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[Tom Nook]

According to this article, she was shot several times....

WTF!?

 

[uncredited male]

They were actually using blanks for a community outreach/propaganda event. Amazing.

 

[Technoweirdo]

According to this article, she was shot several times....

WTF!?

It also says the officer was the shooter, but that's not the impression I got from the Guardian article?

Was it the officer? If so, wow, I don't think gross defines this level of negligence.

 

[Slacker]

My condolences to the family who lost one of their loved ones. My condolences to the shooter as well who might be a little neglected here. I mean, I can only imagine them feeling like a murderer despite a person of higher authority assuring them nobody'd get hurt.

I don't know, man. Easy for me to say sitting here the next day but I can guaran-damn-tee you that if someone asked me to point a gun at someone in any situation I would refuse. Pulling the trigger wouldn't even enter the realm of possibility.

 

[Dryk]

Isn't basic 101 gun class also where you learn never to point a gun at something unless you want it dead? This is an unfathomable screw-up.

That this could occur while US cops are being trained honestly doesn't surprise me considering what the products of "successful" training are like.

Every time video of a police shooting comes out they have their guns pointed at people with their fingers on the trigger. It's ridiculous.

 

[King Tubby]

Does this rise to the level of negligent homicide? Absolutely tragic and inexplicable.

 

[adj_noun]

It also says the officer was the shooter, but that's not the impression I got from the Guardian article?

Was it the officer? If so, wow, I don't think gross defines this level of negligence.

It was the officer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...tizen-police-academy-lethal-force-simulation/

When it came time to get involved, Knowlton volunteered.

The hosting officers chose two students to role-play a lethal force simulation, a scenario intended to demonstrate how and when officers decide to pull the trigger. Knowlton played the victim, Charlotte Sun photographer Sue Paquin told the newspaper, and a Punta Gorda police officer played a “bad guy.” These scenarios are usually safe, acted out with either fake or empty weapons.

But when the officer’s gun was fired, Knowlton — a mother, wife and career librarian — was hit with a live round.

 

[Cabbagehead]

Yo this is not a accident, it does not feel right. No one checked the fucking rounds? bullshit.

 

[Movement]

Yo this is not a accident, it does not feel right. No one checked the fucking rounds? bullshit.

What's the reasonable alternative? Someone had it out for this librarian?

 

[Cabbagehead]

What's the reasonable alternative? Someone had it out for this librarian?

Not even close.

 

[Graphics Horse]

First I was wondering why an elderly librarian would even be playing the part of a lethal threat, of course she was playing an innocent and shot by the officer, should have known.

 

[Inversive]

yank police are fucking crazy like jesus...

 

[subrock]

Is it crazy to think that you don't need to pull a trigger in role playing? Maybe wooden guns would have sufficed.

 

[Aztechnology]

Is it crazy to think that you don't need to pull a trigger in role playing? Maybe wooden guns would have sufficed.

They want people to feel the weight of a weapon, hear it fire, all for the visceral effect adding "gravity" to the event, making it feel more real. My god is this fucking idiotic though, such an incredibly easy to avoid tragedy.

A gas Airsoft gun or something might be a decent alternative, at least you'd think.

 

[DiscoJer]

These whole "shoot, don't shoot" exercises are exactly what is wrong with police.

They aren't part of an invading army, where lurking around every corner is someone wanting to kill them. They shouldn't be constantly deciding if it's okay to shoot someone or not.

Instead, they should have exercises where they 99.9999999% of all people encountered are friendly or committing minor crimes at most. And learn to keep their gun in their holsters.

 

[oneils]

I read this earlier today. Probably the dumbest fucking thing I've heard in a long time.

 

[Movement]

Update via The Guardian

The officer who shot and killed a 73-year-old retired librarian during a police “shoot/don’t shoot” demonstration in Florida was accused of using excessive force with his police dog and resigned from another police agency in 2013 for failing to satisfactorily complete an agency field training program.

Officer Lee Coel, 28, was put on administrative leave Tuesday as the Florida department of law enforcement investigates why real ammunition was used by mistake at an event designed to bring police and the public together in the small Gulf Coast city of Punta Gorda.

Authorities are expected to hold a news conference about the shooting on Thursday morning.

During such an exercise, Heck said, the citizen “assumes the role of the officer, and is confronted with situations in which they must make a decision about whether to use force on the role-player. The situations escalate quickly, forcing fast decisions.

“Historically, it fosters a better understanding for what officers face during an intense situation, and leads to informative dialogue between the community and officers who act as role players.”

Both the citizen and the officer have a firearm during these scenarios.

But the guns are either supposed to be loaded with blanks or “simunition guns”, which are real-looking weapons that fire a non-lethal projectile with reduced force.

But Knowlton was mistakenly struck with a live round, officials said.

Mary Knowlton attended the class with her husband and it was supposed to be “a fun night”, her son said on Wednesday. Even the police chief was in attendance at the class and was visibly upset during a news conference on Wednesday.

Coel left the Miramar police department after 14 months of service in the Broward County agency. Tania Rues, a Miramar police spokeswoman, said Coel resigned but could not comment on the reasons why. Coel wrote a resignation letter saying he was resigning for “personal reasons”; the News-Press reported that he failed to complete an agency field training program.

A Punta Gorda lawyer said on Wednesday that Coel shouldn’t have been on the Punta Gorda force. Scott Weinberg is representing a man who said he was mauled by Coel’s K-9 during an arrest in November, and took the man’s case in June. That’s when he viewed Coel’s dashcam video of the arrest and informed local media about the case.

“I told everyone that this officer was dangerous and he needed to be fired,” said Weinberg, who didn’t identify his client. “If he had been fired like he should have been when he ordered that dog to maul my client for a minute and 47 seconds, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

Punta Gorda officials aren’t saying how a gun with a live round came to be used at Tuesday evening’s demonstration, noting blank rounds are typically used in such classes.

“We were unaware that any live ammunition was available to the officer,” Punta Gorda police chief Tom Lewis said at a news conference on Wednesday. “The officer involved is grief stricken. We’ve got officers assigned to him to make sure he’s psychologically stable.”

The victim’s son, Steve Knowlton, said in an interview at his parents’ home that, on his mother’s behalf, he was forgiving the officer who fired