Police Possibly Kill Man With Bean Bag

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TheFederalistWeasel

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We OC them, masses holler, we Taze them, masses holler, we use the ASP on them, masses holler, we wait too long and he kills the kids, masses holler, we become frustrated due to lack of options and do nothing, masses holler.

Why don’t they just go ahead and admit that they really don’t want us to do anything in these situations or others like this, except line up to get sued when the call goes out, hell I say we don’t even respond they are gonna sue us anyway regardless!

I think our standard line for anyone requesting any type of service should be, I’m sorry but we can’t do that lawyers have informed us that we could be sued or jailed for any actions we may take, please call back when you don’t want us to do anything.

Lets not pussy foot around anymore!




Police Possibly Kill Man With Bean Bag

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Web Editor: Robin Straws
Originally Created: 4/7/2005 9:30:21 AM
Updated On: 4/7/2005 9:39:24 AM








Law enforcement authorities in Columbus are trying to determine whether a man's death was caused by being shot with police bean bags.

Muscogee County Coroner James Dunnavant says Lester Zachary was pronounced dead at a hospital Wednesday morning -- two days after he was shot at his home.

Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren says police are trying to determine whether Zachary died as a direct result of the bean bag shooting.

Boren says a bean bag bullet is used by police as a non-lethal alternative to shooting someone with a gun. The silver dollar-sized bean bag is compressed in a shell casing and loaded into a
specialized 12-gauge shotgun.

It is designed to create an impact strong enough to make suspects fall to the ground so officers can handcuff them.

Police went to Zachary's house early Monday morning after Zachary called the Veterans Affairs Hospital hot line. Boren says the man told a nurse he was dreaming of killing children and
himself and that he had a gun.The nurse called police.

When officers went to the home, Zachary told them he would kill them, too. Boren says Zachary refused to talk with them, but he eventually came out to his porch. That's when a supervisor, who was at the scene, authorized an officer to shoot Zachary in the chest using a bean bag gun from about 25 feet away.

Boren said it is standard procedure to shoot the suspect in the chest if the officer is farther than 25 feet.
 
TFW, it sounds like you need a well deserved vacation ;)

I wasn't there, was Zachary armed when he came outside? I need more information. :p It either was a good shoot or it wasn't - bean bag or lead.

Personally, I would just as soon that cops did kill more of the real criminals (murderers, rapists, molestors, etc) and save on prosecution and imprisonment expenses - not to mention that the recidivism rate is pretty low that way.

Like the guy that kidnapped the two girls at a "Lovers Lane" in CA a year or so ago (maybe two years?). They located him and chased him down; when he finally stopped he pulled a gun on officers and died in a hail of gunfire. The 2 girls were in the back and fortunately unharmed in the shoot-out. I bet he won't do that again. :D
 
This story plays into a theory of mine, as to why we have so much trouble with LE today.

All the good guys, all the good cops are gone or they are leaving due to the very high possibility that you will be sued over a use of force, or a failure to act because you were afraid of being too aggressive because you might be sued.

What you have left is the true JBT’s that so many here howl and wail about.

I consider myself one of the good guys, I try my very best to not jam someone up, I only enjoy slamming the bad guys when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt they need slamming. Like catching a punk red handed stealing your stuff! By slamming I mean in the legal form of the term, not smashing their face into the hood of my patrol car.

I believe in CCW, I think the WOD is a failure and I try my best not to participate on a street enforcement level. You got a small amount of weed I make you destroy it roadside and send you on your way; you admit to me you have a felony amount of weed or cocaine in the car, I’ll charge you with misdemeanor possession and release you on a copy of charges with no trip to jail and most likely a probation and fine if you are found guilty.

The only way I’ll take you to jail is if you have A LOT of dope and I feel that if I don’t I’ll catch hell for it.

I don’t do ALS forms if I catch you DUI, I let the courts fool with suspending your D/L.

I’m not your kid’s parent; I’m not your marriage counselor don’t involve me over your petty arguments because little Johnny won’t get out of bed and go to school, don’t call me when you are arguing over the remote or your last beer.

Guess what…

I do not plan on staying in this field infact I am looking at my other options as we speak.

The biggest factor that drives me (and a lot of other good cops) away from LE is the fact that the court (lawyers) and laws are more and more hamstringing cops in general, the liability involved everytime we do something and the very real threat of civil action if we offend someone.

What you have left is folks like myself who fully dread taking someone to jail and we look for ANY avenue out of an arrest unless we have a warrant in hand.

The legal system in this country is broke and is slowly becoming a joke, bottom feeding lawyers and the bad cops I speak of are all that you the people will have left when each and every one of the old hands and younger cops like myself who truly enjoy helping the people we serve and making good solid cases when the time arises are gone.

And they are leaving each and every day.

Think about it, we volunteered to be here, knowing the danger and low pay that comes with the job, we accept that. What we are now faced with is a legal system that has TOO MANY laws TOO MANY lawyers trying to make names for themselves and TOO MANY good cops leaving due to the frustration involved.

The ones who stick around are the very cops everyone here fears.

You reap what you sow.




:(
 
It is interesting to me that several LEOs on THR have stated that they oppose the WOD ;)

I really think that part of the problem is that "we" the public (myself not included, at least not anymore) have abdicated our right and responsibility to look out for ourselves and our neighbors and have delegated that duty strictly to the various law enforcement agencies.

Where it used to take just a very few police officers or deputies to keep the peace, now more cops have to be available because most citizens can't or won't defend themselves. But at any given moment, likely that nothing really bad is happening so the cops in general end up enforcing trivial laws and/or become basically revenue collectors. (this is just my observation and analysis)

I wish that we had a lot fewer cops enforcing a lot fewer laws. And those cops should be paid a lot more (and get more vacation time), and be better educated in general and better trained. (not to run down the skills of anyone, but you need all the knowledge and training you can get)
 
The ones who stick around are the very cops everyone here fears.
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Like the one I heard of the other day at the gym. I hear this guy tell a story of a buddy of his that had gotten in a car accident recently. The friend is probably college age and living at home. Well, the other day while at home his stiches open up on his neck and he starts bleeding pretty bad. His mom gets him in the car and tries rushing him to the hospital.

She gets pulled over for speeding. The LEO upon seeing the situation tells her to continue on to the hospital, but to slow down and follow the speed liimit. He then follows her to the hosptial (not "escorts"), goes up to the room where they take her son and hands her a speeding ticket!

W T F!?!

*****

Now, on the other hand there are things like TFW was talking about:
I’m not your kid’s parent; I’m not your marriage counselor don’t involve me over your petty arguments because little Johnny won’t get out of bed and go to school, don’t call me when you are arguing over the remote or your last beer.
Click to expand...
I'm a HAM and am able to monitor the emergency frequencies on my mobile rig and I've got to say that some of the crap I hear cops having to deal with makes me want to laugh at times. I've actually heard cops called out on complaints like that! My God what is the world coming to...?

TFW: Sounds to me like we need more cops like you. But I understand why you'd want to get out of that line of work.
 
It is interesting to me that several LEOs on THR have stated that they oppose the WOD
Click to expand...

Prohibition failed almost a century ago, you cannot legislate morality and drug use just like alcohol use is a moral issue, one makes a conscious choice to use or not to use either.

When you criminalize such things as liquor or drugs or even cigarettes you immediately create a criminal element in the end user, but more importantly you create a vast underground of criminals who do nothing more than provide a supply for a demand.

The end to the argument should be personal responsibility; if you choose to do drugs you know the risk just like alcohol.
 
What we have left is the true JBTs everybody here howls and wail about.
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TFW,

Just remember, if we abandon ship there won't be anyone left on the inside to keep the JBTs in check.
Do what you can and don't worry about trying to change the world or the system. As long as you're a part of it, you'll retard the degradation of it.

As for the beanbag load possibly killing a suspect, that's why they call it "Less Lethal" not "Non-Lethal" because sometimes it is lethal, although most times it is not.
IMHO if you make threats about causing harm to others and then force police to use force when they confront you on the matter, you probably deserve everything you get.
 
mpthole: I know you are just repeating something you heard at the gym, but I don't believe any part of that story for a second. It is ridiculous on many levels.

There have been numerous people killed by bean bag rounds. This isn't news.
 
TFW - I have sensed your altruism for quite a while - just by reading what you write. It is sad in the extreme that the likes of you feel that they are being driven out - but I can see where you are coming from. I daresay there are many times you feel you might as well be working wearing cuffs yourself - you have so little leeway.

My son's BIL is a cop - he is one of the best - very likely you and he would get on great. He does tho speak about similar things that get him down - plus his observation that a lot of the younger guys are indeed coming thru as a different breed. Intent on dishing out tickets to the max, and gaining brownie points with their superiors at every opportunity. Yes, JBT's could (regretably) describe some of them.... and they are frequently high profile - the ones that get noticed!

The media rarely seems to employ balance, in its reporting of events - someone on the team invariably seems to manage to hype things - sensationalize - all to get ratings or sell copy. There are IMO very few true ''non-lethal'' options available - ''less-than-lethal'' is really the only way to label them. Even a bean bag induces a blunt force trauma and for some this can be too much - but if it is necessary to control a situation and subject, so be it - but in the end you guys seem damned whichever way you turn.

Wish I knew enough of the answers, such that you and your ilk did not have this desire to quit - you are needed.
 
Any means of force will always have the slight possibility of killing a man. If I were to get hit in just right in the chest and the right moment my heart could stop and I could die. People need to start realizing why the police are using force in the first place. If it is warranted than it gets a big "oh well" me. Maybe we should arm police with foam sticks instead?
 
I for one did not see how the quoted article was inflammatory against police or even sensationalized ... :confused:

My synopsis:
The police responded to a subject threatening violence, and when he resisted arrest they used a supposedly non-lethal level of force. The subject died and now they are trying to determine if the bean bag impact caused the death or something else ... drugs in the bloodstream, perhaps?

Stuff happens .... :(
 
444: I may have gotten some of the details wrong (age of the kid - and what happened to him in the first place), but the gist of what I overheard is correct. At least, if you can believe what you read in the papers.

A Help or a Hindrance

By Matt James | La Crosse Tribune

How much blood was coming out of Christopher Palbicki's mouth is difficult to say.

He is a first-grader at Evergreen Elementary in Holmen, Wis. This was Saturday morning, eight days after his tonsils had been removed.

He woke up about 7:45 a.m. spitting and swallowing blood. His mother, Rebecca, called the nurse adviser at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, who said an incision had opened and to get him to the emergency room immediately.

So she grabbed a bucket for him to bleed in, got him in the car and headed for Gundersen.

How much he was bleeding at any particular moment is anyone's guess. It happened so fast. According to his mother, though, "he was handling it."

But you can't exactly put pressure on the back of your throat, and so as she drove, Christopher seemed to be struggling and gagging more and more.

To a mother, it looked like an enormous amount of blood, and she thought he would choke at any minute.

As she approached downtown La Crosse, she turned right on that diagonal road — hazard lights on — past the Oktoberfest grounds and onto Second Street, because it doesn't have as many stoplights or as much traffic, so you can speed.

Many drivers in what you might call "non-emergency" situations take Second Street for the same reasons, which is why the La Crosse Police Department has gotten complaints, which is why officer Steve Thornton was set up there Saturday morning with his radar.

As Rebecca was about to pass under the Cass Street Bridge, Thornton pulled her over. The speed limit there is 25. Rebecca says she doesn't know how fast she was going. Thornton told his shift commander she was doing 47.

She said she was frantic and crying, and asked if he could escort them to the hospital.

He said later that the situation didn't seem to warrant a police escort and certainly not driving twice the speed limit. (Christopher, the mother says, got quiet when Thornton approached the car and she doesn't think he believed her or saw the bucket of blood.)

Notice the "she said" and the "he said" of the situation. Obviously, you're going to have a little different perspective if you're the mother of a bleeding child or a police officer who has heard it all before.

"You have to weigh each and every situation," said La Crosse Police Chief Ed Kondracki.

Once, many years ago, Kondracki was in a patrol car with another officer when a guy passed them. They pulled him over and he said it was an emergency, that he needed to get to his friends' house before something terrible happened.

So they followed the guy to the house and eventually figured out it belonged to a man he used to work with. They also realized the speeder had just been released from an institution and had a loaded pistol tucked into his pants.

He was going to kill the man and his wife.

Point is, police officers have to be ready for anything. It's a demanding job, where you can't let your guard down.

So Thornton told them to go the speed limit and that he would meet them at the hospital. As she rushed Christopher into the ER, he fainted at the front desk and was put into a wheelchair and hurried into an exam room.

He was in surgery within 90 minutes, which is saying something. You could walk into the hospital with your severed arm in a duffel bag and a javelin sticking out of your neck, and you'd get a clipboard and a "Have a seat over there."

Thornton came to the hospital, too, and he found the exam room and stood in the doorway and made it clear that he was there to give her a speeding ticket.

In his defense, he only gave her a ticket for 10 miles over the speed limit, which meant a $69 ticket instead of $118, and three points on her license instead of six.

But Rebecca Palbicki is a stay-at-home mother of three who has never so much as been pulled over, let alone gotten a ticket. She wasn't blowing through red lights. In the same situation, how many of us would be driving 25?

When you take your injured child to the hospital, what does the presence of a police officer say to the nurses and doctors and other patients? That maybe you had something to do with it, right?

Thornton has been on the La Crosse force since 1984. He knows what he's doing. He has a responsibility to keep other drivers safe, too.

But even if you think she deserved a ticket, why give it to her then, while her son is being worked on? What about a stamp and an envelope?

Matt James can be seen at 10 p.m. Sundays on WKBT-Ch. 8. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Any means of force will always have the slight possibility of killing a man.
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This is true, but we currently have only so many options on the UOFC to employ when dealing with combative suspects or those generally resisting arrest or just wanting to fight.

There is a big row over the Tazer and some are trying their best to have them outlawed for use by LEO’s.

When OC first came out it was saluted as the end all be all of the LEO tool chest, we could now use force on virtually anyone who resisted (even verbally resisting arrest according to the FBI) us by simply spraying them with a aerosol spray that would take the fight right out of them and in 15 minutes they would be fine and your best friend, so the legend went.

Having used OC numerous times and been sprayed twice in training and about 5 or 6 times by other cops while tussling with some liquored up fool. I can safely attest to the fact that OC only works on cops.

Also having used OC many times I can also tell you that everytime I did use OC I still had to use another level of force, usually hard open or closed hands to gain compliance and cuff the suspect.

The ASP baton is a very good tool IF you know how to use it, use it properly and only to the extent that is required to gain compliance from a suspect. But even then and speaking from experience again everytime I’ve had to use it or seen it used we broke bones and cost taxpayers big money for the ER visit.

Last but not least is deadly force.

The beanbag round is a good idea, it was actually used first in CA by SWAT teams to subdue folks armed with knifes or say a baseball bat from a distance.


It’s a bit of a dilemma but what do you do in that situation, the general public has now grown accustom to us doing something but it seems more and more they are, themselves not completely sure what it is they want us to do, all they know is whatever we did do was too much.
 
Stupid people get what stupid people deserve

Stupid people get what stupid people deserve...
Although in this case, I would like to know why police felt it necessary to shoot this man with the bean bag. Was he currently acting violent? Did he have a weapon in his hand? Did he make a verbal threat like "I'm going to go back into the house, get my gun, and kill all of you."? If he made this threat, shoot the toad, if not, attempt to reason with him first. Either way, important lesson, do what the cops tell you to do.
Necessary force goes two ways:
1: It is necessary to use force
2: It is neccesary to use the necessary force ;)
 
I for one did not see how the quoted article was inflammatory against police or even sensationalized ...
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me neither???

Are you saying that when someone dies we should not try to figure out why???
 
TFW, I feel for ya.

Much as I have complained about policemen here and elsewhere, much as I've been amused by reading remarks by policemen bitching about people bitching about policemen, yup, we prolly do have to have cops.

I too have had some less-than-perfect experiences with badge-wearers who were, as I say, "Half my age, twice my size, doesn't own a comb."

I have an hypothesis here, as to why a lot more honest folks are getting annoyed with LEOs lately.

If yer honest, and carefully obey the laws, the decent, honest cops will leave you alone. The others might just get all predatory and pick on you because you're weird, or out at night alone, or something. Honest folks mostly never meet good cops, but the ones they do meet seem to be more of the young, nasty sort. Does that make any sense?

Edit: Shoulda wrote,"Do I seem to be making sense, here?"
 
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