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Tag: police shootings

  • Officer Down

    Officer Down

    Sometimes you get criticized for shooting too fast. Sometimes you don’t shoot fast enough.

    Here’s to North St. Paul police officer Richard Crittenden. While protecting someone else, Officer Crittenden was killed with his own service weapon.

    Rest in Peace.

    Crittenden reportedly pushed the woman out of harm’s way but in the process left himself vulnerable for the man to ambush him, grab his handgun and shoot him, the source said.

    A Maplewood police officer was slightly wounded but shot the suspect dead during an exchange of gunfire moments later inside the North St. Paul apartment.
    …
    Court records reveal Dockery had a history of crime — and two of his biggest targets were his estranged wife and the mother of two of his children.

    Terry, who had known Dockery for 11 years, had filed four orders for protection against him between 2000 and May.

    Here’s the story in the Pioneer Press.

  • So, honey, how was your day at the office?

    Check out this video. New Mexico is crazy, man (and I say that only because my wife is from there, ese)!

  • Two officers shot

    Two officers down in Baltimore. Supposedly in stable condition. Supposedly returned fire, which is a good sign.

  • I’m Back

    I’m back from two weeks in Spain… but I’ll spare you the details except to say there was hiking in the Alpujarras involved. And very sore feet. And lots of pork.

    Meanwhile, I was just quoted in a widely read article (the AP is great for that) about dirty narcs in NYC. Though I don’t condone it, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for criminals when they get framed. But there really is nothing worse than framing an innocent man.

    And an off-duty black NYPD officer, Omar Edwards, was killed by fellow police officers.

    Do white officers ever get killed in similar circumstances? Rarely. I know of only one case, in Florida, when a white officer was shot and killed accidentally by police. He was undercover and busting a group of (gasp) underage college tailgaters.

    Part of the problem is that as a police officer chasing a criminal, when you hear police shouting, you don’t think they’re shouting at you. You know you’re police. You feel it. You’re used to hearing commands to show your hands and drop the gun. You shout such commands. You’re a cop. You don’t drop your gun. But you can’t see yourself and see you’re out of uniform and holding a gun. I don’t know what the answer is.

    In other news, Nicholas Kristof wrote a powerful piece in the New York Times, Drugs Won the War. He mentions LEAP prominently.

    And on Friday I’ll be in Chicago for an interview on WGN’s Milt Rosenberg show. 9 – 11 pm Chicago time. I’m very excited about that. You can listen here.

  • Fallout from Oakland police killings

    The Oakland police captain who runs the department’s SWAT unit has asked to be reassigned because of the team’s resentment over his decision to console the families of two officers slain by a parolee rather than lead what became an ill-fated raid for the killer.

    Jaxon Van Derbeken reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.

  • Fewer Police Deaths

    Fewer Police Deaths

    It surprises a lot of people to find out that fewer and fewer police officers are killed on duty than in the past. I guess it counters the natural inclination to assume that the world is going to hell and violence is out of control and kids these days… have you seen what they’re wearing?

    The top red line is total police line-of-duty deaths. The bottom blue line represents cops shot and murdered on duty. I compiled these data for class. It’s much harder to get data on police-involved shootings.

    After being shot, car crashes comes in a close second. Nothing else comes close.

    Why are fewer police officers killed? Probably a combination (in no particular order) of better training, better emergency medical care, better equipment, and more restrictive shooting policies. Still, on average, a police officer is shot and killed almost every week in America.

    It’s interesting that shooting deaths don’t seem to correlate with overall trends in homicide. Because in general the best predictor of police and police-involved shootings is a high level of violence in the community.

    All the data comes from the Officer Down Memorial Page.

  • Police Officers Paul J. Sciullo II, Eric Kelly, and Stephen Mayhle

    Police Officers Paul J. Sciullo II, Eric Kelly, and Stephen Mayhle

    I just happen to be in Pittsburgh. And I just happened to bike by mile after mile of police cars from around the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the nation. I asked an officer where the service was and decided to pay my respects to officers Paul J. Sciullo II [pronounced Shullo], Eric Kelly, and Stephen Mayhle.

    The service was in the U Pittsburgh basketball arena. It’s been seven years since I’ve been at a police funeral. I don’t miss them at all. I sat and stood with other police officers.

    I felt I got there late, since I hadn’t really planned on being there at all. But it was still hours before everybody finished filing in. Everybody is standing. Last came the Pittsburgh police. And then came the fife and drum brigades.

    I’ve been to a half dozen or so police funerals. When I walked into the arena I didn’t even know the officers’ names. This won’t be a big deal, I thought. But I’ll be damned if I can stay dry-eyed as bagpipes play and I salute the coffins as they pass below.

    There were four different bagpipe troupes, one for each officer plus the NYPD (damn the NYPD has a lot of officers who can play the pipes). The first was Pittsburgh. The second was Cleveland. I missed where the third was from.

    I left at around 3:15pm as the mayor was saying things that mayors do. I had paid my respects… and there was still time to see the Warhol Museum before it closed at 5pm.

    I didn’t bring my camera on this trip. But I asked a stranger on the street to email me some pictures she was taking of police cars on Forbes Street. Hopefully she will.

    Rest in Peace.

    Coverage in the Post-Gazette (photo above by Steve Mellon).

    The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has excellent photo coverage.

  • What’s News?

    Why were the Oakland police shootings front-page nationwide news and the Pittsburgh police shootings not? I don’t think it’s just the difference between 3 versus 4 officers killed.

    Somehow an angry violent black killer makes for better headlines than an angry violent white killer. Am I supposed to believe that white killers just flip out and lose it while black killers are somehow symbolic of deeper problems of race and the community? If the media were really so liberally biased, wouldn’t it be the other way around?

    (On the other hand, I don’t hear of anybody in Pittsburgh heckling officers or setting up a shrine to the killer.)

    The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a lot of good coverage on the latest tragedy:

    Deadly ambush claims the lives of 3 city police officers

    Devotion to badge was slain officers’ common thread

    Hundreds of bullets fired in shootout with suspected cop killer

    Police risked their lives to rescue downed officers

    Suspect in officers’ shooting was into conspiracy theories

  • 3 Pittsburgh Police Officers Killed

    Three officers killed. Two wounded. This is too soon after Oakland.

    22-year-old man with bulletproof vest and assault riffle kills officers responding to a domestic call at 7:30am. The wounded cop killer surrendered to police at 11am.

    Some of the wounded officers remained for a time where they fell because other officers could not reach them because of the continuing fusillade…. SWAT officers were pinned down, with their protective shields up, at an adjacent house.
    …
    Other friends said Mr. Poplawski had several guns, including an AK-47 assault-type rifle, a .357 Magnum revolver, a .380-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber handgun. They also said they believed he had not been getting along with his mother.
    …
    Former classmates said they were surprised by this morning’s events. [A friend said the killer] was opposed to “Zionist propaganda” and was fearful that his right to own weapons would be taken away.

    “He always said that if someone tried to take his weapons away he would do what his forefathers told him to do and defend himself.”

    Read the whole story by Michael Fuoco and Jerome Sherman in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

  • Police converge in Oakland for funeral

    The Oakland Tribunereports on this as does the San Francisco Chronicle: “The funeral will be unprecedented in at least one other respect – all 815 members of the Oakland Police Department are being allowed to attend.”

    It is set for 11AM.