I mean seriously. If you think your life is so bad that you want to end it, then just kill yourself already. But leave the rest of us out of it, okay?
What sparked today’s rant is a case in Detroit, where an [alleged] sex offender got himself a gun, walked into a police station and started shooting cops.
Suicide by Cop, they call it.
Four Detroit police officers were wounded in the attack, but thankfully none were killed, and only one was seriously wounded. Commander Brian Davis, Officer David Anderson, Sgt. Ray Saati and Sgt. Carrie Shultz were all wounded when this idiot opened fire inside the police precinct.
Commander Davis was wounded in the hand and the side, and is in stable condition in a Detroit hospital. Officer David Anderson is in serious but stable condition, and was the most seriously wounded of the four. Sgts Saati and Schultz were both treated and released.
It’s great that they were not more seriously wounded.
It’s even better that the [alleged] sex offender got what he wanted, and is now dead. It’s just sad that he had to be a coward about committing suicide and force someone else to do it, instead of being a man and doing the deed himself.
While this sort of shooting is very rare, it almost makes a person understand why RCMP stations are so highly protected. Seriously. Have you wanted into one recently and tried to talk to someone? Bullet-proof glass and a speaker in the window… that’s all you get.
Personally, I think it’s a bit much, and really takes away from the notion that the police are here to help. When the only police you can see are on the other side of bullet-proof glass, it makes it kind of hard to believe they don’t think you’re the enemy.
Detroit police stations aren’t like that. You walk in and you can talk to a police officer. No metal detectors, no bullet-proof glass.
99.9% of the time, I think that’s the right approach. The police must be accessible to the public, after all, right?
Sadly, this moron’s actions might lead to just that sort of approach, where the police are left hiding behind bullet-proof glass, inaccessible to the people they are supposed to serve and protect.
Spend too much time hiding behind the bullet-proof glass and vests really can lead to a mentality that says “us or them”. The end result of that nonsense is cops like Constable Geoff Mantler kicking an unarmed and defenseless man in the face when he’s already down on his knees in the street.
That’s not policing. That’s being a thug, an enforcer… organized crime mobs need enforcers… Not the police.
On Monday, January 24, the media were reporting that law enforcers are
interpreting the spate of 11 shootings within a 24-hour period in the
United States as a “war on police”.
Jim Gold of MSNBC is only one of numerous articles posted on the subject.
He cites:
The shootings included Sunday attacks at traffic stops in Indiana and
Oregon, a Detroit police station shooting that wounded four officers (the
incident Christopher commented on herein), and a shootout at a Port
Orchard, Wash., Wal-Mart that injured two deputies.
On Monday morning, two officers were shot dead and a U.S. Marshal was
wounded by a gunman in St. Petersburg, Fla. On Thursday, two Miami-Dade,
Fla., detectives were killed by a murder suspect they were trying to
arrest.
“It’s not a fluke,” said Richard Roberts, spokesman for the International
Union of Police Associations. “There’s a perception among officers in the
field that there’s a war on cops going on.”
The whole story is at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41235743/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
And if that isn’t enough, there is an associated story captioned Gunman
Shoots School Official in California; No students Injured.
Although, surprisingly, the Detroit police station was still a
bullet-proof-glass free zone, Christopher remarked on bullet-proof glass
installed in many police stations separates officers from the public they
should be assisting and serving,
Well, I can top that example.
Over 10 years ago, around the time the flames of paranoid publicity were
fanned high in the small Canadian city of Whitehorse, Yukon, and the
Carlos family was undergoing demonization simply because they were gun
owners, not only did all government offices install security buzzers at
bureaucrats’ desks, where they had their unlawful pepper-spray bombs
hidden in drawers, but the Court Registry inside the so-called Justice
department had bullet-proof glass installed.
I pointed out to the workers that the holes drilled in the glass to enable
the public and the employees to converse from either side of the
prison-like barrier were the perfect size in which to insert a gun barrel.
Ny question was who was expected to do the shooting from which side of the
counter? They weren’t amused.