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Robbery Suspect Tracked By GPS and Killed
New submitter Lew Lorton notes a NY Times story about a thief in New York City who was tracked and located using a GPS device inside a decoy pill bottle he had stolen (along with other pill bottles) from a pharmacy. When police confronted the thief, he raised a gun to shoot at an officer, and was killed
"The decoy bottles were introduced last year by the police commissioner at the time, Raymond W. Kelly, who announced that the department would begin to stock pharmacy shelves with decoy bottles of painkillers containing GPS devices. The initiative was in response to a sharp increase of armed and often deadly pharmacy robberies across the state, frequently by people addicted to painkillers. ... The bottles are designed to be weighted and to rattle when shaken, so a thief does not initially realize they do not contain pills. Each of the decoy bottles sits atop a special base, and when the bottle is lifted from the base, it begins to emit a tracking signal."
[n/t]
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
OK let's get this out of the way...
He didn't deserve to die for stealing the pills... ... but soon as he chose to put the life of an officer in danger instead of surrendering, then he did.
The thief was killed because he raised a gun to an officer, not because he was tracked down by GPS.
Can we mod a submission as "-1 TROLL"?
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Yeah, if there's one time when lethal force is justified, it's this. Doesn't excuse scumbags tazing grannies, but kudos to this officer for handling a dangerous situation optimally.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
For all you statists here who want to government to decide what you can and can't put into your own body, I hope you're happy. This high-speed chase and shooting wouldn't have happened without the ridiculous requirement to have a prescription for certain things people willingly choose to ingest.
One could do that. Another common method of avoiding decoys is to avoid committing robbery and burglary. Felony crime as a career path doesn't tend to attract the brightest and most careful practitioners.
Generally, people don't shoot at them. Strange concept relating to NOT HAVING SO MANY F***ING GUNS.
Maybe it's an outlandish concept to some, but in most civilized countries police doesn't deem it necessary to carry guns to protect themselves from the rest of society. They tend to expect society to work WITH them, not AGAINST them.
Of course, it's usually different in dictatorships.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not all of us on the left have a problem with this.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Hmm. You left out the 16-year prison sentence the guy already had behind him for "sexual abuse and robbery convictions", which seems odd for someone genuinely defending the police here. You also jump to the rather ridiculous conclusion that there's a "PC leftist crowd" ready to condemn the police for shooting an armed nutcase who pulled a gun on them. Are you simply a troll hoping to initiate a left-right tribal battle over what seems a pretty clear case of a violent career criminal making his final mistake?
That said, we could once again blame the War on Drugs, which makes it profitable to rob damn painkillers at gunpoint. If people who want high could get high legally, and people who want to get completely messed up could do so in licensed places with medical and security staff, we wouldn't have to deal with this kind of shit. Nor would places like Mexico need to deal with their derived problems.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The difference comes from the fact that when this happens in the USA the cops shoot to kill. When this happens in Finland they shoot to incapacate(in the leg etc.)..or they don't shoot at all and instead take cover and negotiate the guy into dropping the gun.
It's an escalation thing. Due to the relative scarcity of guns in the UK, if criminals started to carry them as standard kit they'd be up against a lot of unfriendly cops who are generally better trained with better hardware. It would end badly in a country where the average unarmed robbery will get you a few years at worst and a kiss on the cheek and community service at least, if not acquittal on a technicality. Using a gun can up your sentence to something unpleasant, so most sane robbers don't carry them. Where nutjobs are concerned, anything goes and most of the rest of the criminal fraternity tend to avoid them. Killing a cop is just as bad here as in the US so you have to be *way* past desperate to go that route. And really stupid.
No. Race has nothing to do with it. The fact that not only do you think it might, but that it is foremost, indicates that bigotry and prejudice are alive and well in your heart.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
but in most civilized countries police doesn't deem it necessary to carry guns to protect themselves from the rest of society.
Only if you define 'civilized' as 'most police don't carry guns'. Most police in Europe carry guns. Most police around the world carry guns. The UK and Norway don't get to dominate the stats.
I'm not saying that we don't have problems, I'd LOVE to reform our police and justice systems here in the USA, but routine carrying of arms isn't one of them. My view is if they can't be trusted with a weapon, they can't be trusted to be an officer.
I don't read AC A human right
Do you happen to have a source on Finnish officers shooting 'to incapacitate'? Much less in the leg? Because my self-defense and military training is that a leg shot is both potentially fatal(big arteries there, fast bleedout) and not likely to be incapacitating(if you don't hit the artery they can still fight).
By my training 'Center of Mass' shots, IE to the chest, is both an easier shot to hit with, is more likely to actually incapacitate, and given prompt medical attention not actually all that more likely to be fatal.
I shoot to 'stop', not to 'wound' or 'kill'.
That being said, I'm all for officers using negotiation instead of gunfire were possible. But if that trigger has to be pulled, it needs to be pulled in the most effective manner possible.
I don't read AC A human right
traffic = other people = witnesses
"The police official said the GPS device helped lead the police to the man, who was confronted as his 2007 Jeep was stuck in traffic on a service road beneath the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive at East 96th Street. "
"He served about 16 years in prison during two stints between 1990 and 2008 for sexual abuse and robbery convictions, according to state records."
Seriously, the patrolmen don't have guns? What if someone shoots at them?
Due to strict gun control in the UK, very few criminals have guns, so police officers almost never have the risk of confronting an armed perpetrator. The criminals in the UK who *do* have guns are not petty thieves who are robbing pharmacies for narcotics.
The strange concept is that you would bring up gun control when the statistics don't back you up. Over the last decade, the percentage of officers killed on duty, by guns vs other causes, in Britain is slightly HIGHER than it was in the United States. The US is far more violent than Britain, but guns do not contribute to that nearly as much as you would have others believe.
Do you have a source for that? According to the site linked below (which includes citations), "In the US – population 311.5 million – there were an estimated 13,756 murders in 2009, a rate of about 5.0 per 100,000. Of these 9,203 were carried out with a firearm. In the UK – population 56.1 million – there were an estimated 550 murders in 2011-12, a rate of about 1.4 per 100,000. Of these 39 were carried out with a firearm." I couldn't find similar statistics for police officers, but you're obviously pretty sure of your facts so I thought I'd ask. http://fleshisgrass.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/us-and-uk-murder-rate-and-weapon-updated/
E pluribus unum
It's not that they don't trust the officers with a gun, it's that everybody knows that patrolmen don't have guns. Why spend money to get a gun when you know that you're not at risk of being shot at to start? And then why shoot at an officer who you know won't shoot at you?
The idea is that it lowers the stakes all around.
Strict gun laws in the UK didn't prevent that one guy from going on a rampage for half a day and killing and injuring a whole bunch of people, including police.
Of course there will always be edge cases, but the facts speak for themselves -
USA Gun Deaths per 100,000 (2011): 10.3
UK Gun Deaths per 100,000 (2011): 0.25
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
You can argue about suicides until you're blue in the face, but the facts remain: In the USA, more than any other western country, more kids shoot their siblings. More kids shoot themselves. More drunks shoot either other, widowing mothers and orphaning kids. More men shoot their wives. More criminals shoot 7-11 clerks, taxicab drivers and people in movie theatres. More cops shoot teenagers because the cops think their iPod is a gun.
The USA has said this is fine and this is the society they want to live in, but to the rest of us it is batshit crazy and we want no part of it. Handguns do not belong in a civilized society. Full stop.