[WaPo]West Virginia cop fired for not killing a man with an unloaded gun

Just because he got lucky and happened to end up right it doesn't mean he did the right thing.

 

the logical missing part of this story :The two cops who arrived to the scene and killed the guy,should've received medals or shiny key chain ,they deserve something for their epic action

 

It's not lucky. He has the smart and ability to take proper actions and was completely right. This particular case and firing show that that PD is a bunch of chicken heads. Not brave enough to do the right things. Bad reflection on the profession.

 

We don't pay our cops to think and save lives, we pay them to shoot people and cull the population down. Best to eliminate suicidal people and other degenerates - costs more to have them in jail anyway.

 

This is the impression I got. His skills learned while in the military as well as police training allowed him to determine that the suicidal man was not a threat to anyone but himself. There was no luck. Luck would be if someone with no training/skills made the same assessment.

 

It should be protocol that cops can't be blamed if shooting if a person has a gun and refuses to put it down.

If he did shoot the guy, he shouldn't be blamed or looked at as trigger happy.

As for his decision not to shoot that's his decision as a skilled law enforcement person. I wonder if there were other people present who may have been at risk, however.

 

You call it lucky...I call it doing exactly what many of us hope the police would do. He is a trained Marine and police officer. I trust his judgement WAY more than I trust yours.

 

Yep. They are trained to kill not to wound.

 

Sure, most people with unrealistic expectations of what the police do probably would hope that a cop would risk his life and that of EVERYONE around by giving someone the benefit of the doubt rather than eliminating the threat like he is supposed to. The reason he's no longer a cop (and possibly why he's no longer a marine) is because his judgement was poor and he didn't do the right thing.....even though he got lucky and it didn't cost anyone their life.

 

Why is it unrealistic to expect the police to be calm and assess the situation before firing a shot? Especially when the gun wasn't pointed at him or anyone else.

Especially sh**ty of you to assume why he's no longer in the Corps while not knowing any facts whatsoever about him or his service.

 

Police want a little responsibility as possible and I don't blame them. They are paid less than medical assistants.

I can't wait for automation to take their jobs. They already follow a simplistic formula when it comes to encounters. They are restricted from using personal judgement like in this case. They are pretty much garbage men who document, pacify threats and follow instructions.

 

I don't think that should be protocol. But it sounds like it is today. Cops have not training to handle mentally ill patient. Just shoot.

 

That is the existing protocol. Cops get a pass if a shooting victim has a gun. The result of that protocol is that police make the citizenry carry all the risk in an interaction.

As for this incident, the person facing the most risk was the guy who ended up getting killed. Given that he may or may not have been willing to shoot, may or may not have had bullets in his gun, may or may not have had any proficiency with a gun, and definitely was not in a firing stance, while the 3 cops definitely did have the bullets, the willingness, the training, and the stance -- I'd say the cops were a distant 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. There was a girlfriend, and this was outside, so there may have been bystanders who could have been hit by stray bullets, but only if firing commenced. Given that the terminated cop didn't immediately escalate, bystanders would have had a chance to move away, seek cover, or perhaps congregate and whip out their smartphones like dumb-asses. Imho, the PD are fools to punish restraint and a case study in why police are seen as oppressors by many.

 

If its deemed a "Suicide By Cop" situation and the person has a gun, yes it pretty much gives police license to kill

This situation is exactly why its a discussion about police force in GENERAL, regardless of race. Both sides make sense, existing police practice and the skillful non-kill de-escalation

When other officers arrived, the guy all of a sudden started waving his gun at them. They nor the ex-Marine knows if its loaded. Unless you're a SENIOR experienced cop with department trust, its very difficult to tell those incoming officers that you had the guy apprehended to where he's not a threat to anyone else. You'd be upset walking into a situation where the protector allowed a gunman to point their gun at you.

I think the police aggression issue is just revealing of the character of our entire nation, not many good revelations. Too much armchair enformencent policy analysts and emotionally biased people supporting causes that have little to do with actual fair application of justice.

 

He made the wrong assessment, that's the point. He just got lucky that the gun was not loaded and the guy wasn't really going to shoot. We can argue about this all we want but what we know is that the determination of the police department was that he did the wrong thing....and I think they are right. If the officer wasn't as lucky his actions could have led to himself or others being hurt or killed and that's why he's out of a job.

 

If they refuse to put it down in a reasonable amount of time I mean.

I think that's reasonable. Do you want the cop doing a high wire act while juggling while we are at it?

If some deranged character refuses to put a gun down when asked to by a cop, what more catering do you want an already at risk officer to do?

 

Maybe mentally ill patients shouldn't be menacing around with guns and refusing to put them down when asked to by cops. The damage was already done at that point.

Mentally ill patient with a gun = bad news. It's like sharks with laser beams.

 

Agree on conflating his police work with his Marine work without any info on that

Its these kind of biases and judgments urging toward being UNRESTRAINED, that can lead to unrestrained ACTIONS. The kind of unrestrained BIAS within police force resulting in UNARMED blacks killed by police 5 TIMES greater rate than normal rate (Even greater than rate of black-on-black violencem Which like it or not (I don't) it gets "BLM" involvement) This incident does as much to keep asking the question as it does in actually validating the decision.

I certainly respect people voluntarily putting their life at risks. I dont know the magic formula to balancing having big Aggro-Balls along with critical compassionate thinking in serving the law. Though its silly to think that citizens and civilians cant ask if long existed codified policies by police are 100% valid.

 

You mean robocop. Well all of us will be out of a job by then.

 

Look, he did the wrong thing, didn't follow procedure and ended up fired over it. If he's that undisciplined as a civilian I can't imagine he was much better when he was a marine. I'm not advocating for police to be "unrestrained" I'm advocating that they do their job, which in this case is eliminating a threat before they hurt anyone. Just because the cop got lucky doesn't mean he did the right thing.

I get that will be over some people's heads here, so I'll just have to accept that some won't ever git it, but there's not another way of saying it to make it simpler.