Posted on 03/18/2008 9:34:05 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
OCEANSIDE -- Police weren't saying much Monday about a suspected road rage incident Saturday night in which an off-duty San Diego police officer shot and wounded a Camp Pendleton woman and her 8-year-old son.
The off-duty officer, Franklin "Frank" White of Oceanside, fired an undisclosed number of shots during the incident, which happened at about 9:30 p.m. in a shopping center parking lot off Old Grove Road, said Oceanside police Sgt. Kelan Poorman.
The woman and child remained hospitalized Monday, but authorities said their injuries were not life threatening.
White is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the Oceanside Police Department's criminal investigation and an internal review by the San Diego Police Department, Chief William Lansdowne said Monday. White has worked for the San Diego Police Department since October 2005.
Poorman said the incident apparently began when one car cut off another car in traffic. He said one driver followed the other driver to the parking lot of the Lowe's Home Improvement store on Old Grove Road, where the shooting took place. He declined to say which car White was driving.
The other driver, a white female in her 20's, was not armed, according to Poorman. Parties from both cars called police, he said.
Poorman said he did not know whether White -- who was accompanied by his wife at the time of the incident --- was inside or outside of his car during the shooting, or whether White acted in self-defense.
"I think that's probably why the shots were fired, but I'd be speculating," Poorman said.
The injured woman is married to a Marine and lives on Camp Pendleton, Poorman said. She was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, where she is still a patient.
As of Monday afternoon, she had not been interviewed, but investigators did speak with her son at Rady Children's Hospital, Poorman said.
He said Oceanside investigators are still trying to obtain surveillance video from businesses in the area
White was not in a police vehicle at the time of the incident, Poorman said.
State and federal laws give off-duty police officers the right to carry a weapon.
A countywide policy adopted in May 2007 addresses when and how off-duty officers may intervene when they observe a law being broken, said San Diego Police Department spokeswoman Monica Munoz.
The policy states that law enforcement officers retain "full power and authority" to perform policing duties when not on duty, including carrying a weapon.
Munoz said she could not comment on whether San Diego police official believe White fired his gun in a police capacity because they are not conducting the investigation into the incident.
Oh man you’re gonna be called a murtha lover now. Stop talking like that.
“From the very first attack you made.”
I’ve made no attacks, though I have made rational responses to your attacks.
Maybe you should review your posts, numbers 34,42,45, and 51, and ask yourself who the attacker really is.
In your first post to me, you said I was a “boot licker.” Every post of yours after that, it was some sort of personal attack. Read your own posts, and if you have the integrity to admit it, you’ll realize that you are the “attacker” here.
That's truly offensive, and is antithetical to the very concept of freedom you rant about.
You seem to have a blanket assumption that LEOs never wrongly defend LEOs. That is manifestly wrong - just the same as it is wrong to say that LEOs are always in the wrong. There are some very troubling indications in this tale. There is not enough information to tell what the whole story is.
But the woman is still hospitalized, and hasn't been interviewed. That tells me it's fairly serious (although not life threatening, apparently). The LEO was not in uniform, and approached her in some fashion (in or out of his car) off the road (in a parking lot), and ended up shooting her, and apparently her son.
I'm not drawing a conclusion, but the fact that he wasn't even arrested kind of bugs me at this point. The fact that the police spokesman admits he is speculating, but still floats the balloon of self-defense bugs the living daylights out of me.
You give me waaay too much credit.
If he witnessed something so egregious that he felt it rose to the level of LAW-BREAKING, then he should have pulled out his cell phone, dialed 911, and called the local PD and given them her license plate number and her whereabouts. At the most he could have followed from a discreet distance and led the local PD to her.
Instead he had a chip on his shoulders and wanted to throw his own weight around. He made a piss-poor decision and should be held to account for it.
“That’s truly offensive, and is antithetical to the very concept of freedom you rant about.”
What’s offensive about taking someone to task for condemning a cop, when he has no evidence to do so? Especially when he calls me a “bootlicker.” I suppose you don’t find that offensive?
I simply responded to the post where he asked me what boot polish tasted like. If someone doesn’t know what boot polish tastes like, they must not have ever had to spit-polish a pair of boots. Hence, my response is the logical conclusion that they:
A. Have never served their country.
B. Have condemned one who is serving to protect them from those who would do them harm.
C. Have done so with little, if any, evidence.
D. Are, by this evidence, a person of poor character.
I’m not taking away his freedom to be a person of poor character; I’m simply pointing out that he is such a person.
I make no blanket assumptions.
I also am drawing no conclusions about the incident in question. I’m simply upholding this cop’s right to a presumption of innocence, until evidence of his guilt surfaces.
And as for my “rant” about freedom, well, that’s just the way I am.
Correction, according to Mapquest, Oceanside is 39 miles away from San Diego.
“Oceanside is 20+ miles away and in another PD’s turf.”
So, the cop was acting illegally in approaching the woman’s vehicle? What happened next?
I’ll admit that with this cop being out of his jurisdiction, there are some questions raised about his right to pull her over, but he didn’t really pull her over. Maybe it’s more a matter of his using poor judgement in approaching her vehicle at all.
I look forward to getting the rest of the story. I know it’s not unheard of for cops to misbehave, or break the law, but I refuse to convict him without hearing the whole story.
Unlike so many on this thread.
It amazes me how many FReepers are cop-haters.
Yes, because of his piss-poor decision making skills. He was in no shape or form "protecting anyone from harm" in this situation, quite the opposite he was the instigator and cause of severe bodily harm to a woman and her 8 year old child.
C. Have done so with little, if any, evidence.
The evidence is lying in a hospital bed(s)
D. Are, by this evidence, a person of poor character.
Am by my statements rightly outraged that a man who chose to escalate a situation to the point of almost murdering a woman and her child is not arrested and will most likely not face any judicial repercussions because of where his paycheck comes from.
Asking you what boot polish tastes like was a "rhetorical" question. Dictionary dot com, look it up since you obviously can't be guilty of being purposefully obtuse as you claimed others on this thread are.
I don't care. You ever hear the philosophy about un-insured motorists always being at fault in an auto accident even if they really weren't the "cause"???? This is because they shouldn't have been occupying that particular piece of space-time at the moment that the other car entered that particular piece of space-time because they shouldn't have been there in the first place!!!
Same holds true for this a-hole, he should not have been following, approaching, or anything else. If he had a legitimate beef with her driving, once again, he should have pulled out his cell phone, dialed 911, and reported it to the local PD. PERIOD.
Your first post to me was:
“The usual anti-cop reaction to any use of force is to start shooting their mouths off....Cop-haters are so predictable.”
So you’ll excuse me if I was offended when my original post was not intended to be an attack at the cop.
“Maybe you should review your posts, numbers 34,42,45, and 51, and ask yourself who the attacker really is.”
I know who called me anti-cop, racist, the same as murtha,a loud mouth and so forth.
Its so predictable on these threads. Anyone who even questions the use of force by police is automatically labeled a cop hater. Being able to hold our government accountable is one sign of a free nation.
More personal attacks, followed by even less logic was pretty much what I have come to expect from you, as I consider you to be a person of poor character.
You prove me right with every declaration of the guilt of a cop who hasn’t even been charged, and you do this absent any meaningful evidence.
Again.
Shouldn’t you be referring to the cop as “whitey” right about now? Or making some point about how I belong to the the “U.S. of KKK A.?”
Is that you, Reverend Wright?
“Being able to hold our government accountable is one sign of a free nation.”
I would agree with that statement. What I would disagree with, is your contention that this is all you were trying to do.
Your post was a condemnation, without evidence, of a cop. If you had the actual facts to back up your accusations, I wouldn’t even have bothered responding.
But you didn’t.
Remember?
Is that you, Reverend Wright?"
I see you have reached the end of your intellectual rope. Good job, thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.
“I don’t care.”
This lack of need of evidence, before condemning the cop, was quite obvious to me from the beginning. I’m pleased to finally see you admit it.
“Same holds true for this a-hole,..”
So, you know this cop? Did you witness the incident that made him an “a-hole?” Have you read a more recent report of the incident, where he is noted to be guilty? Or are you just prejudging him, based on your own prejudices?
“...he should have pulled out his cell phone, dialed 911, and reported it to the local PD. PERIOD.”
I’ll bet you’re just as good at calling football plays from your armchair. You probably don’t even need to be watching the game while you do it.
What’s it like to be a psychic?
“Your post was a condemnation, without evidence, of a cop. If you had the actual facts to back up your accusations, I wouldn’t even have bothered responding.”
No, it was a statement that cops generally shoot at people who drive cars at them. And that women who are being approached by a gun carrying man who had followed her into the parking lot after a road rage incident was probably scared.
I also stated it was a guess. Can you read or does your rage cause your vision to get blurry?
The reality of it is if he followed her into the lot it was an escalation of the road rage incident. Proper action would be to call a marked on-duty cop to talk to her. Any rational person would be on alert if someone followed them into a parking lot, especially if they are armed.
BTT and an addition
Other news outlets indicate the woman was airlifted to hospital. Sounds like she got shot up pretty good.
Other blogs seem to be asking the same questions - how is it a cop 40 miles from his home turf winds up shooting someone?
Did the cop cut the woman off in traffic, and then she came after him in her car?
Everything released seems pretty fuzzy - makes me think the cop is on the wrong side of this. At least Oceanside PD is looking at the event - not SDPD.
A guy claiming to be a cop posted a comment on one article indicating there was a 3rd person in the car. The 3rd person, a guy, was trying to kill the cop. At least that was the rumor among the cops.
Why would this third person not be mentioned in any of the articles?
“No, it was a statement that cops generally shoot at people who drive cars at them.”
If that is what you meant, it certainly isn’t what you said. Your statement was that cops generally shoot at people who “drive away,” not “drive cars at them,” as you now say.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but that was the crux of my problem with your original post. If you say you meant to say “drive cars at them,” instead of “drive away,” I’ll believe you.
So, do you plan to give the presumption of innocence to this cop, until more evidence surfaces?
It really could have happened in more than one way, and I don’t assume it happened either one way or the other. I just don’t like prejudging anyone on such flimsy evidence.
Perhaps you need some education on legal theory, but once you set a series of acts in motion, you are responsible for the fallout when it occurs. It is really like dominoes. If you are the guy who flicks over the first domino in line, and something bad happens 10 dominoes down the line, you are responsible for it.
This guy acted with intent and forethought. He should have anticipated that his actions were likely to cause harm.
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