Woman Fatally Shot by Police at Cosco Handing Out Pizza Samples.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


Ok, how about a new question.

How do cops in Britain deal with these types of situations then? They can call for a special operations unit to bring them firearms, but surely that takes time.

So do cops in Britain respond to knife threats like this by waiting for their fire arms to arrive then they shoot them?

Originally posted by boncho

Threatening and actions are two separate things. Unless the scissors were bloody and their was a dead stock boy on the ground when the police arrived I have no idea why someone would end up dead in this situation.

Well, that's pretty contextual. If she's drifting about calmly going 'stab stab stab I do believe I shall stab you all. Die. Die. Die.' whilst slowly turning pirouettes and doing a few jetes then, yah, I probably wouldn't believe it and would try to talk her out of it.

If instead she's in the break room where I've got limited maneuverability, and I go in there and she's giving me the Private Pyle bathroom sequence stare while holding the knife, my buddy pops her with a Taser and then she suddenly shrieks and charges with the knife, well, bang bang bang bang bang. You don't really have time for unkind words, warning shots, or martial arts baton work if they're maybe five feet away.

Originally posted by truthermantwo
You probably wont die from a stab wound, but you will from a gunshot. Anyone else see that disparity?

You're a bit more likely to die from a stab wound to the torso. Also, while you likely won't die from it, losing some fingers isn't my idea of a good day. That's what you are likely to have happen if you go grabbing for the knife hand.

Originally posted by MongusePro
reply to post by intrepid

 

There's no excuse for an execution style shot and besides it's cosco i doubt this lady was given a blade of any significance due to H&S .. these guys are trained (or used to be) to disarm not to kill outright.

Nope. Police do not get trained to disarm knives. They get trained to stay 15 feet away from a suspect armed with a knife as body Armor is ineffective, not to mention the arteries in the arms and neck are exposed. They also get trained to shoot and kill if the suspect does not comply with commands and is seen as a threat to themselves or others. What if this suspect took another innocent as a hostage holding the knife to their throat?

I don't know about you but I wouldn't trust another person with a head shot under the following circumstances : the officers are stressed and experience tunnel vision. They probably only shoot 50 rounds a year at the annual quals as required by their state. So with that in mind, they probably made the best choice.

As far as the tazer goes it is rarely effective. Sometimes a probe goes wandering off too far in one direction or loose clothing doesn't let the probe contact the skin, and a lot of times the wire gets broke after a few seconds of cycling the current. After the current is done the suspect is back to normal and still armed. And a surprisingly lot of times the battery takes a dump out of no where.

I stopped using pepper spray as I have fair skin and light eyes and it generally affects me much worse than the suspect. I got a son to go home to so I won't take that chance.

Last but not least is the Baton. Yeah right. You can thank Rodney King for making the Baton completely unusable. Never have and never will use it. Sorry, I'm not getting sued.

And there you have it. You want officers to be more effective? Buy them knife proof Armor. Give them the million dollar toys batman had. By the way there is no effective Armor against rifles, those cut through body Armor like butter. So if America wants to spend billions of dollars on new gear and training so cops can spare a few lives of knife wielding mental subjects a year have at it. But for now the training is two weeks in defensive tactics and two weeks in firearms crash course training and bam you have yourself a fully equipped officer. Now get out there and make that $20/hr count!

The first deputies arrived at the store just after 3 p.m., Chapman said. When they encountered Scott near the rear of the store, she was armed with a knife and might also have had scissors, he said.

“Preliminary indications are that she came at the deputies with a knife,” Chapman said. Sheriff’s officials said in a prepared statement Wednesday night that Scott ignored orders to drop the weapon.

...

Nora LaTeef said she had just sat down to enjoy a berry smoothie at Costco’s food court — after finishing her weekly grocery shopping with her parents — when uniformed sheriff’s deputies burst into the store. The deputies headed toward what appeared to be an employee lounge and then dashed down the aisles, crouching as they moved, LaTeef said.

LaTeef said that she could tell that the deputies “were coming in for action” and that she remarked to her mother that they should probably leave. As her father went to fill up his soda, LaTeef said, five muffled gunshots were heard.

articles.washingtonpost.com...

In this account, she had a knife in hand.

Sounds like it happened quite quickly.

reply to post by Dynamike


From your words you seem to indicate your are a police officer. Now you state 'they are trained'. Is that how you were also trained? Curious as to how uniform training might be across cities.

I still can't believe cops have to shoot to death a very small woman holding a pizza knife despite all the reasoning given by "trained" leo's here. Come on, a small woman??? Is she some kind of a monster despite all the martial arts training and other physically strenuous exercises these cops do, they have to use excessive force on a small woman!??

Do cops nowadays so trigger happy they get orgasms every time they smell sulfur or the sound of gunshots?

reply to post by marhaba


This "small woman" as you say refused a lawful order to relinquish her weapons. She then gets hit with a taser and still proceeds to come at the cops, with weapons in hand still. In a confined space no less. I would hazard to guess the cop was suprised that she didn't go down at that point. The woman obviously had the intention to do harm. If a cop told me to stop what I was doing, by god I would stop. I've been hit by a taser in training. They hurt A LOT, but recovery is immediate. After getting hit by the taser, the first thought in my mind was relief and don't get tased again. Yet, this "small woman" still proceeded to come at the officers. That's not normal and is a real good indication that she intends on killing you. Ya I would have put five rounds into her at that point. Because at that point it's me or her, and I'm walking away with all my parts. When it comes to the knife, the larger the knife the deeper the wounds, the smaller the knife the more stabs you get. So take your pick.

To say she could have been disarmed is not realistic. How are you going to disarm her with a knife in one hand and scissors in the other? With her coming at you, you would get torn to ribbins, or have scissors stuck in your neck.

Originally posted by marhaba
I still can't believe cops have to shoot to death a very small woman holding a pizza knife despite all the reasoning given by "trained" leo's here. Come on, a small woman??? Is she some kind of a monster despite all the martial arts training and other physically strenuous exercises these cops do, they have to use excessive force on a small woman!??

Do cops nowadays so trigger happy they get orgasms every time they smell sulfur or the sound of gunshots?

Maybe the suspect shouldn't have pulled a knife and//or scissors on people.

You sound to me like another arm chair Jack Bauer that is convinced they would have done the right thing like shooting her in the leg or tackling her yet you were not there in that situation.

Has any additional info come out? The timing of the events, did they have an opportunity for non or less than lethal options.

reply to post by Dynamike


But but but....all the movies I see show that cops are all martial arts experts, that can just kick the weapon out of the hand of a bad guy.

Originally posted by marhaba
I still can't believe cops have to shoot to death a very small woman holding a pizza knife despite all the reasoning given by "trained" leo's here. Come on, a small woman??? Is she some kind of a monster despite all the martial arts training and other physically strenuous exercises these cops do, they have to use excessive force on a small woman!??

Do cops nowadays so trigger happy they get orgasms every time they smell sulfur or the sound of gunshots?

A weapon does to distinguish between LE or civilian.
A knife is a knife, regardless who is holding it, it can cut or kill either way.

A video would be nice to see or a more complete statement.

I have read the cops headed toward an employee lounge.

Also that the shooting happened by the deli counter.

Suppose both could be correct.

here is some info

the dead woman , mhai scott, was 38 and the divorced mother of 2 girls, ages 8 and 12

ashburn.patch.com...



Renee Haber, a front end manager at the store near the busy intersection of Cascades Parkway and Route 7, told the Post the incident began with the woman grabbed a knife from another station and was making “strange movements” while making "crazy" comments

“She was frightening her supervisor,” Haber told the paper. She said workers there called police

the cop who fired the shots and the cop that was injured are on administrative leave while this is investigated.

Originally posted by ColeYounger
reply to post by intrepid

 

I can't believe the cop(s) couldn't have taken the knife or scissors from her and subdued her. Cops are paid to be in harm's way. They are WAY too trigger happy. Just recently, some cops were called to a truck stop in my city after someone called 911 to report a "crazy man". It was a trucker who was diabetic, and was having medication and blood sugar issues which caused him to act erractically. He was holding a large wrench and was "talking incoherently". A cop just flat-out gunned him down . This happens way too frequently. These cops need to at least TRY to subdue the person, even if it means getting cut or otherwise injured. Cops are on record having said things like "They don't pay me enough to risk my ass." It's easier to just shoot the pizza sample lady. They know they'll get away with it.

edit on 1-6-2013 by ColeYounger because: spelling

edit on 1-6-2013 by ColeYounger because: (no reason given)

Similar thing happened in Canada, Robert Dziekański who had just arrived in Vancouver to meet his mother, was tasered to death:

en.wikipedia.org...ński_Taser_incident

Not forgetting the guy who had poured petrol over himself and threatened to set fire to himself. Plod electrocutes him with a taser, which of course, ignites the petrol.

The title of this thread, as with many anti-police threads is misleading and should be changed to something more appropriate. The opening post states that the female was carrying weapons and waving them around which could be why she was shot? Or perhaps this sweet and innocent female was shot for simply handing out pizza samples (sarcasm)? Seriously ladies and gents read before you write. ATS need to ensure these anti-police threads are monitored because some of the language used is vile and goes to show people have read the thread title without reading the post and just replied.

The problems I have are these:

They didn't clear the store before getting close enough to confront her

They got too close, and if no one else was around who were they saving from this woman? It was basically a static stand off situation that could have been monitored from a distance.

There were from 2 to 5 cops on the scene, enough overwhelming force so that no one cop needed to be fearful and panic.

They shot (at) her with a tazer that did not function. Each cop has a tazer. Shoot her again.

They shot not one, not two, not three but FIVE shots at her. It sounds bizarre. Most civilians go down and fetal position when shot once. Sounds like it was a 'she's still moving, shoot her four more times' situation. It sounds to me as though the cop was panicked, scared and out of control.

His partner did not shoot her even once. In a REAL threat she'd have been shot by both cops, maybe twice each. The fact that the other cop(s) did not shoot her is suspicious to me.

She had, as of yet, not committed any crimes, not touched, wounded or harmed anyone. She deserves to be treated with some respect and care not to harm her.

Yet this small woman, a model employee to that point is shot five times until she was dead, and it appears to me WELL PAST the point of stopping the threat.

Finally, we still don't have any updates. This smacks of holding back while people get rid of evidence and get their stories straight.

It's a shame that this Women had to lose her life, but I am sure if any of you cop haters had your child, or any family member for that matter, within the vicinity of this knife waving nutcase then you might be a bit more understanding concerning the action that this officer was forced to take. It's a tragedy either way.

There are good cops and bad cops, know why? Because they are people just like us. Some of you need to fix your brain. ~$heopleNation

reply to post by ProfessorT


So i'm reading back to front from were i left off trying to monitor what the thread and get a jist of the general conversation. Then i come across posts like like.. *Sigh*

As has been said earlier and as i denied this is CLEARLY not a police bashing thread. If you'd have taken the time to practice what you preach and read through it that would become clear to you.

We even thanked everyone for there logical contributions considering the topic. The title is appropriate, a woman was shot and killed by the police that's what it states. It's up to the audience to investigate further. My position as the OP is just to put the info out there for all to read and come to there own conclusions.

There has actually been alot of good info from members in the last 24hrs and i shall be thanking them when i get the chance.

Originally posted by Dynamike

Originally posted by MongusePro
reply to post by intrepid

 

There's no excuse for an execution style shot and besides it's cosco i doubt this lady was given a blade of any significance due to H&S .. these guys are trained (or used to be) to disarm not to kill outright.

Nope. Police do not get trained to disarm knives. They get trained to stay 15 feet away from a suspect armed with a knife as body Armor is ineffective, not to mention the arteries in the arms and neck are exposed. They also get trained to shoot and kill if the suspect does not comply with commands and is seen as a threat to themselves or others. What if this suspect took another innocent as a hostage holding the knife to their throat?

I don't know about you but I wouldn't trust another person with a head shot under the following circumstances : the officers are stressed and experience tunnel vision. They probably only shoot 50 rounds a year at the annual quals as required by their state. So with that in mind, they probably made the best choice.

As far as the tazer goes it is rarely effective. Sometimes a probe goes wandering off too far in one direction or loose clothing doesn't let the probe contact the skin, and a lot of times the wire gets broke after a few seconds of cycling the current. After the current is done the suspect is back to normal and still armed. And a surprisingly lot of times the battery takes a dump out of no where.

I stopped using pepper spray as I have fair skin and light eyes and it generally affects me much worse than the suspect. I got a son to go home to so I won't take that chance.

Last but not least is the Baton. Yeah right. You can thank Rodney King for making the Baton completely unusable. Never have and never will use it. Sorry, I'm not getting sued.

And there you have it. You want officers to be more effective? Buy them knife proof Armor. Give them the million dollar toys batman had. By the way there is no effective Armor against rifles, those cut through body Armor like butter. So if America wants to spend billions of dollars on new gear and training so cops can spare a few lives of knife wielding mental subjects a year have at it. But for now the training is two weeks in defensive tactics and two weeks in firearms crash course training and bam you have yourself a fully equipped officer. Now get out there and make that $20/hr count!

Thanks for the contribution...

You see this is my quarrel... 'get new gear & spend money'. No sorry have to disagree. Go back to the days were police were willing to put there own lives on the line to protect those around them.

I know it's largely not the policeman's fault as these days they have a wall of H&S and paperwork to get through that previously wasn't a burden.

New equipment and the works is all good and well but it's no substitute for bravery and fine police work. Despite all the great info this thread has received from members i'm sticking to my original position. I.e this could have been dealt with better.

reply to post by research100


Thanks for the additional info.

This brings up another recurring issue i see time after time in the US today. Police, when called to an incident these days react, and ifact are trained to react with a instant paranoia. Call it what you will but that's what it is.

Instead of taking the time to assess the situation as an individual scene and decide the appropriate level and course of action. It's straight to defcon 1, nukes and pistols at the ready, someone is going to go postal.

I know an officers safety is the number one priority but really, officers need to go back to a mindset of being peacekeepers not all pumped up SWAT members. I know there are still many good cops out there which follow peacekeeping old fashioned police tactics but there numbers are dwindling.