I hope the "unidentified retired NYPD sergeant" will be charged with homicide.
Rifle Slung over his shoulder? And they fired at point blank range? And the officer was wearing his badge around his neck? And he had his partner with him? Things ain’t adding up...........
Massive screw up in a sleepy Long Island town. Bad, bad crime scene management by dopey local cops, with a lunatic meddler fool with a police scanner, trigger happy other idiots who should not have been on the scene, and bad coordination with Special Service cops who arrived in civilian clothes long after the psychotic kid who started it all was shot down.
I hope heads will roll on this colossal screw up. Disgraceful police work. I blame the management, the higher ups.
Hoplophobia at it’s best.
A rifle slung over a shoulder, calmly walking where there is plenty of law enforcement, and there is still panic at the word “gun”.
If an officer, retired or not, saw a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder and thought the person should not be there, they could have approached the person and identified themselves and asked questions.
I do blame the retired officer for setting it off, but why try to grab the weapon and then fire into a struggle? Those officers are likewise culpable for their panicky and poorly chosen decisions.
The real take away from this is that the cops will INSTANTLY kill anyone with a gun UNLESS it is glaringly obvious that its a cop.
“The retired officer who yelled “gun” has a habit of listening to a scanner and going to the scene.”
I didn’t see that in the article.
The deceased must have been refusing payola.
This is tragic.
Here’s the problem with institutionalized hoplophobia: the presence of a morally neutral tool of deadly force such as a gun does not necessarily indicate a bad guy. A better solution would be the one the Founders intended: Americans owning and carrying arms everywhere.
I’m with Red Badger. This doesn’t add up. A cop shoots a guy while the cop’s partner is wrestling with the guy? Really?
“The retired officer who yelled “gun” has a habit of listening to a scanner and going to the scene”.
Sounds odd to me. I know several retired LEO’s and NONE of them listen to a scanner or show up on a scene. Once they retire, they retire. Sounds like this guy is a bit “squirrely”.
If this account is even vaguely accurate, this was nothing but straight-up murder by Gentile.
What a waste! That retired cop should think about this every day of the rest of his miserable, nosy life! I wonder if the dead officer tried to identify himself? Tragic.....
Even with the moron yelling “GUN” they still had no reason to shoot him. What if he really had been a civilian with a rifle slung over his shoulder? Since when is that enough cause to shoot?
Hey, if it was the EXACT SAME situation and the guy was a citizen, they'd be giving each other medals.
And an officer dressed in plain clothes appearing at the scene carrying a rifle?
Sad outcome but it seems we have a scapegoat selected already.
I don’t care what ScannerMan yelled. Was he their commanding officer? Do they just routinely grab guns and shoot people based on whatever someone happens to yell, or are they trained to do their f**king job the right way?
Very sad that this officer was killed.
If there is an underlying theme, it is that the NY culture assumes that a firearm is bad, in and of itself. So much so that several people here considered the possession itself to be a mortal threat.
If he weren't, everything would be OK?
Now are we supposed to beleive that the shooting of the citizen was legit as well? Or was it done by hyped-up cops who had itchy trigger fingers?