JSBCody: Mine was a Sarah. She is now retired after she mixed it up with a driver who ran over and crushed her foot.

A few thoughts on this

1. Escalation: The driver of the vehicle escalated the situation and kept it there. The officer tried to deescalate and the driver pulled every trick in the book to keep driving the tension higher.

2. WWE Smack Down: I don't have an issue with the shoot. The primary officer was in a compromised position, in traffic, with a larger very aggressive assailant trying to incapacitate him. Arguments could be made whether a Tazer would have worked or not. The opportunity to Taze him was in the vehicle, but when he pushed the officer back, started swinging and did the body slam, all bets were off in my book. In plain language the guy wanted to fuck that officer up.

I will be candid and say in my first pass through the video, when I saw the male officer body slammed, my gut reaction was "He's going for the officers gun" and that was about the same time she drew her weapon. The first time through it was very slow and it seemed like forever before the shot was fired. In successive viewings it's pretty quick. I think her "Oh shit I shot him" was more of an honest reaction once her partner was up and the situation was no longer in 'fight' mode.

3. Big Angry Dude: This wasn't a little guy, he was clearly aggravated, and violent. Given how he was manhandling the male officer and given the female officer size going to her weapon seemed an obvious choice to me, especially since my initial reaction was that he was going for the officers gun.

4. Decisions, decisions: The suspect brought this on himself. If he had simply accepted the ticket he'd have gone on with his day. Had he not resisted, the female officer and others (responding emergency) never would have been called. Had he not viciously attacked an officer, he wouldn't have been shot. His choices led to a hole in his back.


This brings up an underlying point. I just went through a training for my company on dealing with difficult people. It was all about taking the high ground, being nicer, pacify and deflect, try not to let them get you riled up. Which is all good but at some point a manager needs to take office jackwad aside and tell them to straighten up or go elsewhere. In this case the officer was very accommodating and polite until it came time to not be as polite. He was never mean or aggressive, until the fight was on.

Bottom line: If you're going to be an absolute asshole, at some point someone, a bigger asshole, a boss, or the law, needs to put a stop to your unacceptable behavior. Don't be shocked when it happens.

I definitely don't agree with the notion that this was a "simple mistake." Also, whether deadly force could have been justified or not is beside the point. If she meant to shoot him, did so in a manner not putting her partner at risk and can list the reasons why it was justified and the best option in the moment...I'd have no problem with that.

She discharged a deadly weapon into another human being not meaning to. I am OK with assault charges being brought in these cases, also OK with them being dropped. It is a big deal to shoot someone when you didn't mean to shoot them.

I am far from a "zero defects" person, but this reminds me of the old pilot's adage or really for any dangerous job. "You can make as many mistakes as you want, just don't make the one that kills you." Or in this case "...the one that kills someone else."

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Bottom line: If you're going to be an absolute asshole, at some point someone, a bigger asshole, a boss, or the law, needs to put a stop to your unacceptable behavior. Don't be shocked when it happens.

This PC mess, this world where a cop’s first through fourteenth duty is to be sure not to hurt dirtbags’ feeling, where “My child could not possibly have done anything wrong, I better sue the teacher for giving him a B.”, etc is the cluster function that we live in now. My hat is off to those brave souls who not only put on the uniform and shoulder the risks to keep us all safe, but also put up with all this horse feathers. I sure couldn’t.

I can’t help but wonder though, if we wouldn’t all be safer (including the dirtbags) if the ROE was different and everyone (including the dirtbags) knew it. If folks knew that the response to any tomfoolery would be swift and violent, if the community response was, “why didn’t the officer reload and dump another mag into him?”, if there was no “thug lottery” in the form of settlements for people who played stupid games (or their survivors), I can’t help but think there would be a whole lot less of this stupidity going on.

Oh well, if a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his but. I just hope the pendulum swings back toward sanity sometime soon.

Though this may sound a bit extreme, my position on this sort of thing is simple. If you attack a police officer, I no longer care what happens to you next. We need to re-establish some very strict lines in the sand over what will and will not be acceptable.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Though this may sound a bit extreme, my position on this sort of thing is simple. If you attack a police officer, I no longer care what happens to you next. We need to re-establish some very strict lines in the sand over what will and will not be acceptable.

I agree, it won’t be long before there will be no rational people willing to go into law enforcement over the possible liabilities. I wouldn’t want to go to work every day thinking I might go to prison over a mistake or bad judgement.

I'm with bigdeal up there, you slam a cop down onto the ground and slug him in the head that is a mortal threat and you need to be shot immediately. I can assure you that if you do that to one of my loved ones and I'm near, don't expect me to stand there with my thumb up my bum. This wasn't because of a seat belt violation, this was because an asshole who attacked a cop for no damned reason at all. You slam your fist into a cops head, which this POS did, you get the bull and the horns.

Good riddance.

Not sure and I don't want to try it but being from So Idaho and No Utah I'm pretty sure if I try to body slam a LEO to the pavement (I would have my ass kicked so hard because I couldn't pull if off) I'm going to get shot. It's really not that hard to figure out. Why not just plead "Not Guilty"?

I agree that if you attack a cop, you are due to be shot.

HOWEVER, when she articulated that she thought she was Tasing him (and had no intention to shoot him), she buried herself.

No amount of reverse engineered logic can make it a mortal threat in hindsight, when she never intended to shoot him.

I think the cop should have stopped trying to have a conversation after the first two Motherfuckers. It was very clear this guy wanted a fight. Go back to the car and call for backup to pull the guy out of the vehicle or better yet a K9.