It's a common problem in big cities, or little cities that wannabe. SWAT teams, Special This, Super-Dee-Duper-That, Emergency-Response-Killer-Dogs-R-Us, and Tall-Buildings-In-A Single-Bound'ers everywhere one looks.
These cops refer to you and I as "civilians", establishing the pecking order of power that's oh so important in exalting overgrown children to protect and defend whatever tree-house they've plastered the No-Girls-Allowed signs on.
They instigate as much trouble as they respond to, and that's nowhere near an exaggeration. So it isn't any wonder that the following story demonstrates yet another drunken-cop-gone-wild, and I'm all FOR law enforcement but NEVER for self-appointed Blue Knights.
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"Surveillance tapes will help clear the six Bronx men accused of beating an off-duty NYPD cop before he was fatally shot, a defense lawyer said yesterday after he got a copy of the video from prosecutors.
"My client acted in self-defense," said attorney Mark Heller, who represents the alleged ringleader, Edwin Rivera.
"I am confident the video will show that [the officer] was aggressively pursuing my client."
But Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the tapes, which were released shortly after the Jan. 28 shooting of Officer Eric Hernandez, lay blame squarely on the suspects.
A drunken Hernandez was set upon by a group of men at the Tremont White Castle. The dazed officer stumbled out and pulled his service weapon on a man he mistakenly believed was one of his attackers.
A responding cop then shot Hernandez, who died 11 days later.
The Bronx district attorney's office formally released the video yesterday to defense lawyers.
It shows an attacker throwing the first punch and Hernandez being kicked and pummeled.
Defense attorneys noted, however, that the officer is clearly shown leaving the restaurant and returning, which could be interpreted as him being an aggressor.
"This incident arose out of the officer being intoxicated at a time while he was armed. He created a lethal danger and his actions resulted in his tragic death," Heller said."
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And therin lies the rub. If he re-entered the fray then HE becomes the aggressor, regardless of his status. The smart thing...forgive the use of such a word when speaking of police...would of course been to immediately call for help, and not stagger about in a drunken stupor waving his gun at anyone in the immediate vicinity, including other cops.
You can teach them until the cows come home but some people are not suited for the job.
The Catch-22 is the fact that anyone liking such work turns out to be no good at it over the long haul. Whenever I'd be involved with imparting knowledge to those sent off on tasks unimaginable, I'd cast a nay vote in a heartbeat if I really thought that someone was enjoying the prospect.
9 comments:
Putting aside the actual incident for a second and the Officer's obviously bad judgement while his ability was impaired from alcohol...Fits...your overall tone regarding Police Officers is coming across as sarcastic and very cynical.
I won't defend that Officer but I will say that the alcoholism rate in Law Enforcement is very high and you sir...have not walked in that mans shoe's....
Nope, I have not. Doesn't mean I cannot have an opinion, nor voice it. Does it?
The Blue Line is a formidable thing to cross, and I do commend your defense of this youngster, who by eyewitness accounts from those I believe, was an incident waiting to happen.
Don't need to be a chicken, Cookie, to smell a rotten egg. And yep, I've seen LE Special Forces do far more harm than good for lots of years, and their professionalism, preparedness, and results are bottom of the barrel.
Again, it's my opinion, and take it for what it's worth. I welcome opposing viewpoints so feel free to let 'er rip whenever the mood is upon thee.
PS: There are no sacred cows here. I'd nail a career military man just as quick if I felt it was warranted, and who DON'T I rag on.
Now that last part I totally respect you for..."No sacred cows here".
If you'll notice my post from yesterday regarding the Kennedy fiasco...I call for an IAD investigation...and I'm a retired cop. I worked in IAD and if something stinks...it stinks...don't sweep it under the carpet...it will only rot and stink even more.
I can neither defend nor attack LE special forces professionalism as I have virtually no experience in that purview of LE...I was a Homicide Inv. with a Forensic Science background...
I just gotta ask Fits...its naggin at be bad...not in any way shape, form or manner talking about the drunken bonehead move made by the cop in this incident...what qualifies you to critique all Law Enforcement with your sweeping generalizations as was in your post...and don't say "the Corps"...and even if you were attached to Special Forces in some capacity...these men and woman are willing to put their lives on the line everyday for their community and neighbors...do you?
Are you a cop...have you been one...have you seen all SWAT teams across the country...besides hitting a keyboard for your post do you leave your home and family everyday not knowing if you won't ever see them because some asshole..even another drunken cop asshole..blows you away and takes your life. I was a cop for over twenty years and I don't feel I'm in any way qualified to critique a SWAT team...or any other LE Special Forces outfit.
I really had to take umbridge with your remarks because anyone can sit behind a keyboard and criticize the shit outta anything. Convince me your qualified and the matter is dropped....if not...stick to what you know....
Hmm...here's the rub, Cookie, and I'm going to say this as respectful and calm as I can. I don't HAVE TO parade my DD-214 for you or anyone just because I offered an opinion. This bespeaks the very thing I was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, yes guilty as hell...making the point for. This seperate entity that special law enforcement wants to become, the type that gave us Ruby Ridge, et al, the type that follows orders regardless of what the Constitution dictates...is the enemy, not the friend of the American people. The kid in quetion was lambasted by no fewer than 3 members of NYPD, one whose opinion I admittedly paid little attention to because he was serious in disliking the boy because of his ethnicity, but THAT city, and those folks I am quite familiar with.
Defend your opinion. Dislike others who do not agree. All of this is damned fine, but perhaps it's time you came to the understanding that right or wrong, a great many people do not agree with you, and instead of calling them out you might try listening.
As I'm doing with you. I could give two shits what your experience has been, because it doesn't mean squat in the face of the national disgrace that certain LE entities have brought upon us.
For over a quarter century I worked for the people, too, and THEIR opinion always was far more important than mine. If my or mine disgraced themselves I'd feel the disgrace and not ask who the frig THEY were to take us to the mat.
Protect and defend. We work(ed) for them, not the other way around.
Two observations.
One, I can't find where it says that the drunk cop that got shot was SWAT.
Two, the tapes are said to show the six men attacking the cop before he got away and then returned with his gun to be shot by another cop. This in no way lessens the guilt of the six thugs. They should go down for attempted murder, that's what six against one amounts to.
Here's the deal, Lem.
The 6 thugs SHOULD go down, and hard. The cop, known throughout the neighborhood as a strutting little peacock who bullied his way into lines, expected preferential treatment everywhere from deli's to movies to clubs, etc, but no one will tell me anything else except that he WAS in Special Weapons but had been booted from job to job.
On that day, he was as drunk as a human being can get and still stand, said the wrong thing to the wrong people, and instead of parting for him like Moses and the Red Sea,they jumped him. He shakes it off, staggers to his feet and draws his off duty G-26. Then proceeds to aim it at an innocent bystander who wasn't involved. By this time, backup has arrived, and they tell him, 6 times, to drop his gun. He curses them, waves the gun and screams that he's going to find and kill all of the maricons who jumped him.
After the 6th warning, one of the cops shoots. He drops, and is taken to the hospital where he dies a week and a half later.
The people in the neighborhood are divided between being happy to be rid of Mr. Special, and understandably upset that the dudes who whooped him might get off scot free because they weren't exactly upstanding citizens.
Now, 3 weeks before this went down, the actor who starred along with DeNiro in A Bronx Tale, and also had a gig on the Sopranos, was robbing an apartment with a buddy when an off duty cop intervened. The cop empties HIS G-26 at both men as well as half the neighborhood. but the bad guy with the gun has a real gun, and one shot from his GP-100 kills the cop.Who was so drunk the blood alcohol level pegged the meter.
A week before THAT, another offduty cop is being robbed when the bad guy finds his badge and backs up shooting. This cop is also drunk on HIS ass, and returns fire at least 30 rounds from HIS G-26 while chasing the guy. He misses the thug but blasts the windows out of cars and store fronts and apartments.
Where does one begin. First off, shooting while drop dead drunk isn't the easiest thing to do, and chasing a bad guy or bad guys without calling for backup and putting holes in the neighborhood is one of the WORST things to do. They are instructed what TO do and what NOT to do but policy means squat when these heroes are inebriated and feeling the macho rush from alla them beer muscles.
It's reached such epic proportion that sooner rather than later the Commisssioners office is going to ban off duty cops from carrying, OR, ban them from drinking if they ARE carrying.
None of the above is reflective of wise decisions made by those sworn to protect the neighborhoods in which they reside, and its only a matter of time before yet another drunken cop kills someone as he staggers down a street taking potshots at what he thinks is a badguy.
They drive drunk, bully the neighborhoods, present arms at the slightest provocation, and for as much as I'd love to see firing squads rid our inner city's of the scum who prey upon the innocent, some police precincts are churning out dangerous cops who need a serious sit-down, come-to-Jesus understanding of what their job really is.
As far as the Special Weapons deal, sweet christ on a crutch but half of the police I communicate with just wish these outfits would just go away, but thats another story.
Also, Hernandez had the chance to either escape or await backup, but decided to re-engage those who accosted him, and the law's the law, for all of us. He never called for help, and, as a "civilian", charged back into the fray looking to shoot someone. That's a felony in all 50 states, cop or no cop. Firearms are for self defense or in the defense of others, not to teach scumbags an admittedly well deserved lesson. And the worst part was, the dude he drew on wasn't even involved.
Bad scene all around, but these guys aren't doing hard time after a weepy jury hears how Hernandez sought to kill them, and the things he was shouting were far from police-like. They'll tag him for a renegade who needed to be taken out, and there's no happy ending when a drunken dumbass screws the pooch this badly.
And yep. If this were someone under my watch I'd have broken most of the bones in his body for disgracing his oaths.
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