Woman, 92, dies in shootout with police

[Rocketman]

No-knock warrants are a "tool" they need to help them win the "war."  Sound familiar?

[KurtDaBear]

I can, at times, see things from the policeman's perspective, but never from a narcotics officers perspective because I can't get past the idea that only a sociopathic cowboy would want that job.  You've got to skulk around pretending to be something you're not, associate with people you supposedly despise, then pull the big "Aha--Gotcha!" on them after you've gotten them to trust you.  Or if you're not using that tactic, you're busy pressuring people to give up their friends and associates in exchange for immunity or lighter sentences.  So basically you've got to be a phony, lying bully to qualify for the job.

And as far as police finding "a small amount" of narcotics after the fact, it smells like they went in and salted the scene after the shit hit the fan in the public relations dept.  I would imagine that if they did toxicology tests on grandma and the narcs, the narcs would be more likely to test positive than she would.  But that's something else you won't be reading in the establishment press, especially in a city as corrupt as Atlanta.

[KBCraig]

How could the article neglect mentioning that the police were in plainclothes?

*ahem*

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/22/woman.shot.ap/index.html

As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m.,

[Spencer]

This woman's headstone should read:

"Live free or die.  Death is not the worst of evils" -- General John Stark

I doubt that any of those cops would be as good a shot at 92 as she -- a mere civilian -- was facing three-to-one odds and the disadvantage of surprise.

I'm not advocating shooting cops, but she was clearly acting in self-defense against what she (accurately) perceived to be a gang of armed thugs invading her castle.

[Friday]

If you see this from the point of view of the officers...you bust down a door where you expect armed drug dealers to be inside. You're being shot at, and you return fire. The smoke clears and you realize you just killed a 92 year old woman.

Sorry, but I don't agree with that at all.  Cops are supposed to train with their guns, and are told to shoot at the "bad guys", not innocent bystanders!  They're also taught how to shoot people to take them down without killing them.  (They are, right? Is anyone here a cop?) They clearly shot first, looked later (giving them the benefit of the doubt for just being stupid, not evil).  What if grandma had had a Girl Scout troop sitting in her living room; would they have strafed the kiddies, too?

Geez, with a 92-year-old, just shoving her to the floor probably would have killed her.  She'd have broken a hip and died in the hospital a month later. 

[KBCraig]

Cops are supposed to train with their guns, and are told to shoot at the "bad guys", not innocent bystanders!  They're also taught how to shoot people to take them down without killing them.  (They are, right? Is anyone here a cop?)

No, not right at all. They're trained just the same as everyone else: shoot center mass until the threat stops.

I'm growing tired of the apologists saying that once the officers were fired on, they had the right to shoot back. That's a red herring, because they had no right to go through that door in the first place! Miss Johnston was perfectly justified in shooting to repel an invasion of her home.

Not to mention, their "justification" only applies technically, and very narrowly, because they were police officers performing police duties. For anyone else, the aggressor forfeits the right to self defense: I can't walk up and punch you in the nose, and then pull a pistol if you start whippin' my butt.

Kevin

[citizen_142002]

Nobady had to die that day, and it's not likely people are going to wake up to the fact that this drug war is killing thousands of people every year on our soil.

But hey, at 92 I'd rather go out with a bang anyway. WTF, it's all downhill from 93 anyway. It's not clear that the lady wasn't going for kill shots. She may have shot to kill, and just made peripheral hits due to error. Either way she was a fast draw and a straight shot.

RIP Granny

Should have been those thugs instead

[error]

Hey, I had nothing to do with it!

[SeanSchade]

Sorry, but I don't agree with that at all.  Cops are supposed to train with their guns, and are told to shoot at the "bad guys", not innocent bystanders!  They're also taught how to shoot people to take them down without killing them.  (They are, right? Is anyone here a cop?) They clearly shot first, looked later (giving them the benefit of the doubt for just being stupid, not evil).  What if grandma had had a Girl Scout troop sitting in her living room; would they have strafed the kiddies, too?

Geez, with a 92-year-old, just shoving her to the floor probably would have killed her.  She'd have broken a hip and died in the hospital a month later. 

No dumbass, they couldn't have just pushed her to the floor. They were being fired at. 3 of them got shot! Who knows where they shot her. You could shoot a 92 year old woman anywhere, and I'm sure it's going to kill her.

[KBCraig]

No dumbass, they couldn't have just pushed her to the floor.

Nice repartee. 

Who knows where they shot her.

Coroner's report has already been released. She was shot several times, but the shot that killed her was to the center of her chest.

92 or not, that's the one that does the job. 

[citizen_142002]

I do have to say that it all comes down to who you think was in the right. I doubt it was practical for the cops to "push her to the ground". An exchange of gun fire like that happens very fast, maybe just a couple seconds, and usually it won't stop until one side either runs out of ammo, or is hit.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect a cop, or anyone else, to fire back once and wait to see if they keep getting shot at. Just about anybody is going to keep squeezing the trigger until they get hit or the other guys goes down. You're almost always going to see multiple gun shot wounds on people who've been in a gun fight.

The fact is that someone was probably in that house, and engaging in the drug trade. I also wouldn't be surprised if the old lady really fired first. Those things aren't the point. The point is that she was on her property, and the police are unjustified in enforcing immoral laws, like drug laws. The priniciples are what counts, not the play by play.

I think that by focusing on whether it was reasonable to fire four shots or five takes away from the issue of prime importance, that the drug war is oppressive, immoral, and deadly.

This old lady had the courage to do what most macho gun polishers around the world have failed to do. A lot of guys say that when their door is kicked in by people coming for their guns, they'll go down fighting. Well, it didn't happen in the UK, Canada, Australia, or US states like california. I just find that funny, in a very twisted way.

[error]

The cops were executing a drug bust. That automatically puts them in the wrong.

[Friday]

Sorry, but I don't agree with that at all.  Cops are supposed to train with their guns, and are told to shoot at the "bad guys", not innocent bystanders!  They're also taught how to shoot people to take them down without killing them.  (They are, right? Is anyone here a cop?) They clearly shot first, looked later (giving them the benefit of the doubt for just being stupid, not evil).  What if grandma had had a Girl Scout troop sitting in her living room; would they have strafed the kiddies, too?

Geez, with a 92-year-old, just shoving her to the floor probably would have killed her.  She'd have broken a hip and died in the hospital a month later. 

No dumbass, they couldn't have just pushed her to the floor. They were being fired at. 3 of them got shot! Who knows where they shot her. You could shoot a 92 year old woman anywhere, and I'm sure it's going to kill her.

Apparently I wasn't clear.  I wasn't suggesting that the cops *should* have pushed her to the ground; as I said, that *also* would probably have killed her.  My point was that she wasn't much of a threat to the much younger, stronger, probably wearing bulletproof vests, trained and prepared narcos.  The article indicates that she didn't do serious damage to any of the three agents. 

She had lived there for 17 years.  Assuming the agents had a tip that there were drugs at this residence, they had to have found out ahead of time who lived there.  So they knew, busting through the door, that at least one person in the house was going to be an old really old lady. 

[maineiac]

Good on your comments, all!

Nice way to go at 93, don't you think, Sean?

Maybe she should have had a bigger gun!

[Dave Ridley]

Who cares whether they found narcotics?