Police officers shoot each other as they try to arrest child porn suspect at Harry Potter screening By JOHN STEVENS Last updated at 4:55 PM on 18th July 2011 Two policemen are recovering after they were shot by fellow officers as they tried to arrest a man on child pornography charges outside a crowded move theatre. The incident happened as undercover officers tried to apprehend the unarmed man in the parking lot as he left a screening of Harry Potter in Plainville, Connecticut. The officers opened fire after Eric Gothberg, 45, suddenly reached for his waistband after resisting arrest. One policeman arriving as back-up was hit by a bullet in his arm. Another was injured by shards of glass. Both officers were taken to St Francis Hospital in Hartford where they were treated for non-life threatening injuries. Gothberg, who was not armed, was shot in the foot and was also taken to hospital. Police went to the AMC Loews Theatre after they learnt that Gothberg could be at a screening there. He was wanted on charges of third-degree possession of child pornography. At just after 2am yesterday he came out of the theatre as people left a showing of the latest Harry Potter film. Gothberg is being held on a $500,000 bond. It is not known whether he will face additional charges. _______________________________________________________________ I post this NOT to disparage ANY other LEOs, but to make the POINT, that in EVERY Group, there are Idiots, and these folks need to be watched out for..... For your OWN protection. Pulling a FireArm in front of a Crowded Theater that is letting out, where the majority of the patrons are children, and young adults, shows a MASSIVE lack of Judgement..... This particular Yahoo needs to be sweeping the Station for a couple of YEARS.... and THEN be REQUIRED to ReQualify with his weapon, with a better that 90% on target score.... My opinion, and YMMV....
hitting a target doesnt make you safer with a gun just more accurate id be more concerned with seeing how often a gun is pulled in situations where it shouldnt be
Maybe we are just playing with words here, but I tend to disagree with your first sentence, and agree wholeheartedly with your second one. imho, accuracy is very important, and there will be times when innocents or friendlies are in the line of fire, but you have no good choices, but to shoot. If you can't do it accurately, you really shouldn't be carrying that firearm. . Some folks as you say are too damn quick to point firearms at people, and often in situations where it is not a good idea for many reasons.
I think the modern day LEO is far to quick to pull their weapons and use them when often times it is not necessary. I see a large scare being the driving force in those cases. Most of the scared ones ususally have not been in the service and certainly not in battle . The thought of being shot at makes them panic and do things that they normally would never consider doing. Remember last year or so when the cop pulled his gun and shot the man in the head in Oakland ? The man was already down, with about 3 officers holding him down. The cop that did the shooting ran up to "assist" and pulled his gun and shot the man dead. This is shear panic as he "thought" he was pulling his tazor . How can anyone not know the difference between a tazor and a 40mm Glock ? Panic and fear.
If you check the stats the number of times officers fire today is much less than the 50s and 60s when they could shoot at any fleeing felon.
However, they still miss more often than hit. I think I saw stats saying there are something on the order of 50 rounds expended for every hit on a perp, not counting training rounds.