.

[WolfVanZandt]

The police were also obviously paranoid schizophrenics.

Actually, all those dystopic movies we used to watch and get a thrill out of? We're just about there.

[BENESSE]

And your explanation for the police response?

We all make mistakes.
(btw...I'm just kidding here and in post 2...of course, it's outrageous!)

[medic68]

murdered by the state. nothing to see here folks move along

[Desert Rat!]

I used to work in Long Beach, it is crazy and a mean place, thats why I haven't been back there in 30 + years,... It's Madness .

[Rick]

You are a cop. You're dispatched on a call about a man with a gun. It's night, it's dark, your view of the subject is obstructed by stair bolsters and rails. The subject points something at you that looks like a gun. You fire. You made a mistake. Yeah, murdered by the state. It would be nice if every cop were perfect and never made a mistake. Unfortunately, that's not how life works. If the guy had stood up, dropped the hose and walked out to meet them he might be drinking beer this week-end. Maybe he made some mistakes too.

[2dumb2kwit]

You are a cop. You're dispatched on a call about a man with a gun. It's night, it's dark, your view of the subject is obstructed by stair bolsters and rails. The subject points something at you that looks like a gun. You fire. You made a mistake. Yeah, murdered by the state. It would be nice if every cop were perfect and never made a mistake. Unfortunately, that's not how life works. If the guy had stood up, dropped the hose and walked out to meet them he might be drinking beer this week-end. Maybe he made some mistakes too.

Who's to say that he wouldn't have, if someone had said, "Police. Drop it!"?

[Rick]

Who's to say they didn't? If police are walking toward me I'm walking toward them with my hands in clear view. Some mistakes don't get a do over.

[2dumb2kwit]

Who's to say they didn't?

Witness's .......and then the police admitted it.

Did you read the link that Lowkey posted?
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr...oting-20130404

[Rick]

Nope. Missed it. I was just trying to put myself in a responding officer's place. It looks a bit different from their point of view than it does reading the articles. Hardly state sanctioned murder no matter how you dice it.

[welderguy]

First thing, It was a huge mistake, but unless you have been in a high risk situation or have had a firearm pointed at you , its hard to understand the emotions associated with that.
As a LEO or even a civilian that carries, when faced with a potential threat of deadly force ( I.E a possible gun) the first thought in anyones mind is OH CRAP he is pointing a gun at me, not hhhmmm I wonder if thats a gun let me ask him.

Its hard for people that have never been in a situation like this to make judgments, there is a string of events happening in your mind and with your body that is just crazy. rapid heart beat, dry mouth, tunnel vision, the world seems to slow down, things around you are either a blur or in slow motion, muscle memory and training take over and you react.

It is a sad lose and a great mistake that happened, I would like to have seen a very different outcome, I feel for the family, but I also feel for the LEO's, they have to live with what they did for the rest of there lives.

[Batch]

Maybe we should ban law enforcement from having shotguns and hand guns with large capacity magazines. Nope... Maybe all hose nozzles should be shaped more like animal balloons or something.

Let me ask this question. Had the neighbor who saw him waving that little six shooter around. I guy who we can assume had none of the training that the law enforcement officers get. If he had shot and killed this guy, do you think he would have just walked?

Do you think he should walk?

[welderguy]

Maybe we should ban law enforcement from having shotguns and hand guns with large capacity magazines. Nope... Maybe all hose nozzles should be shaped more like animal balloons or something.

Let me ask this question. Had the neighbor who saw him waving that little six shooter around. I guy who we can assume had none of the training that the law enforcement officers get. If he had shot and killed this guy, do you think he would have just walked?

Do you think he should walk?

Just from what Ive read, I think the whole situation should of been handled differently, There is too much media hype about guns, LEOS are trained diffrently than they were 10 years ago, Most training on firearm confrontation now, is SHOOT first, as wrong as that sounds it is true, Do I think the LEOS should be prosecuted, Yes,But only for the LEO that fired first. If the following criteria was not met , in direct line of fire if it were a firearm, civilians in line of fire if it was a firearm, a direct threat to the LEO or a civilian.

As for them giving a verbal command, there are a lot more LEO involved shootings that happen with no verbal warnings, If a fellow LEO yells "GUN" someone is getting shot, if that LEO made a mistake it should be his @SS on the line.

[Sourdough]

I say........the family should get (Only ONE) free shot at the A-hole that called 9-11 using a shotgun from, say 6" to 10".

[WolfVanZandt]

I'll give you my take on it. It took me almost three months to get my driver's license renewed because Social Security had my birth date wrong. The local post master has decided that his post office will no longer deliver mail to physical addresses and when that got a lot of complaints, he softened it to, "We will deliver if you have a mail box" but they're still shipping my packages back to the senders. I hear that other areas are having similar problems. I am aware of a lot of robberies in Selma; none have had their goods recovered (in 20 years). A friend out in the middle of no where in Georgia has a generator stolen and, within two weeks, he has it back - they found it down in South Georgia. Frequent errors in the utilities and in the payroll office and in just about every other organization I have to deal with. And then I read all the news which sound pretty much like what I am experiencing.

Things are falling apart at a different rate in different places, but they're falling apart everywhere. So, when I hear that someone was shot by accident by a policeman, I line it up with my experience and I'm pretty much primed to think "incompetence." That's probably pre-judgement; it's most likely over-generalization, but probably not by much, and my frustration is justified.

Yes, police are human, but they have to be held to a higher standard - peoples' lives hinge on that. That's the core truth of professionalism. I'm a professional and I understood the nature of the animal when I got involved. If someone is damaged by my handling of a situation, I am suspect. If a plumber is incompetent, damage is restricted to a fairly narrow range and then people stop using them. The damage caused by an incompetent professional tends to be of a much more far reaching nature and has much more drastic consequences.

I would want to understand (rationally) before making a binding judgment on a situation of this order, but I don't feel overly motivated to be understanding (emotionally).

[welderguy]

I'll give you my take on it. It took me almost three months to get my driver's license renewed because Social Security had my birth date wrong. The local post master has decided that his post office will no longer deliver mail to physical addresses and when that got a lot of complaints, he softened it to, "We will deliver if you have a mail box" but they're still shipping my packages back to the senders. I hear that other areas are having similar problems. I am aware of a lot of robberies in Selma; none have had their goods recovered (in 20 years). A friend out in the middle of no where in Georgia has a generator stolen and, within two weeks, he has it back - they found it down in South Georgia. Frequent errors in the utilities and in the payroll office and in just about every other organization I have to deal with. And then I read all the news which sound pretty much like what I am experiencing.

Things are falling apart at a different rate in different places, but they're falling apart everywhere. So, when I hear that someone was shot by accident by a policeman, I line it up with my experience and I'm pretty much primed to think "incompetence." That's probably pre-judgement; it's most likely over-generalization, but probably not by much, and my frustration is justified.

Yes, police are human, but they have to be held to a higher standard - peoples' lives hinge on that. That's the core truth of professionalism. I'm a professional and I understood the nature of the animal when I got involved. If someone is damaged by my handling of a situation, I am suspect. If a plumber is incompetent, damage is restricted to a fairly narrow range and then people stop using them. The damage caused by an incompetent professional tends to be of a much more far reaching nature and has much more drastic consequences.

I would want to understand (rationally) before making a binding judgment on a situation of this order, but I don't feel overly motivated to be understanding (emotionally).

Good points, but I fail to see how this relates to a high stress high risk profession. I don't see LEO falling apart what I see is society falling apart and LEO's overreacting to it or reacting accordingly. Accountability is the Key, and you are right the LEO that fired the first shot is accountable and should be held in such.

[Desert Rat!]

And the officer fired two rounds at suspect.

[Rick]

Seriously. Have you guys studied world history? American history? Have you ever heard of Al Capone and organized crime in the U.S., slavery, Battle of Blair Mountain, the Civil War, the Pullman Strike, the Scopes Monkey Trial, Wounded Knee, Witch hunts, Dust Bowl Days, the treatment of America's indigenous peoples, Japanese internment during WWII? Anything ring a bell? We have it so cushy today. If we had to endure 1/10 of what past generations have had to put up with I think most of us would have given up long before now. It's just one more day in America.