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Officers shoot man who came at them with a knife on the Silber Footbridge
By adamg on Fri, 06/19/2015 - 3:09pm
A Somerville man who used his Facebook page to talk about death, weapons and what part of his body police and federal marshals could suck was shot dead by police on the Silber Footbridge today after, officials say, he came at officers with a knife and refused their orders to drop it.
Santos Laboy, 45, was fatally shot around 2:20 p.m. in a confrontation with a state trooper and Boston University police officers, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office. In 2009, Boston police officers managed to subdue him when he came at them with a samurai sword.
The preliminary investigation suggests that Boston University Police officers approached the man this afternoon in connection with an open investigation and active arrest warrant. A foot chase ensued, during which time the officers called for assistance. A uniformed State trooper working a detail in the area responded to that call and encountered the man on the footbridge. The preliminary investigation suggests that the man was armed with a knife, refused orders to drop it, approached the trooper, and was shot.
DA Dan Conley has assigned a prosecutor to lead the investigation into Laboy's death:
Our role as prosecutors is to determine whether the use of lethal force was justified as a matter of Massachusetts law. That determination will be made after a full, fair, and impartial investigation. We draw no conclusions from the preliminary evidence and we reserve judgment until all the facts are in.
On June 6, Laboy cursed out the authorities he said were out to get him, and added:
Despite your threat to use force to capture me if I refuse to surrender,I'm still free and getting stronger by the day.Got nothing to lose...
WCVB reports Laboy had a long criminal record and was wanted on several warrants out of Roxbury Municipal Court, including for a charge of "leaving lewd photos under the door of a Beacon Street business."
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Comments
So what happened to all those
So what happened to all those stories about the Boston police being so good at showing "restraint" in situations like this?
A little quick on the blame there, aren't we?
First, this wasn't a BPD incident - it was State and BU Police.
Second, we don't really know what happened yet.
What did you get in Basic Comp.?
BU Police and Statie, not BPD involved. Hate to nitpick but it appears you didn't read the report correctly.
Let's make sure we are not quick to react and judge situations from behind our keyboard before we know what happened as well. Ok?
(Edit - Sorry said the same thing as Adam at nearly the same time).
Wholeheartedly agree. Wish
Wholeheartedly agree. Wish more people were of the same mindset as you.
that you're illiterate
doesn't concern me. however it is worth mentioning that it has been reported that both officers were injured.
Go away...
...cop hater.
restraint
Records show Laboy was arrested in 2009 after swinging a samurai sword in Mission Hill, “threatening to cut off the head of the first cop he saw” and running the weapon through the windshield of a police cruiser and several nearby vehicles.
“He was yelling at us to ‘shoot’ him, ‘shoot’ him,” Boston police officer Rodney Best told the Herald after that arrest. “He was trying to bait us into suicide by cop. We weren’t biting.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/06/trooper_...
Right on
They should have just like, shot him in the leg or something...just the way they teach at the academy not to aim for center mass. Why'd they have to kill this poor guy who was just trying to run at the cops with a knife?
Really bad judgment by State trooper?
This could easily have gone terribly wrong, resulting in a bystander getting shot (in a car, on a bike, walking or jogging on the path, or even rowing in a boat). Was it really worth risking the public's safety to kill this guy?
Or stabbed.
By this guy who was apparently a violent felon who'd been threatening a woman. Seriously--can we wait an hour or two before accusing the cops of bad judgment? Maybe find out what actually happened?
What information do you have,
What information do you have, Ron, that we do not have? Do you think the police can choose a convenient time and place to shoot someone? I'll happily criticize the police when they do something stupid, but to ask was it "worth it" is one of your crazier statement/questions.
There were witnesses who gave
There were witnesses who gave first-hand accounts. Pay attention to the news and you'll see their interviews.
Witnesses
There were witnesses in Ferguson for Mike Brown, too. The ones I heard from on day 1 were mostly lying or incorrect.
Thats just to say, give things a few hours for the fog to clear before you jump in with an impassioned opinion.
Question...
What do you do for a living? If it does not involve putting yourself in harms way in order to protect others, then you really have nothing to say on this.
The police work for all of us
and therefore all of us have the right and the duty to comment on police conduct and misconduct.
Firing a gun on the Silber Way footbridge has the strong potential to put innocent bystanders in harm's way.
Comment or speculate?
And yeah--you have the right to speculate but it doesn't mean that it's right or even sensible. Innocent until proven guilty applies to everyone, no? Again--you have no idea what happened or if anyone was "put in harm's way" but the assumption would be that they are trying to protect the public, not harm them.
I also really dislike extrajudicial execution
as a substitute for proper due process. Especially in a state whose people have rejected the death penalty.
Firing a gun anywhere has the
Firing a gun anywhere has the chance to harm innocent people. I don't recall you making the same statement when the cops fired in various shootings in the inner city so is it only a concern to you when cops "choose" to shoot in the same areas where you like to ride your bike? And I'm all for due process and totally against excessive force by the police, but if the man did try and stab the cops what were they supposed to do? Ask the gentleman to go to a place where Ron Newman doesn't frequent and then throw and anti-knife net around him?
Hmmm, you really seem unble
Hmmm, you really seem unble to get the point about waiting until we have more (some?) information about this situation before accusing the state police of being "executioners". No one is saying you are definitely wrong, but it's really hard to take you seriously when you refuse to admit that you just may be jumping to a conclusion with zero evidence or understanding of what happened just hours ago.
Spend two seconds on this scumbag's FB page, Ron
He knew he was going out this way. Fuck him.
How about...
...you show some gratitude. They do a job that you couldn't even dream of doing. And this whole "you work for me" bullshit is getting old. We have to pay the taxes that fund our safety. It's not a choice.
Studies show truck drivers
Studies show truck drivers and many other professions have a more dangerous job than cops so should truck drivers be above criticism too? Bootlicking does nothing but let bad cops get away with abuse.
Come on
Bootlicking? No one here is saying that cops are above criticism but rather maybe wait a few hours until you start throwing around hypotheticals about injured bystanders or terms like "extrajudicial execution" regarding what was obviously a critically dangerous situation. No civilians were harmed except for the nutjob with the knife who was, it seems, looking to hurt or kill someone.
Trepierre Hummons
Look him up and tell me how dangerous the job of a truck driver is again.
Why don't you look at the actual statistics?
You like to look things up? Look up the morbidity and mortality stats by occupation.
You will find that fishing, mining, tree work, and convenience store clerks have way more dangerous jobs than police.
Sorry if reality doesn't fit your just so story narrative, but that's your problem.
Convenience store clerks
Care to tell us why their job is so dangerous?
Isn't it obvious?
But it has nothing to do with someone asserting that police work must certainly be one of the most dangerous jobs, and offering only a single incident as "proof", when it doesn't even make the top ten.
Very true.
But there there are other factors as well. Being assaulted by other human beings is a part of police work. There is a factor in how one can handle those assaults, whether by avoiding them altogether with tactics and command presence, or by handling them during the actual assault. Many people know they could never handle a physical encounter with another human being that wants to harm or possibly kill them, and that is a regular occurance in urban policing especially. There are many others who simply choose not to do that for other reasons that an employment chart on mortality rates couldn't quantify.
There is also the issue on whether or not an accident plays the part in a death. This cop that was just shot and killed in New Orleans is an example.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/20/us/new-orleans-police-officer-killed/index...
By looking at this one might think this is one instance of policework being dangerous, but it really has to do with negligence on the part of the transporting officer. The prisoner was poorly searched, and was only transported by one person. Those are two big no-nos in police safety, especially the poor search.
Hmmm
There were 63 airline pilot deaths in 2013 per 100k pilots? How many pilots are there? Were there that many crashes in '13?
Would heart attacks count?
I think it depends on what gets included in work place injury. Heart attacks, stokes, and other emergencies that become fatalities when you're delayed getting to full medical attention might be included. Plus things falling on you before you even get in the air and other non-crash events.
We get it...
And we've been over this before. You hate cops and you hate the military. Typical American, nowadays.
Ridiculous response
Since when is requiring surveillance and accountability for public employees equal to hate?
Since when is asking that the actions of those who are paid to be armed by the public be subject to review equal to hate?
Since never, that's what.
I'm a veteran, too, asshole, with a lot of military in my family. When my nephew mustered out mid-winter, who handed over the keys to her car without any asking?
Your "arguments" are ridiculous.
Never mind that a national surveillance registry could yield data that would actually make police work safer! Oh heavens no, not that!
Shameful...
What has this country come to? Show some damn gratiude and be thankful that there are men and women who are willing to sacrifice everything so that you can have the freedom to whine and compain about that sacrifice.
Careful
You've wrapped yourself up in that flag so tightly I think it's cutting off the blood flow to your brain.
This could easily have gone
Worst Dr. Seuss book ever.
bu police
christopher dignan 1984
Some things
are just going to happen, no matter what. And they're often not what they first seem to be.
We should question everything, look for objective proof where possible, and demand accountability at all times. But I think Ferguson and Duke, taught us we should try to gather as many facts as possible before judging events one way or another.
Updated my original post with statement from DA
Which, among other things, makes no mention of injury to either officer. It's fairly standard procedure to have officers who have just been involved in a shooting checked out at a local hospital for stress, so that might be where the initial report about injuries came from.
Police in this country have
Police in this country have collectively squandered their right to the benefit of the doubt. It is completely reasonable to ask if this was necessary, and it is absurd for that question to be met with "go away cop hater."
Maybe there was no other option or maybe a poorly-trained officer panicked and killed someone. We don't know yet.
Just wondering
How many minority criminals does it take before minorities have squandered the right to the benefit of the doubt in your mind? Or does your stereotyping only occur for those in uniform.
Fair question, await your fair answer.
And how many white mass murderers does it take
Before whites squander any right to be treated fairly?
Dumb reply to a dumb question?
mass murderer/serial killer stats
Adam,
I realize you raised the counterpoint to demonstrate the futility of stereotyping. But the counterpoint you raised in itself is incorrect. (at least for Serial killers). And it is the TV crime show/media myth that repeatedly perpetuates the myth of the White/loner/loser serial killer. Here is an FBI report about this. https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder/serial-mur.... I could not readily find any reliable data for Mass Murderers. The only somewhat lame (Lasonry) info I could find in a quick search was itself a cite of wikipedia. Lasonry played with the numbers a bit but the numbers of mass murderers was an approximation of the 2010 census. I could not find that info when I looked at wikipedia.
Regards,
John
missing the point
No one was talking about serial killers - but yes, the majority of the ones that we know about (i.e., more than 50%) are white.
Regarding mass murder: this article cites 44 of 62 mass shootings in the past 30 years (as of 2012) having been committed by white males. Also from the article:
I think Adam's point, however, is that despite the shocking number of violent acts committed by white men, people of color are more often demonized and presented as inherently violent/untrustworthy/whatever. White men don't suffer the same demonization in mainstream media. It is, at the very least, unfair.
A whole lot
Assuming an average mass murderer kill 10 people, I'd say we'd need at least one a day in order to be comparable.
Are you serious?
"How many minority criminals does it take before minorities have squandered the right to the benefit of the doubt in your mind?"
So your baseline for police behavior is the same as that of criminals? It was never in dispute that the guy threatening with a knife was in the wrong. What is in dispute is whether that crime is worth being killed and whether better police officers could have handled it differently. You obviously were too angry to think straight when you read my post. Or you're stupid. Not sure which.
Thanks for the update Adam
From his Facebook postings and escalating dangerous behavior and aggression towards the female employees of that business, he was not going to back down and be arrested peacefully. I expect his Facebook friends will be unfriending him as they get the news, if they hadn't after all his take no prisoners type posts.
He was on Uhub before
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20090201-samurai_swordsman_fails_at_su...
Yet we refused to keep him
Yet we refused to keep him locked up
He was locked and he served his time...
"Laboy served five years in prison for the sword incident"
"spent roughly 20 years in jail before that for shooting someone."
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/06/knife_ho...
The question is if he was mentally ill, why was it not treated in prison? Or treatment part of his release conditions?
Mental illness not fixed like a bad appendix
If he got treatment in prison, the treatments often don't work very well. Many times the drugs don't work very well so patients consider them not worth the bad side effects. After prison, he may not have been able to afford to keep up treatment if he wanted to.
Some treatments, like ketamine or pot help people but drug companies still need to make a buck off them so oppose them. Ketamine is years behind pot in getting to the people needing it.
Ketamine
Cures all mental illness - just like cannabis does!
I agree that this is under investigated. I disagree that either is any sort of cure-all.
Maybe ...
Maybe if we stopped using the justice system and prisons to "treat" public health problems we would all be better off? Including the cops?
Savvy cops subdued a deranged
Savvy cops subdued a deranged 38-year-old man who was madly swinging a samurai sword on a bustling Mission Hill stretch yesterday afternoon and “threatening to cut off the head of the first cop he saw,” authorities said.
Officers Rodney Best and Agnaldo Monteiro of District B-2 arrived to find the suspect outside 805 Huntington Ave. at about 2 p.m., slicing the air above his head with the sword.
“He was yelling at us to ‘shoot’ him, ‘shoot’ him,” Best said. “He was trying to bait us into suicide by cop. We weren’t biting.”
Instead, they tried to keep him talking. “We tried to get a rapport with him,” Best said. “Once he’s talking he’s not swinging. But because we wouldn’t shoot him, he became more irate.”
“He was yelling at us, “(Expletive) shoot me. Shoot me in the head right now. I have nothing to live for,’ ” Best said. “I said, ‘Listen, as long as you’re still breathing, you have something to live for.’ ”
Then the man upped the ante, allegedly running his sword through the windshield of Monteiro’s cruiser - as well as Best’s and the cars of two bystanders. The cruisers were unoccupied and no one was hurt. The man walked toward a building in the Mission Park complex, entering the lobby and walking straight through the rear exit. He was now trailed by Best, Monteiro, officers Miguel Pires and Matthew McCabe, Sgt. Detective Thomas O’Leary and Sgt. Jay Buckley.
Buckley, carrying his Less Lethal Shotgun - which shoots non-piercing, beanbaglike projectiles - hit the suspect in the back on the first shot and dropped him to the ground. Officers subdued him and confiscated the sword and a knife.
Santos Laboy will be arraigned today in West Roxbury District Court on four counts of malicious destruction of property, assault by means of a dangerous weapon and threats to kill.
Said Buckley, “Our job is to preserve life, not take it.”
http://masscops.com/threads/cops-take-down-sword-swinger.69823/
So...
That was like seven years ago? Strange and sad that he was really in this same state all this time later--wonder if he was in prison or hot any kind of treatment.
Troubling trend
These shootings seem to be on the rise, both locally and nationally. This is disturbing, perhaps a symptom of continued post 9/11 panic/jitteriness. The trend needs to be stopped.
Massachusetts needs to create a better method of investigating these shootings, and create a panel to study and recommend effective non-lethal tactics and methods for arresting suspects.
These shootings seem to be on
Really? What makes you say that?
A quick search provided several sources that deadly force by police in the US is down significantly. None that I could find suggesting it was up.
E.g. "reports of use of force by police also fell, from 664,000 in 2002 to 574,000 in a 2010 report." from http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon1204sm.html
This suggests it's an open question: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/dec/03/marc-mori...
The real problem
There is no standardized and uniformly implemented reporting system or other surveillance for use-of-force by police departments.
Of course, there are those who would like to have one, and there are those who are adamantly opposed to mandatory reporting of all deaths in custody or during police actions. Given the public health implications, and attendant controversies, I think it should be mandatory.
Coincidence
Former commissioner Davis, according to the Globe article, witnessed the entire incident, and relates, word for word, what the officers told the suspect. I wonder why he was in the area at the time, and, weirder, he works for WBZ, yet was not quoted in their account of the incident last night.