I heard about this one. It is imperative, as a regular citizen who, God forbid, has to use lethal force to defend yourself, to NOT let the police see you with anything resembling a weapon in your hand. Despite the description relayed to the dispatcher. Cops kill U/C cops, and occasionally, uniformed ones all the time through mistake. They’ll blast you without much thought.
Derp. And I read that twice, reading ‘outside’ both times. Weird. Probably mistook the description of Jeanette outside, for the deceased, inside. It pays to re-read.
Still, as soon as you’re done using the thing, holster it. Or get away from it. Or both.
Tough if the bad guy is still fighting with you when the cops show up.
Aside from an increasing inability to trust what the police report about themselves, I have a hard time blaming them for this.
Assuming that the hostage-taker was actually beginning to saw/slice the hostage’s throat - taking a chance on a shot (or several) is not an unreasonable choice. If you don’t immediately kill the victim, you might get them to the hospital in time to save them. A sliced throat has a much lower survivability I would think.
I watched the video and I don’t think this is a good shoot at all. I realize things don’t happen like we see on TV shows, but the police opened fire almost immediately after the guy started using the woman as a human shield. There was no attempt to try and convince him to give up. No negotiation or attempt to de-escalate the situation. Nope. Open fire, with 18 shots fired, I believe.
I think this is an area where more training is needed. It always seems to be the case that when one cop fires a shot, they all start firing their guns, often with 10+ or 20+ shots fired. What if the first one who shot actually had a somewhat open shot with good chances of missing the hostage? Doesn’t matter much if the rest start spraying bullets.
Unless the knife actually severs the jugular or the carotid artery, I know from personal experience that a knife wound to the neck is not nearly as lethal as you think. I’ll use the three inch scar on my neck as my cite. It is certainly more survivable than being hit by the eighteen bullets the pigs fired. If the hostage was accidentally hit by one round fired from a rifle by a sniper, that’s a reasonable choice. Firing eighteen rounds with handguns at a hostage taker is simply murdering the hostage.
She told the cops that the intruder was naked. Naked. It should have been fairly easy to tell who is NOT the intruder. If he is wearing clothes…NOT the intruder.
A cop shoots and kills 2 people in a 30 day span. I, for one, am starting to doubt the police version in the first shooting.
This reminds me of the woman who called the police about an intruder, and then was shot by the police when she approached the car.
It looks now like Mr. Black did exit the house with his gun in his hand. I still maintain that in a society where guns are legal, it’s unreasonable to suppose that everyone with a gun is a bad guy with a gun.
Even if someone had perfect hearing, firing 4 shots in a bathroom is going to fuck with your ability, I suspect; I welcome correction on that point from more knowledgable people.
And I think the officer who fired shots may be a little too quick on the trigger, eh.
I hope someone is doing a toxicology test on Mr. Harper.