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

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
reply to post by MongusePro

 

I'm sorry but when someone has a knife and i have a gun, i wouldn't shoot to kill....just disarm. No matter if i am immune to prosecution or not....i would have to live with the fact that i took another life.
I couldn't live whit my self if i killed someone that could have been disarmed with minimal threat.


just like this story near my home.
Shot in hand

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

if you were a cop, you would shoot to kill, they must be trained that way. if they are not, this wouldn't keep happening all over the US, in different LEO jurisdictions spanning years and years....don't officers carry billy clubs or those long steel flashlights?...they couldn't have swung that and knocked the knife out of hands? geez, she was a young Filipino girl...how big and scary could she have been?

Originally posted by MongusePro


My fear is that this is going to be accepted as self-defence... other officers are going to see that and copy. 'having a bad week? Wife driving you nuts... NO PROBLEM! Just shoot a minority, you'll feel great'

Way to generalize every action of an LEO.

Every week on ATS there's a good old fashion Cop bashing thread. I see this is this weeks favorite.


Not all LEO's are bad. Not all LEO's pull their guns. EVERY situation is different. Too bad there are some that want to make it that way.

reply to post by shaneslaughta


Oh yeah man... i followed that story. What an example of a responsible copper with a well trained aim. We need more of this, we need cops to understand they are not there to just protect... serving can be done in many ways. I think they need to go back to basics, look at 1950's style policing when the US was at its happiest and go from there.

reply to post by TheRedneck


No need to be sorry man. What you say may be the case. There's another thing though. What about drugs? If you've never seen what a person is capable of when on PCP you have NO idea how dangerous it is. I've seen HUGE CO's thrown around but 130lb people. Not saying this is the case but did the officers know it was or wasn't?

reply to post by jimmyx


I would not shoot to kill, unless I'm in immediate danger, a pair of scissors don't cut it for me.
A life is a gift, a am not one to judge who gets to keep that gift.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
There's a lot to this story that doesn't make sense.

There was apparently no previous indication of a problem. The woman probably did have access to a knife and scissors, both of which I admit are deadly, but why would she begin to threaten employees and customers over something so seemingly minor as running out of pizza? That would indicate a mental condition that was not indicated by her earlier actions.

A stun gun, as I have said many times, has different effects on different people. Most people will be immobilized and experience severe pain; some will die; some will be hardly affected. It depends on the internal body resistance and on the general cardiac health of the individual, both of which are quite variable. I believe, therefore, that the stun gun did not work, but what about mace? What about disarming hand-to-hand? A knife and scissors may be deadly, but only at close range (the article did not state she was an expert at knife-throwing). A gun is a long-range weapon.

There were five shots. Why? Will one shot, two at the most, not bring down a woman with a pair of scissors?

I will acquiesce to the need for the police, the need to disarm the woman, the need to restore order in a public venue, but not to the use of a long-range weapon five times because the stun gun had little effect. I do not believe there are any laws against having a high internal body resistance in Virginia.

I believe this is probably an example of excessive force. Sorry Intrepid.

TheRedneck

Again i bring up the shoot 1st ask questions and assess later... unfortunately it's a growing trend. The best thing that could come out of this is if the case is used to train officers about what not to do or as a case study on how you could approach the situation differently.

reply to post by intrepid


I don't know if drugs are even a possibility, wouldn't you think that her employer or other employees would have noticed her behavior as being off?

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
reply to post by jimmyx

 

I would not shoot to kill, unless I'm in immediate danger, a pair of scissors don't cut it for me.
A life is a gift, a am not one to judge who gets to keep that gift.

Easy to say behind a computer screen.
Next time you are actually faced with that situation why don't you film it and show us how you stayed Jack Bauer the whole time. If you think a pair of scissors can't kill someone then you are naive.
Too bad the suspect didn't value the fact that life is a gift.

reply to post by intrepid


I also have seen people do things, under the influence, that seem humanly impossible.

Did these officers have the right to do what they did?

Did they use excessive force?

All these things will be answered in a official inquest.

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
reply to post by intrepid

 

I don't know if drugs are even a possibility, wouldn't you think that her employer or other employees would have noticed her behavior as being off?

That's the point. Her employer said she was a good employee. This action was an anomaly for her. Something wasn't right.

Originally posted by sonnny1

Originally posted by MongusePro


My fear is that this is going to be accepted as self-defence... other officers are going to see that and copy. 'having a bad week? Wife driving you nuts... NO PROBLEM! Just shoot a minority, you'll feel great'

Way to generalize every action of an LEO.

Every week on ATS there's a good old fashion Cop bashing thread. I see this is this weeks favorite.


Not all LEO's are bad. Not all LEO's pull their guns. EVERY situation is different. Too bad there are some that want to make it that way.

Pardon my obvious frustrations

I have nothing but respect for coppers that do there job and do it right. It's a dangerous game and they have no idea if they will even make it home that night. A traffic stop gone bad and they're 6ft under...

I'm using this example to state categorically that 'THIS IS NOT RIGHT'! There is and most likely was another way.

When it comes to training, every law enforcement agency follows the use of force continuum.
1. Physical presence.
2. Voice commands.
3. Soft hands. Escorts, preasure point control technique, arm bar, wrist locks.
4. Hard hands. Strikes to arms, legs, torso. No head strikes.
5. Less than lethal force. Batton strikes not resulting in broken bones, OC/CS/Mace/Pepper sprays, Taser.
6. Lethal force. Firearms, batton strikes resulting in broken bones and head shots, use of edge weapons.

Officers are trained to use force up to one step higher than the subject. In this case, we can see that presence and possiblly voice levels did not work. They used less than lethal (according to the story) first even when presented with edged weapons by the subject.

Taser does not always work if both probes do not attach. Tasers use a shaped charge T-wave interupt pattern. Meaning, the electrical charged mimics the brain wave to contract the voluntary muscles group. If both probes do not attach, the T-wave interupt will not occur, however, the pain factor will still exist. Many people can will themselves through this. A correct tasing fells like this. Imagine you body bening squeezed (contracted) and being hit by a thousand rubberbands at the same time. That's close to the sensation.

After the taser has failed, they could have reloaded the cartridge if not faced with lethal force themselves. It takes about 2-3 seconds. The kill radius for edged weapons is 21 feet with the attack being as fast at 1.5-2 seconds. Tests have shown, at 21 feet, a knife attack could be upon an officer before his weapon is pulled.

So, if the woman did not respond to commands to put down the sharps, did not comply after the Taser, and proceeded towards the officers with weapons in hand, there was not much of a choice as to use lethal force. With the information we have from the story, it did not appear to be abuse of force, it is a very very unfortunate situation. My prayers go out to the family of the woman who was killed, and the officer's as well.

Originally posted by opethPA

Originally posted by shaneslaughta
reply to post by jimmyx

 

I would not shoot to kill, unless I'm in immediate danger, a pair of scissors don't cut it for me.
A life is a gift, a am not one to judge who gets to keep that gift.

Easy to say behind a computer screen.
Next time you are actually faced with that situation why don't you film it and show us how you stayed Jack Bauer the whole time. If you think a pair of scissors can't kill someone then you are naive.
Too bad the suspect didn't value the fact that life is a gift.

I never said that they couldn't kill? I said i wouldn't take a life over scissors or a knife unless there was an immediate threat to life.
You don't know me, you don't know my background, my history or anything. get out of here with that pics or it didn't happen crap. if something like this should ever arise my first priority is the situation, not your PC viewing pleasure.

Originally posted by sonnny1

All these things will be answered in a official inquest.

You have too much faith in a broken system.

There has to have been a better way to handle this situation. Maybe:

The woman is in the employee lounge. Employees leave and keep the door closed. Cops now have her trapped. Let the woman calm down. Explain the situation from their point of view.

Something seems to have changed with police and deadly force.

reply to post by MongusePro

look at 1950's style policing when the US was at its happiest and go from there.

I think many African Americans and minorities would disagree.

reply to post by intrepid


For all we know it could have been a medical issue causing this behavior. Low blood sugar can make people act aggressive and confused. It could mimic signs of psychosis as well. However, combine that with scissors and knives...its a bad situation.

Originally posted by shaneslaughta

Originally posted by sonnny1

All these things will be answered in a official inquest.

You have too much faith in a broken system.

What would you recommend then? Jury but public opinion won't work. Look here. They're guilty already.

reply to post by opethPA


As of right now, based on the linked article, we don't know for sure what the suspect had in her hands, what she was doing or saying, or even how long she was holding them after the officer gave the command "drop the knife!" It might have been 3 or 4 seconds, and 1 or more lurching steps towards an officer or bystander, or it might have been a fraction of a second -- as if the command to "drop the knife" was simply the starting pistol in her death-scene -- when considered as a downhill motor race.

And because of the way media is reported in most places, we will never know, unless we make a note and go searching later, because follow up's to the news are a lot more boring than the initial shock-story posted without any check-able facts.

reply to post by jam321


I can see your point, but we don't have to revert completely.