Posted on 04/10/2002 4:58:46 AM PDT by RogueIsland
TOMS RIVER, N.J. (Reuters) - An off-duty police officer went on a shooting rampage late on Tuesday, killing five of his neighbors and wounding his police chief, before escaping in a car, police said.
Police said 15-year veteran police officer Edward Lutes, a member of the Seaside Heights SWAT team, was still armed and believed dangerous after killing three men and two women in two houses near Toms River, New Jersey, about 40 miles south of New York City.
A sixth person was injured jumping from a window to escape the melee.
Lutes then allegedly drove to the nearby community of Barnegat Township, where he allegedly shot and wounded Seaside Heights Police Chief James Costello, who was hospitalized in stable condition on Wednesday morning.
Police said gunfire erupted at about 9:20 p.m. after Lutes had an apparent dispute with a neighbor. In the same community last February, retired Newark police officer John Mabie allegedly went on a shooting spree that left four people dead, including his granddaughter.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
It will probably be ruled a good shoot. Soon some of the usual trolls will show up here defending this and calling you a cop basher...
The initial shootings happened about a mile from the street where a retired police officer is accused of killing four people in February.
John E. Mabie is charged with four counts of murder for killing his granddaughter and three neighbors on Feb. 21 as he went from house to house shooting a .39-caliber revolver.
A .39 caliber revolver? Another cop in the same neighborhood on a killing spree? Gee, they sure no where to find those that are unarmed, unable, and unwilling to defend themselves.
Of course, had one of the neighbors actually defended themselves and ventillated either of these psychos, the cops would have riddled their homes and bodies with bullets before spending the next month praising the brave police officer who was shot down by a psycho neighbor.
What a world we live in.
Probably. But we should be asking, "Why does every tin-pot, small town in America need a SWAT team?"
The hell it's not (big, that is)! Toms River itself is basically just the downtown area of Dover Township, which has 80,000+ people in it. Dover Township has the second-largest municipal police department in the state, if I remember correctly.
And also bear in mind that this latest shooting did not take place in Toms River, it took place in Seaside Heights, which is a tourist town to the east, on the beaches.
My father retired last year from Dover Township PD as a lieutenant after 33 years. He was in charge of the Emergency Services Unit (i.e., SWAT team), was an experienced hostage negotiator, he trained their snipers, and was an instructor at the county police academy. You'd be surprised at how often ESU is legitimately called out to respond to emergencies. And not once in its history have they ever shot anybody!
Bottom line: the police in Dover Township are very professional.
The only fatal shooting in the force's entire history occurred about 3 or 4 years ago, when a guy fired several shotgun blasts at two officers, who repeatedly told him to drop the weapon and surrender (he'd already wounded another person). It was basically a suicide-by-cop, and he was determined to die.
Most of the cops in Seaside Heights are part-timers, not full-time professionals, because the town is largely deserted from October to late-April. I actually had a teacher in high school that had been a part-time cop there when he was younger. I'm not denigrating Seaside PD, but as my father has said, a lot of cops today are too quick to shoot.
However, in this case, this was just plain murder, of which anybody is capable, whether they're a cop or not.
Please don't take the fact that I posted this as an implied criticism of cops. A good friend of mine is an ex-cop, and you couldn't pay me enough to deal with the garbage he dealt with on the job. The post was meant to illustrate the fallacy of the "only cops and soldiers are emotionally capable of owning firearms" argument.
LOL!
And, they need a friggin' SWAT team?!!
Gimme a break.
One of the local news babes down here on TV kept talking about a "25 millimeter hand gun" during a story on airplane cockpit saftey doors. I do not think I would want to be holding that sucker when it went off.
I stand corrected with regard to my location comments in #24; I was going by the information in the thread story...
I live 1/2 hour north of there, and I have a summer house across the bay from them in Seaside Park. Not defending TR nutjobs, but Toms River is much bigger than you are projecting, and the population keeps growing. Any town with 3 "A" Division (highest enrollment) high schools (TR North, TR South, TR East) is not exactly Mayberry.
That being said, they are all a little wacky down there.
As I said earlier, TR is not exactly a tin-pot town. And a reason for the SWAT team is the drug trafficing industry in Seaside Heights.
Having said that, I'm not defending it, but I just wanted to give some of you out-of-staters a little insight.
Yes it is.
I've been there.
From the movie "Mr. Mom": ".38, .39, whatever it takes."
Whenever I see one of those guys I get the creeps. Cops should not be pretending they are in the 82d Airborne and fantasizing that we are the enemy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.