washingtonpost.com The situation sorta reminds me of what set off the events of Marvel's Civil War--insofar as the accusations that the "stars" of the show were playing to the camera.
the gestapo in action. The cop should do time for this reckless behaviour. I wonder what the chances are they'll get a conviction?
Thats interesting. When the crew were in Birmingham early last year, they investigated the murder of a friend of mine we went to high school with. Eerie. I don't see anything wrong with it - no more than COPS - but, as you reflected from the article, if the detectives are too busy playing to the camera (which I have noticed in the past some seem to enjoy being on tv) it can lead to shenanigans like this. Just a shame that between the "brouhaha" as it were and the actions of the murderer they were looking for, a 7-yr old little girl had to pay for their mistakes.
I've been following this story on Detroit's Local 4 News. All I can say is that this should not have happened.
This I agree with completely and ill say this if the Police department isn't careful they will have a full blown riot as with way Detroit is right now its basically a riot looking for an excuse to break out. If those cop some how get off its gonna be the Rodney King riots all over again and likely worse.
I love The First 48. The cops were obviously playing up to the camera in their line of work, but they also seem to get carried away with these raids even without a camera involved. As unfortunate as it is, overzealous cops (who have a right to be, they tend to go into situations expecting it to be dangerous) tend to hurt/kill innocent people a lot.. I can recall an elderly woman killed in a wrong house drug raid a while back or even the dogs that got shot over the pot bust. I just hate it when people turn their outrage to the cops and call them names (not directed to anyone here). I don't support what they did, but I can guarantee that they felt terrible. Unless you're the rare sociopath (which I know can occur more in a law enforcement environment), killing a little girl will leave some serious guilt. I was reading comments on some other news site, and people were gathering their internet rage and demanding the cop be put on death row. It's silly. I did love though how the cops claimed one thing happened and then the A&E footage showed up and they had to backpedal.
I can't believe the family hired Fieger. Everything else in his past and character aside, he couldn't win a lawsuit against the police officers who shot a deaf man to death for not putting down a rake at 25 feet and claimed self-defense while neighbors cried out to the police that the guy is deaf and couldn't hear them telling him to put down the gardening tool. A man who wasn't a suspect, nor was he involved on why the police were there.
A good post. In fairness to the cop, situations like this can turn dangerous, and in the heat of the moment, mistakes can be made. I'm sure they do feel terrible as it is. That doesn't change the fact that they were reckless and dangerous with their heavy-handed tactics. Something like this has to warrant prosecution. My feeling is that if you feel the guilt and you feel the remorse, come clean about it. Lay yourself at the mercy of the court. Don't cover it up. When you change your story and you cover-up, you do damage to the image of cops everywhere.
I had to google search that law and the first result was a post by you... Also interesting case. Should not have happened. Hopefully any recklessness by the officers will be at least brought to trial.
See, my issue I guess is how terrible do you feel if you lie about it? I mean, if you make every attempt to dodge responsibility (see the Kathryn Johnston case in Atlanta also), do you really feel bad about something you've done? Or just unjustly inconvenienced? I don't think it's possible to guarantee they felt terrible. They could just as easily be rationalizing it (she would've be killed anyways, now she's not going to be a crack whore, her family should've lived somewhere nicer, can't make an omelet, etc.). Or hell, joking about it. I work with people who aren't sociopaths (although we have our fair share also) who joke all the time about the death of innocents. One of my co-workers hit and killed a jaywalking dude in a wheelchair and killed him--not his fault, no charges were filed, but still awful--and he cracks about it regularly. Also, you referenced the Kathryn Johnston case already--that elderly woman. Those cops lied in the pursuit of a warrant. And it's still very unclear what they were doing at that house. I have some serious misgivings about accepting the death or injury of innocents by cops because "they go into dangerous situations." Sorry, that's part of the job. Soldiers could do things a lot easier if they just called in an airstrike on every village they patrolled, but it doesn't work that way.
Incidentally, back in 1999, "FBI statistics were made public showing that Detroit police officers kill citizens at a higher rate than police in any other big US city. Detroit had a rate of 0.92 fatal shootings per 100,000 residents, far higher than New York and Los Angeles, two cities recently scandalized by revelations of widespread police killings, frame-ups and brutality." I know that was a while ago, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say nothing's changed. Again, if they feel so terrible, maybe they should figure out a way to fix that.
Yeah, I don't feel bad for Cops. If cops are getting that paranoid, maybe they should of retired already. Not every house has a manic behind the door ready to take your head off, hell most of them don't. However, it is a dangerous line of work, I won't dispute that but unlike most jobs, this one has life and death consequences. Your handed a weapon and given orders to protect the community. When you violate that trust by flash binging women and shooting children, you deserve whatever punishment you get. Why should they be exempt from punishment? "My bad" doesn't cut it when you just killed someones baby girl due to your recklessness!! EDIT: Its a good thing the cover up story didn't stick! I'm glad the first 48 recorded the whole thing. All the officers should be disciplined for just blatantly lying about the whole situation.
You're all missing the real news story here - Steven Seagal locked up 3 women in Louisiana and had sex with each of them!
where are the non-lethal methods? with the shooting of the 7 year old girl, there were signs everywhere telling cops that kids would be in the house. so, why not use flash-bangs and rubber bullets or the bean bag shells in their shotguns? trust me, that stuff will take the fight outta most anybody. we're still sore about a hostage situation turned double Murder (that's what it looks like to many here) that happened some years ago here. Robber ran into a clothing store, took a woman hostage and tried to get to a car. our "SWAT" showed up and established a perimeter. OK was given to take the robber out. SWAT officer shot through the hostage and into the robber. both were killed. It was discovered by the newspaper reporter on scene that the SWAT sniper was using his hunting rifle, not the department issued rifle that he supposedly trained with every day. Reporter caused a stink, the officer was placed on paid leave, and in the end, it was discovered that the hunting rifle's scope was not even zeroed in. end result? 2 funerals and the cop kept his job until several city council meetings later, where people kept bringing it up, they promoted him to an administrative post. lose-lose-lose situation. do i believe he was a bloodthirsty, trigger happy killer? No. What he was, imo, was an irresponsible, unprofessional cop who should have been stopped/checked out by his superiors before taking a position with his hunting rifle. He should have been fired and charged with a crime.
Three women! In a single house! Having sex with STEVEN SEAGAL! People die all the time, but NO ONE has sex with Steven Seagal!
Not sticking up for the Cops here, but what the article fails to mention is that they were looking for a suspect that they knew was in the house, about a week prior to this, he had just shot, and killed a 17 year old boy for....and get this...LOOKING AT HIM THE WRONG WAY....yeah, I'm being serious. Does that justify what happened?....regardless of what/how it happened, that does not justify the senseless death of a 7 year old little girl. In all honesty, until we see the evidence, we really don't know what happened. We only know what they tell us. I know if I was a Cop, and I was after a guy that just shot and killed some other guy for looking at him the wrong way?....yeah, I'm going to be a little on edge too....as would anyone.
Yeah, I'm still shaking my head that the suspect killed a high school senior just because the student looked at the guy in the wrong way... and in front of people at a liquor store, which... if memory serves me well, is not all that far from the house that the police raided. Like I said, all of this should not have happened.
On Fox 2 news, the have a session called "Let it Rip" where they have guest speakers come on and give their opinions as to what they think could solve whatever the problem being discussed at the time. One panelists suggested re-instating the draft for those under 30 years of age that don't have a steady job, or are in school full time. I totally agreed with that. You wanna shoot somebody?...you want to be a menace to society?....Put all the little bastards on the front line....see how tuff they are then. You're either gonna listen, and follow orders, or you're gonna die.
