White cop shoots 74 year old black vet during welfare check

I would assume in these situations of welfare checks 1.) time is of the essence and 2.) a locked door does not conclude the police officer's duty.

I think if it was my loved one I would want the police to perform the welfare check as soon as possible with whatever means necessary. I'm sure in 99.9% of these situations end with family knowing what happened to their loved one (perfectly fine, injured, passed away, or not there). I don't think I'm willing to sacrifice the police doing a valuable duty because of this very rare instance.

 

I think we all would want them to preform the check as soon as possible but the main question still remains why didn't the family check on him themselves were they in another city or state.

 

Police need to learn to retreat in a situation like this. Just because they're challenged, they don't have to engage. Especially given the circumstances.

Only issue I have with the 11:30 timing is that it took way too long from an afternoon request. If the man had needed medical help (which was their reasoning for breaking down the door) the response time was too long.

Also...if family was around, they should have brought in a locksmith to check on the old man. Not sure why the police were involved at all.

 

I expect the officer to understand that he's entering someone's house _ late night _ through the back door and how he himself could be viewed as an intruder in that situation... And this is the south and many homeowners have a gun.

But if you think these police officers are not intelligent enough to take those things under consideration... Or even smart enough to wait until 'normal hours' to do such a thing.... Okay.

A thread was started the other day about two police officers who beat a man's azz and then conspired to say he attacked 1st. But you go right ahead and assume that every single one of these guys are angels and keep making 'dog ate my homework' excuses.

 

Don't know. Cop should really be their last resort, but I don't know their circumstances. I think sometime FD also do these check. If FD is involved, probably would be a happier outcome.

I know it's asking a lot for Cop to not use Gun with a nation of Guns everywhere. But you think the vet would shoot the cop? I'm thinking that's likely not the situation. The Cop without a gun would move back out. He might still be shot, but given that the Vet didn't shoot 1st, he probably would not anyway assuming the Cop move away and the Vet is in at least some normal state of mind. My point is it's likely result in a better situation if the Cop didn't have a gun in this situation.

I don't think you taze someone with a gun pointing at you. You back off.

Didn't know it was that late. This likely mean the cop has his flashlight pointing at the vet. The Vet likely can't see anything but hear voices of lowering your weapon, cop or something like that... given that it's nighttime, backdoor just kicked in, i would understand why the Vet would hesitate to lower his weapon...


It still comes down to.... Guns are everywhere, treat everyone as threat even an old vet that just had a surgery and you just broke through his backdoor in the middle of the night. It's an unfortunate situation and an unfortunate state of affair in the US.

 

The guy just had surgery "and a “decision was made to enter the house, concerned that he may be inside in need of emergency assistance.” And you want them to wait until morning?

Ironic, as you go right ahead assuming that every single one of these guys are devils.

If I'm reading the article right, the police even called emergency services before they went in due the the concern he was in need of emergency help. I don't see how you have come to the conclusion this was malicious in any way.

The only thing I see as debatable in this situation is whether the police should have tried to talk down the man and risk being shot or whether they shouldn't have. And regardless of how much people want to simplify it, it's pretty impossible choice that almost any person would have trouble making.

 

Police should be trained for this situation. It seems that retreat was an option here....no reason they had to insist the homeowner drop his weapon.

 

What would you have liked the officer to do?

Not enter the house and then be accused of not doing his job?

Just a second.... no one said that every officer is clean. However you assumed that he shot first and then asked questions. So out of the many thousands of police officers in this country, and then even more armed people they deal with, we should believe that they all are guilty of murder, or even most of them?

How about we turn it around, stop making excuses for people pulling guns on officers. Officers are shot in the line of duty all the time. Stop making excuses for people.

Both are stupid.

 

No reason except for the ever present possibility that having a gun pointed at you means you could be shot.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I would say you are simplifying it by reducing a potential life or death situation to a set of procedural steps learning in training. It would be great though if that's all it took, or if all police were the most self-sacrificing people in the world.

 

Maybe if they waited until the morning the old man would still be alive. Regardless on if he had surgery... At the end of the day the cop still killed him.

I wonder what time the family actually called the police department for the check. Just the same that's too late to be forcefully entering someone's home.

I would have liked for the officer to not murder a man in his own home who wasn't committing any crime. But apparently that's too much to ask for you.

I didn't assume anything. I said with no body cam for all we know the cop could have shot 1st without demanding anything... I didn't necessarily say one way or the other. But you put your cape on like Captain Save Em and started coming with the excuses.

If the old man was on the street... Ok.. But the man was in his home alarmed by someone breaking in his F'n back door late night.. And we all know the stories about home invaders. And you're seriously going to take that line of reasoning...

So now you call people stupid for defending their home... Lol. But at least you're admitting the cop was stupid so back up off me.

 

....or just a dead firefighter and an old man that will feel guilty for the rest of his life.

 

Yes, that's a possibility. That's what Gun can do. It's higher much more likely to be fatal.

 

Sure, accidents can happen just like with all things, let's not turn this into a "let's ban guns" thread. We don't ban cars simply because it's much more likely to have a fatal car crash than a fatal horse drawn carriage crash.

 

We do. Cars are banned from people for all kind of irresponsible reasons. Cars had and continue to have new requirements to make it safer. Cars are registered and checked yearly. Cars are in every damn database you can imagine. And so on.

We don't ban gun from irresponsible people because for some reason, doing so would be banning it for responsible people.

We don't make gun safer and we actively fight against any new technology to make it safer because why would we want a child to not accidentally discharge a gun?

We don't allow guns to be any electronic database because, well, if it is, criminals would be easier to track down. Who would want that.

So on.

 

Your comment would be a lot easier to take seriously if you seemingly realized that we do ban guns from a lot of people, and we are making guns safer every day. Anyway, I'm not going to even bother going into this further with you because I doubt there would be a point.

 

You better not do any kind of check on my old man at 11:30 at night that includes busting the door...

Just plain stupid.

 

Uhh, couldn't the police just apologize and get the hell out of there? It wasn't like they were coming there to arrest him.

 

But you would know that so you probably wouldn't ask them to right?

 

Do we know for a fact he "busted down the door?"

What if the guy WAS having an emergency? The family was worried, that's why they called the police. Why can't there be a tragic accident without having someone to blame?

Is it not entirely plausible that the officer was doing what he was asked, broke into the house because no one answered, and scared the old man? Why did the man not answer the phone or the knocks?

Once again, we know the bare bones of details and people are already slamming the cops.

 

You're either really dense, or just didn't read the article.

The family thought their father was in need of emergency help, so called the cops to verify he is okay. I doubt the family wanted the cops to just knock and see if he answers the door, as they are obviously afraid he may have collapsed (either dead, dying, or unable to get up), which is why hasn't been able to answer his phone.

Put yourself in that situation with that mindset and ask yourself if you wouldn't want the cops to get to your father ASAP and get him emergency help.