Wednesday, July 20, 2016

One Lucky Police Officer & Maybe One Not So Lucky

So there was a probably mentally deranged man or wrong doer on a city bus in Oklahoma City and the guy was making trouble and trying to keep the bus driver from stopping at any stops. The bus driver finally has had enough and orders folks off of the bus; I am guessing his timing had to do with seeing police officers on the street where he stopped or quite possibly the police had pulled over the bus. (I found it difficult to readily understand the suspect but it sure sounded to me as if he mentioned the police in his rant to the driver once or tree times.) The people get off and the driver then tells a police officer on the sidewalk that this is the guy indicating the trouble maker. The officer draws her weapon and advances on the suspect. You watch it and someone please explain to me why she offered him her gun to be taken from her - anyway it sure looks that way to me.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5041079038001/warning-graphic-video-fatal-shooting-on-city-bus/?#sp=show-clips

It must have looked that way to the bad guy too because he dropped the fire extinguisher that he seemingly tried to throw at her and then lunged for her pistol. They wound up in a life or death struggle with the officer evidently screaming in panic for her partner as her gun possibly fires. Her partner gets on the bus, pistol drawn, and tries to take aim at the suspect, cannot do so, the female officer and suspect fall to the floor with her on top, the male officer closes in and pulls his partner off of the bad guy and fires a several shots at him until the guy stops moving and thus is no longer a threat.

I am not sure why the female officer drew her service weapon. I am not faulting her in any way for having done so; for all I know the guy was a fleeing murder suspect. That he had been fleeing from someone seems quite likely by his nervous actions, his possibly mentioning the police, his actions with the fire extinguisher for the police boarded the bus and by what he said to the bus driver about not stopping the bus. What I find hard to believe is that a trained police officer held her gun out in front of her one handed like that, then approached the suspect at close range, as if the gun was a magic shield. What is not surprising is that the suspect tried to take it away from her when it was held out like that. She was a lucky officer indeed to have held onto her pistol and more importantly to have been accompanied by another officer who readily took action to save her.

The truly messed up thing is now a guy is dead at the hands of an officer who did no wrong as far as I could see but who will almost inevitably be suspended, get grilled over and over again, possibly face a grand jury, question himself for years to come and suffer long term post traumatic stress. That post traumatic stress and self doubting will all come whether or not his department and prosecutors find his actions fully justified or not because you can bet that the officer did not get out of bed that day chomping at the bit while hoping to kill someone.

Edited at 1210 to Add: The suspect was reportedly suffering mental problems, his wife reportedly claimed he had been violent in the recent past, and he had reportedly just carjacked a car with two women in it, among other things, before getting on the bus. The incident took place in June and police recently released the raw video footage of the incident on the bus that led to him being shot by the officer (source).

All the best,
Glenn B

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