Crazy...

It's 27 degrees F, there's still nearly a foot of snow on the ground, but Blacksburg's most enthusiastic bike cop is not only out patrolling on his bicycle, but he's wearing SHORTS!

He's a great guy, but he's absolutely nucking futs as far as this goes (and yes, I have told him that to his face. Many times. Usually when I see him riding his bike wearing shorts in 10 below omg it's freezing weather.)

He's also one of my favorite cops in town, so this is really nothing more than good natured ribbing. :P

I've been wondering when someone would try this...

Calif. city's police to wear head-mounted cameras

SAN JOSE, Calif. – San Jose police are testing head-mounted cameras to record interactions with the public.

The technology to build a system like this has been around for a while, now (think cell phone cameras). I'm not surprised someone's finally trying it, and I completely support it. The implementation sounds interesting, too.

Officers are to turn on the cameras every time they talk with anyone. They download the recordings after every shift.

The cameras are the size of a Bluetooth cell phone earpieces and attach by a headband above the ear.

I am, however, skeptical. Since I started working as a paralegal, I've found it extremely dismaying how often the cruiser-mounted cameras "weren't turned on" or were turned off early (in violation of department policy), or "weren't working". I'd guess that roughly 1 in 3 or 4 subpoenas for camera footage actually result in getting a recording. Of those, most don't show anything useful to the defense because officer/suspect interactions tend to take place off camera. I don't mean to imply that it's intentional - the camera is usually pointing forward, and fixed - but there are some cases where I do have to say it's questionable.

The upshot is that I have to wonder how often these head-mounted cameras will "fail" or turn out to have been "unintentionally obscured". I love the idea - just like the cruiser-cams, the purpose of recording these interactions is to protect both the officer and the citizen, and preventing a case from boiling down to a "he said, she said" type of situation - I just wonder how well it will stand up to reality.

Enough is enough.

[The following was posted by me as a comment at SayUncle in response to another comment. I've seen this same sentiment expressed in comments in various other blogs, and couldn't leave it alone anymore. The shooter shall remain nameless.]

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"Well you gotta admit they secured the perimeter at Va.Tech. Not one cops got across it before [nameless one] was finished. That’s a hundred percent effective. And they never lost a victim, they found them all."

Straightarrow: Please read the timeline from the report on Virginia Tech. It's available here. Specifically, look at page 7 of the PDF that link takes you to.

"9:45 a.m. The first police officers arrive at Norris Hall, [...] rush to one entrance, then another, and then a third but find all three chained shut. Attempts to shoot open the locks fail." (emphasis added)

and on page 8:

"9:50 a.m. Using a shotgun, police shoot open the ordinary key lock of a fourth entrance to Norris Hall that goes to a machine shop and that could not be chained. The police hear gunshots as they enter the building. They immediately follow the sounds to the second floor."

The news cameras didn't get there until 10-15 minutes into the incident. That's when all the footage of officers outside was filmed. Yes, they were securing the perimeter... BECAUSE OTHER OFFICERS WERE ALREADY INSIDE!

I don't know if you're familiar with Norris Hall, but 5 minutes is about the right amount of time to run around the building to try the main entrances, and then figure out where else you might be able to get inside. The ground floor windows are not an option. They have metal panes, and the windows themselves are very narrow. I doubt a full grown man in a ballistic vest and a gunbelt could squeeze through easily, if at all, and it would be stupid to try when you don't know if the gunman could come into that room while you're halfway through.

I'm sorry if I come off as ranting here, but I've seen this same sentiment in several blog comments over the last few weeks, and I can't let it go unanswered anymore. It pisses me off, because it ascribes cowardice where none exists, because it's WRONG, because it's based on MSM misinformation, and because the facts can be easily checked by anyone interested.

Why didn't they FIGHT??!!! (Part 2)

Since I posted on this yesterday, I've had a chance to distance myself from my anger a bit. I've also found some more complete stories about it here (thanks to David Codrea at The War on Guns) and here (by a Yahoo! search). There are a couple of points the original story didn't make clear. I'll be mixing quotes from the two stories linked to above.

At least one tried to stop the 27-year-old attacker, who swung and slammed the toddler into the asphalt and stomped on him behind his parked four-door Toyota pickup.

"One (person) tried to intervene, and the suspect pushed him off and continued assaulting the baby," Singh said.


By the time the ambulance had left the scene, Singh said, almost a dozen people had witnessed some part of the incident, with at least two trying to physically stop the suspect.

So, contrary to my prior belief, "at least" two people did try to physically intervene. This was not made clear in the earlier story I read, and I stand corrected on that point.

But...

Out of almost a dozen people, only two tried to do anything. And it doesn't look like they tried very hard. If being "pushed off" is enough to keep you from stopping something like this, then you're not really trying. If you're not beaten to the ground, unable to move, and you didn't stop him, you didn't try hard enough. I stand by my original assessment of these worthless cowards.

On a more positive note, the officer and his pilot are to be commended. The officer made the immediate decision to set down in a field by the road so he could get out and intervene, and the pilot did it. Let me emphasize, this is not something that is done lightly. This happened at 10:00 at night. Helicopter pilots are justifiably paranoid about things like power lines, because they are hard to see, hard to gauge distance to from the air, and they can kill a helicopter before anyone on board knows what's going on. At night they're practically invisible. As an EMS provider, I know for a fact that most pilots won't land in a field at night unless it's a regularly used LZ (landing zone) that they know has been used in daylight where such hazards can be easily seen. They also won't land in a field at night if it's not marked off, (usually done with fire or rescue vehicles), so they can see where the edges are. I have, in fact, seen some pilots refuse a known LZ because they weren't comfortable with it at night.
This pilot landed in an unmarked, unscouted, presumably unknown field, at night. If he had missed seeing a power line, or a tree, or anything, he could have killed himself and the officer with him. Seeing the situation, he took the risk.

That's the kind of courage every one of the bystanders should have shown. Instead, they let him "push" them off.

Cowards.

Why didn't they FIGHT??!!!

This is just sick. (Please note that due to the nature of this story, I will break my usual rule of no profanity. And there will be yelling. Lots of yelling. There is just no other way to accurately get my feelings about this, and my point, across.)

Officials said Monday that 27-year-old Sergio Casian Aguilar parked his car on the country road Saturday night and proceeded to stomp, kick and punch a 2-year-old officials believe to be his son.
and
Passers-by called 911 and attempted to intervene. Dan Robinson, the chief of a local volunteer fire department, says he got out of his car and tried to stop Aguilar, whom he described as having a "total hollowness in his eyes."

He was finally shot at the scene by an officer responding to calls from bystanders. The original version from this morning is gone, and Yahoo! news doesn't seem to have a way to find it, but it mentioned that the first witnesses were an elderly couple who called 911, and that 2 or 3 other cars stopped with people calling 911. Although both stories mentioned people trying to stop him, neither mentioned any physical altercation, or anyone getting hurt trying to stop him.

The first thing I thought when I saw this was: Why the hell are you bothering to call 911?! When yelling at him to stop didn't work, why the fuck did nobody try to FIGHT him. He's beating the shit out of a 2 YEAR OLD CHILD for God's sake!! I know this is Kalifornia, so shooting him was probably not an option for these people, but even the elderly couple, if they can drive, they can swing a tire iron at his head from behind! There were 3 or 4 cars there, meaning at least 3 or 4 people. Dogpile the son of a bitch! Don't just stand there with your thumbs up your asses waiting for the police and watching a 2 year old child get beaten to death!! STOP HIM!!!!!

What's worse is the fire chief. Dan Robinson, you are a worthless piece of SHIT! You didn't "try to stop him," you tried to talk to him. He was beating this kid bloody. The story this morning said the child was so badly beaten that they were going to have to use DNA to identify him! If you're an active fire chief, you are not a 90 pound weakling. If you are? You're in the business of saving lives. As a volunteer. GRAB A TIRE IRON!! Hit him with a fire extinguisher!! Do something, DON'T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE!!!!

Even if he beats you senseless, even if he breaks every bone in your body, even if he kills you, protecting an innocent child is worth it. When he's beating you, he's not beating the child. If you last long enough, the police that the other useless cowards called will get there. Even if he finishes with you, you've bought the child some time.

There are some things worth fighting for. There are some things worth being injured for. There are some things worth dying for.

Stopping something like this is one of them.

Fresno Student Shot, Killed by Police Officer After Bat Attack

Full story here.

Here's what apparently happened:

A police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old high school student Wednesday after authorities said the teenager clubbed the officer with a baseball bat on the packed, urban campus.

The officer fired at the student shortly before noon, after the Roosevelt High School sophomore allegedly came from behind and struck the officer in the head with a crude wooden baseball bat, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.

The officer fell down dazed, and reached for the gun in his hip holster, but the clip fell out.

As the student came at him a second time, the officer grabbed a secondary weapon — a semiautomatic handgun he carried as backup — from his ankle holster and fired one or two rounds, Dyer said. The student reportedly died within a few minutes.

As soon as I read the details, I knew there would be something like this:

Silvia Carrillo, whose daughter is a sophomore at Roosevelt High, said the shooting did not seem justified.

"My son and my brother went to school here too, and nothing like this ever happened. I think this wasn't enough for him to kill the kid," she said.

Let's get this straight: A baseball bat IS a deadly weapon. It can be used to kill you. He attacked a police officer with a deadly weapon. The officer was justified in responding with deadly force when his assailant moved to continue the attack.

The officer was injured, on the ground, with an assailant moving towards him with a deadly weapon. Any chance the officer might have had to hold the assailant off at gunpoint was lost when his primary weapon failed. By the time he was able to draw his backup weapon, the attacker was probably right on top of him, too close for a warning. Based on the facts available from the story, this sounds like a fully justified shooting.

Frankly, I'm surprised he had time to get the backup gun out without getting hit again. By necessity, an attacker with a baseball bat is only about 4 feet away when he hits his victim, maybe closer. Just at a guess, the attacker may have hesitated when the officer drew his primary weapon, and hesitated again from sheer surprise when the magazine fell out. This officer is very lucky he's still alive.