Wednesday, February 05, 2014

It took a year...a year!

And the surprising thing is...there may be some sort of assignment of responsibility. Maybe.

Last year, in the immediate wake of the murder of three Los Angeles Officers by Christopher Dorner, this happened.
At some point, the officers received a report that a pickup truck resembling Dorner’s was seen in the area of the house they were guarding. Shortly after 5 a.m., a truck turned onto the street. As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the truck. When the shooting stopped, they realized their mistake. The truck was a different make and model. The color wasn't gray, as Dorner’s was, but blue. And it wasn't Dorner inside the truck, but a woman and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.
A tragic, but clearly foreseeable event. And those officers, the Chief of Police, Charley Beck,  decided after a year...violated Departmental policy.

Or to be tragically cynical, did they?
A panel of high-ranking police officials that reviewed the shooting urged Beck to clear the officers of wrongdoing
Yes, those two now dead (Ed: they lived, so, uh....whoops?!) people should have known not to drive a vehicle as uncommon in America as a pick up truck.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

5 comments:

The Frito Pundito said...

It was terrible, and this is a miscarriage of justice, but to clear things up, the two women did not die. From the linked article: "Hernandez was shot twice in the back, while her daughter received superficial wounds. The women later agreed to a $4.2-million settlement with the city."

Which I guess goes to show they can't even use deadly force properly.

Anonymous said...

The "dog ate my homework"-level excuses by the cops in that article are appalling.

When was the last time American cops were held accountable for abusing their Jeebus-given right to inflict unrestricted violence any time on any personal whim?

Anonymous said...

This is the LADPD. If the vehicle had the same number of wheels as the suspect's truck, that's enough justification to riddle it with celebratory gunfire.
The only saving grace in this situation was their Japanese-soldiers-in-a-John-Wayne-movie awful marksmanship that saved two innocent women from being killed.

And the worst that will possibly happen to these trigger-happy roid ragers is they'll get a warning and some retraining. Just watch.

pansypoo said...

BUT IT WAS A TRUCK!!!!

Anonymous said...

I was gonna say their Star-Wars-Imperial-Star-trooper awful marksmanship, heh. As I recall, the survival of the poor women was miraculous given the number of bullets that struck the vehicle. Who'd believe it if it were a scene in a movie? Mom and daughter out delivering papers, few people on the street that time of morning, daughter asking mom to cut her some slack over whatever mom's on about, they turn a corner and, wham, it's the final shoot out scene from 'Bonnie and Clyde.'