KATU.com – Jun 3, 2009:
Although a man was shot by police and died from a bullet wound to the chest, the state medical examiner has ruled his death a suicide because he had cut his own wrists.
The shooting happened Tuesday at the Northridge Condominiums, located at 12600 S.E. Freeman Way.
According to police, when officers responded to the complex on a welfare call, they found a man bleeding and holding a knife. Police said when the officers ordered the man to freeze, he didn’t, causing them to open fire.
Some neighbors said the man never had a knife but the Milwaukie Police Department stands by their account of what happened.
How is Suicide By Cop—a common problem in the lexicon of cops—not worth labeling as suicide? It’s not like they called the COD the slashes to his wrists.
Where were these neighbors who had the point blank view of the subject? I seem to remember a “get those people out of harms way” attitude in police training. “I was right across the street and I didn’t see any knife,” is often the source of “Some neighbors said the man never had a knife…” reportage.
How is it that the blog editor here failed to tie this story to the Major Headline subject matter in the original report? Suicide By Cop was the whole POINT to the original item, conveniently left out of the headline here to get folks riled up.
“Haw, haw. Made you look!” is the underlying principle for these blog entries. How is that not hypocritical?
Maybe a better point for the original item would have been how EASY suicide by cop can sometimes be.
As a practical matter, a knife is only a deadly weapon within a radius of several feet. Unless a cop is caught by surprise at close range and can’t back up, the use of deadly force against someone with a knife is hard to justify. I think too many cops just react badly when a suspect fails to immediately freeze on command. If the man was deaf, that certainly would have sealed his fate.
In the end, though, at least it’s fortunate this time that the cop didn’t kill someone who desperately wanted to live.
Police were called to a local establishment when it was reported that a person was laying on the ground in a threatening manner.
“..yes, we could all see the blood, it was everywhere…looked like he had been bleeding for hours….he sure looked dead to us…”
“..and finally arrive. They yelled at him and told him to drop the knife – he refused and they tasered him. They then told him to roll over on to his stomach – he refused, so they walked up and shot him in the chest…”
“…dumb bastard deserved to die – no one has the right to refuse a lawful order from a police officer..”
Seems the editors decided to use a story from a different reporter. This true version of actual event will never be known by the public.
I guess I’m just woundering, does anyone know if the heroes were wearing their Gap jeans when they offed this guy?
nunyac
Clearly we dont know all the details, but once again, the fact remains that the Cops in America are all to ready to use deadly force for little or no reason. Bullies in School and now Bullies in Life. Criminals with a Badge. They should have offered the guy a cookie?
I guess the coroner is saying he died of suicide because if you “allegedly” point a knife at an officer then you are committing suicide because they will “SHOOT YOU DEAD”!!!.
I am just assuming ofcourse.
Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/thecrypticone
I didn’t realized that the coroner has the say as to whether it is a suicide or not. I thought he simply stated the cause of death.
He died from loss of blood caused from the serrations on the forearms, but not the motives for doing it.
Perhaps I am wrong though.
#23, cafe,
All nice quotes, but I don’t see any link to their source.
#28, sorry…here you go.
dvorak.org/blog/2009/06/06/cops-shoot-and-kills-man-coroner-rules-it-a-suicide/#comments
#29 might have been too cryptic.
#23 was just teasing an earlier poster about who killed the guy 1st…the knife or the gun.
Post Script
The statement – “..This true version of actual event will never be known by the public..”
Is valid because;
It probably has happened sometime, somewhere in the past and if not, it will undoubtedly happen sometime, somewhere in the future.
And of course, because it’s been cited with a link reference (#29)
)