Sarah: No, not really. They said a MAN had just shot two police officers, so everyone was suspect. They did offer, and wound up giving me a ride to work.
It’s also noteworthy to add that when the roommate that allowed the officers to enter the house, after hearing the shooting, promptly ran out the front door and was tasered by the Gwinnett Police Department, hand-cuffed, and shoved into the back of a police car. He attempted to tell the officers there was another innocent roommate inside, but was ignored and just left in the car, still recovering from being tasered and hand-cuffed as if it were him that was the shooter.
Shots fired, a man running out the door, - that’s an event where the officers may have been somewhat justified in tasering an individual who they didn’t know was the shooter or just an innocent bystander. But, back to Sarah. When the officers were gathering up their wounded, a courageous event in itself, knowing the shooter was still in the house, why did they leave an innocent woman in the house alone with the shooter rather than scooping her up too? Why would the police take care of their own and leave an innocent woman behind when they knew there was a dangerous gunman loose in the house? She could have easily have become a hostage and been killed herself - and it’s only that the shooter seemed to be in shock himself that she was able to exit the house.
The police told her to get on the ground while she was still visible to the shooter. Why? When she exited into the backyard and was told not to move, and she didn’t, why was she also tasered, tackled, hand-cuffed, and literally drug across the yard, part of her face hitting the concrete, when she was only attempting to escape from a man who had just shot two police officers?
We are all saddened when an officer is shot in the line of duty, especially as callously as these two were, but to me, it appears that the police may have panicked a little themselves… Two police officers were victims of a brutal shooting yesterday, but there were two other victims at that location, neither of which had anything whatsoever to do with the crime itself. They were both tasered, cuffed, and even though the police knew they were looking for a MAN, tasered a woman that was attempting to save her own life, and attempted to do as she was told.
Are tasers so “harmless” that even though it may not be justified, it’s OK to tase anyone that happens to be at the scene of a crime? Sarah is sound alseep, was hysterical when she saw the coverage on television, and from her standpoint, wanted to know why the media was interviewing the neighbors rather than the victims of the crime itself. Could it be that the police didn’t want it to get out that they tasered two innocent people, and to add insult to injury, didn’t offer them any help for the trauma they had seen, or even if they needed medical attention, especially when you consider they had both been tasered - which has been known to cause death in cases where people had other, unknown conditions that exacerbate the effects of being tased.
At any rate, I’m guessing this story isn’t over, and maybe the media should consider interviewing the victims, whose home is unavailable to them because it’s a crime scene - or are these real witnesses being overlooked so it won’t hit the news that police and their tasers are going off more and more in separate events all over the country. It seems there’s a new policy for some police departments; Tase First - ask questions later.
William Cormier
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