Whenever police officers are involved in a shooting that results in injury or death to an innocent person they are subjected to a lot of criticism and second guessing by civil libertarians, couch slouches and members of the median, none of whom witnessed the incident. Such is the case with the five Jacksonville, Florida officers who killed a carjacking bank robber, but also wounded a mother and critically wounded her 2-year-old son.
If you listened to the TV newscasters, you would probably conclude that five cops participated in a reckless shooting frenzy, firing 42 shots at the bank robber who was fleeing in a car he had just carjacked, abducting the mother and two children in the process. Well, that’s not exactly how it went down. For starters, the first officer at the scene of the bank robbery fired at the suspect just before the carjacking occurred. So the officers knew for sure they were dealing with an armed robber who exited a bank with gun-in-hand, not just a robbery suspect.
Before casting judgement on the officers, one would have to know exactly what went down. Did the officers even know that the mother and the children were inside the car? If they knew, what were the factors that led them to shoot at the car? Did their department have a clear-cut or a fuzzy policy in place concerning when they could and could not fire at a moving vehicle?
Did the 42 shots fired constitute a criminal act? Most certainly not! In the end it may be that the officers used poor judgement by firing at a moving car, especially if they were aware that the mother and children were inside. It may be that they lacked the self-discipline called for in such situations. And they may have violated one or more of their department’s policies. But until all the facts are known, we shouldn’t rush to judgement by condemning a bunch of cops who found themselves in a stressful situation.
JACKSONVILLE SHERIFF GIVES MORE DETAILS OF SHOOTING ON BAYMEADOWS ROAD
Toddler shot still critical
By Charles Broward
Jacksonville.com
March 27, 2010
When they fired more than three dozen times at a commandeered car, did Jacksonville police officers know it contained an innocent woman and two children?
Their decision Friday was split-second, but questions after a toddler and his mother were shot in a hail of police gunfire lingered a day later - and may for some time.
In a Saturday press conference, Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford had few solid conclusions about the complex sequence of events that played out Friday afternoon at a suburban commercial strip.
Five officers fired a total of 42 rounds in the police-involved shooting on Baymeadows Road. Those bullets killed a bank robbery and carjacking suspect, and sent the woman and her son to Shands Jacksonville, the boy near death. He remained in critical condition late Saturday.
"We had a very volatile situation," Rutherford said. "I just don't want to try to speculate on why they felt the need to shoot at the suspect while he was in the vehicle."
None of the officers have been formally interviewed yet, Rutherford said. There will be at least two investigations, one criminal, and after that, an administrative inquiry.
The boy's family is asking how a police use of force to stop a bank robbery and carjacking suspect could end so tragically.
The boy, identified as Daniel Crichton, was hit by bullets in his arm and upper torso. The sheriff said it is uncertain how long the toddler's status will remain critical.
The boy's mother, Joann Cooper, 35, was driving when her car was commandeered by the suspect after he fled the bank robbery. Cooper was hit in her foot by shots fired from the officers and is also recovering at Shands Jacksonville. Alexis Cooper, 7, her stepdaughter, was in the car but unharmed during the shooting.
Rutherford would not speculate on the exact conditions that prompted the officers to shoot. The car was hit at least 15 times in the windshield, hood and passenger and driver's side windows.
"If the officers felt that they had a opportunity to end it without endangering the carjack victims, then I think it was wise that they would try to do that, if they could do that safely," Rutherford said. "And I don't know the answer to all that yet."
Rutherford said he doesn't yet have all the information about the sequence of events or whether the firing officers knew that the woman and two children were in the car.
"We don't know what they saw. That's part of the problem," Rutherford said.
Cooper and the two children were in a car at the Wendy's drive-through on Friday afternoon when the suspect, whose identity has not yet been released, ran from a bank he had just robbed and carjacked the car by pushing Joann Cooper into the passenger seat of the Nissan she was driving, police said. One officer shot at the suspect just before he got into the car.
As the suspect drove onto Baymeadows Road, four more officers working in teams of two shot at him until the car came to rest in the middle of the road and the suspect was dead.
The officers involved were both veterans and new to the force. Four were on duty and one was off duty.
They were: Lt. J.E. York, a 22-year employee; Officer J.E. Lederman, a 13-year employee; Officer R.C. Santoro, an 11-year employee; Officer R. Black, a 2 1/2-year employee; and recruit D. Griffith, in field training and employed for a year.
It was the first officer-involved shooting for all but York, for whom it was the first officer-involved shooting where a suspect was shot.
Rutherford said the department had not yet been able to reach the suspect's next of kin. The gunman did not discharge his gun, a .357 revolver he was armed with when he entered the Wachovia bank about 3 p.m. and committed a takeover-style robbery, police said.
An expert interviewed Saturday by the Times-Union called such circumstances extremely rare and a "worst-case scenario."That makes training for such a situation virtually impossible, said Thomas J. Aveni, executive director of The Police Policy Studies Council. The presence of innocent bystanders in such close proximity to an armed suspect could either keep an officer from shooting to avoid hurting the bystander - or make him more likely to shoot to protect them.
It seems unlikely that stop sticks - spiked strips that officers can lay over a road to puncture a car's tires - would have been a possibility. They take time to set up, and typically are deployed a mile in advance or more, Aveni said.
"It takes quite a bit of time and directional knowledge," he said.
Aveni said that nationally, many police departments are taking stronger steps to restrict when officers can shoot into or at moving vehicles. The main reason? Accuracy. A car moving at 20 miles per hour is equivalent to 30 feet per second.
"Officers tend to miss significant number of rounds when firing at human beings on foot," he said.
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office policy prohibits officers from firing at a moving vehicle with these exceptions:
- as a last resort to prevent death or great bodily harm to the officer or another person
- as a last resort to prevent the escape of a fleeing felon who would pose imminent threat of death or great bodily harm, and
- when authorized by a watch commander or higher authority.
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