Posted on 10/06/2012 5:58:50 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
Detective Hassan Hamdy made the split-second decision to fire a single fatal shot at an unarmed motorist during an early morning traffic stop on a highway in Queens because he thought the driver was reaching for a gun, according to the detective’s lawyer.
The driver, Noel Polanco, 22, did not comply with Detective Hamdy’s orders to put his hands up, instead reaching “down in a quick motion, down on the floor of the car,” said lawyer Philip Karasyk, representing the detective.
Detective Hamdy twice yelled “Police!” and was wearing a heavy vest with the word “police” written across it, Mr. Karasyk said. “At that point my guy fires, thinking he has a gun,” Mr. Karasyk said in an interview Saturday night. “If this guy had kept his hands up or on the wheel, we wouldn’t be here. Had not for this person reaching down, lunging for the floor and not complying with orders to show his hands, we wouldn’t be here.”
(snip)
Mr. Polanco was driving on the Grand Central Parkway just after 5 a.m. on Thursday when he was pulled over by uniformed members of the Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit, who were riding in unmarked vans. They said that he had twice cut them off.
Mr. Karasyk said officers activated lights and sirens and yelled at Mr. Polanco to pull over, but he sped up and continued driving, which escalated the officers’ level of alertness.
“He was a danger to other motorists on the road,” Mr. Karasyk said. "They actually had to box him in and pull him over.”
(snip)
Toxicology tests, administered after the shooting, showed no drugs or alcohol in Detective Hamdy’s system, police said.
“He is a squared-away guy. He doesn’t drink. He takes no drugs. He is on no medications whatsoever,” Mr. Karasyk said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com ...
According to this story the officer never told him to put his hands up. He just said: "police".
When your hands are on the steering wheel in a vehicle as the police approach, for all their intents and purposes your hands are up.
Well, there it is folks. End of discussion, no more comments necessary. The lawyer for the cop has spoken. (The guy was probably reaching for that electric drill.)
The even smarter move to start is to roll down your window, place your left hand on your outside mirror, and your right hand on your left wrist (on your watch, if you’re wearing one). Then proceed as you did, getting every move approved.
If you have a passenger, their hands are on the dash for a front seat passenger, on the top of the seat back in front of them for a back seat passenger.
The officer never said that and the driver had his hands on the steering wheel when he was shot.
Even more understandable if you’ve ever played around with the interactive Baltimore murder map.
http://essentials.baltimoresun.com/micro_sun/homicides/
I agree, it will be interesting to hear what the suspended, shoplifting cop has to say. Unfortunately, we may not hear from her until she is in court and under oath, if we hear anything at all. One thing is for sure, no way was she asleep while this driver Polanco was cutting off cop vans and trying to speed away, unless she was passed out drunk.
Exactly. I don’t think he perceived a “threat.”
I think he screwed up and jumped the trigger while on-target. His fellow cop, in the back seat of his car, has now changed the story a couple of times.
I think this was a case where, once again, we learn that cops shouldn’t have guns... because they cannot be bothered to actually learn how to use them.
Want to know why I lump all cops together?
Because the good cops won’t finger the bad ones. They know who is bad, they know who is corrupt.
But the whole “thin blue line” BS keeps them from cleaning out the corruption from within their ranks.
And it not only keeps the bad cops on the force, it also costs the taxpayers huge monetary awards in court or out of court, when the PD realizes that they have a problem. They dip into the bottomless well of taxpayer money to cover the situation over with a payout.
Cops seem to think that they have such a terribly dangerous job. They don’t. It isn’t even in the 10 most deadly job descriptions measured by deaths per 100K population. Sanitation workers die at a higher rate than cops do. You don’t see garbage collectors holding bagpipe parades when they get killed, do you? Nor farmers or ranchers.
Quite frankly, when I look at many state and town budgets, I blow my top at the amount of money being thrown at cops and firefighters. It’s far, far more than they deserve, and it’s beyond what the city/town/county/states can afford. Some states are worse than others in this regard, but big city cops are among the most over-compensated when one looks at their benefits package of all public employees.
If cops don’t like being hated by the public, they can either improve their attitude and performance, or they can get a different job.
It's unseemly on the part of unionized public employees to carry on as such, IMO.
What you're saying is that you believe the cops have already lied, correct?
That may be so, but most of them are deemed here as "not guilty".
Yes, I think the suspended, shoplifting cop who claims she was asleep is lying. That's correct.
I think she was passed out drunk. Maybe that counts as “asleep”, I dunno..
That’s a good post, and I mostly agree with you. It is, to a large degree, a “gang mentality” that keeps good cops from fingering bad cops. Cops feel alone - - their world is us and them - - and so they believe the only people they can ever truly trust to have their backs are their fellow cops, and that includes the bad ones. I do suspect, however, that internal affairs gets “anonymous tips” from good cops from time to time. At least, I hope so.
I also suspect that most of the “bad shoots” are the result of poor training and low entry standards.
#72: Yes, I think the suspended, shoplifting cop who claims she was asleep is lying. That's correct.
#73: I think she was passed out drunk. Maybe that counts as “asleep”, I dunno..
Which of the following do you believe to be the truth?
1. That she was passed out drunk.
2. That she was asleep.
3. That she flashed her badge, as the initial story said.
Make #3 ‘police ID’ instead of ‘badge’.
Police sources identified the officer in Polanco’s car as 29-year-old Vanessa Rodriguez. She was waving her police ID out the window just before the shooting, sources said.
I think the woman was passed out, then woke up after the car was pulled over and waved her ID out the window. I also suspect that the cops who approached the car that had just cut them off twice and then attempted to flee and was finally forced to pull over at 5 in the morning didn't really care to get close enough to examine the ID to see what it was and determine if it was genuine. That part of the story is barely relevant and anyway, it sounds like the shooting happened pretty quick.
I maintain that the kid was probably reaching down beneath his seat to stash his drugs. The cop saw this and maybe saw an object in the dark- - the power drill - - and shot.
Ironically, the kid allegedly wanted to be a cop, and so that makes him just as disgraceful and stupid a pig as all other cops, don't you think? So in the end, it's a wash. You should be happy - - a future thug cop is dead.
Why would you say that??
So you're saying you believe that the police - and I don't mean the female officer - have already lied. Correct?
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