Posted on 03/23/2009 10:24:17 AM PDT by Drew68
When Oakland police Sgts. Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai burst into an apartment on 74th Avenue on Saturday, they knew they were entering a dangerous situation. After all, they were looking for a man who had already killed two police officers.
What they didn't know was that the killer, Lovelle Mixon, had somehow gotten hold of an AK-47 assault rifle, police officials say. All they knew was that the gunman who had shot motorcycle officers Sgt. Mark Dunakin and Officer John Hege about two hours earlier used a handgun.
"Nobody knew he had an AK-47," said City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, who was among four council members to join Mayor Ron Dellums and acting Police Chief Howard Jordan for a late-night press conference Saturday.
The bulletproof vests that Romans and Sakai wore were no help - when Mixon fired his automatic rifle through a closet door in the apartment, he hit the two sergeants in the head.
The killings of four officers would devastate any police department. But it was especially traumatic for an Oakland force that has been beefed up in recent years with a lot of young, inexperienced cops.
"We've got a really young force out there, and this is really hitting them hard," officer Bob Valladon, former head of the Oakland Police Officers Association, said Sunday as he drove from one slain officer's home to another to meet with their families. "We've hired maybe 25o new cops in the past five years, so about a quarter of the force has never seen anything like this. No one has.
"These cops (who were killed) were veterans," Valladon said. "The best of the best."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Did he in fact have a full-automatic AK-47, or was it actually a semi-auto “look-alike”?
I'll bet there's a host of Iraq and Afghanistan vets out there who would disagree.
so exactly what would a SWAT team expect? spitballs?
I thought the tactics of SWAT were to surround, identify the situation, understand what they are facing then, enter.
Speaking of predictions, I predict a 50% chance that the rifle in question is actually an SKS, which isn't even an "assualt weapon" by the standards of the lapsed AWB.
I understand Oakland already has an assault weapons ban. That should tell these people something, but likely won’t. Agenda over brains every time.
BINGO !
Well, hell - he could have had a .22 and been just as deadly.
Still waiting for a MSM story highlighting Lovelle’s record of crimes. The gun gets a lot of attention, but the person behind the gun,,,not much info.
Gee, they were hit in the head, so it didn’t matter
what they were shot with, and the guy was firing blind
from inside a closet?
Here it comes.
This is some scumbag that should have stayed locked up and never been on the streets.
So time to blame the gun and not the criminal and justice industry.
As for not “expecting” a criminal like that to not have weapons illegally like that, please. This was freekin’ Oakland for crying out loud.
Spitballs and foul language.
very sad. Swat should have been called in it looks like on the third attempt at the apartment. Death penalty!
Always expect the unexpected...
I believe he was in violation of the law either way, just having a firearm, not to mention shooting people with it.
so if these unfortunate officers were shot in the head with a 9 mm hand gun . . . they would be OK ??
Both officers were ambushed by a criminal and they were shot in the head. bullet proof vests did not work in this situation. AK47 is not the issue.
Were the last two SWAT or street cops? I am a bit confused by the title.
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