The Tragic Death of Deborah Danner, Age 66

Here's  a fatal shooting with a twist; no longer is it just young black males who've been stopped for something.
The officer who shot the victim is Sgt. Hugh Barry, an 8 year veteran of the NYPD. The victim is Deborah Danner, a mentally ill woman  that the police were already aware of from having had calls about her before. At the time of this article, the names were not being released, but have been since then.
Why didn't he just use his Taser on her? Initially she had a scissors, which in my mind would be a lot more dangerous than a bat, and he was able to talk her into putting it down. Then she picks up a bat and swings so he shoots her? What imminent danger was he in? Here we have a trained police officer up against a mentally ill but still able to be talked to 66 year old woman;  he couldn't  just grab the bat from her? Oh no, that's right, he had to hold on to his gun with one hand, after all, he was in fear for his life from this woman that he had just talked into putting down the scissors!

Police Cite Self-Defense as Sergeant Fatally Shoots Bronx Woman, 66

Deborah Danner

A police sergeant responding to a call about a 66-year-old woman acting irrationally in a Bronx apartment fatally shot her after she tried to hit him with a baseball bat on Tuesday, the police said.

Officers went to a seventh-floor apartment at 630 Pugsley Avenue in the Castle Hill neighborhood a little after 6 p.m. in response to a neighbor’s complaint, the police said.

About 10 minutes later, the sergeant entered the apartment and found the woman, who was alone, in a bedroom holding a pair of scissors, Assistant Chief Larry W. Nikunen, commanding officer of patrol for the Bronx, said at a news conference.

The sergeant persuaded the woman to drop the scissors, but she then grabbed a baseball bat. As she tried to hit him, the sergeant fired twice and struck her in the torso, Chief Nikunen said. She was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.

The chief said there had been “several incidents involving this individual with similar types of calls” in the past, but he did not have details of the previous calls.

The names of the sergeant, whom Chief Nikunen said was an eight-year veteran of the New York Police Department, and the woman were not released. The chief said the sergeant had a Taser, which was not used. Why it was not used will be part of an investigation.

In a statement, the Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., called the shooting “an outrage,” noting that the police were aware of the woman’s history and that the sergeant had a stun gun. He called on Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, and Darcel D. Clark, the Bronx district attorney, to investigate.

“While I certainly understand the hard work that our police officers undertake to keep the streets of our city safe every single day, I also know what excessive force looks like,” Mr. Diaz said in the statement.

By CHRISTOPHER MELEOCT. 18, 2016

PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Videos of a Dog Shooting; Would More Training Help?

I have not posted the videos on the blog. I can not stand to see them again, they are just too graphic.

PLEASE WATCH BOTH VIDEOS! If you have not seen the first one yet, watch it first. 

     The first was taken by a  bystander's cell phone. The second video wasn't seen until after the first one hit the Internet and became such a sensation; I saw it on The Huffington Post, which said the police department had sent it to them *after* they reported on the first one. Now, this is all my opinion, but:


1. Why is there a gap in the second video? The scene from where the dog owner was standing on the sidewalk watching was shown but from a different angle, so it's not like it was too long to be used or anything; why was it clipped, and why in that particular place?

2. The charge they wanted to arrest him for (interference with officers for his loud music) was not serious enough to worry about a flight risk, after all he *had* put his dog in the car and walked back to them *and* quietly turned around and let them handcuff him, so why didn't they let him put the dog back in the car , roll the windows up, and call someone to come get him?

3. Whose voice is that that can be heard saying "Shoot him, shoot him!" at almost the same time that you can hear the owner begging "Don't shoot my dog, don't shoot my dog!"?

4. Finally, the officer can be seen hesitantly extending his left arm with his hand in a fist. The dog jumps up (IMO playfully) and the man immediately backs up and shoots him 4 times. Now, I'm not an animal expert but if the dog was coming out of the car to attack someone would he just trot over and stand around, occasionally sniffing the ground? IMO he would have come out of that car like a shot, and jumped on anything that wasn't his owner. Even if he *didn't* come out of the car to attack, when a dog is about to attack there are signs! Hackles raise, teeth are bared, tail stiffens (and sometimes the back legs as well) the animal growls; any or all of these (and others I'm sure I'm not aware of) happen so that you know an attack is imminent. Was I the only one who didn't see any of that? Did anyone else see, as I did, a big, playful dog reacting more to the hand being stretched out toward him than anything else, and thought it meant play time? 

IMO yes, police officers need training, but not just protocol on how many times to shoot the dog. Perhaps they should learn to identify when a dog is being aggressive and when he isn't. Not all big dogs, even Rottweilers, are mean and vicious, and *that's* what officers need to be trained in. They should also be taught to make better decisions when it comes to animals and their owners, such as telling/warning the owner to make sure the animal is restrained, and checking/watching to make sure the order is complied with. There are many more I'm sure, but I think that would make a great start.

Human Trafficking Victims File Lawsuit Against US Military Contractors in Iraq

I know it's a rhetorical, somewhat naive question, but what has our world come to? Is more of this what we have to look forward to if this war continues? There are 12 families who have been left without a wage earner, without a husband, without a father, without a son, and for what? Isn't it bad enough that we are over there fighting a war we should never have gone into? Isn't it enough that almost 5,000 lives have been lost in the fighting? Why are they adding to it doing things like this? These con-men, schemers...Then for 12 of the 13 to lose their lives that way; do you think the contractors would have been shaken by this, and done something good, like let the last one go?? Oh no, they take him and make him work for almost 15 months before allowing him to return to his home. This is disgraceful. I want to rant and scream and hit someone, but who? What is it going to take to make someone stop this awful mess?

The Case of Sean Bell vs. The Case of Wesley Snipes; What Kind of Criminal Justice System Is This??

This is the man with a criminal record that was so dangerous, he had to be shot at 50 times, killing him and injuring his two best friends, who were celebrating his upcoming wedding. I now see that money means more than human life in America...

Wesley Snipes, up on charges of not paying income tax, is found guilty, and sentenced to 3 years in jail. 3 police officers, up on charges of manslaughter, (which last I heard meant someone was dead, ) and were not only NOT sentenced to any jail time, they were found NOT GUILTY! How can someone who does not deny that he shot someone else and took his life be found not guilty of manslaughter? There was never any doubt that the officers shot the man, why was there a trial at all? A man is dead, a man who was due to get married the next day, who was having a bachelor party, not someone who was out on the corner casing a bank. I am so flabbergasted by this whole thing; when I heard the verdict, I felt like the judge said "Well, the officers said they shot the boys; the witnesses all said they shot the boys; the medical and ballistic evidence of the bullets still in this boy's body says that the officers shot these 3 unarmed young boys, but I'm going to find the officers not guilty." Scuse my language, but WTF?? How do you come up with that? How the hell does our criminal justice system continue to call itself that? A man who doesn't pay his income tax goes to jail for 3 years, but 3 men who take another man's life are found not guilty and walk; whether or not they were justified for shooting at them, or thinking they were in danger, the fact remains that a man is DEAD. His children have no father, their mother has no husband. There is no justification for taking a life, especially when yours is not being threatened, and I'm sorry, there is no way in hell these experienced officers didn't realize that they were the only ones doing the shooting.

There have been too many cases of officers being 'investigated' and cleared. The police department can not investigate itself, because in all but the most blatant cases, they are going to find for their own. This has got to stop.

A man is dead; his life should mean more than taxes, but the events of this week have shown me that in America, it's the money that counts.