Empire State shooting

[Grassman]

Bloomberg wasted no time in politicizing this one.

 

[gym]

And they probablly didn't even have to shoot him at that point, he could have been tackled or tasered. What dum dum starts shooting into a crowd, unless they are a gang banger. Lack of training once again, they are more interested in filling out paper work properlly. There are going to be a lot of lawsuits over this when they find that all of the shots were friendlly fire.

 

[The_Armed_Therapist]

They'll just say, "Oh, well he probably went to X to buy his gun. This is evidence we need similar bans everywhere!" They blame DC's gun crime and murder rates (usually #1-#3 in the country) on Virginia all the time.

 

[coloradokevin]

I love watching some of you Monday morning quarterback this situation by blaming the police for shooting at a suspect who was raising a gun on them. Reality is, the police appear to have been put in a bad situation where they had to shoot. It seems evident that the police missed with a number of their shots, but that's fairly common in stress shooting situations (one study I once heard quoted said that an officer who shoots 100% in qualification will usually have about a 23% hit ratio in a real fight -- adrenaline is powerful). I'm not going to excuse poor training or bad marksmanship in an environment like that, but suggesting that the police shouldn't have fired is a bit ridiculous.

As Carl Brown put it, this was a murder followed by a suicide by cop, with collateral damage.

The police could not have dealt with an armed and aggressive shooter in public without shooting, and they didn't have the luxury of 'cordoning off the area to wait for a SWAT team'.

I think it's a shame that the media is building this even into another "mass shooting" action-drama, when the evidence we've seen thus far doesn't support this story. Regardless, I think it's naive to blame the officers for shooting at a known killer who was raising a gun on them.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

Should have cordoned the shooter off. Evac'd as many people as possible. Brought in SWAT. End of story


you've never been to the big city?

 

[Trent]

Don't blame them at all. What concerns me though, is if that had been one or more CIVILIANS that had brought the bad guy down, instead of COPS, the headlines would read:

"High noon shootout!"

or

"Western style justice costs 2 lives and injures 8"

or

"Gun toting civilians do more damage than armed assailant"

Or

.... could go on and on.

The fact of the matter is WE WOULD BE JUDGED BY SOCIETY.

Police, just because they WEAR A UNIFORM, does NOT excuse them from the same level of criticism WE would receive. Period.

Tired of this dual standard crap.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

And they probablly didn't even have to shoot him at that point, he could have been tackled or tasered.


do share with us your experience so we can fairly assess your recommendation. first person video games do not count

 

[Trent]

you've never been to the big city?

I avoid them at all costs.

I chose to move out in the country - unincorporated land.

 

[gym]

They don't have swat, they have ESU, and there should have been a van within a block of that location, within sight. They could have done things a lot better if someone took command who was supposed to in those situations. Instead a disaster occured because there was no leardership. I gaurantee you that there was an emergenct services field unit right thereThe Emergency Service Unit (ESU) is the multi-faceted and multi-talented element within U.S. municipal, county, or state authority law enforcement agency's Special Operations command. ESU's exist mainly in the regional New York City Area but includes several jurisdictions outside the region. ESU is also synonymous with the term Emergency Services Squad (ESS) and Emergency Service Detail (ESD). The ESU operates at the direction of the command staff and responds to emergency and high-risk situations that occur outside the scope of duties of responding patrol and criminal investigation units. ESU members train continually both in-house, with other local, state, federal and military specialized units and sometimes members of a FEMA Urban Search & Rescue (USAR) Team..

 

[oneounceload]

And then SUE

I'd like to see someone sue NYC for failure to provide adequate protection in what is nothing more than a huge 'gun free zone.'

No one said for failure to protect - they'll be suing for getting shot by the police

 

[barnbwt]

love watching some of you Monday morning quarterback this situation by blaming the police for shooting at a suspect who was raising a gun on them. Reality is, the police appear to have been put in a bad situation where they had to shoot.

So what? That's no excuse to harm innocent bystanders; it damn sure wouldn't excuse a civilian of hitting bystanders, I don't see why police should be excepted. I'm giving the officers the benefit of the doubt and assuming the nearby hits were from overpenetration as they perforated the guy. Those heavy NYC triggers don't help, either (though I don't know for sure these guys used Glocks)

The saddest part of this, I think, is that a construction worker had to trace this guy's location for at least a little while before getting a (armed) policeman-officer's attention. How many other people saw the guy do the deed, but had no option but to let him casually walk away because they were unarmed. Had those officers been much further from reach, there is a good chance the perp (now with gun hidden) could have slipped into a crowd after rounding a corner or two, and disappeared. That's also how Holmes nearly got away, as well.

The most disgusting part of the coverage I've seen is the special, hypocritical treatment this has been getting. This whole thing was obviously a beef between two men, not a mass shooting. Over a dozen "identical" shootings happened in Chicago in the last day or so, but no devoted coverage/outrage. But because this happened in upscale NYC (Empire State Bldg is just a plus), and involved an upscale shooter, this guy is suddenly another Holmes.

Headlines should read "Daring midday murderer kills former employer outside ESB. 9 wounded as police fire upon, kil gunman". Instead it's "Shooting in ESB leaves 2 dead, 9 wounded." Really?

NPR (whose coverage I usually appreciate as accurate, if biased, and therefore usefull) even spoke of this as the "fourth high-profile shooting in the last 2 months." Gee, now who's fault is that ? If there's one thing this shooter is not guilty of, it's blowing his crime into a nation-level incident.

I give Bloomberg some credit for holding in his gloating cries of "I told you so" (at least partially, for now). It looks like he's mainly trying to explain away how something so awful could happen in his Utopia for the moment. Apparently the gun in question was legally bought in Florida over 20 years ago. More restrictions to follow...

TCB

 

[jbrown50]

Johnson used a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun and was carrying extra ammunition in his briefcase during the attack, according to police. He purchased it legally in 1991 in Florida but did not have a permit to carry the weapon in New York City.

If this is true (and the same thing is being reported by multiple sources) then Johnson illegally possessed the gun, period. I'm sure Bloomberg will try to find a way to blame Florida for lax gun laws but unless the guy was a prohibited person at the time he purchased the gun in 1991 it would be just Bloomberg's spin as usual.

New York City's Sullivan Act and metal detectors didn't prevent a murderer from murdering an innocent person as usual.

 

[hso]

Ok, I guess it was a mistake to reopen this trusting that asking the conversation stay focused on the politics and media would be followed.

As said, we'll see the video and have a real idea of what happened and the Monday Morning Quarterbacking won't matter.