[duck hunt]

This is the saddest story I've read all week, right up there with the kids in the basement in NJ. This cop was a kid, only 26 -- and he died because some moron was shooting up in the air like a fool. I'd like to get my hands on that guy....

Policeman Drowns In Pond (http://www.timesdispatch.com/frontpage/MGBP2GVSVAD.html)

[KMKeller]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to claim that the guy shooting in the air was responsible for the officer's unfortunate death.

Your title is inflammatory and misleading.

[Master Blaster]

Souldn't the title be policeman dies in drowning while answering call?

First off you dont even know that folks were actually firing a gun, it could have been fire crackers.

Perhaps the policeman was driving recklessly with his lights off to surprise these folks????

You dont know what caused the accident
:scrutiny:

[Oak]

inflammatory dis-information, so frequently used
against us by the anti's, is frowned upon here. The
title should be edited. The officer's death is truly
a tragedy, & this story SHOULD be posted as an
example of how stupid, unthinking actions can lead
to terrible consequences, but the "drunk yahoo"
didn't kill anybody.

[Blackhawk]

Bad title, but I wouldn't mind the anti-gun media picking up on this:The gunman suspect was identified by police as John Lamont Stancil, 31, of Milford, in Caroline County. He was charged with possession of a firearm while being a felon....Don't expect them too, though....

Sad about Booker.... :(

[duck hunt]

I attempted to edit the title to read "Henrico officer will miss afternoon spot of tea due to unfortunate individual who might possibly have been in possession of a firearm at some point," but it was too long and also the boards won't let you edit a title once it's posted.

That said, I stand by my title. An idiot yahoo -- a drunk idiot yahoo -- was firing up in the air, yes, with a gun, in the parking lot of O'Charley's. A 26-year-old cop, a good man, drowned in a 30-foot ice cold pond as he was attempting to apprehend the suspect. Were it not for said yahoo shooting said gun into said air, said cop would still be alive. Therefore: DRUNK YAHOO WITH GUN KILLS HENRICO COP. :fire:

There's the high road and then there is deliberate omission of facts. The fact that some would have me omit the cause of this officer's drowning (or attribute it to something that it was not, like a firecracker) smacks of the same tactics the antis use, and I will not do it.

[KMKeller]

OK, caps usually indicates shouting and your snide, sarcastic response is unwarranted.

A 26-year-old cop, a good man, drowned in a 30-foot ice cold pond as he was attempting to apprehend the suspect.

Nowhere in the article does it relate that this happened while attempting to apprehend the suspect.

Your attempts to tie this Officers unfortunate death to guns are feeble and would require quite a stretch to even come close. By your own logic, if a three year old were drowing in that pool and the officer passed while trying to rescue the child, the headline should read "CARELESS UNDERAGE SWIMMER KILLS HENRICO COP". Or perhaps, if you were pulled over on the shoulder to fix a flat tire, the officer stopped to help you and was killed when the car fell off of the jack and crushed him, the title should read, "RECKLESSLY NEGLIGENT MOTORIST KILLS HENRICO COP".

I admire your passion and understand your outrage, but frankly, the only things that smacks of anti's methods is your ridiculous attempts to attach responsibility for this Officer's death to a gun and your use of grossly inflammatory titles to stir emotions. We all understand the cause and effect relationship and this does not compute.

[duck hunt]

Well, depending on where the imaginary child's parents were, I would probably approve a headline that stated "Irresponsible Parenting Kills Henrico Cop."

Besides, a three-year-old and a 31-year-old can hardly be held to the same level of responsibility. The 31-year-old who was firing in the air was a drunk felon in possession of a firearm which he was using recklessly. The officer was backing up at a high rate of speed in order to block the exit to the parking lot as other officers pursued the suspect.

I do not understand your insistence on questioning my knowledge of the facts in this case. I live in Richmond, it is all over the local news and I was first alerted to the incident by a friend who works in the business the parking lot serves. I would not be posting about the incident were I not sure of my facts.

I wish I were wrong. I wish it weren't true. A good officer died a horrible, torturous death and his fellow officers and family are mourning -- all because some drunken idiot was firing his gun in the air in a public parking lot. These are the facts and I'm not sure why so many people on this board are determined to deny them.

[KMKeller]

A good officer died a horrible, torturous death and his fellow officers and family are mourning -- all because some drunken idiot was firing his gun in the air in a public parking lot. These are the facts and I'm not sure why so many people on this board are determined to deny them.

Nobody is arguing these facts at all and there is no denial of them.

DRUNK YAHOO WITH GUN KILLS HENRICO COP
This statement however is an altogether different matter. That the officer died while responding to a call involving a drunken yahoo with a gun is unquestioned. However, the drunk yahoo with a gun did not kill the officer, or drive the officer's car into the pond. Honestly, if the officer were responding to a traffic accident and died in an accident with the ambulance who was also coming to the aid of the drivers, would the negligent driver who caused the accident be responsible for the death of the officer? "CRIMINALLY CARELESS DRIVER KILLS HENRICO COP". Not by a long shot.

. I do not understand your insistence on questioning my knowledge of the facts in this case. I live in Richmond, it is all over the local news and I was first alerted to the incident by a friend who works in the business the parking lot serves. I would not be posting about the incident were I not sure of my facts.
And nowhere do you reference or share any of that info in this thread. No one is questioning your knowledge of the facts, just the lack of facts you are referencing in the article you posted. Which, by the way, is the only info we have at this time. If you care to expand the links or elaborate, be my guest.
The officer was backing up at a high rate of speed in order to block the exit to the parking lot as other officers pursued the suspect.
Where does it state this in the article you referenced? Remember, the only data we have to go on is what you listed in the original post

[JohnBT]

I'm very sorry the police officer drove in reverse into the drainage pond and died. It shouldn't happen to anyone.

From the title, I too thought it had been announced that he'd been hit by gunfire, but I guess we'll have to wait for the formal announcement to find out.

John
Richmond

[duck hunt]

if the officer were responding to a traffic accident and died in an accident with the ambulance who was also coming to the aid of the drivers, would the negligent driver who caused the accident be responsible for the death of the officer? "CRIMINALLY CARELESS DRIVER KILLS HENRICO COP". Not by a long shot.There is a fundamental difference between an ambulance driver racing to the scene of an accident and a drunk felon firing a gun into the air. My opinion, which I will defend to anyone who cares to argue it, is that if you knowingly break the law, and a policeman dies in the process of apprehending you or assisting in apprehending you, then it is your fault. You caused it.

Nowhere in the title did I say the officer was shot. "With a gun" was a clause I used to justify posting it on THR. My main point was that a stupid drunk guy killed a cop. And, in my mind, that is exactly what he did.No one is questioning your knowledge of the facts
Yes, in fact someone asked how I knew it wasn't a "fire cracker."If you care to expand the links or elaborate, be my guest. Thanks for the invitation.
WTVR story (http://www.wtvr.com/Global/story.asp?S=1081534)
WRIC Story (http://www.wric.com/Global/story.asp?S=1080869)
WWBT Story (http://www.wwbt.com/frontpage/MGBGO9FEWAD.html)

I can attempt to transcribe my conversation with my friend if you'd like.

***Edited to add my friend's statement:
I was scheduled for a 9:00am-5:30pm shift. Coworker wakes me up with a call at 7:00am saying she's not sure I'll be able to get into the lot because it's cordoned off and there are about a dozen or so police cars present (that's just what she can see from the road). Coworkers who showed up for the opening shift have no idea what's going on. I tried to check the news, but on Sunday morning all that was on was religious programming or classical music. Then I get a call back that the po-po are letting employees into the lot and they've cordoned off a smaller area, but still no one knows what's going on.

I arrived around 8:30am for my shift, hoping to grab a bagel at the bread store across from us. I get turned away by police and since I now have time to kill, do a mini reconnaissance mission to appease my gossip mongering coworkers. I counted 12 police cruisers that could be seen from the street, a winnebago sized police command center (which I've only ever seen used in crackhouse busts on Cary St) and a group of men being escorted from a restaurant by uniformed officers. I figured it was some excessive drug-related police sting on a particular restaurant owner, although I did wonder why the hell it would go on so early in the morning.

Someone talked to a coworker whose 911-dispatcher husband had been called into work on his day off.

"I'll bet there's a body in the lake," says the manager.
"Oh, c'mon, ________. Why would anyone dispose of a body in a tiny little burrow pit, right off a main road, when they're only a few minutes drive from the James River?" says I.
"What if it was a drunk driver?"
"I hope. At least they'd be off the road."

At 10:30am, a customer told us they pulled a car out of the lake.

"See? I told you. I knew it" says the manager.

At noon, we hear it was a cop.

At 1:30pm I make it to the bread shop next to the lake, where the employees tell us that late last night two excessively drunk patrons at the restaurant next door were disgruntled about being made to leave and had been arguing amongst themselves. One (or both) pulled a gun and started waving it around and once out into the parking lot, shooting into the air and threatening others. Restaurant staff called the cops, who arrived in droves.

We had heard rumors that the cop was killed in a police chase. And it seemed believeable, once I saw the angle of the road where the cruiser had ripped through the fence. I wondered though, how he could've stayed underwater for over an hour if all those other cops were present. Richmond's newsrag this morning mentioned nothing of a chase -- only that the cop's cruiser had gone into reverse into the lake. So it was police error, which means the drunken felon with a gun who started the whole ****storm won't get charged with manslaughter or murder, which sucks. It also means the officer's family probably won't get the kind of compensation they would be entitled to if he were murdered in the line of duty. He was a rookie, only a year older than me.

Seven cops tried to rescue him, but the water in the pit was thirty feet deep. (Anyone who's seen this thing would guess 5 or 6 feet deep, max.) And it was pitch black outside, seeing as this all happened around 2:30am. One of the would-be rescuers had to be rescued. All in all, the first cop was under freezing water for just under 90 minutes, and he was still alive. He was in critical condition until late afternoon. When I finally got home from work, I flicked on the news only to hear the closing statement "...the first police casualty of 2003."

[KMKeller]

There is a fundamental difference between an ambulance driver racing to the scene of an accident and a drunk felon firing a gun into the air. My opinion, which I will defend to anyone who cares to argue it, is that if you knowingly break the law, and a policeman dies in the process of apprehending you or assisting in apprehending you, then it is your fault. You caused it.

You misunderstand, it's the original driver who erred that I refer to, not the driver of the ambulance.

The point remains that there was no direct causal relationship and your title remains unsupported by any evidence you've brought forth. The original story you reference, the conversation you quote and the additional links all refer to an unfortunate accident.

Nowhere in the title did I say the officer was shot. "With a gun" was a clause I used to justify posting it on THR. My main point was that a stupid drunk guy killed a cop. And, in my mind, that is exactly what he did. Nobody claimed that you had said that the officer was shot. But you make my point for me, your title insinuates exactly that.

The whole point to this discussion is that your title insinuates something that the facts do not support. If you were using the title to "justify posting it on THR", you needn't have bothered. The truth of the matter would've justified it plenty and you would've gotten a much more positive response to your thread. You don't need to falsely "fan the fires of outrage" here. The truth is ample.

[duck hunt]

I was making no effort to falsify or fan any fires. My title reflected my feeling about the matter, which was and is that the drunk guy killed the cop.

[KMKeller]

I was making no effort to falsify or fan any fires. My title reflected my feeling about the matter, which was and is that the drunk guy killed the cop.

I understand and sympathize.