Posted on 01/26/2015 9:36:02 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Longview Police Department placed three officers on leave after a 17-year-old girl was shot and killed in the lobby of the station last week, the Marshall News Messenger reported.
According to officials, Kristiana Coignard entered the Texas police station on Thursday evening brandishing a weapon. Police spokeswoman Kristie Brian said Coignard used a phone in the lobby to call police dispatch and asked to see an officer.
When officers arrived in the lobby, she "came at the officers" with a weapon, according to Brian. Police did not confirm what type of weapon Coignard had, but Longview Mayor Jay Dean said that she was carrying a knife, according to the Marshall News Messenger.
Justice of the Peace James Mathis said Coignard was shot "multiple times," according to the Marshall News Messenger.
Police have not released many details about the incident. It remains unclear why Coignard entered the police station and what occurred before she was shot.
The 17-year-old was living with her aunt, Heather Robertson, who told ThinkProgress that her niece had been struggling with mental illness.
“I think it was a cry for help," Robertson said about Coignard's actions last week. "I think they could have done something. They are grown men. I think there is something they are not telling us."
Robertson said her niece has struggled with depression and bipolar disorder since her mother died when she was four years old. Coignard has been hospitalized twice after trying to commit suicide. Robertson told ThinkProgress that Coignard "was only violent with herself."
The three officers involved in the incident were placed on leave, and the Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting.
I got in a lot of psych courses in college, watching the instructors was like a trip to the zoo.
...
LOL. I kind of had the same experience. However, I think the state of cognitive science has made great progress and is very good these days. But I think there are still a lot of flakes in the profession.
Thank God for grandmothers.
No, it just means you have trouble reading and processing facts.
I wouldn't have an iota of problem with the shooting if the person in the lobby was a 6'5" meth amped demon spawn who could bend #10 bars repetitively, but get some freakin' cerebral analytics going here, it's an ~100 POUND 17 year old GIRL.
FTR - For the people who will whip out the "armchair quarterbacking" obfuscation, the only thing I would ask God for on the lines of a personal request for myself is that he fortify my soul to step up to the plate when confronted with something like this, or an active threat to others, regardless of the state of my readiness.
Dude, she’s not an Agent in the Matrix...
In between calling names, maybe you can tell us more things that you learned from videos on the internet.
Show me where in the police book of rules it states that officers are not only expected to but required to disarm knife wielding aggressors inside their precincts by hand.
Why would a person allow another person wielding a knife in a threatening manner to approach within melee range thus increasing the effectiveness of the weapon that person is wielding?
Why should an officer be expected to use a taser against a person with a knife?
What if the taser prong misses as the suspect is charging?
What if the taser prong hits the knife and deflects off thus rendering the taser useless?
Did any of those officers show up on scene with a loaded bean bag gun? No? Oh well.
I am curious as to why you expect a person to risk their own life for this person’s life, when it is quite clear that this person does not care for their own life, and very likely does not care for anyone else’s life?
100 pound 17 year old girls with knives CAN KILL YOU.
I am not arguing that the police were right or wrong, because I do not see enough information yet for a valid judgment in that area.
The fact that this was a small 17 year old girl is a factor in that judgment. But so is the reported fact that she was attacking with a knife. The availability of other tools to use in th building isn’t much of a factor - because the attack can’t be paused until such items can be procured from wherever they are stored.
If the officers screwed up, I say punish them in accordance with the law. But, we do need to ensure that the determination they screwed up is based on a complete picture of the situation, not on an emotionally written article that presents only the sympathetic side for the decedent.
No. Ask any citizen if they have the same rights to fend themselves.
I’m not going to ask any one anything.
You have stated that you believe these officers acted outside of the self defense laws of their state.
Explain that belief.
Show me the law that they violated, and tell me exactly how they violated it.
What crime would you now present to a grand jury for consideration of indictment?
Excessive use of force.
Mitigating factor:
They were being charged by a mentally ill person wielding a deadly weapon in a threatening manner.
Charge dismissed.
Homicide was justifiable.
Three guys in a grocery store and some little girl attacks them with a knife. They shoot her. Do they get off?
What does the law say?
You can answer your own hypothetical scenario simply by reading the law.
But for the sake of discussion, “little girl” is not relevant.
“Little girl attacks them with a knife” is extremely relevant. A knife is a deadly weapon, and to attack someone with a knife is to place their life in immediate danger.
To simply wield a knife against someone in a threatening manner is assault with a deadly weapon, which is a serious felony.
What if the little girl in the grocery store had a gun and attacked three guys with it and they shot her?
Do they get off?
I don’t care how the law can be parsed. They should have been laughing at her but cops today are trained to treat every perceived threat as an attempt on their lives. What these trained PEACE OFFICERS did was shoot a little girl for no reason other than they could.
Checkmate.
I know, better for all involved if she had just secretly thrown herself off a bridge some dark night into a raging torrent of water but instead she chose 'suicide by cop'.
Well it seems that if she`d been locked away in a loony bin, where evidently she belonged, she wouldn`t have had the chance to commit suicide by cop!
Now I wonder who failed to pull that insane asylum commitment trigger?
You have no proof of that.
That is simply your opinion backed up by not one single fact as presented by this article.
Maybe you would laugh at a person attacking you with a knife, but I wouldn’t, and neither would others, and neither did these police.
They were clearly within the law, and I don’t care if you refuse to understand that or not.
You can be sad that the girl died if you want. I can understand that reaction. I don’t personally have that reaction in this case, because she purposely made herself into a legitimate threat against the lives of others, and they dealt with her as such.
But I cannot sympathize with any attempt to hold these men criminally accountable for this action. They already have to deal with the fact that this girl forced them to kill her via her deadly actions.
Reagan removed the trigger.
Its almost impossible to get someone institutionalized these days. At most you can get them put in a hospital for a few days.
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