Shooting incidents in the news.

[cclaxton]

See, a good buddy of mine has spent most of his FBI career working violent crimes in Indian country. Interviewed more child sexual predators and victims than you would even want to know about. Most of the perpetrators were abused themselves as children. However, a large number of the victims did not turn into raging predators. So, are we going to lock them up or throw them under a bus......because they might do something down the road?!? Not only does that victimize them all over again, it is morally, ethically, and legally wrong. See......constitutionally speaking, the cops can't do anything to anyone until they actually violate some law/rule/ordinance/regulation.

Just to be clear, I don't think anyone is proposing that, especially me. The fact that someone was abused as a child does not, in of itself, as you point out, result in violent behavior. However, when there are a series of highly stressful things happening to them as adults, and when you have family members calling the authorities and asking for help, and when you can observe changes in their behavior that indicate they are in a crisis, only THEN does it make sense to have an intervention. Again, it is a whole constellation of events or pattern of events which include abusive histories. And, to be clear, an intervention is a mental/emotional health process, not a criminal or prosecutorial process. And, an intervention has a limited effect and is subject to judicial review. A person who is at risk can be in custody for a short period of time for them to be evaluated and a formal recommendation made. The problem is that the rules that health professionals and LEO's operate under interfere with their ability to do anything even when everybody agrees this person is in crisis and needs help. That is not the same thing as trying to stop someone from doing something they might do.

Imagine for a moment that it was your adult son or daughter who was threatening to commit suicide, but when the authorities came they couldn't take any actions. But YOU know your child is in crisis and you want to do something to help them, but the system won't let you help them, or won't provide the help. That is the situation we are in today in most States. We had a Virginia State Legislator, a very popular one, attacked by his son and then his son committed suicide because the Virginia Mental Health System couldn't find him a psychiatric bed, and once the time expired for his custody they released him. The Father was nearly murdered by his own son because no one was able to help him....and that was when the SON thought he needed to be hospitalized. That is how badly the system is broken.

So, neither I, nor anyone else is supporting what you suggest...that would be nuts...sorry couldn't resist the pun.
Cody

[cclaxton]

Way to go Sotex, very well said. I think the biggest problem I have with your statement cclaxton is when do you draw the line? Do you start looking at combat vets as well, because hey they might have some issues down the road? Or do we just stop with people that had bad child hoods (even if they are now productive adults)?

The whole point of public policy is to draw lines. We draw lines about what is theft and grand theft, what is manslaughter and what is murder, what is Driving While Intoxicated, and what at not, what is a licensed motor vehicle and what is not, what is the level of pollution allowed in our lakes and streams and what is not. Now we should have a healthy debate about where to draw that line and what public policy should be...that is the democratic process we have today. So, drawing lines is not the issue. The problem is that people don't like getting into the details of public policy and understanding the issues to actually understand what is going on at the ground level. Often public policy is a very deep and complex subject, especially when it comes to issues like health care and mental health policy. The truth is often way different than we assume.

Now we can disagree about where to draw the line and what the public policy should be, but whether we even draw a line?....We don't live in an anarchy.
Cody

[Shellback]

CA - Home invasion, 22 year old young man protecting 3 younger siblings, gun fight, victim received numerous gunshot wounds to upper body, stayed in the fight, and managed to put down 1 perp and wound another.

Mike Boudreaux, Tulare County acting Sheriff says this all started at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday when a 22-year-old in the house heard someone trying to break down the front door. He went and got a gun from another part of the house, then returned, and deputies say a gun battle ensued.

Investigators believe this was an attempted home invasion. When deputies arrived at the scene they found two suspects suffering from gunshot wounds. One of those suspects is dead, the other was still in surgery late Tuesday morning.

The 22-year-old suffered numerous gunshot wounds to the upper torso and is said to be recovering.

[breakingtime91]

CA - Home invasion, 22 year old young man protecting 3 younger siblings, gun fight, victim received numerous gunshot wounds to upper body, stayed in the fight, and managed to put down 1 perp and wound another.

Well done

[RoyGBiv]

US Marine with CHL Fatally Shoots Robber in NE Harris County

[Tamara]

Two separate incidents of the cops getting shot at last night here in the Circle City: Unmarked ISP car taking rifle fire, and an IMPD cop getting shot in the vest before killing his ambusher. It got pretty sporty out there.

Links here.

[SeriousStudent]

Thank goodness for body armor. I hope the officer that took the rounds was not injured.

[Trooper224]

Thank you, this was the professional opinion I was looking for early in this thread, which was "could the family have done anything else outside of warning the cops of his violent videos."

According to the latest reports the family did NOT contact the police about the videos, the mother called a help hot line which in turn called the police. The officers responded with only a tip from a hotline to go on. This was a completely bass ackwards way of engaging the process. If the family had contacted the police directly with the video evidence the situation may have been very different.

[BaiHu]

According to the latest reports the family did NOT contact the police about the videos, the mother called a help hot line which in turn called the police. The officers responded with only a tip from a hotline to go on. This was a completely bass ackwards way of engaging the process. If the family had contacted the police directly with the video evidence the situation may have been very different.

Once again, thank you for this insight. As always, the media got it wrong.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[nycnoob]

Ft. Worth woman dies in apparent gun battle with robbers at her place of business.

The victim in this case was a 54 year old female and part-owner of an auction house in the city. It had been robbed four times since December; the police were unable or unwilling to ramp up preventative measures. She spent the night in the building on occasion; on the last the building was burglarized again and she got into a gun battle with the bad guys, emptying a .22 rifle at them. Unfortunately she got the worst of it and was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the torso.

My takeaways: (1) property is property and life is life, protecting the first is laudable but not worth losing the second; (2) hit what you aim at, courage is not an acceptable substitute for training; (3) use an appropriate amount of gun.

I did a quick google search to find out if there was any new information on this case, which was featured on Ballistic Radio, the story is

Raan Henderson worked briefly at the auction house eight or nine years ago in the warehouse, according to the owners, Robert Crowder and Beverly Carter.

They said they suspected him of stealing from the business and of being behind at least one robbery in which Johnson was hit on the head. They said police never followed through on their reports

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/05...#storylink=cpy