I don’t think a lot of you live in the real world. Lets stop and consider what actually happened in a dispassionate manner, shall we?
These kids decide to engage in the age old practice of dine and dash. They exit the IHOP without paying. At this point they have committed the crime of theft, albeit a minor one. I don’t think dine and dash is anyone’s idea of something worth getting excited about. They proceed to their car in an attempt to make good their escape. At some point someone, presumably the waiter, notices that this party has skipped out on their check and notifies the off-duty cop working security for the IHOP. This cop runs into the parking lot in an attempt to apprehend or identify the guilty parties. When he reaches the lot, the thieves are in their car at one end of the lot, just starting to pull out. He moves towards them, probably with his hands up in a “stop” motion, although I don’t know this for sure. Up to this point I would categorize the entire situation as relatively normal and not too alarming, which is why I don’t buy the Police Chief’s decision to suspend the officer. The kids have committed a minor crime, the cop has caught them leaving, 99 times out of 100 the whole thing would proceed as it should. The car stops, the cop gets their names/they are taken back into the IHOP where they pay/are charged with D&D/their parents are called/ etc…No big deal, it happens every day all across America. Let’s set the scene:
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B |
A |
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Where the “*” are parked cars, “A” is the cop, “B” is the car with the D&D folks in it and the parking lot exit is to the left. “A” the cop is moving towards “B” the car. Again, pretty standard stuff, nothing that I would consider threatening or dangerous. It’s the precursor to a routine bust, the kind cops make a million times a day.
Suddenly, everything changed in a split second. The driver of the car, B, decided to floor it in an attempt to escape. Despite Fear Itself’s stupid sarcasm, I seriously doubt that he intended to kill the cop. If you asked me to bet one way or the other, I’d bet he just wanted to exit the parking lot, although he might have though of scaring the cop into jumping out of the way as he was exiting. Again, no real malice intended, but what that driver has done completely changes the entire scenario. As the car accelerates towards him, the cop suddenly finds the routine situation he was in has turned deadly. A speeding car IS a deadly weapon, and this one is heading right towards him. He has split seconds to act, and he does. He attempts to get out of the way. Remember that, his first reaction was not to go for his gun, it was to jump back. Unfortunately, he’s no longer standing next to a gap between parked cars, and when he jumps back, he hits a parked car. Fearing for his life, he draws his gun and shoots, resulting in a tragic consequence.
I’d like to stop the scenario right here for a second, just before the cop draws his gun. This is where the armchair detectives are having a field day, and this is where I don’t think a lot of you have any grasp of reality. #1, we’re talking about split seconds here. A car traveling 25-35 MPH covers 37-51 feet each and every second. Nyctea has already told us that this was a small parking lot, the cop had a split second to decide what to do when his attempt to evade the car failed. Now, all of you sit here behind your computers and dispassionately analyze the situation, coming up with a million different courses of action. “He should have climbed over the parked car”, “He should have run back and gone between the cars”, “He should have read the driver’s mind and realized that he was just going to be grazed”, “He should have back flipped over the oncoming car while reaching into his utility belt for a tracking device and attaching it to the roof on his way by”. Any one of these might indeed be a better way to react, given the luxury of hindsight and time to consider his options. He didn’t have that time. He had a second or two to react to an immediately life threatening situation. He (rightly) judged his life to be in imminent danger, and so he drew his weapon and fired at the driver of the car that was bearing down on him. Here’s where we get to #2. I’ve heard people say that he shot indiscriminately because he hit the passenger and not the driver. I’ve heard people who watch too many movies claim that he should have shot out the tires. Real life doesn’t work that way. First of all, when thrust into such an immediate life and death situation, your body experiences a massive adrenaline dump. You can react faster, but that costs you methodical, deliberate actions. You don’t get to be Danny Glover at the end of Lethal Weapon 2, carefully cracking your neck before shooting the evil South African ambassador in the forehead. Frankly, I think it’s a wonder he hit the car at all, it’s not humanly possible in that situation to make one careful, aimed shot only at the driver. You shoot at the car, the objective being to make the driver swerve away from the gunfire, another totally natural human reaction. The cop did this, and that’s how the driver reacted. You aim at the driver as best as you can, sure, but there is no way to be completely accurate. Unfortunately, in this case, one of the bullets struck a passenger in the back seat. I’ve read that police determined that this bullet missed the driver by less than a foot, which I find to be remarkably accurate shooting considering the situation.
Finally, some people may think that I don’t care about the young man who was killed. That’s not true. I’ve said several times that this was a tragedy, and one that was entirely avoidable. Unfortunately, the point where the tragedy could have been avoided was not when the cop proceeded into the parking lot to peacefully flag down the getaway car. No, the point where this could have been avoided is when the driver mashed down on the accelerator and aimed at the cop. Everything else stems from that one action. I’m not even condemning the driver that much for that decision. None of these were bad kids, and I’ll bet that given a few seconds to think about it, he wouldn’t have done it. Unfortunately, he acted upon an impulse, and it was a bad impulse to act on. We all have impulses, and sometimes we act on them. In this case, all of the death and misery that followed stemmed from that momentary bad decision.
Now all of the above is based upon the facts as I understand them from the various reports of the incident that I have read. If you spot what you believe are any glaring errors, please tell me what they are and why you think so, I’ll be happy to discuss them.
