Innocent 72 year old man killed after police go to wrong house (blame poor lighting)

[Guest TankerHC]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/27/police-shoot-dead-grandfather-72-while-searching-the-wrong-home-for-burglar-blame-poor-lighting/

Edited July 27, 2013 by TankerHC

[enfield]

What is your purpose in posting this shit?  Why not a story on the Soapbox Derby?

[NRA]

:stir:

[Major Kong]

What is your purpose in posting this ####?  Why not a story on the Soapbox Derby?

It's the General Chat section. What's the issue? I've seen a lot less interesting things posted here.

[Guest AmericanWorkMule]

What is your purpose in posting this ####?  Why not a story on the Soapbox Derby?

 

Here you go! Semper Fi, Mac!

Soapbox Derby Shut Down By Police
http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2008/11/photos-of-the-really-really-illegal-2008-illegal-soapbox-derby.html

[Defender]

Here you go! Semper Fi, Mac!

Soapbox Derby Shut Down By Police
http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2008/11/photos-of-the-really-really-illegal-2008-illegal-soapbox-derby.html

LOL That was good, quick too!

[Guest TankerHC]

I figured, so lets go into a recent statistic. The reason for the post is because this is becoming a daily event. This is just one more added event to the list. This IS a gun forum, the police, when engaged by criminals are engaged with guns, and visa versa.

 

"According to one very conservative estimate, at least thirty citizens are killed in police shootings every month"

 

An example. between January 1st and January 11th 2011, 11 citizens were mistakenly shot and killed by police while half that number of cops were killed, and the majority of those were killed in a single shotout.. Ill find it, but recently, within the last week read a JD statistic that showed that the average American was 600 times more likely to be killed by a cop by mistake than a cop was by a perpetrator.

 

The REASON for this SH__ is because I keep hearing and reading about the "War on cops" and how dangerous it is, while reading EVERY SINGLE DAY about a mistaken identity killing of a civilian.

 

Maybe I should have put this in the OP. I figure since we discuss how the "Army would have a problem" if they took the the streets in the een of TSHTF sceniario's and other things, there might be some kind of consensus that we also would not like to be inadvertently killed by a police officer while on our own property.

 

But since the thoughts and ideas are selective, Ill refrain from posting anything that might bother someone again,

 

BTW, anyone thinks Im "anti-Cop" forget it, far from it. I have cops in my family right now, close family and a nephew going to a HP Academy soon. I would certainly not like to see them killed in the line of duty, as one of my relatives was 40 years ago during a traffic stop on a highway, but at the same time, I would certainly like to stop reading about cops killing innocent civilians by mistake minding their own business, every single day.

 

BTW, thats not stirring the pot either, pointing out facts in a news article, if I were to point out posts in every forum (Even bike and computer and every other forum) that were stirring the pot, I could make a life out of it.

Edited July 27, 2013 by TankerHC

[Parrothead]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590799755

 

heard the author speak tonight. I will be downloading the book shortly......

[c.a.willard]

tanker, for me its not the content of the link.  It's the link without any thoughts being conveyed by the original poster.  Forums are meant to generate discussion and these topics definitely do generate some good discussion.  it would just be helpful to have the discussion framed somewhat by an initial post. 

 

Discussing the increasing occurrence of mistaken identity killings by LE. I would think is a perfectly valid topic for this forum as one of the reasons many of us own firearms is to defend ourselves and our homes.  From the article it appears as if the homeowner was doing just that. 

 

It has the tendency of coming of as being anti LE, when something is posted of that nature without any additional discussion.  Many here will vehemently defend personnel on a LE capacity unless there is direct evidence to indicate the LEO behaved in a criminal manner. 

 

Being at the wrong house on accident isn't criminal no they shouldn't have been there but they did not realize that.  It is likely that both the officers involved and the unfortunate man who is now dead could have both deescalated the incident without anyone shooting each other.  

 

It is reasonable however to expect an officer with a gun pointing at him would shoot the person holding it,  It is also reasonable to expect if you are snooping around someones house at night to potentially have a gun pointed at you.  there is no perfect answer in this situation.  It would require all three people to engage their brains and use some critical thinking skills. 

 

the biggest start would be getting the freaking address right, but we have no way of knowing how well addresses in this area were marked.  Anyone who has ever worked in a service that had to find a home at night  (LE, EMS, FD, Pizza guy/gal etc) will tell you some home are extremely difficult to locate.

 

Individually though, we can assist in this process by ensuring our homes addresses are more easily identified at night.  Larger number, house numbers on the curb, reflective house numbers etc.  At the same time this department needs to look nto its training regimine to see if there was an issue that can be corrected with proper training.

[Guest TankerHC]

I have to say this thoough in defense of cops. I watch some of the cop forums and sh__ like this pizzes them off too. Because it does make the good cops look bad, and I agree it does, when your killing on average one non criminal civilian a day, that should look bad.

 

But I was listening to Howard Stern about a month ago and one of his guests was a former NYPD named Dennis something. This guy was a total piece of crap dirtbag. And trying to make money off of what he did. But while he was basiclly bragging about shaking down drug dealers, then joining them and being their "Muscle" and driving expensive cars and owning four mansions and a bunch of other crap some other cops called in and they had nothing nice to say, they knew this guy.

 

I am not making this up, some of you may have heard it, a Bronx Detective called in and said how much of a POS this guy Dennis was, and that the NYPD was doing really well, they had community programs going on, crime was dropping, drug crime was dropping, sounded like the guy was so mad he was damn near going to start crying and he said "We were doing good and you single handedly destroyed the entire Ney York City Police Department. NYPD did not have to walk around worrying about getting shot a;; the time, you put a target on every cops back. He said "its been 15 years and we still havent recovered, and probably never will".

 

He went off on this guy, said why dont you tell them how you filmed yourself snorting cocaine of the dashboard of your patrol car or how you spent your time out on patrol shaking down prostitutes for Bl____ J___"

 

The guy admitted to all of it, but it sounded more like bragging than anything. And this guys father was a retired NYPD cop.

 

But I doubted the story about NYPD doing really well, crime dropping, whatever and decided to look it up and see if I could find something about this Dennis guy, that Bronx Detective was not lying, a single cop took an entire city PD and all the good they were doing and completely wiped it out single handedly.

 

So I know cops are trying and want to do good like anyone else, (not all of them), but at the same time killing that many civilians accidently, something needs to be done. This is three times in two weeks they were at the wrong house in different cities. This is talked about al the time, complained about all the time, on all gun, cop, Forums. So we blame the father who accidently kills his son, have no pity on the man because it was neglegence, but cops get a free pass for accidently doing the same thing, because they are cop?

 

No, if anything they should be better trained than that. And with all the tech today, there is no reason to be at the wrong house.

[Guest TankerHC]

tanker, for me its not the content of the link.  It's the link without any thoughts being conveyed by the original poster.  Forums are meant to generate discussion and these topics definitely do generate some good discussion.  it would just be helpful to have the discussion framed somewhat by an initial post. 

 

Discussing the increasing occurrence of mistaken identity killings by LE. I would think is a perfectly valid topic for this forum as one of the reasons many of us own firearms is to defend ourselves and our homes.  From the article it appears as if the homeowner was doing just that. 

 

It has the tendency of coming of as being anti LE, when something is posted of that nature without any additional discussion.  Many here will vehemently defend personnel on a LE capacity unless there is direct evidence to indicate the LEO behaved in a criminal manner. 

 

Being at the wrong house on accident isn't criminal no they shouldn't have been there but they did not realize that.  It is likely that both the officers involved and the unfortunate man who is now dead could have both deescalated the incident without anyone shooting each other.  

 

It is reasonable however to expect an officer with a gun pointing at him would shoot the person holding it,  It is also reasonable to expect if you are snooping around someones house at night to potentially have a gun pointed at you.  there is no perfect answer in this situation.  It would require all three people to engage their brains and use some critical thinking skills. 

 

the biggest start would be getting the freaking address right, but we have no way of knowing how well addresses in this area were marked.  Anyone who has ever worked in a service that had to find a home at night  (LE, EMS, FD, Pizza guy/gal etc) will tell you some home are extremely difficult to locate.

 

Individually though, we can assist in this process by ensuring our homes addresses are more easily identified at night.  Larger number, house numbers on the curb, reflective house numbers etc.  At the same time this department needs to look nto its training regimine to see if there was an issue that can be corrected with proper training.

 

 

Yea, that was my error. And I apologize for that. I was sitting there with these fricken shingles and was debating whether to post or just post the link, I rarely ever just post a link and do that without at least a single sentence comment. I just didnt feel like it. Next time I know better. It looks like trolling and I have been around these forums, BBS's whatever for too long to not know better, I knew as soon as I hit send what was going to happen. But I have to say, at that moment, and really at this...its hard to care.....my damn head.

 

Ill probaly keep on posting, doubt very seriously Im getting any sleep tonight.

Edited July 28, 2013 by TankerHC

[Guest Bonedaddy]

Whoever said that "you" had to start the debate just because you posted it. Seems like it did just fine at gettin' that goin' without an opinion by ya. I was fine with havin' yours come in later, even if it didn't have to do with the posted article. It still got read and considered. Sometimes, I will post things just to get a rise and see what conclusion I might draw after hearin' out everyone else 'cause I'm not quite sure of my opinion on it, yet. So what, ya know?

[c.a.willard]

You've got my sympathies for the shingles by the way.  Hope to never have them, from what i understand that is a special kind of pain that no one should ever have to suffer.

[Guest Keal G Seo]

I want to hear the audio from the car. All to common is "Police, drop the" bang "gun". Ok maybe not that bad but you get the point. I also have to assume those flashlights were pointed right in his face so he would have had to just take their word on being police. I guess I fall on this in that grey area right now as it very well could have been the right call at the moment.

This is however just one more reason to have dash and lapel cameras on all officers and recording at all time. "What about officer privacy?" You may ask, well, when they are on duty do they have any right to privacy? How about any person working in a company, group or agency that has cameras all over the work place? Bank tellers would be a good example.

 

Getting back on topic: With GPS this should never happen, heck my cell phone's can show me which side of the road an address is on. Even just equipping the MDTs with internet access (That is those that don't already have it.) to Google maps would do the job most of the time. Bottom line is with the tech available at very cheap prices today there is no excuse for hitting the wrong address.

[Sam1]

edited reading comprehension > me

Edited July 29, 2013 by Sam1

[TMF]

If this was a SWAT hit my opinion would be different, but this looks like a case of sh** happens. These officers were doing their jobs. They responded to a burglar alarm and ended up on the wrong side of the street. That was a mistake on their part, but we don't know how they were identifying houses or whether or not they were dispatched to the right address.

But let us just say, for argument's sake, that it was the two officers that messed up the address. It is a mistake that can happen, but is that criminal negligence? I don't think so. Now to the question of whether or not they acted reasonably. These cops were dispatched to an active burglar alarm. They went to investigate and were met by a man with a gun. If you were in their shoes how would you react under the circumstances? All you know is that an alarm was going off at this residence and a man with a gun is now threatening you. According to both the police officers' accounts and the woman's account, they were yelling at him before they fired. Likely their story of telling him to put the weapon down and identifying themselves as police officers is accurate. Perhaps the old guy was confused or was dealing with a sudden adrenaline spike and made a decision to raise his gun. It sounds like a tragedy, but not a crime. Those cops undoubtedly feel awful. No one wants to shoot an innocent.

This scenario is very different than no-knocks on the wrong house or what just happened down in Sarasota with those dipsh** fed Marshals.

[c.a.willard]

They should be charged with premeditated murder. No exceptions like non-Leo would be facing for planning an attack on a victim, then murdering them.

Paperwork mishaps is an excuse when you accidentally shred a gas receipt, not when someone gets murdered.

 

Wow, you must of went to the Angela Corey School of Law.  Even if i make the assumption that their actions were criminal (which i don't) how do you get to premeditated murder. 

Edited July 29, 2013 by c.a.willard

[RobertNashville]

What is your purpose in posting this ####?  Why not a story on the Soapbox Derby?

I don't see a problem with posting this story.  :shrug:

 

Something and maybe a couple of somethings went horribly wrong here and there is likely some "blame" that can properly be placed on both the police and the dead homeowner so it seems to me there could be benefit in discussing it.

[RobertNashville]

The homeowner could have avoided his sad ending if he had simply called 911 and then waited, armed, with his wife in the bedroom (or some sort of saferoom rather than going out a looking around.  He could have avoided it if he had put the gun down when the police, per the article, identified themselves and assuming they gave him enough time to comply.

I can also understand why it may have been difficult, at his age, to hear the police...to see who was there if flashlights were shining in his face.

 

The police could have avoided it all if they had gotten the right address or perhaps if they had been just a bit more reluctant to shoot.

 

Knowing where the fault actually lies or who should bear the brunt of it is pretty difficult...it's probably with the dead homeowner but at the same time, a man's home is supposed to be his castle after all - it's difficult for me to blame this elderly gentlemen for simply wanting to defend his castle.

[Sam1]

edited reading comprehension > me 

Edited July 29, 2013 by Sam1

[Sam1]

The homeowner could have avoided his sad ending if he had simply called 911 and then waited, armed, with his wife in the bedroom (or some sort of saferoom rather than going out a looking around. He could have avoided it if he had put the gun down when the police, per the article, identified themselves and assuming they gave him enough time to comply.

I can also understand why it may have been difficult, at his age, to hear the police...to see who was there if flashlights were shining in his face.

The police could have avoided it all if they had gotten the right address or perhaps if they had been just a bit more reluctant to shoot.

Knowing where the fault actually lies or who should bear the brunt of it is pretty difficult...it's probably with the dead homeowner but at the same time, a man's home is supposed to be his castle after all - it's difficult for me to blame this elderly gentlemen for simply wanting to defend his castle.

I missed the part about him having a gun, my previous statements are officially redacted from the records.

Hard to read some of this stuff on a phone, I thought the cops went in and shot him unarmed in his own house. Edited July 29, 2013 by Sam1

[TMF]

They entered the house with their guns drawn, and shot this man.


See what you get charged with under similar circumstances

They didnt enter his house. He met the cops outside.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

It looks like the cops got the wrong address and got distracted by the man with a gun. It also could have to

do with their experience. I wasn't there, though, but if the call came from a particular address, that should be

where the search should be beginning. Looks like a lot of mistakes were probably made with an unforunate

conclusion. I imagine the cop will have to deal with this mistake for a long time. If I were him, I know I would.