Police Officer Murdered in Sheridan, WY Today UPDATE AT POST 29

[RetCapt]

...and again somebody will be out a house because of limited liability and LE's policy that is always confront and control, rather than wait them out. Maybe somebody should calculate the cost of the perp's likely prison time. I have little doubt it would be many times the cost of fixing the heavily damaged home.

I am going to cite some information from my own (admittedly now ancient) experience to respond to this generalization.

At the beginning of the course I took as a SWAT commander, which, IIRC, was taught by the FBI, we were told that the average length of a barricaded suspect incident was 12 hours. The point being - wait them out. This was our practice, and it almost always worked. That of course assumed we could control the scene, i.e. evacuate all innocent persons from the scene and isolate the suspect(s). Add hostages into a barricaded scenario and the situation becomes far more complex, because saving the hostages becomes the objective. That is why LE is the incident commander.

The buck stops with the IC.

As far as the "confront and control" comment goes, in any barricaded suspect incident that is the job for LE. One of the first tasks of LE responding to such an incident is to communicate to the suspect(s) that the only way to assure their survival is to cooperate with LE. That is the basis for negotiation. The time element is necessary to talk down the suspect(s) and convince them to peacefully surrender.

So, confront and control, then negotiate, if possible. But that possibility is in the hands of the suspect(s).

Any calculation of prison time vs damage is irrelevant and immaterial given the danger that an armed, barricaded suspect poses at the time. In all my time as IC I was thinking tactically, never about potential judicial consequences.

I have often characterized emergency responses (I was also a firefighter/EMT/fire chief in retirement) as confronting an uncontrolled situation and controlling it. If not emergency responders, then who?

As far as liability goes, our policy was if we damaged/destroyed something, we were responsible to reimburse. This was only in the case of innocent third persons, so if it was the suspect's or harboring individual's property, with the suspect's actions triggering a potentially damaging response (such as introducing tear gas) that did not apply.

One of my jobs was following through on this policy. The reluctance did not come from our department, but the admin suits in the county bureaucracy. But a little bit of forceful diplomacy overcame that.

 

[steelslaver]

Indy is 150 miles from me in the center of the state. I live in Lake Co. the furthest N.W. in the state you can go. The county is a Democratic pit, unlike the rest of my red state. I'm 3 miles from the state line and 25 miles from Chicago. You can bet my local homicide stats are not on the decline. Constitutional carry has robbed law enforcement of an important tool. If you were stopped by police and had a gun and no permit off to jail you went. Obtaining a carry permit is no more invasive than filing out a 4473. I suspect 95% of my new neighbors couldn't pass the background check for a permit.

Constitution carry did NOT rob the police of a tool. Your problem stems from catch and release. First it isn't that hard to check for a felony conviction or warrants when they pull someone over. No felony or domestic abuse conviction they would pass the background check for a permit in your state. If the can't pass that they can't legally "constitutional carry". Besides what good does "Off to jail they went" do if they are released the next morning?


During my whole lifetime in Montana, a gun in your car, concealed or otherwise was 100% legal, loaded empty, under the seat, in the glove box, sitting on it etc all legal, yet our murder rate is and always has been way lower than Indiana's

 

[rwsmith]

Sounds like the scare film.....

I'm all for making the hangings public. After my girls got their DL's I took them to a couple fatal crashes (after the bodies were removed). Seeing is believing...

...that they showed us in high school. "Highways of Agony". It worked for me. I especially remember the older couple removed from a burned out vehicle. Burned Lincoln Logs.

 

[S-W4EVER]

...that they showed us in high school. "Highways of Agony". It worked for me. I especially remember the older couple removed from a burned out vehicle. Burned Lincoln Logs.

When I was a kid, a local PD Lieutenant, who was a member of our Church showed "Signal 30" to us one Sunday evening. That movie showed more gruesome scenes than I ever saw as a State Trooper years later.

Thank God for the continual improvements NHTSA has made over the years to vehicle and highway engineering. I graduated from the Academy in 1979 and it was utter carnage on the highways back then.

 

[LVSteve]

As far as liability goes, our policy was if we damaged/destroyed something, we were responsible to reimburse. This was only in the case of innocent third persons, so if it was the suspect's or harboring individual's property, with the suspect's actions triggering a potentially damaging response (such as introducing tear gas) that did not apply.

One of my jobs was following through on this policy. The reluctance did not come from our department, but the admin suits in the county bureaucracy. But a little bit of forceful diplomacy overcame that.

I am pleased to read that you had this policy, but I'm also appalled that some thought it was optional with regard to third party property. It remains to be seen what a jurisdiction like Sheridan will do. It is a city of 19,000, not exactly a vast tax base.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

RIP officer.

 

[Doug M.]

I am pretty confident that Sheridan like any other municipality, will have good insurance that will address that cost. It is extremely unlikely that the cost would come ut of general fund dollars.

One of the real social issues now is that we have a lot of knuckleheads who think offender safety is important, and have gone toward policies that encourage offenders to act like spoiled brats, only worse. It is in fact offender actions that drive the use of force train, but a lot of uninformed people who ought to shut up and sit down simply don't see that. Offender well being is and must be the lowest priority, and is solely in the control of offenders.