The Chronicle is reporting that he was shot after he turned and faced the officer, not that he was shot in the back. What's the truth? 16 shots is excessive under any imaginable circumstance.
Tasers???? Where the hell are all the damned Tasers? This is terrible......that guy shot 16 times...SIX FRICKEN TEEN???? He shot the guy 6 times.........roast that MFer. DD
Man....no kidding there's problems! Deadly force (six time no less!), on a car chase incident! And against a guy who wasn't even the suspect (though he was running with a gun). Crazy. But why were these guys (both of them!) waving their guns about. Lousy training/policies, i'd say. Our good guy here, and the trigger happy cop should never have had their guns drawn for a chase of this sort!!??!! Really sorry to hear about your friend AB! Hoping (in vain perhaps) that something good comes of this. They simply have to address their use of deadly force -- and train the officers accordingly. The police simply have to develop ways to apprehend a suspect without shooting them down! And AB's good friend was a victim of this mindset, unfortunately, first by reacting by drawing his gun, and second by the trigger happy HPD officer.
Not really. When a cop shoots, he shoots to kill. Period. The whole "shoot him in the arm and wound him" thing is Hollywood. A cop only draws his pistol if he's dead serious about firing it. And a cop only fires it when he's intending to kill someone.
I'm in NO way defending the shooter. NOT AT ALL!! but if a cop pulls his gun, he is obviously scared for his life and is wanting to make sure the person he is scared of is dead before he is. I can understand what drox is saying. AB, I'm really sorry about your friend.
16 rounds seems ridiculously excessive. I've never been in a situation where I was scared for my life and I had a gun so I dont know how I would react. I can almost guarantee that is not how he was trained to handle the situation.
Yes, I can. I've fired a pistol at a shooting range with my good friend, who is a deputy in Harris County Sheriff Dept. I've fired both a .357 and a 9mm several times. And I can say assuredly, that just ONE shot casually in any direction is deadly. With that in mind, a trained police officer would fire his weapon 16 times for only one reason - to kill, and make sure that whoever is being shot at is dead. And I should also mention that I am very saddened to hear of the loss of this officer and AB's friend. +
Look I don't want to be direspectful and turn this thread into a debate, but absolutely nothing you've said disputes the fact that 16 shots is ecessive.
The only pistol I know of that holds that many rounds is the glock (my glock 19 - 9mm holds 17 rounds), so unless the cop was carrying a glock with a full clip he had to reload the weapon to continue shooting. No way around this argument Drox. 16 shots is excessive especially if no one is shooting back. Edit - Sorry to hear about your friend AB. Give our best to his family.
mmm... OKay... I'll revise my statement to say that 16 rounds is not neessarily excessive. There are times when it may be excessive, and times when it may not be. And to be honest, it was probably excessive in this circumstance.
The "shoot to kill" thing is a training procedure that protects cops when they kill in the line of duty. Actually whether or not wound is something that is quietly subjective. I fired my weapon one time but accomplished what I needed without taking a life, fortunately. Thanks for the kind words guys, I will take excerpts from the thread and share it with the family.
Maybe you guys have forgotten about the following story : http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/09/compton.shooting/ Around 120 rounds fired at an unarmed man. However, this guy led them on a chase. But Jesus... 120 rounds... and the guy was hit 4 times and survived. I've never even fired a gun, but uh... that kinda sucks don't it?
I kinda hate to say it, but there really seems to be more to this incident than meets the eye. The circumstances are really suspicious. I'm getting a weird "Insomnia" vibe from it.
It definitely does, but keep in mind that most Cops rarely if ever fire their sidearm under stress, on the street and in a deadly situation. In either case, theres is no excuse for the dude shooting your buddy in the back AB, my best to you and his family. I'm glad I have never had to fire a weapon in anger, just targets and hunting. I will say this, cops train and train and train, but at some point, adrenaline takes over. My brother is a Dickinson cop and former Harris county constable so I might be biased. He was in the Marine Corps before joining the force and has been a cop for over 10 years--in that time he has only DRAWN his pistol 3-4 times. Cops that have been involved in a "shoot-out" have routinely indicated in post incident interviews that they didn't even realize that they had emptied an entire clip. I'm sorry, I don't have the link to back that statement up, I was surprised when I read it. We are talking experienced, trusted officers that don't even recall the number of shots and are floored when they find an entire clip is gone--ask a soldier how many rounds he fired in his first fire-fight...Again, not excusing this guy, but as Dan Higgs said, it does seem "Ramboesque"
