Unless it comes out that the kid had a gun, he doesn't deserve to die, even if he is a punk bastard. SWAT is used way to much for too many of the wrong reasons.
They were afraid he was going to throw an egg at them.
The warrant charged him with armed robbery and ADW. Why shouldn't the police assume he was armed and dangerous?
Yeah, but how else are you going to justify a bloated police budget?
</sarcasm>
John Edwards is going to strange extremes to get his son that Christmas gift.
I'd reserve judgment on this. If he really committed armed robberies, as the report led the police to believe, then they would have expected him to be armed and dangerous, and might have mistaken what he held in his hand.
If he DIDN'T commit armed robberies, then whoever wrote the report needs to be disciplined. But I see no reason to disbelieve it.
The words "elite emergency response team" are a good indicator that shots will be fired and someone will likely die. We'll likely never know whether that death was necessary and justified or not.
The article I read said they killed his dog, too. I tried posting it earlier, but at the time, I could only find the AP link.
I think it is really ironic that our military gets in trouble for killing insurgants that are actively trying to kill them, but this kind of stuff is acceptable behavior right in our own backyards.
Granted, the kid sounds like a total punk, but this seems so extreme to me.
Looks like this kid had at least one other assault charge.
Oh my, how sad.
OldEagle has said for years that when police departments started wearing fatigues and combat boots law enforcement totally lost it.
They probably just saved 80 future Acuras from being stolen, and who knows how many related deaths and injuries of innocent victims in the process.
He was unloading the units at his campus apartment when a car pulled up and one man beat him to the ground while another took the Playstations, the sheriff said.
No tears for the thug. I'm glad he's dead.
Police forces attract sadists. Its a sad fact of life. These types relish the opportunity to commit murder in the name of the law.
Don't forget to shoot the dog!
The response was proportional. If he stole PlayStations, he deserved to die.
(See tagline for clarification of this post.)
Uhm, because the deputies were serving an arrest warrant that charged Strickland with armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and breaking and entering a vehicle. That's why.
Bad genes.
I have the feeling there is something big really missing from this story. If the dead guy had used a gun to steal the Playstation earlier, then I would assume he was armed and act accordingly. If not, then the police officers are in a world of sh** deservedly so, but I'll wait until all of the facts are in before passing judgement but at this moment I feel the kid set himself up for major failure by stealing in the first place.
"armed robbery" ~ you do that and they come after you with guns drawn.
The armed robbery warrant comes to mind. Search warrants are one thing; an arrest warrant for a violent is something else entirely. The "knock politely and hope the punk doesn't decide to light you up" approach is not a viable option in that situation, IMHO. Your mileage may vary.
"holding a video game controller "
How about holding a TV remote? How about any other bleeding legal harmless object in ONE'S OWN HOME? If you're carving a turkey and answer the door holding a knife?
Any of those things will get you killed.
No way would the cops ever stop and ask themselves "is that a gun or not". Their training makes them assume anything dark and held in the hand is a gun, and then, on automatic pilot they shoot.
They will apoligize. But they will not lose their jobs, go to court, go to jail.
Unless the innocent citizen they kill is a member of a certain minority group.