Posted on 07/09/2014 6:11:02 PM PDT by huldah1776
Issac Sims left Iraq alive, but not unscathed.
The lingering effects of a serious head injury and the emotional trauma wrought by the sights and sounds of war never left him.
On Sunday, with the demons of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder roiling his mind, Sims grabbed a rifle and started firing off shots in and outside his family’s modest home on Kansas City’s East Side. *******
Officers summoned tactical teams to surround the area. After a standoff of about five hours, police said, Sims emerged and pointed the rifle at officers. They fired.
And Sims was dead at the age of 26.
“All he needed was help,” Jackson said Wednesday. “He didn’t need to die.”
That help in the form of bed space at the VA Medical Center in Kansas City was about 30 days away, according to his family.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
In my search for the article I found that another military member (Marine) was shot by police on July 4th, and that his PTS may have triggered an episode.
Police identify man killed by officer on Independence Day, may have been veteran with PTSD
http://www.jrn.com/kfdi/news/Unidentified-man-critical-after-southeast-Wichita-shooting-incident-265844501.html
Icarus Randolph, 26, was shot and killed by police at about 1:30 p.m. in southeast Wichita on Independence Day - after he went after an officer with a silver knife, said Wichita Police Deputy Chief Nelson Mosley.
Another victim of a VA waiting list apparently.
SWAT training and protocol is to consider currrent/former military (especially if from elite units) and current/former LEOs to be very high risk.
A tragic ending for all involved....a new round of PTSD unleashed.
I’m not a fan of police behavior these days, especially when it comes to the use of force. But, from what I’ve read about this case, I think that they did the right thing. I don’t know what issues this guy had, but when he starting firing a rifle in this scenario, he needed to go down. I know of a similar event when I was in Vietnam. The guy killed five soldiers before someone put an end to it with a bullet in his brain.
Sad but, predictable....
V A ping.
“...Sims emerged and pointed the rifle at officers. They fired.”
Sorry, I can’t blame them for that. Suicide by cop? This man was a trained solider, he knew perfectly well what would happen.
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