Parkland Shooter Gets Life Recommendation

And the counter point is several other times when cops showed up at the scenes of a shooting and shot the “good guy with gun” on sight.

But I agree that not all cops act like that. This guy overcame his “protect myself first” training and actually did an amazingly good job.

 

Respectfully, that's not a counter point to my comment. I actively fight my own inclination to judge situations by using generalizations. I don't excuse bad cops or incompetent cops just like I don't blindly hero worship cops in general. My only point is generalizations as mentioned in this prior do these cops a complete disservice especially after having to witness the carnage first hand.

 

That is pretty much the job of a school resource officer. 99% of the time he had a more lax job than everyone. He gets paid for the 1% of the time that it isn't.

I wasn't sure what he was charged with, but I was guessing something relating to criminal negligence and it looks like I was right. I think he might've had a couple defenses, including perhaps that the elements for felony child neglect were not met depending on causation and the scope of his duties, but a reasonable case can be made for it I think. Unless there's some defense I'm missing, this just looks like a case where everyone knows what happened, it just depends on how a jury looks at it.

To me, there was a special relationship there. Was he the "cause" of their deaths? I think a case can be made either way which would support a verdict of "not guilty." I'm also not sure what the burden of proof is exactly for something like that. You have to prove all of the elements beyond a reasonable doubt, but would it be enough to prove that "less people would've died" or would you have to prove "which specific life or lives would have been saved?"

I think a much easier case considering the standard of proof in civil cases can be made for a wrongful death claim against the SRO, but to do that, you'd have to get over the qualified immunity hurdle.

 

We have an expression in the fire service that can be used in policing as well. We aren't paid for what we do we are paid for what we are willing to do.

That said, the services are wrought with people who don't live that motto. Those of us who respect that ethic generally know who will lead and who will cower when the time comes.

 

I don’t think you can compare Fire and rescue duties to policing when shots are being fired at you or someone else. I had a career in both services.

I was shot at one time as a deputy and threatened one other time by a guy who I ran down who just beat his wife severely. He had a 22 rifle that was pointed at my head when I caught him hiding in the bushes. I was able to talk him out of the gun. I remember my voice cracking from fear as I spoke.

Another other time was while hog hunting. Two hunters who knew the area I was in decided to shoot at a hog that passed between us. I heard the buzz of the bullets and dove into the ditch. I never hunted with them again.

As a rookie fighter, before I became a fire/arson investigator we responded to a shooting in the projects. When we got back to the station we found two bullet holes in the cab of the truck. After that the protocol was changed to where a police officer was dispatched to every shooting or possible shooting. We were ordered to stage down the street until an “all clear” was given. Don’t know how long that existed as I soon afterwards went into investigation.

Fighting fires were fun for me and I never thought one time about the possibility of injury.

My 2 cents

Fwiw. I hate it when the public calls firefighters and police officers hero’s. Do some deserve it? Yes. But in general no. Now you have “hero” parking spaces at the malls for firefighters and police. Used to be veterans only.

 

Active shooter events although becoming more common are still not normal occurances and comparing them to "normal" firefighting isn't exactly a fair comparison.

Also, comparing responses specifically to shooting situations is not the intent of that ethic either. We have had members shot at on an active fire as well as at a well being check by the way. This isn't to get into a one up contest but to illustrate the point that responses carry unknown and volatile risks.

We also have a swat medic program that responds with LEO for warrants, raids and active shooter situations but again, this wasn't a hero contest and I don't really get the comments myself.

The only thing I agree with is the hero worship. It's a job. Some make it more than that but we get paid regardless of how poorly or well to do it. I cringe when people do it but understand they mean well.

How long ago were you a fire fighter? Where at and for how long?

Edit: no response necessary. I don't want to change the subject and there is no point in going back and forth on this.

 

My post was merely to state my opinion as to police vs firefighting from a personal experience.

I started at Tampa PD on November 1st 1977. I took me about 6 months to figure out I didn’t like working in patrol as a Leo. I transferred to Tampa FD (now Tampa fire rescue) on April 8th 1978 and retired from there on Sept. 22nd 2007. Between the time I transferred to TFD and retired I went back to the police academy for comparative compliance recertification and joined Hillsborough SO as a regular reserve deputy. A regular reserve deputy is fully certified and responds to calls like a regular deputy. I had to do 600 hours of training with an fto prior to being release on the street to work alone. I served there in the early 90s for about 4 years. That was my service to the community as I didn’t get paid for my work. I taught at the Tampa police and fire academy, “crimes against property” at the police academy and “Fire investigation techniques” at the fire academy. My experiences with police shootings were at the HCSO.

Where you at? Don’t have to answer since you’re active.

 

Anecdotes are a funny thing. I have Anecdotes working next to PD in 2 departments. One department that hasn't had to deal with any type of active shooting or LEO involved shooting in over 15 years and another that has had an officer shot and killed during a "routine" traffic stop, another shot in the chest(vest) serving a warrant that survived and actually stayed on the call and remained engaged with the suspect, along with a number of violent scenes in the past few years alone.

Fire departments are the same way. I don't want to go over personal war stories here but ill just disagree with your notion that the ethic about the willingness to risk life and limb is any different between the two fields.

 

A case like this demands death with all appeals pushed to the top of the pile for expediency. There is no question of guilt, there is no question of special circumstances, and there is no question (at least in my mind) that the death penalty is proportionate to the crime. The death penalty was the only just outcome here. I’m sorry the families will not receive that small measure of justice from the state.

 

You don't blame him for happily taking a paycheck + benny's, while being entrusted with a badge and a gun, for a false promise to protect kids?

I blame the hell out of him.

(...I disagree with criminalizing cowardice, but I think that this particular POS, is a grade a POS. Just not quite on board with criminally prosecuting a guy freezing under objectively challenging circumstances).

 

This.

Piling shit on top of shit, not only are we not going to execute this POS, but he'll get special soft glove treatment, while much lesser offending folks serving time in gen pop have to live with their heads on a swivel, counting the days where the next guy's pecker isn't rammed up their back door, or getting the shit kicked out them, a good day.

The only way this wouldn't be a abject travesty of justice, is if he were let loose in gen pop, to fend for himself.

 

Just stop already.

You enjoy a peaceful, lawful existence, because cops keep criminals in check.

Y'all hyper focus on 1/100,000 occurrences, where criminals who made it through the police academy, commit crimes behind the badge.

They are few and very far between, compared to the abject lord of the flies bully world chaos we'd all have to deal with, if it wasn't for our boys in blue.

 

This really has nothing to do with "criminals who made it through the police academy". Cops deserve criticism when they screw up this badly, but I don't think this cop did anything criminal. And I really think it's about a lot of cops being too scared to do their jobs, which explains both cases ... why this guy (and as I recall, several other cops that arrived early, along with that police department in Texas) didn't engage the active shooter --and-- why cops are quick to shoot unarmed, innocent, within second of misinterpreting a situation. Fear.

 

When cops try to get away with crimes while wearing their badges, they become the thing they pretend to fight against: criminals.

That to me isn't bad policing--that's criming, with a badge.

 

Person is a grade a POS for not running into a firefight with a six shooter against a person with a semi auto rifle? You cast judgement w/o knowing anything else about the man. Inappropriate

 

Well, I was and remain against criminally prosecuting the guy.

Clearly the prosecutor, and a pile of other ppl, thought him far shittier than I.

C'est la vie.

 

And yet you indict a SRO based on a 1-in-a-million event.

 

Never understood people's desire for the death penalty in cases like this. It has been shown to not really save money, due to the cost of appeals, lawyers, trials, etc to pursue the death penalty vs life in prison. But aside from that if I was given the option between death and life in prison, I would rather choose death. Life in prison sounds like an infinitely worse punishment. jmo

 

What's the overlap on the Venn Diagram of people pissed the school resource officer didn't engage in a firefight with the better armed shooter, and also those folks who want to arm teachers as a preventative measure of school shootings?