Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/14/cop-confuses-falling-acorn-for-gunshot.html
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Reboing:
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I think that, in this situation, it is called a ricochet.
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It’s not a reboing when the content is gleaned from regular members’ posts.
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Acorn-involved shooting.
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“Home of the brave…”
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Add acorns to the list of things cops are pants-wettingly terrified of. It’s a pretty long list at this point, rivaled only by the list of things that make the religious right cower in fear (such as rainbows, numbers and children’s literature).
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IMO it is when it’s not just a post (in a thread) but already a thread of its own.
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Imma repost considering the other thread isn’t from a blog post:
I found the 44 page pdf of the investigation report. Holy shit. This guy was a West Point graduate, served 10 years as a Special Operations officer, including 2 tours in Afghanistan, but didn’t see combat. He must have primed himself silly for suppressor fire to go off like that. He said he legs gave out on him, so he must have massively dumped adrenaline and lost fine and gross motor controls. Had he actually been in danger, he would have been dead.
The thing is, I can’t find this guys picture anywhere. Weird. I hope he doesn’t end up as a cop down the road.
ETA _ I posted the report below.
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I read the story earlier and was struggling to figure out what happened, because it’s so nuts. Cop hears the sound of an acorn and hallucinates that he’s been shot, and decides that the shooter must be the suspect. Even though the suspect has been searched and is handcuffed inside a car, with the windows up, none of which have been broken by this phantom gunshot. At which point he decides to shoot the shit out of the car.
It’s damn lucky the suspect (or anyone else) wasn’t killed, either by that cop or the backup that arrived. There wasn’t much he could do in that situation, handcuffed and locked in a car to play along with their delusions and de-escalate.
I don’t know how much is ex-military cops coming into the job with PTSD, and how much is training/cop culture that leads police to become incredibly neurotic and fall victim to imaginary bullets and imaginary drug overdoses.
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For FULL details including interview transcripts, here is the Sheriff office 44 page report. It is a doozy.
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If this cop had PTSD, I have sympathy for that, but he should get help and a different job where he is not armed.
I want to compare this to the shooting today in Kansas City. The shooter was taken down by unarmed bystanders, and cops showed up once he was on the ground, restrained by some truly brave people.
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He wasn’t shooting at nothing, he was shooting at the handcuffed suspect locked into the back of his car. The Sargent with him thought “I was watching him get killed” and also began shooting at the suspect. That none of the shots hit anything alive was both luck and the average for where bullets go when the shooter is tense and adrenalized. Most police are such bad shots anywhere but at the range they shouldn’t be allowed to have guns.
And the general populace seems to believe that they would be able to do any better in the same situation.
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If I or anyone else would have reacted the same way for a perceived threat that wasn’t real, I would be in jail right now, not quietly resigning from my job.
So you’re god damn right I would do better in the same situation.
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Ah, I meant that many people believe they would be able to stop an active shooter with their trusty firearm that they carry everywhere.
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From the video caption:
He [Country Sheriff Eric Aden] said they have improved their training ‘to try to ensure nothing similar happens again’.
Um, … how? When a job starts with paranoia baked in, how do you “train out” this kind of reaction?
The body language in this photo says it better than I can:
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I would concur, save for the fact that only authors can create ‘Boing’ category posts.
To me, this is just a:
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Two wrongs don’t make a right but apparently incompetences cancel each other out.
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