[quote=Salt Lake Tribune]
Shouts break the evening silence.
“Police! Search warrant!”
Officers burst through the door. A man appears across the room. Metal glints from his clasped hands. Shots echo from a police-issue Glock 22. Todd Blair slumps to the floor.
“Five seconds,” said Blair’s mother, Arlean. “In five seconds, he was dead.”
Officers entered Blair’s home Sept. 16 during a drug raid when he stepped into the hall, wielding a golf club, police video shows. Ogden police Sgt. Troy Burnett shot Blair, 45, in the head and chest.
The shooting was deemed legally justified.
“They could have handled it a lot better,” Arlean Blair countered. “They could have tasered him. They could have done a lot of things other than shoot him.”
Investigation reports obtained by The Tribune depict an operation that took some unexpected turns away from protocol before that one explosive moment.
Grounds for search » Whether Todd Blair was a meth dealer or just a well-connected addict is a matter of dispute. Investigators from Weber and Morgan counties began watching Blair in 2009 after hearing that he was letting drug dealers live at his home in exchange for their products, according to the search warrant request. There were previous reports of meth traffic to and from the home, near 5900 South and 2600 West in Roy.
Investigators gathered evidence that it was Blair’s roommate, Melanie Chournos, buying and selling meth — a factor in the no-knock search that would precede Blair’s death.
Detectives later saw Blair leaving for short, nighttime trips, which suggested drug trades, they wrote. Two tipsters claimed that they had seen Blair — not just Chournos — handing drugs to customers.
Investigators, however, didn’t report seeing Blair make a transaction.
“He was not a dealer,” Arlean Blair insists. “I know that he used ... but he was not a drug dealer. A drug dealer has lots of money and nice things. If you looked in his house, he had nothing. He gave everything away to people who were having trouble.”
Two of Blair’s friends claimed they never saw him even use drugs, but others told police he had caved in to his meth addiction.
“He was paranoid,” Candice Coburn — Blair’s on-again, off-again girlfriend — is quoted as saying in a police interview. “His brain was fried. He would punch and yell at invisible people and me.”
[/quote]
Source:
[url]http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50932722-76/blair-burnett-officers-police.html.csp[/url]
Video:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV6Bq8xeQrU[/media]
Sorry mods, I didn't notice a news article until now. Sorry for making another thread! But I thought you guys should know about this!
incompetent cop thread
go
victim of a shitty war on drugs
*3 shots directly into man*
GET ON THE GROUND
[QUOTE=Tetracycline;27045170]*3 shots directly into man*
GET ON THE GROUND[/QUOTE]
omg that dude was triggerhappy
Run, [del]Think[/del], Shoot.
And to think if they hadn't conducted the drug raid nobody would have been hurt
cops need to stop playing call of duty god dammit
Reminds me of the deaf man who's dead now, because of triggerhappy cops
Taxpayers money at work, paying for the misuse of the law. Someone train these fucks.
Just saying, if a man is pointing a gun at you and you taser him, chances are his muscles are going to contract and he will pull the trigger and shoot you. Sorry bud. Maybe he should've walked out with his hands above his head unarmed and prepared for the inevitable instead of thinking it's a super bright idea to threaten a cop with a weapon.
I admit I edited my post a few times, I'm sicker than a dog and it makes it hard to read. I lose my spot a lot
Sorry but I don't see anything wrong with this, he looked like he was holding a gun.
This isn't a situation where you have a chance to double-check because if they do have a gun you'd be dead
I'm sorry, but things like this happen. No one is really at fault. I don't think any of us are in position to judge the cop. He was in a high pressure situation, a man holding a weapon in a threatening manner appears, and he shoots him. It's just how the cookie crumbles, accidents happen, etcetera.
The dude was brandishing a golf club, he kinda brought it on himself.
next time the cop should bust the door down dual wielding winchester 1887s
[editline]29th December 2010[/editline]
id watch the news if that shit happened
[editline]29th December 2010[/editline]
cops would be more interesting
He was charging towards them with something that might be mistaken as a knife or some other weapon. The cops are trained to shoot in that situation.
Cops need to sharpen up with casual clothing and pastel suits and mullets and afros
ferraris would make things totally ace
nice someone is woken up in the middle of the night, doesnt know what is going on and grabs a golf club to defend his property and is shot because of that.
[QUOTE=RayDark;27045744]Taxpayers money at work, paying for the misuse of the law. Someone train these fucks.[/QUOTE]
Their training is to shoot in a situation like this. They did [i]exactly what their training entails.[/i] The officers are not at fault here.
[QUOTE=scout1;27046752]Their training is to shoot in a situation like this. They did [i]exactly what their training entails.[/i] The officers are not at fault here.[/QUOTE]
Uhh, no. An officer is NEVER trained to kill anyone. It is COMPLETELY and totally last resort. Looked more like first resort in the video. Obviously the criminal isn't in the right here, but the police didn't do much better.
From what I saw the "victim" had a golf club and was charging raid team. They where well with in their rights to fire.
It is a shame that someone had to die because of something so stupid. Anyone with some common sense would have put their hands in the air or went on the ground. When you hear "SEARCH WARRANT" and someone kicks down your door it isn't a good idea trying to club someone who is armed. Ultimately the "victim" made the choice and has to suffer the consequences.
When police go on raids they have a general idea how to get in and out. The people usually involved, but one thing they can never be certain of is weapons (They can get an idea of the weapons, but you can never be sure) and how the person in side the house is going to react.
Leg shots are also effective at disabling a potential threat, what's the need in body shots that was just horrible.
[QUOTE=MR-X;27047053]From what I saw the "victim" had a golf club and was charging raid team. They where well with in their rights to fire.
It is a shame that someone had to die because of something so stupid. Anyone with some common sense would have put their hands in the air or went on the ground. When you hear "SEARCH WARRANT" and someone kicks down your door it isn't a good idea trying to club someone who is armed.[/QUOTE]
He wasn't charging them at all. The "Police! Search warrant!" cries had been made outside his house, where they would likely be muffled and hard to hear. Additionally, the man was stationary and clearly drinking in the situation. He posed no threat. The officer had excessive zeal.
[editline]29th December 2010[/editline]
[QUOTE=Gibo990;27047088]Leg shots are also effective at disabling a potential threat, what's the need in body shots that was just horrible.[/QUOTE]
Playing the devil's advocate by saying it's hard to aim for specific body parts in a sudden situation like that (heck, it's hard to fire a gun at all)
[QUOTE=Xolo;27047089]He wasn't charging them at all. The "Police! Search warrant!" cries had been made outside his house, where they would likely be muffled and hard to hear. Additionally, the man was stationary and clearly drinking in the situation. He posed no threat. The officer had excessive zeal.
[editline]29th December 2010[/editline]
Playing the devil's advocate by saying it's hard to aim for specific body parts in a sudden situation like that (heck, it's hard to fire a gun at all)[/QUOTE]
Trust me, when someone is yelling SEARCH WARRANT ( which most of them are all yelling) and knocking on the door you don't just ignore it or not hear it.
But i can see where this thread is going to go really quickly because facepunch is so liberal and such a bleeding heart it is ridiculous. Facepunch will cry murder for a cat killer or animal abuser but when a real criminal who posed a real threat was shot the cops are in the wrong and are terrible people.
And i seen another post suggesting leg shots, lets not get in to this fucking argument again. It is stupid and unrealistic.
How was he a real criminal or a real threat? He was in his home, then woken up by banging and shouts outside his house, so he grabbed something to defend himself with then went to look and see what it was.
[QUOTE=Snapzies;27045771]Just saying, if a man is pointing a gun at you and you taser him, chances are his muscles are going to contract and he will pull the trigger and shoot you. Sorry bud. Maybe he should've walked out with his hands above his head unarmed and prepared for the inevitable instead of thinking it's a super bright idea to threaten a cop with a weapon.
I admit I edited my post a few times, I'm sicker than a dog and it makes it hard to read. I lose my spot a lot[/QUOTE]
It was a golf club, he wasn't even close enough to swing it and they could obviously see what it was. They were completely unjustified in shooting him 3 times.
[QUOTE=MR-X;27047418]Trust me, when someone is yelling SEARCH WARRANT ( which most of them are all yelling) and knocking on the door you don't just ignore it or not hear it.
But i can see where this thread is going to go really quickly because facepunch is so liberal and such a bleeding heart it is ridiculous. Facepunch will cry murder for a cat killer or animal abuser but when a real criminal who posed a real threat was shot the cops are in the wrong and are terrible people.
And i seen another post suggesting leg shots, lets not get in to this fucking argument again. It is stupid and unrealistic.[/QUOTE]
Being a meth addict isn't a crime. Holding a golf club isn't a real threat, he's completely outnumbered and against armed cops, the 'best' he could have done was give one of them a slight bruising from swinging it at them.
"legally justified"
We must have some of the worst cops in the world. I also do not see how this was even remotely legally justified.
Its his fault for holding a golf club (and was probably gonna swing it at them)
Shooting him in the foot should been have damn enough though
[QUOTE=Tobba;27047588]Its his fault for holding a golf club (and was probably gonna swing it at them)
Shooting him in the foot should been have damn enough though[/QUOTE]
Tobba, if you were woken up in the middle of the night and dashed to get a golf club to defend yourself (and this is within probably less then 15 seconds) do you really think you would have been aware of what was going on around you, and furthermore able to drop the golf club in three seconds before getting shot?
I probably wouldn't, depending on how tired I was.
Why would be it be so hard for one officer to have a taser - and use that first? Hell, even tear or CS gas would be have been a better choice.
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