The two deputies killed in Florida 6 weeks ago...
This is the case where two deputies were shot at a gun range on a domestic dispute call. A friend of mine was friends with the perpetrator, they were in the same guard unit. What my friend said happened was the wife liked to start beating on him and he fought back. She went call the cops, and went to the hospital with some bruising and minor abrasions (I'm not excusing the man hitting his wife). After the fight he went to the gun range to blow off some steam, the wife knew this and told the cops where he was. The deputies went to the gun range and again, as was told to my friend, tazered without warning. Perp was able to pull out the probes, drew a belly gun and started shooting, and eventually killed both. He then took off, got the spike strips, came out of the rolled truck blazing away, basically suicide by cop. My friend said he took 60 rounds.
I guess there is the danger if they had waited that the perp could have gone on a killing spree, but it seems to me the prudent thing to would have been to let him blow off steam and calm down, wait for him to come back home and arrest him there.
You LEO's be careful out there!
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/car...-deputies.html
~ Perhaps there needs to be an addendum to the police field manual
Perhaps there needs to be an addendum to the police field manual. This situation just on it's face looks to be a formula for disaster. Let's see . . . a domestic dispute with a violent husband and wife beef. The husband can be figured to be in a confrontational mindset and is at a gun range, probably with a weapon in lock n' mode. Talk about a dangerous scenario!
Cops go into the place and just Taser the guy? There must be a part or two of this story that's been left out. Logic would suggest that even a know nothing civilian like myself would size up the situation. Then try to first talk with the guy to find out where his head is at. It would be assumed, especially by trained police personnel, that this jerk is armed without a gun being in sight. Using overt non-lethal force against a possible lethally armed individual is very stupid. Something big is missing in this story.
Anyway it's sliced . . . the whole thing is a very bad and sad situation. If this saga is true, then a good n' slippery lawyer could possibly work the initial Taser attack into the killer's court defense. So stunned by the electrical shock was he, that instinct took over. The harsh electrical pulse of the non-lethal weapon short circuited the defendant's brain and the police officers were seen to be just two blurry attackers. It was a form of instinctive self defense carried-out by his active sub-conscious during temporary amnesia having been directly caused by the cop's Taser. Then they have a couple of paid whowa psychiatrists testify for the defense to back up this pile of bullcrap.
All there has to be is reasonable doubt in the jury's thinking. The way it is, if some hotshot DA goes for a Murder-One thing and over-charges this guy, a jury could let him walk. As weird and perverse as things are these days, the law enforcement officers might even be blamed for causing their own deaths.
In the state of Kalif after a domestic dispute or family abuse
situation, the first thing they do is take the guns and you may not get them back. Either way, male or female. They may let felons walk away, but domestic violence gets you arrested everytime. A female friend was picked up after an argument with her drunk boyfriend. In the course of the argument, she shoved him and her fingernail scratched his exposed neck. Cops saw the scratch and asked what caused it and pow she's off to the slammer. She was in her PJs and is an extremely attractive woman. She was put in a glass cell in the middle of the Marin County slam and had a pack of leering deputies spend the night shift watching her go to the bathroom and exercise to try and keep warm (I'd love to see how those dopes would react if it was THEIR wife in there). I bailed her out at about 5AM (after tossing her drunk boyfriend out of her house; gee, he didn't want to call the cops when I was his problem). It was a $6K shove in the end. Point being, all the bells and whistles go off in a DV case. This unfortunate situation at the gun range was just bad all around, two guys trying to do their job killed for nothing. It has been a very bad year for L.E.