The final weekend of May 2009 will go down as having been rather busy for the King County, WA Sheriff’s Department’s SWAT team, leaving one man dead and three others in custody for what appears to have been a brutal home invasion robbery committed by idiots.
The dead man was killed by a single rifle bullet fired by a sheriff’s sharpshooter, reportedly as he took aim at a hovering sheriff’s helicopter overhead during a seven-hour standoff in Covington that started when the man’s ex-wife came to retrieve some of her belongings. The man reportedly said he had a fertilizer bomb, and he definitely had a rifle, and in a situation like that, you call out the troops.
Not surprisingly, in the aftermath of Saturday’s fatal outcome, the usual pack of armchair critics began whining that the cops were “trigger happy” and that they should have shot the guy only to wound him. Others, however, weighing in on the popular public feedback forums at KOMO and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s on-line newspaper, said deputies did the right thing.
I think the cop who shot the man is a trigger happy guy using his position to justify a killing. He assumed the victims scare tactic was true and shot the person. Where's the bomb? They should have the building evacuated and if he had to shoot the chopper shoot to wound not kill.
Time for the $64 question: What would you have done in the same situation, knowing what these lawmen knew at the time? Would you have allowed the guy to shoot at the helicopter? Allowed him to perhaps set off this bomb he claimed to have? Would you have simply shot him where he stood?
Or, would you have called the cops, claiming that "It's not my problem?"
Putting the lie to the “trigger happy” argument, on Sunday, sheriff’s SWAT was back out there again, this time responding to a situation at a Burien apartment complex involving three guys who allegedly pistol whipped one of their neighbors, took some valuables and then went back to an apartment in the same complex. We’re not sure what possessed this bunch to pull that kind of stunt in their own apartment complex, but let’s just say that these guys are lucky there is not a “Felony Stupid” statute in Washington State.
I live four houses down from the incident. My impressions: The police and sheriff's department personnel were incredibly helpful to those of us whose homes were in danger.
SWAT was called out – according to spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart, this is an overtime event on a weekend, and the SWAT guys racked up a lot of hours – and the day ended with nobody getting seriously hurt. If these guys were truly “trigger happy” there might have been one or two more new residents at the medical examiner’s office.
As times get a little rougher economically, there might be more incidents in which SWAT is called out, and all of this takes manpower and money. As noted in my May 4 column, the King County Sheriff’s Department has budget woes along with the rest of us. Public safety is, or at least should be, the number one priority of the King County Council and Executive, though considering the staff-to-council ratio, and the number of support positions for the executive listed at more than $100,000 a year, one might think it’s time for some budget realignment.
From all indications, both the incidents in Burien and Covington could have been much worse. The dead man, according to Urquhart, had been standing on his deck, taking aim at the police helicopter, when he was shot. Guess whose fault that is?
The three guys in Burien will have their days in court. They will have nobody but themselves to blame if they wind up on a steady diet of jail food.
One thing that has not emerged in the aftermath of either incident is its exploitation by gun prohibitionists. So far, only one person appears to have blamed the dead man’s rifle for his behavior on the Seattle P-I's feedback site, and nobody has suggested that Burien’s Three Stooges would have been better behaved, had they not been armed when they attacked their victim.
Let’s keep that in perspective.
Visit with other Gun Rights Examiners:
For more info: America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, Washington State Gun Rights and Responsibilities
Comments
It gets old fast with the whack jobs claiming the police should have doen this or should have doen that. The guy shouldnt have been threatening people with anything and he wouldnt have been killed. It wasnt an inanimate objects fault. It was his disregard for the lives of others that got him killed. He killed himself.
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