A friend passed along the following clipping this morning, the aftermath of a police officer’s rescue of a hostage in New Jersey:
WOODBRIDGE, NJ
She was grabbed by a desperate parolee and who held her with a knife to her
throat in Woodbridge Center Mall until a police officer shot and killed the man.Now the woman, Ellen Shane, 62, of Carteret, plans to sue the township for $5
million, claiming it failed to protect public safety and that she was injured as
a result of the officers acts.Both Shane and her husband, Ronald Shane, “are suffering from post traumatic
stress syndrome and both have been dramatized from this incident,” according to
the tort claim notice filed by their lawyer, David Corrigan of Eatontown.
Wow. Just wow. Her attacker is dragging her by the hair with one hand and holding a knife to her throat with the other. Probably not a good candidate for verbal negotiation, which requires rational people who think normally to be on BOTH sides of said negotiation. A cool-headed, highly competent police officer saved her life from nearly ten paces, according to one account, by performing the indicated response. A 230 grain dose of Pb, intra-cranially injected, relaxed the muscles of the hostage-taker instantly with no postagonal response.
The remote control injection that saved the woman’s life, I’m told, was performed from nearly 30 feet away, and the mechanism of injection was a Heckler and Koch .45 caliber service pistol. The bullet struck exactly the right part of the brain to prevent “death throes.”
Didn’t people used to express gratitude when their lives were saved? Instead, the newspaper’s comment section was filled with people who excoriated the cops for not preventing the man from grabbing her in the first place. Ironically, it was ten years ago yesterday that “Minority Report” first appeared in movie theaters…but cops who can arrest you before you commit a crime remain, thankfully, in the world of fiction. Some were upset with the officer for not attempting to reason with someone obviously bereft of reason. Some expected a disarm: From thirty feet away, it would have taken about two seconds to get close enough to grab the knife, ample time for the hostage taker to slash his victim’s throat or stab her so many times her corpse would look like a pin cushion.
Did the plaintiff’s lawyer say “dramatized” when he meant to say “traumatized,” or did the person who wrote it up have either a Freudian slip or a wonderful sense of humor? I dunno…but the choice of words as printed seems absolutely appropriate to such a travesty of the civil lawsuit process.
MD Matt, it’s a doctrine of competing harms/doctrine of necessity/doctrine of two evils thing. If the officer’s judgment is that the victim is about to be murdered, the rescue shot is about all he’s got left. This officer seems to have carried it off perfectly.
Doc Martin, I was in error when I placed the Hickok/Tutt shooting in Independence. It happened in Springfield, MO. Mea culpa.
thanks Mas.
Is it too much to hope that if/ when this woman wins her lawsuit she is handed over to a deranged psychopath with a butcher knife at the same time she is handed the award?
Fair’s fair.
Everyone blames the Lawyers but the insurance companies are equally culpable in encouraging these frivolous law suits.
The Ambulance chasers know to ask for just enough money to make it cheaper to settle than to try the case.
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Sounds like they might be members of the ‘spray and pray’ brigade.
None of my friends are like that, and if one of them started down that kind of “bragging” road I would want to distance myself from them because I would think they have bad judgement.
My last comment the quote I tried to do didn’t make it, so here it is again to make my comment have more sense.
“…..I often hear my friends “brag” about the amount of ammo they carry,…..”
And I thought it was bad here in Californiastan
So, I guess the SCOTUS ruling of “no right to expect protection” ruling in Castle Rock vs Gonzales has been overturned by the Peoples Socialist Republic of NJ. By a vote of 7-to-2, the Supreme Court ruled that Gonzales has no right to sue her local police department for failing to protect her and her children from her estranged husband.
wow…great shot, very gutsy call. bravo to the officer.
was it h&k or the officer? i sense the latter.
that said , as a ccw i point to wolvies comment.
sorry folks my pistol is for me & mine.
sorry if that offends any internet sheepdogs but i live in a shall issue state.
everyone has the right, they need to exercise it.
I am grateful my husband isn’t a cop, especially in this day and age. The lawyers and public in general has put cops in a position where they can’t do their job, and this scares me to death! I should hope if ANYONE EVER has a knife to MY neck that they SHOOT, preferably FASTER than in NJ! The lawyers and bleeding heart liberals are to blame for such a lawless society…as there is no punishment for criminals and A LOT for those who have sworn to protect me!