Posted on 02/27/2014 10:07:51 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
WOODSON TERRACE • A man involved in a car crash in St. Louis County is dead after he began shooting at officers trying to save two women from the fiery wreckage, police say.
A police officer from the St. John Police Department was hit once, but his bulletproof vest saved him, police say. His injuries were not life-threatening.
Police returned fire. The suspect is dead, but police couldn't immediately say if the man died of gunshot wounds, the fire or injuries suffered in the crash. The dead man's name hasn't been released.
Two women survived the crash. One of the women got out on her own. Police pulled the other woman to safety from the back seat, said St. Louis County Police Officer Brian Schellman, whose department is handling the investigation.
The officers used a protective ballistics shield to fend off some of the flames to get to her, he said.
"They saved her life,"Schellman said.
No information was immediately available on the conditions of the women.
~snip~
As this was going on, one of the Woodson Terrace officers saw a man inside the burning car holding a gun.
"He saw a guy in the car raise a gun up," Dowling said. "And he yelled 'gun,' which you are trained to do. As soon as he said it, shots are being fired."
"Many officers had fired shots," Dowling said.
Dowling said he has seen many crazy things in his career in law enforcement. This one is now added to the list: Officers trying to rescue people from a car crash, "And this is the thanks they get."
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
I would say the cop might actually be justified in shooting this guy.
Could be a case of road rage, extreme road rage....
“A police officer from the St. John Police Department was hit once, but his bulletproof vest saved him”
Hips and heads people!
Yeah, I’m going to have to go ahead and say that firing on officers to avoid having them pull you out of a burning car is an “interesting lifestyle choice”. I am morbidly curious to know what prompted this “unique” strategy.
He was fired from ever breathing again, his lifetime membership to humanity was touched and I hope he burns in hell.
Car jacker is my first guess.
The shooting part is obviously stupid. I want to know about how the car caught fire so easily.
...along with the outside chance that a controlled substance was also a factor...
Yeah, I’m going to have to go ahead and say that firing on officers to avoid having them pull you out of a burning car is an “interesting lifestyle choice”.
Don’t judge. He was born that way.
“...along with the outside chance that a controlled substance was also a factor...”
Yes, that is the stock (but usually correct) answer for explaining “unique” behavior. He having committed some crime or other (which I’m sure he did) doesn’t adequately explain his decision to die in a burning car rather than go to jail.
It was a cold night and he was just trying to warm himself in the flames of the car accident when along comes this officer dragging him out of the warm flames into the cold of the night.
LOL!! Good one.
I have learned to become a little skeptical of these stories...
Lots of cops on the scene...
Perpetrator raises gun presumably to kill the cops who are about to rescue him from being burned alive...
Guy in car points his gun and shoots a police officer while his windows are being riddled with bullets and while being ingulfed in flames...
Make sense yet???
Cop says ‘gun’ and a police barrage takes place...
I hate to be pessimistic but we are learning that things aren’t always what they seem to be (or we are told to be) when it comes to the police...
I suspect we will never know for certain if the dead guy really had a gun...All it takes is for a cop to say ‘gun’ and your are dead...It could have been a cell phone or a banana...
I would also suspect the wounded cop got hit with ‘friendly fire’...
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