Mom calls 911 to help suicidal son, police decide to help son by killing him

[Ezekiel]

And for the record, bean bags rounds hit like a punch from Mike Tyson.

I'd rather be hit by Mike Tyson, especially at close range.

I'd much rather be tazered then bean bagged...

This kid must have been unable [drunk] to feel pain...

 

[hqmhqm]

Glenn grabbed both sides of his baggy pants and turned toward the house, gasping, his mother said.

I don't know about the particulars of this situations, but I do think wearing baggy pants ought to be a capital crime.

 

[cordex]

This situation could have been handled differently for a better result, but in my opinion the officers should not be punished.

The deceased was noncooperative, armed, suicidal, unstable and heading towards an occupied home. They dropped him before he could hurt someone else.

Sad situation, but not the officers' fault.

 

[gunsmith]

yup!

Sad situation, but not the officers' fault.

[Homer Simpson Voice] stupid baggy pants! [Homer Simpson Voice]

If your kids are wearing those droopy draws, time to make them stop!

 

[ezypikns]

Sad situation all around.

Sounds like the officers were a little quick to fire, but I WASN'T THERE. The problem in these cases is that generally the officers don't KNOW the individual in question or what he is or isn't capable of.
He's these people's son. To the officers he's a knife wielding maniac.

 

[Ed Ames]

This is just an example of why people need to think before they pick up a phone and call 911. Especially calling 911 to request police "intervention" with a family member. There is no way that a couple of strangers, dropped into a situation with minutes of warning and no background information, can make an informed decision as to what is appropriate when dealing with this sort of scenario.

The only time you should call 911 is if:

a) Someone needs medical help, or
b) you are willing to accept the death of the person you are calling about.

It's sad that this mother had to get her kid killed to learn that lesson. Hopefully others will learn from her pain and deal with their own family problems instead of trying to pass responsibility to someone else.

As for the deceased... if he was suicidal he got what he wanted... which isn't the same as getting what he deserved.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Clearly a failure of training.

These officers were undoubtedly trained to employ COMMAND VOICE when attempting to exert control over a situation. When COMMAND VOICE failed to result in the kid putting down the knife as ORDERED, IN COMMAND VOICE, the officers responded as trained ... free fire zone.

It's difficult to de-escalate a situation when you're yelling AT the other person in a very loud voice and demanding that he/she "comply" with your "directives," rather than communicating. I don't fault the individual officers, but I do very much fault their training.

 

[R.H. Lee]

'Officer safety' is always the most important thing.

 

[joab]

Some of y'all may know but some obviously don't know what it takes to deal with an irrational drunk

I have been that drunk, to the point of psychosis, on many occasions in my distant past

There is no way a cop could even try to predict what I would have done next because I would have had no idea what I was going to do next.

I have been so enraged because I couldn't find my car keys that I threw a brick though my 2 week old car, two minutes later I was calm and rational. Then I passed out.

I beat a telephone pole until the bones were sticking out of my hand, because it talked back to me.

And those are just a couple of the things I am able to remember.

If you put a knife or club in my hands somebody was going to get hurt, if there was a cop around I would have got dead, unless he was a complete idiot rookie

 

[ilbob]

There is plenty of legit LE misbehavior out there that you can complain about. I am not convinced this is one of them.

It is a sad thing but what do you expect when a nut case is waving a knife around at armed cops? They are going to shoot him every time. If he was acting rationally he would not be acting this way in the first place. Irrational people are potentially dangerous almost by definition, and one waving a knife around at armed cops is almost certainly so.

A guy that does not respond by giving up when shot by bean bags is not a good candidate for talking to.

 

[Joe7cri]

And for the record, bean bags rounds hit like a punch from Mike Tyson. People who aren't stupid or crazy tend to give up after getting bean bagged.

Correia, I must disagree. If you are being hit with bean bags that pack a punch similar to Mike Tyson, your first reaction would be to turn around to protect yourself and retreat to your house.

 

[Blacklabman]

I do not care for cops. But in this case, they did what should have been done.

 

[ilbob]

A bad situation all around. Let the courts determine culpability before passing judgement. With any luck a grand jury will be conveined and the Officers will receive the same scrutiny of their actions as a criminal. That would set my mind at ease on the subject.

A good idea but does but the chances of similar scrutiny happening is just about nil, even if it gets to the grand jury. Just the way things are.

 

[m1aman]

sounds like barney fife cops to me..... i hope they pay.

 

[Cosmoline]

Don't go to the doctor unless there's something wrong with you they can actually fix, and don't call the cops unless there's something going on they can actually fix. That means no calls for someone trying to kill himself. It's impossible to tell whether the LEO's here did right or not, since we don't know what information they had or what the suspect said or did. But certainly if he was just drunk and threatening to kill himself the cops should not have been called in. There's no crime at issue, for one thing. Other than low level disturbing the peace.

For future reference, it's EXCEEDINGLY difficult to actually kill yourself by stabbing your own neck. Real life ain't like the movies. The folks involved should have simply ignored him. Unless he had a surgical scaple and some way of holding his neck skin tight, all he'd do is give himself some bad scars. Neck skin is exceptionally tough and difficult to penetrate by design. A typical wal-mart blade or kitchen knife ain't gonna do it.

 

[ilbob]

sounds like barney fife cops to me..... i hope they pay.

Barney was only allowed one bullet and he kept it in his pocket.

I suspect they will pay. Most people do not respond well to having to kill someone. Cops are no different, they just have a better support system for the aftermath. They will no doubt replay events in their minds a million times trying to figure out what they might have done differently.

 

[wingnutx]

Is that standard procedure? Suppose a man is on a ledge of a building ready to jump, so the cops are suppose to start shooting him with bean bags?

A man on a ledge is not remotely the same thing as a man brandishing a knife.

If the former jumps, then the cop still goes home to his family.

 

[Shield529]

"The folks involved should have simply ignored him. Unless he had a surgical scaple and some way of holding his neck skin tight, all he'd do is give himself some bad scars. Neck skin is exceptionally tough and difficult to penetrate by design. A typical wal-mart blade or kitchen knife ain't gonna do it."

Are you even thinking before you type?


Neck skin is just skin, and penatration of less then 1/4 inch can be fatal in that area. Any tiny swiss army knife can kill you and a big kitchen knife will go right through ribs let alone skin. If the officers would have ignored him the idiot's family would want to sue for failure to act.

 

[AJAX22]

There is no hapy outcome here, Trying to point fingers and place blame is, in this case unwarented and unproductive. It happened, it was tragic, it may help to think about what you would try to do in the same situation, but only as a way of mentally preparing for that possibility.

 

[Nio]

It may be heartless...

...but I have to blame the parents for this one. I can't believe that this young man just all of a sudden went bonkers. They should have got him some help long before it came to this.

Nio

 

[AmbulanceDriver]

Well, I live in the general area where this happened, and the local news media is going ape over this story, and understandably so, it's a pretty big story. However, I work at a 911 center in town (not the same one that got this call, neighboring county) and I can tell you that this is gonna be a tough one. Granted, the cops followed SOP. I don't believe all the officers in Tigard and Washington County carry the air tasers, so that wasn't a viable option. Bean bag rounds had the wrong effect in this case. Instead of BG collapsing into a heap after being hit, he's in a drunk enough haze that while they hurt, probably didn't hurt enough to drop him. Drunken logic says "Ow, outside hurts. Go inside." He probably grabbed his baggy pants to keep from tripping over them. Had he tripped over them that may have saved his life.

I can't fault the cops on this one though. You have a unknown, drunk, belligerent, ARMED subject who after ignoring your commands decided to head back into an occupied residence. Your first concern as an officer HAS to be for the safety of those inside said residence, not knowing if this kid is gonna harm those inside. Granted, firing with the house as a "backstop" was really dumb. But this kid sealed his fate by choosing to be drunk, choosing to be belligerent, and choosing to arm himself and threaten suicide. Those are the choices he made. And now, unfortunately, his family and those officers need to live with the results of the decisions that HE made...

 

[Phenom]

Maybe good old Bush cut funds for police training. A bingbag or slug to the kid's shoulder would probably have made him drop the knife. Tasers don't work on everyone you know. That's why there's a number of less lethal options.

 

[Cosmoline]

Neck skin is just skin, and penatration of less then 1/4 inch can be fatal in that area. Any tiny swiss army knife can kill you and a big kitchen knife will go right through ribs let alone skin. If the officers would have ignored him the idiot's family would want to sue for failure to act.

Neck skin is not just skin. It's had millions of years of evolution to become very tough to get through. Ask a plastic surgeon about it and stop watching so many vampire movies A BULLET or piece of shrapnel will cut through it, but a knife will have a harder time. A drunk slashing at himself with some ordinary household blade is going to make a mess unless he gets really (un)lucky. And the pain of the surface wounds and blood will almost certainly be enough to shock him into sense.

And your second assertion, that the officers could be sued for failure to act, is also very badly misinformed. They could sue, but their suit would be thrown out on its ear. LEO's are not subject to liability for refusing to act and can do so any time the situation appears too dangerous or if they decide there are higher priorities to attend to.

 

[Baba Louie]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
A young, drunken wild teen wanted to die that night.
He did.
Tragically.
For EVERYONE INVOLVED.

Sad in a way.
But not really.
I can second guess everyone involved's actions... but I wasn't there. You weren't there.

I'm sure it's taken me longer to type this out in real time, than everyone there had to react.

It's still tragic. But it was one person and only one person's fault. And he wasn't thinkin' too clear that night.
He wanted to die. No one else wanted to join him or let him take others with him.

 

[Evil Monkey]

Damn, what a horrible event.

But the topic title is hilarious.