Yeah, too bad he broke the law, too. Or did you forget that part?
You break the law, put yorself in situations where you’re not exactly doing the right thing, and no, you don’t deserve to get KILLED for it, but bad things tend to happen.
Yeah, or maybe not. As was extensively hashed, re-hashed and hashed some more in the other thread. Perhaps the boy killed was not involved in the actual commission of the crime. No one has ever completely conclusively said. Of course, like that would justify such an out-of-proportion response regardless. Some, obviously and sadly, disagree.
And if you didn’t stop, for whatever reasons unknown to the cop, would it be right for him to whip out his gun and shoot up your windshield?
Which accounts for the position in which the cop finds himself. Karma.
If I was attempting to run him down? Absolutely.
What if you were not attempting to run him down - what if he just he jumped in front of your moving car unexpectedly, and thought (falsely) you were homicidal? What then?
The driver said he was not trying to run the cop over. That is just what the cop perceived (after placing himself in the moving vehicle’s path).
What the driver actually said was
Here’s my opinion as somebody who’s in law enforcement and as somebody who supervises law enforcement officers: the Sheriff was right to suspend him.
The officer was in a situation where he had to use deadly force to defend himself. In that situation, he was right to use deadly force so he shouldn’t face criminal charges.
However, that same officer had shown incredibly poor judgement by knowingly and unnecessarily putting himself into a situation where he needed to use dealy force to defend himself. He basically showed that he is not a competent police officer because a competent police officer would not have put himself into that situation. The sheriff was right to dismiss the officer - not for the shooting but for the incompetance.
Garfield 226
Heck I am not forgetting that the law was broken. And for the most part I agree with your reply. Sometimes though, I think that law enforcement tends to be a little excessive in response to a crime. (For example, police smashing in doors, holding the residents at gunpoint but oh - it’s the wrong house.)
As you said ‘bad things tend to happen’. Maybe that’s the best way to summarize this entire incident.
Not to be nitpicking : but wasn’t this cop off-duty?
He was working as a rent-a-cop at the IHOP, right?
Do cops have the same rights to pull their gun out off-duty as when they are on-duty?
I think the cop shouldn’t have pulled his weapon at all, as he was not in his official police role.
I could be wrong, but it is my understanding cops may be off the clock, but are never really off duty.
But Scoundrel Swanswater’s other question regarding his right to pull out, and of course, use a gun when he was somehow doing an extra job as some kind of security guard, not as a cop, is one that I had been just about to ask.
I mean, I know the U.S. is different, but it’s an obvious question to occur to me when I cannot imagine any gun-games taking place at this side of the pond if some grotty teenagers ran out of a cafe without paying (much though I would wish some comeuppance upon them). Therefore I simply don’t know whether he even had any right to use that gun in the circumstances, circumstances to which he himself contributed, it seems.
The fact that science is now denied the opportunity to study this young man’s precognitive powers compounds the tragedy.
I don’t know what the law is in the Netherlands, but in the US, a police officer is not only allowed but is obligated to act as a police officer even when he is off-duty.
Dave, do you really believe that this particular teenage driver’s response to being chased down for a skipped check was to think, “I need to KILL this guy!”? Wouldn’t it be more likely that he wanted to ESCAPE, and was racing out of the parking lot? Cop steps out of the way, writes down the license plate, and shows up at their house a couple hours later, for a reasonable conclusion to this event? (I’m sure this has all been covered in the other thread, but what the heck…)
There was a case around Dallas within the last several years where some kids (I’m not sure if they were late teens or early 20s) skipped out on a check at Bennigan’s. Their waitress followed them outside (which was against store policy) and got directly behind the car to write their license plate number down. Presumably, if one were to believe the interviews held amongst her friends, this was a technique used because (rough translation) “no one would run over someone to dine and dash!”… however, this particular woman was drug to death.
Maybe the cop thought the same way. IF he stood in front of the vehicle, there was no way they wouldn’t stop. Furthermore, if he took it a step beyond that, raising HIS GUN would certainly ensure compliance. If that’s even remotely the case, I’d posit that if criminals should be prepared for anything that might happen in the commission of a crime, than law enforcement, I’d think, would be several steps ahead of this and not do anything in their power to escalate a situation. They do have the training and all.
I’d say that’s a flawed technique. Getting a license plate number and a description of the driver is sufficient in a dine ‘n’ dash. It’s not like they will go on the lam for a misdemeanor, and it’s not worth putting the officer or waitress in harms way. (Excluding the case that the offense would be something like a 3rd strike offense, and then the perp would run the cop over if necessary for escape. I don’t believe this was the case.)
Agreed. And personally, I feel that if it’s not the most intelligent thing to do overall, it’s even less so for a trained professional that knows exactly how wrong things can go and who introduces a firearm into the equation. There’s a reason for guidelines about car chases and the like. Escalating a minor incident into a major one, or worse, a fatality, is something this off-duty police officer should have realized and adhered to.
In my humble opinion, of course.
You know, that’s exactly what the cop attempted to do. He didn’t run in front of the vehicle yelling stop, he went into the parking lot to identify the thieves. In fact, if you RTFA, he attempted to retreat to the safety of the sidewalk when the driver aimed his car at him and accelerated. It was only after he found his path blocked by parked cars, with the dine-and-dashers still bearing down on him, that he drew his weapon and started firing. Jesus, I know some people reflexively hate the police and aren’t going to ever be convinced, but how anyone who has taken the time to review the facts of this case(and I’m including that gutless wonder David P. Baker in this) can put the blame anywhere but on the criminals is beyond me. Yes, it was a tragedy, but it was a tragedy brought on by the people breaking the law, not by the cop.
Goodness, how did he ever escape? He failed to shoot the driver, who was, by your account, bearing down on him with only moments to react. Was it a miracle that turned the car aside, and force the cop to shoot at the vehicle as it passed by, then away from him? How on earth did the murderous driver, with malice aforethought and driving directly at the helpless cop, fail to achieve his goal?