Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Off-duty Cop Commits Murder in Philadelphia

CBS3.com reports.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ―
Prosecutors say an off-duty Philadelphia police officer has been charged with murder in the shooting death of a man during an apparent dispute over a neighborhood water fight.


Authorities say 26-year-old Rudolph Gary shot and killed 22-year-old Howard Williams in an altercation that witnesses say started when children and adults tried to beat the heat by spraying each other with water. Investigators say two others were wounded in the Sunday evening shooting.

Prosecutors say Gary, an officer since November 2008, was charged Monday with murder, aggravated assault and simple assault. Police say he has been suspended with intent to dismiss.

What's wrong with the Philadelphia Police Department? Don't they screen these guys at all? Gun-rights advocates claim the average gun owner is more responsible and more careful because they realize what's at stake, but if that's true, shouldn't it count for cops even more?

Maybe the answer is the same for both cops and civilians. Before you can own a gun, you need to demonstrate the capacity to handle it properly, that's both mental and physical capacity.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

5 comments:

  1. "Gun-rights advocates claim the average gun owner is more responsible and more careful because they realize what's at stake, but if that's true, shouldn't it count for cops even more?"

    It should, but it doesn't. Cops get an invisible pass for idiocy that would get a civilian gun owner taken to the woodshed.

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  2. Cops are a higher class citizen. In fact they are not mere "civilians" as the rest of us are.

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  3. Here's a French Gendarme story and my buddy Claude claims it's true:
    At the gendarmerie over in St. Agnan, the gendarmes had a vegetable plot.
    One gendarme planted carrots and none of them came up. He complained to a buddy and was told, "Well, you must have planted the seeds upside down!"
    The gendarme looked at him increduously and asked, "Well how can you tell if you they don't mark them?"

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  4. Micro, I guess it's the same all over. In Italy Carabinieri jokes are famous.

    Although I wouldn't put it quite like FWM did, that cops are a "higher class citizen," I would say they should be better screened that they are.

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  5. MikeB: “Maybe the answer is the same for both cops and civilians. Before you can own a gun, you need to demonstrate the capacity to handle it properly, that's both mental and physical capacity.”

    You make it sound so easy. Right now there is no sure fire way to tell that someone will snap sometime down the road (civilian or cop). If we could it would probably be way too Orwellian. I am all for improvements in this area though. Maybe Joyce should send some of that gun control money to psychological research.

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