The pen is mightier than the sword ... sometimes.
Posted on 09/23/2012 5:35:03 AM PDT by Yashcheritsiy
A Houston police officer shot and killed a one-armed, one-legged man in a wheelchair Saturday inside a group home after police say the double amputee threatened the officer and aggressively waved a metal object that turned out to be a pen.
Police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said the man cornered the officer in his wheelchair and was making threats while trying to stab the officer with the pen. At the time, the officer did not know what the metal object was that the man was waving, Silva said.
She said the man came "within inches to a foot" of the officer and did not follow instructions to calm down and remain still.
"Fearing for his partner's safety and his own safety, he discharged his weapon," Silva told The Associated Press.
Police did not immediately release the name of the man who was killed. They had been called to the home after a caretaker there called and reported that the man in wheelchair was causing a disturbance.
The owner of the group home, John Garcia, told the Houston Chronicle that the man had a history of mental illness and had been living at the house about 18 months. Garcia said the man had told him that he lost a leg above the knee and all of one arm when he was hit by a train.
"He sometimes would go off a bit, but you just ignore it," Garcia told the newspaper.
Silva identified the officer as Matthew Jacob Marin, a five-year veteran of the department. He was immediately placed on three-day administrative leave, which is standard in all shootings involving officers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
How does a one-armed man wave a pen, corner an armed LEO and move his wheel-chair in a “threatening” manner?
You’re absolutely right, the guy in the wheelchair was almost certainly mentally unbalanced, or else he would not have gotten hit by a train. Sitting in his own feces in wheelchair in a group home probably did not improve his disposition. I suppose the cops might have used night sticks or tazers, but I wouldn’t want to second guess them as quickly as most of the posters here.
There are a lot of messy situations in life and we leave it up to the cops to clean a lot of them up. It “behooves” us not to jump to judgments about incidents about which we do not know the facts and did not witness.
I would say that an average CCP holder has more restraint when it comes to ‘pulling the trigger’ than today’s LEO- naturally not all, but the ones that get ‘scared’ when a dog snarls at them.
Maybe it is because WE are held to 100% accountability while the ‘average’ LEO has no restraints since he has the ‘law’ behind him.
Of course there are several reasons for the rash of ‘unqualified’ LEO types, ‘equality, affirmative action, unreasonable restrictions/laws etc’.
Give our Military 20 years of drumming the ‘anti-gay, anti-female’ youth out and you(we) will be stuck with a military that is basically run COMPLETELY by pols and do nothings.
When I enlisted at 17 it was to get away from the ‘sissy boys, mothers, sisters etc etc’.
Also our ‘sensitivities’ were harmed when the police used to basically hire former Military types....that corps (police) started going to hell when the ranks were opened to all, regardless of sex/size/etc and then they started requiring college credits.
I just can’t picture ANY police from the 40’s, 50’s 60’s just sitting around and letting a Va Tech or Columbine situation happen, some ‘hero’ (maybe self named) would have stormed the building and tried to end it, not wait for teams of Ninja Shock Troops .... and ‘trained sociologists’ to either talk them down etc....
Guy should have had a sword since the pen is mightier. The cop couldn’t tell it was a pen “inches” away? What was the officers name? Magoo??
GMTA - I should have read further down before posting.
In 1966 when Charles Whitman began shooting people at the U of Texas, there was return fire from LEOs and CIVILIANS within 30 minutes.
“WTF is wrong with cops nowadays?”
________________________________
MOST have become pumped-up pigs on steroids trying to impress their team-mates by scaring little old ladies and young girls.
A friend of mine’s son is a jailer and was bragging to us that the night before and I quote....”We ‘got’ to taze a guy and it was so cool”. Not that they ‘had’ to taze a guy.
He’s a fat bloated pig like most of his co-workers.
How big was the pen?
Fountain pens have a nasty point.
/s
glad the yard dog made it out alive.
I used to have a friend who was a local LEO. He told me that he, and most of his fellow officers, were the 98 pound guys in high school who got their butts beat and lunch money taken from them every day.
He said, “Now I got a badge and a gun. Now I get to be the bully.”
His wife had been a friend of mine from before they got married. I recently had lunch with her, and she told me horror stories of the abuse she’s suffered since she divorced him. Not only has he abused his power, but other law enforcement agencies have been harassing her too.
BTW, you know those little black tags with the blue stripe? That says that this is family of a cop, and to leave them alone. They also have a blue stripe on their driver’s license for the same reason.
ARREST THAT OFFICER!
Once they were Men, now they are officers. There is a fundamental and profound difference. 50 years ago, a cop doing this shooting could never have faced his fellows.
Once they were Men, now they are officers. There is a fundamental and profound difference. 50 years ago, a cop doing this shooting could never have faced his fellows.
I've noticed that most cops don't carry long nightsticks anymore, and I'll bet it's for legal reasons - it might look bad on video if a cop were seen clubbing someone.
But a long nightstick would have done the job here. Not as a club, but to push and deflect.
The pen is mightier than the sword ... sometimes.
Not really. In most cases they've been replaced by the ASP batons.
“Lots of respectable people been hit by trains.”
Give me a break.
The cop is a murderer.
And a damned coward.
But since he is a government stooge he will suffer no penalty.
See Post 31.
Sometimes it’s so obvious Ray Charles could see it.
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