Ohio AG Mike DeWine is releasing evidence from an incident involving Cleveland police officers that took place in November. It started with a car chase. Then, it escalated. Badly.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A November car chase ended in a “full blown-out” firefight, with glass and bullets flying, according to Cleveland police officers who described for investigators the chaotic scene at the end of the deadly 25-minute pursuit.
But when the smoky haze — caused by rapid fire of nearly 140 bullets in less than 30 seconds — dissipated, it soon became clear that more than a dozen officers had been firing at one another across a middle school parking lot in East Cleveland.
Both the passenger and the driver of the car were killed in the fierce firefight. Neither, it turns out, were armed.
So what happened? Well, it turns out that the 13 police officers who fired were shooting at each other. So when they thought they were under fire, they were — just from their own fellow officers.
It was all a case of mistakes piling up on top of one another.
Officers recounted for investigators seeing guns, objects that looked like guns or one of the suspects loading guns in the middle school parking lot — which could not have been possible at that point in the incident. No gun was found in the car.
Some also believed that one officer who ducked behind a car that was hit by the Malibu was either run over or shot – heightening their fears.
The report also shows that many of the officers’ worries were based on possibly erroneous information broadcast over police radio to the approximately 60 police vehicles involved in the chase.
During the chase, multiple officers indicated that a gun was being fired, that a tire on the Malibu had blown and, at one point, that a police car had been rammed.
All those things, the report indicates, fed into the officers’ perceptions of danger going into the parking lot.
The point of all this isn’t to bash police, for whom I have tremendous respect, but to point out that they’re not infallible and have no more right to firearms than the average law-abiding American citizen. Let that sink in. They don’t. The Constitution makes that clear. The police cannot be everywhere, and even when they are on the scene of a crime, they’re human. They can make mistakes. They can even stage a no-knock raid on the wrong house, endangering innocent people.
And that’s to say nothing of corrupt police and law enforcement officers, like the ones recently busted for allegedly working with the drug cartels on the Texas-Mexico border. They’re human. Mistakes and corruption happen.
During the pursuit of Christopher Dorner, a former cop turned serial killer, LAPD officers were involved in two incidents in which they fired their guns on the wrong people. Dorner himself had passed background checks and had amassed an arsenal. Residents living in Big Bear could easily have found themselves under fire either from Dorner, a vicious killer who did end up taking two hostages, or from the police trying to stop him, some of whom did fire on innocent people by mistake. If the residents of Big Bear did not already own firearms, California’s waiting period would have prevented them from obtaining any firearms for their own protection, until days after Dorner was killed.
Is this right? Should law-abiding Americans be prevented from being able to defend themselves in a crisis? Is there any good reason that the police should have a total monopoly on force?
Relative to this and Dorner, this is what Jack Vance wrote in a science-fiction novel called “The Star King” 50 years ago:
“The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”
“Is there any good reason that the police should have a total monopoly on force?”
Absolutely none, and there are plenty of good reasons to DENY the government a monopoly on force.
For a nice piece of irony:
York Arms stops all sales to NY police and governmental agencies.
Like I remind people, police are agents and protectors of the state FIRST everything else is secondary or right when they want to get back to you.
That’s the definition of a police state.
We’re in it. We don’t notice it any more than fish notice being wet.
After shooting at three totally innocent citizens in two incidents in Torrance on Feb. 7, we were told by the police it was a case of “mistaken identity”. That implies that the officers had identifed the occupant(s) as Dorner to begin with, and later learned it wasn’t him.
How did these officers confuse 2 small women and later a 180 lb. white male as a 270 lb. Afican American?
In the first instance they saw a truck driving slowly on the street where they were standing guard and opened fire because of how the truck was being driven. They opened fire on that alone believing Dorner was driving the truck. It’s obvious they hadn’t identified the occupants, two women delivering newspapers.
The second incident was prompted by the first incident when an officer a short distance away said he heard the shots, saw a passing pick-up and ran it off the road then opened fire on the driver. This officer vidently assumed Dornan was in the truck fleeing the scene of the other shooting. Again, no attempt was made to indentify the actual driver of the truck, a white male off for a morning surf.
There was no “mistaken identity” that morning. The simple fact of the matter is the officers involved in those two shootings made NO attempt to get a positive identification of the occupants in either truck. The three people fired upon are very lucky to still be alive.
These officers showed a total disregard for the safety of the public. They should be fired, have their LEO licenses revoked, and face attempted murder charges.
Police, to protect and serve…. themselves evidently.
Yup.
Cities, as well as colleges and universities, should not have police forces. Period.
No, I understand that we need police, but we also need accountability.
Here’s how to make that happen:
Policing should be done by the COUNTY (a/k/a parish if you live in Louisiana, or borough if you live in Alaska). Why? Because the county sheriff faces the voting public every so often. If he is arrogant, corrupt, lazy, ineffective, or for any reason is unsatisfactory to the voters, he’s outta there and somebody else gets the job. Every head of a police force should face the voters regularly. Yes, even the FBI, the Secret Service, et. al.
Accountability.
The police that killed this unarmed couple and the LAPD officers that shot up the two ladies delivering papers should be fired and prosecuted as any other citizen would be.
In fact, we should take things a step further.
Any politicians or government employees that have anything to do with imposing “Gun Free (slaughter) Zones” or disarming law-abiding citizens with gun bans should be prosecuted as accessories to murder along with the shooters anytime a defenseless person is harmed as a result of their moronic, emotion-based, and ineffective policies.
“Gun Free Zones” = Shooting fish in a barrel.
Hell. Yeah.
As a Jewess in the US, I can only say that stupid actions like those of these “police” are but one more reason why all REAL Americans now put our 2nd Amendment FIRST! Hardened criminals and satanic governments are stopped by FIREARMS, not sweet talk. And remember that America wasn’t won with a registered gun!
I don’t knock the police much because it’s a nasty job and anybody doing it would have to become an asshole or get out of the business pretty quick.
But the dirty little secret is that most policemen are authoritarian personalities with lousy judgement and a lot of those are either rogue or can go rogue in an instant. Combine that with the stress and danger and it’s no wonder there are so many problems.
My strategy dealing with the police is the same as for lawyers. If you need one, you already screwed up. So don’t screw up in the first place.
Keystone Cops are all the more reasons that honest citizens need to carry.