Archive for the 'Police' Category

Via WiscoDave, this sad tale.

An Indiana police officer is in critical but stable condition after she was accidentally shot by her partner while on duty.

The Lafayette Police Department released body camera footage showing Officer Lane Butler, her partner Aaron Wright and a third officer searching a home for a fugitive on January 8.

After the officers failed to find the suspect inside, Butler is seen on camera exiting the home with Wright following behind her with his gun drawn.

Authorities say that’s when a dog inside the home attacked Wright, causing him to fire his gun and strike Butler in the back.

Butler was wearing a bulletproof vest, but the bullet hit right above it in her shoulder.

‘Our conclusion in this incident was this was not a result of an act of negligence, carelessness or otherwise reckless behavior,’ Lafayette Police Chief Patrick Flannelly said at a press conference Friday. ‘It was accidental.’

Police say the dog escaped its cage and attacked Wright from behind. In the video the dog can be heard barking loudly before he fired.

Butler immediately collapsed to the ground outside of the home and the officers in the video can be heard shouting, ‘What happened?’

Body camera footage shows the two officers coming to assist Butler.

Wright runs to flag down another police car responding to the scene and they help Butler inside, who remains conscious throughout.

An ambulance eventually arrives and they as they load her into the back, Butler appears to be going into shock and collapses.

Full body-cam video is at the link.  Don’t take my word for what happened or the things I intend to say about this.  Go watch it for yourself.

Tactically speaking, this is simply the weirdest thing I’ve ever witnessed.  They are traipsing through the domicile with no intent, no method, and no procdure.

They are holding their pistols way up in the air like gang-bangers, and they are using their weapons-mounted lights as assistance to search the home.  Thus, every time they need a light, they have to point their firearms in the direction of interest.  Next, he has his finger on the trigger of the gun, or otherwise, he has his finger on the weapons-mounted light (my Streamlight doesn’t work that way, and for good reason), but the dog scares him, and sympathetic muscle reflexes cause him to discharge his weapons.

They force the wounded cop to walk to his patrol car, learn that an ambulance is arriving, and then force her to walk and drag her to the ambulance in order to get help.  Finally, do you think if you or I had been scared by a dog and had our finger our weapons in ANY situation at all, and discharged the weapon injuring someone else, we would be released without charges?

I’ve said it before, having cops around in the most dangerous thing that can ever happen in your life.  They can’t be trusted with firearms.

Via WiscoDave, KATV.com:

A Faulkner sheriff deputy named Keenan Wallace was caught on camera shooting a small dog while investigating a neighborhood call reporting an aggressive dog.  Initially the County Sheriff was slow to respond to the outcry; then the video went viral on social media.

Also see coverage at The Conservative Treehouse.  The Faulkner County Sheriff’s Department said this.

“We in law enforcement answer calls every day that require split second life and death decisions.”

So what was the threat?  You’d think they were doing MOUT and room clearing in Fallujah.  Here was the threat.

A Chihuahua.  No, seriously.  I’m not making this up.  Community heroes, every one.  We should cheer as they drive down our streets and “protect us.”

KSAT.com:

SAN ANTONIO – A Leon Valley family is suing several law enforcement agencies after authorities mistakenly raided their home in a search for drugs and left them traumatized, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

On Nov. 14, the suit said, Lucil Basco was on her way to pick up her son from Empower Behavioral Health, which offers clinic-based applied behavior analysis services to learners across the state.

During her drive, Basco was “unlawfully” pulled over for not using “her blinker, her license plate was obstructed, and she did not pull over immediately,” the suit said.

After a search of her vehicle, Basco was given a warning ticket. An hour later, the front door to her home was smashed in and she and her 5-year-old son were met with masked, armed officers on a “narcotics search warrant,” according to the suit.

Authorities placed Basco in handcuffs while they searched for drugs in her home, breaking down two additional doors inside it. The raid was based on “information from a confidential informant,” the suit said.

According to a police report, the informant pointed out Basco’s house as a “stash house” to BCSO deputies and agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration. The report said an entry team knocked and announced their arrival “several times” before forcing their way in to Basco’s home.

A BCSO deputy was later told it was “not the right house” and no drugs were found inside the home, according to the report.

Oh well.  At least the cops got to go home safely at the end of their shift.  That’s what’s really important here.

David Codrea:

An out of state concealed carry permit does not establish sufficient cause to warrant a car search for firearms, a New York judge’s Decision and Order decided Wednesday. Further, the opinion concludes the sworn testimony of the officers involved is not borne out by police video camera and microphone evidence, and a recording from a defendant’s cell phone.

The search wasn’t good, the judges decision to vacate it was.  Read the entire article, as there are many more importanr details.

Now to the really grotesque.

According to the story, Jackson was arrested after a pretextual traffic stop where officers found a baggie of marijuana and detected cocaine residue on his car seat.

Jackson has a long rap sheet and was combative with police in jail, but the encounter crossed into dubious ethical and legal territory when police compelled doctors to perform a medical procedure they saw as unnecessary.

Previous cases like this have resulted in police and hospitals paying out huge amounts of money to settle lawsuits.

Police has the doctors probe the man’s rectum for drugs.  This, after he had already been x-rayed and none had been found.  Any cop or doctor who would do that is a freak.

News from the Northwest:

King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht has agreed to update her department’s use of force policies and pay a man $65,000 in damages after one of her department’s detectives drew his gun on an unsuspecting motorcyclist in a video that went viral last year.

The settlement, which was shared with me by the motorcyclist, states that the sheriff has agreed to implement an order classifying aiming a gun as a “use of force” and requiring that the department to track every single time an officer points their gun at a person. This is already standard practice for many law enforcement agencies across the country, including the Seattle Police Department.

Alex Randall was waiting on his motorcycle for a light to turn green in August of last year when King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) Detective Richard Rowe approached him from behind with his gun drawn. Randall had his helmet camera running at the time and captured the tense exchange.

In the widely-viewed video, Rowe can be seen quickly approaching the man from behind with his firearm drawn and without clearly identifying himself as an officer. Randall, surprised by suddenly seeing a gun pointed at him, responds by saying “Oh shit, what are you doing to me?” to which the detective responds “You’re fucking driving reckless. Give me your driver’s license or I’m going to knock you off this bike.”

Rowe has received three road rage or driving complaints against him in the last five years and was placed on administrative leave after Randall posted the video to the Internet, according to reporting by former Stranger writer Sydney Brownstone. In April of this year, Johanknecht suspended Rowe for five days without pay for a lack of courtesy in his conduct.

An internal investigation unit determined last December that the detective had violated some internal policies during the incident but he had not used excessive force because “no actual force was used.”

We had covered this earlier but I hadn’t followed it to conclusion.  This is it, I guess.  The cop is left in the workforce.  He should have been fired and then flogged in the public square, and then put in prison.

The $65,000 is an award paid by the citizens, with the culpable Sheriff and officer bearing no responsibility for what happened.  This isn’t the way to bring accountability.  This kind of settlement will keep encouraging illegal behavior by cops.

Note what the Internal Investigation Unit found: “No actual force was used.”  If you or I had done this, we would have been found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon.  He should also have been tried and found guilty of false arrest, violation of the fourth amendment, kidnapping and threats against a person.

NBC News:

A sheriff’s sergeant who died during a firefight during the Borderline Bar and Grill mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, last month was killed by friendly fire, officials said.

Sgt. Ron Helus was hit five times by gunman Ian David Long at the bar but was ultimately killed by a sixth shot from a California Highway Patrol officer’s AR-style rifle, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said at a press conference Friday.

“This news is extremely difficult for all of us to process and understand,” Ayub said.

Helus was wearing body armor during the shooting but the rifle shot penetrated the vest and struck his heart, according to the medical examiner.

“I can tell you that most body armor worn by municipal police in this country is not capable of stopping rifle ammunition,” Ayub told reporters. “It’s a matter of comfort as well as fatigue for officers to wear heavy armor, day in and day out.”

The highway patrol officer who fired the fatal shot was a 9-year veteran of the department and has voluntarily taken time off, according to a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

“The mere thought of something like this happening is devastating to all of us and underscores the difficult and dangerous circumstances law enforcement faces, often with only mere seconds to react,” California Highway Patrol Commissioner Warren Stanley said in a statement.

I grok that is “devastating,” and that it’s “difficult to process and understand.”  Let me ask you a question, Bill.  Is this as “devastating” as news of LEOs under your command threatening to shoot dogs for no good reason, or worse, when LEOs under your command shoot unarmed people?

Or is this only devastating to you when a LEO shoots another LEO?

Via WiscoDave, news from Colorado:

A Colorado police officer who shot an armed Vietnam war veteran in his home after he had just killed an intruder who attacked his 11-year-old grandson will not face charges, the District Attorney said Monday.

District attorney for Colorado’s 17th Judicial District Dave Young said his office has cleared Aurora police Officer Drew Limbaugh of wrongdoing in the July death of Richard ‘Gary’ Black Jr. Black, 73.

Police said that officers believed Black was the intruder and opened fire after he didn’t follow a command to drop his gun. It later became apparent that Black had been protecting his wife and young grandson.

On the night of July 30, police responded to multiple 911 calls from Black’s home reporting a naked intruder who was trying to drown his 11-year-old grandson, CNN reported.

Police heard gunshots as they arrived and entered the property to find Black had just shot and killed the intruder, 26-year-old Dajon Harper.

Officers found the young boy and his father in the bathroom next to Harper’s dead body.

When Black did not respond to multiple requests to drop his weapon, he himself was shot by Officer Limbaugh in his living room and died from his injuries at University of Colorado Hospital.

In a 26-page letter to Aurora Police Department, the DA wrote that there was no evidence that Officer Limbaugh ‘engaged in reckless or criminally negligent conduct’.

That last sentence tells you everything you need to know about LEOs and DAs.  The bolded sentence tells you everything you need to know about what not to do.

Calling the cops while an incident is in progress and you are trying to defend yourself or loved ones is the least safe action you can take.  Someone will die if the cops are called.  This poor man had survived Vietnam.  He couldn’t survive American LEOs.

Defend yourself, call your lawyer, return your firearm to its proper place, and then call 911 for the cops to write the report.

That’s the sequence.  And don’t talk to the police.  Let your lawyer do that for you.

Buckeye Firearms:

Earlier this month, the City of Toledo announced a new policy that says it will only purchase firearms from “responsible” gun companies. In order to determine which companies are “responsible,” city officials say they will ask six questions of manufacturers:

Those questions are:

• Do you manufacture assault weapons for civilian use?
• Do you sell assault weapons for civilian use?
• Which firearms does your company agree to not sell to civilians?
• Do you require your dealers to conduct background checks?
• Does your company have a plan in place to invest in gun and ammunition-tracing technologies?
• Do you use, at a minimum, industry best practices for inventory control and transactions?

Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz says he hopes other cities will follow his lead, given that the city’s $150,000 annual budget for firearms, ammunition and parts is not likely to put a major dent in manufacturers’ bottom lines all by itself.

To my knowledge there has been no public response from a manufacturer to the policy, but I have a few suggestions.

First, it is interesting to note that the city did not say what answers would be considered to be “successful,” or how many answers a company has to get “correct.” But one can hazard a guess as to what they want to hear. And thanks to the poor wording of their questions, it is likely most manufacturers can tell them exactly what they want to hear, even if they sell the wildly-popular modern sporting rifles.

“Do you manufacture assault weapons for civilian use?” If you’re a manufacturer of AR-15s, for example, you can honestly answer “no.” Semi-automatic firearms are NOT “assault weapons.”

“Do you sell assault weapons for civilian use?” Again, if you sell AR-15s to law-abiding citizens, for example, you can honestly answer “no.” Semi-automatic firearms are NOT “assault weapons.”

“Which firearms does your company agree to not sell to civilians?” A fitting and truthful answer to this question could simply be, “Those prohibited by state and or Federal law.”

“Do you require your dealers to conduct background checks?” Once again, a truthful answer is simply, “We follow all Federal and state laws.”

“Does your company have a plan in place to invest in gun and ammunition-tracing technologies?” This is, presumably, a question referring to unproven micro-stamping, or so-called “ballistic fingerprinting” – a technique that has repeatedly failed in test, and that could be easily defeated by a criminal. Once again, a truthful answer is simply, “We follow all Federal and state laws.”

“Do you use, at a minimum, industry best practices for inventory control and transactions?” The answer? You guessed it. “We follow all Federal and state laws.”

So many manufacturers could probably answer the questions and still win contracts. But I’d like to suggest another idea …

I like his suggestion for “another idea” better.  Just say no.

Do not sell firearms of any kind to the City of Toledo, at any time, for any reason whatsoever.

I don’t like the classification of something as an “assault weapon,” any more than I like the gun rights crowd (us) trying to argue the contrary, i.e., that there is no such thing as an “assault weapon” or that AR-15s aren’t “weapons of war.”  Virtually every weapon, from bolt action rifles, to shotguns, to revolvers, to rocks and spears, have been weapons of war, and all weapons can be used to assault someone or some position.

Don’t argue semantics.  When we do that we just adopt the language framework of the enemy.  Just refuse to sell the firearms to the Toledo police department.  It’s for their own good.  After all, if the cops have guns, they’ll just execute a no-knock raid and cause some unsuspecting homeowner to think there’s a break-in, ending with the imprisonment of the homeowner.

Or something else nefarious like that.

CNN:

WGN9:

ROBBINS, Ill. — Witnesses said a Midlothian police officer responding to a shooting inside a south suburban bar shot at the wrong person early Sunday morning.

After security asked a group of drunken men to leave Manny’s Blue Room Bar around 4 a.m. Sunday, witnesses said someone came back with a gun and opened fire. Security returned fire, and according to witnesses, 26-year-old armed security guard Jemel Roberson apprehended one of the men involved outside.

“He had somebody on the ground with his knee in back, with his gun in his back like, ‘Don’t move,'” witness Adam Harris said.

Soon after, witnesses said, an officer responding to the scene fired at Roberson — killing him.

“Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security!’ He was a security guard,” Harris said. “And they still did their job, and saw a black man with a gun, and basically killed him.”

Authorities were releasing few details Sunday night. Four other people, including the suspected shooter, sustained non-life threatening injuries.

A spokeswoman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said Roberson had a valid FOID card, but did not have a concealed-carry license.

To the black dude, I would say no, you’re just imagining that.  This happens to white dudes too.  It’s the way the police work, it isn’t about race.

Well, anyway, it’s nice to see that the police are doing what they always do, i.e., shooting everything in sight when they show up to a scene.  That’s the only reliable thing we’ve seen about interactions with the police.