Posted on 12/07/2006 6:38:40 AM PST by 300magnum
WILMINGTON - New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey said Wednesday he doesn't yet know whether three of his deputies followed proper procedures when they shot and killed Peyton Strickland, a Cape Fear Community College student from Durham.
"I would certainly hope so," he told The News & Observer on Wednesday.
Causey added that he did not know why the deputies shot Strickland or who fired the fatal shots, because the SBI has not completed its investigation. But the autopsy added to questions already raised.
The bullet that struck Strickland in the head and killed him was likely fired through his front door, according to the pathologist who did the autopsy.
Charles Garrett of the state medical examiner's office in Jacksonville said the fatal bullet struck Strickland in the head sideways. Garrett said that suggests the bullet penetrated another object first before hitting the young man. Investigators told Garrett that the front door of Strickland's rental home had been pierced by bullets.
The sheriff, a 36-year law enforcement veteran just elected to a second term, said he's ultimately responsible.
"I'll take whatever action is necessary, whether I like it or not," he said.
For the first time, Causey identified the three officers who fired their guns, all of whom are on paid leave while the SBI looks into the shooting. Detective Larry Robinson, 34; Sgt. Greg Johnson, 39; and Cpl. Christopher Long, 34, have moved their families out of the county because of safety concerns, Causey said.
One or more of them shot Strickland in the head and chest Friday as he stood in the foyer of the Wilmington home he and his roommates rented.
Strickland, 18, was suspected of taking part in the assault and robbery of an Apex teen.
Braden Riley, 21, a roommate of Strickland who's originally from Apex, and Ryan David Mills, 20, of Durham face robbery and assault charges in connection with the theft of two Sony PlayStation 3 video game machines. Concerned that at least Mills might be armed and at the rented house, UNCW campus police relied on help from the Emergency Response Team -- an elite, heavily armed unit.
N.C. law says law enforcement authorities can shoot to kill when they reasonably believe they or someone else is in immediate mortal danger.
Strickland was unarmed when he was shot, but a housemate said Strickland might have been carrying a video game controller. That raises the question, as yet unanswered, of whether it might have been mistaken for a gun.
In addition, campus police had found Internet photos of Mills posing with guns, according to a search warrant.
Since the shooting, the sheriff and his deputies have been targets of violent threats, Causey said.
That would be called CYA.
At the time I didn't believe him, then there was Waco, and Ruby Ridge, and mistaken raids at wrong address's where innocent people died, and all doubts on my part faded.
Yes. Try to keep up, eh?
No, that's only if he was caught smoking in his home.
bkmark
Thanks for the link to the CATO map, it was very informative. Out of the 36 botched paramilitary raids in California, 24 of them had to do with police searching for drugs. I particularly liked this quote:
"During the raid, police seized more than $10,000 in cash, and announced plans to claim the money for themselves via asset forfeiture laws. Police backed off those plans when the Paz family demonstrated proof that the money was their life savings."
Anybody else had enough of the failed "War on Drugs" and the loss of your rights?
bkamrk
"
"During the raid, police seized more than $10,000 in cash, and announced plans to claim the money for themselves via asset forfeiture laws. Police backed off those plans when the Paz family demonstrated proof that the money was their life savings." "
The fact that you would have to prove money in your possesion was obtained legally is scary. The burden of proof should be on the other side.
Another example from the link
"After a tip from an informant stating that he was selling drugs from his home, a Miami SWAT team bursts into the home of 73-year-old retired salesman Richard Brown, and immediately begins firing.
By the end of the raid, they'd pumped 123 rounds into Brown and his apartment, killing him at the scene. Brown's 14-year-old great-granddaughter was also home at the time of the raid, and cowered in the bathroom during the gunfire.
Police found no drugs in Brown's home.
The city of Miami would later pay a $2.5 million settlement to Brown's estate after officers on the raiding SWAT team were indicted for lying about the details of the raid."
Gasp!
SO far we have "likely", not "certainly". If the "likely" turns out to be true, I think we have at least a rule #3 violation and one or more deputies get fired and sued, as does the department. And deservedly so.
This was not about "Stealing a PlayStation". At the least it was 2 play stations which kicks it up above $1k. But more to the point is that we have a second assault charge -- this one including "with a deadly weapon" -- against this guy. Yeah there was the silly Internet photo, but more importantly there was his alleged accomplice who was also said to own and carry a fire arm. That doesn't justify shooting blindly through a closed door, but it does mean that there is a significant pucker factor in this operation.
I still don't see, IF shots were really taken through a closed door, how that can be right. What frustrates the heck out of me is that we are likely not going to know how the entry actually happened in detail.
But here's one way a shot can go through a broken door and a bullet end up with traces of door under the traces of human: Point is at side of door but a yard or so back from the front plane of the house and ready to crouch and aim when door is broke down/through/whatever.
Door is rammed but a significant piece of the bottom portion of the door remains in place OR swings on hinge, bounces off wall and swings back toward the "closed" position.
Point is crouched, looking through a high-offset sight, sees the victim holding the game controller, and fires two rounds.
BUT, because of the high-offset of the sight, the barrel is actually on a level with the part of the door, and the bullets have to go through the door to reach the target.
I'm not saying this happened. I don't know. but something related to the high-offset sight on a lot of tactical rifles COULD explain the way the bullets look. On my Marlin my cheapo red-dot is about 1.25"-1.5" above the center of the barrel, and the offset is larger on many tactial rifles. One argument in favor of this approach to an explanation is that the examined bullets hit the intended target -- I believe one head and one upper torso? That's interesting and problematic if the shots were just blindly fired through a closed door.
I'm not crazy about what happened here, but I'm also not crazy about leaping to conclusions about the cops being incompetent boobs. Yeah, they COULD be, but let's get there slowly, deliberately, and fairly.
Do they have a map of ones carried off well? It would be nice to get a sense of what the rate of screw-ups is.
I hear you Chief, but a hell of a lot of people don't think a highly trained, elite unit(SWAT), should be used in this type of situation in the first place. In other words, don't go rabbit hunting with an elephant gun. Call in SWAT as a last resort, not to serve a warrant.
The more I read, the more I agree with that. At least not a warrant for littering.
And ONE reason is that, I don't know, but I DO wonder if the Univ Police explained tot he "elite" why they called them in?
My proposal over on some other cop-condemning kangaroo court condeming the cops is that there should be a known standard for "triggering" the deployment of swat teams and the Chief (or whoever) after the event ought to be able to document how the standard was applied in this case.
Getting there might involve some community education about the considerations going into warrant service. I remember the photos of the arrest/killing of Dillinger and worry about what happens if an armed teenager is approached by cops in a populated area -- just aws one nightmare the consideration of which makes a night-time bust at his residence attractive.
It's not a no-brainer, but it sure seems like SOMETHING is wrong with our Special Weapons and Tactics application.
"Call in SWAT as a last resort, not to serve a warrant."
Agreed.
The police were incompetent boobs and a man is dead. Shot through a closed door. sheesh. I'm not interested in your assumptions of who stood where and who was crouched. What in the h*ll were they doing there with a paramilitary force anyway??
And even two brand new Playstation 3s don't =$1000, unless they were bought for an inflated price somewhere.
In many cases it doesn't matter what you prove. Any cash confiscated by any law enforcement officers in the course of their duties belongs to the agency. Broward County used to target(may still) southbound Cadillacs to get Senior Citizens who had put all their savings in cash to go buy a condo in South Florida. I heard of some court cases but no recoveries.
Police state.
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