Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
He should never have been released years ago.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010385617_webmansought29.html
Well, Huckabee can save all the trouble and expense of running again. With Conservatives like him around we don’t need Libs.
The only good end for someone who would kill a cop – death.
Russell Bagshaw was a CT State Trooper who was doing a security check of a small gun shop in 1991, just 3 small towns from my house. He interrupted a burglary in progress. The 2 burglars – brothers whose father was a cop – opened fire on him. They shot him 19 times – only one bullet made it thru a gap in Bagshaw’s bulletproof vest. Russell Bagshaw was never able to get out of his cruiser or even draw his own weapon. He died at age 28 – leaving a pregnant wife behind.
The 2 brothers currently sit in prison in CT, at the taxpayer’s expense. One was sentenced to life w/out parole, the other was originally sentenced to death; that sentence was overturned in 2000 to life w/out parole. The reason for the change was that the State Supreme Court didn’t find that the crime was “especially cruel and heinous”.
I doubt that Bagshaw’s widow and his fatherless child would agree with that.
I’m glad that the families of these officers got their justice swiftly and cleanly.
This happened in the neighborhood that I grew up in. My Dad still lives about a mile from there.
This man should be rotting in an Arkansas prison. I think Huckabee should be charged as an accomplice to these murders. As should the judge who allowed him to make bail here two weeks ago. This is what our criminal justice system has become as a result of our “progressive” system. These pieces of trash cannot be rehabilitated, and should not be on our streets. EVER.
You people are just hard-hearted right-wingers. The poor guy was just MIS-UNDERSTOOD! If only we had poured MORE money into prisons to rehab the poor guy–more psychologists, social workers, group therapy, continuing education–maybe a writers course or a PhD track program–we wouldn’t be where we are today. Trust me….trust me…trust me….
Ahh, Virgil, we just need to raise our taxes, increase the size of the government, and apologize to, well, just about everyone outside of the U.S. I suppose. Oh, and quit picking on ACORN, CAIR, and ethically challenged scientists, and …..
Are you running low on Barbencourt, or do you have too much
On a more serious note, the shame of it all is that all I’ve said above is TRUE–IF applied prior to incarceration beginning with the school systems IF the funds were applied properly , (which, of course they never are.) Prior to Katrina investigations of the School Board (whose budget was actually LARGER than the entire City of New Orleans’ budget) found some 30 million had been siphoned off in the form of false salaries to retired or dead people, etc., while in DC, for example the taxpayer pays over$15,000/yr/pupil in the Public system to turn out functional illiterates. And then we have the wonderful example of the Chicago public system to contemplate also, to name just a few. By the time they make prison as adults it’s a cause as lost as the tax-dollars that were expended to no good result…
Unfortunately, reports are that they didn’t get him in the house. But he is reportedly wounded. A stomach wound which hopefully he’ll bleed out from before harming others.
Better if it was an abdomen wound. Very painful and relatively slow .. all that crap filling your gut.
I don’t know about “no future in it.” Mumia and Ayers seems to have created quite a comfortable career path, for those inclined to notice.
One of the really awful things about this is that according to an article I read, the four cops constitute 10-15 percent of the local force. It’s devastating on both emotional and practical levels… My heart breaks for all the police families involved.
4 real families… 9 children! This hits us where we live… literally! It’s difficult, hearing about this heart-ache. Then they say the name of a town nearby. That makes it up, close and very personal. The “person of interst” is on the loose, abandoned truck found, alert in the University of Washington hospital area, next it’s Beacon Hill. We saw sirens and lights last night… was it our turn?
Questions race through your head. This is hitting close to home, too close. All the other time were close to someone else’s home, too close for them. Judges set these people loose on towns. Why? We truly need to stop this! It’s getting beyond silly, going on ridiculous!
No word yet on our guy. They’ll get him… when? Will he survive the “capture process”? Should he? If you were out there on duty, what would you do? The pull between feelings and the pull of training, the call of duty, honor.
If he survives the capture process, maybe he’ll make it to the gallows.
Given the mistrust of the legal system (it ceased to be a justice system long ago) I would be surprised if he survives the capture process, if he isn’t dead already.
I agree QM. It’s 1800 here and no more word. This is a story that won’t leave the front pages here; too many people know too many people. The Police authorities are doing the bus station, airport and train routine now. They found blood stains in his truck proving he was hit, prompting many to believe he’s holed up dying or dead.
The reward for his location is in excess of $100,000 at this time. We’re all hoping someone will hurry up and collect, by means of saving the legal system the expense.
What Virgil said.
The election went to Obama in large part because the main-stream media was fully committed to getting him in. Why?
Because the journalism colleges are dominated by a hard-left political perspective. Why?
Because higher academia is dominated by a left-wing socialistic perspective.
Public kindergarten through twelfth grade education is dominated by a left wing perspective. Why?
Because the teacher colleges are monolithically left-wing and socialistic. Getting a teacher’s license requires enduring the indoctrination process of the education establishment.
Government education is operated by bureaucrats committed to advancing socialistic goals.
Breaking this self-sustaining cycle requires breaking away from the entire government schooling system. I don’t know if that’s possible in a large sense.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
I’m no law enforcement expert but the legality of using deadly force against a fleeing suspect is dependent on state law. Some states only recently tightened up the rules for police.
That said, in Tennessee, law enforcement may use deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect if there is a reasonable belief the individual is a threat to harm others and there are no other means available to stop the individual. In general, the police don’t go this route given all the variables that could turn against them. But using this restrictive rule, I’d say the officer was justified in using deadly force given the previous targeted murder of police officers by the suspect. Not to mention, a cold-blooded cop killer fugitive had just be standing behind this officer.
Back in the 70s, I believe, Tennessee’s “Fleeing Felon” law was held unconstitutional by the state Supremos. IIRC, the Memphis Police had shot a fleeing crook and he survived to sue them.
I’ve been out of Tennessee for nearly 20 years now and your take on the current situation is probably correct. There was tal of overhauling the law to keep some semblance of the old law around. The way you state it, it’s like releasing the spoon on a grenade and holding it. I wouldn’t blame a cop for not shooting under the circumstances.
A person fitting the discription of the wanted person, under the circumstances revealed in this press release, would be someone that an officer would have probable cause to believe is the killer, and would most likely, if not stopped, pose a grave threat to the officer, and/or others. The flight, in this case would be interprited as either an attempt to evade, or an attempt to reach a tactically better advantage, from which to attack this officer.
As mentioned by JKB, the person had been approaching the officer from behind when contact was made. This would add to the officers belief that the person intended to act against the officer. Under these circumstances, Deadly Force would be justified under the Wisconsin Force Option Continuum. I would tend to believe that Washington has a similar Force Process.
First, I have no problem that this guy is dead. I believe that he constituted an on-going threat to both police and the public. My initial thought was that this was some form of suicide by cop. Nobody rational would expect to a) live through a shoot-out with four armed cops, b) evade the ensuing manhunt for any significant time.
However, I do note that a different standard applies to the men in blue. As a private citizen, if I were to shoot and kill a fleeing rapist, or murderer, even if he had assaulted me and mine in my home- I would go to prison for murder. No matter that this person was a continuing deadly threat to society. The second he started to flee I would lose my ‘authorization’ to shoot, as it were. No qualified immunity, either.
My problem isn’t so much that this guy is dead, though I do hold the cops to a high standard for due process, but that the rest of us are deprived of common sense relief for the problem of violent criminals.
(BANG)
Halt!
Darn right. Hearing that he had been killed was the best news I heard all day.
thebastidge … Better move to Texas if you want good old sensible self-protection. Texas has the ‘man’s home is his castle’ rule. If a rapist or a murderer or a home invader attacks a householder on his property, the householder has a right to shoot him as long as he is *on* the owner’s property. That’s why we have house guns, which we can use without a carry permit as long as we are on our own property.
Makes for a more civil society. The bad guys don’t know whether we are armed or not.
Marianne
As Heinlein put it so well “an armed society is a polite society.” It’s been proven over and over and over….
I’m greatly releived. At least the guy was only shot. Thank heavens he wasn’t given a fat lip. I mean that would really get the officer in trouble…..maybe the police department equivalent of a Courts Martial.
The hotels in this location are unavailable for your dates and/or special rates. Try changing your travel dates and/or special rate request. For stays of more than 220 days, please call in the US 1-888-236-2427 or phone number for a reservation agent near you
Sorry about that. Copy and pasted the wrong thing! I tried to post a long winded use-of-force reply earlier and had difficulty…
Tenn. v. Garner prevents LEO’s from shooting fleeing felons without clear evidence that the felon presents a danger to the public or to the LEO. OTOH, Graham v. Connor allows for ANY force to be used so long as it is “reasonable and neccessary”. In this case, the officer recognized the suspect as the cop killer and ordered him to show hands. Failing to do so, given the recent displays of his willingness to do harm to others, I believe that he was fully justified in shooting the suspect in the back. He certainly posed a serious threat to the public and to the officer who did the shooting. This road cop was out there investigating a stolen car on a dark street by himself when he saw this bag o’ dou**e under the hood. Sounds like he was lying in ambush…too soon to tell, though.
Just put yourself in the place of the officer and having to make the decisions he had to make in the time available to him. Then realize that lawyers and juries will have HOURS and DAYS to scrutinize that decision….cops don’t get paid enough. (Disclosure: I was a cop for 6 years and am currently a fed)
Now that we have more information on the manner in which the suspect behaved, and how he ‘fled’ to keep the car between himself and the officer, while “reaching for something in his waistband”, it appears that the officer did act in accordance with ‘due regard’.
I have never had to use my sidearm, other than to dispatch deer hit by cars. But I have been “killed” several times during high risk vehicle stop and other training sessions. I have made felony stops, and I give kudos to the officer for mainating his situatioanl awareness of what is behind him. It’s all too easy to focus on the car you are checking out, and forget to check what is around it.
I do think he should have watched from a distance, until he had his back up arrive, however. But I was not there, and only know what I have read.
I hope his Department will take the proper steps to take care of the officer. There are proper procedures to follow after a shooting, and I hope they follow them. Even though Clemmons was scum, the officer did kill a human being, and that is a traumatic experience. I hope Seattle PD gets him the support he needs.
He’s dead. He’s the one they wanted. Dead. What does the law say to the cop who shot him? Good.
No place questions cops shooting cop killers, if they got the right one. And killed him.
Which is as it should be.
This Seattle Times story gives more detail. While he was moving away, this movement could have been for tactical advantage against the officer. It appears he may have been trying for another ambush, approaching the officer while he did paperwork on the stolen vehicle. The article has a couple of paragraphs on WA law enforcement use of deadly force law.
Little doubt about getting the right guy as he had one of the officers guns on him. Not to mention, they are rolling up quite a few people who aided and abetted.
A cold-blooded cop killer fugitive didn’t run away but tried to sneak up on the officer. Deadly force was appropriate for such a person being anything less than completely compliant. Anybody doubt the officer was in imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury…even after the guy tried to maneuver once discovered on his approach?
Front sight picture…breath control…trigger squeeze.
Well done, Officer.