Posted on 11/09/2013 7:56:44 AM PST by Rusty0604
After 19-year-old Tyler Comstock quarreled with his father and drove off in his truck, the elder Comstock decided to teach him a lesson by reporting the truck to the police as stolen.
Soon after, cops chased down Tyler and shot him to death despite receiving orders from dispatch to cease their pursuit.
On Monday, an argument broke out between Tyler and his father, James Comstock, who refused to buy his son a pack of cigarettes. Tyler stormed off and left in his fathers truck, which is owned by a lawn care company.
Cops pursued Tyler to the nearby Iowa State University campus in Ames, Iowa. During the chase, Comstock rammed a police vehicle at least once, according to reports.
Still, a recently released audio file revealed that dispatchers twice instructed police to stop following Comstock. The officers did not obey.
The truck eventually came to a stop in the middle of campus property, at which point police ordered Comstock to turn off the engine. Instead, the 19-year-old revved it, prompting Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson to fire six shots into the truck. Two of them hit Comstock, killing him at the scene.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
” The kid was acting stupidly, but I wonder
if the cops had heeded the two calls from
dispatch and quit chasing him, would it
have turned out differently?”
Most likely it too fun and exciting for them to give up. Happens all the time. There was a story a while back where half a department got involved over an engine backfiring.
Yup. Kid brought his f*ck you attitude to a gun fight. Sucks to be you kid.
Hell no. I tell my kids to avoid contact with police. Sadly.
My daughter is actually majoring in criminal justice so she knows a lot about police procedures and the like.
Ever since the secret service got away with gunning down an unarmed black women transporting her young child, I think police now know they can get way with murder.
If we start executing every driver that runs a red light, we’re going to need bigger morgues.
So failure to stop is a capital offense?
I would note that, if the argument is the cops need to kill a driver before the driver goes crazy and puts others in danger — well, I’ve rarely seen a case where the police successfully kill the driver while the driver is actually moving in a way that could endanger others.
Most of the time, like in this case, they first chase the driver at high speeds causing all sorts of risk, and only when they manage to get the car stopped do they jump out, rush the driver, and kill them.
Maybe the poster thinks the kid had a right to shoot the cop once the cop car started ramming his car.
“So failure to stop is a capital offense?”
Is that how you want to characterize his dangerous rampage, a mere “failure to stop”?
Is that all you would think of your wife/husband and children? A guy speeding down the road and running through red lights, bashing into your car or you bashing into his, a mere “failure to stop” for the cops?
“If we start executing every driver that runs a red light”,
-we’d be a safer nation and less dead families?
-we’d have less text messaging and distracted driving?
-we’d have less temper tantrums by out of control drivers?
-we’d have fewer criminals running from the cops?
Where do you want me to go with this?
Again, you are trying to trivialize this criminal driver so you can be dismissive of his actions. Sorry, but he wasn’t shot and killed for running a red light. He was shot and killed for failing to cease his dangerous actions that already involved the crashing of others, continuing to run red lights, and using his vehicle as a weapon.
If you don’t want to be shot and killed in efforts to stop your vehicle, don’t do those things, mkay? Grow up.
How would Andy have handled it? Sorry, Andy’s Mayberry doesn’t exist any more.
"Bashing the cop car at low speed, not so much, but blowing through red lights and bashing other vehicles, he is a dangerous felon and a predator on society. "So yes, you seem to be saying that if a driver runs a red light and runs into another car in the process, we should shoot them because they are a "dangerous felon" and a "predator on society".
To be clear -- there is no evidence in the video that the driver INTENDED to hit anybody, or meant any harm to anybody. You can certainly argue that his actions put people in danger (but frankly, I watch drivers every day do things that COULD lead to people being killed).
But there is no evidence that this person regularly ran into people, or ran red lights as a matter of course. What he did that night he did based on the specific circumstances. We don't know why -- maybe he panicked, maybe he was upset, maybe the cops did something that scared him to start.
Clearly, if the cop had NOT shot the man, and the man had then gotten out of the car, nobody, even YOU, would be arguing that he deserved the death penalty for what he did.
So why argue that he deserved to die, simply because he was shot by an officer?
BTW, I'd feel differently if the cop shot the driver while the truck was running toward the cop or another cop. I believe deadly force is warranted to stop an emminent car attack.
But the video shows the truck is not moving. At the time the shots were fired, there was no imminent threat to anybody. The killing was at best pre-emptive, based on an assumption that if the person was not killed, they would put the car back in gear, drive off, and eventually kill someone.
And our jurispudence very rarely allows police to make such a determination of the future. Even if they corner a known killer, they are not generally allowed to kill the killer unless the killer is making immediate threats.
Tough to feel sorry for this kid... while I fully understand the legitimate concerns about today’s “warrior cops”. This kid was out of control.
Watch the video. This kid damn near ran over some pedestrians and he rammed that cop car HARD. He was a menace. There’s no defending this one. This isn’t like the 13 year old kid with the bb gun , or the Jonathan Ferrell shooting.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cd3_1383861373
Pretty stupid thing for Dad to do.
Please note that I neither attacked the PD, nor defended the kid.
That didn’t stop the excessively self important (not you!) from calling me a stalker.
Yeah, I know who you’re talking about.
I daren’t ping him, lest he call me a stalker for the courtesy ping.
Oh, please!!! I despair!
He was a kid being a (for him) normal kid, for crying out loud. My gosh, you mean you've never known a few crazy kids? They grow out of it!!! So a young man goes a little nuts at a stage in his life and what, at most dings a few cop cars? SHOT and if not, regarded as a totally lost cause? It was a KID acting like a kid!!! *shaking head* Unless you live in a cloister. Most of America lives outside a cloister.
Kids screw up. This should have been a comedy the kid reminisced over as an old man, laughing shamefacedly about the time he ... instead, some snot-nosed authoritarian thug shot him dead.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.