A call for help turns into a death sentence for a 19-year-old woman.
SAN JOSE, CA — A 19-year-old woman was shot in the street during an erratic episode involving a cordless drill.
At around 10:36 a.m. on August 14th, 2014, five San Jose police officers responded to the 700 block of Blossom Hill Road with a report of a woman threatening her family.
When police arrived, the woman exited the home and police confronted her outside. Police ordered her several times to drop the object that she was holding, which officers claim they believed was an “Uzi-style firearm.” Although the incident took place in broad daylight, officers failed to identify the object as a battery-operated drill. She allegedly waved the object erratically.
The cordless drill which San Jose police mistook for an “Uzi-style firearm.” (Source: San Jose Police Department)
Facing “a very, very serious situation,” San Jose Officer Wakana Okuma opened fire on the yet-unnamed woman from a distance of approximately 15 feet. She crumpled to the ground, and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
If they are not willing to take a risk, why should they be paid “risk-taking” salaries. Pay them what they are worth – $0 – and they will quit and we will all be better off.
Another great article on heroes, but…
Is it incorrectly formatted photos that make the article unreadable by pushing the left margin text beyond the gutter where it can’t be seen?
Removing the photos seems to work, but then the article isn’t as good without photos.
Observe that first two lines are OK before the photo.
Tor, I see what you mean. To think I couldn’t identify a cordless drill from several times as much as 15′ is ludicrous. These POS just want to kill, once again, any old port in a storm so to speak.
Given my eyes, I’ll give them a pass on identifying a gun.
But:
1. I am not a cop – for this VERY REASON.
2. I am somewhat confident even _I_ could tell the difference between a drill and a gun.
I’ve gone shooting, and I can see well enough at 15 feet that the target has a lot of holes onit (Target, not just the paper.)
And I can see the wings of the bug, or the pizza the zombie carries – or even the small point targets of a 5-spot target – and I can identify things, too.
I have 20/40 at best.
If the cops can’t see that well? they shouldn’t be allowed to be cops.
I can’t enlist because of my eyes…. Are cops held to a lower standard? (Rehtorical question, I KNOW they are held to lower, “different” standards.)
The question begs:
If they are “heroes,” they ought to be willing to put their own lives at risk; to give the benefit of the doubt. Isn’t that what heroes do – by definition?
Instead, they erupt in violence at the faintest whiff of what they consider to be a “threat” to their “safety.” Note carefully: Not an actual threat – like someone pointing a real gun at them – just a perceived one, as perceived by them, according to their own very loose standards.
Dear Eric,
This relates closely to the article dom posted about the costumed thug who shot his own daughter. He valued “officer safety” over “mere mundane safety.” So he shot an unidentified target “just to be on the safe side.”
In the most harshly ironic way, the goonvermin’s unspeakably callous attitude about gunning down mere mundanes backfired on the costumed thug’s own flesh and blood.
Understood, Eric.
Im forgiving of accidnts (believe it or not), but this seems a little hard to swallow – hence my digression into my own visual acuity / lack thereof.
If I can tell the difference, and I am barred from enlisting / joining po-po (once a considered option, for the right reasons: help people, keep an orderly society); does it not follow that these imbeciles, getting the vapors and pissing their lace panties at the THOUGHT of an armed mundane, should, in fact, be KICKED OFF the police force, laughed off the job?
Doubly so when the mundane is “armed” with a drill?
(and it’s 10:36 AM, so lighting is not a valid excuse, either.)
Funny, too, how perception is in fact the root problem: POS Poleeze want to be feared and “respected” (Meaning, Ghetto-thug “respek'”) – which really means, again, fear.
thier perception is, we should tremble at their mere presence.
That tremble isn’t the type of tremble that makes the panties drop – it’s the type that marks a dog ready to attack – because the only options are die fighting or die running away.
But the other perception, the “public perception” of the police which the chiefs, et al, believe they are managing? They believe the public should never see a police officer as weak, capable of making a mistake, or as a lawbreaker.
When you put the two together, the perception-result is that we fear cops in general, BECAUSE they “can do not wrong, make no mistake, commit no crime.” In other words, they’re corrupt to their core, and we could be as blameless as Christ was (mythical figure here, the “perfect sacrifice.”)
We’ll still look like diseased pedophile drug-dealing cop-killers by the time they’re done, and their cop will be found innocent, even if God himself came down to testify, and there were 1,000 hours of video, with audio, showing it was the cop’s aggression that started it, that we meekly submitted, and that we laid there and accepted the blows, tasering, and shooting, and even death.
mhinks the Po-pos have an image problem, and they their wish to be seen as ultimate “good” enforcers has resulted in us seeing them – perceiving them – in just those terms: ultimate good enforcers. The enforcers who can be on tape performing an attack, and the judge declares the cameras are lying….. Ultimate enforcers, good at their jobs….
It goes until we say “No more. Enough.”