Archive for the 'Police' Category

Bearing Arms:

Around 3 a.m. Wednesday, 73-year-old Abraham Venson woke up to an alarm company alerting him to someone breaking into his shed, the same shed that had been broken into months ago.

Venson went outside his home with a gun in hand. As the two robbers ran from his home, Venson saw the second man reach for his waistband. That’s when Venson fired his weapon, striking the man.

Although someone was breaking into his shed, Venson was arrested for the shooting. Under Louisiana law, it is unlawful for you to fire a weapon at someone if  your life is not at risk. It doesn’t matter if they’re stealing personal property or not.

[ … ]

“Jail ain’t no place for anybody,” said neighbor Alvin Campbell, who feels the arrest against Venson was unjust.

If this report is accurate, [a] I don’t see the problem, and [b] Bob’s analysis is incomplete and perhaps flat wrong.  Sure, it may have been wiser for him not to have followed the robber.  That’s water over the dam at this point.

The way I read the report, he didn’t shoot at the robber for his crime of larceny.  He shot because he feared for his life.  This is his defense, and any good lawyer would set it up that way.

But I suspect the problem here runs deeper.  I suspect that he talked to the police and said something inaccurate or damning, and thus the prosecutor has charged him with a crime, whether his report to the police was accurate or not.

Folks, do not ever talk to the police.  Ever.  His first action should have been to call 911 and tell the dispatcher that a shooting had occurred.  The second should have been to tell the police that they can talk to his lawyer and he has nothing to say.

Please … please … learn this.  Please.  And watch this video one more time for good measure.

Via Daily Caller, KHOU:

HOUSTON- A good Samaritan with a gun stopped three suspects whom held Auto Zone employees at gunpoint during an attempted robbery on Friday night.

According to authorities, three males entered the Auto Zone on Jones Road around 9:00 p.m. demanding cash from the register. A customer who happened to be pulling up saw the men holding the employees at gunpoint.

The customer, a “LTC” permit carrier, pulled his gun and went inside the store. He made the suspects get down on the ground and drop their weapons.

Deputies said he held the suspects until they arrived. All three suspects were arrested.

Wait!  Ridiculous and impossible.  When anyone other than a trained law enforcement officer (all of whom are experts in super secret ninja warrior stress management techniques and operating tactically during tactical operations) tries to stop crime or engage in self defense or defense of others, guns take on a life of their own and rotate as if a windmill, firing uncontrollably and randomly, killing innocent women and children everywhere.  How could this happen?

But there is more.

Although deputies commended the customer for his actions, they don’t recommend this because they say it could have ended in a shootout and someone getting hurt.

Of course.  Could this have ended any other way than law enforcement telling others not to do this sort of thing and to leave it to the “experts?”

News from Wisconsin:

A cased rifle belonging to an officer with the Madison Police Department has been returned.

Officials say on Thursday the officer placed the gun on the back of his squad car, which he was about to drive from a MPD parking garage on Fairchild Street to the nearby City County Building.

The officer inadvertently forgot to move the cased weapon back into the squad, and it fell off into the roadway in the 200 block of South Hamilton Street. Realizing what had happened, the officer immediately went back to retrieve the case, only to find someone had picked it up.

According to police, on Friday the person who found the weapon was located.

Gosh, I hate it when that happens to me.  I simply cannot tell you the number of guns I’ve lost by sitting them on the trunk of the car and driving off.

Fortunately for him, they were apparently found by a law abiding citizen.  On the other hand, what’s the loss if not?  The taxpayers foot the bill for everything.  It’s not like it doesn’t happen to LEOs everywhere, right?

I have no reason to doubt the title of the YouTube post.  Holy crap!  Did they leave an M4 or AR-15 leaning up against the garage door while they tried to break into the house?  What was that dude in the truck doing with his time?  Eating doughnuts?

I think it might have been easier and done with greater tactical fidelity if they had gone up to the door and knocked. I hope they didn’t just go in and shoot the dog, leave the door all broken and walk away like most other SWAT raids. Or confiscate an ounce of marijuana and call it a success.

But then again, remember boys and girls, only law enforcement officers are trained and qualified in tactical operations while operating tactically and stress management ninja warrior techniques and are therefore qualified to handle firearms.  So who am I to talk?

LA Times:

Authorities say a federal agent accidentally shot a San Diego County sheriff’s deputy in the leg at the sheriff’s station in Lemon Grove while unloading a handgun that was seized by a joint task force Monday.

The deputy’s injury was not considered life-threatening, sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Caldwell said.

The names of the deputy and the federal agent were not released.

The agent and other members of the unnamed task force recovered the .22 handgun while serving a search warrant in eastern San Diego County, Caldwell said.

But remember boys and girls.  Only law enforcement officers are trained and qualified in tactical operations while operating tactically and stress management ninja warrior techniques and are therefore qualified to handle firearms.  You aren’t.  No, really.  Don’t argue the point.  You aren’t.

It’s a serious question.  What happened?  He was standing still with his hands on the vehicle.

Denver Post:

SWAT officers raided a Mesa County home they believed to be full of methamphetamine early Wednesday, breaching its front door and breaking several windows, only to find inside an innocent family with five children.

Authorities from several agencies are now apologizing to the family, saying they had out-of-date information from an informant. The suspects sought by investigators had at one time lived at the house in Clifton near the intersection of 32 and E roads, officials said, but had since moved away.

“We are deeply regretful of the experience to which this family was subjected,” Grand Junction police and the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said in a joint statement. “We have met with the family, including the children, to explain in detail how such a mistake was made.”

The kids range in age from 3 to 12 years old.

[ … ]

Heidi Davidson, spokeswoman for Grand Junction police, said investigators are still working to determine which agency will pay how much for the repairs.

“It should have been vetted better,” Davidson said. “We should have done a better job from the beginning.”

Davidson explained that investigators believe their informant, a woman, was not lying about the suspects she believed lived in the home and that an investigation into the alleged criminals remains ongoing.

“We don’t have any information at this time that the information was made up or fabricated,” Davidson said.

And there’s the problem right there, or at least one of the problems.  An individual – a single individual – can say something and dispatch an armed home invasion team supported by the officers of the court.  One individual.

The police sound more like a drug gang retaliating for some offense in the organized crime world than “peace officers,” yes?

PoliceOne:

We, as law enforcement officers, need to adopt the same mindset as that of the Marine Corps when it comes to job titles. In the Marine Corps, everyone, regardless of rank, is a rifleman first and foremost. The “job” he does in the Marines comes second. We’re civilian law enforcement, so our “job” to protect and serve comes first, but we need to have the mindset that each and every one of us is also a rifleman. We need to be equipped and trained as such.

You can feel free to peruse my category on the U.S. Marines as long as you wish.  I know a Marine, and you’re no Marine.  The last thing I want is for a cop to see himself as first and foremost a rifleman.  Because he’s not, and because he shouldn’t be, even if he has the skills.

What Mr. Rayburn wants to see is every cop carrying a patrol rifle at all times, and instead of raising a handgun or shotgun at people, he’ll have a rifle to make urban situations and CQB much worse due to increased range and muzzle velocity.

It’s sad, really.  All of that gun control hasn’t helped a bit, has it?  And that open border policy and family-destroying welfare have made matters much worse, haven’t they?

But I’m certain that Mr. Rayburn doesn’t support peaceable men like me openly carrying rifles with them everywhere they go, else he would have said so.  His solution is to super-arm the cops rather than address the situation at its root cause.

Because cops are just like us, only better, and more elite, with more rights and latitude.  Well Mr. Rayburn, if you want to be a U.S. Marine, join up, take the training, and fly across the pond.  On the other hand, with the way things are now in the Army and Marines, I’m not so sure I’m saying much compared to what it would have been ten or even five years ago.

The saddest part of all is that cops apparently listen to this goober.  It’s a long way and a lot of water over the dam since the days of peace officers, yes?  Steel yourself for what’s coming, folks.

News from the great Northeast:

A New Jersey mother is demanding answers from the Newark Police Department after her 10-year-old son was chased by police with shotguns.

Patisha Solomon says her son, Legend Preston, was playing basketball outside their home when Newark PD officers mistook him for a 20-year-old armed robbery suspect.

Police approached Legend with guns drawn. At that point, Legend says, out of fear, he ran into an alleyway.

“I ran because they thought that I rolled the ball into the street on purpose, and they were just holding shot guns at me trying to shoot me,” Legend told ABC New York.

Neighbors who saw the commotion, quickly yelled for the police to stop — one neighbor reportedly “threw themselves in front of the guns to protect” Legend.

“He’s only 10 years old, how you all chasing him? He’s only a kid,” Jackie Kelly, a neighbor of the Solomon family told ABC News.

Goobers with guns.  It’s what they do, ma’am.  They’re dangerous to everything and everyone around them, including themselves.  You know, it might have been easier and more efficient if they had walked up to the kid and talked to the him.

The Washington Post:

Suddenly, the officer rapped on the rear passenger side window with his pistol. My daughter, who was sitting inches from the barrel of his gun, jumped with fear as the officer yelled at me to roll down the front passenger window, his service weapon pointed directly at me. I knew something was terribly awry and I tried to remain calm, keeping my hands visible as I slowly fumbled for the window controls in an unfamiliar car.

My daughter rolled down her window and I explained that we were in a rental car, that we had no weapons, and I was having trouble figuring out how to roll down the front passenger window from my driver’s side door. The officer didn’t listen, and kept yelling louder and more insistently, ordering me to comply with his request as he leered at me down the barrel of his pistol. My daughter panicked and tried to get out of her booster seat to reach forward to roll down the front window, and the officer screamed her at her not to move as he pointed his pistol at her.

Then, as I had my hands in the air, he yelled, at the top of his lungs, in a voice I will never forget, as my daughter looked on in terror, “Get your hands away from your waist or I’ll blow two holes through your back right now!” My hands were high in the air as he said this, and I was not in any way reaching for my waist. I was utterly terrified. I’ve heard stories of police yelling out false things like this before they unjustifiably attack someone as a way to justify the attack, and I thought this was what was happening to me. I braced for bullets to hit me and all I could think of was my daughter having to watch it happen and being left alone on the side of the highway with an insane, violent cop.

I would be terrified for my child too.  The report says that the officer thought it was a stolen car.  Whatever.  There is no excuse for this kind of behavior.  None.

With a child in the car, the officer should have immediately reassessed the situation and concluded that his information was likely incorrect.  It often is, witness so many wrong-home SWAT raids.  Furthermore, inability to figure out how a window works when under duress isn’t equivalent to being noncompliant with the officer’s commands.  The officer doesn’t know everything about the situation, and he shouldn’t have drawn his service weapon.

Finally, men like this give gun owners like me a bad name.  His trigger discipline and muzzle discipline are non-existent.  Even if it was a stolen vehicle like he thought, the presence of a child in the automobile should have made him stop and conclude that it wasn’t worth the risk of injury to the child, even if the driver drove away.  The driver will never actually get away.  He knows that.

Honestly, from my vantage point, I don’t worry so much about crime or assault.  My biggest worry is goobers like this who believe they are Mr. tactical, when their thinking more matches Barney Fife.  And I would bet every penny I had that if a negligent discharge occurred, killing the innocent man or injuring the child, the PD would have hired “experts” who testified that he did everything right.  He would have gotten away with it.