“Adrian Aurs showed up at his estranged wife’s apartment late Friday. The Indianapolis police officer was angry and armed,” washingtonpost.com reports. “What he saw in the living room made him even more angry . . .
“What are you laughing at with another man in your apartment!” Aurs yelled as he pointed his gun, according to a probable-cause affidavit. He fired three shots, striking the man in the right elbow and side.
The man who was shot, Robert Pearsey, was a fellow police officer investigating a domestic violence incident between Aurs and his wife earlier that night. Pearsay fired back but missed Aurs, who then pointed the gun at his wife before leaving the apartment . . .
“I lost it, I just snapped,” Aurs said shortly after his arrest, according to court records.
I am not a “cop basher.” I respect and admire the police who patrol our streets to keep their fellow civilians safe, putting their lives on the line on our behalf. But it’s certainly true that a significant minority of cops are not worthy of the badge and the public trust that goes with it. Far from it.
Aurs started with the police department in 1999 as a recruit trainee and became a patrol officer in 2000. He was suspended without pay a few times — once for 20 days — for violating department rules on dealing with the public, using agency equipment and other issues, according to his personnel file, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
Court records show Aurs was convicted of drunken driving in 2005 and sentenced to probation for one year.
Officer Aurs also received his department’s Medal of Valor and a Medal of Bravery. But his record of domestic violence — and I have a hard time believing that the incident leading to the shooting was the first time the department knew of this problem — should have been grounds for immediate suspension and, after a fair inquiry, dismissal.
Truth be told, there is a code of silence in many police forces. I repeat: there are far too many instances where police cover-up the crimes of fellow officers (e.g., How the Oakland Police Department Worked to Cover-Up Sex Crimes and a Home Invasion Committed by Cops). In terms of domestic violence, as sfgate.com reported:
Several studies . . . indicate that women suffer domestic abuse in at least 40 percent of police officer families. For American women overall, the figure is 25 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That is a scandal that needs immediate and direct attention. It’s also, at least potentially, the tip of the iceberg. I reckon any police officer who beats his wife and/or children is highly likely to have violated the public trust. As was the case with Officer Aurs.
Black Lives Matter is an anti-cop hate group. They’re beyond the pale. But that doesn’t obviate the pressing need to police the police. To weed-out the “bad apples” who have no business being police officers. Carrying a gun as they do so.
It’s only a hidden problem if one refuses to see it.
Domestic violence among LEO’s has been a well documented issue since at least the early 70’s.
Along with their higher than average rates of self-medicating and steroid use.
Nearly half a century has passed and nothing has changed because cops.
News reports indicate they fought about visitation and other things. I’ve seen women refuse to let father’s see their kids. Some people go out of their way to be assholes. Even reasonable people have a breaking point (not saying this guy was reasonable).
Punish the criminal and be done with it.
Everyone has their limits, but if you shoot people when you reach yours then you are not someone who should be allowed to walk the streets freely. What a person does in times of stress and desperation is who they were all along. Investigate as necessary, and punish the guilty.
He just snapped… was he this way before or after the police psychological evaluation?
Goons like this perpetuate the anti-gun “anyone can snap” myth. His history indicates otherwise. You’ll have this as long as police unions continue to bail out these knuckle draggers.
The ‘psychological examination’ is a lot of CYA BS masquerading as science (not unlike the polygraph). I say this as someone who has passed them.
If something needs to be done, who does the doing? Asking the police to investigate themselves is a clear non starter based on the observational evidence.
So who does it? The sheriff?
Good question. Probably do a rug-sweep.
A.C.A.B.
Yeah, like the ones who allowed me to take my drunk, pissed off, lost biker brother home at 3am rather than tossing him in the hoosgow for DUI and disturbing the peace. Real bastards, they were. Especially since he sports an ACAB patch on his cut.
Your experience doesn’t make me feel ANY better about the police. I want people who are DUI locked up and convicted. Allowing them to escape the consequences of their poor choices will not end well in the future.
IMHO DUI is a nonsense charge designed to make money for the state and provide them yet another legal way to lord over you.
No harm, no foul. That used to be the watchword for laws. Now it’s “creating an less that optimal safety situation” that gets people locked up and in many cases ruins their life. Grabber logic at it’s best. Same with the War on Drugs.
strych9: come live in New Mexico for a while and then tell me how you feel about it.
DUI is a major problem in this state. I personally don’t care if someone wants to get drunk / high / shoot up / whatever on their own property. But as soon as you put yourself in a position where your inebriation or other decreased capacity to function threatens me, then I have a real problem with it.
I have a similar opinion re those who drive while sleep-deprived, fwiw.
Been there, done that. I lived in NM for years. My parents still live there and I visit twice a year from my new home in Colorado. Some of my friends have died driving drunk or from being hit by drunk drivers.
Land of the Drunk Driver is what should be on the plates for NM.
That doesn’t change the fact that DUI laws don’t pass the smell test with me. The driver is not harming anyone until they’re actually harming someone, which is already illegal. The same way walking around in downtown Santa Fe with a gun on your hip isn’t harming anyone until you start shooting people (Although it “triggers” the artsy liberals!).
You want to get drunks off the road? Fine. Drunk tank their ass for the night and release them when they’re sober. Serious, repeat offenders, like the guy who ran that woman down on the Plaza in Santa Fe I don’t have a problem with locking up for some period of time.
What I don’t like is the fact that people make a simple mistake one time and Operation DWI (Checkpoints everywhere! Bats too!) throws them to the wolves of the legal system for a BAC of 0.081.
I’m not “pro drunk driving” I’m just against stupid laws that are generally meant to make money for the state and wreck people’s lives over a single incident. NM isn’t as bad about that as Colorado, but DUI in general is bullshit and it’s all done by the feds with their “highway funding” carrot and stick routine. Do you realize that in NM you can get a DUI (and I know people who have for each example) on a skateboard, roller skates, roller blades or even a horse? If it ain’t your feet and you’re legally intoxicated it’s a DUI in New Mexico. That’s completely retarded.
It’s more about power, control and money- grabbing, IMHO.
Ed just named an Italian movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1893195/
Law Enforcement serve themselves and protect their pensions. Wayward police are shuffled from one division to another protecting the institution until it can no longer condone officers criminal behavior. It’s not about and individual but preserving the collective.
So … you’re saying they’re a religious order?
More like a death cult.
That would be the Marine Corps, chief.
Google Michelle O’Connell, if this pigster shot a civilian this wouldn’t even be on the news.
Short sentence, time off for good behavior, and then disability – 70% of six figure salary for life?
Nah, no sentence. It’s almost impossible for the courts to send a cop to prison.
Well, as long as cops go out of their way to cover the actions of bad apples, the public trust in them will continue to erode. Oh, and the way they are trained now too, with the deep-seated mentality of “us vs them”. Cops no longer see themselves as part of the community they (theoretically) serve, but as an entirely separate entity. This is a relatively recent shift, and unfortunately, the good cops who DON’T have this mentality are aging and retiring. Before too long, the old breed of community-oriented cops will be gone, replaced almost entirely with SWAT wannabes who feel nothing but disdain for the average non-LEO.
Being retired from that profession I (anecdotally) can confirm that to be my experience.
Yes, absolutely, there were a growing crowd of ‘us vs them’ LEs during my time (retired before 2000), but what I see in evidence today, particularly with the younger officers coming out of the larger academies is almost (if not actual) institutionalized in that mindset.
I still go to functions where these younger officers are present and their conversations are, frankly, frightening from the perspective of our civil liberties. On the few occasions I’ve stepped in to talk and inquire, it is always “its different now”, “you had it easy”. Well, I certainly never had to deal with the pervasiveness of cameras, however, I always tried to act in a manner that was ‘right’, regardless of whether someone was ‘watching’.
Between the increase in seeming indifference to the people we were suppose to serve, the (to me) rise of ‘high speed, low drag’ operator mentalities, and the ever-increasing militarization of some departments, I am rapidly losing the ability to recognized my former profession.
“…particularly with the younger officers coming out of the larger academies is almost (if not actual) institutionalized in that mindset.”
This does appear to be a problem. A friend of mine’s husband graduated from the Academy early this year (or maybe late last, I don’t remember) and this is exactly what he complained about. Well, that and a bunch of military rejects who teach there and apparently think that even though they were rejected for military service that they still became SEALs and now they train cops like it’s the military even though they don’t know jack about how military training works because they’ve never had it.
No need to apologize RF. Most of us are adults. I believe if you’re a cop you HAVE to be capable of violence. Combine that with the low(er) IQ and such a large percentage coming from the military and BAM! Zoom to the moon. I imagine the thin blue line is much more stressed than normally with videos showing every peccadillo and violent encounter. Watching one RIGHT NOW from a cop shooting in Chicago (but the 18year old car thief was trying to KILL the cops).
I don’t really think much of this is new, I just think it’s more heavily advertised now that we are in an Information age. And twisted for agendas like Obama’s. Remember the majority of police officers ARE good guys with guns, and Good guys with guns are bad according to them.
That said this guy probably shoulda been taken out of circulation a long time ago. The problem is the thin blue line begins with politicians in many cases. Look at Laquan Mcdonald in Chicago, it wasn’t Gary that kept the video out of the public it was the prosecutor and mayor who’s pleasure he served at and was ultimately fired/sacrificed over the backlash.
Actually, it looks to me like McCarthy was canned for his infamous statement that he would train his cops to shoot if someone “turned with something in his hands.” Which is exactly what McDonald did, after moving to within Tueller range. A pre-sacrifice with a mind towards Van Dyke’s inevitable acquittal.
Lock him up, throw away the key. He has forfeited his right to live among free people, let alone to hold lawful, forceful authority over them.
It would be nice to have a trial first … other than the court of public opinion, that is.
And yet, when many states pass domestic violence laws, the LEOs are often given a more lenient set of rules versus everyone else including being able to keep their guns and quicker time to see a judge. See the BS laws passed in CT.
There are times and situations where LEOs can be given the benefit of the doubt, but other times they should be treated like everyone else. If I can loose my gun on just the suspicion of domestic abuse, so should LEOs. No special carve out. That is what pisses me off. The statics show the issue among LEOs, but they still get a special carve out at least in CT.
The way I see it, a person who is willing to abuse his own wife and children is even more capable of abusing strangers.
If we can demonstrate that a law enforcement officer is a domestic abuser, that should immediately disqualify them from any policing activity that involves being armed while interacting with the public.
First, there are thousands of police departments around the US, and it is unfair to apply one stereotype to describe all of them. In many cases, neighboring police departments can be so vastly different that the citizenry notices. In my experience, law enforcement attracts a certain personality that is predisposed toward aggression. This is a fact. I have seen it first hand. I imagine it must be extremely difficult to weed out the troublemakers even with comprehensive background checks and psychoanalysts. Heck, there are some police departments that actively hire aggressive people with the false assumption that it is a trait of a good police officer. The proof is out there. For example, there are more former police officers in prison for murder than former conceal carriers. Another example: When I served as a USAF SP, 8 out of 9 airmen I went to the academy with had been prematurely discharged (fired) before the end of my first enlistment. How do we resolve this? Simple, we encourage those young people with a sense of integrity to pursue a career in law enforcement. We flood their ranks with good people.
“We flood their ranks with good people.”
By definition good people would never willingly enforce the diktats of feckless and criminal politicians by threat of and actual violence.
I’m sure that the investigating officer made a furtive movement.
That’s the usual party line, isn’t it?
well… he was armed
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