Northwest Herald:
A suburban Chicago police officer was acquitted Wednesday of felony reckless conduct for killing a 95-year-old World War II veteran by shooting him with a beanbag gun at close range.
Park Forest Police Officer Craig Taylor was charged after the July 2013 death of John Wrana. In a courtroom packed with officers supporting Taylor, Cook County Judge Luciano Panici said there was nothing criminal about Taylor’s actions and that the officer did “what he was trained to do.”
The basic disagreement in the case was whether Taylor was justified in firing a weapon, at close range, that prosecutors said fires beanbags at 190 mph. Wrana died from internal bleeding caused by the beanbags.
Taylor, 43, was one of several officers dispatched to the facility where Wrana lived after a staff member reported that Wrana had become combative with emergency workers.
After Wrana struck a staffer with his cane, he brandished a 2-foot-long shoehorn at officers, prompting them to briefly leave the room. When the officers returned, one officer was carrying a Taser, another one had a shield, and Taylor was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun that shoots beanbags.
Wrana threatened the officers with a knife, and when he refused to drop it, one officer fired at him with the Taser but missed. Then Wrana moved toward Taylor, and the officer fired his weapon five times.
Prosecutors said Taylor had better and safer options than to fire the beanbags at a confused, knife-wielding elderly man, and that the officers didn’t have to storm Wrana’s room. They said he behaved recklessly when he fired five beanbags at Wrana at a distance of no more than 8 feet away.
But Taylor testified he was following the orders of a superior officer and feared for his life and the lives of his fellow officers when he saw Wrana holding the knife over his head and threatening to kill whoever came into his room. He testified that he felt like he “had to do something to stop him.”
The trial was of intense interest among local law enforcement agencies, and on the first day of trial many officers from Park Forest and other area departments showed up to the courthouse in Markham to show their support for Taylor.
Officers expressed anger that Taylor was even charged with a crime after an incident in which he was following orders and had legitimate fear for his own safety and the safety of his fellow officers.
We will all deal with issues of age. It will go much like the report. The elderly will be confused, they may issue threats they don’t even understand, they may not even be able to remember things or process reality reliably if they have dementia. That’s okay. They’ve earned that right. As we are told in Leviticus 19:32, “You shall rise up before the grayheaded and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God.” Or in the KJV, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God.” Honor towards the creator requires honor for the elderly.
A nation that cannot do this not only won’t live long, it doesn’t deserve to. It is past its useful life. This officer was weak, both of body and spirit. My own son Daniel, who did a combat tour in Fallujah, Iraq, talked to me at length about the shots he had to take and the kills he had to make. But one of the most interesting of his altercations with other men came when one of his fellow Marines was in danger from an insurgent using a weapon other than a gun. Others in the area made use of his SAW an unacceptable option (many noncombatants could have been injured), and he used what he called a “football tackle” on the insurgent to stop and disarm him (the context of this specific conversation was the lunacy of women in combat).
That fighter in Iraq wasn’t a 95 year old man who had earned the respect of younger men. That was an insurgent in Fallujah. And yet this LEO in Chicago felt it necessary to shoot a potentially lethal weapon at the old man rather than use his brains or brawn to disarm him and defuse the situation. This is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in LEO-land.
But even worse, note the bolded sections of the article. “The courtroom was packed with officers supporting Taylor.” These other officers are saying that it’s okay to shoot at 95 year old men who are confused and frightened. Nothing is more important than going home safely at the end of their shift. Cops can’t even use the same rules of engagement / rules for the use of force that Soldiers and Marines used in Iraq, and any hint that they might be held accountable is anathema to the thin blue line.
