Originally Posted by
HCM
I know how much you like to hate on law enforcement but you will find many more blue on blue shootings (cops mistakenly or unintentionally shooting other cops) in sources like ODMP.org than CCW holders mistakenly shot by the police.
I point this out because it demonstrates this is a training and performance issue rather than a “police are bad” issue.
Funny; elsewhere I'm supposedly a total LEO bootlicker, but to some here I hate police...
Let's be clear: in the last 10 years, police in the US have justifiably killed ~4,000 suspects, yet we're looking at less than 20 cases that were problematic. Police did a good job 99.5% of the time. And they probably acted within the realm of reasonableness for most of the remainder (e.g. Braddock). But the wrong person still got shot and those problematic instances should offer lessons for both gunowners and police.
PS: I didn't go line by line through ODMP or Wikipedia's list of police killings so I'm sure I missed a few cases. But I also consciously excluded any blue on blue where I wasn't sure the victim was in plainclothes & killed during the fog of battle.
Originally Posted by
fatdog
It is disappointing when I hear this incident cited. This incident was local to me, so to cut past the national coverage of the incident, which was largely bullshit:
Mr. Bradford was not an "army vet", he was kicked out of boot camp after a couple of weeks and sent home as unfit for service, I think the official term is "administratively separated”. There are pictures out there of him in his BDU's with his hat on backwards flashing gang signs from that brief period in boot camp. The media even tried to clip his hands out of the picture but failed to cut his left hand out of view when those pictures came to light.
Attachment 44363
It appears at this point, he was an instigator or co-aggressor for this apparently gang related shooting in a local mall here.
AFter the initial gunfire where one of the shooters and an innocent third party were hit. What the police officer saw, and responded to was Bradford aggressively moving towards an unarmed party, gun in hand, muzzle on target, toward this third unarmed person in the mall, appearing to have the intent to fire on said unarmed person and the officer fired to defend what he perceived to be an innocent party. It was a snap judgement about Bradford's intent. The officer was cleared by our state attorney general after a long and intense investigation.
The other gangbanging shooter Bradford was originally engaged with, who has a long criminal record, has yet to come to trial and we will know a lot more of the backstory when that finally happens.
A couple of minor corrections:
Braddock was in the Army for more than a couple of weeks (November 2017 to August 2018)
There was only 1 shooter (Erron Brown) and he was not shot. Brown shot Brian Wilson twice, and one of those rounds went through and struck a 12 year-old bystander in the back (wasn't someone on PF recently talking about how overpenetration never happens in real life?)
Braddock's muzzle was at the ready and never "on target." You can see it in the videos and read between the lines of the shooting officer's two statements:
initial:
“Me and [Officer 2] were standing over there. We heard two shots. And I turned around; we drew our guns. That guy [E.J. Bradford] was running toward them with a gun in his hand. I shot him.”
formal:
“At approximately 2100-2130, I was located on the second floor in front of Spencer’s. My partner and I were observing the crowd for any violations of the law and/or disruptions to the orderly conduct of shopping. I heard two gunshots and a female’s scream behind me. I turned toward the noise, drawing my firearm. I was in reasonable fear for the lives of the shoppers, my partner, and myself. I instinctively started moving towards the area where the gunshots were heard while looking for immediate threats. I then observed a crowd of shoppers near FootAction running away from where I heard gunshots.
I observed two males who were not running away, but, instead, were standing near the railing in front of FootAction. One male appeared to be injured, clutching his stomach, while the other male appeared to be helping him. Next, I observed an armed suspect quickly moving towards the two males standing near the railing. The suspect was advancing on the two males and had a black handgun in his right hand. I fired my duty weapon at the armed suspect to stop him. The suspect fell near the other two males[,] and I observed the suspect’s firearm slide across the floor"
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