Posted on 07/11/2014 11:34:04 PM PDT by Rabin
Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputy Erick Gelhaus shouted then shot (dead 13-year-old Andy Lopez on October 22, 2013), Eric fired eight rounds. The hit / miss order can never be known. What is known is that Andy had failed to orange tip the bb-gun and that he never returned fire. Forensic indicate the 73 lb. perp took three 44 hollow points in the back and right side (falling?) plus four horizontals, head , neck lower...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas called for passage of a state Senate bill that would require pellet guns to look clearly different from those that fire bullets, but stopped short of calling for the murder of violators.
R.
What would they charge him with, excessive jumpiness? Desecration of a corpse?
Police carry .44s now? Why not .50 caliber?
How about murder.
Shooting a corpse is probably a crime... somewhere.
That was not a 13 year old ‘Baby’. The kid was almost adult size, he held what appeared to be a gun, and most importantly, would not put it down when asked repeatedly to do so. I have nothing against legal carrying, but be ready to deal with legitimate questions from cops, it’s going to happen. Don’t play debating games with police who have been called because someone in that neighborhood looked suspicious. That is their job to find out who’s doing what. Some folks will purposely alter a BB gun or toy replica so that it’s very similar to a real one. Many homeowners who can’t afford a real gun may do this to make a burglar stop and think before completing the break in.
From what I understand, from other sites, the kid wasn’t given a chance to put it down. The cop commanded him to put it down and almost immediately started firing into the kid’s back.
Within ten seconds, from the time the cops spotted the kid, he was gunned down.
It was an 18 round 9mm S&W pistol, not sure who invented the .44
Here is the report:
http://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/Complete-OIS-Report-7-7-14.pdf
No rounds entered the kid’s back.
I was griping about the headline-writer’s composition skills.
This event happened only a mile or so from us so I’ve been following this from the beginning. The sheriff’s deputies were not called to the scene, but were just out cruising. They saw the “perp” (Andy Lopez, who was walking down the sidewalk with his back to them) with the “gun,” chirped the siren ONCE, stopped the car, jumped out and took defensive positions behind the car doors.
Deputy Jumpy (oh, sorry, Gelhaus) called for the kid to drop the weapon and turn around. The kid turned but didn’t drop the weapon. (Later, in his report, Gelhaus said he didn’t remember whether or not he identified himself as an officer. So Lopez was not “asked repeatedly” to put down his weapon.) When Lopez was turned about halfway around (probably thinking “Huh? Who’s yelling at me?”) Gelhaus opened fire, shooting eight rounds in less than two seconds. First round hit a house behind Lopez (good shooting, Deputy Jumpy!), second round took the kid in the heart, final round went in through his buttocks and up through his torso, indicating the kid was lying down at that point.
Oh, and just so you know . . . from the time the deputies saw Lopez until Gelhaus began shooting was nineteen seconds. So as you can see, this was a very calm and reasoned approach to a possibly dangerous individual. (Do I have to say /sarc here?)
This event reminds me very much of the Officer Jumpy in Seattle who shot the deaf Indian woodcarver to death on the streets of downtown. That Officer Jumpy saw a knife in the man’s hand (he was an accomplished woodcarver and everyone downtown knew him), stopped his car, jumped out, screamed for the man to put down his weapon, and when the deaf man (DEAF man!) began to turn, finally figuring out something was going on, the officer unloaded his weapon and shot the “perp” to death. He felt “threatened” despite the fact that the knife was over ten feet from him. I believe that officer was finally charged, though.
I hope I’m not coming off as a cop hater. I have almost reverence for the profession as a whole. BUT bad cops need to at least be told to find another line of work, permanently. Gelhaus has no business being anywhere near a gun while wearing a badge.
Isn't it curious that civilian police within the USA operates as if they are soldiers that occupy a foreign, hostile land and shoot citizens on sight for any offense that is real or imagined?
Isn't it also curious that US soldiers that occupy a foreign, hostile land act as civilian police officers, afraid to aim their unloaded guns at the attacker?
Your version seems the most reasonable. Every if the cops had identified themselves, it’s a normal reaction to not immediately comply, because it takes a moment for most people to process a shouted order and most people would turn around to see who is giving the order.
The kid’s actions weren’t one of defiance, but momentarily confused.
There was another news article this past week, about a man who butchered his sister-in-law and nearly the entire family of the couple and their four little kids by shooting them in the back of the head after forcing them to lay face-down on their floor of their home. The cops (dozens of them) chased down the perp, surrounding his car, and talked him into surrendering after almost 3 hours. If cops can talk a gun-wielding mass murderer into surrendering, then why not negotiate with a 13-year-old who is not suspected of any crime?
Spot on! There are too many in the police ranks who would like nothing better than to make this nation a police state. These individuals have deep rooted psychological problems. Perhaps they were the bully we suffered though in our school days. There is only one way to create a safer police force: psychological testing—and retesting. With today’s police state, even your loving dog is not safe with these deranged cops.
The report is pretty comprehensive.
I don’t see how anyone can blame the officer at all.
It is not against the law to carry a weapon.
Your excusing the murder of a person, shows that you are not intelligent enough to put together a cognizant thought. So stop trying to, you look like an idiot.
Your excusing this asphalt pirate of murder, clearly shows your lack of depth of understanding even simple concepts.
The kid’s actions weren’t one of defiance, but momentarily confused.
* * *
The kid wasn’t an angel (the autopsy revealed he had THC in his system) but he didn’t seem to be a gangbanger either. The sidewalk where he was shot was right beside an open field where local kids used to play “cops and robbers” and variants on that all the time. The gun was borrowed from a friend. (I don’t know if his parents knew he had it or not.)
I just look at this as, what if this happened to me? I’m a middle aged woman, but what if I was walking along with say, a stick of wood or something that looked like a gun, and Officer Jumpy yelled at me from behind? Especially if I didn’t hear that single chirp of the siren, if all I heard was people yelling in an excited way behind me, I would probably turn around to see what the fuss was about also. And then I guess I’d be dead.
We need to de-militarize our police. In most instances, it’s not necessary. When officers want to be heros all the time — the wrong kind of heroes — it leads to unnecessary and tragic results.
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