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Shooting at the Capitol


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Policemen are highly and continuously trained and still occasionally make mistakes (though I have no reason to believe this is one). This is, in part, why I hate the idea that we should be able to carry guns around. Nothing happens in a vacuum and a person using their gun "properly" may still put themself in harm's way because it is pretty damn hard to tell that you're shooting that guy because he tried to harm you or if you are the bad guy who is shooting people. Given that reasonable people may misinterpret the situation, imagine people that aren't reasonable in these circumstances that defy lengthy, logical reasoning

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QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 12:09 PM)
Yea...seriously.

 

To the person that asked this question, become a police officer, then talk your calm game.

 

If that's me, and a crazy f*** is ramming into gates, hitting people, and whatever else isn't being reported, and it's between him/her and me seeing my family again, f*** that, I'm shooting.

 

I'm not even a police officer, and I'm getting real sick and tired of people armchair quarterbacking legit police decisions.

 

Why couldn't have they have done, X, Y and Z...maybe it's because the people they deal with, are dealt with so YOU never have too deal with them.

 

Sure, there are stories about police using excessive force, and unnecessary force, but those stories garner readers...the other 100,000 stores you never read, because they were never written, the force WAS necessary, and legitimate.

 

This is the problem with modern media. They have most of you believing the US is an all out war zone...when it's safer now than it's E V E R been.

 

TL;DR: Yea, it's the trigger happy police officers fault...not the crazy b**** that was convinced Obama was her stalker, who set off red alerts at the white house/capital building. Nope, not her fault.

 

+1

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QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 12:12 PM)
I'm sensitive to the fact they thought she may have had a car bomb since she was trying to drive up to two different landmarks.

 

I'm not sensitive to the fact that because police are in a life threatening job they are allowed to be bad at their jobs.

 

It sounds like they did their jobs very well, actually. The bad guy is gone, and the kid that she put in danger is safe.

 

And LOL to the "shooting the tires out" remark from earlier. Shows just how little people understand.

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QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 04:48 PM)
It sounds like they did their jobs very well, actually. The bad guy is gone, and the kid that she put in danger is safe.

 

And LOL to the "shooting the tires out" remark from earlier. Shows just how little people understand.

they should have just shot her ankle so she could push the gas pedal

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 02:04 PM)
+1

 

+2

 

Tie goes to the cops.

 

We've had some instances here that clearly law enforcement / military went too far and tried to cover it up. This seems to me, from the early reports, more a failure of our mental health systems than our law enforcement system.

 

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QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 5, 2013 -> 09:44 AM)
+2

 

Tie goes to the cops.

 

We've had some instances here that clearly law enforcement / military went too far and tried to cover it up. This seems to me, from the early reports, more a failure of our mental health systems than our law enforcement system.

 

And this isn't the regular cops, and a regular person type of situation. This is someone attacking the White House, and then attacking the capital building. At that point you don't know if they have a bomb, a biological agent, a mental illness, or what. But at that point your priority is different. You are protect Presidents, Senators, etc.

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QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 5, 2013 -> 09:44 AM)
+2

 

Tie goes to the cops.

 

We've had some instances here that clearly law enforcement / military went too far and tried to cover it up. This seems to me, from the early reports, more a failure of our mental health systems than our law enforcement system.

 

How is it a failure? By all accounts she was being treated for her various mental health issues. Being treated doesn't mean she is guaranteed to be cured. Some people have issues that go past conventional treatment and drugs.

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QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 5, 2013 -> 10:03 AM)
How is it a failure? By all accounts she was being treated for her various mental health issues. Being treated doesn't mean she is guaranteed to be cured. Some people have issues that go past conventional treatment and drugs.

 

Was it a success of the mental health system? She forced a situation that caused her to be killed while having her baby in the car. Avoiding that would be a success, having it happen would be a failure.

 

Now if you are suggesting the system did all it could reasonably be expected to do, I probably would agree on first glance. But reserve the right to flip flop as new information becomes available.

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I think we need to toss out the binary of failure or success. She clearly is not an example of a success of the mental health system or a full-on success of the criminal justice system (we didn't REALLY want to kill her if we didn't have to). That doesn't mean that it was a failure by either of those institutions. We should be able to look for improvement without assuming there is something bad about the thing we are hoping to improve.

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QUOTE (MEANS @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 11:42 AM)
I just can't understand why the police couldn't stop her without resorting to shooting her...tire spikes/shoot the tires out...etc. They are lucky the kid wasn't killed as well.

She had already used deadly force multiple times, was threatening security around the White House, and consistently and repeatedly disobeyed orders to stop. That is more than enough to justify a deadly force response from the police.

 

Also, they did try to stop her before either shooting incident occurred. Didn't work. As for tire spikes, the chase lasted 1.5 minutes. Not nearly long enough for that sort of thing. And about shooting out the tires, I can't say this for sure, but at least one video appears to show them attempting just that. Keep in mind though, shooting out tires is not some simple thing to do, and there is background risk in a crowd just like there is when you shoot at a person.

 

It is sad, I agree, but from everything I've read and seen, the police acted correctly.

 

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QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 11:52 AM)
It's sad. I hope those who fired on her have long lives ahead of them yet, with this eating away at them for the duration.

I just want to point out this post as winning for most awful thing I've read so far. You are damn right this guy will have it eating away at him forever, because that is how it works. This isn't f***ing Hollywood. Very few cops end up having to shoot someone, ever. The rare ones who have, even if they are fully justified, have that weight on their shoulders forever, and it is awful.

 

So here, we have a cop who did everything right, still has to live with the knowledge he killed someone... and then there are ignorant people like you who think it is his fault this happened.

 

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