TheBluesMan
Moderator Emeritus
For the complete story, go here: http://news.excite.com/news/r/990827/01/news-crime-shooting
Here’s an excerpt from the story.
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LA Police Under Fire For Excessive Force In Death
Updated 1:21 AM ET August 27, 1999
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles-area police, already criticized for being too quick to pull the trigger, came under fire again Thursday for storming the home of an unarmed 65-year-old Latino grandfather and shooting him dead.
They were looking for a drug dealer who had lived next door several years before. In the fourth such incident in either Los Angeles or its environs in as many months, police are accused of using excessive force when they burst into the home of Mario Paz with shotguns and flash-bang grenades looking for a drug dealer.
They found no drugs and the Paz family said the man named on the police arrest warrant lived next door in the early 1980s and occasionally used the Paz's mailing address.
Paz, who had been sleeping with his wife, had no criminal record. He was shot twice in the back by an officer who said he feared Paz was about to reach for a weapon. Lawyers for the family said they will file a lawsuit Friday claiming wrongful death and excessive force by police in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte over the Aug. 9 raid.
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This is unbelievable. These cops shot the man in the back! And he was unarmed. Don’t they check out the house before they go in? No surveillance or background? It sounds to me like these LA cops are a little too trigger happy as this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I’m just glad their kind isn’t in my lil ol’ hometown. For now at least.
To be fair, I suppose the killer cop believed that he was being threatened, although I don’t know how. There is a lot of anti-cop sentiment out there and I can understand these guys being jumpy, but this is sloppy police work.
The problem is that these guys are always locked and loaded and ready to shoot first and ask questions later. While this kind of attitude does give the cops some sense of security, it puts many innocent citizens in danger. The same citizens that these officers have sworn to protect and serve.
To touch on a question asked on another thread, "Beating the SWAT team, your suggestions?" I think you may have your answer here. By the time they break down your door, it is too late to beat them, you can only hope to survive, not win.
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"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you." - Ramsay Clark
"Rights are liable to be perverted to wrongs when we are incapable of rightly exercising them." - Sarah Josepha Hale
Here’s an excerpt from the story.
- - - - - - - - -
LA Police Under Fire For Excessive Force In Death
Updated 1:21 AM ET August 27, 1999
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles-area police, already criticized for being too quick to pull the trigger, came under fire again Thursday for storming the home of an unarmed 65-year-old Latino grandfather and shooting him dead.
They were looking for a drug dealer who had lived next door several years before. In the fourth such incident in either Los Angeles or its environs in as many months, police are accused of using excessive force when they burst into the home of Mario Paz with shotguns and flash-bang grenades looking for a drug dealer.
They found no drugs and the Paz family said the man named on the police arrest warrant lived next door in the early 1980s and occasionally used the Paz's mailing address.
Paz, who had been sleeping with his wife, had no criminal record. He was shot twice in the back by an officer who said he feared Paz was about to reach for a weapon. Lawyers for the family said they will file a lawsuit Friday claiming wrongful death and excessive force by police in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte over the Aug. 9 raid.
- - - - - - - - -
This is unbelievable. These cops shot the man in the back! And he was unarmed. Don’t they check out the house before they go in? No surveillance or background? It sounds to me like these LA cops are a little too trigger happy as this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I’m just glad their kind isn’t in my lil ol’ hometown. For now at least.
To be fair, I suppose the killer cop believed that he was being threatened, although I don’t know how. There is a lot of anti-cop sentiment out there and I can understand these guys being jumpy, but this is sloppy police work.
The problem is that these guys are always locked and loaded and ready to shoot first and ask questions later. While this kind of attitude does give the cops some sense of security, it puts many innocent citizens in danger. The same citizens that these officers have sworn to protect and serve.
To touch on a question asked on another thread, "Beating the SWAT team, your suggestions?" I think you may have your answer here. By the time they break down your door, it is too late to beat them, you can only hope to survive, not win.
------------------
"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you." - Ramsay Clark
"Rights are liable to be perverted to wrongs when we are incapable of rightly exercising them." - Sarah Josepha Hale