Posted on 05/31/2024 5:03:13 AM PDT by marktwain
FARRELL — A “good guy with a gun” reportedly came to the aid of a Farrell police officer during a shootout early Friday morning.
“He had a valid concealed-carry permit, he had a gun,” Mercer County District Attorney Peter C. Acker said. “He went to where the police officer was and fired on the suspect.”
State police and county district attorney’s office detectives are continuing to investigate the incident, which took place about 12:30 a.m. Friday outside a convenience store along Indiana Avenue in Farrell.
Acker said the suspect, identified only as a 49-year-old white man, was undergoing treatment Friday evening at Mercy Health St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown for life-threatening injuries.
The man was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with police shortly after midnight outside a convenience store along Indiana Avenue in Farrell. The incident began when a Farrell police officer encountered the man and determined that the man, who has not been named, was carrying a weapon.
Acker said the 49-year-old did not cooperate with police and refused to disarm. Instead, the man began shooting and the police officer returned fire along with the bystander.
After the man was wounded, he still refused to surrender the weapon. Acker said the police officer also fired bean-bag rounds during the incident, and police used an armored personnel carrier provided by Mercer County Critical Incident Response Team to disarm the man.
Acker said the three men fired more than 40 bullets and the police officer fired about 12 or 13 bean-bag rounds.
“When you have somebody with a gun, who has demonstrated that he’s willing to use it, you have to exercise great caution, which is what they did,” Acker said.
The man was taken to UPMC Horizon hospital in Farrell then flown by medical helicopter to St. Elizabeth.
The Indiana Avenue shooting took place only moments after an earlier, unrelated, incident at a home along Emerson Avenue in Farrell.
Acker said someone shot at the house in what he called a drug-related drive-by. That incident remains under investigation.
With the Indiana Avenue incident, the state police investigation will focus on exactly who fired the shots that wounded the initial shooter, and the potential charges against the 49-year-old if he survives.
“There are two really separate components,” Acker said. “The first one is the officer-involved shooting. When an officer is on the scene and bullets are discharged, it cannot be investigated by the parent police department. The second is that bullets were flying around in the middle of Farrell at 12:30 a.m.”
“That’s not what you want to see in the community.”
Not if the police are armed with...bean bags?!
Where???
Seems to me if LE cares so little for its own personnel’s safety, or thror ability to carry out theor duties, then the civilians who LE is no position to serve and protect owe nothing to LE.
Note to LE: When you stop submitting to this crap, let us know. Then we’ll have your backs.
“the suspect, identified only as a 49-year-old white man”
In this case, race identified...
> The armed citizenry and police are natural allies. <
Yes. But two points:
One, the police officer has qualified immunity. The citizen does not. So a citizen who goes too far (as determined by a confused DA) might be in a bit of trouble.
And two, there have been instances where later-arriving police mistake the good citizen for a bad guy. And so the good citizen gets shot by the police.
I’m not arguing against citizens helping the police. Not at all. I’m just pointing out a few things that must be kept in mind.
Oh BTW, "Divest from New York"
Located in Farrell, Pa.
This is in Pennsylvania.
Correction
the hospital is Located in Farrell, Pa.
That’s an excellent way to get yourself killed. Maybe the first cop understands you are helping him, but the next ones who show up, adrenaline spiking?
Both incident and hospital were there:
Police tape and a “ROAD CLOSED” sign mark off the site of an exchange of fire between a Farrell police officer and an unidentified man early Friday morning along Indiana Avenue in Farrell.
I’m in agreement with your opinion. As a concealed weapon license holder, I am very reluctant to enter into a gunfight unless it is to protect myself and my family, in particularly on our own property.
The probability of totally innocent people getting shot is the main deterrent. This may sound cowardly, but I have no desire to be sued for a wrongful death or for some lib DA go after me.
Farrell is one of thousands such former industrial towns along a river that's dropped to roughly 1/3 of it's peak population, and should have been dismantled in the 1950s.
You should be.
Remember the case of John Hurley. No good deed goes unpunished.
Um......who gives an F the citizen who helped a valid concealed-carry permit. Criminals nation wide conceal carry without “permits” and do not fill out that cute Federal form asking if you are criminal when getting a firearm. The situation is so out of control it is beyond comprehension.
Ping...
I noticed that also. . . .
At my age ( and health)it would be near impossible for me to ‘divest’ from the state I’ve lived in for 75 years.
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