3 Sept 13
This from a friend in UT:
âEarly Sunday morning, a veteran police sergeant was shot to death during a traffic stop in an upscale neighborhood (suburb of SLC).
He stopped his beat-car near a vehicle that was parked on the side of the road in an awkward manor. A man and a woman were standing near the car. Without warning, the male produced a pistol and opened fire on the officer, still strapped in his seat.
The officer accelerated to get out of the line of fire, and tried to radio for help. He lost consciousness and crashed into a tree three blocks away. He was transported to a local hospital where he subsequently died. Details on range, ammunition, number of shots fired, and impact point(s) were not disclosed.
Church services were canceled, and residents were told to stay in their homes, as hundreds of officers, from multiple jurisdictions, swarmed the area in an effort to contain what some calculated could have been a shooting spree
What was ultimately discovered was the couple, both shot, still near their car. The male suspect apparently shot the officer first, then the woman, and finally himself. Both the woman and the male suspect were seriously, but not fatally, injured. They are both currently hospitalized.
Of course, local politicians immediately held a news conference, with all the usual, hollow promises about those guilty of this crime being âbrought to justice,â ad nauseam.
Both suspects were described as âtransients,â with the usual, âroutineâ extensive criminal histories.â
Comment: These are the kind of unstable, ever-dangerous âhabitual criminalsâ who used to be confined to mental hospitals and prisons. Many are still in prisons (thank Heaven!), but many others, like these two, are currently at-large, and there is no fence between them and you!
The point is that we, police and non-police, need to continue to be extremely cautious about such âtransients,â âhomeless,â and âemotionally-disturbed.â They are all unstable and can be exceedingly dangerous, even homicidal, under the right circumstances, as we see.
Most look âharmless,â and most usually are, but you only need to be naively wrong once!
They need to be deliberately avoided. Approach, when necessary, must always take place with appropriate caution. There is much youâre not seeing!
When you donât know everything, you really donât know anything!
Stud poker playersâ axiom
/John