after reading the editor's piece on the officer involved shooting of garcia on

february 5, 2005 i agree with the commission's ruling (strictly based on the
details as the editor reported) that it was a "bad or at least a "questionable"
shooting". if officer garcia had been "unarmed" like the bobby's in england, what
would he have done differently? jumping out of the way comes to mind.....and also,
the standard used as to whether an officer can draw his service pistol and shoot
to kill is the same for any civilian put in the same circumstances, how many times
(in an officer involved shooting) does a police officer (around the nation) who is
investigated by their internal affairs division, an outside agency, or other
governmental entities, get acquitted? i am pretty sure their are no statistics
compiled on that, that are available to the public anyway, but just an educated
guess would say it's pretty high; if you look at the number of civilian "self
defense" shootings by citizens with no criminal backgrounds and they were not
criminals using self defense as an excuse to shoot another criminal, these are
just ordinary law abiding citizens with legal right to carry permits issued by
their respective jurisdictions put in the exact scenario as any of those police
officers under investigation for an on-duty related shooting where a citizen was
killed supposedly for being an "immediate threat to the officers life, common
sense would tell anybody that the police officer will get the "benefit of the
doubt" by at least their own iad (internal affairs division) and possibly to a
certain degree or another by an out-side agency etc investigating the shooting, a
civilian in the exact same scenario would be "sweating bullets" during his/her
investigation by their respective police departments & district/commonwealth
attorneys office because civilians do not get this same "benefit-of-the-doubt"
during their investigation to the same degree as police officers do even though
the standard on when it's legal to shoot and not shoot is exactly the same, i
would even go as far as to say i would side more with the civilian who has most
likely not been trained in "shoot-don't-shoot" scenarios like police officers do
and are reacting on "hopefully" gut instinct for survival and not some sort of
prejudices or over reaction because the 're just plain stupid and ignorant and
should not be near a gun.....and we all know there out among us.

i am an ex-police officer (1976-1979) and come from a family of cops (father

retired in 1995 after 25 years of faithful service in pittsburgh pa, uncle on the
same police force for over 10 years) and a major and chief of security for a
company that does armed security work. i also have a b.s. degree in the
administration of justice and public safety and a minor in juvenile justice and
will be attending graduate school in the near future. i have worked armed civilian
security for over 17 years now and have worked some very dangerous areas, mostly
project neighborhoods.

i am very pro-police and pro-law enforcement and have friends who are recent
retirees from my local police department and sheriff's office. i also know that an
officers first instinct when sensing immediate danger (before he/she really knows
what is going on) is to deploy their service weapon......if you have it your going
to use it or at the very least have it out of the holster "at the ready"....it's
human nature......rightly or wrongly this is the tendency for anyone carrying a
gun, it is, however, often times not the correct response, and this is where
proper training and situational awareness comes into play to counter ones human
instinct and tendency to utilize his/her firearm incorrectly, however the best
training in the world can not overcome ones prejudices and life views, that is
something the individual has to overcome themselves through introspection and
education to name a few.

the officer involved shootings i am reading about around the country (mostly on
officer.com) and locally here where i live, have been causing me great concern
because i am seeing what appears to be a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later"
mentality. a lot of these officer involved shootings have recently (over the past
5-8 years) been in cases where the civilian has been completely un-armed....we
have one now under investigation by the commonwealth's attorneys office because
the suspect was un-armed....this is the second or third one in less than 3 years
and the black community is furious over this latest one and are calling for the
fbi to take over this investigation because the last un-armed shooting trial of a
suspect by police resulted in an acquittal after 3 trials.....the first two were
mistrials.

everyone (even a lot of police officers) were stunned when the officer was
acquitted, his defense was extremely weak and his testimony was not backed up by
the other 2 officers with him, he was a detective serving a warrant and the other
2 officers were uniformed policemen their as back up. it was a routine non-high
risk warrant being served on a suspect, although the area was a project housing
area hence the back up, and the detective was black and so was the suspect, so
know obvious racial bias their, the detective basically told the suspect after he
came out onto the porch with a toothbrush and toothpaste in his mouth to take his
hands out of his pockets and when the suspect refused the detective shot him to
death...the suspect had no weapons on his persons at all and the other officers
did not feel threatened even though they were right their with the detective
according to their court testimony....how in the world would a police officer get
acquitted in this case?

this is why civilians (particularly the black communities around the country) are
up-in-arms every time there is an officer involved shooting...whether it�s a good
shooting or not. the police departments (the ones in question with shootings)
around the country are doing this to themselves and should not, in my opinion, be
looking for sympathy from the civilian population in their respective
jurisdictions, this is not entirely a problem in the black or hispanic communities
around the country (although i firmly believe it started their) but is a problem
that is and can become a widespread problem in the majority white population as
well.

i believe it (the local police shootings of un-armed civilians) is the "trickle"

down effect mentality, starting with our federal government endorsing the spying
on americans in the name of "national security" to the supreme court rulings that
are pro-government and are slowly eroding the citizenry's constitutional rights.
these are only a few examples; there are many, many, more. one has to look at what
type of person chooses police work, what happens to them during their academy
training (mental conditioning) and what happens to them (mentally) after several
years on the job working at a mid-size to large metropolitan police department,
especially police officers working in the urban areas of their cities. most police
applicants who are hired have previous military service and are actually sought
after by police agencies, especially service members of combat units (many are
combat vets who have seen and been involved in actual combat), many police
officers are thrill seekers (not a bad thing necessarily mind you) and adrenaline
junky's and prefer being in positions of power and control (some are even control
freaks, my dad was one) and some have the "killer instinct" before joining the
police force and some become that way through the police departments conditioning
program otherwise known as the "academy" and somewhat through just being on the
force and in and around this very "macho-killer" image....very much like what one
would experience being around fellow marines or army infantry soldiers....their is
a lot of pressure put on police officers by fellow veteran police officers to be
macho, don't take any crap from anyone (us civilians), don't become a statistic,
everyone goes home at the end of the shift, and you better be their when i need
you...guns blazing if needed...weakness and meekness (except from female officers
to a certain degree) are human traits that are not compatible with police units
working the streets. make no mistake about it.....your local and state police
departments are a para-military force and like a soldier in combat won't hesitate
to kill you if he/she feels the least bit threatened. if you think your local
police force is not a a para-military force, look at the gear they wear when
conducting search warrants or on s.w.a.t. operations, they look like israeli
commandos conducting counter-terrorist operations. pick up any police magazine and
read the rhetoric and look at the photos of the weapons now available or are on
the police agencies wish list......these are the same machine guns our combat
military is using in iraq and afghanistan not too mention the police agencies
wanting mini-tanks now. what are our �civilian� police departments evolving
into???? will it be a common site to see police agencies here in the united states
appearing as a militaristic peacekeeping force? has the line between civilian
police forces and our military forces becoming blurred or intertwined?

the second amendment to the constitution allowed its citizens to bear arms for
several reasons, chiefly, to keep the government in check should it become
everything the newly formed united states constitution was against and had fought
a revolution over. back then, and until recent times, the citizenry here had
firearms pretty much on par with what the police departments had available to
them....not anymore. with the federal government outlawing the possession of fully
automatic machine guns early in the 20th century (except for gun dealers and
specially licensed persons) and all the gun laws passed since, law abiding
civilians no longer have equal firepower to that of their local police
departments. their is no longer a "mutual deterrence" between the police and it's
citizenry......we are now and forever more at the mercy of our benefactors and
will gratefully and with meekness accept any loss or increase in rights as they
(the governments) see fit to bestow upon us know matter what our thoughts on the
matter.....and don't look to your legislators for help, their too busy either
filling their pockets full of bribe money from big lobbyist or too wimpy to stand
up against the current administrations "goons" and are brow beaten into
submission, afraid to be labeled as "unpatriotic" by these same goons. think this
is not true.....look how the patriot act was made law and how fast it became
law...only one legislator had the guts to stand up and have a dissenting vote and
as one congressman (rep. rangle) admitted to a reporter on camera when asked why
he did not read the whole patriot act "you think we have time to read every piece
of legislation put in front of us".....here is a news flash congressman.....yea,
especially when it's a piece of legislation that takes away fundamental rights of
u.s. citizens and outright spies on its own citizens in the name of 'national
security", how many times has that piece of legislation been abused by the federal
government to keep illegal acts and government misconduct a secret?

i believe the police brass at the top levels of a lot of mid-sized and big city
police departments are feeling this sentiment by it's citizenry in the form of
political pressure and are making adjustments to it....one way or
another...wrongly or rightly.....they know that when their communities lose total
faith in their police departments.......things will get a lot worse for them,
their police departments, and the individual cop on the beat and like a really bad
wide spread odor....knows no boundaries and can linger and effect everyone for
longer than one cares.

maj. g. h. nairn
www.capitalinvestigations.net