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[Zrk2]

That's a good point.  Several of us are giving Dorner quite a bit of benefit of the doubt, it's the least we can do to give the cops what little benefit of the doubt they deserve.  We don't know anything about that situation except that the car got shot up.

Spoiler: This is what they did to the truck. (click to show/hide)

There is no amount of "benefit of the doubt" I can give to make that look like the reasonable course of action.  Excepting that you see a guy hanging out the back window with a machine gun, how could "dump three or four clips into both seats" be the right thing to do?  I'll be very curious to see what the dash cam shows of the incident (if the footage doesn't mysteriously disappear).

Exactly. Regardless of how crazy the guy is there is no justification to go off like this.

[SalmonGod]

The officers never pulled over the truck.

They were guarding a home that was likely to be targeted by the killer.  This truck drove up with its headlights off and threw something out the window (a newspaper).  The two officers opened fire.  There's a thread about it over on officer.com where they've discussed the incident pretty thoroughly.  The discussion has included a couple officers working near that area.  This is what happened.  Half the police seem to believe that they did the right thing, too.  Their excuse is any other approach would be suicide if it was indeed the killer, so filling it with bullets was the safest thing to do  .  They all express sympathy for the women, but also sort of shrug it off with "They'll get awarded a bunch of money, so whatever."

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread yet, but there was another truck that was attacked on the highway less than half an hour before and a few blocks away.  It's reported less, because no one got hurt.  Officer saw the truck and rammed into it, then fired a few shots.  So they'd already had a wake-up call to their own recklessness before these women got hurt, and still didn't make any effort to behave more sensibly.

[Starver]

The officers never pulled over the truck.

They were guarding a home that was likely to be targeted by the killer.  This truck drove up with its headlights off and threw something out the window (a newspaper).  The two officers opened fire.

Well, there you are.  That's the kind of scenario I feared and expected.

I'm from a place largely without guns (with public and thus police) so please feel free to tell me I don't understand anything beyond the fictional accounts portrayed by Hollywood, but the officers were obviously provoked to action, even though the people doing the provoking had no idea that they were doing anything like that at all...


High-strung nerves == errors like this.  And I'm glad it didn't come off worse for the innocents involved, as it often is worse in such situations.


There'll be repercussions over the incident of course, even if it's only suspension from duty while the decision comes in and (maybe) someone quietly switched to a desk-job.   (Or am I thinking about it the Hollywood way again?  Without the "ends up being the accidental hero when the bus he's commuting on gets hijacked by a mad bomber" bit, of course.)

[Scelly9]

They won't be switched to a desk job most likely, just suspended for two weeks.

[Flying Dice]

They won't be switched to a desk job most likely, just suspended for two weeks.

With full pay.

[SalmonGod]

That thread I linked to has exploded since I last looked at it.  There's an all-out flame war now between a couple civilians and a couple officers who are condemning the shooting of those two women, and they're being flamed by the whole rest of the board.  One of the dissenting officers has been threatened with contacting his superiors to explain that he's unfit to be a policeman.  Queue some flaming between two sides who support that course of action, and another side who agrees with the sentiment but thinks that would be going too far/against board rules.

The two officers who shot at those women also put bullet holes in nearby homes and parked vehicles.  So it's quite lucky that even more people weren't hurt.

[SalmonGod]

They're now using predator drones to hunt for Dorner.  Supposedly, this is the first official example of this being done within the U.S.

It's hard for me to argue that this isn't justified, but I'll be very surprised if this precedent doesn't lead into similar action where not justified.

[MonkeyHead]

Are the drones armed? If not, its little more than directed-CCTV-in-the-sky.

If they are... oh boy, thats a can of worms.

[fqllve]

Most sources don't say one way or another, which has lead to a lot of people jumping to the conclusion that they're armed. A few sources say they're spy drones but none are from particularly great. But I seriously doubt they're armed, as that'd be a major violation of the 5th amendment. Even if the drones were armed but the missles were never used there would be a huge backlash, and rightfully so.

[GlyphGryph]

Haven't other UAVs been used by police forces in the US already? Is it just notable because it's a model that CAN mount missiles? Why ARE they using that model?

It's weird, that's for sure.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If it's armed there's gonna be unrest, that's for sure. Even more if they blow up a city block to kill this guy and however many bystanders get caught.

Hopefully they're just using it because it is a faster model than other UAVs.

[Zangi]

I'm pretty sure the people using it will be 'reasonable'...

Only a fracking moron would give the go ahead to blow up anything where any 'collateral damage' may occur with the drone on American soil... instead of... directing the police forces to the location and/or tailing the guy.

Please don't prove me wrong... >.>

[GlyphGryph]

We're talking about an organization that opened uncontrolled fire on civilians in a residential neighborhood because they got a bit spooked. I don't think "avoiding collateral damage" is high on their list of concerns.

(Assuming the "they", here, is the LAPD)

Also, he's hiding in the woods, so I could I see the brass saying "no civilians around, so people will be perfectly okay with us blowing him up in the middle of nowhere. Oh, oh, or better yet, we just blow him up, and simply don't tell anyone why we called off the hunt"

Okay, that second half is unlikely, but still.

[fqllve]

I sincerely hope absolutely no one would give the LAPD control of a drone armed with Hellfire missles. I cannot conceive of how stupid that would be.

[SalmonGod]

Personally, I'm not comfortable with simple surveillance drones, either.  I know police forces have been buying those things up the last couple years, and probably using them.  This is just being touted as the first official, confirmed instance of their use.