Interesting Story

Tam recently talked about this story where a cop shot a man in an electric wheelchair armed only with a pen. Now this:

A police officer at the University of South Alabama has fatally shot a naked student whom authorities said repeatedly charged the officer.

University officials said the confrontation happened early Saturday morning when the officer went outside a police station to investigate a banging noise at a window.

Once outside, the officer was confronted by a naked man acting erratically.

Authorities said the man repeatedly charged the officer, who pulled his gun and retreated several times in an attempt to defuse the situation. When the man made a final charge, the officer shot him once in the chest.

Follow-up story here:

A University of South Alabama campus police officer who fatally shot a naked student was carrying pepper spray and a baton at the time, the school said Friday.

University spokesman Keith Ayers said Officer Trevis Austin, a four-year employee in his first police job, was armed with all three weapons when he walked outside the police station with his gun drawn to confront Gil Collar. The 18-year-old college freshman was naked when he banged on police department windows in the pre-dawn hours last Saturday….Authorities said Collar, a 5-foot-7, 140-pound high school wrestler in his first semester of college, was on LSD when he moved aggressively toward the officer in an athletic stance, prompting the shooting. But surveillance video shows the student never tried to grab the officer’s weapon or got within 4 or 5 feet of Austin.

Now I guess you could make an argument that a College wrestler might have the skill to kill and armed police officer even while naked…still why do we put those other tools on their belt, if not for moments like this?

Hey, we can trust the cops with guns because they are so “highly trained”!

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8 Responses to Interesting Story

  1. Stan says:

    Honestly I have a hard time blaming the officer. Naked guy repeatedly charges me? Yeah probably getting hot lead. I don’t think I can really blame him for starting with his weapon drawn.

    While this is hindsight info spraying the guy with OC might not have done a great deal if he was hopped up on lsd like the article says.

    If the guy was banging on the front of the police station it probably would have been smartest for a couple officers to go out the back and circle around and try and taze the guy.

    In the end, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

  2. Publius says:

    He pulls his gun to “defuse” the situation? Give me a break! As far as the charging, I know for a fact that cops are trained in hand-to-hand combat techniques and it sounds like it could not possibly be more obvious that the guy was unarmed.

    There was a time when an officer could get fired for much less than this. I can remember one incident when I was a kid where a local cop got fired after accidentally shooting his gun in the air, an incident in which nobody got hurt.

    “Officer safety” my fat butt. It’s a potentially dangerous job; if you don’t like that, do something else.

    • Rob Crawford says:

      I see no reason to expect officers to engage people in hand-to-hand combat.

      But, hey, you do drugs, you take your chances. Among those chances is that someone will need to put a mad dog down.

  3. Greg Camp says:

    Given the stories of naked guys chewing off faces, I’m with the officer here. Collar wasn’t looking to give the officer a hug, and pepper spray doesn’t sound like a good way to stop a charging fellow in the buff.

  4. Publius says:

    Sounds to me like a few people are insufficiently skeptical of the veracity of official police reports, too.

    • Rob Crawford says:

      Did you read the story, or just jerk your knee? There’s video.

      The bit about “he never got within 4 or 5 feet of the officer” is laughable — what range are you supposed to act to defend yourself?

      • Publius says:

        I could ask you the same question. Where’s the video? (not in the link I followed & the AP mobile link apparently has expired already). Where are the tox tests proving there were drugs? Also, yes, I do expect them to at least attempt to use nonlethal force before clearing leather. Guess it makes me unreasonable to question whether banging on a window ought to be a capital offense. Huh.

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