Regardless of the circumstances leading to this shoot-out, keeping in mind that camera angles can be deceptive, it appears that both officers on the left are shooting towards the officer on the right. The officer across the street (on the right) runs towards the line of fire, ducking behind a car. Not recommended. Notice also the hits on the hood and the large spread of shots that strike that windshield. Where exactly was the perp at whom they were shooting? And why did the cops start shooting anyway? Was there any direct threat to the public or any officer’s life? Whitewash Investigation to follow.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

129 COMMENTS

  1. In all honesty the redacted words should not be present until the Investigation is completed. WE are all and should all be innocent until proven guilty. I’m not without doubt but I’m also without proof. Lets be fair.

    • TTAG isn’t anti-cop, it just smells that way.

      “And why did the cops start shooting anyway? Was there any direct threat to the public or any officer’s life?”

      Did you watch the video? The part at the end where the reporter reported the cops said he pointed a gun at them, I mean. And they found a gun in the car. I’d be interested in seeing the full report, but calling it an assassination is probably a little over the top at this juncture.

        • Well, and some other things…

          ” As the sergeant started to get out of the police cruiser, the driver of the Saturn took off. Police say the suspect raced down residential streets at speeds of up to 60 mph.”

          “While chasing the Saturn sedan, police determined that it matched the description of one linked to a shooting that wounded two men in a Mountain View-area neighborhood Monday night.”

          So yeah, the initial stop was caused by him using a cellphone while driving, but that’s not what triggered the chase nor the violent reaction.

        • Would “… matched the description of one linked to a shooting” include a license plate match? Otherwise it’s one of a thousand other Saturns.

        • The first shots in the video seem to be clearly coming from the vehicle being pursued. You can see the gunsmoke coming out of the right rear corner of the car (diagonally opposite the driver). Then all the police open up. Kind of looks like suicide by cop to me.

      • The report I saw was they found a gun and drugs in the car after the shooting not they saw a gun and returned fire. Of course, that was an early report before anyone had time to edit the information.

        I am not anti-cop, most I have had contact with in Missouri are nice people, but this sounds like a very bad shooting. And from the angle I saw, it looked like they were shooting towards houses.

      • People may be innocent till proven guilty, but it often seems like the exact opposite on this site. And why is this story here anyway? Because the cops have guns?

        • I suppose it’s here because it’s not very often you have this much of an up-close-and-personal view of a shootout* like this, unless you’re a cop.

          In my mind a shootout includes bullets flying in both directions, and in this case there aren’t any coming from the car, so that may not be the best word for it.

        • The perp, Navarro, only came to a stop because he had flat tires. He’s a suspect in a shooting two days earlier. In September two warrants were issued for him, one for dealing meth. He had drugs tentatively identified as meth, and had a gun, at the stop. I suppose at the traffic stop Navarro wasn’t sure whether it was a traffic stop or they made him as the meth dealer or shooter.

          Still, Hannibal, as an armchair quarterback, I still don’t understand why LEOs don’t rely on hardened-metal-core slugs to stop cars. It simply isn’t true that they don’t work. And 20 rounds were fired, not all of them hitting the car. It seems to me three or four aimed slugs from a long gun would do a better safer job of shutting down a perp with raised gun. What is it with the reluctance to use a shot gun with a red dot/HWS?

        • OK, so that justifies 4-5 units emptying their magazines into the car? In Bizarro world maybe? Once again a CA police entity demonstrates p1ss poor supervision and disctpline.

        • Hannibal, this story is on here because RF gets a raging anti-cop stiffy whenever stories like this pop up in the news.

      • Rydak,

        The masses assume that police are superhero demigods that walk on water and can do no wrong. The reality is that countless police officers are at best incompetent/disgraceful and at worst downright corrupt violent criminals.

        While police incompetence/corruption may be somewhat unremarkable in and of itself (any group of people has countless individuals who are incompetent/corrupt), the importance becomes paramount when people argue that we can always trust the police to protect us — especially in the context of civilian disarmament. The importance of police corruption is also paramount because there appears to be little if any accountability.

        Finally, the scope and magnitude of police misconduct is disturbing given their widespread propensity to ignore their oaths of office and enforce blatantly immoral/unconstitutional laws.

        For these reasons, many people — including the authors at TTAG — are critical of police conduct and want the masses to be aware of what is really going on.

      • I agree. The officers were within their rights to use lethal force to prevent injury or death to them or a fellow officer.

        • Citizens have rights. Government employees have delegated powers and it is well past time we removed from government employees the power to carry weapons of any kind. If they want to exercise the rights of citizens, then they need to find honest employment.

        • You know I’m pretty tired of the BS line that it’s OK for a LEO to instantly pull his gun whenever he feels the least bit threatened and unload his mag. If a fireman always did things to maximize his safety “and ensure they get home to their family safely” then their entire job would consist of driving the fire truck to a burning house or building and just watch it burn to the ground. That certainly would maximize their safety. If job #1 of current days police officer is to maximize their safety then we need to fix that.

          I bet dollars to donuts that the official force escalation guidelines over the past 20 years have been changed so that “pull your weapon and empty mag” has risen very nearly to the top. I’m also betting that this escalation of using weapon is due to the fact that the average politically correct social engineered female LEO was unable to do all the rough-house force options that were done in days of yore. Nowdays the escalation rules seem very simple, if the suspect doesn’t immediately comply and you feel uncomfortable and unsafe, the LEO is given the okey-dokey to clear leather. It’s BS draconian and the general population is getting pretty pissed about it.

        • No insult intended to firefighters, where I work we actually get along just fine. By policy, though, when there’s a hot call and someone may be injured, fire stages up to a few blocks away, and they don’t go in until we call out on radio that it’s safe to do so. The ones I’ve talked to don’t like this policy and are willing to take greater risks, but that’s the way it is.

          When there’s an actual house fire, by policy the first crew gets there and watches it burn. Until the second full crew is there and ready to go. This is in case the building collapses, so they have someone to go in and pull them out. Don’t know how this changes if there are people inside, though.

          By comparison, by policy if there’s an active shooter, whoever arrives first is expected to just go in unless their backup is parking the car at the time they arrive. I am fully aware this does not always happen (Newtown), but it is the policy and the expectation.

      • Looking at this objectively, here is my take on it. Cop stops Vehicle for traffic violation (doesn’t really matter what the violation is, cell phone use, speeding, broken taillight, flicking a booger on someone’s windshield etc). vehicle flees from traffic stop (as Spock would say “Highly irregular”) cop gives chase and recieves word the vehicle/owner may be involved in 2 shootings (the cops Spidee sense should start going off) other cops flattten tires of vehicle, vehicle stops, cops close in on vehicle/driver. cops see driver with gun in hand (that wasmentioned in the video right when the clip ended) cops know vehicle/driver may have been involved in violent felonies recently. cops shoot armed suspect through the winshield of car (actually is a fairly nice group on the winshield hood/area by cop on left sidewalk considering the stress/ adrenaline dump/ sphincter pucker going on)

        I’m not seeing the issue? you are not required (in most places where sanity rules) to be shot or shot at before you shooting? why are the police in the wrong on this? If they did not chase they would be called cowards or idots for NOT taking action.

        • ” If they did not chase they would be called cowards or idots for NOT taking action.”

          In turn, calling a cop a coward or an idiot is, in itself, grounds for the cops shooting you dead!

      • Agreed. And I wasn’t there. Although if there are any other details to share I would be inclined to do so. I’ll just say that leading police on a high speed pursuit with a gun and drugs in your car is not a stellar idea. A cell ticket is $171, last I checked. I’ve seen plenty of those overturned in court.

      • The driver was being pursued for driving while using a cell phone, perhaps he was holding the cell phone and it was “mistaken” for a gun? The angle the officer is firing at is into the windshield, it seems implausible that they would clearly see a gun. Probably reacting to other officers shooting, or reacting to seeing the driver with something in their hand.

    • Ummm… No… Cops should be guilty until proven innocent. They want greater powers than the common citizen? Then they should be held to a much higher standard.

      • Cops or no, do you really expect that if the people ask the government to intentionally set a double standard for anything involving government employees, that the government will then actually set it so they are _more_ accountable?

        • Want? Yes. Expect? No.

          Any time a person is given extraordinary powers, they must be held accountable to a standard higher standard.

          “Noblesse Obliege” and all that.

  3. Yeah, my long deployment expirence has taught me not to judge situations I was not involved in, but that seems very questionable.

    • Agreed, my concern is that the person came to a slow controlled stop with his hazards on . . . that’s not the kind of behavior of someone who’s trying to fight or flee. That’s the behavior of someone who is surrendering or someone who has given up entirely. I see this going one of two ways; either the police seriously overreacted to a surrendering suspect, or the suspect pulled a suicide-by-cop. The camera angle precludes seeing into the vehicle, so there’s no way to know from this video.

      • Yea my thoughts exactly, car chases end one of two ways: voluntarily (driver coming to a stop in control of their vehicle) or crashing (losing control of their vehicle through spike strips, bad driving etc). Kind of seems like once the drive realized he was entirely boxed in, he stopped.

        • There are also cases,like the one in Ohio on tape, where the bad guy pulls over all nice like, then exits the car shooting.

          No concientous LEO assumes someone pulling over isnt a threat until the get eyes on the individual.

        • OK, so they have a 50/50 chance of it going south when the perp gets out of his car.

          Unless the perp isn’t wearing body armor. Or is holding a cell phone instead of a gun. Or doesn’t have a few other like-minded, armed perps surrounding the po-po. And so on…

      • Looking at other videos, not just this one. It seems, that as soon as somebody fires a shot they all fire regardless of the situation. This means if one guy made a mistake, that all pile onto the mistake without thought of the situation.

        • You are absolutely correct that once one policeman starts shooting, they all start shooting. And make no mistake, they rarely shoot to “stop the threat” — they shoot to kill. It is only by happenstance that a “suspect” survives once the police start shooting.

          And why would I say such a thing? My grandfather served his entire life on the police force of a large U.S. city. More than once he mentioned with respect to police activity that, “dead men tell no lies”. He also described the concept of a “throw-away piece”. What is that you ask? It is an unregistered, untraceable handgun that police officers carry and plant at crime scenes if they used deadly force illegally.

          In case anyone is unable to connect the dots, my grandfather was describing how the police insure that they walk free from just about every criminal encounter — even if the police themselves were the only criminals at the encounter.

        • Contemporary well-run police forces forbid the carry of a second gun, Instead they put procedures in place to reduce to a minimum the chance that only one LEO is present in unusually dangerous situations. This requires, of course, that backup can respond very quickly, which is affected by manpower and traffic patterns. At the very least officers should be forbidden from carrying a backup pistol that is not specifically authorized and declared by serial number. One violation should be a firing offense. These are common suburban PD protocols. Guess how many large east-coast cities impose them…

        • I would guess that the contemporary police regs are probably about as effective at stopping rogue cops from planting a “drop/gutter gun” at a bad shoot as the CA gun laws are at stopping illegal gun trafficing.

  4. Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam

    Freeze!

    Like others, reserving judgment, but sure as hell looks bad from that angle.

    • I vaguely recall someone performing comedy skits based on that concept (shooting and mortally wounding/killing someone and then yelling, “Freeze, police!” or something along those lines.) Does anyone remember?

      • I dimly recall something like that, but can’t remember from where. Southpark?

        A few years back a “armed with cell phone, we had to reload to finish shooting him” incident was followed by a flash ‘game’ that asked the player’s ethnicity before showing a series of men holding either a cell phone or a gun. Players were pretty evenly split on shoot/no-shoot caucasian targets, but caucasian players tended to hold fire on armed dark-skinned targets, not much but a few percentage points. Dark-skinned players damned near always shot the dark-skinned targets, regardless of if they had a phone or a gun.

        On seeing a news report in a bar about a similar shot-while-unarmed a IA guy commented “I can’t believe none of those dumbasses had a throwdown.” I’m not even slightly sure he was kidding.

  5. I’m reserving judgement until an investigation is concluded.It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, until one day it’s your ass on the field having to act in self defense.Then you get see how creative people can get in making you look like the scunbag.

  6. I don’t draw as much issue with the cops shooting(Graham v. Conner) as I do with HOW they did it. It seems like they are violating one of the cardinal rules of gun safety. Know your target and WHAT’S BEYOND IT!!
    I won’t pass judgement on their use of force decisions because I wasn’t there. But the fact that they seem to be shooting at a suspect DIRECTLY ACROSS from each other.
    SMDH

  7. this incident reminds me of the opening scene in The Other Guys. the scene when the cops use tons of tax payers dollars, endanger everyone, and get in a shootout, all so they can bust someone for having like 2 oz of weed.

  8. The title seems wrong. According to the video is not about a cell phone theft but about a stop for cell phone use while driving.

  9. I’m going to withhold judgment until the whitewash has been completed and the officers are exonerated.

    Why bother with an investigation if the outcome is predetermined? In the end, that’s what it’s going to come down to, and we all know it. If the process was fair and transparent, we would have more confidence in the police. Then again, if they had to face a fair and transparent process, police would kill less people.

  10. I saw the video on television last night. The first words out of my mouth were, “Holy cow all those cops launching lead in that situation was incredibly dangerous for the police and bystanders!” The second words out of my mouth were, “And that is why we would all be safer if we eliminated all the police.”

    It looks to me like the police in California are totally out of control. First, they shoot up two pickup trucks with innocent people because an ex-cop was on the loose in a pickup truck. Now this.

  11. FWIW, in the original video you can hear some of the cops yelling “CROSS FIRE! CROSS FIRE!” around the same time they start shooting at each other.

  12. The officer closest to the camera should not have been shooting at all. He was shooting directly towards some cops across the street and the vehicles following behind the red car. It looks like as the camera is panning that one guy gets out and starts point and yelling at Dirty Harry. If your line of fire is not clear, then you just don’t start shooting. This is not Baghdad 2003 last time checked.

  13. From this one vid, it seems like they were in the “right” to shoot (assuming everything is true from the audio), but they did a crappy job of it, you know, with the cross-fire and all. At 00:38 seconds, the cop/driver of the pursuing SUV is PISSED!

    That being said, I wasn’t there, I didn’t have a gun pointed at me and they will be doing their investigation (which will most likely involve asking whether they should have shot at all because they did have the “perp” out gunned.) I don’t know, too many assumptions. BTW, this comment is in no way pro or anti-cop. Just looking at it while drinking a beer.

  14. Thought this was a fun stat I read about CA yesterday:” #1: California leads the nation at 1879 murders in 2012. California, known in the gun community as “The People’s Republik of Kalifornia”, has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but surprisingly tops our list in both categories with 1,304 murders by firearm and 261 by knife.”
    This is from: http://www.funkertactical.com/7-surprising-facts-about-fbi-homicide-data-in-2012/

    I wish we had another camera angle, one from behind the cops on the left, showing the almost direct line of fire toward the cop on the right side of the street. At what point will they start issuing GoPro cameras to on duty officers to wear for CYA purposes? Then again video evidence may be something very damning.

    • When they start issuing cameras to all officers, it will be discovered that those cameras are unexpectedly unreliable in certain situations…

      • A neighbor of mine told me a funny story about an elevator in a courthouse in Dallas. The elevator had a camera which could be easily unplugged by someone in the elevator, and occasionally when officers would be escorting perps in the elevator, the camera would “experience technical difficulties.”

        “Not in the face” comes to mind 🙂

    • “…issuing GoPro cameras to on duty officers to wear for CYA purposes”

      Yeah, that’s funny. Those tiny lenses get scratched very easily, and the cameras are very fragile…

      • GoPros take a beating. Source? Three separate high – speed motorcycle crashes – all involving injuries – where the motorcycle riders were filming their “mad skillz.” The cameras survived to tell the tale, and the tales were all damning. Good olde fashioned hauling ass. Ouch.

        • I’ll bet they don’t see so well if they’re:
          – Heavily smeared with McDonald’s grease; and
          – Have the lens scraped with a knife blade. Or paper clip. Or…

          Of course, upstanding LEOs would never do that, would they?

  16. Have I gotten so jaded that by watching this video, I can’t say: “gee this WAS heart-pounding”? It was more like: oh, cops (again), spike strip (again), pop pop pop pop (again), the end…

  17. One thing that I notice is that the Police are awful marksmen. They fire like 50 shots to hit a suspect and never consider whats behind the suspect. There marksmanship requirements are to low. The indoor range I go to is also used by the local police for training. Seeing some of there paper targets scare me and don’t bother offering advice.

    • This guy shot pretty well under full adrenalin dump. It might have been a dirty shoot, but he hit the correct car in the driver side location. As Ralph says, we’ll probably get a “cleaned up” investigation.

  19. I am PRO COP but realize that some COPS are BAD… or maybe just human and make mistakes. They do have a “License to Kill”, and in all fairness they are a target; 100’s of LEO are killed (murdered) or seriously injured in the line of duty every year…. So thank you men and woman LEO’s, Amen! HOWEVER these Hail-O-Bullets is dumb…. There is no name on FMJ lead. They had wicked crossfire. The empty your magazine philosophy or the “worth shooting once they’re worth shooting twice” should NOT be SOP standard practice. LEO nor YOU nor I have a right to PUNISH or EXECUTE people, no matter what. Was he a threat? I doubt to the point they fired so many rounds. May be a double tap, pause. If they are down and/or hands up…. STOP FOR GOSH SAKES. It really looks bad for cops, but last word is DO NOT RUN FROM COPS OR REFUSE THEIR COMMANDS….. F your rights (at that time and survive the nut Cop). Don’t bait or back talk cops. News flash Cops don’t like that. Comply now, file grievance or sue later. We saw it with the black woman and her kids running on TV. The other black woman in DC who ran had mental issues….. older white nurse lady on way home from late shift at hospital getting thrown to the ground because she drove slow the rest of her way home to get to her husband (thinking the cop was not real)…… Another lady who was talking on phone got pulled over, apulled to ground and stomped on because she did not stop right away. Cop’s don’t like it when you ignore them. So pull over, shut up, do as they say and remain calm….. I find Yes Sir and No Sir goes a long way. I got off with a warning a few times by following the shut up and Yes Sir rule, and a thank you…. makes all involved happy.

    • Hundreds of cops are not killed (murdered) every year. In 2013, 106 cops died in “the line of duty”. 31 died from gunfire.
      http://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2013

      I don’t call government employees by “sir” or any official title. I speak directly to them, like you would address a brain damaged dog.

      • Thanks for doing it so I didn’t have to.

        Cops have a place in society, and I’m fine with that, but the number of them that are killed or injured is minuscule compared to the number of them that most people think are killed or injured.

      • Well you are a person that does not RESPECT others and that is a personal problem you should seek professional help with…. Yes 2012 was a good year only with 106 LEO killed. And from 2012 to 2006 there were as many as 203 killed in the line of duty in one year….Average 168 per year. What do you do for a living, and how many people in that line of work were killed as a direct result of that work? So please save the lecture. They do risk their lives…. I don’t give a rip about your big anti social, anti authority ego, I don’t sir anyone bull. Have a nice day.

        • In 2009, police officers experienced 13.1 deaths per 100,000 workers.
          Airplane pilots experienced 57.1 per 100k
          Fisherman experienced 200 per 100k
          Loggers 56.1 per 100k
          Sanitation workers 25.2 per 100k
          Farmer (animal) 14.9 per 100k
          Farmer (grain) 30.6 per 100k

          I could go on, but I won’t. I understand that police run to the sound of the guns (in theory), but let’s not go overboard that they’re dying at a much higher rate than many other people, because they’re not.

          • What you are doing is making a STRAWMAN argument, a red herring, a non sequitur, meaning you are illogical. You have some issue against Cops for some reason. The debate is NOT the MOST dangerous jobs….. WHAT DO YOU DO? BTW I am an airline pilot and don’t find it dangerous at all. The difference between me and a Cop, is I can control 99% of the hazard, a cop can be ambushed. Farmers who fall in their machine or blow up the grain silo are hazards that can be managed. Those are accidents. Being shot by a crazy psycho criminal is not an accident, it’s murder. I’m not impressed with your argument; it is irrelevant…. LEO is not a “safe” job, and THEY DO HAVE TO SHOOT PEOPLE SOMETIME….. I can see how a Cop might want to shoot you just cause…. but unfortunately that is illegal. Ha ha!

            • Well, I’d say acknowledging a cop’s desire to shoot me “just cause” is a step or two above schmuck, so I suppose I should be proud I’ve set a new high. So early in the year, too. Where am I gonna go from here?

        • Ha. Nailed it Matt.
          I worked for a farmer once. That machinery scared the crap out of me.
          I’ve also logged and worked on a drilling rig.
          Police work was pretty safe. Only got effed up twice in 25 years. Both times were accidents.

          • Farm machinery is really scary; I had a classmate in HS who stopped coming to school one day, because he was shredded by a reaper (and the Grim one, too) on the family farm.

            The only reason there wouldn’t be more family farm fatalities than police shooting deaths would be that there are practically no family farms left.

        • Greg, I’ll have five years on as a police officer in February. The fact is that my job is not anywhere close to the most dangerous in terms of chances of dying on the job. I don’t think this is a bad thing, either. You could say that there is a difference between being killed by an accident with heavy machinery and being intentionally murdered, and if you take the badge out of that statement I think most here would agree- otherwise they would spend all their time talking about preventing drunk driving instead of supporting 2A freedom.

          Sometimes its about principle, but principle doesn’t change the numbers. The numbers say I’m relatively safe at work, and suggest to me that the guys who do the more dangerous jobs like logging, fishing, etc, need not just more credit than they are getting, but also some safety improvements in their working conditions. If I were to pretend I was in more danger to get sympathy, I would be as dishonest as those who hate police already believe we are.

          • What is your point? Being a LEO does not make you know all. You are appealing to your authority. So? Danger depends on where you are doing your LEO work (Mayberry R.F.D.) and type of duty. No one EVER said police work is the MOST dangerous, and no one said danger as a LEO allows them to shoot people at will. Many Cops use restraint at their own hazard. Police do get convicted as felons…. I agree we can’t tolerate police abuse of power…. For the people who feel like NO ONE is over them in authority, they are fools and probably not successful in life, as you submit to your spouse and to your employer. It’s LIFE and not weakness. Yes, police do have POWERS that Joe Blow citizen does not. That is fact. With power comes responsibility, like when I have 250 people behind me at 37,000 feet doing Mach 0.82. I have to take medicals and extensive recurrent training and pass test every 6 months and random subject to drug test. America is NOT socialist or communist…. we are NOT all equal, and some people have more social and economic power, which gives them more “options” in life, like being less likely to be shot by police….. No one mentioned race thank goodness. This dude was likely involved in violent criminal activity, and he was armed and ran…. and…. and…. I’m just appalled at the hail of bullets. It was like the Boston bomber they lobbed 1000’s of rounds at, mostly missed. WHAT WERE THEY SHOOTING AT IN THE DARK? That is my point. Bad gun use by police. There are cops killed by cops accidently as well as innocent bystanders killed by stray bullets. All this other garbage about not respecting Cops is a personal issue with ANTI AUTHORITY personalities with hot heads…. Cops are needed and by and large do keep a lot of dangerous people off the street. I think cops save more lives than take…. My opinion.

            • “I think cops save more lives than take…. My opinion.”

              It’s not about the ones that save lives; as a matter of fact, that’s supposed to come with the job – like you not flying a giant piece of machinery drunk. What we’re focusing on is the increasing number who don’t just suck at their job. It’s about the ones who act like storm troopers.

          • I feel that the dreadful “professional” behavior of far too many cops has not only cheapened the profession, it has tended to put all cops, even the good ones, in a very bad light.

            I do not hate cops as people, and my personal experience with them, overall, has not been terrible. Sometimes it has been quite good, in fact. So when I speak negatively about cops (and it is often), it should be with the understanding that I am disappointed, sometimes enraged, other times downright sickened, by cop behavior in general. There are indeed cops who do their job professionally, and withing the bounds of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It seems a bit hinky to congratulate the ones who fit that description, but it seems it’s come to this.

            You know who you are; I salute you for being among the ones I do respect.

        • Greg, I’m confused. I thought you were saying that police are special because it’s a very dangerous job- that police should have special respect and admiration and powers because of the danger. Further, that people who don’t show this respect need professional help, and that it’s too bad some of them can’t be arbitrarily shot by police.

          The confusing part is that when I, as a cop, tell you about the facts of being a cop, you seem to have a disrespectful and almost insulting attitude towards me. This is fine, since I don’t expect special treatment, but it’s just not consistent with what you seemed to be saying earlier. Telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about, implying I work in Mayberry, and that I’m appealing to my authority? You’re not making much sense. Which is fine, because you don’t have to make sense on the internet.

        • Greg, do you realize how many cops there are in the US today? A bit over 500,000. Being an LEO doesn’t even make the top 10 most dangerous jobs. It does make it into the “best benefits and earliest retirement age” top 5. What bothers people is the frequency with which city PDs turn into something like a secret society that feels as entitled to step over the line as perps do. Non-LEO non-perps don’t appreciate it.

          My township PD hasn’t had a cop shot since 1905, and we’re 27,000 people with, currently, 140 cops. They’re well-trained and, with reason, respect the residents. Still, there is the occasional hugely ambitious adrenaline junky now and then. No PD is perfect.

          I don’t even want to think what it costs the taxpayer when a bad shoot or friendly-fire shoot occurs, but the $ number is high.

    • Boot-licking serf: “don’t back talk them“, “follow their ““”commands””“. GTFO you sycophantic weasel. Also, we should not have to care what they “like”.

      Law-abiding citizens are not to be “commanded” by glorified municipal security guards to begin with.

    • You should go back and read the article “Men Posing
      as Police Commit Robbery”. The victims were robbed
      but a lot worse has happened because people
      instantly rolled over when they saw a badge. In fact
      many LE Depts openly will tell you refuse to comply
      and request another LEO if it’s just you and them.
      This is especially true for females. You don’t have to
      be a jerk about it, but you don’t have to instantly
      become a sheep either. If the LEO looses it because
      you aren’t instantly following his commands or goes
      ape if you request another officer present warning
      bells should be going off.

      As a firefighter I work with LE quite a bit and have
      gotten into many confrontations over the years.
      9 Times out of 10 the problem occurs because a
      LEOs badge has gone to their head. The last fight
      I had almost landed me in handcuffs because I
      refused to allow the LEO into a meth lab without
      wearing the proper PPE. In this case the LEO
      exceeded his authority (in my state the fire dept
      not LE has ultimate jurisdiction over active fire
      and hazmat scenes until released), and put not
      only himself but other LEOs in unnecessary danger.
      If I had complied that LEO and several others
      would be dead (there were 3 rooms filled with
      sulfuric gas). So because I didn’t blindly obey a
      LEO, he still gets to go home to his family.

  20. A minor quibble. San Diego ain’t LA. SDPD has a history of answering all perceived threat with excessive gunfire. The driver probably brandished a garden stake.

  21. i dont think the term “shootout” applies, and that the quotations in the title are appropriate. to me, that seems to suggest that two or more parties shot at each other. the suspect didnt allegedly fire the weapon, did they? but the reporter still refers to the shooting as a shootout.

    • I don’t think the word “allegedly” adds anything to your post. You are not involved in the case, professionally or personally (I would surmise); so there is no need to use the qualifier “allegedly”.

      The suspect didn’t return fire. As far as we can tell. And, since the cops are not claiming he did, it’s safe to say he didn’t.

  22. Most cops aren’t gun people and have marginal marksmanship skills, and that’s not when they are pumping adrenalin at high volumes because they are suddenly in a situation they haven’t been in before and probably never will be in again. Its amazing that there aren’t more wild shots and collateral damage. The opposite of that is an officer that has been in multiple lethal force situations and is rather competent at the situation. Course THAT individual is the one who needs to be put under the microscope.
    The only edge an officer has in a use of force review is that the outside agency investigating officers will have in the back of their mind “there, but for the grace of God go I” That mindset doesn’t transfer over as well to officers investigating civilian use of force events

  23. Even if your anti police good GAWD that guy in the front is shooting directly back at all the cop cars following the runner…..

  24. This kind of reminds me of the police shooting in DC of the unarmed women and the one year old child in the car. I still have not heard anything about that investigation. That should have been murder charges, not to mention most of those police were feds during the shutdown. I do not believe they were essential personnel, which means they should not have been working and not covered by the government. We were always told no paid orders no work, as you were not covered in the event of an accident.

    I wonder where all the outrage was on that one as opposed to Travon Martin. This woman did not try to harm anyone.

    • Her sister is a NY cop and was recently calling for an investigation.

      The cop’s sister was murdered because she turned her car around when she saw a DC checkpoint ahead (constitution free zone). One bicycle cop threw a bike rack at her car and fell over – they claimed she ran him over with her car. Police immediately started shooting at the back of her car … they then chased her through the streets before executing her.

      It seems that an immediate death sentence is appropriate if you don’t comply 100% with police disrespect for the constitution.

  26. Irrespective of the rationale for shooting, I shake my head at the tactics the officers use routinely when a shooting occurs. The officer in front of the camera is shooting at such an angle that a ricochet could easily fly towards officers behind the suspect car. And the officers to the side of the car are shooting directly at each other. The officer in front of the camera completely abandoned cover to fire at the car, exposing his entire body in the process. At the end of the video I think you see the officers behind the car waving the officer in front of the car away. I would not be surprised to find damage to the following vehicle from the first officers ricochets.

  28. “countless police officers are at best incompetent/disgraceful and at worst downright corrupt violent criminals

    Countless? Really?

    Do you have any hard facts to back up this assertion?

    • How high do you imagine he can count? Can we agree it would take an inordinate amount time to count them? Isn’t that close enough to “countless” for government work?

  32. While I’m ever suspicious of government overreach and deeply troubled by police militarization and the lack of oversight of their activity, the level of cop hating in this thread is disgusting. While it’s probably true (it hurts me to say this) that if this was a bad shoot it will be covered up, there is nothing so far to suggest anything but legitimate defense of another.

    The video:

    From the angle and the distortion of the windshield I can’t see into the vehicle, however I would imagine the officers could and if they say they saw a gun, then found a gun, I’m going to go with the guy pointed a gun at them. It has nothing to do with them being police officers but rather I doubt that on camera and in full view of a crowd several people without colluding would simultaneously commit murder. Occam’s Razor: The simpler of two solutions is usually the correct one.

    In this case the guy is running from the police, has felony priors and seems to fit the description of a shooting suspect and several close range eye witnesses claim he pointed a gun at them before they fired. The simpler solution to the equation is that he pulled a gun on them, not that they conspired to execute him.

    The action:

    The cop on the near left did some very nice shooting given the circumstances. In the best of times and on the square range, off the timer I doubt that many of the local keyboard commandos could shoot like that. Input stress and movement (in this case to cover even) and that is some stellar shooting. I suspect a couple of the rounds in the high right of the windshield were ricochets from the hood (the angle looks right) and the rest appear from the cameras perspective to have entered at the right place to have transected the area where the driver would be seated. Case in point, the driver is in critical condition so someone must have hit him. I also note that the same officer used a very deliberate (if rapid) cadence of fire. assuming this was a justifiable shooting the NYC PD ought to hire this guy immediately and have him train their officers in the use of the handgun. We have movement, effective fire, accuracy, and just enough calm though the stress can be seen in his movements. The only thing I’d fault is that he moved away from his initial cover to an open space and advanced on the target but this is often instinctive, he appears to be attempting to get a better angle for his fire and possibly to avoid shooting someone the camera isn’t seeing behind the impact area he would have had from his original position. All in all the tactical situation looks fairly sound though with room for improvement.

    The summary:

    Could we, even for a moment, allow that these officers might have both perceived life threatening danger and actually been in life threatening danger when they began firing? Is it too much to assume that this man would not have been shot had he at any point from the initial attempt to stop all the way to the end of the chase surrendered himself and complied with the lawful orders the police were giving him?

    We are a nation of laws, as we must be. Often these ensure liberty as much as infringe upon it. If the basic tenants of the enforcement of laws, the duty to stop when hailed, to not flee from police, to not endanger the public, and to not offer physical resistance to lawful arrest are not upheld the result will be anarchy and the tyranny of the strong and the violent over the peaceful and the weak.

    All he had to do was stop, submit to arrest, and contact his attorney. The place to fight the police is in the courtroom, not the street.

Comments are closed.