Posted on 02/27/2015 2:20:25 PM PST by rey
The family of a Santa Rosa man who killed himself during an armed standoff last year with Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies sued the county Friday in federal court, alleging an unwarranted, militarized assault on his home forced him to take his own life Dozens of deputies, including a SWAT team with an armored vehicle, descended on Swindell’s home and remained for hours after he released the kids and refused to come out. He committed suicide sometime the next morning when deputies filled the attic he was hiding in with tear gas and other chemical irritants, causing him extreme suffering, the lawsuit says. Essick said deputies were acting on a report from the wife that Swindell attacked her before barricading himself inside. The wife said this week the dispute was only verbal. “He just wanted them to go away,” his mother said. His mother said deputies created a situation where he was forced to shoot himself.
“It was a gas chamber up there,” Belka said. “He was suffering from all the chemicals.”
(Excerpt) Read more at pressdemocrat.com ...
“Are you saying if an assailant has a bat the officer should have no more than a bat?”
No I am not. If the assailant has a bat and is attacking, then attack back. If the assailant has a bat but is just cowering in a corner, hold off and wait him out.
In this case, there was no assailant. At least he wasn’t attacking. Just holed up in HIS OWN HOUSE! Wasn’t a threat to anyone at the time.
I’m not sure he wasn’t a threat. He held the kids captive suggesting he was a problem. Yes, he let them go, but what is there to say he wasn’t preparing to light the house, loosen the gas line and blow the house, etc. Remember, this was a neighborhood. It was shut down. His neighbors could not return home. His actions might have threatened their property. He certainly disrupted their lives. I guess they could have sat there for days. Would you wait for a week outside your home without your belongings at your own expense for a day? Three days? A week?
What about when protesters shut down a road, highway, interstate, city? Should the police just wait them out particularly if they are non violent? At what point is the expense, overtime, manpower, the reduction of services to other parts of the community disruption of business etc. no longer warranted and they need to act?
I do not think the police could have simply walked away from this guy. He obviously had a weapon which he used on himself. I believed he threatened to use it on the kids. Should the cop have walked away from Michael Brown? He, as far as the officer knew at the time, was walking in the middle of the street, disrupting traffic, and being obnoxious. If the officer left after being threatened by Brown should all officers leave after being threatened? Wouldn’t policing eventually become meaningless if that was the policy? Wouldn’t be a bit like Obama’s foreign policy?
Ultimately, the police did not kill him, he did that himself.
Good grief man...re-read your post...you viciously attack a police organization of which you know NOTHING....you assume that they would act in a certain way toward this character had he not offed himself....They probably make more than three arrests per year and those people turn out just fine...all three of them....You call them fuzz which makes me think that you may have had a run in or two with the police (all while you were innocently picking up medicine for your sick mom)
Talk about an adolescent diatribe about a police agency...yours was it.....you have a lot of maturing to do...get started on it right away
He didn’t shut down the neighborhood, the cops did.
He was in his own house. How is that not getting through to you?
NONE of the arguments you come up with are remotely akin to this.
Think WACO. Then get back to me.
Just answer this one question so I understand you clearly and I will leave this alone: You honestly think the cops should have just walked away after this armed man barricaded himself in the bathroom with his kids made threats and only released the children after the cops asked him to the cops should have just walked aw.ay? A simple yes or no.
Thanks
“Talk about an adolescent diatribe about a police agency...yours was it.....you have a lot of maturing to do...get started on it right away”
So it’s just an illinformed personal opinion.
“They probably make more than three arrests per year and those people turn out just fine...all three of them..”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/3255023/posts
No they just shoot the rest.
And now they are being sued again.
“(all while you were innocently picking up medicine for your sick mom)”
Mom died years ago, and yes I did get medicine for my mom,
what do you have against that?
As far as the fuzz part, I have to assume you would like to
censor my speech and quash my opinion too.
Honestly I don’t think this has anything to do with my post.
Your reply still doesn’t cut it. There is no way that was
the most asinine post you’ve ever read. You’ve been around too
long and your comments about it are too weak on substance.
So for whatever reason it is I apologize.
No
I’m not sure which is worse, the fuel economy or the tire life.
Yeah. I think they look ridiculous when they show with those things and their black uniforms and masks. They are like a bunch of kids playing. It would be like me having the Ronald Reagan pull up in the Napa River as a show of force.
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