Culpeper shooting

marshaul · Jun 11, 2012

user said:
You mean at the time that she was a fleeing felon accelerating down a public street with a sunscreen completely covering her windshield towards the most densely trafficked part of Culpeper? That is, while there was one pedestrian who's been identified to the Commonwealth as an eyewitness approaching the scene and two cars coming up the road according to another? Let's see, now: assaulting a police officer; abduction; escape from lawful detention by force; malicious wounding; attempted capital murder; obstruction of justice; and disregarding an order by a police officer to stop the vehicle; seven felonies in all, some of them pretty serious, and obviously intentionally or recklessly endangering the lives of the public. You must mean those shots. The ones that stopped her from killing someone.

Hah hah hah!

Be glad I'm not on the jury.

marshaul · Jun 11, 2012

peter nap said:
Just to play the Devils advocate...The idea of shooting someone (Justifiably as opposed to a gangland execution) is to stop them. If the first shot doesn't stop them from committing whatever they are doing, you shoot them again. Repeat as needed.

You see, now, if I shoot a guy who tries to, say, rob me, and he flees, and I continue to shoot him while he's fleeing, am I still shooting to "stop the threat"? Or have I already accomplished that?

sawah · Jun 11, 2012

marshaul said:
You see, now, if I shoot a guy who tries to, say, rob me, and he flees, and I continue to shoot him while he's fleeing, am I still shooting to "stop the threat"? Or have I already accomplished that?

Note that the officer (or Dan) has said he had a duty as a cop to stop the threat of her car, now a blind, dangerous missile, to other drivers and pedestrians. Does the officer have to prove there was a pedestrian? Does he have to prove the road wasn't clear? Does he have to prove that her intent was to drive off unable to see? Did his prior bullets impair her ability to remove the sun shield?

I think it was, uh, at least clever to add the fact that the sun visor was still up, as it lends cred to the theory she was an unguided missile. If not clever, then the cop showed extraordinary presence of mind to draw the conclusion on the spot in the matter of three seconds, that she was going to be a danger to others and he had to stop her. One hopes he didn't have another reason for doing what he did (i.e. silence her). That might stick in the minds of the jury. I don't know if it's credible. Probably about as credible as the theory she was trying to commit suicide by cop.

So your analogy, though apropos in other types of shootings (continuing to shoot while fleeing) is not cogent here, given what has been said (by the officer, via Dan).

marshaul · Jun 11, 2012

user said:
That's sort of a subordinate point. It wasn't "necessary" in the sense that the officer was required to shoot to save the life of some other identified person. In fact, he couldn't have gotten sued for failure to act, if he'd simply stood by and watched the car go crashing into people. One thing I worry about in this case is that this is the lesson that police officers will take away from generally. If the rule is that the only way to avoid being charged with a crime for pulling the gun is if one's one life is threatened, then why in the world would they act to protect other people? No one in his right mind, with a starting salary of about thirty-five thousand dollars a year, would risk what this cop is going through, if he's going to be punished for doing what we usually think of as his duty in protecting the public from badguys. If this case succeeds either civilly or criminally, that's going to tell every police officer in Virginia that they will be punished if they act to protect other people, and all they should do is apprehend the criminal after the damage is done, other than looking out for themselves.

The law of Virginia at present holds that a police officer is required to prevent the escape of a fleeing felon, including the use of deadly force to effect the stop. That has been modified by a U.S. Sup. Ct. ruling (Garner v. Tennessee, if I recall correctly) that says that shooting a fleeing felon who does not represent any threat to the officer or the public, is a violation of that felon's right to due process of law. It is still a crime in Virginia for the officer to negligently permit the fleeing felon to escape when that person has already been detained. The officer in this case acted under compulsion of law in a way that is consistent with Virginia law; hence the shooting was justified, and not unlawful or illegal. The possible counter-defense that the fleeing felon did not represent a threat of danger to the community is untenable. All that matters is that the officer had a good-faith reason at the time, based on objective fact, to believe the fleeing felon posed a threat to himself or the public, then it was not a violation of the felon's right to due process of law.

If I were prosecuting this case, I wouldn't let you get away with this baloney for one minute.

First of all, your physics-ignorant attempt to equate the danger of a slow-moving vehicle with that of a bullet based on similar overall kinetic energy is laughable. If you have any engineers or physicists on the jury, you're going to lose points if you try that. It's close enough to a lie that the points you lose will be of the "what is the defense attorney trying to confuse and distract me from?" variety.

If you really want to argue that A: the suncreen completely obstructed her vision (fairly self-evidently false), or B: the reason we arm police is to shoot drivers for safety violations, be my guest. That will be a hoot.

Finally, it doesn't matter if she were barreling down Main Street at 60 mph if she were fleeing unlawful attempts to, you know, shoot her. That would actually make the officer liable for any deaths she caused doing so. And, by the way, this is clearly exactly what she was doing, at least in her own mind. Generally "suicide by cop" isn't carried out by trying to get away from cops.

marshaul · Jun 11, 2012

sawah said:
Note that the officer (or Dan) has said he had a duty as a cop to stop the threat of her car, now a blind, dangerous missile, to other drivers and pedestrians. Does the officer have to prove there was a pedestrian? Does he have to prove the road wasn't clear? Does he have to prove that her intent was to drive off unable to see? Did his prior bullets impair her ability to remove the sun shield?

I think it was, uh, at least clever to add the fact that the sun visor was still up, as it lends cred to the theory she was an unguided missile. If not clever, then the cop showed extraordinary presence of mind to draw the conclusion on the spot in the matter of three seconds, that she was going to be a danger to others and he had to stop her. One hopes he didn't have another reason for doing what he did (i.e. silence her). That might stick in the minds of the jury. I don't know if it's credible. Probably about as credible as the theory she was trying to commit suicide by cop.

So your analogy, though apropos in other types of shootings (continuing to shoot while fleeing) is not cogent here, given what has been said (by the officer, via Dan).

What Dan and the officer have said regarding the suncreen is, quite literally, ridiculous. If they aren't subject to ridicule for trying to play that card, then someone isn't doing his job.

MAC702 · Jun 11, 2012

It would be a rare sunscreen that completely prevented me from steering my vehicle. I've maneuvered in parking lots several times without removing my sunscreen. I don't know the conditions of this case, but I'm not giving that one immediately to the defense.

Perhaps she was afraid removing the sunscreen might be misconstrued as a furtive movement.

peter nap · Jun 11, 2012

MAC702 said:
It would be a rare sunscreen that completely prevented me from steering my vehicle. I've maneuvered in parking lots several times without removing my sunscreen. .

Don't do it in Culpeper:monkey

marshaul · Jun 11, 2012

MAC702 said:
Perhaps she was afraid removing the sunscreen might be misconstrued as a furtive movement.

lol. Good one.

Grapeshot · Jun 11, 2012

I'm actually embarrassed by the suppositions, claims and conclusions drawn by some here. Wouldn't want those with tendency to misstate facts and try on emotional opinions to be on a jury of my peers. The judge, not the prosecutor, will determine what is admissible and direct a verdict in accordance with the law.

DocWalker · Jun 11, 2012

marshaul said:
If I were prosecuting this case, I wouldn't let you get away with this baloney for one minute.

First of all, your physics-ignorant attempt to equate the danger of a slow-moving vehicle with that of a bullet based on similar overall kinetic energy is laughable. If you have any engineers or physicists on the jury, you're going to lose points if you try that. It's close enough to a lie that the points you lose will be of the "what is the defense attorney trying to confuse and distract me from?" variety.

If you really want to argue that A: the suncreen completely obstructed her vision (fairly self-evidently false), or B: the reason we arm police is to shoot drivers for safety violations, be my guest. That will be a hoot.

Finally, it doesn't matter if she were barreling down Main Street at 60 mph if she were fleeing unlawful attempts to, you know, shoot her. That would actually make the officer liable for any deaths she caused doing so. And, by the way, this is clearly exactly what she was doing, at least in her own mind. Generally "suicide by cop" isn't carried out by trying to get away from cops.

Here is a question?

If the cops have a duty to act to protect the public (which I was told was untrue) then why do I see all these long persuits on TV?

Why wasn't OJ who actually had a weapon with him not gunned down in his white Bronko?

Why are the police not patroling with apache gun ships to stop any of these "felons" that run and start these police pursuits that put the public in danger?

I have also been taught that the new tactic if someone is being to wild as the police chase them is to back off and follow from a distance to let the BG calm down a little depending on who they are following and what they are wanted for. I have seen bank robbers being chased that didn't get that many bullets sent thier way.

DocWalker · Jun 11, 2012

MAC702 said:
Perhaps she was afraid removing the sunscreen might be misconstrued as a furtive movement.

More than likely her wounds from the first shots and her just being scared (not thinking clearly) made it not a priority in her situation. Sounds like she just wanted out of the situation that scared her to her death.

I know in Iraq I was driving my humvee and as we got attacked I put my head down and hit the gas....not 100% sure where I was going but I was scared as hell and just wanted out of the situation. I was lucky not to hit anything, I can see where see could be that scared after just being shot.

twoskinsonemanns · Jun 11, 2012

user said:
If the rule is that the only way to avoid being charged with a crime for pulling the gun is if one's one life is threatened, then why in the world would they act to protect other people?

I understand your point and would not want it to come to that. But he took someone's life. IMHO he needs to be able to show justification. Further IMHO a person driving with an obscured view doesn't cut it. If the person was directing the vehicle at someone it is different because their is evidence of actual danger. Not just the POSSIBILITY of danger. Thank god no one saw me driving with a fogged up windshield last winter.

Whatever the actual facts are I hope justice is done. If it was the right thing, I hope this cop doesn't get hosed. But purely speculative on my part, my guess is this guy was not shooting to save an actual threat to the public.

DocWalker · Jun 11, 2012

twoskinsonemanns said:
Thank god no one saw me driving with a fogged up windshield last winter.

Fogged up window, you could have killed someone man....this calls for your summory execution.

(sarcasm)

user · Jun 11, 2012

Well, that's why God invented juries. Different people have different opinions, particularly about what the law ought to be. Again, the question is what was going through this particular cop's mind at the time. He's going to testify about that, same as y'all would when you've shot Badguy in circumstances that were clear to you at the time, but less than clear to the investigating officers. And a jury will decide the issue. Keep in mind there's no way to eliminate risk in any systemic fashion. There's no way to keep the world safe from people who do horrible stuff to each other, and those humans, well, some are really good, some are really bad, and most are average. If you take the position that everything that cops do is wrong, or as one guy said to me yesterday, "There ain't no good cops.", then you've already made your decision. That's part of the risk we all face, too. There are people who think, "There are no good people who carry guns." What's funny in the situation I'm presently in, is that a lot of those people are cops. This job keeps me laughing, because so much of what happens is so ironic.

user · Jun 11, 2012

DocWalker said:
skidmark said:

It gets to be tiring to type "alleged" - just ask the 4th Estate.:uhoh:

If he said he was going to kill her and she was afraid for her life the "fight or flight" would have kicked in and since she wasn't armed or in a position to fight she took flight and ran for her life. I'm not saying this is what happened but it is a plausable explination to what appears to be a flight of panic.

Ok I get the "alleged" part. But with all the recent "cop impersonators" we have had in the past where ladies where told to call 911 if a cop was trying to pull them over if they didn't feel safe and keep driving to a "safer spot". One would think this would give the cops an excuss to use deadly force to stop a vehicle that won't stop, even better if they don't have a cell phone and just keep going as they are affraid.

So if a cop tells you to do something even if you are afraid he might kill you if you do what he says then that is ok.

If a cop tells you to jump off a cliff I suppose you have to do it.

Just because someone wears a badge doesn't make everything they say gospil so to speak. You would have to admit there are crooked cops, criminal cops, and cop impersonators. Only the defendent and the dead lady really know what was said and what happened. That is one reason cop cars have dash cams.....thats right he didn't have his on. Real convient now he is truely the only one that knows.

I feel better already...not safer but better.

Click to expand...

If I understand the argument correctly, your point is that some cops are badguys, themselves, and therefore this cop must be a badguy. This was a uniformed officer in a marked cruiser. When a uniformed officer in a marked cruiser comes up to you when you're "operating a motor vehicle", and tells you to show him your license, yes, you have to do it. That's kind of different from, "jump off a cliff", I think. The dash cam wasn't on because he didn't expect a violent confrontation or any need to preserve evidence. He was "off-guard", which is why he made the mistake of sticking his arm in the car. Besides, his car was parked parallel to hers in a parking lot, not behind it on the highway, so it would have had pictures of a fence and bushes. Besides which, the Commonwealth's evidence is entirely consistent with the officer's story. They've got eight "eye witnesses" and four "ear witnesses" who pretty much saw and heard the same thing. There are slight discrepancies, but no real problem with the facts. And what happens in oughta-shoulda-coulda-woulda land really doesn't matter at this point, and all the speculation in the world about why the woman behaved the way she did don't amount to a hill'o beans.

Is there really some question about whether assaulting a police officer is a violent felony?

Click to expand...

Blk97F150 · Jun 11, 2012

Grapeshot said:
I'm actually embarrassed by the suppositions, claims and conclusions drawn by some here.

On both sides of the issue... or just those that present one particular viewpoint??

user · Jun 11, 2012

DocWalker said:
Thanks for your insight but I wouldn't sit there and be exucuted by a dirty cop or someone I thought was a cop impersonator without either putting up a fight or fleeing.

I do commend him on his marksmenship but to say the only collateral damage was a scrach on the telephone pole seems a little cold considering an unarmed middleaged, church going lady is dead. But I guess you have to detach yourself and pait her in the worst possiable light, like it was Charles Mansion fleeing the parking lot.

If his arm wasn't caught in the window as some witnesses have said before he fired then I do believe he was overeacting and could have called her in. She might not have even heared him say stop or I will shoot as her perception field would have been almost zero as she was trying to flee for her life from what she obviously though was a life or death situation.

I like that "middle aged church lady" bit. There had been a time in the past when she'd been a Sunday school teacher at the Methodist church. She suddenly stopped doing that apparently, without any warning, and hadn't been seen there since. This incident happened at a private school run by the Catholic church with which she had no association at all.

Being detached is part my job. I try to stick to the facts and the law, and I don't have a dawg in this fight. If I got emotionally wrapped around the axle in these things, I'd be ineffective as an attorney. (Fortunately for me, lots of lawyers DO get all balled up in stuff that doesn't matter, which makes my job easier.)

I don't have to paint the dead woman one way or another. Fact is, she was a criminal suspect when he arrived, that's why he was called to the scene. She escalated the situation when she could have simply handed over her driver's license. She committed a number of felonies in the presence of the police officer, as to which he was the principle victim. Everything that happened was a matter of objective fact, and it don't mean spit what was going on in her mind. It was her behavior that elicited the gunshots.

DocWalker · Jun 11, 2012

user said:
Well, that's why God invented juries. Different people have different opinions, particularly about what the law ought to be. Again, the question is what was going through this particular cop's mind at the time. He's going to testify about that, same as y'all would when you've shot Badguy in circumstances that were clear to you at the time, but less than clear to the investigating officers. And a jury will decide the issue. Keep in mind there's no way to eliminate risk in any systemic fashion. There's no way to keep the world safe from people who do horrible stuff to each other, and those humans, well, some are really good, some are really bad, and most are average. If you take the position that everything that cops do is wrong, or as one guy said to me yesterday, "There ain't no good cops.", then you've already made your decision. That's part of the risk we all face, too. There are people who think, "There are no good people who carry guns." What's funny in the situation I'm presently in, is that a lot of those people are cops. This job keeps me laughing, because so much of what happens is so ironic.

Very well put.

I don't hate all cops, I'm friends with a lot of them and have worked closely with them. I attended the acadamy in Meridian Idaho and would say most are good IMHO.

I did sit on a jury that had three charges on a little old lady to include obstruction and assault on an officer. I didn't know the officer before this and hope I never see him again. We found her NOT GUILTY of all three charges and half the jury was upset he wasn't charged for assult on her. We had the luxury of a camera he had mounted on his body except for the part he went outside to make a phone call to his boss on his private cell phone when he turned off the camera. He turned it back on after his private phone call about the situation.

He is one that shouldn't be wearing a badge. She also requested medical attention and he denied it....really pissed of the jury.

I'm not saying your client is innocent or guilty this is what the system is for; not just to make lawyers weathy.

I just think this shooting is a little fishy as see by an outsider IMHO.

DocWalker · Jun 11, 2012

user said:
DocWalker said:

skidmark said:

It gets to be tiring to type "alleged" - just ask the 4th Estate.:uhoh:

If I understand the argument correctly, your point is that some cops are badguys, themselves, and therefore this cop must be a badguy. This was a uniformed officer in a marked cruiser. When a uniformed officer in a marked cruiser comes up to you when you're "operating a motor vehicle", and tells you to show him your license, yes, you have to do it. That's kind of different from, "jump off a cliff", I think. The dash cam wasn't on because he didn't expect a violent confrontation or any need to preserve evidence. He was "off-guard", which is why he made the mistake of sticking his arm in the car. Besides, his car was parked parallel to hers in a parking lot, not behind it on the highway, so it would have had pictures of a fence and bushes. Besides which, the Commonwealth's evidence is entirely consistent with the officer's story. They've got eight "eye witnesses" and four "ear witnesses" who pretty much saw and heard the same thing. There are slight discrepancies, but no real problem with the facts. And what happens in oughta-shoulda-coulda-woulda land really doesn't matter at this point, and all the speculation in the world about why the woman behaved the way she did don't amount to a hill'o beans.

Is there really some question about whether assaulting a police officer is a violent felony?

Click to expand...

There have been recent cases of people dressing in cops uniforms and some even have old police cruisers and in a Boise Idaho case a guy was pulling over cars using an app on his I-phone. This is just the tip of the iceburg now that you have all these old cop cars being sold to people that are sick enough to pretent to be a cop.

www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/cop-impersonator--accepts

miami.cbslocal.com/2012/04/23/miami-beach...cop-impersonator

www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/03/cop-impersonator-steals

www.northescambia.com/2012/...searching-for-cop-impersonator

www.wndu.com/...for_possible_cop_impersonator_146385765.html

www.ktvb.com/home/Cop-impersonators-139747393.html

www.localnews8.com/news/27350209/detail.html

www.topix.com/wire/county/boise-id/p5

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuzequcneEs

Click to expand...

user · Jun 11, 2012

1911 Enthusiast said:
Were there any wayward bullets fired? I've seen reported that three hit the Jeep in fairly close proximity as it headed down the street with the sun visor blocking the driver's forward view, including the two fatal bullets. But I don't recall reading about the other two. Did they also hit the Jeep? If Wright was able to keep five shots in a decent grouping on a departing vehicle considering what Dan claimed in his motion happened before, that wasn't bad shooting. Which makes me think there must have been some really adverse circumstances going on when the first two shots were fired at nearly point blank range through the driver's door window. Otherwise at least one if not both of those shots would likely have been fatal looking at the group Wright put down on a vehicle driving away at, what was it, 15mph? So maybe there's more to this hand stuck in the window and dragging claim than I initially gave the defendant credit for.

BTW, what's the authorized department ammo? Looked like good penetration from that Glock .40 S&W...through the back hatch sheet metal, rear window lowering mechanism, two seats and still impacted the driver with enough force to be instantly fatal. Somebody here on the forum has a signature saying his EDC is the .40 S&W. I can see why that would be a good defensive round.

It's a standard Winchester sjhp defensive round in .40; there was a lot of testimony about the officer's handling of stressful situations and his ability to keep calm under pressure. The Virginia State Police found his blood and hair stuck up inside the window channel, and one of his fingers was lacerated by the pressure of the window.

By the way, this is not a 1950 Chevrolet DeLuxe Sedan that took about forty turns to get the window up - it's a long handle giving good leverage and takes only about two and a half turns to go from bottom to top. Moreover, the design of the window elevator inside the door is such that two bars have to move horizontally in a channel for the window to move up or down, using a scissors-jack kind of action. Once in place, it can't be pushed down. When she cranked that thing up and he realized what was happening, he began to pull his arm out, but wasn't quick enough, and she shut the thing on his hand. He wasn't dragged, and never said he had been dragged. That word was a misunderstanding by a VSP investigator, apparently. But he was carried along, because he'd had enough presence of mind to jump up on the wide running board on the Jeep Wrangler. That's when he started yelling at her to stop the vehicle, which the "witness" said called his attention to the situation.

Back to the ammo - interesting thing to me is that the first round didn't shatter the glass. It made a hole and "spidered" the glass, but didn't release the man's hand. The second round did shatter the glass. I'm thinking that the first round expended most of its energy in going through the laminated and hardened safety glass, because (I think) this was the round that went through the woman's cheek bone and stopped in her sinuses. If that bullet had been unobstructed by the glass, I'm thinking that one would have taken off the right side of her face. There was not a whole lot of expansion in those bullets, though. I was kind of surprised. But you know why they use the ammo they do, right? Low bid.

Culpeper shooting

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