So, a SWAT raid to arrest a murder suspect ends with the suspect in custody but a 7YO girl dead. The first article headlined and said the officers gun went off as he entered the apartment killing the little girl. WoG has it as one of his Only Ones posts and yesterday I saw that Shoothouse Barbie has a post up on it as well.
I had refrained from posting on it as information came in to wait and see what really happened. The second article I found mentioned the entry officer ran into a female adult just inside the door and a physical altercation of some sort took place and that is when his gun discharged. Subsequent articles have quoted the female (grandmother of the victim) as saying she did not fight the officer and he just shot her little baby.
Is the officer telling the truth? Is the grandmother telling the truth? Is the truth somewhere in between? We just don't know yet. The grandmother was related to the murder suspect and he was in fact found hiding in the apartment. Was she knowingly protecting him from the law?
There is just too much unknown at this time for anyone in the public to make a judgment on this one.
Shoothouse Barbie raises a good point though. There are some people who shouldn't be allowed to have guns, and some of them are cops. To add to that though, some of them are school teachers, some of them are actors, some of them are drug dealers, some of them are murderers, some of them are politicians, some of them are deacons for their church. By the same token that same description applies to child molesters. There are good and bad people in all walks of life and there are competent and incompetent people in all walks of life. Problem is how does anyone determine who is or isn't competent or good or trustworthy?
This opens a huge can of worms. If the officer is found to have negligently discharged his weapon during this raid, he should be held accountable. However, if the grandmother interfered with the arrest of a murder suspect on a properly executed search and arrest warrant and her granddaughter was shot directly due to her interference, she needs to be charged with murder and held accountable for her actions.
it's called Personal Responsibility! Where have I heard that before?
AND NOW, there is word that a film crew was following the officers for the a reality TV show. The entire raid may be on video. There are allegations that the officers fired form outside the house at teh start of the raid. This could get very interesting quickly but there should be more accurate information available eventually.
Throw Me A Bone
49 minutes ago
Good post.
ReplyDeleteThank you very kindly sir, I waited to post on this as there was not enough info but when Shoothouse Barbie posted I figured I'd jump in to put out the info I had seen and make sure there was no jumping to conclusions.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Falls County (Texas)
ReplyDeleteYou raise interesting questions. Like you I have encountered a number of professional law enforence officers who had no business carring a firearm. It is both a sad and terrifing state of affairs. (have you flashed to the fact I can't spell yet?)
I was delighted to see you were taking the unheard of approach of waiting until more facts were in before passing judgement on the officer. There are just too many questions unanswered.
Enjoy your work.
You left out one or two very important groups of people that also contain some members who should not have guns - they would be gun bloggers and firearms enthusiasts who know it all. No reference to you, I like your style of waiting for the facts but there are many out there who would condemn another person without the facts, and without any more and maybe quite a bit less skill with a firearm, when it comes to a firearm accident. This group immediately resorts to 'the only one' sort of bad mouthing as soon as a law enforcement has an accident with a firearm. It is nice to see reason prevail here in your blog.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Glenn B