| At least 14 people, including former Ohio State University athletes who knew him as a Buckeye football player, have written letters of support for Foster, who is charged with four counts of felonious assault of a police officer. Weiner cited the letters in seeking Foster's release on house arrest during a hearing on May 22. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David E. Cain denied that request. The Fraternal Order of Police passed on many of the supporters' letters to its 4,100 members and encouraged them to express their displeasure or boycott their businesses. [...] The first two union targets were Michael McGuire, the owner of a Budget car-rental location and a lifelong friend of Foster's; and Pickerington Central High School Principal Scott Reeves, who met Foster at OSU in the mid-1980s. McGuire said he felt threatened when one officer called him and the union sent him an e-mail after he wrote that Foster "is a tremendous role model to his children and other teens in the community." [...] Despite the reprimand, the police union intends to have representatives at the next school board meeting to display their frustration with Reeves, Gilbert said. |
| "I still believe he's a threat to society. The minute you put your thoughts on a letterhead, you open yourself and your business up to criticism," said Jim Gilbert, president of Capital City Lodge No. 9. "We're asking our officers and the public to stand up between the citizens and the violence they put against our officers." |
I'm gonna have to give the benefit of the doubt to the Police officers on this one, until there's incontributable evidence that the police barged in unannounced (a tactic they rarely do),
What's truly unfortunate is the police union's actions in retaliation.
I'm gonna have to give the benefit of the doubt to the Police officers on this one, until there's incontributable evidence that the police barged in unannounced (a tactic they rarely do), and fired their weapons 1st (which they are trained not to do, especially those that are entering a high risk enviroment, unless they see a firearm or other deadly weapon pointed at them upon entering, which again, I have no problem with
Does anybody think the problem is the law that allows guys like Foster to carry handguns?
Be that as it may, a real tragedy was avoided only by blind chance or poor marksmanship here. Cops might need some reining in, but even overenthusiastic cops, who might deserve some lesser sanction or penalty, do not deserve a death penalty. Which is exactly what they are going to get sooner or later if handgun possession by citizens is not abolished.
Comment: Since Justice Scalia and his cohorts on the U.S. Supreme Court decided last Term in Hudson v. Michigan that the exclusionary rule no longer applies to knock-and-announce, the police no longer have any incentive to comply with the law, although the Court said that there were other purported protections of citizens besides the exclusionary rule. (Mrs. Johnston and her family would differ.) And, if the police no longer have an incentive to comply with the law, it is only natural that innocent deaths will happen, both of officers and civilians. I wrote the brief in the knock-and-announce case of Wilson v. Arkansas and I wrote most of the brief in Richards v. Wisconsin. The government always talks about the need to not announce to protect officers from injury or death at the hands of criminals, but they never wrote in any brief that they were the slightest bit concerned with potential deaths of civilians or of police at the hands of innocent civilians.
http://fourthamendment.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&title=swat_team_in_atlanta_kills_92_year_old_w&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
a northwest Atlanta neighborhood roiled over news that police had stormed a house and shot a 92-year-old woman,
Maybe there's just too much God-damned violence in the whole country. By the cops, who don't have any brakes on their raiding tactics and by the citizens who have minimal brakes on gun ownership. This is just a recipe for tragedy on both sides of the line.
That I can wholeheartedly concur with. But to you prior point ami, I've heard that such raids have a simultaneous "Police!!" with the knocking down of the door. I don't have a problem with that either. But you've heard that they don't even announce police?
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the police do not actually have the right to bust a door down.
At least, they should have enough previous surveillance to know that something illegal is happening.
In the event that a cop is shot after he busts down the door of an innocent person, and that person shoots the officer or shoots at the officer, the case should be tried just as it would if some other uninvited civilian had busted down the door.
When the cops screw up like this, the individual should ALWAys sue and always get paid a bundle. just to underline how important it is that cops not go around busting doors down randomly.
I'm all for self-defence, but I'll bet that if anyone kept stats on gun homicides in America, the slaughter of innocent victims would dwarf the cases of homicide due to armed legitimate self-defence.
<<What makes you complain about the citizens?>>
I'm all for self-defence, but I'll bet that if anyone kept stats on gun homicides in America, the slaughter of innocent victims would dwarf the cases of homicide due to armed legitimate self-defence.
I am assuming that a person who is sitting at home doing nothing illegal has a right not to be interrupted by cops or anyone else destroying their property and pointing dangerous weapons at them.
When this is the case, we should fire their sorry asses and replace them.
Who are "they?" The NRA?