[Travis McGee]

And there are many Americans who believe that only highly trained professional police officers should be allowed to own or use firearms.

[Travis McGee]

BANG!

[neverdem]

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.

[edeal]

Looks like deputy Fife should have left the bullet in his pocket.

[Squantos]

Police have filed no charges against Freed, but said they are investigating.

Priceless........Stay safe !

[Redcloak]

What's this world coming to?! Not even our showers are a refuge anymore!

[Criminal Number 18F]

"Police have filed no charges against Freed, but said they are investigating"

There you have it. Trigger-happy Trooper Kirk Kirkland shoots a citizen while pistol-whipping him in citizen's own home, and the NJSP is desperately looking for some way to charge the victim of this crime.

The NJSP is so adamantly opposed to citizens owning weapons that they have their own old ones melted down. That is, the ones that don't somehow slip out of NJSP custody and into the hands of organised crime.

Who's the real threat to public safety?

d.o.l

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

I'd also like to add that the NJSP has been a laughingstock among agencies for decades because of its inept firearms policies. It was one of very few agencies to purchase the grip-cocking, gas-delayed oddity, the H&K P7, and they proceeded to shoot themselves, each other, and the landscape frequently enough that they either had to change guns or begin training officers (or recruiting trainable ones, if that's the problem).

Choice was the S&W 99. The choice was made, as ever in New Jersey, on kickbacks and political backscratching -- in this case, it was a payoff for the S&W lawsuit deal with the Clinton administration. There was only one slight problem: the S&W was so unreliable that the troopers couldn't even shoot themselves, let alone their usual targets: innocent citizens, each other, floorboards and roofs of cruisers, and highway signs. Not to mention whatever was behind, around or nearby fleeing felons. About half of the troopers had jams with the Smith... so they rolled the dice again.

I believe they finally came up SIG, but you have to want to sell guns really badly to sell them to these bozos. I wonder if the NJSP's very clumsiness with their service weapons is why they are death on Joe Citizen owning a gun (it's certainly why they were nearly death on this Joe Citizen).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[ambrose]

Officer Friendly.

[Tall_Texan]

The cop had probably watched too many movies and expected there to be a naked chick in the shower with a "come hither" look. Finding the person behind the curtain was just your typical New Jerseyite caused an instant panic, hence the poor shot.

[biggerten]

Could be they were afraid he was carrying a concealed weapon.

Or he coud have squirted them in the eyes with the shampoo.

He might have loofa-ed them and escaped.

Maybe they saw he was all lathered up about something, and feared he was a slippery character about to run.

[RatSlayer]

I an't believe that I'm the first one that gets to do the obvious joke based on the hoary old definition of "gun" in the Marine Corps...

He must have reached for his gun (i.e. his short arm).

[Kakaze]

How big is this house that they searched for 5 or 10 minutes before finding him in the shower....if the shower was on I'd hope they could hear water running? 5 minutes let alone 10 is really a long time to be going room to room, sounds as if these guys can't judge time or they were just plain damn scared. My bet is on scared which is why a crouching naked man is now shot.

You have to love real life, you just can't make this stuff up.

[xm177e2]

He never would have been shot if he hadn't been taking such long showers. That's what you get for decadence and moral degeneracy--the complete breakdown of society. I, for one, and glad we have law enforcement officers capable of upholding common standards of decency and environmental responsibility in the face of water-wasters.

Well, it sounds better when you say "illegal drugs" intead of "such long showers."

[leadhead]

Need a headline correction. Schuylkill Co., home of Yuengling Beer, is in Pennsylvania not NJ.

[bvw]

There are 21 counties in NJ, I can name every one of them from memory. Schuylkill County is NOT one of them.

There are over 60 counties in Pennsyvnia, I can name maybe 50 of them from memory.

Schuylkill County is in PENNSYLVANIA, near Harrisburg and Reading, and there is a Wayne Township there. (There's a lot of Waynes in Pennsylvania, and a few in Jersey, and there is definitely a Wayne in http://city.state-pa.us/Schuylkill-County/Wayne-Township)

[aomagrat]

Guns don't kill people, the government does.

[Timm]

Police have filed no charges against Freed, but said they are investigating.

Well, good. Yeah, the cop negligently shot a restrained, unarmed guy who had been taking a shower in his own house, but let's not forget who the real bad guys are here.

[dennisw]

Another reason to rely on yourself to protect your domicile, rather than an ill trained or just plain dumb policeman.

Many great cops out there but many dummies too. Many of our public schools suck and will produce poor specimens for the police academies.

[genefromjersey]

Just for the record, the newspaper is from NJ. Schuylkill County is in Pennsylvania,and the trooper was PA state police.

[JOE43270]

John Lott talks about this in his books. Police get to the scene afterword and have to figure out who the bad guy is. This doesen't mean polce don't need their weapons but the police do have a problem in this area.