NEWS: Police Shoot a Baby Used as a Shield

There are units trained to deal with these sort of situations, they should have shot the guy in the head or hand that held the firearm when he appeared and shot "around" the child.

Maybe each individual officer should have better training when average firearms officers in the U.K. can shoot guns out of people hands. (Which has been on the news a few times) from 20/30 yards away, easy as...

To join a couple others that are leaning towards "whole story first", I bring you this about your automatic notions of "cops kill all" ..............

CNN Article
Bratton said the fatal shooting was only the second time a hostage had been killed since the department formed its SWAT team in 1967. In that time, SWAT officers have responded to 3,800 calls involving hostages or people barricaded inside buildings.

An autopsy is being done on the baby also, as to decipher what firearm struck her. If you don't know handguns or close-proximity handgun combat, then you don't know just how easy it would be for the fathers firearm to have been the one to kill his baby. It is extremely plausable.

The story is new, why do so many people conclude on their damn own as to exactly what happened? Were you there? Was there a webcam on the scene? No, you read one damn news story and instanly become judge, jury, and executioner.

Believe it or not, cops don't like killing people. Ever been on a fire scene? Ever witnessed live feed or video even after a cop inadvertantly killed an innocent? You see a grown man, this "kill all human", as you would have it, break down into tears like a little girl.

Misfit

Believe it or not, cops don't like killing people.

If they match the girls gunshot wound to one of the cops guns, that police officer will either be suspended for an extended period without pay, or will be dismissed from the force entirely. Either way, he will have to live in shame for the rest of his life. Trust me, this is not something that any officer would have purposely done.

Hm... so a drunken raging maniac with a gun is SHOOTING at INNOCENT PEOPLE and using an INFANT as a shield, and there exist people who will blame the police department for the tragic harm that befell the child.

That amazes me!

Who in the world do these moral preachers think they are? The guy was a danger to anyone in the area. He could have MURDERED dozens of people. That he needed to be stopped instantly was not up for debate.

All of you sitting here saying "oh they should have this, they should have that" have NEVER faced something like that in person. You do not have 2 days to consider your options. You do not have hours upon hours to wait for the opportune moment to arrive. This is split second thinking. Split second thinking designed specifically to PROTECT THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF PEOPLE POSSIBLE. Not a single perp... and NO not a single baby either. The greatest amount of people possible.

No cop wants to shoot a child. Give me a break. It's obvious to anyone that this was a tragedy that each and every person involved wishes they could go back and change. But how dare anyone blame police officers faced with a potential mass murderer instead of the savage who held an innocent baby knowing that the baby's presence would allow him to rage on unchecked.

Your blame is in the wrong place and it's disgusting.

No cop wants to shoot a child

But they sure like to Tazer them silly..
Police use stun gun on 6-year-old

And lets not forget about them helping out people who want to kill themselves.
Cops Shoot Suicidal Teen In Front Of Parents

If you would like, we can bring up a whole bunch more than this. Fact being people use "The police did the right thing", but in actuallity if this was in a rich white area of town we wouldnt be talking about this.

The sad thing is I new just by reading the title of this thread that the whole story would have been skewed and distorted to show the officers as baby killers. I didn't even have to read the article to know who that there would be those of you who would do this. But I did read the article and can see for myself that all that could have been done to save lives was done. This could have been MUCH MUCH MUCH worse if the cops hadn't done what they did when they did it.

[edit on 12-7-2005 by mpeake]

A sad story indeed..............

Its funny how in my whole life I have never looked at the police as a force to oppress me or had any issues with them........

.....then it occurred to me that if I follow the rules of society then they are here to serve and protect

But usually the people with the most complaints about the function of the police in society are often ones whose actions are suspect to begin with.....

I'm not talking about posters here...............but the so called victims that initial behavior that attracts police attention to begin with.

In my days if we were clowning around as kids and a cop came by and told us to break it up.........we were finished clowning around and went on our way.....

Now when a cop comes up to a group and tells him that they open fire on them..............the way I figure it.........if I begin to resist an officer or worse fire back at them......then I have seriously jepardise my situation and anyone around me.........

People like that crazy drunk idiot should be sterilized to begin with then you wouldn't have children growing up with such role models of crime and abnormal behavior to begin with........

futuretense, could you not see that as a reation to the actions of the Police in the past? They have been less than friendly to certain groups of people, who will have learned to fear them - even when not doing anything wrong. Which has then been passed on to their children and so on and so fourth.

Also the corruption within the Judiciary and Police force only makes such matters worse. I wish the Police Force were a thing for good, but there have been so many cases when this has not been the fact and innocent people have been hurt due to them following orders or thinking they have the right to "punish" those as they see fit.

No there were not 300 shots fired. the police said Pena fired 30 rounds and Officers fired about 90 rounds, according to police.

www.wnbc.com...

A little research from the orginial link turned that info up in seconds.

In other words the mother blew things out of proportion.

That's your whole show? That's what you use to prove how evil the cops are?

A non lethal way of subduing an out of control child with a sharp weapon (would his slashing of YOUR face hurt less since he's a kid?) and an emotionally disturbed person with a large sharp knife being killed?

If I were you I would have picked better examples than the first two results that popped out of our search feature.

The second case you cite, in my opinion (hindsight of course) not the best decision. The guy needed to be subdued and disabled because you do not know if a psych patient with a knife will stab himself, his parents, or the cops. You simply do not know. Non lethal methods would have worked in that case (ideally) but you and I do not know. Perhaps he was swinging the knife and there was no time? It's possible.

You have a problem with the Police. That much is clear. They are far from perfect. We're all far from perfect.

But I'll say it again. Your blame is in the wrong place. The blame belongs to the man who said to himself "Hey if I hold my own baby up as a shield, I can shoot all I want, and they won't do anything." Even animals care for their own young. The mother animal doesn't toss her baby to the lion to shut him up.

Ohio Police Use Taser On 82-Year-Old Man

I donno about you, but this one seems like good police work.. Ehh??

Tasers in schools trigger disputes

I guess they are all cheering cause a few kids got tazed in school here..

Police stun 75-year-old

I bet she is just to much for them. Man cant stop a 75 yr old lady.

I can grab more but I wont. As I said this is an over power of the police, we all know that there are more than one way to difuse this situation.

The only thing is people dont have the balls to face the police. Ironically that is where I lay.. but thats a all together ATS story waiting to happen..

Not all police are good, after all the old timers go it will be like the nazi SS hit town.. Abuse of power and nobody will care, as long as its not happening to them.

Just ask that old Pittsburgh Steelers cousin what happened to him after he was confronted by police in an all white neiborhood.. Ohh wait you cant he is dead.

www.wsws.org...

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jonny Gammage, a black motorist and cousin of Pittsburgh Steelers football player Ray Seals, was murdered by five suburban police officers on October 12, 1995, after he was pulled over in a routine traffic stop.

[edit on 7/12/2005 by ThichHeaded]

Not all police are good

Quite right.

But you fail to see that not all police are bad.

Your attempt at pulling the race card is a poor one.

Whatever color a person's skin, running through the streets randomly firing at people will more than likely end up with him dead. And rightfully so.

The job of the police is Protect and Serve the greatest amount of people they can. If protecting the hundreds of bystanders at risk means dropping a suspect. Well, that's how it goes. A police office simply does not have the luxury of time to research cases like you do online. He must react quickly or people die. That sometimes leads to decisions you or I would disagree with.

If you don't like it, I invite you to develop a fully mechanized robotic police force that will never make mistakes. Until then it would be a good thing to understand that human beings can only make decisions based on what they see and feel.

I'm not going to read your links because I know quite well that Police have made some lousy choices. I don't need articles to tell me that. However, this particular case is not one of them.

They cut down a psychotic killer. They protected the hundreds of people he put at risk. It sucks that a baby had to get shot too, but the police didn't put her there. Her father did.

What if he got too close to something he wasn't supposed to know about...What if he witnessed something? What if he wasn't even using his kid as a hostage, how would you know if he really was or not. The only information is what they told you in response to them not using the proper units to solve the matter.

there's not doubt the father is a monster, putting the child in that situation. I'm sure the police feel awful about the child. I would like to know more about how things went down. A few things come to mind;

1. was the guy firing from cover?
2. Why weren't the police behind cover, if they were why fire at a man holding a small child?
3. What kind of gun did the man have? Seems like he would be SOL when he had to reload and he was carrying a kid.
4. It's been said he was firing at citizens, I don't know about you but if I heard gunshots my ass would duck and cover. Doesn't justify the risk to the child by the police.

I wasn't there and I don't have all the info, but it does seem like the police should have responded a bit differently.

What if he got too close to something he wasn't supposed to know about

Sorry, no such luck.

I would believe that if he was holed up trying to keep the cops away etc.

But the man was shooting randomly at uninvolved people.

If he was involved in something like you suggest, why start firing at innocents?

In my mind, regardless of the circumstances you do not shoot at innocents. Once he did that, he becomes a danger to the lives of others. The circumstances that led to it are a footnote. The fact that this guy posed a danger to the public has not been disputed by anyone.

[edit on 7-12-2005 by Djarums]

No matter if they found evidence of anywhere from 2 to 20 bullet wounds from a police handgun...the police did not kill that child. The job of being a couch-critic is not a luxury that our finest are able to enjoy. So you folks can sit there, and make up in your own minds how you THINK the situation just "MUST" have played out for this to happen, but I just want everyone who's guilty to realize...that's exactly what you're doing. The man that instigated the situation is at fault for the death of his child.
But hey, I guess everyone has to have a hobby. For some, I guess it's just not enough to live out their own lives, and focus on their own problems...no, they've also got to go and form concrete, and malicious opinions about a public service organization based on an incident that they were not even there to experience. Sure, maybe it COULD have been handled better...(And when you go gambling at the Casino...maybe you COULD have had that full flush), but some things are just out of anyone's control, and you just do the best you can within a split-second timeframe.

Now, if you folks want to continue complaining without any regard for what those police officers are going through, then so be it. But know that I have nothing else to say to you.

I haven't seen it mentioned here that the guy shot a police officer while hiding behind the baby. The officer that was shot has 5 children. Does that matter? Or does the fact that the gunman's 17 year old daughter was the one who called the police because her (step?)father was acting crazy and she was scared for her life? Or that the police managed to save the older daughter?

Nah, none of that matters because there is a huge conspiracy and police aren't really people, they are just mindless automatons serving the machine.

Originally posted by ThichHeaded
There were about 300 shots fired in this situation.

See now this is the problem that I have with the situation. Did the cops at the scene have such bad target practice sessions that they assumed more was better? It was a single target for christ's sake. This was in the wrong no matter how you cut it. I mean how big of a shield was the baby? Couldn't they have gone for the legs?

Somehow those cops will get off with a slap on the wrist no doubt.

It's always a good idea to shoot at someone shooting at you, but never to shoot at an innocent bystander or in this case a hostage. If you are going to kill the hostage, then what is the point of firing back? The man had been cornered and had a limited amount of ammo. OF course these are LAPD, who probably think they have the shooting skills of a cowboy in a John Wayne western.

It was poven that about 120 shots came from that whole thing. 30 from the guy, and 90 from police.

I was going on what the mother stated to reporters.