Posted on 05/09/2015 7:42:03 AM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
It’s been nearly three-and-a-half decades since I killed Edward Randolph, but when I fix my mind on those desperate seconds from the time he thrust the butcher’s knife he clasped with both his hands into my partner Dennis Azevedo’s chest and the moment I shot him flush in his own, it can seem like yesterday.
After being stabbed in the chest and fending off several other attempts to murder him, Dennis fell flat on his back and Randolph leapt on top of him, trying to force the knife he held with both hands into Dennis’s throat. My first reaction when I got close enough to help was to reach in and grab Randolph’s wrists with both of my hands, as Dennis was doing. But Randolph jerked his arms away and broke my grip.
The crucial moments from the time Randolph first attacked Dennis and when I arrived at my partner’s side lasted no more than 12 seconds, perhaps as few as seven. A mere three to four seconds passed from the time I first grabbed the suspect’s wrists to the time I pulled the trigger.
Those last few seconds have proven to be among the most significant in my life. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Didn’t realize this was a COP - reference to his “partner” is speaking of his fellow officer.
Kinda reads differently with that in mind.
Ditto
Maybe all the incidents every day (probably in thousands) that cops don’t use their guns when they had the authority to should be published when s deadly shooting occurs.
The internet is great, but it also can be used incredibly selectively, i.e., showing the dozen or so bad shoots a year over and over on TV until Obama’s sons, having nothing to do but watch tv, make babies and maybe sell drugs, get worked into a frenzy and destroy any/everything they can.
there are 1.2 million cops in the country.
the only logical way to stop all bad shoots is the same as the only logical way to stop all traffic accidents. Ban them. Yes, that is ridiculous.
Another perfectly good word that has been ruined by the libertines.
Not very well written IMO.
The Liberals have to have an enemy to set their voters against.
The police got a pass for awhile because they unionized and gave money to the Democrat Party.
The military was the enemy.
Now, homosexuals are encouraged to join the military. Females can tryout for any job or school. The defense budget is slashed to provide more money for the inner city Democrat voters, and the military leaders don’t say anything.
That brings the police back to the forefront of the Liberals enemy list.
“Vote Democrat and we will protect you from the bad police who want to kill you! Ignore the real criminals. They vote for us.”
Ever see a study showing which party criminals vote for? Why not?
If he had meant “partner” in THAT sense, he would have said “husband.”
Me too! That says something about us and our society I suppose, but it also says that they are not upfront with the way they are presenting the story.
Nevertheless, even if these had been 2 gay guys and not 2 cops it sounds like the shooting was ENTIRELY justified. I don’t know why this man would have spent one moment of anguish over it.
He was just lucky he was a cop and not some random gay guy, the gay guy probably wouldn’t have had the gun he needed to save the other man’s life from a psycho who was determined to kill him.
It seems to me that someone could easily assemble a whole bunch of re-creations of both police and civilian shootings, to create a “look and feel” of what it is like. Similar to videos that show how martial arts techniques are done, they could show both the right ways and the wrong ways of armed defense.
The value of doing this is so that the public can have a mental model of how such things happen. As such it illustrates things very hard to explain otherwise.
The same scenario, say an ordinary armed mugging, becomes very different if the victim has concealed carry, and repeated versions of the mugging, ending with the cc carrier capping the mugger, would make a very valid point.
Reconstructions of police shootings are made much easier by the surfeit of analyses made afterwards. Importantly, limited reconstructions of this sort are being used more often in court, typically using CGI, which is inferior to having it done by living people.
Such DVDs would be inexpensive to make.
This happened 35 years ago, so probably not.
I agree. It didn’t flow well, and if there was a point to the piece, some epiphany or a conclusion, even a conclusion that remained with questions, I didn’t see it or feel it. The piece just sorta ended, and I dont get the grand point to it.
The Brits say “partner” when they mean boyfriend/girlfriend OR husband/wife. It gets very confusing.
I had to go to the LAPD website to find out if his partner died - he didn’t.
The police have been making these things for 30 years. They’re called interactive “shoot/don’t shoot” videos. and the public would find them to be an eye opener.
CC
LOL. Most of the gays I know, admittedly not many, are armed to the teeth.
Count to 12, it's longer than you might think. I'd have shot in the 1st few seconds. His partner should have shot before he found himself on the ground.
Good point! I didn’t even think about his partner’s outcome. He totally omitted that. I guess I just assumed he died.
I kept waiting for some kind of emotional/intellectual depth to it that only a person in his line of work and having taken a life could realize, but there was no climax. No great insight.
Yes, I know about those. But they are single event subjective, they don’t really analyze what is going on. They need things like overlays showing distance (which is important if you are considering Tueller distance), different times of day and night, introduction of unexpected common variables, etc. Likewise play by play narration would be a huge help.
Pretty soon the same scenario can be depicted dozens of different ways.
It will never happen, but I'd love to see a crime movie start out with a woman being stalked and cornered by a Bad Guy. Home in on the look of terror on her face, then watch it change as she remembers she is carrying, whips out her handgun and shoots the attacker. Fade to black and "The End" on the screen. Total time, a minute or two.
As the audience sits there murmuring WTF?, the movie starts again with the message that it will continue, this time with the woman being unarmed and relate how the murderer was tracked down.
Even a YouTube of the first minute or two would get the point across.
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