[Peace-discuss] Martial Law comes to Garden Hills

[John W.]

At 08:33 PM 7/3/2007, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:

>Thanks for sending this Marti -- I'd missed this one entirely -- and 
>Thanks, News Gazette for getting the headline (and story!) right -- 
>Resident Rips Police for Shooting Into House. This was outrageous!!!. I 
>can't believe the Chief of Police is defending such sloppy and dangerous 
>police work! Randomly shooting into the house had every chance of hurting 
>or killing someone innocent, and almost no chance of hitting their 
>intended target!! (It's another question as to whether or not the police 
>should have been shooting at the man at that point anyway, before at least 
>warning him. I think I heard/read a local officer's statement that they're 
>trained to - and  always shoot to kill, that they don't do the Roy Rogers 
>thing and try to wing the guy, shoot his leg to stop him, or shoot out his 
>tires, etc, and that's a scary thing, if I got it right.)
>
>I caught city council mtg last week (I think) on TV. Several officers 
>presented information on increased patrol in certain areas of town, and it 
>sounded reasonable and appropriate to me, something that residents would 
>appreciate having, something that would increase their safety and 
>well-being, which is what we all want (and which most of us on this list 
>are fortunate to have). I am still persuaded that the plans were and are 
>reasonable and appropriate.
>
>But if this is the way officers handle situations that make it necessary 
>to have increased police presence -- and worst of all -- if Capt Finney is 
>going to defend THIS case as reasonable and appropriate behavior, I've got 
>a HUGE problem w/ it. Would I do any better if I were in the officers 
>position? No. Do I expect better from them and their supervisors? Yes.
>
>Jenifer

This comment is interesting.  I admire your honesty, Jen, but it raises an 
important question.  If you wouldn't or couldn't do any better in the 
officers' position (which implies that you would have had their training, 
etc.), how can you expect better of them, and what should they have done 
differently?

Having been a firefighter for 16 years, I speak from some personal 
experience.  Making quick decisions with insufficient information while 
under intense pressure is far from simple or formulaic.  Hindsight is 
sometimes 20/20 (not always), but one does not have the luxury of hindsight 
while in the midst of the emergency situation.

And yes, police officers are trained that, if they draw their weapon they 
should be prepared to use it, and they should shoot to kill.  They shoot 
for the trunk, and more specifically for the area of the heart.

You raise some excellent points, though - it's hard to shoot to kill if you 
can't clearly see the target, or if other things intervene between yourself 
and the target.  If I'm not mistaken, police officers are also trained to 
NOT shoot in situations where there are a number of innocent bystanders 
present.  So the police may indeed have made some significant mistakes in 
how they handled the situation.  It'll be interesting to see what other 
information comes out.

John Wason



>Marti <tvchick at insightbb.com> wrote:
>
>Recently residents of the Garden Hills subdivision received a letter in 
>the mail regarding the increased amount of police activity which would be 
>taking place.  This was done with the 'good' of the residents in 
>mind.  One of the results of this increased patrolling is the story below.
>
><http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/06/29/resident_rips_police_over_shots_into>http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2007/06/29/resident_rips_police_over_shots_into
>
>According to the resident of this house the man who ran into her place was 
>not firing his gun at the moment, yet police officers maintained open fire 
>and caused damage to the property.  Now if I decided to damage the 
>property of my neighbors they would be well within their rights to charge 
>me with vandalism, yet our police chief defended the actions of his 
>officers when they caused damage to someone's house.
>
>I wonder if the City of Champaign will pay for the repairs in this 
>instance. At this point that would be the proper thing to do.
>
>Peace, Marti
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20070704/a3df0fd1/attachment.htm