Shooting on Capital Hill

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Even if they had shot out her tires, that doesn't mean the vehicle would have stopped. I did see an interesting comment from Mark O'Mara . . .

Had Carey been shot a few moments earlier, such as when police had surrounded her car and she drove into them or as she sped off, it would have been justified because she had used her car as a deadly weapon, pointing it at the officers, said Mark O'Mara, a CNN legal analyst. But if the shooting occurred after the car stopped and if Carey had gotten out, as some accounts unconfirmed by CNN have suggested, that changes things, he said.
"If she did not turn on them like she was going for a gun, something to at that point say the threat is ongoing and immediate and imminent, then maybe the police should have taken a breath, waited," O'Mara said.

Unfortunately, O'Mara doesn't seem to see the predisposing facts.

The police had to act immediately, and having already witnessed her determination to destroy property and injure others, they acted not only to protect themselves, but to protect any civilians that may have "hunkered down" nearby.

It's a sad fact that once you've proven your willingness to attack others, the police are obligated to prevent you from attacking anyone else; and if that means shooting you, then that's what is going to happen.

The more I think about it though, the more sadness I feel for Ms. Carey - she had severe psychological problems, had reduced or gone off her medications, and endangered herself and her child in an unwarranted attack on innocent people.

I hope that she gets a decent memorial service, and that her daughter will be well cared-for.

Sad ... very sad ...

So the cops open fired on an unarmed mentally deranged women with a baby in the backseat, what heroes.

Trollish posts do not a case make.

The police fired on a vehicle that had already been used to attack and injure two people - a vehicle that they could not see inside of due to the tinted windows. They had no way of knowing that the driver had mental problems, or that there was a child in the vehicle.

The only thing they knew was that the driver seemed determined to cause injury to others, and refused to stop when ordered. The driver was also armed with a deadly weapon - a 2500-pound vehicle. They had every reason to believe that if the driver did not stop, there would be more innocent people injured and possibly killed. They had to act on what they knew, and they had to act before the driver hurt or killed anyone else.

Fnord, do you have a link to say she injured anybody? the news feed I get here in Australia report only this;
**she attempted to ram a barricade at the White House before leading a high speed chase**

I have already posted no less than two links so far in this thread.

Why don't you take the time to go read the articles they link to?

I think O'Mara makes an interesting point. If she was not longer posing a threat, is it justified to kill her. She may have injured officers and she may have posed a threat, but if she wasn't posing a threat at the moment that they killed her, then their shooting of her becomes a matter of punishment which should be for the courts to decide.

Both of your links look like news blog sites; one of which only claims that two officers were injured while "chasing" the victim. There is no report she rammed her vehicle into anybody. The second blog claims she ran into one secret service officer but no details?

Last edited by cyberdad on 05 Oct 2013, 7:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Did the police try and shoot her tyres?

I tend to agree with this assessment and the police can't be held to blame given the unusual circumstances, However the image of congress applauding the women's killing on TV seemed a little insensitive given the women has mental health issues. One wonders what would happen to a burly autistic male having a meltdown while visiting the White house?

In Boston, two young men with backpacks killed and injured people, planted bombs, terrified a city.

There was no way to know wether that car was full of explosives.

The D.C. Police HAD to expect the worst.

There are people in America capable of more violence that most of us could comprehend.

Someone knew Ms. Carey was mentally ill, yet she still had custody (unsupervised) of her child, and still was driving a car.

Does anyone remember Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children, out of her mind from postpartum depression?

This could well have been a murder-suicide.

These poor cops will each have to live with this tragedy, but they COULD have been pursuing a terrorist, a presidential assassin, or, as it was, a person out of touch with reality, and capable of mass murder, using that car.

R.I.P., Ms. Carey, why did no one help you before it came to this?


Sylkat

^^My thought also.why was no one checking in on her?Where was any support?If she had postpartum depression,why wasn't someone keeping an eye on her and the baby?

When all of the institiutions were closed in the late 1990s to save money, so many very mentally ill people were released into the community. My schizophrenic brother was one. When under little supervision in halfway houses, he got drunk continually and with others terrorized the community. When in a state mental hospital or now in a nursing home, he is a virtual prisoner; the nursing home is far less regimented, but choices are extremely limited. You are only as freed as the common medium. My brother does not suffer the depth of mental vacancy as many of the patients, but still must follow the rules designed for them.

A perfect purgatory.

Mental illness unchecked, incorrectly treated, and ignored whenever possible plays a big role in all of this. Eliza

Dear MsFogg, I agree with you completely.

Perhaps her family just could not see how deluded she had become, perhaps she was occasionally able to behave lucidly. The whole story will come out, in the media, and will underscore the tragedy of the richest country in the world, which can run fifty million dollar lotteries, being 'unable' to care for its mentally ill citizens.

Sylkat

The cost of the lotteries is borne by the voluntary participants. The cost of government caring for the sick is borne by all the tax payers whether they benefit or not.

ruveyn

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/us/gu ... html?_r=1&

She was outside the car when the cops killed her, there was no justification for that at all.