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Comments
Clearly the psychotic woman in the violent domestic dispute
By Anonymous
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 9:58am
HAD to be shot dead by police. Well done Sommerville police. God help us.
I can't tell for sure whether
By anon
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 10:23am
I can't tell for sure whether you're being facetious here.
It sounds like she'd cut at least two of the officers. They weren't obligated to wait for her to hit an artery or slit a throat. It seems plausible that this was a reasonable use of force in the situation.
I assume the officer(s) who fired are going to be upset enough as it is, without the immediate armchair quarterbacking by people who have almost no actual information about the incident. There will be an inquiry or investigation.
Why didn't they shoot her in the shoulder...
By Mike from Brighton
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 10:55am
or the knife out of her hand as she was stabbing them, what typical uninformed BS. Anonymous, please tell me you are being sarcastic here. Clearly, this is case of the police defending themselves. Do you understand she stabbed three cops? Do you think she attacked them after they shot her? Should the police have conducted a complete psychological evaluation to determine if this person was mentally competent to be shot by the police? This is exactly the reason cops carry guns, to protect themselves from attackers that are employing deadly force against them, regardless of the attackers motivation. Of course, there is a need to investigate every police shooting, but the constant, anti-police public commentary is truly sickening.
Suicide by cop is a very real
By Anon²
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 11:00am
Suicide by cop is a very real problem. And it's all easier because of how predictable police escalation of force is.
Three cops can't subdue a crazy woman with a steak knife without riddling her body with bullets?
Why bother to carry mace, batons, and every other tool they do?...
I'm about as "blame the cops
By mike
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 11:42am
I'm about as "blame the cops first" as you're going to find, but if you show me three cops with knife wounds, I'm going to be fairly sympathetic.
Frankly, I was much more disturbed by the early reports that the gun discharged during the struggle. If it was intentionally fired, and 3 people were really stabbed by this woman, I don't think you can really judge the cops too harshly.
where did they shoot her?
By t.costigan
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 9:40am
it seems like a fact we should know by now especially since it was reported she was killed with one shot.
eaaaaasy there
By Brett
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 12:12pm
Three cops can't subdue a crazy woman with a steak knife without riddling her body with bullets?
She was shot once, from both the Herald and Globe. Let's not get hysterical. If three cops managed to get stabbed, it sounded like they were trying to at least do something (though clearly it didn't work, so sounds like Somerville police need some retraining.) I would imagine nobody has talked about exactly what non-lethal force was tried because they're still trying to figure out what happened.
check youtube
By anon-a-rama
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 12:27pm
I'm sure some young douchebags thought the whole thing was hilarious and put it up.
And the Globe continues to insult the intelligence
By roadman
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 1:51pm
of its readers by stating the woman allegedly stabbed the cops. So why aren't they also saying the woman was allegedly shot by the cops?
Need training?
By Angelos
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 6:25pm
What are u talking about? One incident where someone is shot/killed and all of a sudden a whole police department needs training? First of all, it sounds to me like the cops did the right thing here so it seems like whatever training they've had is working fine. But, if there was an error, it does not mean a whole department needs to be trained any more than they are already trained. You shouldn't judge someone for making a split second decision.
yeah, I will fucking judge them
By Brett
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 6:34pm
....when the "split second decision" results in a person ending up dead.
Like I said, it's clear they tried to do *something*, since so many of them got injured- but both the fact that they got injured and she's dead shows that there is a need for training. And as others pointed out, there are police departments in the world where officers aren't normally equipped with guns, and somehow they seem to take care of things juuuuust fine.
OK Mr. Know It All
By Angelos
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 7:00pm
Please, no need to swear, have a little class will ya? A split second decision was made and in this case it was the right choice. I don't see why they need training. When someone comes at the cops trying to stab them they can do what they did. No need for training here.
panda-style
By nathanael
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 7:36pm
I'm actually ok with our cops not knowing kung-fu.
"Can do" != "should do"
By Dan Farnkoff
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 7:56pm
Neither a dead assailant nor a dead cop is a desirable result. I doubt the woman's boyfriend was particularly pleased with how it all turned out, though I could be wrong.
This was not an optimal outcome. There is probably a better way they could have gone about it. Nothing wrong with trying to figure out what a better strategy might have been, and then retraining in order to perhaps handle a similar incident better in the future. It often seems like cops bring tasers to a fistfight, and guns to a knife fight. Where were the tasers this time? If three strong, well-trained men can't subdue a knife-wielding lady without drawing, I wonder what we're paying them for.
Tasers
By anon
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 8:09pm
Would one of the people who recommends Tasers in this situation please name a Massachusetts police department that even has them?
While you're at it, let's see your posts from the last time a knife-wielding mental patient attacked someone with a gun. Did you criticize that security guard, or do you reserve that for cops? ANYONE is justified in killing someone who tries to kill them first. It's the LAW.
Come on, are you kidding?
By Angelos
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 8:48pm
"If three strong, well-trained men can't subdue a knife-wielding lady without drawing, I wonder what we're paying them for." That is a very stupid thing to say. Why don't you try an experiment? Get a couple of guy friends and a girl friend, give the girl a fake/rubber knife, and then have her attack you and your friends. I bet you she will be able to slash, stab or cut one or all of you each time she attacks. What the heck are you going to do to stop her? Block it with your hand? Oops, cut. Do some kind of karate move you saw on TV? Oops, cut again (it only works on TV mind you). Human reaction time is only so fast. It takes more time to react than to act. So, what are you gonna do?
And, on the issue of tasers? In this liberal state, since in some rare cases someone has died after having a taser used on them, not many police departments have authorized them. Out of fear of liability.
Not kidding.
By Dan Farnkoff
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 8:56pm
Yeah, I think we could take her down without guns. But I've got some pretty brave friends.
the women's family and friends, the mayor and police chief
By Anonymous
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 7:34am
the other officers of the law, other residents of Somerville, the doctors and staff at Somerville hospital, the people she
knowsknew from shopping, etc; I think just about everybody would prefer if it were the case that the Somerville police officers who responded could have handled the situation without killing her.A police officers job is to protect and serve. That includes the crazy lady with the knife who set her apartment on fire.
Sure they were in danger but not by someone who set out that night to kill them. They wee in danger from a psychotic who set her apartment on fire and was defended herself from armed officers in her apartment who intended to restrain her and take her away, from her own home. She is someone who was out of her mind and did not want to be taken away, from her own home, was threatened by their presence, as in survival instinct - fight or flight. If she was psychotic and likely believed she was acting in self defense. It would have been better for everyone if the officers could have found a way to handle it without killing her.
I think we will find out that the officers were not skilled in deescalating the situation nor recognizing that alternative methods, methods other than trying to control her, were indicated by her irrational behaviour, the prior act of setting her apartment on fire, and wielding a knife as though she were fighting for her survival ... it turns out she was fighting for her survival. I have to wonder if a perfectly tayionale person in her situation would have felt the same way or not. I can;t say. I wasn't there. I assume not. But was clearly out of her mind and there was atleast two easily observed facts that indicated that.
Is it ok for cops to kill a psychotic wielding a knife. I say no, it isn't. That person needs to be protected from them self because they are not attached to reality. The police have to protect themselves and the suspect/patient.
They have a valid self-defense but that is not the issue. They issue is whether they could have protected her too.
Take a job as a cop for a
By anon
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 11:54am
Take a job as a cop for a year, and then come back and tell us about it.
No Balls
By Angelos
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 3:33pm
Brett, Anonymous, and Dan Farnkoff don't have the balls to be cops. Farnkoff thinks he and some "brave" friends could take down a psychotic knife wielding woman without getting harmed or harming her. Brett thinks that cops need more training because an OUT OF CONTROL woman, who stabbed 3 cops, was shot/killed and, that cops elsewhere in the world, even ones who don't normally carry guns, "take care of things juuuuuust fine." He is too ignorant to know that cops all over the world, armed or not, get killed and injured. He also doesn't seem to know that every incident is different from any other so you can never train for all of them. And, Anonymous thinks that a "psychotic, irrational, out of her mind, crazy lady" (all his words) will listen to reason and just suddenly calm down if you just ask her to. He thinks that the cops should have just backed out (leaving the boyfriend with her perhaps?) and left her alone. Apparently he thinks they had plenty of time to think about this sort of thing? But, what can you expect from a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks who sit behind computers in nice safe places thinking that they are better than the men and woman who are out there making those places safe?
Yeah, it takes a nice big set...
By anon
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 4:54pm
to keep a woman in her place with a gun, especially when it's three against one. Big, brave protectors of the public welfare we've got here in Somerville. Nice, big balls on the guys who pull the trigger and "solve" the problem. Funny that when it's a gang member behind the trigger, it's cowardly and barbaric, but when its three cops who can't process some basic training while killing one woman with a knife, they're the benevolent protectors of the populace. Gee, thanks for keeping us nice and safe by not trying to talk this woman down at all. "Cops everywhere in the world get killed or injured." True, but so do factory workers, construction workers, pizza delivery men, sewer workers, high tension linemen, lobstermen and just about everyone else who takes a dangerous line of work for a paycheck. Cops do a job. That's it. Just like everyone else, when they do it in a half-assed fashion, they're going to be criticized or even fired for it. The big difference is that when they have a bad day on the job or get desensitized to their work, people die. I doubt any of that sinks in for sycophants like Angelos, though. It doesn't require a whole lot of effort or intellect to blindly support a flawed ideal.
If pizza men carried guns....
By Pete Nice
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 6:02pm
and while delivering pizza one night they walked into a house where a woman with a knife was attacking her boyfriend and then came back and attacked the pizza guy, the pizza guy has every right in America to kill the woman.
What do you suggest cops do in this situation? Throw in some tear gas? Wait and see what the woman does before they enter? Not carry guns and take the risk of getting stabbed, shot or getting killed just because it's a "job"?
Again, everyone seems to have an answer on how they would handle it, but no one seems to be willing to share that answer.
"the pizza guy has every right in America to kill the woman."
By Anonymous
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 9:16pm
Wrong. The pizza guy has the right to defend himself, not the right to kill the woman. Big difference. I'd sleep better at night if you understood that.
Where do you work again?
sometimes killing someone can be in self defense.
By Pete Nice
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 7:37am
As long as you can understand that concept we might be on the same page.
Maybe these officers had a chance to save everyones lives here. Maybe things happened too quick and they didn't have that chance. Maybe they didn't have the training to deal with EDPs (emotionally disturburbed persons). Maybe they did. Maybe they did and didn't go through with their training.
Just don't act like you know the right answer here anon when you know as much as everyone else here: Very little.
Defense of Self or Another
By anon
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 11:42am
An officer and a pizza man have the same right to use lethal force in defense of the boyfriend, a fellow officer or a stranger when that person is at risk of serious bodily harm at another person's hands. If Person A comes at Person B with a knife, Person B or Person C can shoot a gun at Person A if there's no room or time to retreat. Like in an apartment bathroom. There's no question on this in Massachusetts or any other US state. Why is this so complicated to some people?
I think Angelos
By Anonymous
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 9:28pm
large male member argument speaks for itself.
No questioning cops ever, eh?
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 3:46pm
Have you considered the simple possibility that these cops might not have enjoyed shooting this woman - or being stabbed? That training in handling insanely out of control people has been shown to SAVE THE LIVES OF COPS. That cops who end up in these situations OFTEN end up on disability and commit suicide at much higher rates than the general cop population?
Of course not - you are just way too stuck in this completely up the ass mentality that HOW DARE ANYBODY QUESTION BLAH BLAH BLUE HONOR BLAH.
Taxpayer money pays for these folk to both work, be on disability, and for their widows and children when their work gets to their heads. They need to be adequately trained to protect themselves and the public in these situations.
Swirrly
By Pete Nice
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 5:27pm
Are you assuming that these cops weren't already trained in this or that they could have done something differently?
Citizens have a right to ask questions
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 6:48pm
I'm explaining to Blue Wall of Don't Dare Ever Ask Questions that, as taxpayers and citizens, we have a right to question the the quality of the training they have had - and whether they have received any - for dealing with psychos.
Suicide by cop is a serious problem for the cops themselves, and this results in ruined lives and huge disability payments on a national scale. Anybody who forms a blue wall around something like this really hates cops.
Didn't "enlightened" Cambridge see a recent lawsuit when the police responded to a mentally ill person in poorly trained and forceful ways?
That's fine.
By Pete Nice
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 8:09am
But don't assume the cops didn't have this training just because this woman was killed.
I believe Cambridge had a situation with a mentally ill person all by himself with possibly no harm to anyone except himself. That could be a totally different situation.
Questioning training is different than saying these cops who got stabbed and then killed someone must have not been trained right and must have done something wrong because someone got killed.
But what does suicide by cop have anything to do with cop suicide?
Dont be so dim Pete
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 9:53am
And go click the link I embedded - cops who kill someone in the line of duty are vastly more likely to commit suicide themselves than officers who have not. That isn't in dispute, unless you are living on a houseboat in Egypt.
I'm not disputing those facts.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 10:39am
But responding to a 911 call with a woman with a knife is part of the job and is going to be a part of the job no matter what training you have or don't have. You can't not respond to the call just because of the stress you might get after the incident.
.
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 9:27am
.
II don't think the boyfirend had stab wounds, just 3 policemen
By anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:26am
He was able to provide for his own safety. The policemen not so much.
There's no evidence the boyfriend needed protection from her knife wielding. He called the police because she set fire to his clothes, and I assume he opened the apartment door when the police arrived.
She's dead now. That's just the way things happen when you call the cops.
there isn't really evidence of anything at this point
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:42pm
There isn't evidence that the cops did everything to try to stop this either. They could have shot and killed her without getting stabbed. Just by being stabbed kind of shows that the cops were harmed by a knife before they even shot the woman.
I'm going to say there have been about 100,000 to police departments just in the past 7 days where no one has been killed by the police. Nice theory though.
Citizens have a right to ask questions
By t.costigan
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 9:42am
good point. what are the big questions that should be answered!?!?
anon
By Pete Nice
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 4:37pm
Ever stop to think that they may have saved her boyfriends life? Don't the cops have the duty to protect those from PEOPLE WHO HAVE KNIVES?
Please let me know what you would have done in this situation. And you have no idea what was in this womans mind, so you cannot say "Sure they were in danger but not by someone who set out that night to kill them."
In fact, you make up your whole own little story of what you think happened that day and what everyone was thinking and doing. You are good at that.
But before you respond with your usual 'its not the cops jobs to kill people, it is their job to protect people", please tell us what you would have done without making up your own story of what you think everyone was thinking.
Pete, they're Monday morning QBs.
By Angelos
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 9:38pm
Some people just don't understand what it is like to deal with an out of control situation, especially when a psychotic person is involved. For all we know, had it not been for the training that these officers have had, this story could have been about three cops and a man killed by the man's girlfriend.
Is Dan Farnkoff really Superman?
By Angelos
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 7:53am
Okay Dan Farnkoff, you win, you and your "brave" superheroes friends move faster than human reaction time and have skin that is harder than metal. Can you stop a speeding bullet too?
An endless debate
By anon
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 11:00am
This "cops with gun vs. suspect with knife" story always prompts this kind of argument over the use of lethal force. What the public often misses in this argument is that police protocol dictates that an officer can use lethal force when their life is in immediate danger. Unlike patrol officers in, say, London or Toronto, Boston officers in Boston and much of the U.S. aren't in the habit of wearing stab vests or subduing armed criminals without the aid of a firearm.
It's not a knock on the officers, but a statement about the differences in police culture. In the U.S., for example, most non-lethal force tends to be reserved for crowd control (rubber bullets, gas) or public nuisance offenses (people who verbally engage officers, lone protesters, drunken students, etc.), where it is used elsewhere for situations like the one described in this post.
If opponents of this approach want to end this argument, somehow convince law enforcement officials that a suspect with a knife doesn't pose an immediate danger to an officer's existence. Stab vests would be a start, but are costly. I don't blame the officers here or in any other instance like this: They're playing by the rules they're presented with. I do, however, think this approach is flawed and commend police departments who seek other, non-lethal means of suppression.
"gun went off"
By Brett
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 11:37am
The source said the woman stabbed two of the officers when they tried to remove her and when the third officer was attacked his gun went off, fatally wounding the woman.
That's ( http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/201... ) just a tad different from Cabral's statement, no? The Globe and Herald stories also disagree on how she got to the hospital; the Herald says the BF called 911 twice, and the Globe seems to indicate that he took her there.
Bravo, however, to the Herald for getting far more details than the lazy asses at the Globe, who a)used anonymous-coward sources (I'm so sick of this!) and b)couldn't be bothered to name the hospital which released her- a pretty major part of the story.
More important question: Why the hell did Somerville Hospital release her? And do they have a very good legal team, because they're about to get the shit sued out of them, rightly so, for releasing a patient with a long history and who was obviously a danger to herself?
Use of anonymous coward sources
By roadman
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 11:51am
is bad enough, but what really annoys me is the long-winded "explainations" the media tacks on to "justify" the use of these sources. Like " A source, who asked not to be identified because (insert any one of three dozen "made-up excuses" here)".
See, it's a jump-to-conclusions mat
By eekanotloggedin
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 5:06pm
Many (most?) people who commit violent crimes have a history of emotional problems, and most people who commit violent crimes were not legally psychiatrically impaired when they acted (hence people being convicted). Yes, it's possible the eval was botched and she should have been involuntarily held, but it's more likely that she was legally of sound mind (much different from being in a place to make good choices) just like most people who commit violent crimes are.
Someone else's fault
By Sock_Puppet
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:58am
Why does it always have to be someone else's fault? If it's not the policemen's fault for shooting her, it's the police department's fault for not training them, and if not that it's the hospital's fault for releasing her.
I suggest that it is the woman's fault for attacking a bunch of police officers with a knife.
A relevant question here is whether the police officers saved lives by by shooting her. Perhaps she would have murdered a health care worker, or her boyfriend, or a random person at a bus stop or a person whose house she broke into.
This woman was a clear public danger. She had a long history of violent acts against family and friends as well as complete strangers. Her own mother said she always expected her daughter would meet a violent death, and that she knows the police probably had to shoot her. Of course she wishes the shot hadn't killed her daughter, as do we all, but that's not a choice you get every time with certainty. Only one shot was fired, and that shot killed her. Dying is high up on the possible outcomes of getting shot, in any part of the body. Second-guessing the cops by saying maybe you should have shot her in, say, the left arm, just between the radius and the ulna, is just splitting hairs.
What really would have saved this woman? She got violent when she drank, and she wouldn't stop drinking. So what can the state do for a woman like that? Make her a ward of the state in a locked institution? What rules or law changes would be necessary to make that the guaranteed outcome of her visit to the hospital that night? Would you be comfortable with other possible repercussions of those changes - such as more people being committed against their will for carrying on violently when they're not genuine threats or genuinely ill?
I'd love to see better health care in this country, including better mental health care. I wish this woman could have found the help she so obviously needed before her problems ended her life. But in the moment of the conflict, after being slashed and stabbed, the police had a responsibility to protect public safety with the tools at their disposal, and I believe they did that as best they could. It is very sad it came to that point, but it is nobody's fault but her own.
I agree with nearly all of what you've said
By eeka
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:15pm
except that I'm not down with blaming the having of an illness on the illness-haver. It isn't anyone's fault, just as it's usually not anyone's fault that someone has an illness.
Was it an illness?
By Sock_Puppet
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 5:46am
What illness is it you would speculate that the woman had? Alcoholism? Is "Crazy Violent Drunkism" a sub-category of Alcoholism? Or something else?
it was reported
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 6:36am
She was clinically depressed among other things.
rest assured we'll know soon enough
By Brett
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 1:17pm
At least thirteen investigators on scene, yes, thirteen. With that many people on the overti...cough, sorry, job, they should have that buttoned up right away.
To all of you who think that
By Veteran Police ...
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 10:29pm
To all of you who think that this situation could or should have been resolved without the woman's death:
There are far too many UNREALISTIC expectations of Police Officers today. A large number of people believe that the police should be able to solve every situation without any violence or injury to anyone. Most often, that is entirely unrealistic. Contrary to popular belief, most Police Officers are regular people, with limited training and/or resources. NOT highly-trained Special Forces soldiers like you see in the movies. To disarm a knife-wielding psychotic woman without injury to anyone involved would require extreme skill and precision. A Police Officer with limited training is not expected to attempt to do so and gamble with his/her life. Even being highly skilled and experienced, that is exactly what they would be doing, GAMBLING with their lives.
These officers are just like you, regular folks, but with a very difficult job to perform. Then everyone gets to "Monday morning quarterback" with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Put yourselves in their shoes. What would you do? You would do what you had to do, in order to avoid injury or death and survive. The object of this type of situation is to go home the end of the day. That woman made her choice, which forced the officers to make theirs. While unfortunate, these situations don't always turn out the way we'd like them to.
In closing: If you’d like all of our Police Officers to be like black-ops Special Forces soldiers, be prepared for your taxes to go waaaaaay up. That kind of training is not cheap and those who are trained as such will expect to get paid for their services, much more than an average police Officer gets paid.
history of substance abuse and aggressive action toward officers
By Anonymous
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 2:21am
She had barricaded herself in a room. Police forced entry based on complaint of boyfriend. Were they the same three officers who had responded at 3:30 and sent her to the hospital for a consult?
Woman, 33, identified as person shot by Somerville police today
July 23, 2010 12:41 PM
[size=8]alt to video[/size]
DA investigates police
By Anonymous
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 12:55pm
DA investigates police shooting of woman
Friends have asked how 5-foot-3-inch Carolyn Lynn Kingsley could not be controlled by three male officers without resorting to gunfire.
If you're going to link to that article
By adamg
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 1:07pm
Don't forget this part:
Adam don't waste your time getting in this guys way.
By Pete Nice
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 3:03pm
He reads what he wants, and makes up what he wants, and then comes to his own conclusion which is right in his mind. There is no stopping him.
I completely understand
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:26am
your need to rule out the possibility that this woman would be alive today if officers Jose Ramirez, Marc DiFava and Dante DiFronzo 1) had more experience 1 had 4 years, 2 had 2 years, 2) had adequate training in domestic dispute, 3) knew how to disarm a 5'3" knife-wielding woman locked in her bathroom in her apartment, and 4) had been able to handle the situation without resorting to lethal force.
"The three Somerville Police officers stabbed in a Sycamore Terrace domestic incident Friday had been hired by the city within the past four years... Officer Marc DiFava was hired in March 2008 by the city of Somerville."
I want Sommerville to examine the engagement with a critical eye, and learn from it so it doesn't have to happen again.
The first word in the motto 'Protect and serve' is 'protect'. We can see how quickly you're walking away from that. You want to call it a good shoot and forget about it. What's another dead citizen?
You really don't understand.
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 8:24am
There are millions of factors that would have kept this woman alive today. One would have been if the officers were sleeping on duty and did respond to the call in time and the GF killed her BF and then escaped and went back to the hospital.
AND OF COURSE IF SHE DIDNT HAVE A KNIFE AND DIDNT STAB POLICE OFFICERS she would have been alive.
"protect" means you need to protect victims, including this womans boyfriend. And of course you don't let yourself get stabbed either.
We can all assume that you have no clue what makes up knife training, leathal force charts WHICH ARE HELD UP BY COURTS, domestic violene training, EDP training, etc so how can you tell anyone what you think training is?
Wow you really are clueless. A cop stabbed in the back (literally) by a mentally disturbed person and you think they might have needed more training (which you don't know what training is).
You still haven't told us what you would have done in this situation. Woman with knife threating to kill her boyfriend (people have been killed by knives before), and police resopnd. What would you do? What if this woman came after you with a knife? Lock the door on the BF and GF?
What I would not have done is taken a kill shot.
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:17am
I would have used my baton to knock the knife out of her hand. And you?
Yeah, That's Smart
By Anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:28am
Get in there nice and close with a person using a weapon that can only be used within arm's reach. Because she probably would have held her knife steady and extended, right? There's no way a mentally disturbed person with a knife would be acting wildly and unpredictably after stabbing three police officers. If a police officer really tried that, then they really WOULD need additional training, if they were still breathing afterwards.
since the topic is
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 10:38am
"You still haven't told us what you would have done," chime in. Is the only way to end this situation with the 5'3" woman locked in her bathroom a kill shot? or do you have another idea?
The Same Idea as Somerville Police
By Anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:01am
A 5'3" woman locked in a bathroom can stay there. It's a little different when she's in the midst of a psychotic break, armed with a knife, and in the process of stabbing the officer and two other people in an enclosed space. So yes, the answer in that situation is to shoot her. That she died from that shot is sad and terrible, but that doesn't make it any less necessary.
What is a "kill shot," by the way? Did you pick that up in sniper school, or is it your frustrated way of characterizing the event now that "riddled with bullets" no longer applies?
Yea I'd love to know what a "kill shot" is too.
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:06am
I've never heard that in the firearm training I've had. Please tell me.
your argument is, it was necessary to kill her.
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:17am
as to whether she was psychotic
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:19am
she was released three hours earlier from the Sommerville hospital which does have a psych unit so I'm not sure we can say she was psychotic.
Ok
By Anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:05pm
Let's say "who appeared to be in the midst of a psychotic break."
Also, there's only one M in Somerville.
let's not
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 6:39am
she was released from somerville hospital three hours earlier.
She Wasn't Mentally Ill
By Anon
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:41am
Anonymous believes that a person who sets a fire in her home and lunges at her boyfriend with a knife, scaring him into calling police, is sane if she is released from the hospital. When the police arrived at the home where she set the fire, she stabbed three of them. A sane person who attacks four people with a knife and successfully stabs three of them could be charged with attempted murder under the California law Anonymous quoted when criticizing Boston police for not charging that offense against a suspect who hadn't threatened or injured anyone when he was arrested a few days ago.
By Anonymous's standards, this suspect is sane. By Anonymous's standards, she committed four attempted murders. By Anonymous's standards, the duty of the police is to protect her and not her victims.
Dream On Anonymous
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 9:23am
You just tipped your hand to your ignorance of the reality of mental illness right there.
Oh, they have a psych unit ... that must mean, in the middle of the summer when psychosis and mania peak, they have the special ability to magically spawn more psych unit beds in which to put all the people!
Must be some special magic, that. If you have that special magic, I know a whole bunch of psych units who would love you to share it - particularly in late July.
A more likely story: they believed that they nuked her good enough with klonipin and sent her home because she either lacked adequate insurance or they simply had no room for her. She wasn't the craziest they had to deal with, so they nuked and prayed.
fault me for assuming
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 11:33am
the psych professionals at the Somerville psych unit were professionals.
So maybe she was psychotic. We know she was depressed. We know she lit her boyfriends clothing on fire, locked herself in a room in her apartment armed with a knife.
My contention is that they could have found a way to protect her and themselves, and that should not be too much to ask for.
Limits of Professionalism
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 12:09pm
They are called resources. If you ever knew somebody who worked psych, you would know that this is the worst time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. While extremely depressed people often disappear in the dark of winter and don't end up in psych wards unless somebody finds them and brings them in, flaming manics and psychotics are hard to miss and do get taken to ER.
They also get triaged and the less extreme ones (at the moment they are at the ER) are treated and discharged, and some can even hum a few sane bars to get loose. Furthermore, there are rules about consent that have to be navigated to treat people, not to mention admit them. Psych professionals may grumble that they don't get to hospitalize people who obviously need it, but the fact is that too many people were committed against their will and this has turned the legal requirements in favor of the will of the patient.
Sorry if that doesn't fit your perfect world, but that is the reality of "professionalism" in a country that still indulges in mischaracterization of mental health issues as moral failings.
3 days.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 12:19pm
Is the maximum amount of days that someone can be held against their will for a mental health problem. If someone is a danger to themselves or others, a doctor (and even a police officer within some obvious other steps) may hold someone against their will for 3 days before a court or that person has any legal right to do anything else.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/123-12.htm
Processes take energy
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 12:51pm
They won't go that route unless she was out of control in front of them, or was so out of control before she came in that the need was there. It will be interesting to see if there were beds available, either. If you have somebody who appears to be cooperating, you don't take the energy to go through the process.
True but I've seen them do it.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 1:03pm
The patients don't end up in Framingham or Bridgewater most of the time, but people usually are held if they have a past history of criminal violence. And emergency room psychiatrists like to take their time as well and usually don't rush these sorts of things (as do most emergency room doctors and nurses)
Sometimes it takes convincing people that they won't end up in these state hospitals or treatment programs if they commit themselves on their own. They are basically promised that if they stay for a set amount of time (6-10 hours) and take some medication they will be let out on their own.
If You Can Take the Time to Quote It...
By Anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:01pm
...then the least you can do is read it, which you might want to do again. It was necessary to shoot the person who was stabbing me and two other people. It was necessary because, although she might die from that shooting, she will definitely continue to stab me and two other people if I don't, possibly killing one or all of us.
That's pretty much the legal definition of self-defense and defense of another, which unlike your baton fantasy is all that's going to matter to the state police and DA.
as long as they have no duty to protect her
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:29pm
in addition to themselves, then you're right about shooting her and killing her, instead of using a baton to disarm her. They likely have a legal defense for what they did but that does not mean they made the best choice or met their duty to protect her in addition to themselves and boy friend.
Again...
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:49pm
very hard to disarm someone with a knife with a baton.
I don't know how big you are, or what kind of training or self defense knowledge you have anonymous. But I would bet my life that if I had a knife, and you had only a baton and pepper spray, I could kill you in 2 minutes.
You do not use batons with knife wielding people.
How About a Boxcutter?
By anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 3:15pm
Anonymous, could you knock a boxcutter from someone's hand using a baton? Because that's all Mohammad Atta was armed with when he knocked over a skyscraper. If only someone on Flight 11 had been carrying a baton!
OK 9/11 baiter...
By anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 4:58pm
we'll play that game. Could you knock a knife from someone's hand with no baton? Surprisingly, passengers from Flight 93 managed to do so with flight-meal cutlery, scalding water and a beverage cart. I'd like to think our law enforcement personnel are better equipped than this, but if Todd Beamer and company could find a way and prevent another attack on Washington while doing so, I don't see why three cops couldn't manage against this one assailant. This is the part where Pete Nice shows his PBA card and scowls at people for not having read their Somerville PD officer handbooks. I don't doubt that the officers acted well within their rights and followed proceedure -- I'm saying the proceedure is haphazard and dead wrong. Like the other poster said, get stab belts, train officers to use the non-lethal crowd-control options available (yes, Pete, like gas) and make taking a life the LAST option, not just one of several.
Yes, But
By anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 6:05pm
They also killed the suspect. I thought that was against the rules?
Well that is a better argument then.
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 8:27pm
But you have to then admit that what you think is a 'dead wrong' procedure is a procedure that every court in America has backed up time and time again.
But you still have to take in account the Columbines and other situations where gas may not work. Even in this case the GF could have killed the BF if gas were thrown in. Then who would be at fault? I would say a tazer or less than lethal shotgun could have been fired right away first. But then what happens when the woman dies from a beanbag in the eye or a tazer that causes a heart attack (the majority of tazer deaths are from people on drugs)? Then the police look just as bad or even worse right?
Could it be possible that three cops did all they could do to get the knife away from this woman and then had no other option but to shoot her? (since all three did get stabbed).
And I agree the 9/11 argument is silly, but does anyone know who got killed from box cutters on that flight before the hijacker was finally subdued?
I just don't want people to think there was a right or wrong answer here.
There is a right answer
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:23pm
and that's where no one ends up dead. No one.
"If Todd Beamer and company could find a way and prevent another attack on Washington while doing so (knock a knife from someone's hand with no baton), I don't see why three cops couldn't manage against this one assailant." I don't either.
Let's stop arguing over whether taking her life was justified under the law (it was 'justified' and at the same time not the kind of justice we would choose - that is those of us who believe the police should protect the lives of suspects, even armed suspects.)
Let's talk about what's wrong in a situation like this when she ends up dead, instead of under arrest. Can we manage that?
You still don't get it.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:02am
It isn't up to the cops whether or not people end up dead. If I have a gun, and I choose to go out and start shooting people on a public street, I have a reasonable expectation that the police will come at some point and try to stop me by firing their weapons at me.
On the same circumstance, if I am walking in a public place, and someone else has a gun and tries to fire at me, I should expect the police to come when I call them and shoot the gunman since I know the police will have the ability to do so.
No one is having a "I'm right because I did the right thing" party because the cops were right and the woman was wrong here. No one is happy at the ending here, no one.
We don't live in some fantasyland like the movie Minority Report where the police can just stop everyone from getting hurt before real crimes actually happen. We live in the real world, not some movie.
It isn't up to the cops
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:14am
Sure Pete.
She was alive when they arrived.
One of them shot her dead.
All I'm saying is that somewhere between your procedure manual and the law (which says it was a good shoot) is a place where she comes out of this alive, instead of dead. You don't want to go to that place.
It's too bad you insist she had to end up dead.
It's too bad you insist that the outcome is not up to the cops. That's a weird position to take.
I'd love to go to that place.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:28am
But the cops don't always get to choose the outcome. Sometimes they do. Sometimes the person with the knife or gun can choose.
Like I said before, there could have been a million outcomes here. We have had a week to think about it. A little different than the three minutes when you get the call over your radio. It looks like I have to talk in caps again because you continue to read what you want to read.
MAYBE THE COPS COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING DIFFERENT, MAYBE THEY DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE. MAYBE THE GF COULD STILL BE ALIVE IF THE COPS DID SOMETHING DIFFERENT, MAYBE THE COPS COULD HAVE DIED OR MAYBE THE BF SHOULD HAVE DIED.
Now look closely in the above statement and notice that I didn't say there was some right or wrong answer like you want there to be.
Would you mind telling us where you work?
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:21am
So that we can make informed choices about calling 911, especially in situations when your trigger-happy attitude and refusal to examine other ways to deescalate confrontations, might come into play... and thus whether people walk out or are carried out by the coroner. What city do you work in?
Please let me know where you live.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:29am
So just in case someone breaks into your house with a gun and tried to kill you, I can stop by the flower shop first and see if the gunman will stop if he sees some fresh flowers. Then we can all be happy!!
:)
You won't answer what city you work in?
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:33am
I didn't ask for you name and badge number, I asked what city you work in. And you wouldn't answer.
I don't work for a city.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:43am
I work in an athletic department at a local college. That is what I would consider my fulltime job anyway.
Security, coach, equipment manager, athletic director?
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 11:38am
From what do you derive your law enforcement bona fides?
I do a few of those things you mentioned.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 11:42am
I have worked in law enforcement, and still do in some capacity. Take my opinions for what they are worth. It should be clear that I'm not making things up here and do speak from some of my experiences.
you've been putting yourself out there as an expert
By anon
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 3:09pm
using definitive authoritative language like an expert for months on end. unbelievable.
No one is an expert.
By Pete Nice
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 8:16am
But I do have experience doing a lot of things.
How Dare He
By Anon
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 8:41am
How dare a person offer observations and interpretations on a blog. No one else here would ever base their posts on life and employment experience. To the dungeon, sir.
I've never lied on here.
By Pete Nice
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 10:01am
If that is what you meant. I just have several jobs and have had several jobs.
Not At All
By Anon
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 10:29am
It was sarcasm for another Anon, who seemed pretty outraged that someone would do what we all do here all the time, which is offer points of view based on experience and opinion.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
By Sock_Puppet
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 11:50am
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Y'know... just curious.
Please Explain
By Anon
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:49pm
Please explain the process by which, using only a baton, you disarm an apparently psychotic person who is stabbing you and two other people. Please also explain the "best choice" means for protecting a person who is stabbing you and two other people. Please also explain whether people shooting guns at other people need similar protection, or whether that only applies to people with knives.
I'm sure the olive salad will be nice
By Kaz
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:50am
When they put you in the ol' pine box and shovel on the dirt
May we all remember Lieutenant Anonymous lying there inert
He thought he'd stop a psycho swinging a wild knife
He lifted his baton and thought to save her life
Instead she tossed it and buried it deep in his chest
A tale of caution for Boston's finest and its best
At the wake, I'm sure the olive salad will be nice.
And if she cut you or her BF in the process or you missed..
By Pete Nice
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:04am
And the BF ended up dying because you kept trying to slap your baton at someone with a knife? You and the entire department/town would be sued because you broke police and failed to PROTECT the victim or potential victim.
Who knows what I would have done, I'm still not sure how the whole thing went down. There may not have been space to use a baton. Ever try to get a knife out of someones hand? I have. It sure takes a lot more than a baton strike in most cases. It isn't like people hold it out for you to get a nice clear swipe at. At what point to you take out your firearm? Ever try a baton drop/firearm unholster? It takes a few seconds, a lot more time than it would take with someone with a knife to cut you and/or kill you. Would you have time to do that if the initial baton strike didn't work? Would the BF had died if you went through that process? Would you have died? Ever deal with an emotionally disturbed person of any size, gender or mental state? There are thousands of possibilities that could have happened here, and that is the difference between your thinking and mine.
I think it is possible that they could have done something different, or maybe its possible that they didn't have a chance to do anything else and this was their only option. You think that there should have been a different outcome no matter what and you would have saved the day if you were a cop. Again, this isn't fantasy land where things happen according to some police manual.
When someone has a knife and is threating someone else, LAW and PROCEDURE dictitates that you use a firearm for that person to drop it.
If you have a problem with the use of force chart then fine, say so. But you don't know what it is so how can you critize anyone for following it or not follwing it?
And how can you question someones training when you don't even know what the training is? That is the whole issue here with your thinking. You have no idea what police officers are trained to do and how they have to do it.
5'3"
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 9:48am
Her height means nothing. I'm 5'3 and I could probably kick just about anybody's arse if I was deeply convinced that somebody was trying to hurt me or my kids or husband. I have defended myself against much larger people because I'm wicked strong and fear alone can make me quite extreme. That's without a knife.
So, if she was insane and became convinced that she was defending herself, even at 5'3" she could do serious damage. She did do serious damage, actually.
This is where proper law enforcement training comes in. Cops are often trained to respond quickly and with force, which, of course, triggers more extreme psychotic behavior. If police are trained to evaluate and properly de-escalate situations with psychotic people, they are at much less risk of being stabbed or having to shoot someone (as they did here). Of course we can't say that that didn't happen here, or that this situation where cops had to shoot her to protect themselves was avoidable. HOWEVER, I think the incident needs to be independently investigated, and that independent investigation must include experts in the field of training cops to handle psychos. Psychos happen - one anon in another thread said "always call the police first". If that is what people are being told to do, to call the police to subdue psychotics, then don't we want the police to know how to handle psychotics without escalating to fatal situations? To know how to protect themselves from being stabbed? To avoid all of the WELL DOCUMENTED psych risks to the officers who have to kill somebody in the line of duty?(even if Pete is amusingly ignorant of those risks).
Swirrly I agree 100% with everything you said. Everything.
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 10:44am
But can you try to convince anonymous to read and understand this part of your well thought out statement (I added in the part in parenthesis which I think is important and which you probably agree):
Of course we can't say that that didn't happen here, or that this situation where cops had to shoot her to protect themselves (or the victim) was avoidable.
And as I pointed out above, the post stress issues of an incident like this one are very important, but probably less important than the initial training to deal with these people. I am not ignorant of the facts dealing with police suicide.
i concur
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 11:48am
At some point in the future we'll learn, if a thorough investigation is done, what training these three officers had (in their 4, 2, and 2 years of experience), what the Somerville police departments policy is on domestic abuse (whether to arrest when an arrest is warranted, if they coordinate with other social support groups in cases of domestic abuse,) and if the officer who discharged his weapon and killed the suspect was the one who served in the 82nd airborne.
You concur with everything, or just what you want to read?
By Pete Nice
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 11:58am
Do you concur with this?:
"Of course we can't say that that didn't happen here, or that this situation where cops had to shoot her to protect themselves was avoidable."
I can bet the Somerville Police Departments Policy on Domestic Violence is the same as most other departments in MA.
But I love how you really just want to know if one of them was in the military. That must mean he was trigger happy and not ready for the job. Should we not hire Veterans now? What if one of the officers got their job through the affirmative action program section of Civil Service? Would you then say a white officer would not have done the same thing because he scored higher on a reading comprehension test and could have used his brain as opposed to the disabled Vet who might not have? (Which vets would also not have to score as high on to get a job)?
I mean, we could go through a whole list of faults of the Sommerville Police since they are made up of human beings. Did they go to college? Could a woman police officer been able to calm her down? Could a woman police officer have had the strength to get the knife out of her hand?
i've been thinking about this...
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 4:07pm
Did you know this woman lost custody of her child. I wonder if that is relevant to her depression and self-medicating with alcohol.
This is also the second time she had it out with police in recent months, earlier on the staircase. I wonder if her trauma is at the root of her mental illness and if she identifies the police as part of the authority that's "done this to her."
Adam, I thought people might be interested
By Anonymous
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:29am
in that article but for the record, I didn't excerpt any part of the article beyond the title and subtitle.
Shooting Ruled Justified
By anon
Thu, 08/19/2010 - 5:18pm
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/201...