Originally published at: A "good police" demonstration results in only one child shot | Boing Boing
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It’s ok though, it doesn’t demonstrate that escalation to firearms isn’t always the optimal path. Put that out of your head. After all, cops only draw firearms at bad people who need to die anyway and guns make everything safer!
Now now children, eat your asbestos and get back to work, you should be well able to shoot yourselves by this age anyway.
/s
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All on its own, apparently.
Edit to add: At least the article in question does actually assign blame to the officer, just not in that one sentence.
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I suspect their definition of “severely hurt” differs from mine.
Not life threatening sure, but getting a wound from a bullet that requires a hospital visit? And the mental trauma of being shot at school to the student, their fellow students, and the family?
“We didn’t kill your kid” isn’t sufficent cause for this minimization press release BS IMHO.
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All Cops Are Buffoons?
I wonder if this meets the press definition of an “officer-involved shooting”?
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Why was his weapon even loaded for a school demo?
Seriously.
WTF.
Also, Alec Baldwin would like a word.
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The only thing that can stop a good guy with a gun is a modicum of common sense.
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Of at least with the safety on. Police guns do have safeties, right?
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Spokesman (and it would be a man), “At this moment in time, all we can confidently say is the shots were fired, and a minor was injured. Police were immediately on the scene, and prevented any further violence. The investigation will continue until the officer involved will be issued a commendation.”
Edit for:
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This wasn’t even some random rookie cop. The officer just ran as the Republican candidate for Vermillion County Sheriff (a race he thankfully lost to the Democratic nominee).
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Good guy with a gun prevents a mass shooting by taking his finger off the trigger.
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You never do some sort of demonstration with a loaded weapon. Ideally you use a “blue gun” which is a solid blue plastic/rubber gun.
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Hey Media, repeat after me: THESE INCIDENTS ARE NOT ACCIDENTS!!
Man, this shit is just exhausting.
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I smell a lawsuit coming. That poor officer is surely due compensation for the humiliation he suffered.
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I hate the timeline that’s nearly turned this expression into an oxymoron. 
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THIS. A TRILLION TIMES THIS.
That was one of the things that was drilled into this civilian’s head when they took the required classroom course for their concealed carry permit. You use a training dummy instead of the real thing; If, for some {deity}-forsaken reason you have to use the real thing, make sure it’s unloaded and made safe, preferably with the ammunition in a different room.
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Actually I think a lot do not have guns with safeties. I personally know one LEO and his gun has no safety. I got the impression from him that this was not unusual.
But seriously, why the hell would you not make sure your gun is unloaded before doing a demonstration with students?? It seems insane to not take basic precautions like that.
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Another example of what Radley Balko calls the “exonerative tense” so often used in descriptions of bad police behavior.
The incident was an accidental discharge of a firearm by a law enforcement officer
Sure, they could have said, “A policeman accidentally shot an innocent child,” but that sounds bad!
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It was at this point that the officer’s weapon accidentally discharged and resulted in the injury of one student, who was not severely hurt.
The gun didn’t discharge, the officer entrusted with it mishandled it and fired it. HE SHOT A CHILD. I, for one, think shooting a child should definitely get one’s privilege to use a firearm revoked. Just sayin’.
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In this case the training dummy was officer Tim Dispennet. And saying it’s only a minor injury is a matter of perspective. I wonder if the kid feels like its minor or if his/her parents think it’s all that minor. It will also be interesting to know who gets presented with the medical bill for this stupidity…hopefully it comes out of the cops salary and not taxpayers pockets.
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