You know, the other thread on this is 12 pages, and a few of those might have already covered this. Why don’t you go check on that?
If that’s all it takes to kill their morale, they’re probably a little too sensitive for the job, anyway. The guy was not supposed to jump infront of the vehicle. He knew that. He did it anyway. He got suspended. That kills morale? Doees getting punished for violating clear policies kill morale where you work?
I have always wondered in this particular case with this particular driver what would have happened if the officer was standing to the side and the only path for the driver was to keep running at my child. Would he have stopped? What would I say about an officer with a gun that drawn that allowed the driver to run over my child? what if the bill was for $10,000 for a huge wedding party? ( Not really likely but what if he had robbed the place and shot a patron and the officer did not know it because he (officer) was outside? )
“A critic is someone who never actually goes to the battle,
yet who afterwards comes out shooting the wounded.”
YMMV
That actually makes sense. Although I still don’t quite get the chief’s thinking.
The policy prevented officers from standing in front of a vehicle in a high-risk situation. The officer said he didn’t think it was a high-risk situation. The chief said disagreed. But in the next graf, the chief says the officer placed himself in a situation that allowed the situation to elevate to a level of high risk.
Either the situation was high-risk before the officer put himself in the position, or it allowed the situation to elevate to that level. If it the former, then the officer was wrong. If the latter, according to the policy in effect at the time, the officer was not wrong. The chief says it was both.
If it wasn’t a high risk situation, why was he shooting at the vehicle?
The driver was probably in the wrong, and the cop was ridiculous to get in the way of a moving car. He deserved some kind of punishment, although there’s no way to ignore the fact that they got him on a technicality. I hope clearing up the policy helps.
The chief said the officer made it a high-risk situation by “unreasonably” placing himself in front of the car to try to stop it. As I see it, the chief is saying he was wrong to act in a way that made it a high-risk situation in the first place.
I don’t think anyone’s saying it was NEVER high-risk.
The policy in effect at the time said not to stand in front of a vehicle in a high-risk situation. In the article, the chief said that two (IMO, mutually exclusive) things happened.
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The officer violated the policy by standing in front of a vehicle in a high-risk situation.
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The officer moving in front of the vehicle allowed it to escalate to a high-risk situation. (Thus, it was NOT a high-risk situation until AFTER the officer had moved in front of the vehicle). AFTER it escalated into a high-risk situation, the officer both tried to get out of the way, and then fired when backed up against another car.
What a load of crap. If I was considering being a police officer, that’s one jurisdiction that I wouldn’t apply to. The chief is hanging his officer out to dry simply because of all the naysayers and whiners. The cop stepped out into the parking lot to flag down the car (and why is it OK for cops to dart in front of my car on the highway to give me a ticket, but not ok for cops to step into a parking lot to flag down the car of a CRIMINAL fleeing the scene of a crime? Oh, right, speeding tickets = money for the state), the CRIMINAL driving the car stepped on the gas and raced his car towards the cop in an attempt to kill him. My only regret here is that it was a passenger who got hit, it should have been the driver.
My cynical nature makes me wonder if the Officer in question jumped in front of the car knowing the car wouldn’t slow down, merely so he could be “justified” in shooting the kid.
Not saying cops like shooting people, but that there are some people (perhaps, by extension a cop or two), that use as many excuses to place themselves in a place of power and take on the mantle of bad ass. I can see some of my more psychopathic friends doing just this. Not knowing the cop, of course, I can’t make such a judgment or expect the chief or the judge to do so either, so I can only secretly think it may be the case.
And I can only secretly think you may be an asshole.
Oh wait, I just posted it. Funny how that works.
I am relieved that you are not currently considering a career in law enforcement in mine or in any jurisdiction.
Well, your not the first. I guess I don’t really care what you think, since you are obviously an asshole as well.
Of course, by “naysayers and whiners,” you mean “dead kid’s parents.”
Shh…it’s a seeeeeecret.
The chief is hanging his officer out to dry because he violated a written policy.
I probably couldn’t get a job in your jurisdiction, considering I have no desire to sodomize Haitians with broom handles after arresting them. Tell me, what was it I said that’s so bad anyway, hmm? Cops should try to arrest thieves? Cops have the right to shoot at people attempting to kill them? What exactly is so off base about my comments?
No, primarily I meant people on these boards, like the OP. Read the original thread if you don’t know what I mean. As for the parents, I have kids, and if this happened to one of them, I’d be devastated, I’d be destroyed, but I would never in a million years feel anything other than anguish that my son chose to put himself into a situation that led to his death. Personal responsibility doesn’t end because of personal anguish.
I doubt that… HOW often do you post in the pit?
A person’s assholishness here is directly proportional to the length of time he or she spends in the pit sniping at other people and acting dickish to responses to his or her posts.
I’d say then that your asshole’ness isn’t a secret at all, but is quite well known.
The way I’d interpreted it was that a “high-risk situation” for standing in front of a vehicle would be when said vehicle is attempting to flee the scene.
Standing to the side, instead of in front of the vehicle, would not be high-risk.
Standing in front of it as it moves towards you, however, would be “allowing it to escalate to a high-risk situation.”
The problem here is that no one properly identified what a “high-risk situation” was before this. The chief is interpreting and clarifying, not going off of things that were clearly codified before this. I’m not sure if it’s entirely fair to punish the officer because of a retro-active clarification of policy, though I do feel he did wrong.
I read enough of it, which was probably just a couple of pages.
The kid was responsible for dining and dashing - not for the cop overreacting or his driver friend being an idiot. His personal responsibility is very limited there.
Certainly you don’t wonder this. The additon of these facts (an innocnet life in mortal danger) changes the scenario so dramatically that the outcomes of the two are hardly analagous. But still, just in case you’re serious, I’ll tell you. The cop would have shot to stop the car, save your kid and he woulnd’t have been suspended, reprimanded or even frowned at.
battle? dine-n-dash = battle? this might be a bit of an over-the-top comparison