A grand jury has indicted Blackwell, Oklahoma Police Lieutenant John Mitchell in the May 2019 homicide of a 34-year-old woman named Michael Ann Godsey. She had driven off from a traffic stop after firing a couple of shots. Eventually, she came to a stop and Mitchell fired dozens of rounds into the truck, killing her.
The police video shows Lt. Mitchell firing his first shots at Godsey in her pickup truck as she turned in a nearby intersection during the slow-speed chase. He fired repeatedly at the truck even though Godsey had not fired any shots since the before the pursuit or driven recklessly endangering officers or others.
Mitchell then got into his car and roared past at least two other units in the low-speed pursuit. Apparently eager to try some high-speed, low-drag tactical techniques, he began firing his police patrol rifle through the windshield of his squad car at the truck as they drove through the city, utterly indifferent to innocent bystanders downrange from his indiscriminate fire.
Then, when the woman finally stopped her truck, the lieutenant leaped out of his cruiser to further protect and serve the woman and the city’s residents. Even though there was no movement from the truck, and even though the woman was not pointing her gun at officers or firing or doing anything else.
Lt. Mitchell continued firing.
And firing.
In fact, he fired upwards of 60 rounds from his AR at the truck as the other officers looked on.
As infomercials say, “But wait, there’s more!”
Once Lt. Blaster blew through two magazines, he threw his rifle onto the ground at the base of the sign and walked away from it. As he did so, he drew, then emptied his sidearm into the woman’s pickup truck.
Just to make sure.
Finally, someone with some sense yelled, “Cease fire!”
It took the State’s Attorney half a year to finally bring the case before a grand jury which issued a charge of murder against the woman.
From KFOR News…
KAY COUNTY, Okla. (KFOR) – On Thursday, Blackwell police officer Lt. John Mitchell was indicted by a grand jury for his role in a May officer-involved shooting.
Monday at his bond hearing a Kay County Judge set his bond at $10,000 but allowed Mitchell to be released on his own recognizance.
Mitchell was then processed at the Kay County Detention Center and able to go home. …
President of the Oklahoma Fraternal Order of Police, Jason Smith, says Mitchell has his full support.
Does anyone really expect the Oklahoma Fraternal Order of Police to break bad on a member, even if said member acted recklessly?
Put aside the unsafe manner in which the police supervisor cranked off rounds from a moving vehicle at another moving vehicle in an urban setting.
Police officers, by and large, are held to the same standard as civilians when it comes to the use of deadly force. Deadly force is justified only when faced with the immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent.
Specifically, ability, opportunity and jeopardy must all be present.
Did Ms. Godsey have the ability to inflict grave bodily harm? Of course. She had a gun.
Did she have the opportunity to inflict grave bodily harm? At the initial traffic stop, certainly. While driving relatively safely without waving the gun around or pointing it at other motorists or police? Not so much.
Were the officers in jeopardy? Certainly during the initial stop, absolutely. But during the pursuit, the truck drove at normal traffic speeds in a safe manner at 3:00 a.m.
Would a reasonable and prudent person believe she posed an imminent threat to officers or members of the community? Possibly, given the earlier reports of shots fired from the same pickup truck. The truck itself could be used as a weapon.
Then, a short while later when the truck stopped and no movement was detected, were the officers still in imminent jeopardy? Possibly to some degree.
But for an officer to fire dozens of rounds at the vehicle where the suspect is neither visible nor offering resistance? Does that pass the reasonable person doctrine? Otherwise known as “What would a reasonable and prudent person have done in the same situation knowing what the defendant knows.”
What about the people living downrange of Lt. Mitchell’s orgy of gunfire? It’s a miracle other innocents were not killed or wounded throughout the town. Not to mention the thousands of dollars in property damage incurred by the trigger-happy police supervisor.
Applying the basic elements of justifiable use of deadly force to this case, one sees that Mitchell’s use of force appears probably flawed at best.
Mitchell had better hire himself the best attorney money can buy, because to this supporter of law enforcement, he stepped way out of line in his reckless use of deadly force.
Ultimately a jury will hear the evidence and see the video to make a determination of guilt. Assuming Lt. Mitchell doesn’t cop to a plea first.
ALL the officers on scene who didn’t shoot to kill the officer gone insane must also be charged with multiple felony crimes including participation in the homicide until cops are willing to clean their own coops none can be trusted and none are worth sparing
I wouldn’t go that far, but I am disturbed nobody even told the officer to cease fire.
One of the cops was shot at a few times before the chase. He stayed calm and didn’t go full judge, jury and executioner.
When the leader got on scene he did what he was trained to do by tacticool and doughnut operators. He emptied his AR through his windshield, reloaded, got out of his vehicle (after the woman stopped) and did another mag dump, then he took out his pistol to mag dumped for a third time. After all that he told everyone on scene to not talk about what happened until a few days [he calls it sleep cycles] has gone by… *Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.*
This man thinks he owns the streets and he can do whatever he wants because he isn’t a “civilian.” His mind is twisted so bad it can’t be fixed. He is a psychopathic soon to be serial killer. Someone put this monster in a leadership position!
We can only hope that the people will deliver justice. The DA and AG don’t want to do it. It’s only the people themselves that can put these cold blooded murderers in a cage where they should stay for the rest of their lives. The more animals put into a cage the less wannabe killers seek a position in a department or office. Maybe the younger generations will no longer put up with what their parents created.
Millennials have to clean house and never worship government like their parents do.
“After all that he told everyone on scene to not talk about what happened until a few days [he calls it sleep cycles] has gone by… *Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.*”
They aren’t allowed to talk about it except to their lawyers, administrative investigators, and criminal investigators. It’s probably the reason why they were able to move forward with the criminal case. None of the other officers’ testimony was tainted by an other officer’s shared perceptions. For the Lt. to make that statement, he obviously believed in the righteousness of the shooting. Those other cops who didn’t shoot and whose testimony remained legally submissible for a criminal investigation? …. not so much apparently. Will an Oklahoma jury convict him of murder? We’ll see.
Agreed!
Wink wink as he’s trained to do? Lmmfwao apparently you haven’t heard or seen his previous deals. He used his personal ar15 on an unarmed man. He plants evidence and then when he’s out on bail for this one he’s consuming alcohol and carrying a side arm even though he’s facing murder charges
The officer at the initial encounter acted reasonably even after she pulled the gun and even after shots were fired but then here comes Lt. Rambo. “She drew first blood, not me!”
I’m no big booster of cops. But if somebody shoots at a person , cop or otherwise , I don’t have much sympathy. Let the guy off.
Instead of letting him off completely perhaps the prosecutor should allow lesser charges since the mag dumps were excessive. Also charges for endangering everyone within range of his rifle and pistol would be suitable as well. Perhaps he did not recognize that she was no longer a threat until after he finished the mag dumps.
I live a half a block away from the highway where the pursuit took place and my house was peppered by the rounds that he shot through his front windshield
Cop was an idiot but i’m not sorry the *tich is dead.
Since the Lieutenant is being indicted for Murder, then any present officers who did not stop him should be charged with felony murder.
(Even if they did try to stop him it is still technically felony murder).
Yes, I’m curious to know what will happen regarding all the other LEOs who didn’t stop Robocop as he was sending 75+ rds at a vehicle that displayed no immediate danger. They’re complicit to some degree by allowing him to empty at least three mags from two different guns, from multiple locations.
And to correct another user’s earlier comment, the correct term for people of the community is “citizens”. LEOs are citizens, just like the public at large. “Civilian” is a military term. Stop confusing the two.
“Civilian” is a military term. Stop confusing the two.
The term is generally used to indicate people not of the tribe, organization, affiliation of the group. Someone not badged, or in a uniform. As in military as opposed to non-military.
“Citizen” in this day and age is useless as a label; too many illegals. “Resident” is unsatisfactory because it cannot differentiate between true “citizen” and a legal/illegal aliens in the country. “Bystander” does wrap citizens and residents into one collective.
Clearly the security team and concealed carriers at Freeway Church of Christ are better trained and more self control than some law enforcement.
The Los Angeles Michael Dorner debacle from a few years ago comes to mind. They sprayed 100+ rds at a vehicle that was also no threat because it was the wrong vehicle with two innocent unarmed women inside. But none of those officers faced charges.
looks like tons-of- fun likes to use his gun……
They were offended – so they executed her.
“released on his own recognizance”
Sure, ’cause that’s what you do with aggressive, reckless, homicidal maniacs.
I’m sure they’d do the same for me after a self defense shooting, right?
RIGHT?
If you up the ante a bit by adding eleventy billion dollars bail to your own recognizance they probably would….
You have to join the brotherhood/fraternal order to get that kind of treatment. Once you get accepted in you will have privileges and immunities not given to “civilians.”
What, no “red flag” seizure of his personal firearms?
Once you fire on police. All bets are off. Give all of them a medal and a bonus. Jury Nullification. 3 2 1.
exactly
When your own fellow officers have to yell at you to stop shooting, you have screwed up badly.
The fat slob deserves to be strung up to a light post until he rots and falls off.
No tolerance for maniac cops who spray bullets all over the place with no regard for anyone. There’s zero heroics in what this blood thirsty piece of shit did.
Naturally, he;’s a cop and gets all the perks of Badgehood. So he walks free and will enjoy massive union support and deference from the courts.
Enuf,
I agree; the number of shots fired when there was no resistance is an indication of maniacal behavior.
If other officers were present and saw no need to fire their weapons, why did he feel such a need to fire so many rounds?
The jury will likely not have a difficult time sorting this out.
Because “GET SOME!” is a thing.
A lot of Americans have a culture of death and destruction.
Have to agree with Chief, a lot of people who never G0T SUM overseas ended up going PMO/police pipeline so they could GIT SUM here in the states. Our police have been militarized and its us vs them now.
If you were paying attention to the video you should be able to tell that the cop shouting “Cease Fire” was the same one that emptied the AR and tossed it aside.
Agreed
A badge doesn’t make you judge, jury and executioner.
Yes, it does.
That’s why they don’t hire smart people. They don’t allow in “overqualified” people to do the job because those types think too much about what is right and what is wrong from a human standpoint. They need people who will enforce politicians’ laws and pull triggers when there is resistance.
Not true. There are problems with police for sure, but the idea that they as a whole deliberately avoid intelligent candidates for positions is ludicrous. Intellect is not the primary ingredient in the creation of a goon. There are loads of smart guys who would send you to the camp…
@ MikeV – ludicrous or not, police applicants have been turned down for being “too smart”. https://therooster.com/blog/connecticut-police-department-says-applicant-too-smart-be-cop
Note that the city’s position was upheld by a US circuit court. This is just one glaring, high profile example that made the news. Thousands, or tens of thousands of other cases never come to light. Ludicrous? I agree, but it’s real.
Agreed
So you support a 2 tiered legal system where the enforcers are held to a fraction of the standard as us unwashed masses? As a matter of principle I actually agree with you, if someone tries to kill you but then decides to disengage when they realize they bit off more than they can chew, why are you required by law to do what THEY want? The immediate threat should have nothing to do with it; if someone tries to kill you you ABSOLUTELY have the right, even if it’s not legally recognized, to retaliate in kind, even if that means shooting them in the back as they run away or executing them after they surrender.
That being said, we as private citizens are very much not “allowed” to act that way but it’s totally fine for our armed government enforcers? I don’t think so
” The immediate threat should have nothing to do with it; if someone tries to kill you you ABSOLUTELY have the right, even if it’s not legally recognized, to retaliate in kind, even if that means shooting them in the back as they run away or executing them after they surrender.”
I believe it is called murder if there is No immediate threat! Shooting a prior threat in the back as they attempt to walk/run away or after they surrender would be murder and perhaps premeditated. Not premeditated meaning you premeditated to shoot that particular person, but that under those circumstances you premeditated to shoot anyone.
No wonder the antis fear some POTG with some of the attitudes expressed.
What he’s trying to say is –
If someone tries to kill you, all bets are off.
You can’t do what in the military. You will get in big trouble. You have to provide medical to the enemy too.
Only cowards do what that man did. Only cowards believe the way you do.
Thank you for your comment. I agree.
“…even if that means shooting them in the back as they run away or executing them after they surrender.”
Ignoring any ethical or moral considerations here; you do realize that a system that allowed such behavior would incentivize the other person to kill you the first go-round, right?
I mean, if they know you’re allowed to follow them and execute them later, or shoot them in the back, why disengage in the first place? There’s no benefit to doing so and they know it. In the absolute worst-case they know that if they kill you and get caught in a state with the death penalty they’ll live longer on death row by probably a couple decades than if they let you live so they might as well murder you and hope they get away with it.
This is like the people who want rape to be a death penalty offense. All that does is incentivize rapists to add murder to the list in an effort to remove a witness. Same penalty and less chance they get caught and convicted.
What you described is the law. A person can be the aggressor in a confrontation, and then regain their innocence by clearly withdrawing from the fight, even to the point of being able to claim lawful self defense to justify violent actions after that point.
Read Andrew Branca’s book: the law of self defense.
Article on regaining innocence.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/02/law-of-self-defense-regaining-innocence-a-real-world-example/
Never, think of other situations. Police Swat do a no nock raid at 3am, but their boss got the address wrong and they kick in your door of course you’re defending your family against armed intruders just kicked in your door. You exchange a few shots until you realize it is the police, then give up, but according to your description it’s okay for the police to keep shooting? This situation has happened more than once. Police are not above the law and should only shoot to stop a threat, not keep shooting to kill.
Unfortunately, I have heard police trainers tell their class they have to shoot to kill. They do not agree with shooting and accessing. Meaning, they do not want their students to shoot to wound, they want the threat “eliminated.”
If you teach a person to kill, you drill it into them, most of them will kill without thinking.
Sixty rounds with a reload and then emptying the pistol. Officers; like us citizens are supposed to shoot until the prep is no longer a threat. This is excessive, if the officer was in fear of his life he should have let the other officers handle the situation. I realize that everyone is keyed up in this situation but come on now, there needs to be a line drawn.
Jeff,
Agree. It is difficult to envision how 60+ rounds are needed to stop a threat when there has been no return fire. Murder seems to have been the intent. The jury will hear all the evidence and decide.
I do not understand why no other officers intervened earlier. That arouses suspicion.
Because he is the big boss man. You have to back the blue until it’s your ass on the line. So don’t rock the boat. We are all brothers and sisters…
I think the one that was shot at wasn’t the one that killed her. That’s not self defense. Police are civilians and have guns for self defense, their guns are not for offense. Once they start acting like a hit squad they are the criminals.
Police are not the justice system. They are a small portion of it. They don’t even have to help you when you are being murdered.
It’s not that simple. She fired at them long ago. She looked like she was trying to give up. And when she gave up, they killed her. That’s unacceptable. Because life is precious (stemming from a religious culture), how much force should be used to apprehend? The bare minimum necessary. However they didn’t attempt to apprehend, they just executed because their emotions got in the way of their job.
Cops MUST be held to the same standard as possible as regular people. People naturally gravitate to common rules that are followed. It’s in our psychology. If you standardize that cops can be executioners with no punitive damages, then common people will do that too, and we can turn this into Mexico City in no time at all. One cop shoots a woman trying to give up with 75 rounds of ammo. Later a guy shows up at that cop’s house and shoots him in the guts 75 times while his family watches.
Principles and standards must be adhered to, and they must be equal and fair.
Guilt or innocence should not be determined by the number of shots fired by the officer. If the first shot killed the suspect, then the others can’t be the basis of any crime other than mutilating a corpse. If she was indeed riddled by gunfire, than it’s going to be impossible to determine the kill shot.
OTOH, the fact that the officer let slip the dogs of war is evidence of his state of mind. It’s possible to call one shot an execution — a stretch, but possible. A mag dump (or two) is clear evidence that the officer was in fear for his life. His aggressive pursuit is evidence of a desire to protect the public from a shooter.
I have no love for cops, but c’mon. This isn’t a Walter Scott.
I can sympathize the adrenaline dump a cop must get when he’s shot at, but the Bonnie and Clyde treatment was clearly over the top. If one of our soldiers did this on foreign soil he’d spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth.
Depends on if anything was planted on the body which was basically what my squad would have done if they screwed up. Word of an up and up squadleader vs some Hajis, I can see how that will end.
Ralphy your comments just made Vlad’s posts look scholarly.
I’m sure others will attempt to eclipse those comments, but as of now, congrats, dumbest post of 2020!
Now put down the keyboard and.. slowly… walk….. away.
You disagree with me? Considering the source, that’s high praise indeed.
Do I disagree with you? I called your post the dumbest of 2020.
Let’s have another look;
“A mag dump (or two) is clear evidence that the officer was in fear for his life.”
AND (even better)
” His aggressive pursuit is evidence of a desire to protect the public from a shooter.”
Yep, as of 1/3/2020 at 3:04 P.M. you still hold the top spot! Congrats again..
BS. A prosecutor can argue that or can argue you fired only one shot so it’s an execution or you dumped your magazine into somebody so you weren’t rational or literally any argument he feels like in court. BUT, there comes a point though where somebody is doing their best to make sure somebody else stays dead and that is what this looks like.
We need the old Black Water to take over the American streets. These guys aren’t doing the job well enough for you. Maybe you can hire the Mexicans to get what you want?
What he said and I truly hate articles written by John they need a block feature for that.
It isn’t a matter of how many rounds it takes. You keep shooting until the threat stops. If it takes 60 rounds for someone to stop being a threat, it takes 60 rounds. Once the threat ends, your ability to use lethal force also ends. If your attacker is down and not a threat, you don’t get to empty all the ammo you’re carrying into them. You don’t even get to fire one more shot. You need to justify every shot you fire as necessary to stop the threat. If the first shot incapacitated the offender, the person isn’t necessarily dead or fatally wounded. If they’re not a threat, your further shots that end their life are murder. It doesn’t matter if you wait an hour and shoot them in their hospital bed, wait a month and shoot them in court, or wait a second and shoot them where they fell — they’re all beyond the margins of defense.
“A mag dump (or two) is clear evidence that the officer was in fear for his life”
But that is not the legal standard. It is irrelevant that this particular officer was in fear for his life in this particular situation. Use of force law requires that a reasonable person hypothetically in the same circumstances would have been in fear for their life. One can fear being shot at by a dead woman, the Lizard Overlords, falling off of the flat edge of the planet, being abducted by space aliens for the interplanetary sex slave trade, vaccines; but none of these are a legal reasonable
So she didn’t shoot first? Good to know.
“Police officers, by and large, are held to the same standard as civilians when it comes to the use of deadly force. Deadly force is justified only when faced with the immediate and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent.”
That statement is dead WRONG! Police officers are almost NEVER held to the same standards as civilians. Actually police officers ARE “civilians”…
“I feahed fo mah life” is enough to get a police officer out of a murder charge.
Google “Daniel Shaver and Philip Brailsford”. Not only did Brailsford escape a murder charge, he was reinstated by his department so he could collect a pension.
The “thin blue line” takes care of its own…
True. Holding cops to the same standards as you or I is something that is only theoretical, exists only on paper and in speeches by politicians and union representatives.
In practice there is enormous deference given to police officers who behave badly, or criminally and a deeply ingrained system of mutual ass covering.
Exactly
There should be a double standard for “law enforcement.” Cops should be held to a higher standard than those that never did the job.
Agreed Chief.
On the side of police patrol vehicles is the phrase, “Professional Law Enforcement.” As all other professionals are held to a higher standard than the general public they too should be held to a higher standard. OED aside, LEO are civilians by the original meaning of the term. They are not military combatants.
If I were wrong, why has the US government spent so much effort to keep the USCG out of the military and under civilian administration (once under the Department of Commerce, now Homeland Security, Treasury once), because the Feds want to use the USCG as a police force and as such they must be a civilian organization. Military [non-civilian] are prohibited from policing domestically (except during a crisis and only under executive orders).
This exactly. I have a background as an EMT. in 1980, I was taught about the added responsibility of being an EMT. Joe Passerby might actually kill a patient with his ineptitude, but he is protected by the Good Samaritan law. But if I should cause a patient’s death due to incompetence, my ass WILL be in the wringer. That is, I knew or should have known NOT TO MOVE a patient with suspected neck injuries, therefore, his death is on me when I move him.
We truly need the same sort of double standard for cops.
It is a double standard just not the way it should be.
Are the photos show of that fat fu___ cop in question? The vest adds 100lb?
Plus the camera adds another 40.
Maybe Lt. Mitchell did a full tactical assault because a foot pursuit is out of the question for him.
I have seen out of shape cops shoot people because they didn’t want to run. The old school mentality was “fleeing felon, therefore I can.” Now the mentality is “I feared for my life, so I shot up the UPS truck and used civilians as body armor.”
Of course he lost some pounds when he emptied his AR magazines and his pistol magazines into the surrouding streets and what few shots may have actually hit the already dead woman.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
It’s interesting that a full 15 minutes elapsed from the end of the shooting until the end of the video and still no ambulance.
At least in prison he’ll have access to the prison weight room. Might do him some good to get some exercise.
If you were paying attention to the video you would notice that medical was requested @12:25 and reported that she was “ agonal”. The ambulance arrived at 18:42 and the ambulance guys approached the vehicle and checked her pulse at 20:18.
For the uninitiated “agonal” in this context, probably refers to a particular type of gasping for breath that occurs following stroke, cardiac arrest, or severe trauma. It is often a reliable indicator that brain death is imminent.
I stand incorrected…
What a nut case. A person that poorly trained and unstable shouldn’t be in law enforcement. I understand he was in fear for his life but we expect these people to be better trained and of a better state of mind.
He did as he was trained.
If that’s how he was trained, why didn’t they all do it that way?
Did they send him to a different instructor, did every one else miss a day or two of class?
Two different generations. The other people were much younger than him. He is a lieutenant, which means he has been around for awhile. He went to a different trainers than the newer officers. The younger officers haven’t yet been fully indoctrinated like their leader.
Also, the guy tried to pull in front of the other officers to fire through his windshield, then ran in front of other officers to fire his gun when he got out of his SUV.
Go look at what the older trainers teach and compare that to what the younger trainers teach.
Do we know that the rest are of a different generation? He’s only 40.
So am I understanding you to say that the more recent vintage are being instructed more appropriately?
“A person that poorly trained and unstable shouldn’t be in law enforcement.”
If that was true, there wouldn’t be any cops.
I see from most of the comments that the leftist from California have infiltrated Oklahoma as well as Texas. Give the cop some credit, he was out of line for the number of times he fired, so if anything else it is reckless abandonment of proper principles of controlling the situation through self control. He will be convicted of a lesser crime that murder in first or even second. Let’s all remain civil and let the jury decide. The reporter that wrote this initial article is so biased it smears the commentary by the media outlet. Guilty before trial.
No, let u snot remain civil, not in the least bit civil.
When a police officer does a good job or even a life saving heroic one, we should cheer and praise and honor that officer.
When a police officer acts like this bloodthirsty obese asshat, destroy the miserable stain of him at every opportunity.
Tolerance for bad cops breeds dangers for good cops.
Think about it.
Contrast this man with the man that stopped the White Settlement shooting. One is a demon and the other is a Christian. Hand the demon an AR… What does he do with it?
The jury will most likely convict after seeing the video. Seventy or more rounds fired into a vehicle where the perp is not visible and who knows what in the backstop. It looks like the other officers fired no rounds. Liberal or conservative had no meaning here. We cannot have cops that execute criminals.
It happens everyday in Capitalvania where life is cheap.
If the cops don’t murder you or you not caught in the crossfire while walking down the street with your kids or hit head on in an unnecessary cop chase after a guy who was originally going 1 mile an hour over the speed limit you have the option of dying like a dog in the street because you could not afford life saving drugs like insulin if your a diabetic.
This guy Ralphy….your comments were dumber than this. ^^^
“Seventy or more rounds fired into a vehicle where the perp is not visible and who knows what in the backstop. It looks like the other officers fired no rounds. Liberal or conservative had no meaning here. We cannot have cops that execute criminals.” – Jeff
My exact thoughts.
Yes Herbie, we’re all “California liberals” if we don’t lick boot the way you do.
Maybe we should give that cop a roof mounted S.A.W. for his next traffic stop. 60 to 80 rounds is amateur hour. Right?
Like there wasn’t any cameras there for us to watch after the shooting. I guess we should just take the government’s word… Let’s all act like the NRA and pretend this didn’t happen like we saw it happen.
Hey.
Suck start a shotgun for us, okay?
“The police video shows Lt. Mitchell firing his first shots at Godsey in her pickup truck as she turned in a nearby intersection during the slow-speed chase. He fired repeatedly at the truck even though Godsey had not fired any shots since the before the pursuit or driven recklessly endangering officers or others.”
She done pizzed him off and he decided he was judge,jury and executioner,too bad for her.
And what of the public and those 60 rifle shots from a moving cop car? And all those pistol shots? Where did all those bullets go?
Police are not like bad guys that do not have to think about where their bullets go when they miss.
If you watch and listen to the video, the pursuing officer reported that she was firing more shots just before he reports her “westbound on Doolin”
I heard that too but think they confused Mitchell’s shots as coming from the pickup truck.
I took another look and I believe you may be right. When the video goes to split screen, Mitchell’s Dash cam is the video on the right. It looks like smoke and at least one casing ejected in front of the camera at the same time the shots are heard.
If so, we have the pursuing officer reporting shots are being fired from the truck. Even if he was wrong about the source, everyone on the radio heard him say he was being shot at. That would include Mitchell who might not make the association between the radio report and his own shots.
There are two very specific things in this video that are going to cause the officer problems at trial. They have been pretty much overlooked by the keyboard commando types. I’m going to keep watching to see if anyone picks up on it.
I’ve got mixed feelings here. He was probably out of line. But really, shoot at the cops and it becomes a game with no winning moves.
Sounds like he doesn’t like women. Wonder if he was on drugs? Glad he is off the streets. Wonder what his background might be?
In Germany 3 years of professional training is mandatory which includes knowing the laws, first aid, de-escalation in a confrontation etc. It pays off Cops in Germany in 2017 shot only 12 people and in China only 4 which has 4 1/2 times the U.S. population. In the Hill Jack untrained police force of the U.S. of Hey the cops slaughtered an unbelievable 1,500 people most of whom were not even armed.
IN CAPITALVANIA LIFE IS CHEAP. ASK ANY MAD DOG COP. THEY HAVE THEIR LICENSE TO KILL.
Example; She had a flower in her hand and I feared for my life.
And the civilians that accidentally also get gunned down or killed in a cop chase on the road. Its just collateral damage. Thoughts and prayers to the proletariat worker drone troglodyte slaves.
‘…and in China only 4…’
If you believe that you’re pretty damn gullible.
The ones shot in the back of the head don’t count!
He’s not gullible. vlad is mentally ill. Very much so. Judging by his facebook account he’s too young to be retired. My guess is he’s a resident of a ‘halfway house’ type of place. Explains why he’s got so much time to lurk here. Mentally ill with his housing and meds paid for on the taxpayers dime.
The only thing good about JM is that he is not dangerous because he was born without a brain. He believes everything Trump says and does.
Did you see Herr Drumpf shaking the hand of the mad dog sniper that he pardoned. It was revealed today that he shot a pre-teenage girl playing the street with 3 other girls. His fellow soldiers got to the point that they said they would try and get into position before he did so they could all fire warning shots to the innocent civilians in the streets before the maniac got there. Its Trumps kind of all American hero. It seems Trump pardons another William Calley type every other day recently. Whats next a Trump visit to see the original Calley and reminisce about shooting teenage girls with infants in their arms.
Yep your kind of man pretending to be President because that is all the farther he ever got, pretending and loving mass murderers like Putin and Duterte and Kim Jong Un
And there you go, vlad. Proving my point. And thinking you’re making a valid point. Sad. No wonder your gunsmith dad has given up on you. I hope he had other kids that he could take some pride in.
“”””””””””””””””””””””””And there you go, vlad. Proving my point. And thinking you’re making a valid point. Sad. No wonder your gunsmith dad has given up on you. I hope he had other kids that he could take some pride in.+++++++++++++++++
Your too ignorant to recognize a point being made even if it was done by a mental health expert trying to explain it to you. You have never reached that high a point on the evolutionary scale.
We got any numbers on how many they just beat to death?
To gov. william
“”””””””””””””””‘…and in China only 4…’
If you believe that you’re pretty damn gullible.””””””””””””””””””””
No your an uneducated Moron. This is not the study I was referring to but it comes damn close.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/
And in Germany the police and legal system ignore most thefts and burglary if they’re below the government mandated insurance threshold. So, if they break into your house and you injure or kill them, you’re the one in trouble. They take what they want. What kind of bizzaro logic is that? Don’t ever use the nutty reasoning that comprises everything in German life as an example of how to do anything here – they WANT the state to predetermine their every decision. The only thing they can teach us is how to make better bread.
YEAH TELL ME SOME MORE BULLSHIT.
No one in Germany goes bankrupt over health care they have 6 different plans from no government plan with private insurance to state paid for health care and many options in between.
No one dies like a dog in the street because they could not afford life saving drugs like they do in the lawless land of Capitalvania.
No child goes bankrupt over a college education.
Workers are still trained at both government and private industrial expense. Germany out trains our workers 10 times more than the cheap ass gangster criminals that run our manufacturing facilities.
Germany’s tough gun laws and mandatory training results in way less homicides and accidental child deaths with their safe storage laws.
One thing you can say about the Germans their country is not populated by a bunch of untrained , uneducated hill jacks that all make minimum part time wages.
They also get better retirement wages, higher working wages, longer vacations and more holidays. Its called living in a civilized country.
And lets not forget the visiting Australian woman that got gunned down after she called the cops for help. She walked out of her house in her pajamas and the mad dog cop shot her while he sat in the passages seat of the Cruiser next to the other cop. GREAT PROFESSIONAL POLICING. Only one of many, many tragic examples of untrained moron cops in The U.S. of Hey.
Why don’t you just move there if you like it so much. I’ll even buy your airline ticket and pay your first months rent. But you have to stay there.
You are insanely off topic.
I’d say odds are very good that I know a great deal more about health care in Germany, and in other countries, than you do or than most people here on TTAG. I’ve had good and compelling reason to study what other countries do.
Yes Germany’s health care laws and its market driven but government mandated approach is vastly superior to what we have in our country. At less than half the cost per capita, health care is available, affordable, based upon multiple providers in a capitalist system where no one is surprised by unexpected billings, mystery charges or driven to bankruptcy by one trip to an emergency room or one serious illness.
None of which has squat to do with this incident of a cop gone trigger crazy. Totally different topics.
Here, a link to a place where you can talk about health care in Germany. No, I’m serious, it is exactly what you need to be fully realized as a man with a keyboard and internet access:
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?forums/health-care.8/
to Enuf
And we forgot to mention France’s superior health care as well. On France24 News last week they interviewed an American ex-pat that was taken to the French Hospital on emergency. She said she had little paperwork to fill out compared the U.S. Nightmare she was used to and immediately saw a Nurse then a Doctor. She stayed two days and expected to be handed at least a $3,000 dollar bill. No it was not. The bill was $30 dollars you read that right it was $30.00. Now if a small country like France has that kind of service and paid for health care no one should try an bullshit me we could not have the same.
VOTE SOCIALIST IN 2020 FOR A CIVILIZED AMERICA.
By your definition and their fealty they are all vassals of submission, prostrate before the all powerful state. Free speech? Nope. Low barriers to business? Nope, and Europeans, and more specifically the Germans, are kings of collusion. Want to achieve based on your initiative and work ethic? Nope – that education you’re yapping about is bound inside their class aristocracy, so unless you’re part of the right class or exceptional, you’re a serf. Try moving to Germany and making something of yourself – they won’t even let you work there. You can come to the US and be whatever you want, and achieve whatever you want. Don’t think they’re not still practicing their brand of national socialism from the 1930’s? Think again. America is seriously messed up but it’s still the best place in the world – NOBODY is fleeing the US in makeshift rafts to go to the festering sores that comprise the remaining countries of the world. Germany has already moved well past theory by providing the world with indelible proof that unarmed people, inexorably, get put in boxcars by their opponents and shipped off for deliberate extermination. European settlers did this to the Native Americans long before that. Who do you think everyone learned it from? History is littered with this – 262 Million were killed by governments in the 20th century alone, so this kind of democide is not some localized or infrequent phenomenon. You go ahead and surrender, slobber and suckle, but I want no part of the elitist concepts of European aristocratic thought.
‘…and in China only 4…’
LOL! God I am laughing at your stupidly of even posting that line of BS
It prints what it’s told to print and believes what it’s told to believe like any good little brownshirt…..
There is NO second place winner in a gunfight. The fact that the deceased didn’t desist justifies the actions of the police officer. If you engage the police in gunfire and don’t live in New York City expect reciprocity from the police.
Nothing excuses a fat assed moron with a badge driving down a public street spraying five or six dozen bullets who can say where. Only stopping when his fellow officers yelled at him to stop shooting and after he’d thrown down his empty rifle and empty magazines, taken out his pistol and began emptying those magazines into a long ago dead woman and bullet riddled vehicle.
Where was his concern for the public at large with all those dozens of wild shots he sent zipping about the neighborhood? It is only luck that he did not hit some innocent citizen, kill some child asleep in bed.
Guess what, a cop that shoots like some gun thug in a gang doing a drive-by deserves to be behind bars, at best, not hiding behind a badge and a union that ignores all bad behaviors.
You have ZERO idea of what you are talking about.
going forward from this there still needs to be a balance between:
people>dont fuck with the police
police>dont fuck with the people
to focus on one over the other would not be a good thing inasmuch as theres plenty of blame to go around here
should he be fired
yes
should he ever be a leo again
no
should he pay restitution for all damages
yes
should his pension be frozen
yes
should he be convicted of some lesser crimes
and lose his gun rights for a length of time
yes
should he have to spend a fortune on a lawyer
yes
should he go to prison for murder
that would be overdoing it a bit i think
if he was a dirty cop and killed a drug dealer during a shakedown then yes murder one lock him up and throw away the key
but not for this
Once you decide to run, all bets are off. The perp then shows nor has any regard for other, innocent life. She could have killed or injured any number of people. Me personally, I believe that all criminals should die… as soon as possible. I have no tolerance for innocents injured, maimed or killed by or because of scum.
Do your so eloquently thought out comments extend to law enforcement too? Are you ready to execute the cops in Florida who turned a UPS truck into Swiss cheese and managed to kill a hostage and bystander in the process, or do they get special treatment because they wear a badge?
Apples and oranges.
I don’t know the details of that incident, but due to some “protocol”, the officers were probably required to “work out” the situation in a non violent way, if at all possible. When they probably (no way for me to know for sure) had one or several opportunities to end it early on…by ending the criminal. This, possibly saving the innocents before it escalated. Maybe. Maybe not. Like I said, I don’t know the details, timeline, etc. But that certainly happens often. The situation is dragged out, because the criminal scum has “rights”, and they have time and opportunity to do more dmage than should have been allowed. I don’t know why on earth, violent criminals are given any consideration at all!
Again, once you decide to commit the crime, and run, you should die before you have an opportunity to harm innocents.
Criminals should die!!!
The end.
Odessa Tx… Perp on the run, killing people on the fly, total disregard for human life, end result still a dead perp.
Cops in the Fl shootout should be charged and TRIED for “wanton endangerment” and negligent homicide/manslaughter the same as this Oklahoma cop, but to charge someone with murder (cop OR civilian) who had just been shot at is a stretch unless you are looking for acquittal at trial…. Anyone who has been in a similar situation and understands the effects of adrenalin and emotion would not immediately jump to convict this guy who obviously lacked any training or experience in situations at this stress level…. Why the hell did this woman engage a cop in a gunfight anyway, and how close did she come to hitting him?
When those Virginians don’t follow the law they should all get shot down as soon as possible. Everyone of them. You comply or die.
/s
Criminal, especially those that would harm any other person, should die!
Yup. All those militia men pretenders, who said they will start killing fellow Americans in a civil war, need to get shot before they make it onto the state grounds. We need to send this here Lieutenant out there to show them who is daddy.
I guess you don’t believe in a jury of your peers, punishment fitting the crime and all that other stuff that just gets in the way of justice huh?
What about justice for the victim/innocent?
Criminals, especially those that would harm any other person, should die!
‘Me personally, I believe that all criminals should die… as soon as possible.” I guess making the penalty fit the crime and trial by a jury of your peers is just wasting everybody’s time huh?
He could have killed any number of innocent people in his bloodthirsty craze. Somebody should put him down.
Police are also civilian.
Fat supervisor cop guy was like “I don’t have time for this chasing BS. It’s time for that woman to die.”
Is the world a better place without that crazy woman? Maybe. Is the world a better place with that gung ho cop behind bars? Probably.
Win/win?
Lol
I look at how this cop acted and what he did in contrast to that the former cop did yesterday in his church in Texas. It shows the extremes as to what should and shouldn’t be done. Shots were fired in both instances but the former cop in Texas was aware of the danger to people around him and did what had to be done in a very quick and efficient way.
Mr. Texas Church was never a cop or FBI. More fake news.
Yes, Mr. Jack Wilson demonstrated excellent control, judgement and concern for the welfare of others. Saved who can know how many lives that way. Deserving of every bit of praise sent his way, even the more so for the humility he has shown following his act of heroism.
Lt. Lardass on the other hand, not scoring quite so highly as all that.
That cop clearly saw too many movies.
No more training to win it’s train to appease all the snowflakes and tactical internet gods.
There’s a world of difference between TTAG commentators bowing to snowflake concerns (nobody is doing that) and a wildly out of control cop spraying the neighborhood with SIXTY rounds of rifle fire, shooting thru his own windshield while in slow-speed pursuit, then throwing his rifle on the ground to continue spraying bullets from his pistol.
How much does it take to recognize a bad, out of control cop?
Did he need to hit some random citizens with some of those dozens of bullets to get less than a free pass?
The tactical operators are the ones training cops to do what you see in this video. Cops are trained to be killers. The government has redefined what “peace officer” means. It’s now about R.I.P over justice.
How else are they going to get law enforcement to shoot Americans when they come to confiscate their guns? Cops must have a military mindset instilled into them and experience killing criminals no one cares about before they move on to you.
What a jackoff, how can anyone with any sort of formal training act so recklessly and then be given such leniency.
Formal training for police is usually a joke.
I don’t know but we are seeing an awful lot of it.
That scumbag cop thinks he is above the law, that he can do anything because he’s a cop. Piece of shit deserves to rot in prison, people like this should NEVER be in a position of power.
When you start shooting at cops they are not legally obliged to let you escape because you are not shooting at them at that second. If you surrender, you are entitled to be captured and brought into the legal system where you are afforded all the rights available to defendants. If it is days later, I’d say police have an obligation to try and effect an arrest. If, however, you are in immediate flight- and I don’t give a hoot if it’s a “low speed chase”- from attempted murder you are deciding not to avail yourself of the justice system but rather trying to escape it. You have chosen poorly.
A grand jury returned a bill, and that’s not entirely surprising, but I doubt it will get much farther, though surely it will cost the county plenty of money in legal bills. The question is whether the defense will opt for a bench trial or not.
Police officers, by and large, are held to the same standard as civilians when it comes to the use of deadly force.
The above is the biggest bunch of nonsense ever posted here. If this guy had only emptied one magazine into the truck, this story wouldn’t have been here. Cops get away with murder all the time,
There was this one police officer in Cali who shot dead someone he shouldn’t have. He was worried he would get charged with murder because it was caught on video. It was murder, but he didn’t get charged nor fired. He got paid vacation. Everyone welcomed him back. He then got cocky. He and another cop committed another killing. They both were so happy they celebrated with a little fist bump or high five [I forgot]. They knew they were not going to get in trouble for shooting another person dead although it was soon after getting put on leave for another killing.
I don’t know what happened to those cops all these years later. I only remember them getting cocky about being able to get away with their “get some” actions. No good man would stick around with such coworkers. Good guys leave within 4 years.
In Seneca SC a police Lt. executed a young man in his vehicle because he was driving off- the cop was in no danger– the cop was fired later and the city paid off millions. Previously both of Chief Covington’s sons, law officers, were arrested- one was using meth and stealing money from citizens during traffic stops- his dad the chief covered for a bad drug test so the son could be certified as a cop- the son was finally arrested- the other son assaulted a doper that may have turned on this cops brother- so two drug related arrests of Seneca peace officers, both sons of the chief, and a police Lt. executes a young who may or may not have been involved in dope- no charges for the Lt and the chief is still there. Incredible but true.
Barring a medical condition that’s the root cause morbidly obese people should never be trusted with positions of power.
They’ve already shown they can’t respect themselves, lack discipline and lack judgement. In the case of a semi-dangerous job like policing where trauma is a real possibility they’re also a medical and life insurance liability when they’re on the job.
If you want to carry a gun and get paid for it PT should be mandatory.
^^__ THIS RIGHT HERE __^^
If you’ve a medical condition making you morbidly obese, you like the health and fitness to be a police officer, among other career paths.
If it’s a behavioral thing, well that’s just so much worse.
Unfortunately all those traits occur to all people. Some people it manifests as being over weight. I think it’s a stretch to say morbidly obese, therefore incapable/less likely of good judgement.
Is there a statistic that shows morbidly obese cops vs fit cops and the number of botched incidents per group? Perhaps, can’t say I’ve ever heard.
I would agree that the increased health costs would be an issue, all things being equal.
I haven’t bothered to look up cop statistics in terms of responses based on the BMI of the cop. I’m not sure such statistics even exist.
The simple facts are as follows:
1) Being grossly overweight (And let me make this clear here, I’m not talking a few pounds or “vanity weight”.) is the result of a long term pattern of irresponsible behavior. It’s not holiday weight gain. It’s not a few times you were tired and missed the gym. You don’t trip, fall down, have McD’s for lunch on Thursday and end up looking like this by the weekend. If someone cannot demonstrate enough personal responsibility to do basic things in terms of taking care of themselves then how can we be trusting them with police powers?
This is not something I say just to be mean. Hiring managers apply this kind of logic to other things all the time. Someone who is chronically late, for example, is displaying behavior that suggests that they are probably not responsible enough for that job. Being really fat, in certain jobs, is the same way. Policing is one of those jobs.
2) Being grossly overweight negatively impacts the person’s ability to do their job. Sorry, no one who looks like that has what might even be charitably called “moderate” cardiovascular durability. That directly impacts their ability to do their job. They can’t run very far and if they get into a struggle with a suspect the overweight officer is at a significant disadvantage. Not only does this impede their ability to take someone into custody but it also increases the personal risk to the officer in question, and possibly the public if the cop loses and gets disarmed. It’s flat out dangerous to this officer and his fellow police.
3) People who are more than 40lbs overweight have significantly increased risks when it comes to surviving trauma which a real possibility in this guy’s line of work. ~40lbs overweight is where you start to see a massive jump in morbidity for those who have a traumatic injury. Car accident, GSW, stabbing… all the same in this regard. When the person does survive their recovery is longer, usually doesn’t have as good of a clinical outcome and costs a hell of a lot more. That’s multiple insurance liabilities for the department and, quite frankly, not very nice of them to put this guy in that situation.
Overall this guy is, just based on appearance, unfit for duty. Sorry, we don’t need to do a bunch of sciency shit here, we know it’s true just from looking at the guy. Show up at a military recruiting station looking like that guy and you’ll be laughed out the door. The same thing needs to happen at the department.
There are certain things that are just DQ’s for certain professions. This is one of them.
Police need mandatory PT and PFTs. It’s that simple.
All things being equal I would agree. However as all people are human, there will be pros and cons to each individual. We literally know nothing about this guy. While his demonstrated inability to control his weight is evident, we don’t know why or for how long. We only know the video. When he was hired there was no video. Is it possible he was really good at something else, something that made up for his physical lacking?
This case is equivalent to the non-sense in iraq and afghanistan, where a bad guy empties a mag or two at US soldiers, then drops his gun. Such a person is an existing and ongoing threat, and should be eliminated prevented from continuing to pose a threat.
Unless it can be proved that bad gun handling resulted in a gunshot wound to the suspect, bad handling is not murder. The suspect demonstrated intent to kill, and even though later acting so as to appear as non-threatening, the suspect was still a deadly threat.
And yes, this episode is hugely different from some cop strolling up to the front porch, and shooting through the front door because someone shouted, “Gun !”.
This episode is also hugely different from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Both scenarios you describe are apples to oranges with what happened in that video.
I’m not sure this rises to the level of the charges actually leveled at the Lt. but the Lt. is hardly the paragon of restraint, virtue, discipline or any other positive descriptive term that might be applied.
“…but the Lt. is hardly the paragon of restraint, virtue, discipline or any other positive descriptive term that might be applied.”
Agree. But none of that justifies being charged with murder.
If I were on the jury and manslaughter was an option I’d probably be willing to vote “guilty” on that unless this guy’s lawyer has some damn good exculpatory evidence to add to this story.
I’d agree that murder seems steep on this one but what that guy did was flat out reckless and charges, less than murder, are entirely appropriate.
If it was entirely up to me I’d give him 10 years for his actions here and another 10 hard labor for being a disgusting fatbody looking to abuse public funds.
“…and another 10 hard labor for being a disgusting fatbody looking to abuse public funds.”
Glad you didn’t know me when I was a federal hog at the public trough.
“Glad you didn’t know me when I was a federal hog at the public trough.”
Were you obese? That’s my problem here. Once you pass the threshold for obesity, which is 50lbs overweight, your medical expenses become enormous compared to what they would be if you were not that overweight. Statistically it’s way more of a risk than smoking a pack a day.
In either case, if you want to take that risk, fine but don’t ask other people to pay for it. And no, that 1.45% Medicare tax doesn’t cover it. Obesity like this adds like $100,000 to the last decade of life’s medical care and your average American pays something like $24,650 into the system during their entire life.
“Were you obese?”
I think “stocky” would be more accurate.
Equivalent huh? That doesn’t seem to be the consensus here. Blackwell OK is now analogous with Iraq and Afghanistan. Sorry, maybe it’s me but I just ain’t seeing it.
“Sorry, maybe it’s me but I just ain’t seeing it.”
The rules of engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan dictate that an attacker may shoot at our troops at will, then immediately drip his weapon without fear of lethal response. Essentially, the attacker can kill one of ours, then immediately throw down his gun and be free from consequence. Which is utter crap.
In Oklahoma, the equivalence is the suspect shot as police, then began acting in a non-threat manner (emphasis on “acting”), hoping to escape justifiable lethal response. In Oklahoma, though, the attacker retained the weapon. She was still a deadly threat. In the Oklahoma case, shooting to stop the threat resulted in a murder charge. Think on that awhile.
Now, if the suspect had stopped the car and exited hands up, and then the cop began, or continued to shoot, yeah…that is no longer hot pursuit of an armed and dangerous suspect. That is actually murder.
Actually, that’s how lethal force works in the US too. If an offender shoots someone and then drops the gun, either on their own volition or in response to an order, they aren’t a threat any more. You may arrest them, but you can’t use lethal force. In war, if a soldier fires a rocket and then walks out with his hands up, he becomes a POW, not an enemy combatant. In your Iraq example, if they dropped the rifle and surrendered, I’d say it’s the POW case. If they run, I’d say they’re still an enemy combatant and legally ok to shoot.
I don’t disagree with your comment. Point is the idea that a killer can save his/her/she/it/wxyz life by throwing down a weapon immediately use to kill another is hogwash. War is war, not law enforcement.
In the Oklahoma incident, just because the suspect stopped shooting is proof of instantly becoming a non-threat. As long as the suspect remained armed, the deadly threat persisted.
The idea that the lack of shooting renders the suspect ineligible for deadly response is hogwash. As noted, the suspect could have voluntarily become a non-threat, changing the deal completely. The suspect had not surrendered, police had no moral obligation to assume such. Lethal response was appropriate until such time as the targets determined the threat was neutralized.
Sam,
“appropriate until such time as the targets determined the threat was neutralized”
This is exactly the issue here. At what point did you determine the threat was neutralized, when she stopped shooting, when she stopped her truck, when she stopped moving, when she stopped breathing, when the Lt. finished his first mag dump, when he finished his second mag dump, when he finished his third mag dump, when someone (possibly the Lt. himself) yelled Cease Fire?
” At what point did you determine the threat was neutralized,…”
Regardless of the indicator chosen, claims of “murder” are not justified simply because the cop acted irresponsibly, endangering others. That is a separate matter.
I used the episode to point out that “stop the threat” isn’t as cut-and-dried as we would like it to be. One of the indicators of the threat being stopped was possibly when someone other that the cop who had been attacked called, “Cease Fire”. A similar situation might befall a defender when someone observing sees the attacker fall to the ground and decides that no more shooting is necessary.
Who should be considered the expert in deciding when an attack/threat is stopped? The defender, or an observer? That question is why I posed scenarios where a defender used the double-tap. We always like to think that in a defensive shooting, we will always be clearly correct, clearly justified in determining when the shooting moves from stopping the threat to using excessive deadly force. Are we certain the police, DA and juries will agree with our assessment of the difference between stopping a threat, and shooting to kill? If not, should we be certain about a shooting of which we are not an observer or participant?
If you fire at a Police Officer, you’re going to get lit the fxck up. End of story.
She was not firing at the time, Do you not understand that?
“She was not firing at the time,,,,”
Doesn’t matter. She was not incapacitated, injured, or incapable of shooting again. If she had been wounded, lying on the ground with a gun still in hand, we might have something to analyze and discuss. The cop was shooting to stop the threat. The suspect could have become a non-threat on her own volition, but decided to not take advantage of the opportunity.
The cop did do some things that could be charged (reckless endangerment of bystanders and other drivers), but those charges do not amount to murder.
Which of the 5 dozen shots incapacitated her? If it wasn’t the very last one, then he was firing on someone who wasn’t a threat.
“Which of the 5 dozen shots incapacitated her? If it wasn’t the very last one, then he was firing on someone who wasn’t a threat.”
Can it even be determined which shot ended the threat? Think of doing a double-tap. Which shot disabled/incapacitated the threat? Which finished the job? Would you agree that the use of a double-tap should be illegal because if the attacker is hit by both bullets, and the second was fired after the attacker was rendered capable of shooting a firearm, the second shot, the fatal shot was fired at a non-threat?
If a defender hits an attacker with a bullet that severs the spinal cord, rendering the attacker unable to move anything, the attacker is rendered incapacitated, ending the threat. But the second bullet of the double-tap blows out the brain, killing the attacker. Was the second bullet fired at a non-threat?
If one endorses “shoot to stop the threat”, then who determines, in the moment, when the threat is stopped? Then, long after the fact, who gets to determine if the threat was stopped?
If we demand the benefit of the doubt in determining when a threat is stopped, the same must be given others..such as cops.
She stopped her truck when she was being shot at. That’s when the murderer emptied another mag and half into her vehicle incapacitating her, hence the truck rolling away.
This is not Iraq.
What he did crossed the line into murder. He never was shot at. That is not self defense.
The officer that was shot at didn’t feel the need to mag dump. No one is talking negative of him. They are actually saying when he fired back a couple of rounds it was reasonable and understandable self defense.
George Bush era “operators” think this cops actions is fine and he isn’t a criminal. These people have mental issues and shouldn’t be allowed to have access to guns.
“George Bush era “operators” think this cops actions is fine and he isn’t a criminal.”
False premise.
That cop should face charges. Murder not one of them. No matter how outrageous his gun handling, stopping a threat is not murder. The combined collection of things the cop did dangerously wrong cannot be put forward as murder in the common sense. Is it too difficult to find that in stopping a threat, the person doing the stopping can create a dangerous environment for bystanders? If, in stopping a threat, you also put a bullet through the wall of a home, inflicting a minor wound, and ultimately, after emptying a mag, the attacker is permanently stopped, would you favor a murder charge based on bad firearm control?
Obviously not the end of this story.
Nobody here has any problem with a police officer shooting back and killing some idiot who thought he or she could shot at the police.
Most people with half or more of a brain see this as reckless, a danger to the public and incredibly bad behavior by a cop.
Spraying the neighborhood with five or six dozen rounds at a woman who was dead long before the bullet supply ran dry is not good or reasonable police work.
And it may well be some degree of an unlawful killing, because of all the bad craziness the cop displayed.
It took the State’s Attorney half a year to finally bring the case before a grand jury which issued a charge of murder against the woman.
Absolutely disgusting. Apparently dead civilians don’t deserve any justice. This guy should have been behind bars from that day on. Anyone else would be. Tired of double standards for police.
At the very least Lt. Lardass should have been arrested at the scene for reckless discharge of a firearm and endangering the public safety. Sixty or more rounds fired thru his own windshield while in motion? It’s a miracle he did not kill some random citizen.
On the half a year thing, this from a local news source:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/22/oklahoma-police-lieutenant-indicted-murder-charge/4276309002/
“The state’s 17th multicounty grand jury returned the indictment Thursday in Oklahoma City in its final meeting. Overall, it returned 18 indictments and issued 1,093 subpoenas.”
So it did not take that long, it was a standing grand jury serving for a period of months, heard in excess of 1100 cases and issued a long list of charges and subpoenas.
I live in the Boston area and after the marathon bombings, the cops cornered the Tsarnievs in Watertown, just outside of Boston.
The cluster f#$K that followed resulted in hundreds of police rounds being discharged in the general direction of the killers, with no actual target in view. In essence, they pumped almost 1000 rounds into the city of Watertown. The Tsarnieves were armed with a Ruger SR9 with a 10 round magazine.
What the news media described as a “gunfight” was really a ONE WAY gun fight.
Despite the thousand rounds discharged, the only ones the cops hit was their own people. 4 cops were shot by accident.
They also lit up the back of a pickup truck they thought was driven by the Tsarnievs. Fortunately their aim was bad and they didn’t hit the COP who was driving the pickup truck.
If you want details on this Sh1tShow of epic proportions, google “After Action Report for the Response to the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings”
Download and read it. Its total insanity.
This is exactly why qualified immunity needs to go away. Not arguing this Police Officer went over the line, but it was not murder.
Dan
It is way past time to clean house. Allowing through some of the nasties in makes sense and does help keep us sharp, but you need to scrape out the nut cases again. The comments section has become largely unreadable.
I second the motion
“”Rusty – Molon Labe – Chains says:
January 1, 2020 at 19:14
Dan
It is way past time to clean house. Allowing through some of the nasties in makes sense and does help keep us sharp, but you need to scrape out the nut cases again. The comments section has become largely unreadable.
Echo5Bravo says:
January 1, 2020 at 19:19
I second the motion”
Yeah Dan. We love us some free speech, until we don’t.
It is just too hard to keep deleting comments we don’t want to read. Besides, they make us feel unsafe. We need a benevolent governor to do for us that which we don’t want to do for ourselves. You know….kinda like the federal government making everything fair.
Sam I Am
You do understand that there is no free speech here, right? The 1st Amendment only prevents the Government from infringing on your speech not a private entity like TTAG.
I like to say that I’m very pro-good-cop, and very anti-bad-cop.
This is a bad cop. Disgusting disregard for life.
He deserves to be tried, convicted and sentenced to death.
Then he deserves a botched execution.
Sorry. But this “government gone wild” is precisely why the 2A exists.
+1.
+ another +1
OK, I’m not going to bother with the round count, tactics, transition from rifle to pistol, whatever. I’m not going to get into the finer issues on what agonal breathing is, I’ve seen it in person, several times, while administering CPR.
No, folks, I’m going to harp on what I always harp on: How much this incompetence is costing the taxpayers, but I’m going to add something new.
The new rant: We taxpayers are told, incessantly, by lawyers, politicians, fainting couch journalists and idiot do-gooders that we just can’t have vigilantes loose on the streets, enforcing the law with guns. We’re told that we cannot have common citizens toting guns around, that the streets will be turned into the “wild west” if we allow Tim, Dick and Harriet to pack around a heater. We’re told that innocent bystanders would be dropping left, right and center from a blizzard of ill-aimed fire from amateurs and yahoos with guns among the common citizenry if we eliminated “professional law enforcement” and reverted to the sort of law enforcement we had 100+ years ago.
To which I now say “Bullshit.” Look at the response in the West Freeway Church situation: The civilian responders (all together) fired one round. Head shot. Dead perp, dead right there. All the other people who whipped out their guns in the attack handled themselves better than most cops seem to today. There was no wild melee of unaimed fire. There were no mag dumps. One round, that was it. The responders then disarmed the perp and called 911 – all within 90 seconds. Compared to modern day law enforcement, those church-goers looked like Tier 1 Operators, only without the Oakleys and 5.11 fashion statements.
Look at that nonsense above. Know what that cluster above reminds me of? This:
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd-shooting-newspaper-delivery-women-dorner-manhunt-20160127-story.html
Two women delivering newspapers, lit up as tho they were VBIED bombers – with little effect. Not only were over 200 rounds sent downrange, these “professional law enforcement” officers didn’t shoot for effect. Houses and cars downrange chewed up.
And in the aftermath? No charges. Cops who are clearly idiots, very highly compensated idiots, get off with not so much as a wrist-slap, no reduction in pay, they keep their pension, never mind criminal charges for endangering the neighborhood.
Then we see in NYC and other cities that criminals are being put right back onto the streets hours after they are arrested – only to commit more crimes. The NYPD is now posting police (which cost the taxpayers money) to protect Jews from thugs who should have not been turned loose on the street again in the first place. OK then, fire the DA’s and AG’s as well. If they’re not going to do their jobs, eliminate their positions too.
Here’s the solution to this nonsense of courts that refuse to do their jobs and “professional law enforcement” who mow down the countryside with their free-fire antics: Get rid of their jobs. Fire them all. Hand them their severance packages, give them 10 minutes to clean out their locker/desk, and have them be gone. Sell the public equipment at auction, turn the real estate into condos or office space. Be done with these public-funded circus shows.
Arm the citizenry, form a county co-op to buy a backhoe or two, one mini-excavator, then buy up some vacant land for a potter’s field in which to bury the bodies of criminals and thugs that get their just due. And in northern zones, have some pre-dug holes so come winter, we can still throw thugs into the ground.
When it is all said and done, we “untrained citizens” cannot possibly do worse than what the “professionals” are doing – shooting up the countryside, or turning criminals, perverts and psychos loose upon the law-abiding citizenry. Remember that Richard Ramirez enjoyed the taxpayer’s hospitality for 20+ years – whereas, if LAPD had taken their time, maybe stopped for a coffee at a local donut shop, the citizenry would have had the “Night Stalker” problem cured for no money at all in another 10 minutes.
On and on and on. Castle Rock, Warren, Riss… we’re told by lawyers in dressed in drag that we can’t expect law enforcement to actually protect us. OK, got it. I guess the legal extension of that is that we cannot expect DA’s and AG’s to actually do their jobs either, so if they turn thugs loose on the population, hey, they’re not held responsible either.
Look at that video above and tell me that we need “professional, trained law enforcement” with a straight face. And remember – that’s a Lieutenant, not joe-bob patrolman or Barney Fife.
Charges won’t stick. First officer was unbelievably cool. He did everything to keep things from escalating. She was shooting from her truck. She didn’t stop until she probably took some hits from Mitchell. She stopped, but not necessarily to surrender. She was forced to surrender. Mag dumps were excessive in retrospect, but he stopped the threat.
Godsey got what all active shooters who had been given the opportunity to surrender but instead fired upon an LEO should expect to get.
https://www.blackwelljournaltribune.net/articles/11039/view
I’m glad she’s no longer driving recklessly and shooting up the neighborhood among all the other bad she did in her life. We are better for her not being around here
That fine officer has a future in President Bidens Freedom Forces going door to door confiscating guns from bitter clingers!
Red Flag in morning, clingers take warning!
Tread Harder Daddy.
Lard ass cop clearly went full retard. However what I constantly see on this forum is Cop bashing and guilt by association. I hired a plumber, he did not do a very good job, but I did not bash all plumbers. No matter what one idiot cop did, why include the entire profession? I also see people commenting about raising police intellectual and educational qualifications? This is simply not true, many more college educated people are officers (now more than ever). This presents a problem, most have no actual real life experience and have lower morals and ethics. Less common sense and almost no social skills. Many, because of their education, look down on others and present a liability to the department. Most are climbers and really could not care about the department or other officers. I was always cautious of hiring candidates who had jumped from dept to dept in a short time span. This was a major red flag. It’s a good thing to conduct a serious backround check and pre-hire investigation process. Ethics matter.
“It took the State’s Attorney half a year to finally bring the case before a grand jury which issued a charge of murder against the woman.”
Don’t you mean against the officer?
you’re right. i was thinking the same thing.
Good shoot!!! Too bad the Lieutenant couldn’t stop her when she first took shots at him. She was definitely a menace to society and he shot to stop the threat.
For the kicker, if this were a black person the majority of comments would be in favor of the cops.
The Lt. wasn’t the officer on the scene in the beginning. He raced to the low-speed chase, got in front of the other officers, began firing through his front window, and then dumped 3 mags (2 5.56 and his service weapon) into her when she pulled over. 70+ rounds? She was likely already hit or dead.
At a minimum, he is a terrible shot, a terrible leader of the other officers, and he should be tried to determine his innocence or guilt.
The DA didn’t have the balls to charge the cop with murder…..and he didn’t have the balls to call it a good shoot. So like ALL politicians he PUNTED on the issue and put it before a grand jury. I bet he was SUPRISED AS HELL when that jury came back with an indictment for murder. It’s a virtual certainty he was pushing for and expecting a “no bill” and could then let Dudley DoRight continue to “protect and serve” the public to death.
Now the DA is going to have to actually TRY this cop in court in front of a jury. Wanna bet he doesn’t try very hard to actually get a conviction.
When I heard Robert Farago had sold TTAG I thought perhaps there would be less cop-hating but I see it’s just the same-old, same-old bashing the police at every opportunity. Oh, well…some things never change.
McCain,
If a perp shoots at a cop and 15 minutes later that perp desires to give up? Is that okay? Or should the cop kill this person trying to give up?
WWJD?
Also,
How much force should a cop use to apprehend a person? The bare minimum necessary. Because all lives matter to God. All lives are precious. When the lady stopped the car and appeared to have given up, he should not have shot at her 75 times. It is not his place to judge the value of her life. This singular police officer shouldn’t get to decide if she can or cannot make amends and live a righteous life after she had seemingly given up to them.
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
how come the caption says “charge of murder against the woman?”
As of right now, Mitchell is working at the Blackwell Police Department as a Communications Supervisor until he goes to court. He approves all the reports, has access to any report among other things that is required. I feel this is very unethical to let him inside the PD until all is settled in court. He also was (is) able to carry his gun, because he has a fear for his life.
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