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Sep 24, 2012 at 11:58 am
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I also think telling him to drop the weapon is a pretty reasonable effort at descalation. I certainly can't picture any other way to do so without extreme risk to officers.
I think the real scandal here is that a mentally unstable person was allowed to own a gun.
Seems like asking him to drop the gun was an attempt (what other course of action was there) to deescalate the situation. Bullets fired by the mentally ill have just as much power to kill as other bullets.
Sometimes there is no way to make a happy ending. The situation seemed like it was out of hand before the cops arrived. I know your SPD has had some recurring problems with excessive force, but this does not seem to be one of them.
But maybe I am missing something.
Ready!
Aim!
... what, isn't that how SPD is supposed to do it?
I made a lot of assumptions above, based on what I've read so far in the press. If the cops did have reason to know this guy was mentally ill, that changes things. But it seems likely - and reasonable - that they didn't.
That makes this not a tragedy due to a flawed SPD (they have plenty of those) but a tragedy of weak gun laws and insufficient support for old people with dementia.
Perhaps that will be the republican platform on mental illness: Commit suicide by cops.
The democrat platform is apparently: Pretend the issue doesn't exist.
Perhaps you should volunteer to teach a class at the SPD in the art of gently talking down an agitated man who points a gun at police officers, since obviously you're much more adept at handling such a situation.
So if the people who know him the best can't do anything, the cops are supposed to swoop down on gossimer wings and give the guy a hug and all is well? Come on! I'm sure they knocked, the guy asked who was there, or looked through a peephole, or whatever, and he opened the door, without having put the gun down. When instructed several times to put the gun down, he points it at the cops.
My heart goes out to the family that's been coping with a member with mental illness. But the cops were not at fault in this case.
Read the article again. The man was alone; he called the cops himself.
I'm still not sure what other course of action could have been taken here. A man calls the cops, sounds a bit crazy, and claims he has a gun and is willing to use it. Who, other than the police, could have responded to such a call? Clearly the situation was out of control before the man called 911. Unless there's a non-police crisis response team, only a cop would have anything resembling the training to deal with this kind of situation.
Ah, that's a good point. Did dispatch convey the evident severity of the situation to the responding officers?
It would seem that this is more of a training failure on the part of SPD rather than a mental illness issue. Seriously, you call 911, tell them you are armed, and come to the door with your gun (possibly still inside the residence) but wind up getting shot for your troubles.
Yes, the officer's may have opened fire with genuine concern for their safety but how the hell do you let them just knock on someone's door in this situation? I would wonder what specific information the dispatcher relayed to the SPD beyond the fact that he was armed.
My condolences to the Lee family, this sucks.
I'm guessing that won't stop them from filing a wrongful-death lawsuit, though.
And zooming out in Google Earth: growing gun ownership in an aging population that increasingly thinks of the government as the enemy—what could go wrong?
Obviously the only solution is to arm all the old people with even more guns, right?
Now ... where did I put my Sarcasm tag ...
These two statements are in complete contradiction with each other.
I'm as critical of our trigger happy SPD as the next liberal. But in this case when could they have de-escalated exactly?
Travel back in time to BEFORE this lunatic got guns? What?
This incident is an example of legislative failure. Not a law enforcement problem. Certainly not one that the DOJ was describing.
This guys should have gotten some sort of systemic mental health evaluation and treatment. This guy should not have been allowed to have guns. The police don't do that.
This post makes no sense. The cops responded to a call about an agitated mentally ill guy with a loaded gun threatening innocent people. And when the cops show up he points his gun at them. Case closed.
There are lots of times - oh, so many - when cops totally fuck up. They shoot someone who's not armed. They shoot the wrong person. They beat up someone just standing there. They abuse their power in all sorts of ways.
This? This isn't one of them.
The guy called the cops himself. He knew they were coming and he knew when they arrived. Anyone with a halfway functioning brain knows you put down the gun when the cops are there. And while it's entirely possible he no longer had a halfway functional brain, that in no way makes it okay to expect a couple of cops to just accept a gun pointed at them.
An apparently senile 77yr old man is dead. That, while tragic, is better than a cop or two dying for doing their job.
I think part of the problem is what people expect cops to be. They expect them to be marriage counselors when they answer domestic disturbance calls, and mediators when they respond to accident scenes, and psychotherapists when they answer calls like these. That's not their job, particularly not the job of patrolmen like the ones who were unfortunate enough to be here.
@29) I think an intervention of some sort was in order. A crisis intervention team seems appropriate. Sending three cops to his door, knowing what they knew, seemed to escalate, not deescalate the situation.
What are you stupid, he pointed a gun at police.
"A crisis intervention team seems appropriate."
Ok, you go knock on the door first asshole.
Did you read that? Do you recall that it referred to noises outside, where another incident (involving people) was underway?
How can you not read this as an imminent threat to people???
Sort of. I misread the linked article. I thought he told the cops "I’ve got a gun I’m not afraid to use it.” But that was to the dispatcher. Still. That's going to make the cops very nervous.
Is there a "team" that goes in to de-escalate with an armed man brandishing a loaded gun? I'm pretty sire that IS the cops. And they are going to have guns drawn.
You'd be hard pressed to find any LEO specialist that will walk into that sort of situation with out at least somebody with a gun pointed at the armed subject.
If you can point to some sort of example of the sort of thing you think works in situations like this, that would be great. Usually LEO don't time to organize a negotiation team on 911 calls like this.
It is a terrible tragedy. His family must be in anguish. But the problem is this old guy with dementia having guns.
Additionally, are the SPD trained to shoot to kill everytime they draw their guns? It may not be possible to deescelate every single scenario, but given the range they were most likely at (making assumptions, at the door?), is it really that hard to just wound somebody? Were they eqquiped with tazers? Essentially, was there a non-lethal option once the situation required force (albeit more than likely a split second decision).
"Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."
Discuss.
Or, you know, lots more dead mentally ill and intoxicated people. After all, who cares? They ALWAYS asked for it, right?
While you're giving the cops shit over not treating a man with dementia gently enough, you're forgetting that either A: They didn't know he had dementia, and therefore there's just a dude pointing a gun at them; or B: They knew he had dementia, which means everything he said is suspect and for all they know there's 6 people dressed as purple elephants dancing in the living room.
You can't have it both ways. So which is it, in your opinion? You have the benefit of hindsight, after all, and no gun in your face. Do you think the officers thought he was a sane, aggressive moron, and thus they had every reason to knock on his door, or that he was an irrational and therefore entirely untrustworthy source of information about what was actually happening in the home?
It would be great if at any point in the process from the 911 call to the officers on the scene where a team trained to deal with these kinds of things could be called to respond.
And as far as 'lots more dead mentally ill people who ask for it,' it's one guy. Who was not shot through his door or walking down the street, but after he pointed a gun in a cop's face. That is, indeed, the very definition of asking for it.
I have a shotgun, and my half awake adrenaline addled brain thought for a moment they might not really be cops, so I almost brought it with me to the door.
Now, I'm not demented and realized the error of my ways and took my large Akita instead, but who knows what the combination of stress and mental illness was doing to this guy.
There has got to be a better way to handle these kinds of things.
Unfortunately, an emergency mental health team may not able to be dispatched. Meanwhile the police must protect public safety and that means doing what they have to do.
If you don't think that armed police knocking on the door is an appropriate response to someone calling about an attempted home invasion, what do you think is? Do you genuinely think that an unarmed person - because any reasonable person bearing a firearm is most certainly going to shoot when an individual sticks a gun in their face - is what should have been sent to this guy's front door?
I'm assuming the article is accurate - just like when I read an article about some unarmed guy getting shot down for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in front of asshole cops is accurate. They knocked on the door and identified themselves as police officers. They told him repeatedly to put the gun down. He, a man with dementia, a man who either thought they were burglars or that it was okay to point a gun at a cop, not only didn't but gave any reasonable person a very solid indication that their lives were in danger. Really, truly, what should they have done instead?
Lots of ways to handle this better.
I'll say it again, I don't fault the officers involved. I'd have probably shot the guy too if I were in their shoes, but I do think that we need a better way to deal with mentally ill people's interactions with the police. Both for their sake, and for the officers who now have to live with having shot a mentally ill grandpa.
But again, I would say dispatch advised cops would come. The cops would've identified themselves. He still raised and pointed the gun.
If only, if only, mental health professionals rode around with cops, or could be dispatched with cops in cases such as this. But that just doesn't happen in the real world. Who would pay for it? The taxpayer? Not likely. A non-profit mental illness organization? They're lucky if they have enough funding as it is.
These cops forced the situation. They shot a man alone in his own home. Nothing excuses that.
And: Do you really want 911 dispatchers with the authority to determine who might be a nut and who might be an actual victim of a crime?
Think about it. Can you imagine the shit storm, for example, if some woman called in distress, reporting that she was afraid there was rapist outside. So our newly empowered dispatcher thought it was a "mental health" issue and "calmed her down", and then a burglar breaks in and rapes the caller.
This was a case where the cops showed up, because they had to. It was all sorts of fucked up. But in this case, as far as we can tell, the cops probably didn't fuck up. We'll have to wait for an investigation.
Is there a better way to deal with these things? Probably. I am all ears as to what those are. But it's likely situations like this can fall into a tragic course no matter what.
Plus. I just don't see how it ties to the DOJ issue with SPD at all.
Boy you seem pretty sure of yourself. Are you trained in defensive fire arms? What makes you so certain what reasonable people do?
Can you give me a credible scientific cite on that?
You may want to consider:
A) Cops are trained to shoot at anyone who points a gun at them because their lives relies on a split second decisions and reactions.
B) How do you know the cops didn't seek cover first.
C) Or. Maybe they were too close to the shooter retreat safely without risking getting shot.
For that use, I mean, instead of to torture unarmed citizens or drop running suspects when the cop isn't having a good respiratory day.
@53: do you know what happens when you sed electrical currents through a body? Muscles convulse. Know what happens then? Triggers with fingers on them get pulled. Not to mention no cop worth his salt is going to pull his Taser instead of his gun when confronted by someone else holding a gun. Ever hear the phrase 'bringing a knife to a gunfight'? It's a lot like that.
Bullet-proof, ballistic shields exist, and could be kept in patrol cars. There is some policing that would be hindered by such equipment, but I think they could be retrieved in situations where you'd normally have three officers approach the residence with guns drawn.
Unfortunately, guns can only defend officers by incapacitating or neutralizing civilians. If we could remove the "need" to shoot first from our police force, we might see less of these types of outcomes.
@50, No he thought cops and medics responding to a different incident were prowlers. The cops knew there was no danger and were just going to tell him that.
(bears repeating)
And it's important to note neither the cops nor the dispatcher knew Lee suffered dementia or Alzheimers. Lee didn't call through regular 9/11, he called through a medica alert device - could the police even call him back? It doen't matter who showed up on his door, he answered the door with a gun. At what point would there have been an alternate intervention?
It would be great if the SPD had a better crisis response team, but an incidents as nebulous as this are very hard to predict or prepare. except in hindsight.
This whole thing could have been avoided if he didn't have god damn guns. Period.