Never forget…
Tag: police shootings
State troopers capture criminal but shoot his hostage
A federal appeals court has ruled police can shoot hostages — even intentionally — if they fear for their lives or to stop a fleeing felon.
The case is more than just a legal footnote to Don Davis. The Georgia truck driver was shot nine times by troopers and deputies who were trying to stop a murder suspect holding Davis hostage in his truck.
While the shooting occurred in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court just this week let stand a federal court ruling that police owe the hostage nothing for his medical bills or the lasting effects of the officer-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The roadblock
Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s deputies and Georgia State Patrol troopers were waiting on a dirt road outside a logging camp in August 2015.
Murder suspect Ryan Arnold was terrorizing the loggers and was planning his escape. Arnold had already shot his pregnant girlfriend and left her for dead before leading police on a chase. A trooper exchanged gunfire with the murder suspect before his getaway car ran out of gas at the logging camp.
Don Davis was getting ready to pull out with a full load of lumber when Arnold jumped in his truck with a rifle. “He fired a shot, and blew my side mirror out. I thought that was my head. But look, you know, I got lucky,” Davis said.
Davis picked up his phone and called 911. The kidnapper knew he was calling.
“He’s in my truck and we coming out of the woods now,” Davis calmly told the 911 operator. “He says that I won’t survive if I don’t get him out,” he added.
Dispatch records confirm police were told that the hostage was driving the logging truck with the killer threatening his life. “The subject you all are looking for is in the vehicle with him advising if he does not go where he tells him to he will kill him,” a dispatcher said over the radio minutes before the shooting.
Some officers testified they didn’t hear that message, while others confirmed they knew there was a hostage in the truck.
The 18-wheeler rolled toward the police cars that were blocking the road and started pushing them out of the way. Officers had taken cover behind the cars. The driver’s window of the logging truck was completely missing because the murder suspect had already shot it out while taking Davis hostage.
Two Georgia State Patrol troopers and a pair of Oglethorpe County deputies opened fire on the cab of the truck using shotguns, a pistol and a fully automatic tactical rifle.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined the gunfire was concentrated on the driver’s side of the cab, where Davis was driving.
“Shooting the driver, shooting who is driving that truck, will stop that truck,” GBI Special Agent in Charge Jesse Maddox told lawyers in a deposition.
The truck was riddled with more than 35 bullet holes.
Davis stopped the truck and jumped out after he was already hit eight times. “I said, ‘I got to get out of here,’ bailed out and had my hands up, and I still got shot,” Davis recalled.
A police officer shot the hostage again as he jumped out of the truck to get away from the kidnapper. The officer testified he didn’t realize the man jumping out was the hostage until he had already opened fire.
Davis was shot in his shoulder, hip and leg. His right hand was nearly blown off. Doctors were able to reconstruct Davis’ hand, but he lost two fingers.
Arnold had been hiding on the floorboards with a rifle trained at Davis’ head. The kidnapper suffered far-less-serious injuries. “I was placed into an ambulance on the scene and Mr. Davis was lifeflighted,” Arnold testified in a deposition from prison.
Arnold pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping and other felonies.
A ‘tragic story’
Davis and wife Kathy sued the officers in federal court. Oglethorpe County and two sheriff’s deputies settled with the couple for $195,000 as part of a court-ordered mediation, according to a document obtained through a records request.
The rest of the case was thrown out by the U.S. District Court.
Police Lied About Death of ‘Cop City’ Protester They Shot 57 Times
Medical examiner rules police shooting a homicide. Police say they were forced to shoot Manuel Esteban Paez Terán after the 26-year-old environmental protester—who went by the nickname Tortugita—shot at them first. But no gunpowder residue was found on Terán’s hands, Georgia’s DeKalb County Medical Examiner reported.
The office has ruled the death of Terán (who used they/them pronouns) a homicide.
Terán was part of a group protesting the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a 265-acre property that opponents have nicknamed “Cop City.” The protesters were camped out on the property in January when state troopers showed up.
According to law enforcement officials, Terán shot at a state trooper, prompting police to respond with a barrage of gunfire.
“The individual who fired upon law enforcement and shot the trooper was killed in an exchange of gunfire,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Director Mike Register told the media in January. A GBI press release said officers “located a man inside a tent in the woods” and “gave verbal commands to the man who did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper. Other law enforcement officers returned fire, hitting the man.” The GBI also said that a handgun and shell casings had been found.
But an official autopsy report viewed by ABC News said there was no gunpowder on Terán’s hands. The report also revealed that they had been shot at least 57 times, suffering gunshot wounds to the head, chest, arms, hands, pelvis, thigh, buttocks, and abdomen.
“Collectively, the gunshots resulted in [Terán’s] death and therefore the cause of death is designated as multiple gunshot wounds,” states the report. “However, the gunshot wound to the head would have been fatal by itself as would have some of the other gunshots.”
An independent autopsy ordered by Terán’s family found they had their hands up when they were shot. The Dekalb County report said “there are too many variables with respect to movement of the decedent and the shooters to draw definitive conclusions concerning Mr. Teran’s body position.”
At the time of Terán’s killing, the media largely ran with the narrative supplied by the GBI.
8 Cops Who Shot Fleeing Unarmed Man 46 Times on Video, All Get Off Scot Free
Before he was filled with taxpayer-funded bullets in July 2022, Jayland Walker, 25, was a standout wrestler at Buchtel High School, where he graduated in 2015. According to his family, he worked for Amazon, took a job driving for DoorDash, and was set to get married. All of this is over now, however, after multiple officers decided to dump more than a dozen rounds each into Walker’s body after he fled a traffic stop for a simple violation.
Now, despite the fact that these officers executed — in firing squad fashion — an unarmed man on video, they all will go back to work. This week, a grand jury concluded the officers were legally justified in their use of force against Jayland Walker, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
“He reached for his waistband in what several officers described as a cross-draw motion, planted his foot and turned toward the officers while raising his hand,” Yost said. “Only then did the officers fire, believing Mr. Walker was firing again at them.”
“The law allows officers to use deadly force to defend themselves or others against a deadly threat,” he added.
Apparently, ‘belief’ in danger is enough to justify execution by firing squad. One can only hope that police never ‘believe’ you are a danger and treat you in a similar manner.
As we reported at the time, days after he was killed, officials released the body camera footage from Walker’s killing and the chief himself admitted that it was hard to determine what provoked the officers to fire their weapons.
Chief Mylett said in still photos of the footage, it appears Walker was reaching down to his waist but admitted Walker did not have a gun on him when he was killed.
The medical examiner had originally said he had “multiple gunshot wounds,” but Mylett said the medical examiner confirmed more than 60 wounds on Walker’s body.
Laughably, the Fraternal Order of Police in Akron described the shooting as being “consistent with the use of force protocols and officers’ training.”
7 Black People Killed After Cops Falsely Discover a Gun That was Never There
In a number of police brutality cases, the actions of a police officer are justified if the person is holding or reaching for a firearm, even when it is found later that the cop made a mistake. Recently, a Missouri Prosecutor has decided not to criminally charge two Independence Police Department officers who shot and killed 39-year-old Tyrea Pryor after a car crash after mistaking him for holding a gun.
Pryor’s case is one of many examples of police brutality but here are seven examples of cops pulling the “they had a gun” card.
New Mexico Cops Fatally Shoot Homeowner After Showing Up at the Wrong House
Police in Farmington, New Mexico, fatally shot a man while responding to a domestic disturbance call at the wrong house. The man killed lived across the street from the house police had been called to.
“On April 5, 2023, at around 11:30 p.m., the Farmington Police Department received a call for a domestic violence incident occurring at 5308 Valley View Avenue,” according to the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau, which is now investigating the incident. “Once on scene, officers mistakenly approached 5305 Valley View Avenue instead of 5308 Valley View Avenue.” Police knocked on the (wrong) door, no one answered, and “officers asked their dispatch to call the reporting party back and have them come to the front door.”
As they started to leave, 52-year-old homeowner Robert Dotson opened his front door holding a handgun—not an entirely unreasonable thing for someone to do when they get a strange knock on their door late at night.
No one alleges that Dotson pointed the gun at the police officers or threatened them.
Nonetheless, “at this point in the encounter, officer(s) fired at least one round from their duty weapon(s) striking Mr. Dotson,” the state police report. The Farmington officers did not even tell the man who answered the door to drop his weapon nor give him time to comply with their order before firing upon him, according to the statement from state police.
This would be an insane overreaction even if the police had been at the right house. That police weren’t even at the right house of course makes the shooting all the more senseless.
Dotson was pronounced dead at the scene.
Family Granted $26 Million After Body Cam Showed Cop Execute Innocent Unarmed Child
On a Saturday night in a North Texas town in 2017, 15-year-old Jordan Edwards was murdered by a Balch Springs police officer. Jordan was a passenger in a car that had merely driven away from a party. Immediately after police killed him, the chief parrotted his officer’s false claim of fearing for his life as the vehicle drove “aggressively toward him.”
After watching the body-camera footage, however, the chief realized he’d spread a lie. So, he did the right thing and told the public the truth — the car was not a threat and was driving away.
Police Chief Jonathan Haber admitted that the car full of innocent teenagers was driving away from the officer when he raised his AR-15 and shot Jordan Edwards in the head.
“It did not meet our core values,” Haber said of the officer’s actions.
Based on the extensive reporting the Free Thought Project has done on officers shooting into vehicles, we predicted the original story would probably not be backed up by the body-camera footage, and we were correct.
The shooting was so egregious that Oliver was found guilty of murder in 2018 and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.
Now, six years after Balch Springs Police officer Roy Oliver raised his AR-15 and dumped multiple rounds into a car full of innocent children — executing one of them — Jordan’s family has the rest of their closure. The family’s federal civil rights trial began last week and concluded on Monday with a $26.1 million settlement: $8.5 million to Edwards’ father, Odell, for damages; $2.1 million in estate for damages such as mental anguish and funeral expenses; and $11 million in punitive damages.
NPR puff piece on Atlanta leftist gunman revealed to be written by Antifa supporter
NPR on Saturday published a “misleading” piece on the circumstances surrounding the Atlanta police shooting of Antifa extremist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, where Antifa-supporting journalist Kaity Radde claimed the accused cop-shooter had his hands up when he was killed, and promoted the debunked conspiracy theory that the officer shot by the gunman was supposedly hit by friendly fire.
“The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says officers killed [Terán] in self-defense after they shot a state trooper, but the City of Atlanta released videos in which an officer suggests the trooper may have been injured by friendly fire,” Radde wrote of the January 18 incident, referring to a claim made by Antifa sympathizers that investigators maintain is false.
As reported by FOX 5, the GBI said that law enforcement came across Terán camped out in a tent in the woods in the Antifa-controlled autonomous zone near “Cop City,” what rioters are calling the site of Atlanta’s future Public Safety Training Facility.
According to investigators, officers fired at the suspect in self-defense after he refused to follow verbal commands and shot a state trooper, who was injured and treated at an intensive care unit.
The GBI has said that no footage of the actual shooting exists, but video the Atlanta Police Department shared captured by one trooper who heard the shooting take place out of eyesight’s body camera has fueled conspiracy theories from supporters of the Antifa gunman, with the family’s lawyer saying it confirmed their “worst fears that Manuel was massacred in a hail of gunfire.”
In the footage, one of the officers heading towards the sound of several gunshots says to others in the group, “Did they shoot their own man?”
“We don’t know who he got shot by, if it was by a deputy,” another one responds.
In a statement regarding these comments, APD said these officers were simply speculating on what the multiple gunshots could’ve been.
DOJ Accuses Louisville Police Of Civil Rights Violations, Discrimination After Breonna Taylor Investigation
Louisville’s police routinely violate constitutional rights and federal law, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said following a two-year investigation following the death of Breonna Taylor.
The DOJ announced the findings of its investigation on Wednesday in a press conference and 90-page report. Federal investigators said their review found that officers of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) “engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.”
Some of the report’s findings include use of excessive force, executing search warrants without knocking or announcing, using invalid search warrants, and violating the rights of protesters.
FBI Agent Accused of Shooting Dog After Altercation With Owner
According to Philadelphia Police, Jacqueline Maguire, who has been head of the Philadelphia FBI Field Office since 2021, shot another women’s dog outside the Touraine luxury apartment building in Philadelphia earlier this month.
Philadelphia Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said, “When she [Jacqueline Maguire]tried to get her dog back, I think the dog attacked her.” Police say Jacqeline Maguire shot the dog shortly after. However, witnesses to the incident have taken to Instagram and Twitter to tell a different story.
One witness to the incident wrote on Instagram, “I saw the whole thing. I saw the lady pulled out the gun yelling at the owner, ‘I just shot your dog because your dog was trying to kill my dog’ I was walking my dog right across the street I did not hear any dog fighting or growing.”
Federal Whistleblower Kyle Seraphin wrote on Twitter, “Had an @fbi employee from the @FBIPhiladelphia office share this from Instagram. There is no love for this executive manager Special Agent in Charge. This excited utterance about the reason for shooting the dog is admissible and indicates a complete violation of DOJ Deadly Force Policy.”
Hellbound and Down 
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