Eerie bank robbery in Erie

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jimpeel

Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2003
Messages
2,998
Location
Kimball, NE
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?
 
A query ...

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

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


Norm
 
"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.
 
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:
 
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.
 
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
 
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...
Click to expand...

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,
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

Think "Palestinian martyr" or "lunatic" and ask that question again... :banghead:
 
Think "Palestinian martyr" or "lunatic" and ask that question again...
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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. . . . .
 
All and Waitone

All: More stories of Top Cops: http://www.njlawman.com/Awards Page Archives.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.
 
"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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 Page Archives.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!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

T
  • Locked
UPDATE-Erie pizzaman/bomb bank robbery case
Replies
1
Views
508
ballistic gelatin
B
D
  • Locked
(CA) Robbery suspect shot by would-be victim
Replies
2
Views
521
twoblink
T
T
  • Locked
Pizza man/bomb update #2
Replies
9
Views
1K
Phantom Warrior
P
M
  • Locked
Robbery gun looked real
Replies
18
Views
790
jefnvk
J
D
  • Locked
Rudolph To Plead Guilty
Replies
6
Views
444
Don Gwinn
D
Back
Top