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Portland Police Officer Shooting
A Portland police officer, an 18 year veteran of police work, shot and killed a man that threatened him with a modified screwdriver.
There is of course some outrage, after all it’s Portland, coming from a city council member. Portland officers don’t wear bodycams because the Bureau doesn’t have the money to purchase them. Why is that, you might ask. Because their budget has been cut. There is, however, a short video from a nearby security camera.
Candidates seeking employment as a Portland police officer have to undergo background checks, as well as a psych evaluation but City council members do not.
City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty is the only city leader who discussed the shooting with KATU. She took issue with police officers responding to a welfare check like this.
“Someone in crisis should never be killed, because they’re not doing what they’re told to do,” said Hardesty. “I’m just so sad that we continue to send the wrong first responders to incidents where people are suffering from mental health issues. Portland Street Response pilot was created just for these kinds of situations.”
The Portland Street Response only covers a small pocket of Southeast Portland right now, but Hardesty said she’s proposing a citywide expansion of the program next week. It sends a mental health professional to certain 911 calls, though it’s not clear if this would even have been a call it would have responded to.
Perhaps the PPB should issue Ms. Hardesty with a pager. They can wait until she arrives on any scene to deal with anyone in a mental health crisis; especially one with an edged weapon.
No word yet on whether the Multnomah County DA is looking for a defense attorney to prepare a case against an 18 year veteran of the PPB, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.
Click on the Link for the full story.
The man shot was white and the police officer is black.
Nevermind.
That looks like some kind of net-repair tool, some kind of very large sewing needle or knitting tool, not a “modified screwdriver.” Such a tool already has a very sharp point.
I’m just so sad that psych ward escapees keep getting elected to city commissions.
The sad thing is that some of my instructors for the law classes in the academy, and in-service training were from the Multnomah County DA’s office. I took one community college search and seizure course from a Multnomah County ADA. Paid for it myself. I’ll admit that I find this very depressing. I imagine there are current, and former ADA’s that feel the same way I do.
My wife uses an instrument that looks like that quite often. She calls it a seam ripper.
She probably did not need to sharpen it.
No, and sorry about the wrong link from another thread, but you can find a picture on Wikipedia. :-)
In the video, I see one cop being a cop and 4 fire/EMS guys backing off and maybe one cop running to hide behind the cop car. What was that guy’s deal? It looks like a classic case for a Taser. I assume the cops don’t have them, because the city is cheap to buy them. The city gets what they pay for.
Oh yeah, a seam ripper. It looked too big for that, but sure.
When someone is displaying a weapon, and moving towards you putting a Taser in your strong hand is not a good idea. It’s not a good idea for the cover officer as well. There is no such thing as a silver bullet, especially a Taser that may or not function as it should. Looking at the video the subject could have gone after EMS responders as well as the officer. A 43 second video does not take into account the officer’s probable cause, or a reasonable belief that his life was in danger, or the danger that EMS responders might be in.
On the security camera video that I saw of that incident, the guy was charging the officer and was within 8 – 10 feet of the officer before he (or she, I don’t recall) fired. The officer had no reasonable alternative.
It is always appropriate to shoot someone who is trying to stab you – unless you can kill them in some other way.
Even police officers get to do this.
It’s weird how people don’t know this.
A seam ripper doesn’t have a eye. It has a point leading to a curved cutting edge. That looks more like some leatherworkers tool.
These are leather sewing awls:
I have seen videos where two cops coordinate lethal and non-lethal options. Coordination comes from training.
The first thing I thought of, too. There will be no outrage, no rioting, and probably no prosecution. If a Black Capital Police Officer can shoot a white woman in the face at point blank range for the crime of trespassing, then certainly this guy can be justified in shooting a man trying to stab him. But then again, a white officer kills a black woman who is in the act of stabbing (probably killing) another black woman, and the officer is condemned by pundits for being a white supremacist racist bigot. It must be hard for leftists to keep track of the complicated formula that determines who is at fault when different races of people are involved. It’s easier for us naive conservatives who are too simple-minded to consider people’s skin color in our judgements.
Every incident is different, but one thing that these incidents have in common is the willful ignorance of our society to deal with the mentally ill. The following video shows a different outcome, but the distance between the subject and the officer with the beanbag shotgun is far greater than the Portland incident. The officer’s covering the beanbag shooter provide lethal cover, and don’t fill their hands with Tasers.
The police are called when someone is in a full blown four alarm psychotic crisis. If an officer is lucky they can talk someone into a 72 hour psych hold. You have to beg them to agree to that hold. The police can walk away, but if someone goes nuts on a bus, or on light rail, or a stabbing spree on city sidewalks, the police will be held responsible for that, rather than the subject they tried to talk with.
I’m pretty sure Ashley Babbitt wasn’t carrying one of these.
The officers still ended up taking him to jail. In a properly functioning MH system he would have been committed for at least a short time to a psychiatric facility.
And remain anonymous forever…..
You left out the best part.
I am amazed when people suggest sending social workers out on 911 calls instead of police. Most of the social workers I know would refuse to go into a potentially dangerous situation without being accompanied by a cop. Social workers aren’t stupid.
Maybe not, but the left is.
Crazy people kill. Not all but some. Acting like you can talk down anyone with a lethal weapon is stupid. If someone is deranged it is tragic that if medicated appropriately they would not have threatened anyone’s life. But it is not the police officer’s duty to protect the person with the weapon. It is the duty to protect those who may be harmed.
That Hardesty woman really represents the first four letters of her last name. She is in favor of totally disbanding the police force. She must not like her constituents very much.
I have also seen K9’s used when someone has a weapon. Combining bean bags with a dog immobilizing an arm is a good way to stop someone. Dogs are cheaper than lawsuits. Nobody outruns a dog. Nobody says All Dogs Are Bad.
And – but don’t say this around a cop who works with them – dogs are expendable.
I didn’t want to say that, but it probably doesn’t come to that. A big dog, when attacking, is not so vulnerable to a knife. They are all teeth and bone and people are so slow.