TexasCHLforum.com

VMI77 wrote:

Keith B wrote:

VMI77 wrote:

n5wd wrote:From the Weatherford Democrat newspaper:

http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/news ... l?mode=jqm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"When the lone male officer arrived at the house, he was met at the front door by a woman with a weapon in her hand, according to Crawford.

“At that time, we had an officer-involved shooting where shots were fired,” Crawford said. “The female was transported to [John Peter Smith Hospital] with gunshot wounds.”

Texas Rangers are investigating this situation.

When they use the passive voice like this, they did something sketchy and are trying to distance themselves from any responsibility.

I don't think so. They may be protecting the person who was shot by not saying she was whacked out and went for her gun.

Then they would say something like: the subject pointed her gun at the officer and he defended himself with lethal force --phasing that directly accepts responsibility for the action taken. Use of the passive voice is always a deflection of responsibility, no matter when it is used, whether by a police spokesman, a politician, a scientific paper, or an engineering study. As an engineer I see this technique used all the time when the writer doesn't want to accept responsibility for a conclusion or wants to hedge his claims. And every time I've seen it used, when I dig a little deeper, I find that the argument being made is either very weak or deceptive.

VMI77 wrote:

n5wd wrote:From the Weatherford Democrat newspaper:

http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/news ... l?mode=jqm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"When the lone male officer arrived at the house, he was met at the front door by a woman with a weapon in her hand, according to Crawford.

“At that time, we had an officer-involved shooting where shots were fired,” Crawford said. “The female was transported to [John Peter Smith Hospital] with gunshot wounds.”

Texas Rangers are investigating this situation.

When they use the passive voice like this, they did something sketchy and are trying to distance themselves from any responsibility.

talltex wrote:

Pawpaw wrote:The link EElllis posted now says police were called to check on her because she was threatening suicide. "Shots were fired and the woman was hit."

It sounds like either she attempted suicide by cop or the officer was trying to stop her from committing suicide. Either of those scenarios probably spells "good shoot" under Texas law.

I'll wait to hear more information. The "suicidal woman" angle wasn't mentioned by the police spokesperson in the intial reports. If the officer was dispatched to the house to "check on a suicidal woman" you'd think that would have been brought up immediately. If that was the case, and the officer was aniticpating a confrontation with a mentally unstable armed person when the door opened, it might explain why the officer was so quick to shoot.

Regardless of the circumstance, I have a hard time with the concept that it's a "good shoot" if the officer shot her to try and stop her from committing suicide. Really? Shooting someone to prevent them from hurting themselves? That cure seems worse than the disease.

Sec.A9.34. PROTECTION OF LIFE OR HEALTH.
(a) A person is justified in using force, but not deadly force, against another
when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent the other from committing suicide
or inflicting serious bodily injury to himself.

Purplehood wrote:

Shots were fired to keep her from committing suicide.

Am I reading that correctly?