Posted on 11/14/2013 7:27:50 AM PST by Gamecock
This is a good way to put this into proper perspective.
This fellow was not suicidal. Suicide is the action of killing oneself intentionally. The fathers own death was somewhere on the back burner, if at all even thought of. He was a hero acting out of love.
It may be a cops duty to stop a suicide, but this was clearly not the case.
You don’t know it was suicide. They said it was too dangerous because tbeir first concern is going home. Their goals are not the same.
Maybe you’re a coward who won’t risk his life for a loved one. But most decent people would take the risk, even a 10% odds.
And bluntly, who are you or the cop to tell anyone what or who to sacrifice their life for? Some things are more important than your own life.
I had the same experience during the epic 2009 flood here in Cobb and Douglas counties. 30 inches or so of rain fell in 24 hours raising the Chattahoochie watershed some 30 feet above flood stage. Six folks drowned in their cars trying to cross bridges with knee deep water.
Near my house..one day after the main creeks flooded..a small ditch creek suddenly arose from nothing turning into a 100 foot wide...10 knot or so river...which cut across a road...cutting off 100 people or so.
One of the people and his son got out their jon boat...sending his other son...who was all of 8 years old...to alert their neighbors. By the time the dad had the first boat load ready to cross...Cobb police, FF, and EMT’s showed up on my side of the current.
The jon boat’s trolling motor was not close to being enough to cross the current...I knew this...and soon as the bow hit the stronger middle current...it turned and headed straight for the edge of the road...where a small stand of weak tree shrubs was all that stood between them and the certain death 100 yards downstream promised by the very loud sound of noses creek in monster form.
I turned to look behind me to see if any of the public safety workers were gonna move...then quickly headed toward the boat in jorts and leather hiking sandals...ignoring the threats of arrest and how dumbass I was being. Luckily...the deepest water in the middle was only waist high...the jon boat dad and I evacuated everyone off the cut off island...him on back with the motor..me pulling the boat’s bow rope.
My legs were ravaged by the balls of fire ants the flood washed out the ground. Didn’t know till the next day when I saw the news where vid footage of a angry swirl of fire ant ball was shown.
What we did was no big deal...but there were countless lives saved by citizens and public safety...in extremely dangerous situations during that flood. It made me proud to call these folks my neighbors.
Let’s see...if you listen to the badge toadies the cop is supposed to be some kknd of hero for supposedly stopping the father from killing himself. But if the father had been in position to resist, the same bootlickers would be going on about how justified the cop was for emptying his weapon on the father while trying to reach the burning building.
Is it possible the cops were too afraid to go in and didn’t want to be upstaged by the father?
This reminds me of the hostility of the NYPD toward the Guardian Angels, despite the street effectiveness of the latter.
Thank you.
You might consider getting a new handle.
Dreadful. RIP.
No, I was merely responding to your expressed opinion. I thought that this was fairly obvious - as was/is the fact that you and I do not agree.
I agree. Just because the cop was a state employee, it does not mean that he should not do what he thought was right.
Do you think it's a good idea to just watch a man commit suicide and do nothing about it?
When acting in one's capacity as an employee of the State, one does NOT have the same freedom of choice as an individual. There are certain things that the State (and, thus, its employees) CANNOT do (see the Bill of Rights for a few examples).
Regarding "watch a man commit suicide" - that is a judgment call - and, as I said, no one on this thread was there to be able to judge which of the men, on balance, was evaluating the situation more accurately. Maybe the cop was wrong, and the guy would've been able to go in quickly and grab the kid with a minimum of risk...and maybe the cop was right. WE CANNOT KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS - but your posts make it clear that you believe the police officer was correct and that the father was irrational/suicidal. The point that I was and am making is that it is NOT FOR THE STATE TO DECIDE these matters. The man was on his own property, trying to rescue a member of his own family, and he got tased and cuffed for his efforts.
Again, we CANNOT know which man was right - but you have already made your judgment, whereas I admit that I lack the necessary information to make any judgment. You side with the State reflexively, which is disturbing to me. That you believe this is, of course, your right - after all, I am not a liberal Democrat.
I presume that you are a reasonable person who wrote what you did in good faith - and reasonable people acting in good faith sometimes have to agree to disagree. This appears to be one of those situations.
That is exactly the question.
What is known is that the cop stopped a man from running into a blazing deathtrap while wearing no protective equipment, even though the firemen on the scene had determined was too dangerous to enter even with equipment.
Given the known facts the likelihood is far greater that the cop saved his life than that the cop prevented the child from being saved.
According to the original account, they were in the front room and exited by the front door while the child was in the back room and also tried to exit through the front room after they had already left.
He did not make it to the front door.
Wrong.
There is no hard evidence to the contrary.
I suspect a lack of rational thought in your present.
I would agree with you as soon as you proved to me that you brought yourself into existence.
And if someone else wants to prevent a man from killing himself, that is his right.
The suicide has no authority over the bystander's conscience whatever.
That's not really how fires work.
I’m a father and I would choose death with no hesitation rather than letting any of my kids die.
His best bet would have been to take the child with him when he left the house.
However, I would probably - like him - have decided to rush back inside if I were, heaven forbid, in his shoes.
And if I were the cop, I would probably try and stop him from committing suicide.
For someone else's life, it is not suicide.
For someone else's corpse, it is.
He was not trying to kill himself - he was not thinking of himself.
Objectively, however, the cop saw that the net effect of his actions were suicide.
I really hope you sign up for a study to jelp scientists isolate the chromosome that makes people like you genetically incapable of minding your own business and meddling in the lives of strangers.
I'm not sure if you understand the term "circular."
What we have here were two free individuals who both did what they thought was right at the moment.
Either one is free or one is not free to make the decision.
They both made a decision. One prevailed, the other did not.
How do you know he would have died?
Physics.
I can just as well assume the cops/fire department were concerned about a potential lawsuit.
There is a lawsuit either way. If you let him go inside, you can get sued.
If you don't let him go inside you will be sued.
I find your logic illogical.
It's not hard to follow.
You have two men, one who has diminished capacity (he is full of panic and fear over his son) and a lack of experience (it's probably his first fire).
The other has likely been called out to fires on many prior occasions and he does not have diminished capacity - he has equal concern for the welfare of both stepfather and stepson.
Both men disagree on what the right thing to do at that moment is, and both do what they think is right at that moment.
Now one of them, probably feeling horrible about not getting the child out of the building when he first decided to leave, has decided to blame the cop for his presence of mind.
And FR is joining the pile-on, in large part.
When the arguments fall flat, the personal comments ramp up.
This is your cell, inmate. This is your guard. He tells you when to go in, he tells you when to go out, he tells you when he`s going to blow your azz away. But don`t worry...in 2016 they put out a suggestion box and we all get to leave a note./s
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.