'hoplophobic moron journalist' - Tony Norman
Posted on 01/19/2014 2:31:52 PM PST by Uncle Chip
On Monday, Curtis Reeves, a 71-year-old former police captain, ignored the signs posted at a Florida movie theater forbidding weapons on the premises....
Sitting a row in front of him, 43-year-old Chad Oulson, a former U.S. Navy petty officer, and his wife .....
According to reports, Mr. Oulson exchanged texts with the baby-sitter before the movie started to make sure all was well....
Mr. Reeves reportedly glowered at the couple before asking Mr. Oulson to stop texting. Mr. Oulson ignored him.
Mr. Reeves tried to find the theater manager, but he was busy with another customer.
Words were eventually exchanged while Mr. Reeves' son [a police officer] was in the lobby on a refreshment run.
The dispute quickly escalated. A bag of popcorn was angrily flung. It isn't clear who threw the first kernel. Witnesses insisted it was Mr. Reeves, who, in turn, blamed Mr. Oulson.
Allegedly fearing for his life, Mr. Reeves pulled a .380 semi-automatic handgun and shot Mr. Oulson. The bullet passed through Mrs. Oulson's hand as she tried to shield her husband.....
Mr. Reeves was put behind bars and charged with second degree murder ....
The theory his lawyer spun about his fearing for his life didn't begin to jibe with reality and was widely ridiculed, even by Second Amendment absolutists.
Mr. Reeves helped start Tampa's tactical response team in the 1990s, so his attempts to portray himself as some kind of scaredy cat added an element of absurdity....
Only the most irrational gun enthusiasts are defending Mr. Reeves on newspaper comment boards and blogs. There is a class of very scared gun owners out there who claim they would have done the same thing as Mr. Reeves did under the circumstances. Flicked popcorn kernels constitute assault if Mr. Oulson threw it first....
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
He appears to be suffering from iamgoditus which is common in law enforcement and your argument that his training should have prevented his actions if he were in his right mind is countered by the number of police who are "in their right minds" who act like he did and worse.
If you want to argue that police training, especially that given to "tactical" types produces iamgoditus dementia I might agree.
You’re right — he wanted to speak with management but only got an employee who was going to pass on the conversation to management.
Hello! This animal gets upset that someone’s texting interferes with his viewing of previews and commercials, but then leaves his seat to go to the lobby to complain and willingly misses those precious previews and commercials?
Most cops who do horrible things like this have a history of excessive force complaints, their penchant for thuggery ends up documented, even if never punished.
Saying tactical training turns all who receive it into thugs is like saying military training turns all soldiers into homicidal maniacs because they’ve been trained to kill.
I do agree that there has been a shift in focus from protecting citizens to excessive emphasis on officer safety and this is more responsible for the stupid shootings than tactical training.
I think the unions also bear responsibility for the development of the unprofessional us vs them attitude that has resulted in the breakdown of relationship between the public and law enforcement.
Then comes back and starts another argument with the guy and then creates further commotion by shooting him causing everybody else to miss the movie.
Yeh — that texting is sure a nuissance to fine movie watching.
Not really.
Military training is "do your job and know that you will be called to account if you do things that are wrong."
Police tactical training is, "As long as I make it home safe everything I do is justified."
So, yes, "tactical training" where the police are trained to act like "the military according to Hollywood" is to blame.
I think the unions also bear responsibility for the development of the unprofessional us vs them attitude that has resulted in the breakdown of relationship between the public and law enforcement.
I will agree with that.
I will also state that Hollywood which portrays the police in TV and Movies as routinely violating the law and that being the "right thing" has a lot to do with way the police view themselves.
Take the movie that they were waiting to see. The SEAL's behind enemy lines let the civilians go knowing that likely they would run straight to the Taliban.
Do you think your average police movie would show the police acting in the same manner?
No, at the very least they would have trumped up some reason to hold the civilians and "lose their paperwork" so to keep themselves safe if there was the slightest risk.
That's what I meant about the shift in focus. It used to about protecting the public, now it's about officer safety. It has changed the way they train.
Astute observation about the negative effect of Hollywood glorification of "rogue" cops and the end justifies the means BS.
Widow of theater shooting victim expected to speak at news conference
TAMPA — Nicole Oulson, whose husband was killed last week in a movie theater shooting that made national news, is scheduled to appear in a news conference at 10:30 Wednesday morning.
Her attorneys with the Tampa firm McIntyre, Panzarella, Thanasides announced the news conference Tuesday, saying it is “regarding the shooting death of Mrs. Oulson’s husband, Chad Oulson.”
Nicole Oulson is expected to speak.
I wouldn't go that far but second degree murder charges are certainly justified. This wasn't manslaughter.
Which federal law is that?
Most accounts say Reeves started the confrontation. But regardless, are you saying that thrown popcorn rises to the level of fear of imminent death or great bodily harm that the Florida law requires to justify the use of deadly force?
The problem is that it's morons like this who give the overwhelming majority of responsible CCW permit holders a bad name.
Mr. Escobar has said that because of his age, Florida law supports Mr. Reeves’ self-defense claim. In Florida, a misdemeanor assault against anyone 65 or older is a felony. And in Florida, a person who has a reasonable fear of great bodily injury or death is not obligated to retreat.
“He’s throwing spaghetti against the wall to see which noodle sticks,” said TJ Grimaldi, a lawyer representing Mr. Oulson’s widow, Nicole.
But even Mr. Zimmerman’s defense lawyer said that given what is known so far, it would be difficult to come up with a Stand Your Ground defense in these circumstances.
“A felony in and of itself does not justify deadly force,” said Mark O’Mara, who successfully defended Mr. Zimmerman at his trial this summer. “I would call that a Hail Mary pass.”
The use of deadly force is justified only if the fear of bodily harm is reasonable and if the felony is dangerous, regardless of the shooter’s age, Mr. O’Mara said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/a-movie-date-a-text-message-and-a-fatal-shot.html?_r=0
The situation is more complicated than that. Both men may have reacted based on habit. Habits are lodged in the basal ganglia, the reptilian brain. There is no conscious thought once habit takes over. Text dude, by any account, was checking on his daughter all the time before the theater incident. That may have resulted from guilt over an attack by the family dog that put the kid in the hospital. Over time the constant checking became a habit. Text dude couldn’t help himself even when the kid was at daycare.
The retired cop obviously had been trained to defend himself over the years to the point it was a habit. what you had that day was two reptilian brains reacting to each other. Neither planned what happened. They were both on automatic. It was fight or flight at it’s worse.
Get the book “The Power of Habit.” It’s a fascinating revelation of how scientists discovered that habits are not conscious thought. There’s also an interesting story about how Target knows when women are pregnant even if they don’t.
If you want to understand why intelligent people do things that aren’t logical, read the book.
The cop had been retired for 20 years. One would assume that his training would have worked its way out over that period.
Are you saying that he was in the habit of shooting people that texted or threw popcorn at him???
Read post 36. I was wrong about the federal statute’s scope.
'hoplophobic moron journalist' - Tony Norman
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