Parent of the Year goes on Vehicular Rampage in D.C.

[uppi]

The most likely place a police shooter is going to hit someone is somewhere in the center of the body. Less than lethal in that instance seems more like luck of the draw than a purposeful decision on the part of the officer. Perhaps since Bugfatty seems to have law enforcement expertise, he could educate me if I'm wrong here.

That entirely depends on the range, the weapon and the skill of the shooter. Near the effective range of a weapon, it is indeed luck what you are going to hit. But at much shorter range you can pick the part of the body you want to hit and hit that most of the time.

Police in public areas will of course have a different ROE than soldiers. Lethal weapons should not be used at all unless their is a need for lethal force. Having a shoot to wound policy for police will if anything promote more trigger happiness.

True. But there are certainly cases, where the shoot to kill policy results in force that is more lethal than it has to be. You would have to curb trigger happiness in another way, for example by increasing the bureaucratic pain for shooting.

But anyway, I don't want to argue that a shoot to wound policy is necessarily better, I just wanted to point out that it exists.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I dont see how she could have just made a mistake after the cops had her car surrounded with guns out, she backed up and sped out of there and the cops were jumping out of her way

The incident apparently started when she went past a security checkpoint that didn't have the customary barrier in place. That is the possible mistake which I was referring. If she wasn't familiar with DC, she might have thought that led to a public parking area, or that she should just continue on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But from that video of the second confrontation shows that one of the cops was standing in front of her car. It wasn't until he moved out of the way that she went forward. That doesn't seem to be the act of someone who was intentionally trying to run people over.

The front of the car also shows no sign of damage, so that barricade she apparently hit seemed to be one of those movable ones that the police frequently use.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Fair enough. And to take the officer POV in this, there is no aimed shot at a person in a vehicle that doesn't have a high chance of fatality, yes? If you shoot into the door, you don't know what you're hitting.

From the police officer's point of view, this could have been a suicide bomber going after the Capitol buildings. That alone lends some justification to shoot-to-kill.

Suicide bombers have been known to wear burkas to disguise themselves and even surgically implant bombs in their chest cavity, so having a baby in the backseat really wouldn't be that surprising.

 

[peter grimes]

I will never understand why people name their kids B.J.

As a reminder of past mistakes?

Someone died, that's nothing to applaud over. Period. No matter that it was the right thing to do when the situation was unclear and you have to do something. But they destroyed a family, took away a mother from her child forever. You don't clap for that. You can thank the police for working without pay differently if you wish to do so (hint: start paying them again.)

Indeed. When I heard there was a child in the car my heart wrenched. That poor kiddo, being forced to live through all of that. And I'm not just referring to the car chase stuff.

 

[mitsho]

Seems like I started a whole avalanche with that "shoot-to-kill" comment. I have to admit I don't have big knowledge in that area (and apparently that this notion is indeed kind of a urban myth, though I would argue that this would then point more towards taking the guns away from (the majority of) the police). But it is a secondary point because this case really looks like the police took the correct actions due to a lack of knowledge of the situation and still the wrong actions since it resulted in death.

 

[Lord Baal]

Lord Baal, do you wash your fruit before eating it?

As a matter of fact, yes.