He was armed that morning, during the firefight. I’d have bet he was still armed. As for him not speaking, are wounds through the throat preventing speech but not preventing him from driving away and running all that common?
And I’m sure he could have come out with his hands up at the beginning.
I wonder how anyone thinking the cops did wrong would have proceeded without the benefit of hindsight.
I agree. I’m just saying the scenario aceplace57 suggested is ridiculous. It was obviously the right guy, but that’s not necessarily enough reason to start shooting.
Are we sure about that?
Without more information it’s hard to understand what lead to the police firing for so long. They probably heard their own gunfire and thought the suspect was firing back. We do know that day was incredibly tense. The whole neighbor was told to stay inside as the police searched house to house.
I’m glad they got the bomber suspect. The police did their job. Perhaps a bit too enthusiastically but that sometimes happens in stressful situations.
Marley23 - I don’t claim to know the law in MA but I do know it in NJ. Here the threat does not need to be immediate, only imminent. It may sound like splitting hairs but its not. Waiting until a threat is immediate (occurring without delay, instant) is waiting too long. You or someone else may pay with their life if your response is anything less than 100% instantly effective. There plenty of accounts where people suffering lethal wounds continue to act and cause more damage, sometime for several minutes.
The law of the land (Graham v Connor) states that officers can be judged only on what they reasonably believed the circumstances to be at the time. It doesn’t matter what turns out to be the truth/facts. Its what the officer believed AT THE TIME. Further, they are to be judged based on what a reasonable officer with similar training and experience would have done. Not on what a lawyer, newspaper reporter or some other self-appointed expert would have done (with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, no less) Finally, consideration must be given to the fact that officers are often (as in this case) working under tense and rapidly evolving circumstances. This is paraphrasing the court decision but basically covers it.
So what did these officers know? They were searching for one of two suspects in a bombing incident that had killed three, injured nearly two hundred and recently engaged in a gun battle with police and used more explosives in that incident. Oh, they had also ambushed another officer in his police car, killing him. They also knew that surrender without a fight hadn’t happened yet. Next, they know he is in a boat and not coming out with his hands up. Beyond that, unless you were there, we have no idea what actually transpired. I read or saw (can’t remember where but I think it may have been the actual officers involved) that the suspect flipped open the plastic sheeting and had something in his hand. The officers could tell it was not a gun but concluded (reasonably, I submit) that it may have been a detonator of some sort and opened fire. Other officers heard the gunfire and thought the suspect was firing so they opened up as well. Again, I’m not sure of the accuracy of that version. Let the investigation run its course.
P.S. - a wounded guy, especially THIS wounded guy, lying in a boat is just as dangerous (and probably more so) as anyone else. To assume otherwise shows true naivete. I am absolutely convinced that the general public has not the slightest idea of the realities of combat or other deadly encounters. Too much TV and movies. Finally (and I mean it this time), just because he didn’t succeed in killing himself doesn’t make it “obvious” that he didn’t try to do so at some point. Nothing obvious about it.
I’m not sure he was even conscious. The description of the guy who initially found him made it sound like he was totally motionless when he pulled back the cover. Later reports by the police had him moving, but then, they also had him firing a gun.
Well, with hindsight we know the person in the boat was actually the suspect, so in that respect firing on it looks more justified then I think it would’ve if this wasn’t known at the time.
I disagree. It was likely the right guy, but based on what’s been reported I don’t think it was obviously so. Finding a homeless guy, injured drunk or runaway kid hiding in your boat would be kind of weird*, but I don’t think it would be anymore more ridiculous then a Chechen terrorist hiding there, which is in fact what happened.
*(and weird stuff happens, when I was a kid, I found a schizophrenic hiding in a storm drain. He’d apparently gone off his meds and been there for several days.)
In anycase, I think one way or another its pretty clear we don’t have the full story. I don’t think based on what has been reported that firing on the boat was justified, but the police may well have had a good reason for doing so then has yet been reported.
Shooting the boat would also detonate any explosives he’d rigged the boat with, no?
For those two things to happen at the same time would be pretty ridiculous. That would be one very unlucky blood-soaked drunk kid/homeless guy.
We had a local news story a couple years ago about a homeless man caught in the attic of a strip mall. He had a sleeping area up there and a hotplate. He was caught by a new tenant that smelled cooking and heard noises. They had come in early on a Saturday to clean and setup their new business.
Google turns up several stories about homeless people caught in crawlspaces of homes. I’d imagine any available space like a backyard shed or boat would be a place someone might sleep for a few hours. My street is just three blocks off a main artery in this city. I see homeless looking people walking on that road several times a month. Some may just be down on their luck and not homeless.
I’d forgotten that the homeowner said he saw a bloody body. That does make a big difference. It’s reasonable to assume it was the police’s suspect.
I disagree. Even a random drunk homeless (and bloodied) man would have been curious enough to peek out from under his tarp to figure out why the hell a helicopter kept hovering overhead…assuming he missed the explosions and gun fights from the night before, the extremely unusual silence, the robot removing the tarp from his shelter, the swarms of cops surrounding the place, and the bullhorned voice telling him to give himself up.
I mean, come on.
Right, that’s all I’m saying here. The odds that a fugitive would get into a shootout with police, track blood around town and elude a very active manhunt while a separate bloody guy just happens to take a nap in a boat are pretty much zero. There are some possible issues with what the police did here, but they knew they had the right guy in the boat at least.
Err, if they both happened, wouldn’t that mean there were two people hiding in the same boat? That certainly would be ridiculous, but not really relevant. From the perspective of the cops at the time, it could’ve been the suspect or it could’ve been someone else. Certainly it being the suspect is much more likely, but I don’t think either possibility is so unlikely as to justify shooting first and then double checking after.
Especially since its not just the odds of specifically finding someone in a boat that would trigger a similar choice. Its the possibility of finding someone in any situation anywhere in Watertown or the outlying areas where a person is in a situation where they appear to be hiding and are unable or unwilling to respond to Police orders to identify themselves. Finding a person in a sizable town in such a situation on the same day as the manhunt isn’t likely, but its not so unlikely to be rudiculous.
Depends how drunk or how injured. Again, the guy that looked into the boat said the guy was motionless, so even if he’d wanted to peek out, its not clear he was capable of doing so. And a schizophrenic or runaway kid might well be too scared to peak out.
I don’t think they should have shot first and asked to questions later - although I don’t want to jump to conclusions and assume there was no good reason to open fire. I’d like to know more about why they did that. But the idea that there are so many blood-soaked drunk and homeless people sheltering in boats in Watertown (population 31,000) that the police could’ve had the wrong guy is just plain goofy.
I didn’t say there were “so many”. I said there was conceivably one.
Then he’d be one unlucky dude. Still, wouldn’t blame the cops.
Most explosives don’t work that way. If anything the trick is to GET it to actually explode in the first place.
Yeah, there is always a small chance a stray bullet COULD set it off, but by far the major threat that all that shotting would piss him off and he would SET off a bomb.
Now, there are some explosive substances that if you look at em wrong they can go off, but those guys weren’t using that and for obvious reasons nobody else does either if they can help it.
They should have ordered him out and then gone in and got him. There is no excuse for them to fire. I don’t care if there was a gun fight earlier. There wasn’t one in progress.
IMO they should have ordered him out, then chunked a tear gas grenade in (maybe use a robot to do it).
He woulda come out then.
But, like others have said, they did what they did for decent reasons. He’s just lucky they didn’t string him up right then (and thats good enough for me).
That’s what they did - they had a robot pull back the tarp and look inside, then they tossed in a flashbang and grabbed him.
I absolutely believe the principle duty of law enforcement is to maintain the peace and enforce laws, and to do so responsibly and legally. I also believe that at some point, it is permissible and sensible to make some assumptions based on past experiences as opposed to relying solely on the evidence available right now. I’f I’m just some Joe hiding out in a boat (because I’m homeless, drunk, being silly, or whatever) then yeah, the cops have a duty to put their eyes on me and check out my situation rather than going straight for the trigger–it’s on them to explore the gray area of who am I and what am I up to.
This was more of a black/white situation I think. For me the only question I’d have for the cops is, “Were you certain the guy in the boat was the guy you were looking for?” If they can present a convincing argument for believing so, then I’d totally give them a pass for immediately incapacitating someone who’d demonstrated a desire and willingness to kill random strangers and cops by ambush. Cops are paid to get into the occasional dangerous situation, but they are not paid to adhere to the letter of the law to the point of recklessly endangering themselves or those around them. Based on very recent exerience with this dude, there was every reason to assume he was armed and/or in the possession of explosives, and that he was simply waiting for the right moment to go out in a blaze of glory.
oh, that was an embarassing post then. Can you tell I’ve been trying to avoid the news lately ?