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One of the undercover cops involved in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old who was pointing a gun at officers fired eight rounds, according to the Post. Three officers contributed to the 15-bullet salvo (up from 14 in yesterday's papers) that left Dashawn Vasconcellos with 11 separate wounds, three to the back, one to the chest, one to the right arm and the rest to the legs. The shooting occurred after the teen fled from police who spotted him leaving a park after hours and allegedly raised a gun at officers. While Vasconcellos' friends and relatives have complained that officers responded with excessive force, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said it was too early in the investigation to make a definitive call, but he stated: "On the surface, the shoot looks clean."
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And did anyone expect the police commissioner to say that it looks like the shooting 'looked dirty'?
For the cops who are trained to fire at center body mass, it was a "clean shoot". For anyone else, that's 7 bullets too many.
Sounds like a firing squad to me.
But let's not forget: Pointing a gun at the cops is a free ticket to the mortuary.
How many times is it okay to shoot a guy pointing a gun at you? Because I figure-- I'm not a video game character worried about my "to hit" percentage. I might as well make sure I'm not going to die from that guy POINTING A GUN AT ME.
Did anyone see this week's New York magazine. They had a fairly interesting charticle about police shootings in New York. After reading that I don't think police are as trigger happy as everyone thinks they are.
Common sense is not allowed in this thread, please move along.
Clearly its time for NY to pass a law so that every perp with a gun gets a free shot at each cop before the cops are allowed to return fire.
If you read some of these posts, they would like at least 3 shots.
I think one of the problems here, and what this "article" failed to mention is that the guy was approached by plain clothes cops.
I've read this time and time again, where someone is approached by a plain clothes cop, or pulled over by a plain clothes cop and then someone (usually the perp) ends up dead.
While I'm not one to criticize the po-po, seems like the problem here is that if someone approaches you and says they're a cop, yet they are "plain clothes," what is the likelihood of you actually believing they are cops?
Not trying to point fingers, I'm just not sure what I'd even do if a cop in plainclothes approached me with a hand on a gun... I might freak out too and want to run away thinking he was a mugger/killer, etc...
According to reports, the officers approached them to ask about their presence at the park after it was closed. I'm guessing they already had their badges out. To be honest, I don't remember reading that in any of the newspaper articles.
If someone has seen anything, please point it out.
The gunman's two friends/acquaintances/whatever had already been apprehended by officers when he ran. It's not unreasonable to presume that when they apprehended the other two, they cuffed them...which seems like it would indicate they were cops. It also seems hard to believe they gave no verbal notice that they were cops...because it's not as if they showed up and shot the guy. They got his friends and gave chase before it happened...so some time elapsed before the actual shooting.
The fact that they were white guys walking around Far Rockaway at night should have indicated they were cops.
I think the obvious solution is limiting the number of shots a cop is permitted to fire in proportion to the number of shots fired by the criminal. An initial ratio of two cop bullets to every criminal bullet seems fair, with the ratio growing to 3-1 after two years of active duty, 4-1 after three years, and so on, capping at 10 shots.
If a cop shoots a criminal twice and the criminal is still standing, he must wait to be shot at a minimum of one time before shooting again. This is only fair.
TOM- This is a brilliant, cynically humorous comment- on the obvious stupidity of people commenting on the NUMBER of bullets fired at a guy pointing and/or shooting at anyone- including the police!
Who should be out there on the streets of New York?- Wyatt Earp? An expert shooter who can drop a perpetrator with one, well placed shot?! Would the 'shoot-ee' be any LESS DEAD had the police been able to drop this jerk with ONE SHOOT...
and then of course, there would be the issue of just what kind of bullets the police used: those nice copper (no pun intended) round-y ones which simply just kill you; or those mean-spirited, nasty hollow-point ones that REALLY kill you dead?! [] JesseCal@aol.com
8-rounds isn't a lot when you're speaking on self defense, in the dark.
All of you morons hypothesizing what actually happened are talking out your asses. You weren't there. You were not witnesses. You know only what the police and the police have fed you, which for all we know is a fabrication of events.
Yes...he had an illegal gun. Yes, he was in a park . But what happened after the plain-clothed cops approached him is all speculation.
And he had a loaded gun for what reason?
I don't know about "speculation"-- there are a couple of first-hand accounts. Biased ones, sure, from the cops...but not quite the flights of fancy you seem to be portraying it as.
What I find interesting is that everyone is so willing to accept the police's word for what happened. Doesn't ANYBODY question authority anymore?
The cops COULD have every reason to SAY the kid had a gun, especially if he DIDN'T.
I'm not saying that's the case, but why believe everything you're told by those in power? It makes no sense.
Yes! The police are cowboys just taking target practice at night! Hunting!