The Glade 4.0

Foamy,

Your question is leading, and impossible to answer. You are asking us to answer from the relative safety of our computer work stations, without the context of being put under duress.

The fact is, every situation is different. You can't know what was going through is mind, what he heard/saw, what he believed might be going on on the other side of the door.

Yes, as a general rule, you should never point your gun at something/someone you don't intend to shoot, but you don't know that he hadn't already made up his mind that he WAS going to shoot, based on the situation as he perceived it.

I think it's safe to say that there were a *lot* of *very* bad decisions made in the heat of 'battle'. There are several very obvious things that could be been done differently that would have changed the outcome...

He died because he made (a) bad decision(s) in a desperate situation
He died because the Sheriff (may have?) used poor judgement (I don't think we know enough to definitively state this)
He died because a violent felon put everyone in that neighborhood, including the officers, at risk

There are a couple of posters here who have seemed to indicate having the officers announce themselves wouldn't necessarily change their position on if a gun was warranted when opening the door.

This is where I /boggle at his thought process too. If he was so suspicious / concerned about the situation that he felt the need to draw his weapon, why the hell was he opening the door in the first place, particularly without at least attempting to identify the knockers before doing so? Basically, it's an either/or thing for me - either you're comfortable opening the door unarmed, or you shouldn't be opening the door at all.

My question is not all that difficult to answer based on gun safety standards. This is not a situation where a snap decision is needed (ie. accosted on the street by a mugger with a knife and having to decide to draw your weapon to shoot him). Rather he was in the relative safety of his home and upon hearing the banging at his door, retrieved his shotgun, opened the door and proceeded to brandish it in a threatening enough manner to provoke retaliation.

He had time to think about his action and I feel safe in assuming that no responsible gun owner, one who knows and abides by the safety rules, would ever behave in such a manner. The only reason I could see for him to brandish his weapon as such would be if he suspected his life was in immediate danger. Something I can't see from the position he was in (inside his house).

I agree with your final three points.

RangerDave:

Completely agree on everything you just said.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Yes. When I lived off of Fornance St in norristown. It wasn't the worst apartment complex but it had its share of unsavory tenants. More than once I received the mystery knock at 1am. But I also installed two door chains that were anchored into the masonry so I would have had a bit of time if someone started trying to kick in my door.

I think this guy failed because he removed a perfectly good barrier between himself any whoever was pounding on his door unannounced. If I don't know you and you wont ID yourself- I'm not opening the door.

And I wont point any firearm at anyone unless I'm going to use it on them.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Oh n0z! The police have a difficult job!

Doctors and engineers have difficult jobs, too. When we **** up and people die because of our mistakes, we are personally liable. Cry me a **** river about the police.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

not a fair comparison. Police put themselves in harms way. Engineers don't.

I don't see where my statement would cause you to ascribe that position to me, but since you put a question mark on the end:

No, I don't believe that they would have "gunned him down" had he been unarmed. I also don't believe that they wouldn't have, as that type of thing is not unheard of; I DO believe that had the police announced themselves when they knocked, this situation wouldn't have occurred.


That is true, but the same can be said about any situation that has ever occurred. When I speak of causative act, I am asserting that the police officers' actions (or omissions) is the proximate cause of the events that followed.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Does your planning require split second decisions that if the wrong choice is made, YOU end up dead?

The police messed up in going to the wrong address, yes. Acting in the capacity that they were there for, (though at the wrong address), a mistake in the moment they had a shotgun pointed at them could have cost them their lives.

Surely you don't have to make decisions under such conditions.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

If they're in that situation (a situation in which they put themselves, I might add), shouldn't they be the ones to bear the brunt of their mistakes, not an innocent (if stupid) bystander?

Lets be fair in defining causation though.

Putting a glass on a shelf may be somewhere in the chain of events that lead to it falling to the ground, but putting it on the shelf didn't 'cause' it to fall--me shoving the glass hard over the edge did. You can chicken & egg it all the way back to the day the guy's parents saw each other across the room, and decided to get it on in the back seat of a Chevy.

But the immediate cause of triggers being pulled, was that the man pointed a gun at uniformed police officers who had their weapons drawn.

Absolutely.



Yes, I could see your first question as a possibility, there are too many unknown variables involved in the reason for and circumstances surrounding an unexpected banging on the door at 1:30 AM to discount the question by saying "No, I'd never do that".

The second question is a leading one, and speaks to your frame of mind regarding this incident. My answer is that I would aim my weapon at someone who is an imminent threat to my, or my loved ones' safety. I would be ready to shoot them if their subsequent actions did not radically reduce that threat.

It appears that the key factor that makes it the residents fault (in your mental image of the event), is that he was "pointing" the gun at the police. I do not know if he was, and am not willing to take it as a fact that he was. I do know that many people have been shot by police for "reaching for", "holding", "brandishing" or "pointing" a "weapon" according to the official police report when it was later found out one, some, or all of those items were not true.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Farsky:

A situation they've put themselves in doing their job. Obviously they didn't know they were at the wrong address until after the shooting, otherwise they would have left.

I've said that there is wrong on both sides and the county/police should absolutely bear blame, but it isn't fair to say that the victim did nothing wrong and it is solely the police's fault.

Had he taken different steps in IDing who is at his door, the fact that they were at the wrong address would have been found out and there would have been no shooting.

The cops made a mistake, and the victim's reckless actions exacerbated their mistake.

Warning - Anecdote
My mother was pulled over for speeding one night and not knowing much about how dangerous a traffic stop can be to the police, she proceeded to turn away from him and fiddle around in her purse with the cop at her window. She told me that the officer immediately tensed up, had his hand on his weapon and told her to stop. I told her how close to being shot she was at that moment because of her perceived actions. Cops don't have much time to make decisions when they believe the person in front of them may be reaching for a weapon. Sadly, a mistake on their part usually ends up with the loss of life.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Ok, well, reading the other part of the article, this man may well have been intending to shoot police officers:
http://www.wesh.com/news/central-florid ... index.html

It is all well and good that you believe your statement to be true, however it has not been proven to be factually true and does nothing to diminish my assertion of proximate cause. Further, the immediate cause of the police pulling their triggers repeatedly was the fact that they chose to do so, not the actions of another.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

We keep coming back to "pointing his gun at them".

If he opened the door and held the shotgun up and ready to use once he saw they were officers, then sure, that's the immediate cause of getting killed.

If he opened his gun, and the muzzle was pointed in the general direction of the officers and they panicked and shot him, than them panicking and making a poor judgement call was.

The police didn't have a warrant. They had no hard evidence that the person they were looking for was indeed in the apartment. They didn't announce themselves, they didn't saw why they were there. And they panicked and shot the person who opened the door.

Bottom line, the police officers shot someone who was doing nothing wrong in his own house.

I can understand them panicking, and you can question the guys judgement all day long, but it still comes down to the fact that the police screwed up and shot an innocent guy in his own house.

If it had been anyone other than a police officer who shot him, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Being a police officer should not protect you from the consequences of bad judgement leading to killing someone. And making a blanket statement about "Point a gun at a police officer and get shot", that's just bullshit. It may well lead to you getting shot, but you can find lots of cases out there where trigger happy police officers don't shoot the person without trying something else first.

And since it's been used here, the police weren't chasing down a "very dangerous violent criminal". They were chasing down a guy who beat someone up, and might have killed him had they not been stopped.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

"...this man may well have been intending to shoot police officers"
Someone just jumped the shark.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Probable cause/hot pursuit? (not sure what the law is but I don't think they require a warrant or are required to announce themselves in that circumstance.)

People are ascribing details that I do not believe exist.

Did the 'cops' have the 'wrong' address because they are just dolts and can read the numbers on the house? or did someone give them the wrong address ? Or did they not have an address at all, and perhaps were told by a witness, or dispatcher that they went 'that-away -->', and were just knocking on doors trying to facilitate a search and make sure occupants were ok ?

You need to look up that phrase. It doesn't mean what you think it means. I may have jumped to a conclusion, but didn't jump the shark.

He's a man with a history of drug related offenses.
He was currently in possession of illegal drugs and paraphernalia.
He was in possession of a firearm which he may (or may not) have pointed at law enforcement officers who came to his door.




This is not an 'innocent' man.


Midgen, they were in pursuit of a man who participated in a felony assault. The person they were pursuing 's motorcycle was in front of the apartment they knocked on the door for. They found the person they were looking for in another apartment in the same complex.

Riov:
They were not in "hot pursuit", they saw a motorcycle, not a suspect. As for probable cause, they didn't have it. Nor is that enough to enter someone's home without a warrant. Seeing a motorcycle in the parking lot of an apartment complex near a door does not exigent circumstances make.

Midgen:
The police didn't have the "wrong address", they didn't have any address. They had a motorcycle in the parking lot near the door.

Riov:
What is the dead man guilty of that is a Capital Crime? Is the answer no? That would be an innocent man.

Oh, I know what that phrase means, and your argument has now achieved it. Jumping to conclusions is when you stated he was exhibiting paranoia; your logic jumped the shark when you make a statement about him intending to kill police.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I don't think we have data either way Vindicarre. The beating was at 1:00 AM, the shooting at 1:30 so they were actively searching it sounds like.

nitpicking your posts != jumping the shark.
Nice attempt to cover your ignorance though. 3 stars. Couldn't give it more because it lacked credibility.

Yes, we have "data either way". They saw a motorcycle, not a suspect.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

A situation in which they've put themselves by doing their job...incorrectly. That's the key.

If you want to play the "But policing is dangerous and difficult!" card, then they have to be held to a higher standard than a window-washer who shows up at the wrong building. There's a lot about this situation we don't know, and will never know, and I don't want my following example to reflect directly on it, so bear with:

The police are looking for someone. They believe the house to be, say, #221. They go up and rap on the door. A man opens the door. Now, police have no way of knowing what's going on the house. If the man is concerned for his safety, and opens the door armed with a gun, is that illegal? Is that worthy of capital punishment?

We'll never know if the man simply answered the door with a gun (completely legal, I assume), or if he opened it and brandished it about at the policemen while screaming about killing cops or what. But if he simply opened the door with a gun in his hand, does that deserve death?

Anyone getting shot and killed in this situation is a tragedy; completely avoidable and unnecessary, it only happened because someone **** up. Had the police not been at the incorrect house, a man wouldn't lie dead over it. My point is: if anyone absolutely had to die over this mistake, why should it be the guy on the receiving end of the ****, and not the one(s) who caused it?