Janey

yup and nooo... I'm not crazy. what was the difference between 6:20 pm and let's say 6:30 pm, when the whole thing was going on since 3:50??? they already had waited, so what in the final exchange caused the police to decide, "hey, this is the final exchange, let's shoot him now"

and yes, he was firing at the police, and yes bullets travel a long distance. But again, (and I assure you I am not crazy, because the cops had already WAITED IT OUT FOR 1.5 HOURS) something prompted the police to abandon their strategy at 6:20.

Ripsaw

-Gunshots- would prompt return fire, and end the waiting. You'll notice that there were multiple exchanges. The only reason they were waiting was because they missed him those first two times. Once again, a man advancing upon your position firing, holding a baby or not, will be shot at until he is no longer moving.

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fhqwhgads

Janey- I don't know the specifics about this particular case, but I have been on a dozen or so active hostage/barricade situations myself, so I have a feeling for how these things go. These things are very dynamic...they are always changing depending on the behavior of the suspect.

I was a few hours into a suicidal barricade one night a few years ago. Our QRT team had already tried to evacuate everyone in the neighboring apartments. Now we're a few hours into the negotiation, and our dispatchers tell us that they just received a phone call from the apartment next door to the target apartment, wondering why all the police cars were outside. Our QRT team had knocked on that door several times, but apparently they had slept through the knocking. Now our team has to re-approach the target house in order to get those neighbors to safety. Luckily, we were able to keep the suspect on the phone while our team safely got the neighbors out.

From what I understand from the article, there was a team of officers that were trying to get some neighbors to safety when the suspect began to engage them. They didn't "abandon" their strategy... the situation changed.

ophelia783

Instead of thinking "what kind of police force would fire at a baby," think instead, "what kind of father would use his own child as a shield?"

The police were acting in order to protect their lives', and the lives of the public. The suspect thought of his child merely as a pawn, and an easy way out. What would've happened if they hadn't shot? He either would've killed them, or would've gotten away, or would've (most likely) killed his child anyway.

Just some food for thought.

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Janey

thanks, your response is exactly what I was looking for, not the automatic ranting at people who would dare to question police tactics.

I recognize that the situation is/was dynamic and that police would never want to kill a baby. I also recognize that there are many unanswered questions, and that it may be comming out that the baby may have been shot by it's own father.

What I would like is that when I question what occurred, I am not automatically consigned to a bleedingheart liberal softie category and ranted at. On the contrary, asking the hard questions takes me out of this softie category.


I appreciate your input...

edit: I also want to add that it is important for people reading this to know that the police are not a hardened lot of stormtroopers or ethnic cleansers who take pleasure in harming children. Every decision is a hard one and to lose a young innocent like in this case will cause a lot of soul-searching without our help.

getwonk'd

I can't imagine the pain this has caused for so many. The mother is probably beating herself up for leaving the child with her father. She knew he was depressed, but probably thought he would never hurt his own daughter. The police officers are sure to be agonizing over the bullet that killed the poor girl and will never be sure who's bullet actually hit her. Then you have all the people that witnessed this. It is truly tragic when a parent puts their own child in that situation. The pain and hopelessness he must have felt prior to this incident must have been unbearable. Why else would a parent flip out like that. I can't imagine the state of mind he must have been in.

MSD

If you're wondering what they were thinking or what they felt, the answer to the first was "Officer down" and the second, that they had to stop this guy before anyone else was killed. In a situation in which a suspect is firing at officers and civilians, the only clear shot is the immediate one that can take the suspect down

I've been hit with a police-issue stungun and pepper spray on a bet, and they did jack shit. the only way anyone found to drop me with the stungun (no head/groin shots allowed) was to position the electrodes on opposite sides of my spine. I said some nice, firendly things to accompany the shin kick when I finally stood back up.
It's possible that they would have fewer fatalities to armed suspects who shot first, and to armored targets, but we'd also have a lot more deaths among officers who had to sit back and watch their ammo do jack shit to a lightly armored target. If you're talking about the FN 5.7x28 round (5.7mm is almost identical to .22), it has superior performance to many 9mm rounds and wouldn't result in any lesss fatalities.

The issue that I have with your response is that it seems you're concerned with police killing people who pose an immediate threat to ther lives. That's the only situation in which they're allowed to shoot in the first place.
The only hits that can reliably incapacitate a human are center-of-mass (reflexive neurocirculatory shock reuslts in instant incapacitation ~95% of the time on first shots and ~98% if a second shot is required,) and the head. Limb shots, in addition to being nearly impossible to achieve, do nothing to incapacitate the suspect and also risk a shot missing or passing through. They only work in movies and games.

If you want to learn more about how bullets actually kill/incapacitate, search the Weaponry forum for a thread entitled "Hydrostatic shock."