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Last week the Lake County FL Sheriff Dept. shot and killed a innocent man in his apartment. The police were looking for a criminal in the victim's apartment complex. It was 1:30 in the morning and the police found the suspect's motorcycle in the apartment parking lot. They approached the nearest apartment, banged on the door, but did not identify themselves, the victim opened the door with his pistol in his hand the one of the officers shot him. The officer said the victim had pointed the gun at him.
The reason for not announcing that the police were at the door was the police dept. policy of "tactical advantage" which is to just knock with no announcement.
The spokesman for the police said "If you point a gun at our officers expect to get shot". The shooting is still under investigation so it seems odd the spokesman would announce that the victim had actually pointed his gun at the officer. One would have to conclude this is the story the police are going with and the case is closed. There were no lie detector tests given to the officer or the other two officers. Additionally, no stress test was given to determine if the officers were lying.
The procedure of "gaining tactical advantage" was apparently the way to search for criminals despite the result of this shooting.
Questions:
- Why announce that the victim is the guilty party without an investigation?
- Why no stress test or lie detector test on the officers?
- The officer that shot the victim had worked a lot of overtime but the dept. said this did not affect his judgement.
- Why not announce that the police were at the door to prevent an incident such as this? It is 1:30 in the morning and banging on a person's door does not seem a wise thing to do.
The outcome of the investigation will clear the shooter, but should he resign out of respect for killing an innocent man? Or at least, the senior officer present resign? An innocent man was killed so resigning seems appropriate.
Should the police quit using "no announce" procedures to prevent further killing of innocent people?
It is amazing to see something like this happen in 2012 where so many resources are available to prevent shooting an innocent person.
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