Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fort Worth Police Shoot Before Asking Questions Killing Innocent 73 Year Old Man

Yep!
You sure as heck can bet this never would have happened if Barney Fife had been sent to investigate.

Way too many LEO apologizers here with the "tragic" "benefit of the doubt" attitude.

The axxetard that fired the fatal shots and killed this husband, father, grandfather, "citizen" is on "administrative leave"!?!?!

Both responders from when this "wrongful" kill(murder) took place should have been in front of IID answering questions and giving statements.
The shooter should not be a cop. Period.

Yes. I would be defending the old guy. It would be tragic either way.

One would hope that that anyone would look at the situation and make their best determination of the threat.

An old man with a handgun doesn't fit with the rest of the picture.

I can see a lot more ways this winds up with the old man dead and the cops blameless than I can with the unarmed Marine in Orange County. However, this did happen in Texas. Any LEO in Texas as opposed to say California has to assume everyone he meets is armed. Simply being armed is not reason enough to shoot someone. Nor is refusing to disarm instantly when ordered to do so. The hard part is judging when someone presents the possibility that if you don't act you might get to be dead.

Miles i agree. What isn't being said is whether the old man made some furtive movement. Ie: did he in advertantly move his gun towards them or make some other sudden move. Its a bad deal all the way around. But these people on here who brand cops as nothing kore than assasins are crazy. The simple answer is that the best thing he could have done woukd have been to put his weapon down and submitted to thenofficers until the situation was cleared up. Ive worked plain clothes where we have had situations with responding troopers thatbdont know us local guys that well to recognise us by sight alone. Ive had huns pointed at me the first thing i donis putnmybweapon down and place one hand on my head and then ID myself. The meer act of disarming myself goes along way to deescaltaing the situation

Ive also responded to burglar alarms where we have ended up on neighboring properties just due to circumstances involved. The theory here by many is that these cops were "looking to kill someone" is assenine. I dont know about Texas law, is there a dity to retreat statute? Up until a few years ago we had one. It basically said you had a duty to retreat to the safest place possible. If they do have a statute then he most certainly was in the legal wrong to go to the neighbor, while helping out is noble. Its best to be a professional witness.

The updated story states that he heard noises outside his home. Armed himself and went to check it out. I would do the same at my place. This is where things went bad and we dont know exactly what happened yet

Its also funny that the samebtype of people here who constantly blather thatbyou cantbtrust media to be unbiased are taking the news reports as gospel. Hypocrisy is wonderful


I treat everyone i deal with as being armed. Its a fact that there are atleast two guns present at every incident i am involved in. My duty weapon and back up gun. There are so many variables here that could have happened.

I will continue to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone LEO or not involved in a shooting like this until all facts are presented

Rest assured that these guys are under an internal investigation and that they were giving statements. Thats SOP. All administrative leave means is that they arent on patrlol or performing any other dept related function aside from cooperating with this investigation

It's easy to say he should have done this or that. Just like it's easy to say the cops should have done this or that.

The sad truth is that we'll probably never know what really happened. What exact set of circumstances led to at least one cop thinking he needed to shoot.

All we'll ever really know is a good man was killed. And probably killed by another good man. No one wins here.

You're exactly right. My point is that to many here the cops are just hired assasins

" I dont know about Texas law, is there a dity to retreat statute? Up until a few years ago we had one. It basically said you had a duty to retreat to the safest place possible."



For a cop, you display an alarming ignorance of the law in general.By your reasoning, a homeowner confronting an intruder in the ground floor of his home would be required to retreat to the upstairs portion.

ANY duty to retreat is generally satisfied once you reach the door to your house.

Texas law makes a homeowner- IN A RURAL AREA- safe from prosecution if he kills a person around his premises after dark. Granted that NE Ft Worth is not considered "rural" in a general sense, but if the homeowner in this case had shot the cops, a PA would know that any defense lawyer would bring that up at trial.

Isaac will be along to point out that I know NOTHING about Texas law.

Until there are personal repercussions, this will continue with shrugs and high fives, maybe even promotions and medals for the perps.

WRONG! It's just that our "benefit of the doubt" doesn't take us beyond where common sense sets a boundary.

History tells us this thread will settle into you, DINK, and issac continuing to defend the indefensible while our better LEO members [TLEE,ADDbunchanumbers, Lt Powell etal] have enough sense to stay off your bandwagon.

Defend the indefensible? You're a babbling idiot.

What is odd is that rather than see any amount of justice done, so many folks are hell bent on acquiring acquiescence from people on the [bleep] internet as opposed to, I don't know, perhaps a little community and local government proactivity.

Seems to me the amount of effort placed into dickering here in never-never land more appropriately placed into attending some meetings and delivering all the high powered bravado there might gain a little more personal satisfaction as opposed to giving a flying flip over what Bob, dink, myself, et al, might have to say.

The "cop's [bleep] up" threads never end any differently.

Mucho people pointing at a written story or video clip and saying "SEE?!?!" and others saying, "We don't really know all the info."

Any of you guys tired of that cycle yet?

And the 1st person to say that being active in the local government won't do any good, all I have to say is you get what your giving. Nothing.

After all, it's not like an attorney in Virginia, or a surveyor in North Carolina are going to change one Got-damn thing in Texas.

Enjoy.



eta:

But continue along anyway. I haven't seen bob say "Jam it, gas bag." in quite a while. Sooner or later, he's bound to get around to it, and it makes me laugh.

I have had a couple interactions with local LEOs in which I was armed. The guns were placed in plain sight, the LEOs were informed the guns were loaded and ready to go and instructed not to even touch them.

Like you, I recognize all LEOs are not necessarily to be trusted not to shoot you or even to exercise good judgement. That worries me greatly. At the precise point I can no longer trust an LEO not to shoot me unless I am doing something very wrong, the LEO has become as big a danger to himself as he is to me, because I feel absolutely no obligation to get shot by someone who's just not thinking,

That's exactly why it is critically important that any investigation of a shooting be utterly transparent, and held to the same standard as if the civilian had done the shooting. Far, far too often the process is neither transparent nor fair.

Without an absolutely clean and transparent process to investigate each and every instance of shot(s) fired without the built in bias a DA has, and with rigorous prosecution where appropriate there is no way in hell I would even consider an LEO job.

Sir, do you employ these arguments in the courtroom?

Only on my final trial.

I've had two cops on foot shine their flashlights on me in the dark, dunno what kind, the uber-bright LED sort I suppose.

Blinding, couldn't see anything else or any details of the men.

I surmised they were Cops because this was in a local park after dark where vandalism/drugs were a problem (I was walking my dogs). If I opened my garage door to that and it was dark, and if I was hard of hearing, 'spect I could be shot.

Birdwatcher

'bout an hour ago, I predicted your arrival AND your response. You can only wish you were that accurate with your sports predictions.

Back in the late 'seventies, I was coming into Ft Worth for a night at the White Elephant Saloon, and had reservations at a motel in case I didn't - or did - get "lucky". That detail is important because we didn't have CHL's then, but the Ruger Security Six in my glovebox was legal since I met the criteria for a "traveler".And I had a change of clothes hanging in plain sight.

Lake Worth PD had a portable stop sign that they moved from one spot to the other at an odd 3-way intersection and I ran it. The little city cop was on me in a heartbeat. I only made it two blocks past the intersection.

My proof of insurance was in the glovebox and I took the holstered Ruger out and laid it on the dashboard, with my back turned to the cop.

"HANDS ON YOUR HEAD OR I"LL BLOW YOU AWAY!"

That's what I heard. Looking around, the little bastard had his pistol pointed at me and was SHAKING.

Inside 5 minutes, there are 3 or 4 more cop cars and a wrecker and my car is going one way and I'm going the other. To the Lake Worth City jail where I spent the night.

The little SOB has my hat on his head, his britches stuffed in his boot tops, and is twirling my Ruger around on his trigger finger, with me marched along in front of him. The other cops got a kick out of that.

I couldn't bail myself out because Tarrant County claimed jurisdiction over all firearms crimes. Next morning, a Ft Worth detective came and got me to take me the County jail.

I have warm spot in my heart for him since he cuffed me in front instead of behind my back. But he repeated the name of a particular bail bondsman 3 or 4 times.

Now it was Sunday morning and if I wasn't bailed out by noon, I'd have to stay overnight and I had a big frac job set up for Mon. AM.

Two of my employees were at the Tarrant County jail with cash for bail but the jailer kept pushing me to get this bondsman, who just happened to be right there at the jail.

They finally relented and let my guys bail me out.

I hired a Ft Worth lawyer for 1200 bucks. When I went for my hearing, I stayed in the hallway while he went in and told the judge the deal. The judge dismissed the charges, but wouldn't let me go to Lake Worth to retrieve my Ruger.

I had to pay the lawyer another 150 bucks to go get it.

What I know about Tarrant County cops, I learned the hard way, you might say.

There was a time you were fun to argue with and had some witty responses. Lately you just act like an internet smartass.

And that's the problem, the expectation on the part of cops of receiving special treatment in such cases, i.e., the very worst they will ever expect is to lose their jobs, in terms of criminal charges always receiving the benefit of the doubt by the prosecutor's office, so in their interactions with the public they feel safe in tipping the scales in the direction of personal safety vs avoidance of harming innocent people or violating rights.

His kids said he was in fine health, strong and could hear fine.

You'll get what you give. Simple as that.

As to your interaction with those cops,assuming facts given as true, you were wronged.

When solid,irrefutable facts clearly demonstrate degrees of negligence committed by LE, I'll be all over them. Until those facts are realized and clearly established, I'll wait to render a final opinion.I'm weird that way,I guess.

You prefer the opposite approach.

Those same kids differed with the police original report when they claim he was killed in his garage, not his driveway.

Are they to be believed ?