The suspect is turning to face you with this in his hand. Think quickly.
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 ...
Actually “shooting dead” is the proper phrase in this case since he fired his final shots into him after he was likely dead or not far from it laying on the ground bleeding to death.
Get your facts straight —
Gelhaus was on routine patrol — they were not called to that neighborhood.
And from the time that the call was made to dispatch of a suspicious person to the time the kid was dead with 7 shots in him was 10 seconds — 10 seconds.
When did he yell — when he was still in the car with the door closed??? before he chirped the siren and turned on the lights or after or during??
And what did he yell — drop your gun or turn around and drop your gun??? How could he comply — he wasn’t carrying a gun.
The kid was shot in the right side with the toygun in his left hand as he was turning to the right.
There is no way the barrel of the gun was pointing in quickdraw’s direction — no way.
If he was close enough to feel fear then he was close enough to see that the toygun was a toygun with screws in the stock that was made of shiny plastic and a cheap silver metal barrel without a sight cut off like kids do with those pellet guns and being carried in the left hand — the offhand — like a toy by somebody who looked like a kid.
If Gelhaus was not close enough to see that it was a toygun then he was not close enough to feel threatened.
I read through this in its entirety. Two things stick with me: 1) Deputy Gelhaus when recounting the events became ‘...emotional when describing the fear that he felt...’ and, 2) There was more than one witness who stated they believed that the gun they saw was a toy, replica or Airsoft Pellet gun.
From my perspective, all of this after-the-fact carefully worded explanation in the report does not remove the most basic of questions. Where is the dashcam video of the police cruiser? There is a witness photograph of the two officers crouching in their door pockets (directly behind them at the time of the shooting). This indicates that the cruiser was pointed directly at the 13 year old. Where is it?
Except for the last one that entered his buttocks as he was on the ground and went up into his spine -- meaning that he was shot while laying helpless dying on the ground.
All the rest hit the right chest, right hip, right hand, right arm, right side of left arm -- meaning that Gelhaus's decision to shoot took place when the kid's back was turned as he was in the process of turning around.
The police report said 10 seconds and that number came from police dispatch.
It was 10 seconds from the time Gelhaus called in his report of a suspicious person to the follow up call of shots fired.
10 seconds is all Gelhaus gave him --
Your opinion isn't worth squat.
This case will move to civil court and the city will settle out of court for upwards of $20 million to keep the public from hearing all the facts.
One day many will be painting their real firearms with orange tips...
Is it illegal to carry an uncased rifle in Commiefornia? Seems that the cops have just received approval to gun down (without warning) anyone who is carrying a weapon.
Our troops have far stricter ROEs than our LEOs. It should be the other way around. However, we are now under the thumb of the socialists (and, yes, our government has become socialist).
“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?”
Excellent point and well stated.
The report is pretty comprehensive.
I don’t see how anyone can blame the officer at all.
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I have no firsthand knowledge of this case , but I know cops and bureaucracies , OF COURSE the report created by the cops covers all the legal bases needed to get the cops off the hook , that is the purpose of the report.
I don’t see how they could not.
Where is the dashcam video ... the cruiser was pointed directly at the 13 year old. Where is it?
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Those videos always seem to just get lost somehow ,, maybe it’s hard drive crashed and they couldn’t recover the data....As for me I’m wondering if there is a recording available from the cops lapel microphone somewhere out there in the police comm network..
The cop was charged, but was let go by the police department.
The report mentions “....from the audio recordings....” more than once. However, if you look at the picture the bystander took from behind the cruiser with the officers crouched and looking forward, the cruiser was DEFINITELY in a position to capture the victim. WHERE IS THE VIDEO?
I had to post part of your linked article on the “expert” , that the local PD would hire this paid gun to fling whitewash tells me everything I need to know.
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POLICE LOVE LEWINSKI. He has been named to the National Commission on Law Enforcement Integrity and was the keynote speaker last month at the Trexpo Law Enforcement Exposition in Long Beach.
That should come as no surprise; as an expert witness in nearly 100 cases, Lewinski always supports the use of force and always defends police when they are accused of overstepping their bounds. After Minneapolis police shot fellow officer Duy Ngo half a dozen times with a machine gun in 2003, Lewinski testified that the shooting may have been justified. The city ended up settling for $4.5 million.
“It was incredible,” says attorney Robert Bennett. “You had a social scientist on the stand who was offering a false medical diagnosis.”
“This is a guy who’s firmly in the category of junk science,” says Paul Wright, the founder and editor of Prison Legal News, who has tracked Lewinski’s career.
In most cases, Lewinski is called upon to present a scientific-sounding justification for what looks on its face unjustifiable. He tells juries that police have to make split-second decisions if they want to survive, that just because the victim was shot in the back doesn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. And he does it all with the mantle of authority granted by a tenured professorship at one of Minnesota’s public universities.
“Lewinski has found a niche, and it’s a lucrative one,” says Roger Clark, a former police officer who also serves as an expert witness in police use-of-force cases. “The problem is that his work encourages bad police practices and makes it harder to hold anyone accountable when they go wrong.”
BTTT
Sadly true, FRiend, for Americans home, and abroad.
Tatt
The article stated he was 73 lbs. No where near adult size unless you are thinking about jockeys. No where did it state the child debated with the cop. Also your assertion that many homeowners may do this (alter a BB gun or toy replica)deter a criminal is just ludicrous.
The suspect is turning to face you with this in his hand. Think quickly.
That happened in the Las Vegas Wal-Mart(?) parking-lot shooting a few months(?) ago. The cops yelled "drop it" while at the same time gunning down the civilian war-veteran who happened to be carrying.
So it can happen. Maybe it happened here.
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