Dallas Police Forced To Shoot, Kill Woman

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TheeBadOne

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DALLAS -- Dallas police said they were forced to shoot and kill a woman after she lunged at officers with a box cutter at an Oak Cliff Hotel off of Marvin D. Love freeway Saturday morning.

After a disagreement between two hotel guests over a parking space, Dallas police said they responded to a call at the Royal Hotel around 9 a.m.

When police and the hotel manager went to the woman's room, she opened the door -- cutting the manager with a box cutter, police said.

At that point, officers said they backed off and called for backup.

When police went back into the room, they told the 49-year-old woman to come out of the bathroom, later firing a pepper ball.

Authorities said the woman charged out of the bathroom directly for the sergeant, with a box cutter. The sergeant got a cut on his leg before two other officers opened fire, striking the woman multiple times.

The sergeant, who was cut, took a bullet in the foot while officers shot at the suspect.

The suspect's son, Everett Young, called the shooting "excessive force."

Young said his mother had been in and out of several mental institutions over the past year. He said his mother suffered from schizophrenia and had run-ins with the police before -- but never anything like this.

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Sad, but I guess it also shows that "less-lethal" weapons aren't 100%, and why they must be backed up with deadly force in the event they fail.
 
A box cutter is a lethal weapon. I'd have smoked her, too. The officers didn't have an obligation to wait until she opened someone's carotid artery.

On a side note, if mom had a history of run-ins with the po-po, and she couldn't be trusted not to cut people with box cutters, what the hell was she doing outside a mental institution?
 
If you're from Dallas, which I am (dad was a Dep. Chief with DPD), you hear the words "Oak Cliff" and you just kinda *know*. It's the part of town that makes you wonder why this shooting made news and not the other 13 that happened there last night.
 
The only thing I, Mr. Monday Morning Tactical Advisor, might have changed, would have been to request a K-9 unit as backup. Send the dog in to disarm her and take her down. Not fun, but better a badly bitten wrist and maybe a sliced up dog (God bless 'em, I love them as much as anyone) than a dead person if it can be helped.

I think in the future we're going to see police armed with a variety of "less than lethal" alternatives for situations like this, where the suspect is contained but too dangerous to approach.

Otherwise, it's a shame, but a crazy person attacking someone with a boxcutter is certainly grounds for employing lethal force.
 
He said his mother suffered from schizophrenia and had run-ins with the police before -- but never anything like this.

People die only once, usually.
 
TheeBadOne, it used to be a really nice part of town... or so I'm told. I think that was about 50 years ago. IIRC, it used to be a separate incorporated city that was absorbed by Dallas many years ago. Like a lot of "used to be a nice part of town" areas, the money moved North into the city, and the dopeheads and gangstas moved in. If there's going to be a shooting in Dallas, put your money on the Oak Cliff or Pleasant Grove areas every time. (btw, Pleasant Grove spawned the Dallas-speak word 'grovite.' Suffice it to say that none of the convenience stores around there have a 'No shirt, no shoes' sign. They'd lose all their business.)

Unfortunately, that part of town is where a dispute over a parking space leads to gunfire even without the assistance of a mentally debilitating disease.

The sergeant, who was cut, took a bullet in the foot while officers shot at the suspect.
Y'know, there's another thing. Since dad was a Dep. Chief (that's about 3rd in line as far as command staff in Dallas. He had one star on his collar.), we heard about EVERY big event like that. Dad had this gigantic pager thing (it was the 80s) that went off WAY too frequently. Anybody who has ever been a cop in a big city probably knows this, but officers seem to get shot up an awful lot by their comrades. I recall a number of fatal blue-on-blue shootings in Dallas when I was a kid. I also recall one that was... well... it probably hurt the officer pretty bad, but the humor was too great to ignore. He put a 9mm FMJ through his left palm. It was an unpleasant mess, but the jokes about it were pretty darn funny when he got back to work. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out just what I'm talking about.
 
Azrael256 sounds sadly like once it became part of the big city that the moneys that use to be used for it's own revitalization were spent elsewhere, leaving the area high and dry. :(
 
Azrael is quite correct. Many parts of Oak Cliff are indistinguishable from many third-world pits, as are other parts of southern Dallas County. Still, there are other parts that are still very gentrified with homes passed down from generation to generation, some that would be appraised for upwards of a half million dollars and higher. Many Dallas community leaders live there (including the mayor), yet it's almost a given that when you hear the first sentence of a news report "last night in the Oak Cliff area..." you can usually fill in the blank with your worst-case scenario and not be too inaccurate.

This sounds like 'just another nut' call with unfortunately predictable results. Sounds like someone was turned out of the institution when they shouldn't have been and noone checked to make sure she had her medications on board.

She was a danger to herself and others and should have not been streeted.

Regards,
Rabbit.
 
Yeah... I think if young Everett was concerned for his mother's well being, he should have tried more diligently to ensure she was in a mental health facility instead of weilding box cutters at police officers in hotels in questionable (at best) areas of town. And the quote should have been, 'I wish I could have been there to help control the situation' rather than questioning the officers use of force.

I mean, I hate to see anyone be killed and I'm sure it didn't make those officers' day to have to do so, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do and if someone runs at a family member with a box cutter, they're gonna be put down.
 
She was a danger to herself and others and should have not been streeted.
Try telling the ACLU that. They're the ones who screamed and howled about how the poor nut job's "civil rights" were being violated by keeping them in a nice clean hospital where they could recieve their medication regularly. Nut jobs have an inalienable right to live on the street, but there is no constitutional right to own a gun.
:cuss: :cuss: :cuss:

As for the cops in this incident, didn't the sarge have a stick? Does DPD use tasers? There are levels of force available that are between pepper balls and hollow points. And, R-Tex12, you're basically right about what a pepper ball is. It's actually a paint ball filled with OC powder.
 
Try telling the ACLU that. They're the ones who screamed and howled about how the poor nut job's "civil rights" were being violated by keeping them in a nice clean hospital where they could recieve their medication regularly.
You raise an interesting point. In college (psychology classes) I was told that 100 years ago these types of incidents were far more rare as "sanitariums" were full of people with mental health issues. Medical science advanced where many of their problems (or at least symtoms) could be treated/controlled with medication. The result was that many people who would have formerly been locked away for their entire life could now function normally in regular life as long as their were on medication. There in lies the rub. The very nature of many of these illnesses make the person not want to take medication, and there is no one to ensure they take it. I do not have an answer (at least not a realistic one, ie:affordable/civil rights, etc).

2 cents
 
The only thing I, Mr. Monday Morning Tactical Advisor, might have changed, would have been to request a K-9 unit as backup. Send the dog in to disarm her and take her down. Not fun, but better a badly bitten wrist and maybe a sliced up dog (God bless 'em, I love them as much as anyone) than a dead person if it can be helped.

Sounds like a good way to get a good dog cut up. I think it probably went down as good as it could. Of course you always wish that nobody gets cut or shot.
 
Word is, the sergeant was cut in the high thigh. If on the inside high thigh, that's REALLY getting close to the femoral artery, and is a favorite knife fighter's target.

"Excessive force"?!? Well, the son is bound to be distraught. His mother's dead. It's best not to overly-harshly judge a man who's just seen his mother killed in her living room; he's not likely to be in his right mind. Fromm said that when a man is confronted with unusual circumstances, it is not odd for him to act unusually. :(
 
Im sorry, but a box cutter is a potential weapon. If she had done the same thing with a screwdriver, it would have been the same scenario. THe officer was cut, ok, so it turned out not to be too bad, but you see your buddy get cut, bloods spurting, and she has something sharp, I dont think any of us would have been getting out the oc spray. I would like to hear more, but so far it sounds like a good shoot to me.
 
"The suspect's son, Everett Young, called the shooting "excessive force."


Based on what's described in the article, it sounds like a good shoot to me. She's already slashed the manager, refuses to cooperate with police demands, and then attacks an officer with a very sharp, very potentially lethal object.


I think the object lesson here is if you don't want to be shot by police, don't attack them with a razor knife.
 
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