Posted on 09/10/2019 11:43:34 AM PDT by righttackle44
The names of two officers involved in the shooting of three children in Hugo, OK have been released over a week after the tragic incident took place.
Hugo Police Department detectives Billy Jenkins and Chad Allen have been identified as the officers who opened fire on a vehicle driven by William Devaughn Smith, 21, whom they suspected of robbing a pizza shop. The bullets struck three of the four children sitting in the back seat.
“My 4-year-old daughter was shot in the head, and she has a bullet in her brain, and my 5-year-old has a skull fracture,” mom Olivia Hill told KFOR. “My 1-year-old baby has gunshot wounds on her face. My 2-year-old wasn’t touched with any bullets.”
Police claim they began shooting because Smith was attempting to run them over with his truck, but many dispute this argument, saying officers simply could have moved out of the way rather than opening fire, especially into a vehicle containing children. It should also be noted that officers were in plain clothes that day, meaning Smith very well may not have known the two men approaching him with guns were police.
(Excerpt) Read more at ebony.com ...
UNMARKED CARS.
PLAIN CLOTHES.
How do you know whether they’re cops or robbers? You have 500 milliseconds to figure it out.
You don’t know. There’s no way you can know.
Congratulations! You decided to surrender … and they were robbers. They came up and shot you in the head for your car, and threw your kids out while driving off at high speed.
At least no officers were hurt, so I guess it’s OK.
I gotta ask. What happens when you stop for the shooter and he points a gun at you and orders you out of the car with your kids still in it?
Hauling your kids to a robbery
Didn't happen. Though, you'd never know if from this poorly-written article.
“What happens when you stop for the shooter...”
Make that “armed man”, rather than “shooter”.
“How do you know whether they’re cops or robbers?”
Yeah, like I have already explained, if you are a criminal and have recently committed a felony, it’s pretty much common sense that the men approaching your car with guns drawn telling you to put your hands up are probably cops.
The cops may suspect that they're approaching a criminal. They don't know that they're approaching a criminal.
When they're getting out of plain cars, wearing plain clothes, and pointing guns … to the honest citizen THEY LOOK LIKE CRIMINALS THEMSELVES.
The honest citizen will defend himself against them by any means necessary.
The cops had best learn to make damn well sure that they don't EVER look like criminals.
Its actually again pretty simple.
When you stop for the armed man who is accosting you he shoots you in the head, steals your car, throws your baby out the window, and takes your 10 year old daughter out into the woods where he rapes her to death.
But no officers were hurt, so it’s OK.
Ken, that isn’t what took place here.
Look how that turned out.
If a person has a gun on you, you do what they tell you.
If your kids are in the car, you instruct them to do the same thing.
In certain situations, there’s nothing you can do.
You can only pick the option with the best odds, even if those odds are 0% and 10%. You pick the 10%.
This guy has several daughters with head wounds.
Perhaps if he had stopped, there would have been nobody shot, or perhaps everyone shot.
Is there a perfect answer? No.
There’s a case for your argument too.
This time that didn’t work too well, but next time the thing I support might not work out.
It just sucks.
“Are you a criminal? You seem to insist on thinking like one, so I wonder.”
You’re posing a hypothetical question. The proper answer to that question depends to a great degree on whether you are a criminal or not. You can pretend it doesn’t, but common sense dictates that it does.
“The cops may suspect that they’re approaching a criminal. They don’t know that they’re approaching a criminal.”
They usually have probable cause to suspect they’re approaching a criminal, and in this case, judging by his reaction, they were probably correct.
“When they’re getting out of plain cars, wearing plain clothes, and pointing guns … to the honest citizen THEY LOOK LIKE CRIMINALS THEMSELVES.”
Maybe to you. You’re assuming they didn’t do the standard things that police would do in this situation, like display badges and identify themselves as police officers. Even the attorney in the article admits he isn’t sure what happened, but you seem to know. Were you an eyewitness?
Too bad it's a DHS requested "No more hesitation" target that was used to train cops to shoot reflexively.
Sorry about the resolution, the higher resolution images have been memory holed.
The same question applies to you. Well?
You're assuming that the plain clothed people getting out of plain cars did the "standard things that police would do", with no justification for assuming that.
You seem to be insisting that the police can do no wrong …
I'm pointing out to you that the police have become their own worst enemies; that their behavior can and does often look criminal.
If the police want to be respected, they need to show some respect. That might reasonably start with looking unmistakably, unambiguously, like police. Plain clothes and plain cars arethe polar opposite of this.
ROFL!!!
A reasonable person is going to look at the situation and think “Guns? Plain clothes? I’m outta here, and if one of those bastards gets in the way TOO DAMN BAD!”
*******
According to a prepared statement issued to the Hugo News this week by the town’s mayor Richard Higginbotham, Hugo police detectives had developed Smith as a person of interest in the April 11 robbery of the Pizza Hut and had obtained a description of a vehicle being driven by Smith. On the day of the shooting, Hugo Police Chief Jon Paul Bozeman spotted the pickup and notified the two detectives, Jenkins and Allen, who responded immediately and followed Smith in an unmarked pickup truck, the statement read.
After following Smith’s vehicle to the Washington Community Center parking lot, Jenkins and Allen, who were in plain clothes, got out of their vehicle and began to walk toward Smith’s parked pickup “hoping to make a consensual contact with the driver,” when the children’ mother, Olivia Hill, who is listed as Smith’s sister, exited Smith’s pickup, according to Higginbotham’s statement.
Smith then allegedly put the vehicle into reverse and “accelerated rapidly backwards, striking one of the detectives,” Higginbotham’s statement read. “Both detectives then fired their guns in an effort to protect themselves.
“Prior to the shooting, neither of the detectives saw any children in the suspect vehicle,” Higginbotham said. “Neither of them had any information from the robbery investigation there might be any children in the suspect vehicle. After the suspect struck the front of the undercover police vehicle, it continued going backwards until it came to rest after running into some steel poles supporting an overhead awning between the buildings. Only after the detectives approached the car and looked inside did they discover the four children in the back seat.”
end snip
If I’m goin’, I ain’t goin’ alone.
Plain clothed officers trying to apprehend a subject, no knock raids on American citizens, all this nonsense needs to stop immediately. These simply cannot co-exist in a free society. American citizens, even ones “suspected” of crime, have as much right to self preservation as the police do.
Quite simply, plain clothes mean no police. No American ever, under any circumstance, should stop for plain clothed people, especially armed ones.
People on this thread seem to say that even if they were robbers, better to pull over, do as they say, and instruct your children to do the same. This is crazy.
Not since the hijackings of the 70s has it been wise to do as you captures wish. Resist, resist with all you have. If you are in a car, as someone said earlier in this post, STAND ON THE GAS PEDAL.
“You’re assuming...”
No, I’m not. You’re assuming they didn’t. I am not assuming either way, I just pointed out the assumptions you have made.
“You seem to be insisting that the police can do no wrong …”
Nope again. They certainly can do wrong, but you seem to be assuming that they definitely did wrong, without much evidence either way.
Thank you for the snip. I did notice this tid bit, from their prepared statement.
“hoping to make a consensual contact with the driver,”
Now anyone know why, as an officer, you try to make consensual contact? Let me offer this hint, it is not because you know you have the suspect in question, it is not because you have warrants for the rig, it is because you have no idea and you wish to initiate consensual contact so you can gain information you otherwise would not be able to collect.
Super interesting that was in their “prepared” statement.
Exactly, plus he had his kids in the car. Getting them away from a clear threat is all that matters.
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