Posted on 05/25/2013 10:31:58 PM PDT by Altariel
19Daniel Harmon-Wright, the police officer in Culpeper, Virginia, who shot and killed former Sunday school teacher Patricia Cook in February 2012, has been sentenced to three years in prison. This is what the jury recommended upon convicting Harmon-Wright of manslaughter three months ago. According to WJLA, the Cook family will proceed with its lawsuit against Harmon-Wright.
Here's a brief recap of the damage done to Cook by Harmon-Wright:
The first two rounds, fired at point-blank range, tore into Cook’s face and arm. Another round, fired as Cook was driving away from the shooter, entered her brain. A fourth round severed her spine and veered into her heart, killing her. A telephone pole brought her Jeep Wrangler to a halt.
The Cook FamilyThe Cook FamilyAnd here's how Harmon-Wright's report about the incident contrasted with an eyewitness account:
[Harmon-Wright claimed] that he was responding to reports of a suspicious woman sitting in her vehicle on the school’s property, and that when he went to take Cook’s license, she rolled up his arm in her Jeep’s window and drove off, dragging the officer and forcing him to shoot.
Kris Buchele, a carpenter who was working near Epiphany on Feb. 9, told WUSA9 the week of the shooting that "[Harmon-Wright] was not dragged and that he shot [Cook] before she drove away"; that "he didn't have his arm caught because the officer's left hand was on the door handle and right hand was holding a weapon"; that "he distinctly saw her roll up the window all the way before the officer shot out the glass and killed her."
As I've written before, this could've been avoided if Harmon-Wright had been properly screened for the job:
Soon after Harmon-Wright was arrested, it was revealed that he had a tarnished military record, a drinking problem, and a history of harassing Culpeper residents. The first two problems nearly kept him from getting the job, and no one at the Culpeper Police Department will say why they didn't.
I'm not a big fan of locking people in cages, but I find it appalling that Daniel Harmon-Wright is going to do three years for murder while Cook got the death penalty for trying to avoid a confrontation.
IIRC, the murderer claimed that the victim had closed her window on his arm and was dragging him as she attempted to escape.
I've pulled off the road into a parking lot to make a call. I live in a small town, so I wouldn't think twice about pulling into the school parking lot to do so. Well.........until now.
But if he doesn’t say immediately, “I felt threatened’” then juries are free consider the evidence.
Because some people are hysterics.
My husband had to take my car to the garage. Afterwords he drove to where I worked to pick me up. Since he was an hour early he decided to tip the seat back and take a nap.
Despite the fact he was parked in my assigned spot in my car someone got so upset seeing him there that they came in and wanted the receptionist to call the cops.
Thankfully the receptionist looked out and recognized him and told the little nut case to go take a chill pill.
Cops have been mistrained in two basic issues. Number one: They are taught that they are allowed to do anything necessary in order to make sure that “at the end of their shift they are not dead.” Really? In days of yore it was an unspoken credo that cops would do everything within their power to not kill, even to the point of risking their own life. And two: Cops are taught to assume that everyone is a potential threat. This is obviously not true, but it leads them to look at what we would consider to be a normal circumstance and give it the imprimatur of evil.
“Hmm.. But why would any of that cause somebody enough concern to call the cops and report a “suspicious person”?”
Are you kidding?
Listen to the police frequencies some time.
People call the cops and report suspicious people all the time. There are people who call and report a car parked because they never saw it before. People report “suspicious vehicles” if someone is changing a tire, if someone drives slowly through a neighborhood looking for an address, if someone rolls down a window and asks for directions, you name it.
There are people who love any excuse to call the cops. They don’t need anything to cause them “concern”, they are just busy bodies who like to stick their noses into everything.
It is a right as far as I am concerned, and if that is what happened we have an aggravated murder IMO and three years isn't enough. 20 years maybe, giving consideration to the government's error in granting him power it should not have, but it is a capital offense.
When I am doing business with police in their official capacity I refuse to participate until a cause is stated. It is a firm but polite exchange and in my experience it has never been violated, although there have been times I have had to notch up the tone a bit. Would I drive away? That is what I would want to do, but I would have to consider there is already an armed person violating my rights and think seriously about what could happen in an escalation. When an armed person confronts you your life is in danger. That the person has a badge makes no difference really.
folking lying cops had better start telling the truth
Traffic in Culpeper is gridlock all day long. I used to stop by Baby Jim's when I'd head down that way, but no more. If she wasn't making a phone call, I'll bet the traffic had something to do with her pulling over and his rage.
She did get the death penalty for putting the cops life at risk
Earlier comments already listed a wide spectrum of possible reasons, starting with simple and common paranoia.
I can suggest one more theoretically possible reason. Husband and wife work at the same business. The wife is suspicious of fidelity of her husband. She looks into the window and sees a pretty woman in a car who is apparently waiting for someone. The husband is scheduled to go somewhere... The wife dials 911 to "teach that #$% a lesson."
Ping
The cop and his mother are the parties who should be sued. And bankrupted. She worked for the city and put in his paperwork so that his past that would have disqualified him from the job was not seen before he was hired. Her (or their) fraud would either absolve or reduce culpability on the city’s part
Further, Mrs. Cook’s husband died shortly after her murder, so that would reduce the damages significantly. It’s a sad story. The fault,tho, goes back to the cop and his mother.
Only three years? If he makes it through, what 20 months(?) that he'll end up serving before parole, I say if he even blinks crooked when he gets out, then somebody should go TAKE OUT the TRASH..
I suppose we can hope he gets a nice boyfriend in jail to comfort him. The way these cops seem to get the kid-glove treatment when infrequently busted, he will probably go to some country club jail.
If she had been my wife, this jerk would be getting “dispatched with prejudice” when he hit the street in 3 years, starting at very low abdomen and work upward.
If this kind of shit is to stop then the the buck must stop where it gets handed out to the thugs DOING the harm, you hire a thug, you keep said thug on the payroll, that thug,IN YOUR NAME, acts like a thug, YOU GET FINANCIALLY EVICERATED!
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