As the saying goes, "He chose Poorly" (the victim)
In before the “cops are useless” crowd.
People are welcome to donate to the Tempe Arizona police for life rings for their patrol cars.
There are several large bodies of water within the Tempe city boundary. One would think basic life saving skills would be part of their training.
I’m with you on this one. A panic stricken adult could pull you down with them. I’d sure as heck throw every floaty I could find their way and I’d feel damned guilty the rest of my life, but I’d be very reluctant to go. If it were a kid though... I’d go for it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let a kid drown.
2 things:
1. The LEOs told him not to get in the water and he did it anyway. What is it with blacks refusing to comply with police directions?...especially if the cop(s) are white.
2. Attempting to rescue a drowning person when you haven’t had the proper training will get YOU dead.
Perhaps they can each carry a life preserver in the trunk of their patrol car.
So we call 911 why?
Good for the cops. They should not jump in. They are not trained life guards. They have 40lbs of gear and wear a heavy Kevlar vest. They do not carry water rescue tubes. The cops would be dead trying to rescue a panicked drowning man.
I know if I saw someone in distress in the water, I would try to save them (or at least, I hope that I would).
But that is me as a private citizen, and that risk of being drowned by the victim is a very real one.
Nobody is (or should be) compelled to give their lives. Granted, if you are a lifeguard that is your job, and you have training. We expect that of them.
But who knows about those police officers? Look at the image, fully clothed, with all their equipment...without real training, jumping into 20 feet of water...that is no small thing. People will say “Oh, they could have stripped off their gear and dove in”.
Sure. You could have two victims instead of one.
The drowned man is black. Are they trying to make a racial incident out of it?
Who cares?
What if it were a cop’s wife, or a ladies auxiliary member, or 911 affirmative action hire, who was emotionally distraught and did something extra foolish?
What then, Mr. Skin?
I don’t fault the cops on this. The clown jumped in as a way of giving the cops the finger. Then he couldn’t swim as well as he thought. I can barely swim at all so I wouldn’t jump in to “save” anybody. Unless aquatic lifeguarding is a job requirement (in a desert state no less), the cops are blameless here. The guy must have really wanted that Darwin Award.
Saving a drowning illegal alien didn’t work out to well for a national guardsman!!!
“To NOT Protect and NOT Serve and Get a Generous Pension”
If ones looking for an excuse, they certainly have one. No heroes there, that’s for sure.
This cop, that police department, and cops in general are going to increasingly be living with the bad reputation that they don’t care, that they have no obligation to respond, and then they will even taunt and watch somebody die. This is not her parents cops, these are militarized people that would rather stand outside of school and listen to kids being shot and killed, watch people drown, and do nothing. Regardless of the union defense, which is purely knee-jerk, this cop should be fired.
I think in this case the cops inaction is justified, I went thru lifeguard training 50 years ago
Totally agree, watch the clip, no way anyone could have saved that jumper, especially a cop in full uniform.
It would take a safety diver, in full dive suit, standing at waters edge, when the guy jumped, to go fish him out, before he went under.
Sad story, but damn, don’t blame the cops...
In one of the Dirty Harry movies our favorite cop goes up on a fire department boom ladder to talk to a jumper.
I’ve got no intention of trying to stop you from jumping. Just explaining that you are going to make a hell of a mess when you hit the ground.
I miss those good movies once made in hollyweird!
Cop not required to rescue a suicidal future drowning victim.
“he sleeps with the fishes”
It may be possible that none of the involved police officers were good swimmers. And recall that there’s probably no swim test at police academies. I guess all we need now is for the media to report - truthfully or falsely, they don’t really care - that the drowner was black.