The traffic stop situation is hard to stop if a perp just comes out firing head shots. You can’t treat every routine stop like an armored car robber max felony stop. (Miami).
In the apt house, that’s harder. If the building was evacuated, do you ever send a SWAT team in? If the perp is hiding in a closet with a leveled semi-auto rifle, and just blasts away at the sound of approaching cops talking “clear” etc, what do you do?
Do you just pump in tear gas? If you do, it can cause the entire apt house to ignite, explode and burn. Then the community hangs you. Remember, it was only a “tip” that he might be inside. What if he’s not, and you keep the apt house evacuated for a full day or two, for officer safety. Then the community hangs you for keeping them out of their apts.
Being a cop is hard and dangerous. All danger and risk cannot be eliminated, ever.
I was heartened to know that someone cared enough in that hell hole to tell the cops where this thug had retreated.
As for the closet scenario, there have got to be effective ways to approach and breach closet doors (or any interior door) to determine if they hide a threat without unduly compromising the safety of so many SWAT team members. Maybe the SWAT team members should stay a certain distance from one another to minimize the risk a single burst of gunfire through a door will hit more than one of them. I just don’t know. And I really don’t want to be seen finding fault with the SWAT team members in this instance. It could be that they did everything perfectly and that blind, stupid, bad luck did its deadly dirty work in this instance.
That’s one thing about being on the police dept., if they want you, they pretty much got you. They will get the first shots off.
We’ll have to wait and see how it all happened. 3 to 5 more and I can retire. Oh, wait, gotta check my lotto tickets, maybe I can retire today.