Man shoots two off-duty officers... South Carolina

[Sportcat]

http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/4530267/detail.html

Man Accused Of Shooting Two Off-Duty Troopers
Men Hit With Shotgun Pellets

POSTED: 11:24 am EDT May 25, 2005
UPDATED: 1:23 pm EDT May 25, 2005

GAFFNEY -- A Chesnee man is in custody, accused by deputies of firing a shotgun at two men who turned out to be off-duty state troopers.

Robert Vincent Taetz, 68, was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault and battery.

A Cherokee County Sheriff's Office representative said Taetz was upset that the men were riding all-terrain vehicles near his property and thought they might be on his property.

Deputies said the men were not trespassing on Taetz's property.

Troopers Jimmy Elrod and Brad Horne were hit with pellets from the shotgun, but their injuries were not serious enough to require treatment.

 

[Nehemiah Scudder]

"Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!" lol

It's good that nobody was seriously hurt.

 

[thatguy]

I can understand his anger at noisy trespassers, but shooting at them isn't the proper response.

 

[TheFederalistWeasel]

According to the article they were not trespassing, they were not on his property...

 

[UberPhLuBB]

Of course not, because cops never do anything wrong.*

Cops don't have accidents, their guns "just go off."*

Cops don't let kids touch their guns in school, one just leaped at it.*

Cops don't shoot each other in the crossfire after a pursuit, they just get hit by bullets that come from a gun the suspect never had.*

Cops don't four-wheel on someone's property, tearing up lawn and making noise, especially not when off-duty.*

Cops are never wrong.*

(Note: This isn't cop-bashing, I love my blues-and-blacks for what they do, but any time you ever see anything that could be potentially damaging to a police officer, department, chief or anything police related, things happen that shift the blame. Cops are people too, they make the same mistakes we do. But police departments release press statements that make cops out to be infallible when they're not and I think it's redoculous. The fact that that DEA agent is still employed REALLY boils my beans.)

 

[Steve in PA]

 

[OH25shooter]

UberPhLuBB,

You say it's not cop bashing, but your words read like a bashing.

 

[Spinner]

Ever noticed how a cop is always a cop? Nobody ever reports that an off-duty accountant was involved in a bar fight or an off-duty taxi driver was witness to a mugging, but a cop is always a cop, even when he's off-duty.

Spinner

 

[Steve in PA]

Amazing isn't it

 

[jefnvk]

The fact that they were police should have no affect on this. He shot two people that wern't even tresspassing.

 

[HighVelocity]

Better stand back, I'm the only one here professional enough to ride this ATV, BANG.

 

[UberPhLuBB]

UberPhLuBB,

You say it's not cop bashing, but your words read like a bashing.

Not at all! It's PR bashing. =)

 

[Average Guy]

It wouldn't have been news if they'd just been "citizens."

Deputies said the men were not trespassing on Taetz's property.

What else would they have said? (Well, in Los Angeles the response would have been, "Chief Bratton [or Sheriff Baca] immediately grabbed his ankles, apologized to the community, and put the officers on paid administrative leave pending a full investigation.")

 

[Checkman]

And if the shooter had been a retired cop (or off-duty) and the two ATV riders (who reportedly were not on the property) were off - duty college students we would be hearing about how cops think they own everything, are above the law..... blah blah blah. Not that I'm citizen bashing mind you. Just speaking my mind. Any misinterpretations aren't my fault.

 

[MarkDido]

Ever noticed how a cop is always a cop? Nobody ever reports that an off-duty accountant was involved in a bar fight or an off-duty taxi driver was witness to a mugging, but a cop is always a cop, even when he's off-duty.

Spinner

It's in the Journalist's Handbook. Any person, belonging to a group or organization you wish to bash in the future is fair game. (Any local, county, state or federal worker or official, conservatives, people of faith, etc.)

Notice they never bring up the profession of people who are cosmotologists, nail technicians, dentists, zoo-keepers, etc.

 

[Steve in PA]

Even if they (ATV riders) were on this guys property......you don't shoot them!!

 

[Nitram68]

"The only two men professional enough to ride these quads in this guys field..."

 

[hammer4nc]

Is South Carolina strange? These rather dramatic stories involving shootings seem to fall off the face of the earth. I'm referring to previous stories at least a year old, that were discussed on THR at the time. Anyone remember: 1. Thomas Rye shot off duty officer Odam who was holding an AK-47 while trespassing. 2. The guy whose name escapes me that killed multiple officers over a road widening project which took some of his property. Three family members arrested.

Either SC courts operate incredibly slowly, their local news aren't following up, or is there a local blackout in place? Strange.

 

[Sportcat]

Hammer,

If I remember correctly, all family members in the road widening case were charged with murder. I do not recall if it has gone to court yet.

Here are the outlets I usually get the stories from:

www.thestate.com
www.greenvilleonline.com
www.wistv.com
www.wltx.com
www.wyff.com

Feel free to contact these media outlets and see if you can get some answers.

 

[Sir Aardvark]

Most of us are "City Folk" so we don't have much experience with people on ATV's and Snowmobiles riding without permission on our property.

I've heard many stories of people's fences being torn down and "Do Not Trespass" signs being ignored so that Riders can tear up the land.

You might think this is no big deal when you hear about it, but if you were to find out that someone put a race track out on your back 40, and in the process of doing so, tore down your fence, littered the place up, ruined your crops, and scared your livestock, you would be really PO'd.

Then, when you find out the Sheriff can't do a darn thing about it because he has to catch the bad guys in the act, and he doesn't have time for piddly ass crap like this anyways, you're out of options.

So...I can see where some landowner shot at some people riding "not on his property" - it was just his bad luck that the "non-transgressors" happened to be law enforcement.

 

[Chipperman]

Sir Aardvark, you forgot this part:

Then when they fall off the ATV and get injured, they sue you for millions of dollars.


No question that shooting was not justified.
Whether the guys were really trespassing or not is the question. The article says they were not, and that's all we have to go on here.

 

[P95Carry]

Ok - we have the report - and ''comments''. Thank you. Whosoever was on the ATV, it 'appears' they were shot at by a stupid person.

Considering tho the rash of cop oriented threads of late and the inevitable bashing and vitriol that creeps in - enough already!

I don't see a safe or productive future for the thread.