Brickbat: Once Again, Never Call the Cops

Scott Griessel / Dreamstime.com

Danielle Maples was at home with her family in Wichita, Kansas, when her husband threatened to hurt himself. She called 911 and police responded. She and her husband were outside the house, unarmed, talking to one officer when they heard a shots from inside the house. An officer inside the house had fired two shots at their dog, which happened to be in the same small room where they'd gathered the couple's four young children. One of the shots ricocheted and struck their 9-year-old daughter. Neither the dog nor the daughter was badly injured.

Comments

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

First rule of showbiz, copper...

[joell]

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[Telcontar the Wanderer]

But hey, at least we know he wasn't aiming for the kid.

"Your Honor, on behalf of my client, I'd like to present exculpatory evidence that exonerates him of any accusation of intending to injure the victim."

"And that evidence is?"

"The presence of her injuries."

[BigT]

Cop should lose his job, and face criminal assault with intent charges. Chief should be removed and put on guard duty at the local school.

Cops should be held personally accountable when they break regs and/or commit crimes. They should carry insurance.

[ChiliPalmer]

That's a lot of shoulds.

[LynchPin1477]

Chief should be removed and put on guard duty at the local school.

Jeez, our public education system is bad enough.

[croaker]

Yeah. The Chief should be forced to mop the rain.

[Hank Phillips]

Sounds like BigT should vote libertarian, exercise some spoiler vote clout.

[Rebel Scum]

Chief should be removed and put on guard duty at the local school.

Neither should be around kids.

[Vernon Depner]

"Cops should be held personally accountable when they break regs..."

It's quite possible that he was following their written policy and procedures exactly.

[Liberty Lover]

Cops seem to have an unnatural fear of small dogs. At least this one went about 35-40 lbs.. One cop shot a chihuahua. Those 3-6 lbs. dogs can be deadly!

[LynchPin1477]

They go straight for the jugular!

[Brandybuck]

Aaah! It's going to bite my ankle! Get away! Get away! [blam blam blam]

[cgr2727]

Cop shot a chihuahua? No way he was aiming for it, then. Hit a small, moving target? Not when most cops graduated from the Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship.

[croaker]

I'm to the point that if a cop shoots a dog, I want to see the dog's bite marks on the cop's leg. Otherwise, it's a bad shoot.

[ChiliPalmer]

The training, it does nothing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Like the swatter, it's the husband who placed police officers in a scenario where they could - and therefore had to - shoot someone. He's the one who should be prosecuted.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Well that is pretty much the same reasoning as fining a [Savannah, GA] grocery store when someone steals, or rather "borrows," one of their carts and just leaves it somewhere unsightly. Really, Kafka was truly prescient.

[Juice]

Or it was the same back then.

[Hank Phillips]

Brother Officer Name Withheld was actually aiming his Service Pistol at the husband when the puppy leapt into the line of fire to take a bullet for its master... hence the second shot, which also went awry. Officers were clearly told the guy WANTED to be hurt, and they were sent there to help.

[cgr2727]

If officer safety were really the goal that most cop unions wanted you to believe it was, then I would be all for everyone "just making it home safe." No, really...just go home, safe, like right the f*ck now. Get off the street, park your cruiser, and go home. I think we'd all be a lot safer if most cops just stayed home.

[Fist of Etiquette]

An officer later told the family that "it could have been worse," she said.

That, of course, wasn't meant as a comfort but a threat.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Justin Nix, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, said it's difficult to "Monday-morning-quarterback" an officer's decision and that "there's a lot of moving parts" in this case with a reportedly suicidal person, a gun and what police described as a charging dog.

Departments won't send cops to your class if you continue criticizing police like this.

[Hank Phillips]

What will Sister Mary Elephant do without Officer Stedenko to help educate the class? "Class, Professor Justin Nix teaches Gestapo apologetics at the University of Nebraska in Omaha."

[Fist of Etiquette]

Officers were told that a 33-year-old man in the home "had held a gun in his mouth and choked a dog," it said.

And they said, "We can top that!"

[Fist of Etiquette]

When police arrived, she said of her husband, "My goal is to get him help, and it just made the situation worse."

Said the nail of the hammer.

[ChiliPalmer]

Welch, you can always sleep in. Comments are really not that big a deal at 0'dark-thirty.

[Conchfritters]

Fuck me - what a fucking disaster. In front of the kids??? I wonder if they are going to send the family a $75 gift card to Walmart, and a $50 gift card to Sizzlers for the inconvenience.

Can't they maybe take a 20 minute training class with a mailman and see how to handle these situations without plugging the dog and a kid? Maybe bring a couple milk bones in their pockets?

[Hank Phillips]

What kind of reporting is this? What about the brave First Responder? summoned to invade and protect citizens from themselves? The hero--to whom God's Own Prohibitionist party dedicated its Reefer Madness platform--might have been injured by the ricochet. Here is a case where gun manufacturer liability for collateral damage is clearly in order!

[Longtobefree]

Two rounds?
In a room full of kids?
And no hits?
Where's Barney Fife when you need him? He now seems like the ideal straight thinking cop.

[Hank Phillips]

Offissa Jeronimo Yanez, the one who riddled Philando Castile with bullets without putting a scratch on the child in the back seat, could give First Responder? union brother Name Withheld some lessons in gun control.

[croaker]

He only had one bullet.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's interesting that that the shooter is still alive since he absolutely needed to shoot the dog to save his life but didn't shoot the dog in two shots. He should have needed to keep on blamming away to not be dead.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Well the dog DID receive a wound, and maybe that was enough to deter the vicious beast. All the more reason to credit the officer with restraint.

[Cyto]

So, why aren't we seeing the video? What is the excuse for withholding the body camera footage?

If they had shot a dangerous escaped murderer who was kidnapping a child, they'd have that footage up by the evening news. So why the secrecy now?

[crufus]

Kansas is one of the most secretive states in the union top to bottom. Especially body cam footage.

http://www.kansascity.com/news.....79651.html

http://www.kansascity.com/news.....72776.html

"The state has one of the most restrictive laws on police body cameras in the country. Footage is classified as an investigative record and not subject to mandatory disclosure under the Kansas Open Records Act. While family members may eventually see what was captured on camera, the public may never have that opportunity.

The Star also found that some of the largest police departments in the state do not release the names of officers involved in shootings, despite a call across the country for more openness following high-profile incidents in Cleveland, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

In 2014, Kansas became the last state in the nation to open criminal affidavits, yet in some counties judges still seal those documents for long periods. And the state can keep records in unsolved cases closed to the public indefinitely. One family has spent nearly 30 years trying to see records authorities have on the disappearance of their son in 1988."

[Rebel Scum]

An officer inside the house had fired two shots at their dog

Panic fire at Sparky. Cops should at least be held responsible for destruction of property when the injure/kill peoples pets.

[Brandybuck]

Calling 911 is fine. It was an emergency. It's not the caller's fault that the 911 operator then sent some cynophobic goons.

[cgr2727]

I'm starting to second-guess the "only in an emergency" part. Most places send a cop out as a matter of "policy" anytime an ambulance or fire truck gets dispatched. I'm picturing standing at my front door, clutching my chest (hopefully I'm able to at least get to the door) and yelling at the cop to get the hell away, and somehow getting shot because I was threatening Officer Safety.

[Vernon Depner]

Sounds like private ambulance services and private on-call domestic dispute referees might be good business opportunities.

[cgr2727]

I like the "arbitrators-r-us" idea. There are a ton of private ambulance services out there, but I wonder if one thing preventing them from providing a truly competitive alternative to the gubmint ones is a certificate-of-need requirement or something like that. When I lived in the northeast, the private ambulance companies were the only game in town, but they were used by the local governments as subcontractors in place of having a municipal service, not as an alternative. Only the bigger cities had a dedicated service.

[Stormy Dragon]

I live in SE Pennsylvania and we have private fire and ambulance here. I'm not out in the middle of nowhere either. The cities tend to have government services, but most of the boroughs and townships are still private.