Was this a correct police administrative decision?

Yeah, she needed to be fired – at least. Him, not so much. Who the hell starts firing on someone for no reason?

I’m not sure either one should be fired. If a strange man to me is not obeying a command and turns in my direction with a shotgun. Nite nite termite. I’m shooting too.

Edit: I’m not a cop but I could see where the turning toward an officer while disobeying an order with a shotgun could be deemed aggressive.

yes they should have gone for cover, and he wasn’t pointing the the gun at her ,cops need to be trained to keep their cool .

Yes, they should have both been fired. He, the male officer, could have slapped her upside the head. If he felt shooting her was his only option he is just as gun ho as she is. Loose cannons, the both of them. They could use a little time off.

They could have tasered him. Well, I guess tasers are reserved for unarmed grandmothers in a traffic violation.

Hmmm… Working at a police department makes me be on the officers side on this. I can understand her being punished but I really don’t even know about being fired. The officers had no idea who the man was, and if he was the store clerk why wouldn’t he drop his gun? I am not agreeing that she should have shot him, but really what would be going through your mind if you were her? She may have had a family to go home to that night. She may have given her husband a kiss and when she said “See you when I get home”, she meant it. She was in a flight or fight situation, and as an officer you are trained to fight. I don’t think any amount of training can prepare you for a situation where you have a gun pointed at you. I think maybe she should have aimed for a leg or something and she probably would have kept her job if she did that. Don’t get me wrong, I watch the news and I see plenty of cops who are completely out of line… But I have also worked with some pretty amazing men and women, and I have met their kids, I have met their wives… I have seen the fear in their wives eyes when their husbands talk about situations like this. I am a military wife and I know if my husband was in possible danger I would want him to do whatever it meant to come home to me. Call me selfish… I don’t care.

Was the shotgun actually pointed at either of the officers? Which of the two officers was the superior? I can’t see any justification for the male officer being terminated.

I think an investigation was definitely in order. Terminating her should have been based on the results of the investigation. If the guy never said anything to the police about being the owner and was disobeying their orders, I don’t think there was much else they could have done. Were they supposed to wait for him to shoot them first when they had already heard a shot fired? I’m going to guess that since she was fired it was the shop owner and not the robber. The shop owner should have listened to the cops and identified himself to the cops before turning towards them with a shotgun.

Yep. It’s all the dead shop owner’s fault that he was in shock from being robbed and shooting a person, having no prior training in such situations. How dare he attempt to protect himself from armed robbery.

@Seek_Kolinahr I don’t think it was his fault. It sounds like it was just a bad situation. The cops had already heard a shot, they had a man walking towards them, disobeying their orders to stop and drop the gun, and then turn towards them with the shotgun. The male officer thought about it possibly being the shop owner after the female officer had already opened fire. If the guy didn’t clearly have a gun, I’d say she should have definitely been fired, but having a “suspect” turn towards a cop with a gun sounds like it could have been seen as a threat.

He didn’t whip around and shove the gun in their faces. He turned – slowly.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a high-stress situation like that, but sometimes words don’t make sense. Perhaps the shop owner spoke English as a second language. Having to mentally translate the officers’ instructions would have made it even more difficult if he were in shock. The police have training on how to handle those situations. The man did not.

@Seek_Kolinahr Just because someone turns slowly doesn’t mean there isn’t a threat. It all depends on how he was holding the shotgun at the time. I haven’t had a situation like that, but I do have military training and just turning slowly doesn’t negate the possibility of a threat. Yes, there could have been a language barrier, but the police officers are trained to work with what they are given at the time. Obviously the female officer felt this was a valid threat. As far as the man not having training for handling the situation, anyone who has a gun is responsible for it’s usage and their actions with it. Having a gun and not knowing how to handle yourself properly with it is not an excuse for anything.

You don’t shoot first and ask questions later. Period.

@Seek_Kolinahr So instead they should have waited for the guy to shoot one of them (if it had been the robber)?

The sentence for armed robbery is not the death penalty.

@Seek_Kolinahr True. However, a shot had already been fired, so that changes the situation. They didn’t know who fired the shot or who had been shot. The information they had in front of them was that there was an armed robbery in progress and they heard a shot fired. After that, the see a person carrying a gun and disobeying their orders to stop and put down the gun. The person with the gun then turns towards them. To me, that could have easily been seen as a threat and they would have been defending themselves (which they are allowed to do).

@Seek_Kolinahr it only takes a fraction of a second to point a shotgun at someone especially if they are already facing you. We are talking about a life or death situation. There has been an armed robbery, you show up and there is someone walking out the door with a shotgun. You tell him to stop and he turns around to face you instead. Now all he has to do is point the gun at you and shoot. You don’t even have time to think, and if you make a mistake you aren’t going home to your family. I think the officers had a very good reason to open fire.
You are right, the sentence for armed robbery is not death, but threatening the life of police officers will get you killed. And all the officers knew at that point in time was that there was a man with a shotgun and all he had to do was pull the trigger to kill them.

I don’t think either officer should have been disciplined, but especially the male officer should not have been fired.
It is a shame that the shop owner got shot in this situation. But if you are going to arm yourself with a weapon you need to be able to handle that situation better. And that means listening to the commands of officers when they show up at the scene to help you. Because even if they were familiar with that part of town doesn’t mean they know every person who works at a store.

I also want to add, if you want to live, shooting first and asking questions later is not a bad idea in this scenario.

You see, this is the problem with letting civilians have guns to protect themsleves.

@LKidKyle1985 Very well said. I completely agree. I would hate to be the one that had to explain to my partner’s spouse that they are dead because I wanted to ask the guy holding the gun a few questions first (even after he was already uncooperative).

I’d hate to be the one having to explain to a widow that I was the cop that shot her husband because he didn’t understand what I was telling him to do. If a cop dies in the line of duty, he’s a hero, and the family is taken care of forever. If a civilian is killed by a cop, well, they probably deserved it anyway. Like the 7 year old girl in Detroit, who was shot through her living room wall, after having a bomb blow up in her face.

@Seek_Kolinahr I would hate to have to tell tell the guy’s spouse as well, but he didn’t cooperate and the cops felt threatened. Like I said, it was a bad situation. Would your opinion change if the guy did understand the cops, but just chose not to listen? We don’t know if he could understand them or not, that is just a “what if” situation that you brought up.

The situation sucks all around, but I don’t fault the cops for defending themselves. As far as the 7-year-old girl in Detroit, I never heard anything about that, so I can’t really comment on it.

@Seek_Kolinahr When your life is in jeopardy the only thing that matters is who is going home that night. If I threatened your life with a shotgun, id fully expect you to defend yourself as well. Especially if you already had a weapon pointed at me.
I mean anytime the cops point a gun at me, I assume they are serious about using it. But maybe thats just me. Maybe you should go arrest some criminals and when they are walking around with a shotgun you can ask them nicely to listen to you and set it down, so that you can arrest them and put them in jail for 10 years.
Lets hope they aren’t drugged up and out of their mind when you ask them nicely though, or in a state of desperation because you probably will not win that exchange.

Thats what happens when you give a badge and a gun to a women . They will always side with the cops, so if they didn’t well she must have been in the wrong big time.

It seems the action was appropriate for the female officer, but not for the male.

@germanmannn – I really hope your answer gets taken off here, because I want to throw something at my computer every time I read it.

@Seek_Kolinahr I don’t think anyone ever said it was the clerks fault. I wouldn’t say the officers were at fault either though. It was just a very scary and sad situation. Just because there are some bad cops out there doesn’t mean every time a cop shoots his gun he or she is out of line. This situation is sad all around and I don’t think anyone won but everyone lost. I am sure the officer feels very guilty about what she did and I don’t think she should have lost her job over it. I definitely don’t think the male officer should have lost his job because it was out of his hands. We can sit here and think what she should have done instead but it is easy for us to say when we are sitting at a computer. When your heart is racing a million beats per minute and adrenaline is pumping through your veins, it’s like you said earlier about the clerk, she might have just had a hard time processing everthing. When you see a man with a gun you aren’t going to rationalize why he has it, that’s going to set off your natural fight of flight instincts. Her life was in danger. Period. She didn’t have time to sit there and find reasons not to shoot, she just had to find a way to go home that night and protect the people on the streets. What if that was the shooter? What if he got out of there shot both the cops then went on to shoot anyone who got in the way? When you are watching a movie do you not sit there and think “shoot the guy, drop kick him…” whatever. If that was a movie what would you have screamed at the cop? What if that cop was your mom? Your sister? Your daughter? Would you have told her to hold her fire?

I would of fire off too, if a guy turned around with a shotgun grasped in his hand and faced me I would fire my gun off. Because you never know when he could pull the trigger.

Her firing at the man may have had something to do with the fact that weapon he was carrying was a shotgun. It doesn’t have to be aimed directly at you to be lethal. She probably felt that she had to fire before she was in the blast “cone”. That doesn’t justify her subsequent shots though.

Everyone is missing out on a crucial point in this armed robbery. remember when i said the officers heard a gunshot from inside the convenience store? to me and to them, this meant possible bodily injury inside.

@john65pennington Good point.I was a soldier, not a cop. Totally different rules of engagement.

@john65pennington That is why I would have suspected the man with the shotgun was the bad guy. I may have been wrong and the officers may have been also but you can’t take those chances when you have a family to go home to.

I have been in many very stressful situations that require quick thinking. I would never put myself in a situation with my guns where english was a second language. As a responsible gun owner I will always follow police and officials first. Unfortunately police can’t be everywhere and are usually only there to help solve what happened. A well educated armed citizen is the safest thing we can have.

“There are hundreds of millions of gun owners in this country, and not one of them will have an accident today. The only misuse of guns comes in environments where there are drugs, alcohol, bad parents, and undisciplined children. Period.”

Ted Nugent

Was it correct? Legally, I don’t know. I’m ignorant of the law as it relates to this. I’m only qualified to give personal opinion.

I can understand that the cops at the door have a hair-trigger response. They have to – they’re in unfamiliar territory, in a high tension situation, and they are apt to be shot at so they’re probably defensive and jumpy. Personal protection instinct is strong, and I can totally see why they shot. They told the guy to put down the gun and he did not. The guy is an unknown. Fight or flight. That’s more primal than stopping to think of the law. You have to think fast.

That said, I think the situation could have been ameliorated at several steps in the process. Cops are (I assume) trained to not be so jumpy as the average person. They’re supposed to be better than that, even if they’re not. When someone is aiming at you, you have to defend yourself, but she could have shot in a way that wounded and stopped him, not killed. She could have shot only as long as necessary, or until the man told her to stop. She needs to be let go. She did what anyone would have done, probably, but she’s a danger to herself and others, and that’s not necessarily what we need in a cop.

The male officer, not so much. He did what he could. He had far more restraint. How do you stop someone who is shooting, unless you want to play Death Roulette? Again, he too acted to protect himself by not challenging her in a fatal manner. He didn’t deserve the disciplinary action.

Again, only personal opinion.

Lightlyseared says: “You see, this is the problem with letting civilians have guns to protect themselves.”

The problem is not in allowing civilians to have guns, but in failing to properly train the officers. The female officer obviously slipped too deeply into a fight or flight/self-preservation mode and her male partner was unable to shake her out of it, so she kept on shooting. It takes more courage not to shoot at all than it does to pull the trigger.

@Rufus_T_Firefly well said.

@laureth Coming from a family of cops, what I have always been told is that you can never shoot to wound, only shoot to kill. There are a lot of reasons for this, but assuming that person was trying to kill the officers, a wounding shot would not disable him from harming the officers or others. And if you shoot to wound, and by accident kill him then what are you going to say, that you didn’t mean to kill him? well you were shooting at him right.

do you know how hard it is to hit a arm or leg with a hand gun ? you shoot the torso if you want to hit them .thats why you don’t shoot to wound.