Cop that killed 93 Y/O woman has been fired.

[MynameisBlarney]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/11/stephen-stem-shoots-93-year-old_n_5304790.html

[rock]

1. Which of these two should have been allowed to carry a gun?

Is this a trick question? Yes. Both. 2nd Amendment rights!

[MynameisBlarney]

2. Not sure what point you're trying to make here...

Or if you're being snarky and my snarkometer needs calibrating.

[rock]

3. OK I was too obscure (and snarky)

The real answer is, of course, neither one. At least that's my opinion.

[MynameisBlarney]

4. My Snarkometer never works worth a damn

on Mondays.

[951-Riverside]

6. Him. She was a senile old woman who was armed.

I'm tired of the senile and the "mentally ill" getting a hold of weapons they have no right owning then the public bashing police officers who have to encounter these people.

[LisaL]

22. Aren't our gun laws great?

She was deemed not capable of driving anymore.
But yet there is no law she should have not had a gun.

[dman85]

29. I agree

In this case, the cop may or may not have made an incredibly foolish decision. I understand that the officer may have been scared or felt threatened, but they have to approach those situations in a logical way and evaluate if the threat is real or is it just an emotional response. In this case, he may have encountered a real threat. I'm not sure I agree that he should have been fired.

That's not to say that cops don't routinely screw up with no penalty. A police officer in my home town shot a golden retriever the other day while responding to a call at the wrong address. I'm not exactly shocked that he was never reprimanded.

[NobodyHere]

5. Looks like the cop is going to get a nice payday

When he sues the city for an unjust firing.

[Nay]

10. Exactly. I'm no cop apologist, but can't supervisors make sensible

decisions any more? Although this woman was 93 and probably senile, her RELATIVES called the cops because she was waving a gun around. Then, with the cops there, she fires off two shots. I'd like to know what the cop's supervisors wanted him to do -- let her keep shooting so neighbors would get hit? Let her wing a relative? Frankly, the cop restrained himself from shooting her immediately when he saw she had a gun; he let her shoot twice before he shot her. I really don't know what else is expected of this cop.

[LisaL]

18. I agree.

If the woman fired her gun, sounds like the shooting was justified.
So what was he fired for?

[NobodyHere]

27. Yeah

Honestly though, I hate it when pigs get paydays for shooting someone.

However when you fire someone before the investigation is even finished, that's what happens.


And after the dead grandmother and her family, the biggest losers in all this is the taxpayers.

[uponit7771]

31. yeap, on the face of it what else was he supposed to do. If the person was 39 vs 93 there would be

... no question as to how this was supposed to go down

[KinMd]

7. I'm no weapons expert but won't a bullet fired by a 93 yo, kill you as quick as one fired by a 25yo?

[MynameisBlarney]

8. It took them, what, a week to claim she had a weapon

I remain skeptical of the veracity of this former cops claim.

Also, from the link I provided...

"The same officer was placed on leave about a year ago for shooting dead a suspect when responding to a call of an unruly crowd gathering in an apartment complex parking lot, The Eagle newspaper of Bryan-College Station reported earlier this week."

In case you haven't noticed, cops are becoming much more comfortable using deadly force these days, whether it's warranted or not.

[Lurks Often]

9. The woman's nephew stated she had a gun and had fired it

Since the nephew is saying that she fired two shots

http://www.startribune.com/nation/258581311.html

and the Texas Ranger investigation isn't even complete yet, legally the town is on shaky grounds by firing the police officer.

It should be interesting to see what other facts come out.

It is standard policy to place an officer on leave when there is a line of duty shooting. The last case was brought before a grand jury that did not indict him.

[MynameisBlarney]

12. How often are cops found guilty

of any type of wrongdoing?
I just find it hard to trust anything a police dept says anymore.
It's difficult to be anything but cynical when there are 10 stories a week about cops just murdering people for bullshit reasons.

[Lurks Often]

14. They get arrested, it just doesn't make the headlines nearly as often

With the nephew stating that his aunt fired the gun twice, this will probably be ruled a justifiable shooting absent any new information.

[JJChambers]

11. Where do you get that from?

The information right away was that he was called to deal with her when she pulled a gun on her nephew and then the nephew even said she shot twice when the good were trying to deal with her. Did you just make that up?

This was a political knee jerk reaction, which is par for the course in these reasonable and justified but politicially ugly shootings.

I for one hope this police officer owns a good chunk of the town, courtesy of the tax payers in that town who called for his head on a platter.

[MynameisBlarney]

13. To be honest, this is the first I heard about her having a gun.

None of the articles I read mentioned her having any weapon at all when it first happened.

[TorchTheWitch]

16. Funny, that's not what I read

Her own nephew was the one that called 911 and he did because was waving a gun around when he tried to take her car keys away after she'd had her license taken away because she was proven to be too incompetent to drive. Articles said so almost immediately after it happened. If this is the first you've heard of it you must have been getting your info not from any articles written about the case but from the cop haters here spewing disinformation that he shot a poor defenseless little old lady for no reason.

No way should this officer have been fired before the investigation even took place. His previous shooting was legitimate, and he was cleared by a grand jury. The town had no problem with his going back to his job after that not to mention no problem sticking to the protocol of the incident being investigated first. Now suddenly because of nothing but politics he's lost his job before even a completed investigation into this case which appears every bit as legitimate just from the information so far by a political committee only interested in the press and themselves.

Other than these two incidents his record is absolutely clean. No mention of any complaints of abuse or excessive force or anything. He got fired for having the bad luck to happen to be the cop on duty during both these incidents and having to be the one to deal with them. I hope he sues the hell out of the town. He's entitled to keep his job until after the investigation is complete, and if it goes to a grand jury being cleared or not by it just as what happened in the first incident which the politicians obviously had no problem doing then and because that's the protocol.

Shame on these politicians even involving themselves in this matter to determine what to about this officer throwing their own protocol out the window and deciding to fire him based on nothing legitimate whatsoever and before even the investigation into the matter was completed with their only concern being their own selves worried about how they might look to some biased people. No wonder they rushed to meet and made this decision before the investigation was even completed. They'd really look like the selfish shits they are had they done this after the investigation was completed and determined that he had acted legitimately. Far better for them to try hiding behind an open investigation to do their dirty work that might even halt an investigation all together.

[MynameisBlarney]

17. Perhaps the politicians

are in error. But maybe they're becoming as weary of over the top police violence as I am.

As for this..." If this is the first you've heard of it you must have been getting your info not from any articles written about the case but from the cop haters here spewing disinformation that he shot a poor defenseless little old lady for no reason."

When I read the article, I think it was on Raw Story, there were no details other than a cop had shot and killed a 93 y/o woman in her home.
There were no links to other articles that may have had more details in that particular article when I read it.
It was just 2 paragraphs.

[TorchTheWitch]

30. so what?

There's a protocol to investigate these incidents and determine from that investigation if the officer did anything wrong or not. In the first incident with this officer they had no problem going by the protocol, the investigation took place, the DA still thought that a grand jury should decide, it went to the grand jury and they cleared him of any wrongdoing. No one had any problem with either the protocol or his being cleared or his going back to work.

Then there's this incident where the same officer was unlucky enough to be the one on duty and had to deal with a situation that the counsel already knew was most likely an entirely legitimate shooting but this time instead of doing what they are supposed to do and allow the same protocol to take place they caved to the press and worried about their own personal standings as city councilmen went ahead and fired the officer before the investigation was even completed.

That officer was ENTITLED to have the incident investigated and his name cleared if it was a legitimate shooting that in all likelihood just from what facts of the case we DO know it was and ENTITLED to go back to work if he was cleared of any wrongdoing. Because of these shits more concerned about their own selves went ahead and fired him for no legitimate cause not only taking away his livelihood but without him having his ENTITLED opportunity for his name to be cleared.

Their being sick of so many police shootings is immaterial - you don't scapegoat someone because of your personal feelings or because you're worried about your own position as a councilman. THIS officer isn't responsible for they're feeling or their weak selfishness in not wanting to stand up to unreasonable backlash. Every one of the councilmen who engaged in this travesty should be forced to resign. They have no business being representatives of their town when they scapegoat someone for their own selfish reasons and fire an officer before it's discovered whether or not this second shooting was legitimate or not which he is entitled to by their own protocol they had no problem going by with the first incident and no problem with his going back to work after he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

They have NO legitimate excuse. NONE. And they robbed this man of his job and the opportunity to clear his name by scapegoating him and ditching their own protocol so STEALING that right from him. They're all weak kneed selfish reactionary shits that have no business representing anyone or anything.

The problem here is not an officer with a hyper trigger finger but an officer who in both incidents had to face a mentally unstable person with a gun they had no right to have in the first place because of being mentally unstable who threatened and/or shoot at people for no legitimate reason. In the first incident the shooter was firing toward a crowd of people from a car, and when the police arrived he ditched the gun and ran. He refused to surrender and kept running and was thus shot. In the second incident the 93 year old woman was so mentally unstable that when her nephew tried to take away her car keys since she had lost her drivers license being found to be too mentally unstable to drive pulled out a gun and was waving it around threatening people with it. When the police arrived the officer in question told her to drop the gun and she refused. GOOD that he stopped these nuts threatening/shooting at people with them who refused to surrender so that innocent people weren't injured or killed by them.

It's no easy thing to HAVE to shoot someone that threatens other people, yet this is REQUIRED of police officers in their line of duty. It's also why officers that have had to do it have to go through mandatory psychological counseling to make sure they can move on from it. Despite that many of these officers have suffered severe depression, anxiety and other PTSD symptoms that makes them not capable of returning to work, lose their careers, and some even commit suicide over it. But here no one ever thinks about that reality and like to believe that every cop that shoots someone in every case it not only isn't legitimate but that they even enjoyed it and for no other earthly reason than to get their ridiculously unreasonable cop hate on.

[LisaL]

21. What exactly are you reading?

This was called into 911 as a case of a woman waiving a gun.
So right from the start it was known the woman had a gun.

[MynameisBlarney]

24. As I said in a previous post

I believe the article I originally read was on Raw Story, it did not say anything other than a cop had shot a 93 year old woman in her home.
I have been googling trying to find that article so I can show you that I'm not pulling stuff outta my backside.
I have not had any luck. I have, however, found that damn near every link has different details.
4 shots, 5 shots, they can't determine that she fired any rounds from her gun, she fired two rounds...etc.

Whether or not she fired two shots into the ground or whether or not the deputy shot her 4 or 5 times is irrelevant.

What is important is that cops use deadly force far too often. Why couldn't he have just used a tazer on her?
He could have tried something other than drawing his own weapon and shouting at her to drop hers, escalating the tension and confusion.

Officer training needs a MAJOR overhaul nationwide.

[LisaL]

19. You don't know what you are talking about.

[WinkyDink]

15. Fired vs. buried. Yep, life is fair.

[L0oniX]

25. Texas open carry law at work.

[Niceguy1]

26. how does open carry apply to this case?

[blueridge3210]

28. You are aware that open carry law does not apply inside one's home? (nt)