[jimpeel]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA81L83ZJD.html

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/6652480.htm

This guy states that he was forced to wear a bomb and rob a bank.

The police capture him and handcuff him.

He states that he has a bomb strapped to him.

The cops look under his shirt and determine there is a bomb.

They then leave him sitting on the ground, handcuffed, while they wait for the bomb squad to come.

During the wait he can be heard pleading with them to “Get this thing off of me!” and “Why isn’t anyone trying to help me”?

Minutes later, the bomb removes his head.

The cops close in on the headless body with guns drawn and pointed at the headless corpse.

Since this time, one of the man’s co-workers has also been found dead.

Was this guy the perpetrator or the victim?

Regardless of his complicity in the event, the fact remains that the police, who likely have something to the effect of “To Protect And To Serve” on the side of their cars, watched the man, regardless of complicity, blown to bits.

Should someone, anyone, have at least tried to save this man’s life?

Why did the “first responders” sit and wait for “second responders” while this man’s life literally ticked away?

This reaffirms the ruling that the police have no duty to protect you. The police in this instance certainly performed that duty admirably.

I'm not anti cop but I am anti cop who won't do what he is paid to do.

Opinions?

[jimpeel]

If any of you reading this had been on-scene at the time, and watched the cops watching him while he begged for his life; would you have run through the police line to try to cut the bomb off of him at the peril of your life or watched and waited?

Do you believe the cops, in that event, would have:

Let you proceed and lauded your praises for your selfless bravery;

Shot you to prevent you from reaching the bomb;

Waited until you cut the bomb off and dragged the helpless man to safety and then arrested you?

[Mike Irwin]

Why did the first responders wait?

Tell me this, if a cop HAD tried to remove the bomb, and it blew up and killed them both, would we be hearing screeds about how an "unknowledable Joe Donut KILLED this guy by trying to be a hero"?

The police did EXACTLY what they were supposed to do. Apprehend the guy, ascertain that he had something that looked like a bomb, and call in those who are TRAINED to deal with explosives.

Yes, the guy said that he was forced to rob the bank by someone who dressed him up in the lasted in Palestinian fashion accessories.

But should the guy be believed?

[jimpeel]

But should the guy be believed?Guilty until proven innocent. I think I've seen that somewhere ...

http://www.mine-safety.mtu.edu/clipart/other/boom.gif

OOPS! I guess he was innocent.


Tell me this, if a cop HAD tried to remove the bomb, and it blew up and killed them both, would we be hearing screeds about how an "unknowledable Joe Donut KILLED this guy by trying to be a hero"?
No. There would be laudatory commentary from all points of the compass on how this brave officer gave his life attempting to preserve the life of another.

[Norm357]

Only an idiot would mess with an explosive device when they are not trained in EOD. The cops did ok here.


Norm

[Mike Irwin]

"Guilty until proven innocent. I think I've seen that somewhere ..."

WRONG

He was a suspect in an armed robbery. He was treated as such. Lord knows no suspect has ever lied when apprehended.

If a suspect, any suspect, says that he's innocent, should police immediately release him without further investigation? Wouldn't that be in the spirit of "innocent until proven guilty"?

"No. There would be laudatory commentary from all points of the compass on how this brave officer gave his life attempting to preserve the life of another."

Bull:cuss:.

There would doubtless be some, but the number of people castigating him would be as great judging by previous police judgement situations on this and other boards.

[cool45auto]

There is no way I would have tried to touch that bomb. :scrutiny:

[seeker_two]

The LEO's did the only thing (the only RIGHT thing) that could be done...

As for the man, how do we KNOW he was the innocent one?

The only thing I know is that, in the case of someone strapping explosives to me & threatening to kill me if I don't committ a crime, I will be the one hugging the threatener tightly and telling him "Go ahead. Push the button, Frank..." :evil:

[tyme]

Why didn't the robber take the bomb off if it was on a timer?

Sounds like there's more to the story that'll only be discovered if there does turn out to be someone else responsible and if that person is found.

[AZRickD]

As usual, the LEO Apologists ask the wrong question. This is why I have never, and will never call the police until after I have the situation under control. Failing that is a good way for the citizen to get shot, or, in this case, All Blow'd Up.

The real question is, "Would you, as the guy with the bomb strapped to you, have wanted to be hand cuffed so that *you* couldn't remove the bomb from your body as the timer counted down from 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2..."

"Don't worry, the Bomb Squad will be here in 15 minutes to clean up. Don't mind us as we keep a safe distance behind this here tree."

Sounds to me that they violated his right to defend himself.

Rick

[jimpeel]

The police did EXACTLY what they were supposed to do.

The LEO's did the only thing (the only RIGHT thing) that could be done...

By that standard, the cops who ran up those stairs on 9-11 failed in their duty to wait for the correct professionals, the fire department, to arrive. I somehow don't envision these cops running up a stairstepper let alone the stairs at the WTC,

[Gray Peterson]

This certainly is a strange case. If what the man was saying was true, then there's a serious problem going on in Erie. You have a guy who's apparently kidnapping people, strapping bombs on them, and pretty much saying "If you don't do this, I'll blow you up, if you try to remove it, it will blow up".

Whoever did this was a very sick freak.

I would suggest any THR people in the area, keep your eyes peeled, if you do not have an LTCF and a handgun, GET ONE. This goes to show that kidnapping is a serious problem, and it's likely you might die at the hands of them.

[Hypnogator]

I used to teach arson and explosives investigations.

You NEVER touch a bomb unless the fuse is lit, and you're it!

Leaving the guy cuffed was the best thing the officers could do. Sure, it's a calculated risk, but had they not secured him, he could have endangered others.

Tampering with a wired device is tantamount to a rather messy suicide. It's too bad this one went south, especially if the guy was a victim, but I really don't see anything else the responding officers could do.

[jimpeel]

Take these stories for comparison:

http://www.thebackup.com/archives_news.asp?placement=RESCUES

I guess they were in the “No waiting” line.

How many of these officers and citizens violated "procedure"?

[Combat-wombat]

I believe this was a very tough situation for the police. If a police officer had tried to take the bomb off, both the officer and this guy would probably be killed. The officers did what they were trained to do.

[4v50 Gary]

There was little choice in the matter. EoD isn't part of any Academy course in any state that I'm aware of. You isolate and let the "experts" come in to take the risks.

[Waitone]

I'm not LE. Never have been, never will be. Not nearly man enought.

But a question just screams to be asked. The guy was cuffed and downed. On site LE perceived a threat because they took cover behind vehicles. I can understand LE not wanting to mess with the bomb, which was previously ascertained as fact. The cuffed perp // victim knew what he was dealing with so he knew he had absolutely nothing to lose.

So what would be wrong with uncuffing the perp // victim and let him try to get it off. He knew there was a timer. He most likely knew how much time he had left. He knew there was a chance the bomb squad would be late and he was the one who would pay the consequences. This guy had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

So what if the victim // perp was spoofing as a way to get lose? LE was holding all the cards.

Hep me out there! I just do not understand.

[seeker_two]

So what would be wrong with uncuffing the perp // victim and let him try to get it off. He knew there was a timer. He most likely knew how much time he had left. He knew there was a chance the bomb squad would be late and he was the one who would pay the consequences. This guy had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Think "Palestinian martyr" or "lunatic" and ask that question again... :banghead:

[Waitone]

Think "Palestinian martyr" or "lunatic" and ask that question again... That is precisely why I said, So what if the victim // perp was spoofing as a way to get lose? LE was holding all the cards. Let me rephrase the statement. LE was armed to the teeth which presumably it knew how to use.

BTW, Palestinians are famed for using explosives in unorthodox manners. Sadaam and his mutts would execute prisoners by draping a small bloc of plastique on the victim's chest and exploding it. I wonder. . . . .

[jimpeel]

All: More stories of Top Cops: http://www.njlawman.com/Awards%20Page%20Archives.htm

Waitone: You are correct. The cops had already approached him and taken him into custody -- which they promptly abandoned after cuffing him -- and if he had had a means of detonation beyond the timing mechanism he would have done so then.

If someone straps a bomb to you and says "You have 40 minutes to get to the bank, rob it, and get back to the designated spot. If you don't get back in time, you're dead. If you bring the cops, you're dead."

This scenario was played out on the old cop show "Adam-12" many years ago. This is not a new ploy. What is new is the manner in which the two incidents were handled. The best the authorities can say about this incident is that it is similar to a recent movie and that most of the time that people state that they have a bomb, they aren't telling the truth; or the "bomb" is a fake.

One has to wonder just how much valuable information this man took to his grave about the perp -- if there really was one.

The fact that he may have been the perp is still no reasonn to simply sit and watch him get his head blown off. I still can't get over the visual of the cops rushing up on the obviously dead body with their firearms trained on it.

[Mike Irwin]

"By that standard, the cops who ran up those stairs on 9-11 failed in their duty to wait for the correct professionals, the fire department, to arrive. I somehow don't envision these cops running up a stairstepper let alone the stairs at the WTC."

Christ.

Unbelievable, and WRONG.

Police are TRAINED at crowd control and evacuation procedures.

They are NOT trained at EOD work.

[Fed168]

If you are not an EOD person, don't play with explosives. Plain and simple. Not to beat a dead horse, say the guy was uncuffed and ran back into a crowded area and then went kaboom?
Not good for anyone.

[Erik]

Talk about not exactly your every day scenario...

Which is exactly why what the cops did was their best option.

Too bad about the victim, if he is one.

[jimpeel]

For some reason, explosives don't bother me. Perhaps it is the immediacy of the killing aspect of explosives. I don't fear instantaneous death. Most people don't fear death -- they fear the manner with which they are visited. Noone wants to burn to death from the feet up.

If I were in the vicinity of the situation and knew the aspects of it -- that he was strapped with explosives with the timer descending to zero -- and after all exhortations to the police had expired, I would make a break for it, knife in hand, and do my best to cut the straps of the load off of this guy and save his life.

I have no death wish and this is the type of thing one does out of compassion, not stupidity. Look at the four guys who drowned recently. They all drowned because they wouldn't abandon the person in trouble and gave their own lives in one last ditch effort to preserve the life of the others. Many here would say that they were stupid to not go for professional help. The last guy didn't have to die. All he had to do was to get out of there and leave the others to their own devices and bring help. He didn't. He died.

I could not sit idly by and watch a person burn in a car without at least trying to get them out.

I could not sit idly by and watch another person drown without trying to save them. Mind you, I swim like a rock.

Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe I hold the preservation of species too high; while suppressing the preservation of self.

I am not "brave" and have proven myself to be mostly a coward on far too many occasions. But I could not watch a person die without making some effort, valiant or fruitless though it might be. I also could not watch others watch either.

As it is said: No greater love hath any man than he give his life for another. Read the links at http://www.njlawman.com/Awards%20Page%20Archives.htm and http://www.thebackup.com/archives_news.asp?placement=RESCUES and tell me we should do no less than they.

THEY DON'T DO IT JUST BECAUSE WE PAY THEM TO!

[cordex]

Cops did what they could in the situation. Hope they find the perp.

[jimpeel]

The best out for everyone concerned would be that the perp was the one blown up at the scene.

If not, this guy could do it again.

[clubsoda22]

seeing as how the guy didn't take the bombs off himself, I would not have tried to help him.

[tyme]

A pizza delivery person sets up a complex scenario to blame someone else for a bank robbery, then when in custody he announces that he's strapped with a bomb on a timer so the police give him some space, then he waits for a few minutes and decides to let the bomb blow his head off? Why do I find this hard to believe?

Apparently he didn't take the bomb off because he was handcuffed. They'd presumably already searched him. If they weren't willing to try to help get the bomb off, they should have uncuffed him, given him a knife, and held him at gunpoint from a distance. Screw liability. Next someone's going to suggest that in addition to be a pizza-delivering terrorist, he's also a ninja who can throw knives 30 feet with deadly accuracy. The above scenario just doesn't make any sense. Terrorists don't wait until after they're in custody to blow themselves up, nor do they generally rob banks.

[Mike Irwin]

Tyme,

Why does this guy have to be a terrorist just because he had a bomb on him? Criminals were using explosives to further their enterprise LONG before terrorism became a word in the common vernacular...

Why's it so hard to believe that this guy could either be:

1. A very dumb crook.

2. A complete and total nutcase.

Neither precludes the possibility of a very elaborate setup.

[clubsoda22]

why the hell wouldn't he dump the vest the second he was in the bank, probably because he was told it was rigged to explode. As a cop i wouldn't risk it. Sucks for him.

[Gray Peterson]

A pizza delivery person sets up a complex scenario to blame someone else for a bank robbery, then when in custody he announces that he's strapped with a bomb on a timer so the police give him some space, then he waits for a few minutes and decides to let the bomb blow his head off? Why do I find this hard to believe?

Unfortunately, Television has been giving crooks a lot of good ideas.

The very idea that this guy was trying to kill himself in some thing if glory is bunk. He took a delivery, he went out there, and then ended up at a bank. Since the bomb was REAL, there's something to be said for his truthfulness.

Also, this isn't the West Bank. I have a hard time believing he wanted to off himself via a bomb. There are a LOT of sick people out there who take intense pleasure in making innocent people do bad things. Control freak types.

[jimpeel]

seeing as how the guy didn't take the bombs off himself, I would not have tried to help him.Kinda tough to do with handcuffs on. If the guy told him that it was rigged to go off if he tried to remove it, why would he try?

Contemplate that over your 23rd Club Soda and let us know what he should have done before you would deign to help him.

[TheeBadOne]

Kinda tough to do with handcuffs on.
He was out of handcuffs much longer than he was in them. Still remains to be seen what the actual story is.

[444]

The first rule of any emergency service is, not to become part of the problem. The problem existed before you became involved, don't make the problem worse through you actions.
If an untrained individual had tried to resolve the situation and the bomb detonated, now we would have two dead instead of one. In other words, his actions made the problem worse.
In this case we have at least three possible outcomes. First, we handcuff the guy (as a robby suspect) and wait for the bomb squad. If the bomb detonates prior their arrival we have one dead robbery suspect. Second, we can try to defuse the bomb or remove the bomb from the robbery suspect even though we don't know what we are doing. If the bomb goes off, more than one person is dead. Or we can wait on the bomb squad and hopefully upon their arrival, the situation is successfully resolved. Obviously the worst case senario DIDN'T happen, which would be the bomb killing more than one person. On every emergency scene you have a risk to reward ratio to consider. They chose the correct course of action.
If the bomb was rigged to detonate if it was removed from the suspect, why is it better for a cop who is untrained in EOD to try to remove it ? If the suspect could have removed it by himself, why didn't he remove it before the police became involved or before he robbed the bank ?

[Keith]

If he couldn't take the bomb off himself, why would anyone think a cop could do any better? The average cop doesn't know any more about EOD than anyone else.

Or, a better question; if it turns out that this guy IS the perp and the bomb thing was a scam to clear himself should he be caught - will anyone do more than chuckle at the predicament he put himself in?

If he's innocent, I don't think anyone could have helped him. If he's guilty, he got exactly what he deserved.

Keith

[rock jock]

He was out of handcuffs much longer than he was in them.
Most likely he had expected some help from LE, seeing as how (1) they are the "professionals", and (2) he simply could not see what the bomb looked like since it was wrapped around his neck. The cops should have said "hey, buddy, we got a bomb squad coming, but its going to take awhile and we can't personally help you because we don't know what we're doing." At that point, if the guy had said that he wanted to try to remove the bomb himself, the officers should have released him and let him do so. This idea that "we'll just cuff 'em and hide behind our cruisers so we're not in any danger ourselves" is offensive. Reminds me of the LEOs hanging outside Columbine HS while kids were being slaughtered because policy dictated that their own safety took top priority.

[444]

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the whole plan was to rig this guy with explosives in an attempt to injure or kill as many police and emergency workers as possible. With the bank robbery simply a ploy to get a police response (in large numbers). If the robbery was successful, that was just a bonus. By taking the handcuffs off, it is possible that this would have enabled him to better carry out the plan.
This would be terrorism.

This is similar to senarios involving a "secondary device". Terrorists cause some kind of incident that requires emergency workers to arrive in large numbers. Before hand they try to figure out where the staging area will be. They plant a secondary device where they imagine the staging area will be. After the emergency workers arrive and stage for the first incident, the terrorists detonate the secondary device at the staging area to get as many as they can.

[TheeBadOne]

The whole story is not yet known.

Q. For the innocent victim theory, why didn't he call for help right away instead of robbing a bank?
A. He was told he'd be blown up if he did, or the bomb was tamper proof.

Q. Shouldn't he have known that he'd have an almost certain chance of being caught by the Police because 99.9 % of all bank robbers are caught very quickly? (and then trying to explain that the bomb you have is not yours and be believed? vs. not robbing a bank and then asking for help?)
A. But he had a bomb strapped to him.

You can go back & forth all day, but bottom line is the jury is still out. There's never been a recorded case of someone being forced to do a bank robbery by having a bomb strapped to them. The response was appropriate given the situtation and known info at the time of the incident.
Locally a man was arrested with a homemade bomb strapped to his leg in a public housing complex. He 1st tried to say someone else had put the pipe type bomb on him, but then admitted he put it on himself for "self protection".
As the article states, many many bank robbers claim to have explosives on them, especially when caught, in an attempt to make LE back off.
We are all waiting with baited breath for the full info to come out, in the mean time let's be objective.

All the best

[Keith]

The police can not solve all problems! If this guy was a victim, it was just his bad luck - I don't see how an untrained policemen could have helped him in the short time they had.

He was afraid to take the thing off of himself! Yet, somebody else who knows no more about it than he, should be expected to take it off?

And one other point - IF he was a victim, he'd have done a lot better to go straight to the police and make his problem known. Maybe they'd have then had time to get an EOD guy there and do something for him.

Bad luck and a bad decision (on the victims part) resulted in a bad outcome. I don't see what the police could have done.

Keith

[Destructo6]

Under the remarkably strange circumstances, I don't really see much more they could have reasonably done. Those circumstances being:

A bank robbery suspect who states he has a bomb on his person.

Only now, after the fact, do we know the bomb was intended to kill him only.

[hammer4nc]

TBO, don't they teach all recruits at the acedemy to cut the "red" wire? Heck, anybody knows that! (just kidding)

Having watched the video, its obvious this guy was duped, forced at the point of a gun into something that was way over his head...for what, who knows? An innocent victim.

However, if I was the officer who apprehended the guy, I'd be wondering if this wasn't the first of Osama's second wave of attacks on the USA, given the popularity of suicide bombers with Arab terrorists. Not a farfetched possibility.

Its still not determined if the bomb was timer or remote activated...if the latter, threatening to remove it from the (potential witness) guy's neck, the BG would push the button and scoot, rather than have it removed by anyone.

Lastly, I don't know exactly how long the guy waited, but most med. size cities don't have their bomb squads assembled and waiting in the wings for a 5-minute response.

I've got to cut the officials some slack on this one.

[Baba Louie]

No one saw the movie PHONE BOOTH huh?

Pizza delivery guy... bomb...

Life imitating art?

Adios

[tyme]

You can go back & forth all day, but bottom line is the jury is still out. There's never been a recorded case of someone being forced to do a bank robbery by having a bomb strapped to them. The response was appropriate given the situtation and known info at the time of the incident. [/blockquote]
How can you say with authority that the police response was appropriate when by your own admission the situation was unprecedented?
I still don't see a problem with giving him a knife and holding him at gunpoint from a distance.
(444) If an untrained individual had tried to resolve the situation and the bomb detonated, now we would have two dead instead of one. In other words, his actions made the problem worse.
No. Willingly putting your own life at risk in an attempt to resolve a situation cannot make the situation worse. A person attempting to disarm a bomb when it's obvious the bomb squad won't arrive in time has not made the situation worse. The person is a good samaritan, quite rare in today's society, and though the person's family would no doubt mourn the person's loss, life goes on. The demonstration that society still has good samaritans might be more important than the life of an individual, if s/he accepts risk willingly.

[444]

"I still don't see a problem with giving him a knife and holding him at gunpoint from a distance."
As was mentioned, one possible senario is that this guy was a terrorist, so you violate all common sense and let him loose, he runs into the crowd and detonates the bomb. Oh, wait, you are going to stop him with handguns. I am sure he will be more afraid of that than the bomb he is about to blow himself up with.

:rolleyes:
"Willingly putting your own life at risk in an attempt to resolve a situation cannot make the situation worse."
:rolleyes:

[tyme]

Okay, well we know 444 will never be a good samaritan in that kind of situation :)

There's nothing sarcastic about the statement that you seemed to consider silly. Whether you believe there's no god and your awareness will simply cease, or whether you believe in a God that will judge you whether you do right or wrong, how could you be worse off (at the time of your death) by risking your life to save someone else? There are other considerations, certainly: family, etc. But they don't override everything.

The entire objective of holding him at gunpoint from a distance is that you can stop him even if he starts running toward people in an attempt to detonate the bomb.

And nobody's explained why a terrorist who's just robbed a bank where many more people would be shocked and injured by an explosion would choose to wait until he's in custody to attempt to detonate a bomb that - for clarification - is clearly designed merely to decapitate the wearer.

[Sludge]

Well, after reading about this and thinking about it for a day or so I tend to fall into the "LE did the right thing" camp.

Hind sight is 20/20. If im the cop on site, I think Im going to do the same thing. His motives are suspect, he just robbed a bank... thats all the info I have to go on. So, we have him cuffed and observe him from a safe distance till someone who knows EOD can get there. What else can ya do? Sure now that we all have read about how this guy went out on a pizza call and ends blown up we sympathize with him. My gut feeling is that this wasnt terrorism, and that he was innocent. Hopefully the investigation into this will uncover the truth.

[jimpeel]

TheeBadOne

He was out of handcuffs much longer than he was in them. The second part of my post you failed to quote was "If the guy told him that it was rigged to go off if he tried to remove it, why would he try?"


444

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the whole plan was to rig this guy with explosives in an attempt to injure or kill as many police and emergency workers as possible. With the bank robbery simply a ploy to get a police response (in large numbers). If the robbery was successful, that was just a bonus. By taking the handcuffs off, it is possible that this would have enabled him to better carry out the plan.
a. the rig was on a timer.

b. If were going to do this, why didn't he do it as they were cuffing him.

c. He told the cops he was rigged. They lifted up his shirt, determined he was telling the truth and ran like Hell.

444

As was mentioned, one possible senario is that this guy was a terrorist, so you violate all common sense and let him loose, he runs into the crowd and detonates the bomb. Oh, wait, you are going to stop him with handguns. I am sure he will be more afraid of that than the bomb he is about to blow himself up with.
a. Place handcuffs on his legs.

b. Uncuff suspect and hand him knife.

c. If suspect attempts to rise prior to removing the rig, shoot him.

[TheeBadOne]

I still don't see a problem with giving him a knife and holding him at gunpoint from a distance.
b. Uncuff suspect and hand him knife.

Ok, what is the knife for? :confused:

[jimpeel]

From the story at: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/6652480.htm Erie Chief Deputy Coroner Korac Timon said the explosion killed Wells. He said the bomb appeared to have hung from his neck over his chest and that he has been told it was of a "very sophisticated construction."

TheeBadOne

a. Place handcuffs on his legs.

b. Uncuff suspect and hand him knife.

c. Suspect cuts away tee shirt.

d. Suspect cuts strap on bomb hanging around neck.

d1. Bomb falls to ground. Suspect crawls away.

d2. Device detonates killing suspect instantly.

e1. If d1 true suspect is taken into custody.

e2. If d2 true nothing changes from actual result.

f. If suspect attempts to rise prior to performing c., d., or d1., shoot him.

g. If suspect starts hopping around like he is in a sack race, shoot him some more.

[clubsoda22]

if the guy told him it was rigged to go off if he tried to remove it, why would you, as a cop, want to try and remove it?

[AZRickD]

Why would you as a cop keep him from removing it if you kept him at the very same "safe" distance?

[TheeBadOne]

Ask the EOD boys if you'd recommend using a knife to remove a bomb...:uhoh:

Where did the suspect once ask either a knife or to be allowed to try to remove it himself. He asked for "someone" to remove it, as in a qualified person, which is what everyone was waiting for.

[Thumper]

Ask the EOD boys if you'd recommend using a knife to remove a bomb...

No kidding...it could have gone off or something. :rolleyes:

[TheeBadOne]

Again, ask someone in EOD if a knife is a standard EOD tool...
The bomb was "Hung by the neck". Why do you even need a knife? Couldn't he just have taken it off if he wanted? :confused:

[Thumper]

Yes, TBO, we all know that conductive material is not the best for use around explosives...but what's the worst that could have happened?

In hindsight, of course they should have given him some way to cut the device off himself. That's the benefit of hindsight.

All that said, I think the guys on scene did the best they could with what they knew.

[tyme]

(tbo) Where did the suspect once ask either a knife or to be allowed to try to remove it himself. He asked for "someone" to remove it, as in a qualified person, which is what everyone was waiting for.
:rolleyes:
Someone wants me to do something. I don't want to do it; maybe I'm just mean or maybe it's dangerous. What's my first thought? "You can do it yourself if you want." :)

[hammer4nc]

FWIW, the FBI has released a picture of the bomb collar:
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/Northeast/09/02/pizza.bomb/story.collar.pizza.bomb.jpg

Looks like one half of king-kong's handcuff. Wasn't going to be cut off with a knife, from the looks of it. Poor guy didn't have a chance.

Whether or not the device was custom fabricated (or ginned up from parts), should give the investigators a lot of clues as to its origin.

[444]

I guess I was going too far by suggesting there was a deeper motive involved. Tyme, it looks like you were right that the bomb was clearly designed to simply do in the wearer.

Tyme, in regard to your statements about risking my life to save others. I work as a firefighter, so this comes as my job description. I have no problem taking SOME degree of risk to help or save others. But I am not going to throw my life away in an effort that I am untrained for, or something that is hopeless. There is a big difference between risking your life and throwing your life away. A non-life threatening example might be me offering my time to help you fix your transmission when neither one of us has any idea what we are doing and have no instructions to go by. I may have the best of intentions. My heart is in the right place. But I would be willing to bet that at best we won't accomplish anything, and at worse cause you more problems and more expense than you had to begin with. It isn't a question of my not wanting to help people, it is a question of whether I am capable of helping them or am I just agrevating the problem. Over the last 20 years I have worked as a paramedic. I have had more than one occasion where I simply wasn't sure what to do. My findings were not conclusive. My plan of treatment was not clear. The signs and symptoms of the patient were vague or unusual. Instead of just doing SOMETHING and risk it being the wrong thing, I simply did what I know would help the patient and quickly got the patient to an emergency room where they had more diagnostic equipment and more education to diagnose the problem and treat it correctly. I distinctly remember a call many years ago where I thought I knew what was going on with the patient but I wasn't sure. Something didn't seem right. I called the hospital on the radio and talked to a doctor and he agreed that I should give drug "Z". I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't do that. I didn't know why, but my gut told me not to. So, I didn't. When we got to the hospital, it turned out that what I thought was wrong with the patient was incorrect, and the treatment that I was considering and that the doctor ordered would have almost certainly killed the patient. I did only the very minimum to help this patient, but by doing nothing more, I possibly saved this persons life. When dealing with people's lives, I early on realized that if I wasn't 100% sure, I would only what I was SURE would benefit the person involved. This type of call is very infrequent. In 20 years and tens of thousands of calls I might have had a half dozen or so.
Sometimes not doing something is the better course of action than taking a wild shot in the dark.

Speaking of shots in the dark: as was mentioned, it doesn't look like taking the handcuffs off the prisioner and giving him a knife would have accomplished anything. The cops that were THERE on the scene very well might have had a better idea of what was going on than we did. We were quick to jump all over the cops from the comfort of our computer. I am just as guilty of this as anyone ever has been. But, it has been proven to me over and over that a lot of the time, I don't have enough information to form a sensible conclusion.

[Waitone]

I was one who began asking obvious question. It is clear to me now LE did what they could. There was no way the poor guy could have cut the bomb off.

Another lesson learned in "journalism." You will never get all relevant information in a timely manner to draw conclusions. In all the reportin of the incident I never heard a reference to the nature of how the bomb was attached. Was it known by the reports but deemed unnecessary detail which would confuse the poor, stupid news consumer? Don't know, but I suspect full details were not yet available.

[TheeBadOne]

I think what best describes what occured as soon as this story broke is;"A rush to Judgement"

[jimpeel]

I have been the most critical one here and for that I owe an apology to all concerned.

I was a resident of Los Angeles when the LAPD turned and ran leaving us to our own devices.

I was there when the LAPD put out a ban on the sale of ammo.

I was there when the LAPD put out a ban on the sale of firearms.

They barricaded themselves in their stations and took a bunker mentality. I saw the sandbagged positions in front of the Rampart Division with my own eyes.

So if I come to these boards jaded it is not without cause. I know what its like to be abandoned.

Conversely, I was a resident of MA when the N. Hollywood shootout occurred. I called the N. Hollywood Division of the LAPD and spoke to the Watch Commander. I told him that when I saw that car go down the throat of that guy in a move that was reminiscent of the old LAPD it made me downright proud. I told him that I had been critical of the LAPD since they abandoned us but that this was one of the truly proud moments in LAPD history. I asked him to congratulate his guys and give them a slap on the back from me. He was appreciative of my comments and said he would pass them on.

Then the Rampart Division debacle happened and put them back on track. SOP as it were.

[TheeBadOne]

I was a resident of Los Angeles when the LAPD turned and ran leaving us to our own devices.
The LAPD was advised by the powers that be not to "over react" as that could spark problems... :rolleyes:
I was there when the LAPD put out a ban on the sale of ammo.
The LAPD did not put out a ban on ammo, the local lawmakers did, not the cops.
I was there when the LAPD put out a ban on the sale of firearms.

Again, the lawmakers put the ban on firearms, not LAPD. The Cops always get blamed for the laws, but they don't write them, they don't pass them, and they don't interpret them.

All the best

[OF]

I heard on the radio today that the guy who got blown up had a gun on him...

The plot thickens.

- Gabe

[jimpeel]

Then I guess the newscasters got it wrong when they stated that the Los Angeles Police Department has issued a directive to all gun shops and sporting goods stores in the Los Angeles area to suspend all firearms and ammunition sales until further notice.

They did not say the Los Angeles City Council has issued a directive to all gun shops and sporting goods stores in the Los Angeles area to suspend all firearms and ammunition sales until further notice.

There was no enactment of directive xxx. There was no law that was triggered by this riot -- oops, I mean, err, uprising.

The directives came from the LAPD whereupon the local TV news crews descended on Orange County to show the long lines of people who were buying firearms and ammo there. The parking lot of Turner's Outdoorsman in Tustin looked like a collection point for newsvans.

I was there, I saw it, I heard it. I was one of the people in line at Turner's as we headed to OC and the folks house in Placentia.

As I stated prior, I know what its like to be abandoned.

[Kaylee]

guys, you wanna argue LAPD and riots and such, please to be starting another thread. Let's stay on topic, eh?

As to the topic itself...
How..... odd. :(

-K

[jimpeel]

Sorry. The point was abandonment. Been there, done that. I feel this man was abandoned and left to die in the middle of the street begging for his life.

If he was the perp, or part of a conspiracy, no sympathy.

[TheeBadOne]

From MSNBC.com
After his arrest on Thursday, Wells told police officers that that he had been forced to rob the bank after someone put a bomb on him. He died minutes later when the bomb exploded as officers waited for a bomb squad to arrive.