Maybe overall, but not in this instance. From the police report, any testimony that the gun was fake came after the fact and would be countered by the kids own comments that his gun was real. The police also tried to get the kid to put down his weapon and only fired after he pointed what they thought was a real gun at them.
I quoted him saying “It would result in far fewer deaths, although more police officers would likely die.” So people would still die, but they’d be cops, who apparently don’t count as far as Metacom is concerned, rather than civilians, who do. That may be an acceptable tradeoff to him, but not to me.
You are making it as though Metacom thinks that if the same number of people die but a higher percentage are cops then fewer people have died. Of course this is not what he meant. He meant that fewer people overall would die but of this smaller number a higher proportion than before would be cops. The lower number is not achieved by having “cops” die instead of “people”.
I won’t accuse you of misrepresenting but I think you misread the point in your anger.
All that is true. My objection was to your paraphrase, which totally misrepresented what he was saying.
And I take back the idea that this is a lame pitting. It’s a pitting by a cop on an issue that’s of course going to stir up especially strong feelings for police. I think Metacom’s position is legitimate, but I understand why Thalion would pit it.
Daniel
You know, I’ve read this sentence over and over and over again…I’ve typed a whole bunch, deleted a whole bunch…and eventually all I’m left with is…holy fuck, Metacom
How?
Even in the case of a kid who wanted to commit suicide by cop, it’s not beyond the pale to assume that he might provoke the cops by shooting one of them first. It’s also not beyond the pale to assume that even though the kid’s father told someone, at some point in the affair, that the kid had a pellet gun, the kid might have gotten his hands on a real gun. In addition, the police had reasonable cause to suspect that the price of handling this differently might, if the kid had had a real gun, have resulted in the deaths of more students; remember that he’d already threatened the life of a student as it is.
The point remains that even ‘in this situation’ the police should not have allowed the kid to get off a round ‘just to be sure’, that remains an absurd notion. If the gun had been real, they might’ve wound up with at least one dead officer and a possibly a hostage situation involving children and a suicidal/homicidal kid with a gun
On a side note, since nothing I’ve read has said exactly what the father said and to whom/when, it doesn’t seem that he was in a position to give the cops all the info they needed. As others have pointed out, if the father’s total message was that the kid had a 9mm mockup, there was still no guarantee that he hadn’t left that gun at home and bought/stolen a real gun from another student. Unless the father had seen the kid put that exact gun in his backpack that morning (and then why didn’t he stop him?) there was really no way of him knowing for sure that the gun wasn’t real.
It’s difficult for me to argue it, since I don’t agree with it. The idea, however, that police ought to use different measures when dealing with a mentally deranged 13-year-old is not, I think, beyond the pale.
Daniel
But it wasn’t just a mentally deranged kid, that’s an oversimplification. And were it the case that it was ‘just’ a sucidal kid, then it would be a different matter. If it was a suicidal kid threatening to jump off a building to his death, then I’d have no problem with the police taking their time.
This situation was about a mentally deranged kid with what looked like a real gun, who had already theatened the life of a student. (And in some cases mental impairment should make the cops act faster, as it implies that the subject can’t be reasoned with and is a danger to those around him.) But, it is indeed beyond the pale to suggest that in this specific situation, the police should’ve done anything differently.
Agreed Daniel, but I think there is a difference between a mentally deranged 13 year old, and a mentally deranged 13 year old holding what seems to be a gun.
One could even argue that the “deranged” bit makes the situation even more unpredictable, don’t you think?
Why are the police officers’ deaths more acceptable than a criminal’s? Just because he’s 15 doesn’t make him more valuable to society by default. It’s not assuming greater risk to be shot at; that’s just plain suicidal. A greater risk is standing there facing an armed criminal when everyone else gets to run away.
A few points to consider for this particular situation:
Dad could’ve been lying about there being no guns in his house. It’s been known to happen, you know.
Kid could’ve gotten his hands on a gun that his dad didn’t know about.
The gun looked real. I’ve seen these pellet guns before, and once I even commented to my husband that if someone covered the orange tip, no one would know the difference from even a short distance.
I’m sitting here, much like Mellivora capensis, in a state of WTF wondering how anyone could seriously argue that it’s okay to be shot at before shooting someone. Surely you’re just playing devil’s advocate, right? I mean, no one would seriously say that the cop (who put his life on the line just by showing up) should have died so this kid (who threatened people, took hostages, and caused a lot of fear) could have lived.
It’s a legitimate position for an idiot. I am very sorry, but the police are paid to do a job that most people would not do. There are not paid to take stupid risks with their lives. Sure, in a movie Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, or whatever actor/actress can put down their gun while the bad guy is pointing theirs at a polce officer’s head and get away with it… that don’t work in real life.
Always? Without exception? Suppose it had not been a teenager; suppose it had been a nine-year-old, or seven-year-old. Or what if a three-year-old child finds his father’s pistol, walks outside and, as he has seen on TV, begins pointing it at cars, pedestrians, and eventually at the police who respond? Should he be blown away? Is there a line at which “prepare to eat rounds” is inappropriate?
This is another aspect making Metacom’s position absurd. Even assuming some one or more of the police were told “It’s a fake!” by the father, how would the police who actually confronted the kid know? The cited report says there were some 40 officers fanned out in the school, searching for the kid and getting students out where possible. How would they all get word of the supposed fakeness? Individual radios? Assuming they had them, how close was the claim of fake to the time the kid confronted the officer and was shot? How much time was there for someone in authority to do whatever would be necessary to confirm the claim before broadcasting it? A claim with life or death consequences.
And that’s all assuming that what the father was saying would be believed and relied upon in any case, which (as many others have pointed out) is dubious to say the least. Add me to the camp of “Point a gun at a cop, you die.”
[QUOTE=Thalion]
[li]That the deputy should have let the kid get off one shot before reacting, just to be sure the gun was real.[/li][/QUOTE]
:eek: Eeek eek eek. Holy crap, can anyone really believe this?
As always, someone has to resort to the extreme case! But OK, seeing your point, there are a couple of differences in the two cases:
A 15 YO can premeditate to shoot. A 3 YO really can’t.
And totally different things are going through a cop’s head when he’s faced with a 3 YO holding a gun as a 15 YO.
A 3 YO can be overpowered much easier, and can even be bribed or cajoled to put the gun down, where a determined 15 YO can’t be.
The rest a cop may have to answer. I’m sure every cop hopes he doesn’t have to be in that situation.
Me too. I watch America’s Most Wanted now and again, and at the end of the show they have a little memorial for an officer who was killed recently. Every week there is a new one who’s died. The causes most often cited were “during a routine traffic stop”, “At the scene of a domestic dispute”, etc. The officers are nearly always young men, and they’re nearly always quoted as being survived by a wife and young children. So Metacom, you wanna explain to the young child of a cop why it’s ok if their daddy or mommy gets shot?
You should be. However, shame requires enough intelligence to understand that you have done or said something wrong. Your stupidity in posting that very first sentence indicates that you do not possess that minimum level of intelligence.
Whether you like it or not, it’s a simple fact of life: someone who points a gun at a cop is going to get shot, period. The cops do NOT have the luxury of armchair-quarterbacking. They are on the spot, right then and there, and that spot is life or death for them and/or bystanders. They were absolutely right to fire. It’s been 30 years since I wore a badge, and I can guarantee you that I would have shot that kid without hesitation if he had pointed the gun at me.
As for the comments that have been made about shooting him in the shoulder or something: when you’re under stress like that and your body is pumping adrenaline like there’s not tomorrow and you can shit through a screen door without hitting the wire, you just do not have the fine motor skills necessary for precision shooting like that. That is why we are trained to go for the center of the torso, the largest target possible.
Couple of things.
First, even if fifty people claimed that the guy had a fake gun, what precedent would this set for future maniacs or gang memebers that could have people they know make similar claims to the police?
Second, even if the guy had a pellet or BB gun, should the cops let the guy point and aim that weapon at them and fire it at will without retaliating? I think not.
Or shoot that deputy’s eye out. Pellet guns are not harmless.
Just for the record, Metacom had nothing to do with the shooting in the shoulder tangent. I asked because I didn’t know. Now I know. Carry on.
That gun looked pretty realistic to me, and I’ve handled handguns. From a distance, and in a situation like that, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to distigush that is was indeed a fake gun.
I’m tempted to ask if Metacom would be willing to let someone fire a random gun(either a fake gun that looks real, or a real one) at him, without him knowing which one will be fired.