So as I left my building to go to lunch today there was a HUGE commotion one block over. At least it was huge for our small city/large town - crime scene tape, firetrucks, ambulances and lots of cops. Traffic was slowed down and curious people were flocking to the area in droves. A bystander whose husband works in the building told me that there was a crazy lady in an apartment over the businesses who was threatening to kill herself or blow up the building, or the block, or the city - reports varied.
I made a quip about the crazy lady making sure she got Easter dinner in the local mental hospital and also about the thing in human nature that causes people to run toward bomb threats and tsunami warnings (Mr. Wyg. just HAD to go check out the shoreline last summer when we had a tsunami warning “I can get out of the way in time - no problem - I’ll stay in the car” :smack: )
So I noticed the standoff was still going on when I returned from lunch and then didn’t think about it again until I left for the day when the used car salesman on the corner (Great source of info btw) told me that the cops had shot her. He also noted that “the cops in this town don’t mess around.” So - note to self - don’t screw around with local cops - they don’t mess around.
When I got home I checked on the news and yeah - they shot her DEAD. They had snipers on the roof and a SWAT team in her building and at some point - bang - she’s dead. The news showed video of her during the standoff and she was this middle aged lady with a neck brace yelling and throwing rope and a fishing pole and a fire extinguisher out the window.
Now I don’t know if she really had any weapons and she had thrown stuff out the window and been a pain the ass for the police before without things escalating to that degree but still it seems kinda extreme to shoot her dead.
So now I feel sad and disgusted at the kind of “care” the mentally ill have available to them. Second note to self - don’t wig out.
And I also feel more than a tiny bit guilty about the flippant remark I made about her being “home” for Easter when now she really is going to her “final” home. 
Hm. Note to self. Stop subsidizing SWAT teams with trigger-happy snipers.
So today’s newspaper has the update that the woman was brandishing a flare gun. Does anyone know, how dangerous is a flare gun?
This whole thing is just so damn sad.
The story here, from a local news source. Not really enough information to determine if the police acted appropriately.
Well, of course the police acted badly.
The snipers are shooting without proper authorization. They are all trigger happy killers. 
- The local SWAT team gets off some much needed rocks.
- The community is rid of one more crazyperson.
- The public mindset is tilted a little bit further in favor of Security vs. Free Speech.
- Another bit of legal precedent is established for killing people based on unsubstantiated scary rumor.
Upshot: Real loyal Americans with nothing to hide from the powers that be can sleep a little more soundly tonight.
“Resolve it?” unless they had a plan for storming the apartment, it sounds like they planned to shoot her.
A flare gun is probably dangerous if you’re hit by it, but it can’t have the penetration of any bullet. If they were under cover and they had the area cordoned off I can’t imagine the threat was imminent.
Come to think of it we shouldn’t be suprised. This is the same police department that applied pepper spray directly into the eyes of protesters about 10 years back when they were chained together (I think at someone else’s mercy to unchain them later) and were sitting in the City Hall or court house. It was before we moved here but the case has been going through the courts until very recently.
I think I want to move. Crap like this and it ALWAYS RAINS.
Wow, dude.
That’s profound.
This is starting to feel more like a Pit thread.
I feel sad for everybody all around. What a hell of a situation.
I’m usually pro-cop, but these swat dickheads always take an incident to a level it never would have gotten to without their involvement. A measly TWO HOURS of negotiation? Amateurs. Let her empty her entire apartment onto the street, who cares? less stuff for you to get out of your way when you breach the door, taze the woman, hog tie her, and send her off to the rubber ramada.
Honestly.
I was hoping Doug’s response was tongue-in-cheek.
I’m all for firing the entire SWAT team and the officials that okayed this fiasco.
So is the consensus that this woman posed absolutely no danger? 'Cause I’d really like to know where you’re getting that from.
Nicole Kidman’s first big movie…Dead Calm…had a quality kill that involved a flare gun. It struck me as something that would be very effective.
I’ve seen that movie and I thought about that, but didn’t know if it was realistic or a movie effect. A sidebar in the paper said that they can cause things to burn at 1000 degrees so Billy Zane’s demise in that movie might not have been too far fatched.
News accounts also are inconsistent as to whether or not they evacuated the building - one paper said they did not, the other says the did - mostly.