A grand jury didn’t indict Angel Alvarez. This is surprising, given how they say a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.
Here’s what I wrote about his shooting back in August.
Tag: police shootings
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Police shooting deaths
This year, nationwide, 15 officers have been killed by gunfire (out of 30 total line-of-duty deaths). This puts us on pace to expect 105 officers to be shot and killed in 2011. Compare this with 59 firearms deaths in 2010, 47 in 2009, 40 in 2008, and 66 in 2007. Is this a trend? It’s not clear. Maybe 2009 and 2008 were unusually low. Maybe, hopefully, the rest of 2011 will be much safer.
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RIP Officer John Falcone
There’s a wake for Poughkeepsie Officer John Falcone today. The 18-year-veteran was killed last Friday.
Lee Welch, 27, and his wife, Jessica Welch, 28, both of Catskill, have three children together and a history of domestic violence, Knapp said. They were in Poughkeepsie to exchange a vehicle when the shooting occurred.
Falcone was a block-and-a-half away from the scene of the shooting when a report came in at 1:07 p.m. Friday of shots fired on lower Main Street.
The husband shot his wife while she sat in their vehicle, possibly more than once. He was holding their 3-year-old child and waving a gun when Falcone came upon him on lower Main Street, near Railroad Avenue. Jessica Welch was taken to Vassar Brothers Medical Center, where she died.
Additional officers arrived and a struggle ensued, Welch fired his weapon twice, Falcone was shot once in the head and Welch shot himself. Welch was ordered multiple times to drop his weapon.
An officer who tackled the suspect, Thomas Matthews, suffered a dislocated shoulder. Everything happened in about five minutes, Knapp said.
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Knapp said no officer discharged his weapon. -
Not another day at the office
Video of the police shooting in a Detroit police station.
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Lakewood Coffee-Shop Ambush
The good people at policeone.com have posted a, in-depth video about last year’s Lakewood Four coffee-shop ambush. The video tells the story from the perspective of the responding officers.
[I’m on vacation; life is good. While I’m gone, I’ve pre-scheduled a few posts.]
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RIP William H. Torbit Jr.
Officer Torbit’s funeral was yesterday. It must have been painful.
Meanwhile on Tuesday night, another officer, a homicide detective, was shot. What a friggin’ job.
I’ll be back in the U.S. in a week. Everything seems very distant from here in Bangkok.
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Tragedy in Baltimore
Plain clothed friendly fire police shooting.
[please don’t post stupid or disrespectful comments, or respond to those who do.]
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Baltimore Officer Shot
A one-year veteran was seriously shot on N. Calvert Street early Sunday morning.
He’s expected to survive. I hope he does.
From the Sun:
A man opened fire on him near the downtown nightlife hub, touching off a running gunbattle as tactical officers pursued the suspect up North Calvert Street.
The suspect fled on foot, then sped away in a silver-colored Toyota Camry before crashing into a light pole near Calvert and Franklin streets. Police apprehended him at Mercy Medical Center, where he was seeking treatment for several gunshot wounds.
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Several tactical officers, who patrol the area on weekend evenings, shot at the gunman, firing at least 20 bullets on one city block, police said.
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Court records show that Gross, who was identified as the suspect by law enforcement sources, had been convicted of three prior felonies. A police source said he was on parole for armed robbery at the time of the latest shooting. -
A technicality?
It’s not easy to separate emotion from constitutional issues. Ronell Wilson killed two NYPD detectives in 2003 and was found guilty and sentence to death by a federal jury. Good.
Now, in 2010, an appeals court struck down the sentence (but not the conviction… the bastard did it).
It’s easy for cops and conservatives to bitch about “liberal” courts letting cop killers go on a “technicality.” But the court is right.
According to the Times, the “technicality” is that the prosecutors told the jury to consider Wilson’s demand for a trial and failure to plead guilty as evidence of lack of remorse. The prosecutors had “argued to the jury that his statement of remorse should be discredited because he failed to testify.”
Like it or not (myself, I’m rather fond of the Bill of Rights), we all have the constitutional right to a jury trial–Amendment 6–and the right not to testify against ourselves–Amendment 5. Period.
[Mind you, demanding your right to a jury trial isoften held against you. That’s why 90-some percent of convictions come from plea bargains — but that doesn’t make it right and that’s another story.]
What kind of rights would these be if exercising these rights were held against you? What could be worse than a prosecutor implying, “Yes, the defendant had a right not to testify, and because he exercised that right, he should be put to death.”
Call it a “technicality” if you want. I’d call it a fundamental right put in doubt by a serious and stupid error from prosecutors.
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Off-Duty Chicago Cop Killed, killer shot by victim’s father
Tragic story with an unusual twist in the Sun Times. Too bad a good man is still dead.