Slain Pa. officer had pointed stun gun at 2 dogs

Associated Press ^ | August 12, 2011

[Free ThinkerNY]

FREEMANSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Authorities say a police officer slain while responding to a domestic disturbance in a small eastern Pennsylvania borough had pointed a stun gun at two dogs before being shot.

The Morning Call of Allentown reports Freemansburg police Officer Robert Lasso had pointed at the attacking dogs when the homeowner pulled out a shotgun and fired the fatal blast Thursday evening.

[KrisKrinkle]

“A search without a warrant in NO case should be valid. Period.”

I agree in regard to post incident investigation.

But I thought the discussion was about a response to domestic violence as an ongoing activity and the search of premises for the particular location of the violence in order to stop it.

Does what you wrote mean the police should await a warrant before searching a house from which they hear gunfire and screams?

[muawiyah]

It was a "domestic disturbance" which ALWAYS means there is some other human being behind the story and he or she has rights under the law ~ which the cop is obligated to protect.

The cop didn't just walk up and point a tazer at the dogs.

BTW, I'm not a cop ~ always on guard against another dog bite. Wouldn't be a tazer.

[muawiyah]

It was a domestic disburbance ~ now, imagine the cops show up and you have your wife tied to a bed post and your daughter is on the floor where you've got her pinned down with a threat to use your shotgun on her.

The cop shows up with a tazer ~ and just then your best houndog in a cage out on the porch breaks loose and runs inside ~

What is your first concern?

[muawiyah]

It was a domestic disburbance ~ now, imagine the cops show up and you have your wife tied to a bed post and your daughter is on the floor where you've got her pinned down with a threat to use your shotgun on her.

The cop shows up with a tazer ~ and just then your best houndog in a cage out on the porch breaks loose and runs inside ~

What is your first concern?

[muawiyah]

Then there was this Luark guy who was a really great family friend ~ and one day he beat his mother in law and wife nearly to death.

He went to prison.

One day he stopped by to visit and we locked him out and told him to go away.

I was about 8 years old at the time.

Yes, there are reasons for the domestic violence laws. He hadn't done that before but had had a history of a progression of violent outbursts. He'd still be an old family friend if they'd had those laws and he could have been straightened out.

So what is your problem ~ does it perhaps center on somewhere between your wife and your daughter?

[muawiyah]

Property rights?

Do you imagine that someone who accidentally ends up on something you think is your property is deserving of a death penalty?

If you do there can be no discussion with you.

[muawiyah]

You have two citizens in a dispute. One is a man and one is a woman.

So, who do you protect first?

Moslems have one answer. The West has a different answer.

[muawiyah]

That’s a really good point. I have NO PROBLEM with the cops taking drunks off the road NIGHT and DAY.

[muawiyah]

And when the “homeowner” calls the cops for help?

[muawiyah]

There are places where drunks are spilling out pretty regularly and hopping into cars.

The cops should keep their eye on those places!

[goodwithagun]

As I'm a woman, I do not have a wife. I do have a daughter. She will arrive sometime within the next three weeks. Laws like VAWA do not prevent me or my daughter from violence, just like gun control laws do not protect us from gun violence. I pray that my daughter is never the victim of DV, or never the victim of an unconstitutional infringment of her God-given rights. The VAWA is one such law, but what else do you expect from the guy who drafted it- I'll give you a hint about who it was: He's got hair plugs, he always puts his foot in his mouth, and he couldn't wait to tell us all about the secret bunker under the VP house or the secret team that took out OBL. VAWA has affected my family, when my brother in law was arrested for DV. When he had his day in court, his lawyer was able to use security cams from the apartment complex to show that my brother in law never touched his wife. In fact, she actually pushed him. He never touched her but walked away instead. She called the police and he was arrested. In the tapes, we could see him denying what happened yet not resisting arrest. Charges were dropped, the cops never apologized, and my brother in law can do nothing about his denial of due process. It's in VAWA that he had to be arrested because the cops were called.

[muawiyah]

Everybody has a right to call the cops to his or her own residence. So, a call is made and the cops come.

Does that give other parties at the same address the right to blow the cop's head off?

The 4th Amendment does not prohibit people from inviting the police on the premises.

[muawiyah]

Smoke weed? Really, I thought Ron Paul used MJ suppositories ~

[muawiyah]

Nonsense. Many searches are quite reasonable. For instance, we are out searching through the neighborhood for what may be YOUR BODY. I look up at a two story house and there you are face pressed up against the window and maybe you aren't dead yet.

The perp who has been beating you is visible in another part of the room.

I stand and wait until he is done and you are dead and tossed out the window then holler "Hey, here's that body"!

[SaraJohnson]

From reading what you write on FR, I am sure you are a just and honorable person.

What would you do if you witnessed another cop or cops using excessive force like allegedly occured in Fullerton Ca?

[SaraJohnson]

Gator, you are so charming. :)

[muawiyah]

So, stuff happens. It's always good to get past an arrest situation ALIVE ~ that should always be your first preoccupation at that point.

Then have at it in court.

I know a man whose wife pushed his wheelchair, with him in it, down the stairs at his home.

[RickB444]

What bothers me most in reading through this thread is that the number of libertarians (they sure aren’t conservatives) could try to justify the killing of a police officer by a known troublemaker over the use of a stun gun on the fools dogs. Too many posters here have a fanatical hate for cops and they also would give an animal rights idiot a run for their money on crazy ideas of how animals are equal to humans. I don’t agree that people should be cruel to animals, but to say it is justified to kill a human to defend a dog, cat or any animal is just insane. If they kill your dog take them to court and fight it out that way. To think it justifies killing someone then you are a wacko. As most of the posters on here who condone such behavior seem to be a bit unhinged. Their attempts at logic are not amusing, but actually frighting.

[muawiyah]

Protect myself first so I can be a witness. That's what all those other people did.

Now, in response to a real event, I was up in Chicago and we were driving back to our hotel about 1 AM on Cermak avenue.

I have three riders with me ~ two of them were ARMED Postal Inspectors. They'd just come in off a 6 month stake out operation ~ on loan to DEA. Another guy had been an Airforce Officer.

I was driving my chevy van AND all those other guys were laying down on the floor because the Inspectors said "There are armed men up there on the rooftops of every house" ~ which was probably true.

We came to one of those intersections where there's a red light for no reason at all. I stopped. Right across the street to our left there was a Chicago policeman and he had a perp laid out across the hood of his car and was beating on him with a baton (Maglite).

So, what to do, what to do? I asked the Inspectors if they wanted to stop and make a civil rights bust.

"Nooooooo" came the answer in wavering voices ~ and they had their guns out. I responded "So, you guys think I should go on by", and they said in unisom "Yeeeessssssss", again in wavering voices.

I came to an entry to the Interstate that parallels that particular avenue and they all sat up in the seats again, put away their guns, and started breathing normally.

That was a trip!!!

[goodwithagun]

Yes. It is quite sad that anyone had to die in this particular case. Too bad the officer didn’t get off the property and get a warrant, just as the property owner asked of him. Instead of the police chief showing up and telling the officer to shoot the dogs, the police chief could have intervened and attempted to talk the guy down. There are a lot of could have/should haves. It is terrible that this turned into a tragedy. It also a tragedy that things like this lead conservatives to allow the Constitution to slide. Sure Mr. TSA Agent, pat down my well developed, 15 year old daughter. I have nothing to hide, after all.