Archive for the 'Police' Category

Blue Lives Matter:

The Miramar Police Department has suspended two officers from their SWAT team for responding to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting without having orders to do so.

When the first reports of an active shooter came out, the Miramar officers were in training in Coral Springs, nearby the Parkland high school, and they rushed to assist in stopping the carnage that left 17 students and faculty fatally shot, and another 16 wounded, on Valentine’s Day, the Miami Herald reported.

The police response to the mass shooting at the school – specifically that of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office – has been highly criticized for the incident commander’s failure to use updated active-shooter response methods.

Broward County Sheriff’s Captain Jan Jordan has been criticized for ordering officers to set up a perimeter rather than sending them in to stop the shooter, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

Several police officers and medics have reported that they believed more lives were lost because the incident commander wouldn’t let them respond earlier.

Some critics have called the officers who stayed outside and waited for permission to enter “cowards,” but now Miramar police are punishing two members of their own elite unit who did rush toward danger to try to save students’ lives.

Miramar Police Detectives Jeffrey Gilbert and Carl Schlosser were suspended from the Miramar SWAT team eight days after the shooting in Parkland, according to the Miami Herald.

Both remain on active duty with the department, but working in different capacities, the Sun-Sentinelreported.

“Effective immediately you have been suspended from the SWAT Team until further notice,” Miramar SWAT team commander Captain Kevin Nosowicz wrote in a Feb. 22 memo obtained by the Miami Herald through a public records request. “Please make arrangements with the training department to turn in your SWAT-issued rifle.”

The memo said Det. Gilbert and Det. Schlosser acted “without the knowledge or authorization from your chain of command” and created an “officer safety situation due to dispatch not knowing your location or activity” by heading to the massacre-in-progress independently.

An “officer safety situation.”  Next up, a little more detail.

The human urge to aid in a disaster is strong. But it can also run counter to police training. Too much response to a mass casualty situation can create confusion and hinder responders, as recent mass shootings have shown, according to Pat Franklin, a retired Miami Beach police detective.

“This is not their area, this is not their jurisdiction,” said Franklin, who consults with law enforcement agencies on internal affairs investigations. “You don’t want to let those guys loose into something that’s chaotic where they might take inappropriate action. It is prudent to have them stand down unless there is a plan.”

Of course, given the history of SWAT engagements we’ve documented over the years, I doubt that taking inappropriate actions are of a concern to the police.  They do it all day long every day all over America.  No, the issue here is as I’ve told you before.

You can call them cowards, and they are indeed just that.  But – and listen to me again – they followed procedure.  It runs contrary to procedure to save people.  It runs contrary to police procedure to put officer safety anything but first.  It runs contrary to procedure to go outside the chain of command and take actions deemed appropriate by the professional on the scene.  It even runs contrary to procedure to enter jurisdiction not your own in order to save lives.

Here that again.  “This is not their area, this is not their jurisdiction.”  It’s not even acceptable to render comfort and aid to children being shot when you’re not in your own jurisdiction.  If you are a citizen who helps or saves someone else, if you’re holding a weapon when the police arrive and follow their procedures, you’re going to get shot.  Even if you’re a cop and you render aid outside your own jurisdiction, you’re going to get disciplined.

Because.  Procedure.  Officer safety first.  Chain of command.  And remember boys and girls, these are the people who want you to be disarmed and unable to take care of your own people.

NY Daily News:

The latest city resident to cash in on police misconduct would raise a glass to toast his victory, except he doesn’t drink.

The NYPD found that out the hard way when cops tried to charge Oliver Wiggins with driving while intoxicated to cover up for a police officer who ran a marked SUV through a Brooklyn stop sign and plowed into Wiggins’ car.

Wiggins, 33, received close to $1 million from the city for his troubles, but not before he was arrested and charged with impaired driving, had his driver’s license suspended and was hit with a repair bill for his 2004 Nissan Maxima that his insurance company would not cover because of the DWI bust.

Never mind that a Breathalyzer test he took at the East Flatbush scene on April 19, 2015, showed no alcohol in his blood.

While at the hospital, after the crash at Glenwood Road and E. 43rd St., Wiggins volunteered to have his blood tested for alcohol or drugs at the hospital. That test came back negative. Reports from the EMT and DWI technician each said Wiggins had no signs of intoxication.

That didn’t stop the arresting officer, Justin Joseph, from officially reporting Wiggins had slurred speech, watery eyes, an odor of alcohol on his breath and was observed swaying. Three months later, prosecutors dismissed the charges.

But remember boys and girls, cops are the good guys and they’re there to protect and serve.  Just don’t be in their way or make “furtive” movements around them.

Miami Herald:

Broward Deputy Scot Peterson says he is no coward.

The longtime campus cop at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High has been nationally ridiculed over the last week for his response to a mass shooter on campus — including by no less than President Donald Trump, who on Monday proclaimed that he likely would have charged in himself, even unarmed.

On Monday, Peterson pushed back against the critics in his first public statement, essentially arguing he did the right things in an uncertain, chaotic situation. “Allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue,” according to the statement sent from Fort Lauderdale attorney Joseph DiRuzzo.

Last week, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel took the extraordinary step of singling out Peterson for failing to engage with confessed killer Nikolas Cruz as he gunned down 17 people — an accusation that has turned the one-time school resource officer of the year into a political scapegoat for a string of local and federal law enforcement errors revolving around Cruz.

Peterson said he did not storm the halls looking for the shooter because he initially “heard gunshots but believed those gunshots were originating from outside of the buildings on the school campus,” according to the statement. “BSO trains its officers that in the event of outdoor gunfire one is to seek cover and assess the situation in order to communicate what one observes with other law enforcement.”

He “took up a tactical position” between two other buildings next to Building 12, where Cruz spent six minutes unleashing gunfire with an AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  A “tactical position.”  Except I don’t believe him.  I can hear gun fire outside, and I can hear it coming from a building, and I have never mistaken the two.

I told you guys, the deputies were following department procedure.  It isn’t procedure to put their own lives at risk.  It’s procedure to wait until help arrives, hopefully a SWAT team and dogs, and then take a building room by room according to clearing procedures.

I’ve done that too, i.e., take a building room by room before I was going to enter it, the building being a home in a bad part of town (my mother-in-law’s home), and having been vacant for weeks at a time, with me preparing to go inside and work all night long to repair and sell it.  And the home had evidence of having been entered while I wasn’t there.

But this isn’t that.  This is a school full of children, and if you had been there you would have done the same thing I would have.  We would have entered the building and hunted the shooter.  The police will always protect themselves first and foremost – by procedure.  By intent.  Got it?

ABC:

Broward County sheriff’s deputies will now carry AR-15 rifles while on school campuses following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last week, Sheriff Scott Israel announced today.

The new policy was implemented Wednesday morning. In lieu of gun lockers, the only time deputies will not be “slinging a rifle” is when the firearm is locked in police vehicles, Israel said.

The rifles will not be fully automatic and will only be handled by deputies who are “trained and qualified” to operate them.

Trained and qualified.  So that they can cuddle with their rifles as they run outside and hide behind cars until the shooting is over.

NYT has the story.  WRSA is also on it.  PJM is also on it (via reader TK).  Instapundit is also on it here and here.

So what’s the big deal?  I see no problem here.  This might be what it takes to disavow Americans of the ridiculous notion that the cops are there to protect them.

Castle Rock versus Gonzales and Warren versus the District of Columbia make it very clear that this simply isn’t true.

Got guns?  Willing to use them?  Know how?  Got enough ammunition?

I am and I do – except for the last part.

It happened in Independence, Missouri when a man saved his wife, daughter and thirty other people from a potential shooting, where the hero dropped his weapon, raised his hands, and the police promptly shot him after saving those people.  Now it’s happened with another potential mass shooting in Texas.

As news of the tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida dominated the airwaves this week, a massive hostage situation—which was quickly turning into a mass shooting situation—was foiled by a hero in a church. That hero, however, is now in the hospital after police showed up to the scene and shot him.

The situation was well on its way to becoming one of the deadliest shootings in history as the gunman took over 100 people hostage inside the Faith City Mission church on Wednesday.

“They said there was a gun in the building everyone started running all different ways,” said Clay Murdock, a student at Faith City Mission.

According to WLOX, Murdock said he tried to get as many people inside their sound room as possible.

“We’re standing in there and everyone starts praying,” said Murdock. “I went outside to see what was going on if I could get more people in there and right when as I went outside the guy was standing right in front of me with the pistol.”

Murdock then ran outside.

According to the Amarillo police, the initial call came in around 8:45 a.m. and indicated that there was an armed suspect inside who was holding 100 people hostage.

Sergeant Brent Barbee told reporters that when officers breached the building, they encountered an individual who had a handgun.

“The officers fired shots that struck the man,” said Barbee. “After some additional investigation, they’ve learned that the man that [had] the gun may have taken the firearm away from the original suspect in the call. The man who originally had the gun has been taken into custody.”

Later that day, police clarified that they indeed shot the wrong man.

As I’ve said, stay away from the police.  It’s best not to involve them in anything, ever.  They are the most dangerous people on the roads, in the neighborhoods or anywhere else.  At least with criminals you know what you’ve got, what to expect and how to respond.

With the police, you know they’re going to overreact, ignore their backstop, and put their own safety above that of everyone else.  But if you react to the police in a manner you need in order to protect yourself and your loved ones and neighbors, the courts will hang you.  You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.  Only the police are safe when they invoke their procedures.  That’s by design.

It’s a dangerous thing to offer up initial, unconstructed thoughts since they may all prove to be nonsense because of lack of information.  And yet I do have initial reactions that can serve as an open thread for discussion.

The police were worthless once again.  I had to bring it to my wife’s attention one more time while we were watching SWAT teams outside in safety while children poured out of the building that by procedure, the police would protect themselves first and foremost.  The children come later.  That shocked my wife.

The shooter did his nefarious deeds inside unabated and unmolested.  He then apparently shot at least two more people outside after he was finished, and the police caught him outside, not inside.  The police apparently didn’t prevent a single death or injury.  No one will protect you and your family except you.

Next thought.  Expect yet another push for gun control laws that only affect peaceable men and women.

Final thought.  How sad for the poor children in the school, and how sad for their parents.  This picture is sad too.

This person did exactly what s/he was taught to do: run, hide (and fight, but this last part would have been irrelevant).  This picture is the picture of failure.  It is emblematic of the failure of American society to deal with the concept of self defense.  If this poor student had gotten to the point of fighting, according to DHS instructions, s/he could have only thrown potted plants and chairs.

Again, how sad.

CNN:

A West Virginia city has agreed to pay a former police officer $175,000 to settle a wrongful-termination lawsuit after he was fired following his decision not to shoot a distraught suspect who was holding a gun.

The lawsuit accused the Weirton Police Department of wrongfully terminating officer Stephen Mader after he chose not to shoot a 23-year-old man while responding to a domestic disturbance in 2016.

“At the end of the day, I’m happy to put this chapter of my life to bed,” Mader said in a news release by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.

“The events leading to my termination were unjustified and I’m pleased a joint resolution has been met. My hope is that no other person on either end of a police call has to go through this again.”

The incident occurred May 6, 2016, when Mader responded to a domestic-disturbance call and found Ronald “R.J.” Williams Jr. with an unloaded handgun.

Mader told CNN last year that Williams was “visibly choked up” and told Mader to shoot him. As a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan, Mader told CNN that he concluded Williams wasn’t a threat and so he tried to de-escalate the situation.

As Mader was trying to get Williams to drop his gun, two other Weirton police officers arrived. Mader told CNN that Williams raised his gun and was immediately shot and killed by one of the other officers. A state investigation found the officer’s actions were justified.

On June 7, 2016, the Weirton Police Department fired Mader. The lawsuit, filed in May 2017, claims the department fired him because of “failure to meet probationary standards of an officer” and “apparent difficulties in critical incident reasoning.”

“Failure to meet probationary standards.”  Or in other words, he wasn’t pathological enough for law enforcement work in America.  You see, Marine, there is nothing more important than the costumed clowns going home safely at the end of their shift.  The ability to discern your surroundings and circumstances and make wise judgments isn’t valued in American LEO work.

Unfortunately, the citizens will pay for this settlement.  He should never have been fired.  Instead, the police officer who fired him should have been stripped naked, marched out the public square and publicly flogged.  Then the young Marine should have been put in charge of the department.

But that’s not the America we live in today, now is it?

NY Daily News:

A Tennessee sheriff ordered his deputies to shoot an unarmed man during a slow-speed car chase so they wouldn’t damage their patrol cars by ramming him off the road, according to a lawsuit.

Sheriff Oddie Shoupe of White County is being sued for excessive force in the death of Michael Dial, who was fatally shot by police while driving with a suspended license on State Highway 70.

After Dial was killed, Shoupe arrived at the scene, where he was captured on a deputy’s body camera saying, “I love this s–t…I thrive on it,” according to the lawsuit filed by Dial’s widow Robyn Spainhoward.

Technically, I think you’d call this a violation of the Supreme Court decision in Tennessee versus Garner.  And technically, I think you’d call Sheriff Shoupe a psychopath.

But only if you’re technical about it.  Otherwise he’s just another community hero.

Via a reader, this from Free Thought Project:

Independence, Missouri – The man who should be celebrated as a hero for saving his wife, daughter, and at least 30 strangers from an armed gunman during an attempted robbery, is now recovering from a gunshot wound after police arrived at the scene and shot him.

Mike Becker, 31, told the Kansas City Star that he grabbed his handgun and rushed to the local Dollar General after he received a call from his wife saying that she, their 4-year-old daughter, and several other customers in the store were being threatened by a man with a gun.

While the customers huddled together in the back of the store, Becker’s wife hid their daughter behind bags of dog food. When Becker arrived, he said he found the gunman outside, pounding on the glass door.

“The only thing in my mind was my baby and wife,” Becker said, describing how he intervened and put his body between the gunman and the glass. “There was no way the gunman was getting in that store.”

When police officers finally arrived at the scene, Becker told the Star that he dropped his gun and raised his hands in the air, in an attempt to show police that he was not a threat.

But then the unthinkable happened—even though Becker had his hands in the air, the officers shot him with a rifle, wounding his hip. Bystanders who witnessed the scene said that they were shocked to watch officers shoot the man who was brave enough to confront the gunman.

“I was figuring, ‘How the hell do they shoot him?’ He never pointed a gun at the cops. He complied with everything they said … and then you heard a pop,” Raymond Watts told the Star.

Police eventually arrested the gunman, but despite the fact that witnesses claimed they were yelling at officers and telling them that they shot an innocent man, the officers still proceeded to put Becker in handcuffs, and they refused to let his wife near him.

Nice.  Late to the scene, a dollar short of a full stack, shoot the hero, refuse to allow succor and comfort from his most loved one, slap him in cuffs, misreport what happened, and then “investigate” the incident.

As I said before, “stay away from law enforcement, as they are the most dangerous people on the road or in neighborhoods.”  Here there was little he could do except get shot by the keystone cops, brainless dick heads with badges.  David also mentioned this today.  “But the important thing is: No officers were injured.”  All of the costumed clowns went home safely at the end of their shift.