No, what is uncalled for is the article opening with calling her beautiful, and then publishing a picture of her and her sister in their sexy-super-hero Halloween costumes.
It is tragic and unfortunate that she was killed, but the thing that sickens me here is the reporting.
Nowhere did Ducati say that it was the victim’s fault. If you say I tripped on a rock, are you implying I did it deliberately?
Ducati speculated that the hostage “moved into the path of a bullet”, which strongly implies that it was her fault.
No, it does not. It merely states what most likely happened; it says nothing about whether that movement was planned, unplanned, or even avoidable. (She was, after all, being dragged around by a large man.)
Does “She tripped over a rock” imply that the the tripping was deliberate? If not, then why are you reading “She moved into the path of a bullet” as implying deliberate action?
Regardless, “moving into the path of a bullet” is nonsense. The onus is on the cop to make the headshot and not wildly fire 8 rounds in the hopes that he saves her.
Sure, you can disagree with the reporting. That’s no excuse for saying the cops wouldn’t have done the same thing if she was ugly or black, or even go so far as to say they would have let him kill her.
It really doesn’t matter, it’s just poor phrasing. He could have speculated that Smith yanked her into the path of the bullet. There is no point guessing because nobody here knows. Ultimately, the blame for her death belongs to Smith no matter how it went down.
I can agree with that. I still don’t think that excuses the cops actions. Like I said, I’m sure he did his best. I just don’t see how you can justify 8 shots in such a situation.
I can imagine any number of scenarios wherein eight shots would be justifiable.
Are you picturing everyone standing perfectly still while the cop blasts away?
Yeah, that is the first impression I got.
I have no issue with the police. My point was meant to be sarcastic; that based on what the paper clearly thought were the important things about the victim, had she not been a Hofstra hottie it wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much what had happened to her. I definitely see how my snark was not clear, and I appologize for that.
I wish someone would answer the question as to what the actual training for such events (by professionals training professionals) says to do.
Should the police have laid their weapons down and tried to calm the hostage taker?
Shown they weren’t pointing guns at the hostage taker and backed away?
Taken the best shot they had, hoping for the best?
My guess, and that is all it is, is that they would try to keep the hostage taker surrounded at a distance, and tried to negotiate, unless it was ‘obvious’ the man was just working up to killing her, that his goal was not to use her to escape but was to simply kill her no matter what. Logic says he would have already killed her if the second thing was in play.
so, are there not some real police here who can say what their training actually is?
I was thinking much the same thing about the dopey “journalistic” emphasis on the victim’s looks, as though it would have been less of a tragedy if she wasn’t good-looking.
You can send a PM to Ducati and Loach and see if either will answer. They are both trained police officers.
Well, that goes without saying. The ultimate loss here was a hot bod, don’cha know.
Unfortunately you see this all the time in the news. Rarely do they fail to comment on a female victim’s looks if she was good-looking. (I suppose I should give them gredit that when the victim isn’t, they tactfully avoid pointing that out.) What relevance that has, they never say.
It’s really kind of pissing me off. I’ve read three or four articles on this event and all of them mention how attractive she was in the first few paragraphs. Who gives a shit? She’s dead.
The point Ducati made was regarding police training and tactics. This is an entirely different realm than anything that you have seen in Hollywood. To suggest that the cop simply blasted away is simply offensive.
You are all wrong, all of you who are making any judgment at all based on the blurb of information from the media. Everyone here is SPECULATING.
There is not enough information to know anything about what the cops did.
Could the cop have fired because it was obvious that the gunman was going to fire? Yes.
Could the cop have fired because he is a gunslinger? Yes.
The truth is that there isn’t enough information and all of the crap on either side of he screwed up/no he didn’t merely reveals the biases each of you bring.
It stands out even more when you look at news stories about the tragic deaths of young men. While you’ll occasionally see a mention that the deceased was handsome, in general the male victim’s looks aren’t stressed nearly so much. Instead the papers are usually stressing his accomplishments and the good aspects of his personality (“he was so kind and funny, and he was hoping to get a degree in Food Science next fall”). With female victims “she was so beautiful” is always one of the very first things that is said.
Women are still judged and valued based on their looks, in ways men aren’t. It sucks.
You want to hear a funny story?
There was a short-lived television show called Detroit 1-8-7, a cop show about Detroit’s elite homicide unit.
Why was it called Detroit 187? Because penal code 187 refers to homicide.
Except it doesn’t. Not in Detroit.
In Los Angeles, the home of TV scriptwriters, TV producers, and the like, California penal code 187 does indeed refer to murder. But it never occurred to the writers to imagine that Los Angeles isn’t the rest of the country, apparently.
It’s also true that the motto of the LAPD is, “To protect and serve.”
Nassau County doesn’t appear to have a motto. Their mission statement is here.
So:
I find it absolutely unsupportable that you would claim that the motto “to protect and serve” is necessarily read so as to require an officer to allow himself to be shot in order to save a hostage. There’s nothing whatsoever to support your addition of “by whatever means necessary” to the motto.
That motto is itself inapplicable to the current discussion, because, contrary to the TV-addled minds of the American public, all police departments are not the LAPD.
I thought it was “We’ll Treat You Like a King.”