Trooper shot, dashcam video

[ilbob]

Hind sight is always 20/20.

Traffic cops probably make tens of 1000's of stops w/o serious incident for every one where anything goes badly wrong like this.

When I watched it, I sort of wondered what was going on too, but I had the benefit of knowing he would be attacked.

Not nice to be the poster child for what can go wrong, but better than paying for it with your life. And maybe his experience will save some other cop's life someday.

 

[ilbob]

This kind of BS is why the illegal immigrants should all be deported until they proven themselves otherwise.

They should be deported because they are here illegally.

Our country has shown a lot of restraints against these types of lowlifes despite our size and perceived power. Other country (and particularly Mexico) would have someone doing that crap executed if committed by an illegal FN (Foreign National; no, FN in this case doesn't stand for Fabrique Nationales, sorry guys...lol).

Mexico has no death penalty. IIRC, the maximum penalty that can be imposed is 20 years.

 

[evan price]

To quote Ted Nugent "Kill 'em and grill 'em"

The body language was a dead giveaway but again, not a LEO, and hindsight is 20-20; I just hope I could survive this guy's ordeal and come through sane. Up here in Ohio this would have turned into a 3-4 car callout with everybody proned in a felony stop; probably in Texas they have more Mexi nationals to deal with but up here they are not taken for granted. (Racist? Maybe.)

 

[BUZ]

Man sh*t like that pisses me off! Did they catch those two bastards who did that, if they did they need to put em' both in front of a firing squad but more than likely they will get three hots and a cot for the next twenty years. :banghead:

 

[Imaginos]

Been There, Got Shot With Blanks

In the late '80s I went through the police academy in a small Dallas suburb that had about 9 cops in it. It was the smallest town I ever heard of with its own SWAT team, and the entire department was the SWAT team.

The instructors were very focused on officer survival and they threw some pretty nasty stuff at us during simulations. My most spectacular failure as a cadet was a DWI traffic stop on a pick up with two occupants.

I make the stop and approach the driver side. The driver starts giving me a load of abuse when the passenger suddenly gets out of the truck and starts walking away down the road.

At this point, the only thing I could potentially arrest the passenger for is walking the wrong way on the road since pedestrians are supposed to walk on the left side facing oncoming traffic. However, in order to deal with the passenger, I would have to leave the driver in his vehicle behind me.

I decided that things were going south in a hurry, so I started backing toward the cruiser to "hide" behind the lights, and I hollered at the passenger to return. He walked out in the middle of the road, turned, and shot at me with blanks. The scenario was halted at that point for critique.

It is not easy to keep one eye on a person in a vehicle and the other eye on the guy that is walking around loose and still be effective dealing with either one.

LEOs make hard calls every day and somedays no matter how good they are, they just have a bad day.

 

[ilbob]

Just out of curiosity, what could you do if he got out and walked legally? Is it illegal for a passenger in a stopped car to get out and walk away? The passenger certainly committed no traffic offense. Its not like you can shoot him for jay walking in any case.

 

[Raptor5191]

I know I am new here, but I think I can make some intelligent statements on this. (This and TFL seem to have some good folks)

Before I say anything though: I am very thankful that this trooper pulled through. This is a good demonstration of what the will to live can do for you.

This video is sickening from several viewpoints. Other LEO types around here probably had the same not in their stomach as I while I watched his safety errrors from the get go:

No satisfactory pat down.

No control over the contacts from the time the stop was initiated.

No recognition of the several imminent danger signs.

Placing the bad guys (or allowing them to remain) in a manner that required him to have to divide his attention between multiple spots.

Standing with his weighted back foot downhill.

Standing with his gun side next to a suspect.

Bending down in front of the suspect...with his gun side next to him.

Taking his eyes completely off of both suspects.

Allowing the suspect to reach into his clothing several times.



And it went on...and on...

This is a great training video to remind guys how poor safety can bite you in the posterior in a hurry.

Part of it here is the trooper making mistakes. Part of it is (I medically retired from TDPS) inherent problems with the way the agency works.

They firmly try to implant in guys to stand and exchange blows with your suspect (at least they did when I was there...it has been a few years) when fighting. They put little credence in joint manipulation and grappling or control holds. Many of us who were from city agencies found this strange since we knew that you WILL end up wrestling/grappling with guys a lot more often than simply "duking it out".

They also really try to impart the "cowboy" type mentality on guys. Another thing that many of us with city policing backgrounds took exception to.

Anyway...the only way we learn is analyze our mistakes. The problem is that a mistake in police work can get you dead.

 

[Cosmoline]

So then he would have two suspects out and he would be behind his cruiser in the middle of the night. Then what would he do?

Search and cuff each in turn. He never properly searched the fellow who shot him. He did a sort of partial pat down and found the pot but then nothing more. I don't know why he hesitated at that point.

Maybe the biggest lesson isl that everyone, not just cops, need to listen long and hard to that "little voice." This officer really seems to have had good instincts about the knife and the drugs, but he didn't follow through on him and thought he was in control of the situation when he really wasn't.

 

[psychophipps]

The officer in the video was your typical rural county/state trooper. He gets up in the morning, goes to the same diner with the same waitress, says "Howdy" to the same people, and tosses the same drunks in the clink every Friday. No where on the above list is "Two suspects with knives, guns and drugs willing to put a magazine apeice into my hindparts."

He was complacent, pure and simple. All the horror stories happen to those officers in the cities, after all...
Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

 

[Imaginos]

Legal Walks

Ilbob,

On a traffic stop, you are dealing only with the driver unless you have probably cause or reasonable suspicion that you need to talk to the passenger. The way I was trained you could not even ask the passenger for his ID without being able to articulate reasonable suspicion and that was ata level of a Terry pat down.

If that instructor had gotten out of the truck, walked across the street, and proceeded legally, the only thing I could have stopped him for was suspicion of public intoxication, but unless I could say that he was staggering or displaying some symptom of impairment, I was on shaky ground.

They taught us a lot of tricks to use to stop/detain people, so I was looking for one, but having a hostile drunk on one hand, I could not really do an effective job at watching for those little things that would allow me to make a legal stop on the passenger.

 

[Big Tex]

THP are too brave

I rode with THP on a DWI Task Force and I observed some very interesting behavior of the THP officers. Without hesitation they would throw themselves into harms way without a second thought for there own well being. Almost too brave. They were slow to call for backup even in situations where the text book would be saying red flags. I think it was a combination of Texas spunk, dedication to getting the bad guys, and the Lone Ranger syndrome. The TR's (Texas Rangers) were even bolder and always ready to jump in where angels fear to tread. They had to live up the "One Riot, One Ranger" motto. All TR's had to serve in the THP for years before even being considered to become a Ranger. So the patrol THP officer had his big brother to look up to and try to measure up. Sometimes with deadly consequences. Texas Ranger Bobby Doherty is a prime example of paying the ultimate price for his bravery.

 

[TA_Raider]

Did they have greencards ? more than likely they didnt and shooting that trooper...just pisses me off because they should be greatful to be here in America and they wnet and blew it for some weed. People like that should be shot themselves. To hell with putting them in jail. I believe the chair is a little cold....They might want to consider investing in some electricity .



BTW, what did the second shooter get?

 

[Double Naught Spy]

They should be grateful they are here in America? Dude, drunk driving, drug carrying, Americans citizens illegally carrying guns have done this sort of thing before as well. It isn't about being so happy to be in America but about not going to jail, and in the case of these guys, not getting deported as well.

Did they have green cards? Did you read the article and watch the video? No valid green cards and the driver never managed to produce ID. The passenger was never asked for ID.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Asked by Smith how he managed to survive, Stone responded, "I wish I could tell you, sir. It's by the grace of God that I'm here and have the ability to talk to you.

And fast modern medical care......

 

[khadre]

And fast modern medical care......

and fast, electricity "Hookup" as well....

 

[mbt2001]

First, I am glad that what happened happened, as now two pieces of crap are in jail instead of just getting arrested and at most thrown in the clink for a few days, months, whatever. They were murderers, failed murderers, but murderers none the less.

First off, be advised that you rarely RARELY EVER hear anything bad or about bad things happening to Texas State Troopers… Anyone who live here can back that up, they are very well trained and mostly extremely competent.

This poor guy, he made 1 major mistake. He let something stand between his drawn gun and himself… Watch the video again. That is his only mistake, yeah you arm chair QB’s can criticize about how his inner third eye was closed, but the point is that he should have simply pushed the dude he was cuffing into the dude getting out of the car and then popped them both… That would save the tax payers the price of the extra bullets…

 

[khadre]

mbt2001,
i suggest you watch the video again urself; it was the dude being cuffed that pull the gun and opened fire first, NOT the dude getting out of the vehicle.

 

[mbt2001]

I saw the video...

If when the dude jumped out of the car, the trooper push cuff boy into him and capped them both, case closed... We like our cops effecient....

The point I was making was that the cuff boy was between the trooper and his gun... Had cuff boy been not between them, the results would have been different.

Arm outstretched holding gun pointing at buddy, in front of your chest, but not on the other end of the gun was cuff boy... That is a grave tactical error in the given situation, everything else can be forgiven.