Police officers shoot each other as they try to arrest child porn suspect at Harry Potter screening
Two policemen are recovering after they were shot by fellow officers as they tried to arrest a man on child pornography charges outside a crowded move theatre.Adrenaline is a scary substance. When under its influence, folks do crazy, unpredictable things. Things like forget the four rules and fire seemingly at random when the perception is your life is in danger. I'm not ready to condemn these cops - I've never had someone try to shoot me. Sure, from the sidelines it appears they overreacted - but from their point of view, as undercover cops going to intercept a sexual predator, this guy could have been ready for anything.
The incident happened as undercover officers tried to apprehend the unarmed man in the parking lot as he left a screening of Harry Potter in Plainville, Connecticut.
The officers opened fire after Eric Gothberg, 45, suddenly reached for his waistband after resisting arrest.
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured and they caught the guy, so all's well in the end. There's at least one police officer who had better either get some more training or think about getting out of undercover work - had the suspect actually had a gun, this guy's marksmanship under fire wouldn't have saved him. While everything worked out in the end, had the bad guy been more determined, we might be reading about a real nasty scene here.
And I'd rather snicker at the Keystone Kops-esque scene with the perp in custody than a Dirty Harry one with a dead perp from a twitchy cop...
That is all.
6 comments:
You know, there's a reason that Tasers were made. But too many 'Only Ones' think that a Badge and a Gun is all they need for a Perp to fall on their knees, begging for mercy.
And I'd rather snicker at the Keystone Kops-esque scene with the perp in custody than a Dirty Harry one with a dead perp from a twitchy cop...
And I'd rather snicker at the Keystone Kops-esque scene with the perp in custody than a Dirty Harry one with a dead bystander at a crowded theater from a twitchy cop...all of which could be avoided if they'd waited until he was away from the crowd to arrest him...
And, being that they were undercover, how was he to know who it was?
Barney, now you put that bullet back in your pocket. You might hurt someone.
I miss the old Dillinger days, when cops could gun down a man in front of a movie theater and only hit a couple of civvies in the crossfire.
The department(and it's liability insurer)should be saying prayers of thanks that it wasn't a photogenic 8 year old who caught a stray bullet.
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