A family member said the schizophrenic was shot so many times, “he had no face”
Saturday at 1:50 a.m., Laredo, Texas cops rushed to the Gateway Truck Stop where it was reported a man was there armed with a gun. Not long after they arrived, six cops opened fire on Jose Walter Garza, 30, who was holding what appeared to be a gun. Around 80 shots were fired at Garza. The gun turned out to be a pellet gun.
Garza was a schizophrenic who may have been off his medication. Laredo cops had previously busted Garza nearly 30 times on various charges, including assault of a public servant, theft to assault causing serious bodily injury and criminal trespassing.
Gaza’s family claims the police gunfire was excessive. And they must have watched too many ‘shootemup’ movies and TV shows because they felt the cops could have shot Garza in the leg or arm.
Garza had been living with his grandmother who wanted to hold a funeral service with him in a casket. But when other family members saw that his face had been blown away they decided to have him cremated instead.
Are eighty shots excessive? That depends on the eye of the beholder. An ordinary citizen would conclude that 80 shots at one person is excessive. But if the six cops felt their lives or that of a fellow officer to be in imminent danger, it was a matter of self-preservation. Under such circumstances, one should understand why they would start and continue firing until the threat was over and done with.
My question is, was it necessary for all six officers to fire a fusillade of shots at Garza? Of course not! The massive shooting is what I call the ‘Lemming Syndrome.’ Like a group of lemmings following the lemming at the head of the line to their deaths over a cliff, when one officer in a group of cops opens fire, all the other cops follow. But if the officers feared for their lives, then the 80 shots were justified.
3 comments:
That was surely excessive use of force.Sufficient to bring down a herd of wild elephants running amok.
Sanjiv, my good friend, it is good to hear from you. I agree the 80 shots were excessive, but I can understand why officers believing their lives to be in imminent danger would open fire and not stop shooting until that threat was over and down with.
Unlike your home country of India, here in the U.S. people are taking shots at the police almost daily. And as far as all those shots being fired, I know of many instances where some crazy person armed with a gun, knife or other dangerous object continued to charge at the police even though he had been shot several times.
If the police were still using revolvers the rounds would have probably been limited to 36.
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