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[Jackrabbit]

I'm not saying it wasn't a stupid move, remember. It really was.

[RedKing]

Yeesh. It gets better. The homicide suspect who they were trying to apprehend...was in a neighboring housing unit, not the one they charged into. Now *that* shit happens way too often, just usually not with deadly consequences.

I'm also not seeing corroboration of the "burned" portion of the initial story. I have seen references to a flashbang being used, and the child being shot in the neck, but no references to burn injuries.

One slight bit of good news: the investigation has been turned over to Michigan State Police rather than DPD.

DPD initially said the gun went off when the child's grandmother grappled with an officer. She denied this, and they later changed their story to "there may have been accidental contact". I can see maybe what happened--officer goes in expecting the worst, has his weapon drawn, pointed outwards and hand on the trigger, gets jostled by bumping into an occupant as he's entering a room, and accidentally pulls the trigger. This is the *best-case* scenario, and it's still an appalling breach of proper firearms protocols. This is why you see the TV cops with their guns pointed down at an angle when they're searching a building for the bad guy. Accidental discharge is far less likely to hit a bystander.

[Red Fortune]

Ugh.... I typed up a wall of text just then.... But Firefox crashed...

Basically, people posting on the first couple of pages seemed to leap to the contention that the police were cold-hearted murderers... We need more analysis here.

Most of the information we have here comes from their LAWYER, is he really going to say anything that makes his argument seem less concrete? Has he really seen this tape? How do we know that the gun was fired from outside? What intel were the police team given? Did they know children were inside? What about the fact that this family were possibly harboring a murderer, and did they know? Was this grenade an incendiary or a percussion grenade? What are the chances of both the grenade and the bullet hitting the child from outside?....

So much spin and seemingly incomplete/biased info here, don't jump to conclusions... Things aren't this simple.

I'm not defending the police or anybody else, and something definitely doesn't seem right... I just believe we can't judge with the amount of information we have, and at this time.

[Pillow_Killer]

I dont see what the problem everyone is having. It's ONE girl. ONE. A lot of small girls die on a minute basis. Shit happens. If you grapple someone who got a firearm ready and is expecting trouble, expect ot be shot. Sometimes a split second makes a diffrence between shooting someone or being shot. Keeping the gun lowered would only yield officer death in case there was an armed resistance inside.

[RedKing]

Keeping the gun lowered would only yield officer death in case there was an armed resistance inside.

And that's why *real* cops use intel and observation before they go door-kicking. And regardless of the increased danger to themselves, law enforcement officers have a legal and moral obligation to minimize the threat to innocent bystanders. That's part of the job.


As to the first part of your comment...you don't have children. And I'm going to leave it at that, lest this thread get locked.

[G-Flex]

"It's one girl" is a pretty damn false statement anyway. How this is treated sets precedent, and is affected by precedent itself. Things like this are seldom entirely isolated incidents.

[Pillow_Killer]

Keeping the gun lowered would only yield officer death in case there was an armed resistance inside.

As to the first part of your comment...you don't have children. And I'm going to leave it at that, lest this thread get locked.

Yep. I'd understand grieving parents or something, but why the hell general public gives a damn? It's really not worth all this fuss.

[Agdune]

Yeah, the public should totally not care about gross negligence on the part of the police. I mean, there's no reason whatsoever for society to care when people don't do their jobs right and people are killed in their homes while minding their own business, right? I mean, I don't know them, therefore it's inconsequential to everyone everywhere!

[RedKing]

Because most people fear law enforcement almost as much as they fear criminals. And not without some cause.

I mean, if this unfolded in the way the lawyer characterized it, I'd sure as hell be outraged. It's shoddy law enforcement and gives the rest of the community a bad name and makes their job that much harder. That said, I think the truth is going to turn out to be somewhere in the middle. The SRT obviously didn't have all their ducks in a row, or they'd have hit the right house to start with. But I don't think it was as big of a clusterf**k as it's made out to be.

But likewise, I strongly dislike the sort of "F**k those people, serves 'em right for living near criminals" attitude that I'm seeing in the Detroit Free Press's comment section, and to a certain extent in here. Even if that girl's father was a murderer, that doesn't mean she should suffer for it.

[G-Flex]

Keeping the gun lowered would only yield officer death in case there was an armed resistance inside.

As to the first part of your comment...you don't have children. And I'm going to leave it at that, lest this thread get locked.

Yep. I'd understand grieving parents or something, but why the hell general public gives a damn? It's really not worth all this fuss.

As a member of the general public, I tend to care whether or not the people paid to protect me (and society) could in fact cause severe, reckless, and unnecessary physical harm or death to me, my loved ones, or anyone else for that matter, and get away with it.

[smigenboger]

Yeah, the community would be up in arms about something like that. The Erica Baker disappearance should be proof of that, and if it's a big deal in a midwastern state, it would be in many other places.

We don't have bad police press around here, though there's a prevalence of cannabis and crack in the inner-city. Since the police are humans, like you guys, they're liable for just about everything you could be liable for.

Ex: If an area if notorious for heroin, there's a good chance the politicians, police, and your boss may use it. They'd have to be selling it to someone.

[DJ]

Yeah, entering a house to arrest someone you suspect to be armed is a highly stressful situation, and most people would handle it badly. But so is performing open heart surgery. You don't let any Joe Smith become a heart surgeon, so why the hell do you let people that perform badly in stressful situations join SRT?

[RedKing]

Yeah, entering a house to arrest someone you suspect to be armed is a highly stressful situation, and most people would handle it badly. But so is performing open heart surgery. You don't let any Joe Smith become a heart surgeon, so why the hell do you let people that perform badly in stressful situations join SRT?

I think that's a bit unfair. Even veteran SpecOps soldiers screw up sometimes. They're human. (For that matter, heart surgeons screw up sometimes too.)

Even Federal SRTs have had things go badly for them (see: Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc.). This isn't because the people involved aren't professionals, it's because by definition, SRT situations are those with an already significantly elevated chance of turning hairy.

[Pathos]

What's with the stupidly poor intel American cops seem to get, anyway? DO they just go into houses based on hearsay?

[Urist Imiknorris]

What's with the stupidly poor intel American cops seem to get, anyway? DO they just go into houses based on hearsay?

Confirmation is for pussies.