# Bizarro World: Houston Police Shoot, Kill Double Amputee In Wheelchair For Threatening With A Pen! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 23, 2012, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586 "2012-09-23T12:43:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/21 "2012-09-23T15:34:58Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > [Wheelchair bound man foils robbery.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4POzxE-HFU) > > Never underestimate the power that comes from making arms do the legs job. > > Also, he(the shooting victim) might have been in a powerchair which would make it easy to pin the cop. Even with a manual chair, working that thing with one arm is a real bitch. That’s pretty cool. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/22 "2012-09-23T15:46:55Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > So? How does that make him any less dangerous? He apparently still has at least one arm that can wield a pointy stabby thing. I suppose he did. And it’s equally true that the officers were equipped with four functioning arms and four functioning legs between them that could have been used to resolve the situation in a way that didn’t require anyone dying. The reflexive “Let’s find a way to justify a shooting by pointing out that there was a theoretical danger” thing is getiting tiresome. Yes, it is theoretically possible that a man in a wheelchair with a felt-tipped pen could kill someone. It is, in fact, theoretically possible that an eight-year-old with a Little League baseball bat could kill someone, or that an old woman with a scarf could garrote you, or that just about anyone at the wheel of a car could go crashing through the front of a police station like in “The Terminator.” I should hope the police are not shooting someone every time the _possibility_ of a threat comes up, but that seems like the way some people think police work should be. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/23 "2012-09-23T15:47:01Z")
So, one cop is trapped in the corner of a room. The wheelchair and occupant must presumably have been between the second cop and the trapped one, yes? I wonder what angle the second cop shot from? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Niply\_Elder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@The\_Niply\_Elder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Niply_Elder)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/24 "2012-09-23T16:04:35Z")
For the record, a metal wheelchair would not pose any danger to the trapped cop, assuming that the other officer shot the taser leads at the crazy guy, and not his partner. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/25 "2012-09-23T16:12:52Z")
Better safe than sorry, I always say. Of course, I _was_ raised in Texas. Things like this don’t happen just in Texas though. I don’t recall any amputees, but when I lived in Albuquerque there was a spate of incidents in which a lone knife wielder would charge a group of cops with weapons drawn, and they all opened up on him. There were quite a few of these over the 15 months I lived in the city. Suspicion grew that people were starting to use the police as a convenient suicide method. Why the cops, who were usually there in force, could not take down someone like that without killing him was a frequent question in the letters to the editor of the newspapers. ---
**Author:** ![Jamicat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@Jamicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamicat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/26 "2012-09-23T16:23:17Z")
Was Joe “Nicky Santoro” Pesci in the wheelchair? ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/27 "2012-09-23T16:24:24Z")
> [@The\_Niply\_Elder](#): > > For the record, a metal wheelchair would not pose any danger to the trapped cop, assuming that the other officer shot the taser leads at the crazy guy, and not his partner. Right (presuming you meant to reply to **WhyNot** ), because current only flows between the leads, just as birds can land on power lines and not feel anything unless they touch two wires at different potential. I suspect that even if you were touching them at two points with the taser points between them, you wouldn’t feel anything (or just a tingle) because skin has a much higher resistance than your body, even when wet, and the voltage across the points is very low (a so-called million volt taser will only develop that when open circuited, never mind that they aren’t anywhere near a million volts despite the ads claiming so). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/28 "2012-09-23T16:54:03Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > People in wheelchairs are not nearly as passive and helpless as you seem to think. It’s incredibly easy for an aggressive, angry, threatening person to entrap someone simply by moving at them quickly in a 50 pound hunk of metal on wheels. > > Seriously, stop infantalizing people in wheelchairs. They’re people, just like you and me. Most of them are nice. Some of them are assholes, or mentally ill, or dangerous, or all three. An anecdote: I had a friend whose father was wheelchair bound from a hunting accident. He used to relate just how fast his father could move that thing and trap a smart-ass kid in a corner for a solid beating. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/29 "2012-09-23T16:58:49Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I suppose he did. And it’s equally true that the officers were equipped with four functioning arms and four functioning legs between them that could have been used to resolve the situation in a way that didn’t require anyone dying. > > The reflexive “Let’s find a way to justify a shooting by pointing out that there was a theoretical danger” thing is getiting tiresome. I’m not trying to justify a shooting. I’m trying to un-justify the OPs notion that a person with an amputated arm and leg in a wheelchair is necessarily a helpless victim, and that firing in self defense would only happen in “Bizarro World”. Was this particular episode self defense? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. > [@Michael63129](#): > > Right (presuming you meant to reply to **WhyNot** ), because current only flows between the leads, just as birds can land on power lines and not feel anything unless they touch two wires at different potential. I suspect that even if you were touching them at two points with the taser points between them, you wouldn’t feel anything (or just a tingle) because skin has a much higher resistance than your body, even when wet, and the voltage across the points is very low (a so-called million volt taser will only develop that when open circuited, never mind that they aren’t anywhere near a million volts despite the ads claiming so). Thank you for the explanation. I wasn’t sure if tasers were like defibrillators, requiring people around them to “clear” the person and metal bed frame/chair/instruments touching them before discharge. (To be honest, I’m not even sure it’s required for safety around modern defibrillators, but that’s what they still teach us to do.) ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/30 "2012-09-23T17:06:54Z")
Seems to me that even if the shooting was justified, there was a significant failure in managing the situation that made it come to that. Whether that failure is the cops in question not taking things seriously at the scene, or the department not arming them with appropriate training and policies to assist them in carrying out their duties, or what, but regardless of whether there’s any moral blame to be passed out here the situation is a failure that needs to be examined so it need not be repeated. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/31 "2012-09-23T18:21:20Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Bet the cop’s lawyer uses the old “pen is mightier than the sword” defense. Ironically, it may be the cop who doesn’t have a leg to stand on. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/32 "2012-09-23T20:47:40Z")
What I really want to know is, were the cops parked in his disabled parking spot? Maybe that’s why he blocked one into that corner. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/33 "2012-09-23T22:36:04Z")
I guess they’ll pin a medal on the cop. Shooting a disturbed amputee with a ink pen. One shot of mace is all that was needed. He’d drop the pen and rub his eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/34 "2012-09-23T23:58:16Z")
While a cop doesn’t know the mental state of the average person they stop, the fact that he was a _resident_ in a group home for mentally ill pretty much indicates to me that he has mental issues, coupled with the fact that they were called because he has acting aggressively means the cops knew they were walking into a volatile situation. The investigation may show he followed policy but clearly they could’ve & should’ve handled this better. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/35 "2012-09-24T01:21:51Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I’m trying to un-justify the OPs notion that a person with an amputated arm and leg in a wheelchair is necessarily a helpless victim, and that firing in self defense would only happen in “Bizarro World”. I suppose my OP could easily be interpreted that way. I am not trying to claim that a person in a wheelchair, no matter how many limbs he or she has, cannot present a threat. It is still “bizarre” within the context of the OP. This isn’t something that you hear about very often, if at all. > [@Gorsnak](#): > > Seems to me that even if the shooting was justified, there was a significant failure in managing the situation that made it come to that. Whether that failure is the cops in question not taking things seriously at the scene, or the department not arming them with appropriate training and policies to assist them in carrying out their duties, or what, but regardless of whether there’s any moral blame to be passed out here the situation is a failure that needs to be examined so it need not be repeated. Exactly my point, better expressed than my OP. > [@Cinnamon\_Imp](#): > > What I really want to know is, were the cops parked in his disabled parking spot? Maybe that’s why he blocked one into that corner. Then Jamie McGarry would have kicked his ass for stealing his limelight! > [@Spiderman](#): > > While a cop doesn’t know the mental state of the average person they stop, the fact that he was a _resident_ in a group home for mentally ill pretty much indicates to me that he has mental issues, coupled with the fact that they were called because he has acting aggressively means the cops knew they were walking into a volatile situation. The investigation may show he followed policy but clearly they could’ve & should’ve handled this better. No doubt. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/36 "2012-09-24T01:27:48Z")
God did not make all men equal. Papermate did. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/37 "2012-09-24T02:00:28Z")
Seriously, the dude is rendered harmless if you grab the handles on the back of the chair, right? Or don’t I get it. Couldn’t you run around behind him and spin him around till he was dizzy? What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/38 "2012-09-24T02:09:20Z")
Oh umkay, umkay, umkay! ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/39 "2012-09-24T02:52:08Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > The article said he trapped the officer in a corner. It’s possible that his back was fully to the other officer and the wheelchair blocked a Taser shot to the torso and the only target would be the head(which could be in motion during the struggle). I have no idea what would happen if you Taser a head. Then, grab the handles of the chair and pull him away from the other officer. I’m sure in the heat of the moment no one thought about just removing him. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586/40 "2012-09-24T03:12:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > or that just about anyone at the wheel of a car could go crashing through the front of a police station like in “The Terminator.” Some idiot did that in my town. To avoid a repeat, the station now has some concrete and brick obstacles outside the door. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarro-world-houston-police-shoot-kill-double-amputee-in-wheelchair-for-threatening-with-a-pen/635586.md?page=1)