I’m sure glad every police officer doesn’t share your beliefs, otherwise The United States would would be a third world country.

And 7734, first of all I fell for you, it sounds like “Katrina North” with a frozen flood. You’re absolutely right most of the people down here are useless human debris and would rather sit on their asses with no ambition or future as long as they can collect free money and housing and blame everyone but themselves. I envy you, its sounds like you live in a really great community. And by the way you’re better off, in my opinion, without Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or the media.

It is because of my experience in these parts of my life that I have become a Constitutional activist and work diligently to protect the rights of myself and the people from both police and governmental encroachment upon our rights (especially upon our rights to keep and bear arms) and to prosecute government infractions against the Citizens of this country and in resistance to police and governmental encroachment that are in the process of violating those rights. I even support the use of appropriate and necessary force against these agencies when they are in the performance of constitutionally or statutorily unlawful acts.

The courts have ruled over and over that the police are not required to protect you, but the police seem to deem themselves as having an almost unlimited power in many areas of our country to violate you or your property without repercussions of any kind under the guise of “public service” and “doing their job”. I have had police officers tell me with a straight face “I don’t have to know the law; I only have to enforce it”. How is that for an oxymoron statement? How do you enforce a law when you admittedly have absolutely no idea what it even says? The favorite answer seems to be “My superiors said I had to do this and to do it this way.” They have become like automatons, too many robots with too little self-awareness and too little personal responsibility for their actions. I believe this may be the type of thing that motivates, at least in part, Forstands beliefs and actions, and in many ways I would absolutely agree with him based on MY personal experience.

That being said and having personally served in these capacities in many of the same types of situations as the police officers in the pertinent discussion, it is my personal experience that forms my opinion that in today’s society, many police officers are far too reactionary in pursuit of their “duties”. With our society in the state that it is in these days I feel that the policemen allow their “survival instinct” to kick in ahead of their judgment far too easily in potentially dangerous situations. In my opinion the most dangerous person you will ever encounter is a policeman who states “in these situations you don’t have time to think”! Personally, I find this neither comforting nor a justification for the potential harm to life, limb and property that is often the result of this type of thinking. It is one thing to take action because of an immediate known threat, and quite another to react out of fear or an assumption of a particular situation.

Police agencies these days have very aptly earned the reputation for being bullies because of the manner in which they exercise authority, at least as far as things go in my home town and the many cities and towns through which I have traveled in our nation. At home I have dubbed them the “Nacogdoches Nazi Force” because they believe they can say or do anything to anyone they desire. Everything is a “law” if they wish to harass you about something, even when no such “law” exists; they just make them up as they go along or completely and intentionally misstate or misapply them to give themselves an appearance of authority in a given situation. I have had first hand experience on both sides of that fence with police officers. If you happen to spend time educating yourself in the correct usage and application of even some of the laws in your home state (mine is Texas), as I have tried to do for many years now, you can readily see a great example of their less than stellar desire to know or care about the law or the rights of the Citizens they are supposed to “Serve and Protect”. You can show them right there in black-and-white that they are wrong and they will look at you like you have three heads and tell you that they simply do not care, they are going to do what their superiors have told them to do, regardless of how it conforms to the written law. The military works in much the same way but with a far more damaging potential to the accused because of the sometimes highly political nature of many subjects in the military judicial system. But even the military, in total contrast to law enforcement, may not initiate an attack on a possible aggressor UNLESS fired upon first; with the obvious exception of being deployed on an active battlefield.

I know the job of a police officer is often dangerous, but I would rather take the risk receiving harm to myself, a risk that I automatically assumed when I took the officers oath, rather than be guilty of harming an innocent because of a bad reaction or judgment; because that places the blame squarely on me and no one else. This is a personal responsibility I have found sorely lacking in the police officers of today. It is my experience that the majority of law enforcement individuals which I have encountered over the last few years truly do project an “us against THEM” attitude toward the general public. The ideal of “To Serve and Protect” has been turned on its proverbial ear to something more resembling “To Intimidate and Collect”, usually for whatever political entity by which they are employed, be it their township, city, county or state agencies. The people’s rights, ideals and liberties are the last thing that considered and the first thing cast aside by these bureaucratic enforcers. That is precisely the reason that I quit law enforcement and the Air Force, I refused to take part in the dismantling of our Constitutions for political and monetary gain of these entities and their private interests.

One point in this discussion that I have failed to see addressed as far as I can tell is that if this had been seven armed and well intentioned Citizens that had opened fire on a couple of suspected offenders, the police would be screaming that they should be tried and convicted as fast as possible to make an example out of them. This would be true EVEN if these Citizens HAD been shot at by the suspects and WERE simply defending themselves. No matter which point of view you are coming from, you know that in our “anti-gun” society today, this would be an almost absolute certainty. The police or some district attorney will almost invariably want to show “those people” that they cannot take the law into their own hands! Personally, in the hands of the Citizens is EXACTLY where I believe that it SHOULD reside, they certainly could not be doing any worse than the so-called “professional law enforcement” people have been. Not to mention that in all my years of life (43) I have yet to see a news story where a group of armored, military battle-clad, heavily armed Citizens has stormed a small home supposedly used by drug dealers and wound up shooting and killing a 92 year old woman that thought her home was being invaded by armed thugs and simply tried to defend herself. She died because the police informant gave the police the wrong address. So rather than obtain a warrant and investigate the matter BEFORE planning a military style raid, the police initiated an assault operation using a faulty warrant that should never have been allowed or issued without full knowledge and evidence of ALL the facts supporting an undeniable probable cause situation. This should have included the act of actually VISITING the residence to ascertain the validity of the informant’s statements.

I read in one of the above posts a statement that I took to pose a context along the lines of “since you don’t like the police then just wait until you need the police and then don’t bother screaming for them to help you, just suffer the consequences”. And lo’ and behold, it appears to have been posted BY a law enforcement officer. News flash, it is a rare thing for a person to even have the opportunity to call the police in time to PREVENT a crime, the police are usually called AFTER the crime or sometimes while it is in progress. This also makes the a reactionary law enforcement agency that acts only “after the fact”. And since the courts have ruled that the police do not actually have any legal responsibility to even show up, WHY would I waste precious time calling them if I was certain that my life was in danger? And still, they want us to all give up our guns and simply accept them as our sole protection. Sounds about as plausible as Jack and his beanstalk if you were to ask me.

As a Citizen, former law enforcement officer and military member, I have absolutely no problem with returning fire when fired upon, no matter what the source. But until that point, I have only my mind, my clarity of thought and action, and the desire to protect innocent bystanders and myself from harm to keep the situation from escalating into just such a scenario. In my humble opinion, news stories about an accidental police shooting should be few and far between, almost non-existent in fact, but certainly not an almost daily occurrence. To all the men and women in uniform that faithfully serve their oath of office in the truest sense of the oath, you have my everlasting thanks, admiration and gratitude. To those that wear it to only serve themselves and their political masters, of you I am deeply ashamed and reserve a special loathing of your kind. The rights of the Citizens and their protection from all enemies foreign and domestic is your foremost duty, even if that enemy takes the form of your superiors issuing unlawful orders and edicts. Learn the law you are expected to enforce and enforce it to the letter and under the intent with which it is written and contrast that meaning and intent with the meaning and intent of the Bill of Rights and our Constitution instead of blindly doing the bidding of those that care not for the true meaning and application of the law. The Constitution must ALWAYS win out over any legislative decree, it cannot be otherwise or the Constitution is meaningless. The only true purpose government and of law in America is to serve the people and protect their rights, lives and property above anything and everything, not those of government and it’s various agencies.

I am not posting here to place innocence or blame on these particular officers or on the people they are accused of harming. Without a full disclosure of the facts, that would be rather impetuous on my part. I simply wish to make my comments and experiences known for what value they may contain, if any, pertaining to this discussion utilizing a point of view that has truly seen all sides of similar proverbial coins. However, if the eyewitness account is proven true and accurate, that the officers “lined up behind the fleeing men like they were at a shooting range” and that the fleeing men had never fired a shot that neither the officers or anyone else witnessed, then this is surely a case of excessive force and homicide without any justification and the officers should be tried, convicted and treated like any other murderer that has been introduced into the prison system. IF they were fired upon or had actual eyewitnesses point out the two men as having been the ones doing the firing at other Citizens, then their actions are possibly justified up to a point, but to the point of shooting one of them in the back is debatable. If the man was turning and drawing a weapon as they stated, then the police by their own admission in the current statement of facts discussed were most assuredly already prepared to fire if a weapon was indeed produced and pointed at them, and only THEN should they have opened fire; but this action according to the currently stated facts did not happen, it appears to have been simply ASSUMED and they then opened fire. In my opinion this would not constitute self-defense as the statement so far shows that no weapon was actually observed nor found on either man, correct?

It matters not to me what the color or race of either the police officers or the suspects in this case are, only the facts as they may be proven in the instant case. But in my experience, it is an extremely rare occurrence that justifies use of lethal force in a situation where seven trained, experienced, and fully armed police officers have much to fear in regards to personal or public safety from two untrained, inexperienced, and apparently unarmed suspects running AWAY from them on foot…

You have expressed yourself (last posting) eloquently. I took offense because I am a police officer and I do serve the people of my community fairly and without bias. I too have been known to complain about the government at times, but I am not a police officer to serve the government, I do it because I enjoy helping people and it’s damn fun at times. I respect your right to free speech, I only took offense because I know I am a hell of a good cop and I also am concerned about my friends.

So with this having been said, I too will no longer debate this issue as you have your beliefs and I have mine.

That said, I have some fairly aggressive spam filters, (because I have some fairly aggressive spammers and site vandals) and sometimes they catch people’s comments. When that happens I try to get them published as soon as possible.

I made my points and will not belabor them. I believe that your responses tended to support that which I was saying; i.e., don’t trust the police implicitly. I make my statements to make a point, the same as you do. It is obviously in your interest to support the Danziger 7.

Insofar as my comment about backing up a police officer in his/her hour of need: I know that I likely will do so because it is my duty to do so. It would be bad karma not to do so. My point was that the police officers on the street need to understand that their actions today will have consequences years down the road as those who they bully grow up. Too many cops are bullies and that destroys the reputation of the rest of the police. And the support. Don’t even get me started on ‘Hangin’ judges of which I have met too many. I even told one in Eurka, CA, that he reminded me of Judge Roy Bean.

I have met some good police officers of all races and sexes. They are are in the majority but just barely according to my experience (about 60% good and 40% not so good). I had one Deputy Sheriff (‘Bud’ Taylor of Siskiyou County) ask me to drop charges against a fellow student who broke my nose at school so he could go into the army; I did so and the kid called and apologized for his actions. ‘Bud’s predecessor as Sheiff I would not give the time of day to. Remember this was 1962 and the kid likely went to Vietnam. This police officer was well-respected and I hope someone relays this to him. My family have always respected him even when he arrested my brother.

Never have I heard a police officer apologize for the actions of a bad cop. Rather they supported him/her in public. There needs to be more of: ‘We sinned, we suffered, we repented.’ The actions of one affect the reputition of all. All of you are going to be tarred by the brush of a few. It is unfortunate but true.

I have a lot of respect for Michael Hampton. So far I have no reason to believe this is a nom de plume (pen name) for him. Mine is a nom de plume. Cowardice perhaps. Or common sense. I have to fly frequently and do not need to make the TSA hit list. I am not that difficult to find for the police.

It is not easy at times to be a police officer and I acknowledge that. I have not yet heard of one being a coward in the face of a criminal (same for the fire department). Far too many are killed each year. They are held to a high standard to not be trigger happy nor to bully people. Most do respond to problems in a very professional manner. As I stated before I likely will support them in an hour of need because it is my duty to do so; today too many people do not understand the concept of duty.

There should not have been a cover up or even the appearence of one when a person is killed by the police. The internet is the fastest news system there is so it is important that people are not tried in the court of public opinion. There are wordsmiths who can distort the news to an amazing degree. I don’t know if the information about the “Danziger 7″ has been accurately reported or not. That is what our open court system is about; we don’t have any Star Chambers much as King George (Bush) would like to have. I know that if I was to serve on a jury I would do as honor dictates: Be honest and non-prejudical.

So I intend to lay thse posts to rest and not respond to any response you may have. I notice that Michael Hampton is now reviewing posts before they are posted: Michael, it’s about time. If I have gone beyond the boundaries of good manners then I deserve to be relegated to the ether and will not take offense to your actions now or in the future. Thanks for this opportunity for me to express my opinions as long as I do so with good manners. This topic has stirred up much interest and I applaud you for this. I have seen other’s views on this and this is good.

Apparently I was correct in saying you have a problem with government authority. You idolize people who have huge gun collections (or arsenals) and who have displayed distain for government with violence. I was not there that day on the bridge but I know the officers who were and they are not the kind of officers who shoot people for sport, especially unarmed people. If they wanted to lie about the incident, they could have very easily walked away without saying a word which would have been easy to do during all the chaos. You misinterpreted my statement of someone sticking around during a shootout. For someone to be completely innocent during an incident like that, they would have to be severly mentally handi-capped and probably would have to have all of the ailments you mentioned above. And just as you stated, if they didn’t know well enough to run during a shootout, couldn’t it be possible they didn’t know well enough not to fire a gun at someone. If the police are confronted with an armed mentally retarded person, is it reasonable to try ascertain whether they were retarded before shooting? It wouldn’t because the officers could lose their lives or cause the death of someone else. The police officers didn’t KILL everyone in sight either. I do belive there are bad police officers out there, just like there are bad priests, doctors, etc. who abuse their authority but I think you are biased aginst police. Maybe you have a good reason to be, but if it’s just because you were harassed by some, you shouldn’t assume they’re all bad, most police officers are honest and do care about people. Police officers are human too, therefore they make human arrors. I don’t claim to know the facts of the inicdent, but I do know, nothing it was it seems, ever.

Ruby Ridge was a black day for FBI stupidity and arrogance. Thanks for bringing up a supporting incident where a FBI sharpshooter shot an unarmed woman in the head. I am surprised you did not link me to Waco as well. What about Rodney King? Great code of ethics, yes?

Post 21 has you stating that you have never known anyone to be a BYSTANDER during a horrific shootout. What a stupid statement–I hope that you are not a cop and anywhere near me when shooting starts. I read your statement to mean that is is OK for the police to kill everybody in sight if there is any shooting because everybody is a participant in the shooting. What if someone is deaf or blind? Mentally retarded? Suffering from Alzheimer’s? Senile?

These two men were leaving the scene. The cops said so. They stated Ronald reached into his waist band and turned towards them. I suspect the autopsy has the buck shot channels to be perpendicular to Ronald’s back and not at an angle if he was turning back to face the cops. All of this will be explored at trial.

If it is OK for the cops to kill everybody in sight then I might be better off if I don’t call for the police. The Supreme Court says they do not need to respond. I would rather handle it myself than have trigger-happy cops around.