Trooper Accidentally Shoots Man (Homeowner in Shower in PA)

The Morning Call (New Jersey) ^ | March 5th, 2004 | David Slade

[Travis McGee]

And there are many Americans who believe that only highly trained professional police officers should be allowed to own or use firearms.

[Travis McGee]

BANG!

[neverdem]

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.

[edeal]

Looks like deputy Fife should have left the bullet in his pocket.

[Squantos]

Police have filed no charges against Freed, but said they are investigating.

Priceless........Stay safe !

[Redcloak]

What's this world coming to?! Not even our showers are a refuge anymore!

[neverdem]

The guy is probably hard of hearing, maybe prior service.

[Criminal Number 18F]

"Police have filed no charges against Freed, but said they are investigating"

There you have it. Trigger-happy Trooper Kirk Kirkland shoots a citizen while pistol-whipping him in citizen's own home, and the NJSP is desperately looking for some way to charge the victim of this crime.

The NJSP is so adamantly opposed to citizens owning weapons that they have their own old ones melted down. That is, the ones that don't somehow slip out of NJSP custody and into the hands of organised crime.

Who's the real threat to public safety?

d.o.l

Criminal Number 18F

[Travis McGee]

Well let's keep our eye on what's REALLY important: No police were hurt. "Everybody (LEOs) goes home."

It was just a civilian who got shot. Serves him right for taking a shower in his own home without notifying his contractor's laborers.

[dwilli]

Looks like this could be something for John Edwards to look into. He will be unemployed soon after the election.

[TLI]

It was just a civilian who got shot. Serves him right for taking a shower in his own home without notifying his contractor's laborers.

Or, apparently, obtaining written permission to shower from the State Police.

No wonder Americans are pi$$ed off at government!

[edeal]

Looks like this could be something for John Edwards to look into. He will be unemployed soon after the election.

Why him? The victim survived. Besides he is nothing more than a flimflam artist. Oh you don't mean the sci-fi channel psychic guy, you mean the democratic senator. In that case, I guess flimflam artist still applies.

[Travis McGee]

I often drag a small radio into my shower, and blast talk radio right through my long shower. You could knock down my front door and I wouldn't hear it. The cops are SO out of bounds on this! Plus, the guy was probably expecting to hear some noise coming from the workers anyway. He probably thought the cops were his workers, until they were right on him.

[Criminal Number 18F]

I'd also like to add that the NJSP has been a laughingstock among agencies for decades because of its inept firearms policies. It was one of very few agencies to purchase the grip-cocking, gas-delayed oddity, the H&K P7, and they proceeded to shoot themselves, each other, and the landscape frequently enough that they either had to change guns or begin training officers (or recruiting trainable ones, if that's the problem).

Choice was the S&W 99. The choice was made, as ever in New Jersey, on kickbacks and political backscratching -- in this case, it was a payoff for the S&W lawsuit deal with the Clinton administration. There was only one slight problem: the S&W was so unreliable that the troopers couldn't even shoot themselves, let alone their usual targets: innocent citizens, each other, floorboards and roofs of cruisers, and highway signs. Not to mention whatever was behind, around or nearby fleeing felons. About half of the troopers had jams with the Smith... so they rolled the dice again.

I believe they finally came up SIG, but you have to want to sell guns really badly to sell them to these bozos. I wonder if the NJSP's very clumsiness with their service weapons is why they are death on Joe Citizen owning a gun (it's certainly why they were nearly death on this Joe Citizen).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[jim35]

I hope this isn't meant as a criticism of LEO's in general. You can't blame an entire profession for the actions of a few miscreants. The cops were summoned, legitimately, and the homeowner was mistreated by accident, not on purpose. They messed up, but this isn't a policy of government that is to blame. What would you have the cops do when called, ignore it?

[ambrose]

Officer Friendly.

[Tall_Texan]

The cop had probably watched too many movies and expected there to be a naked chick in the shower with a "come hither" look. Finding the person behind the curtain was just your typical New Jerseyite caused an instant panic, hence the poor shot.

[risk]

...the NJSP is desperately looking for some way to charge the victim of this crime.

Or the journalist made a gaffe. The police are probably investigating their 911 call center, the dispatcher, and the police teams that responded -- which we would expect!

Just the same, the mcall.com editorial staff should have caught it. With a situation like this, how could they not catch the irony of that sentence? That right after saying that a .40 wound is "superficial." The muzzle blast alone could cause serious skin or eye damage, let alone being grazed or receiving a flesh wound. This article is astounding.

The guy came inches for being killed, and the editors are too glib to check for gross ironies in their coverage...

[biggerten]

Could be they were afraid he was carrying a concealed weapon.

Or he coud have squirted them in the eyes with the shampoo.

He might have loofa-ed them and escaped.

Maybe they saw he was all lathered up about something, and feared he was a slippery character about to run.

[RatSlayer]

I an't believe that I'm the first one that gets to do the obvious joke based on the hoary old definition of "gun" in the Marine Corps...

He must have reached for his gun (i.e. his short arm).