my god that’s fucking terrible.
1 Like
In my youth the person running to the police did want help, these days it is unfortunately not the case a lot of the time. The surprise to me is that people are surprised, and it will only become worse with the continued avalanche of anti police rhetoric and the highlighting (focus) of a few psychopathic individuals, while completely underplaying all the hidden hero’s that save people from pedo’s, rapists, murderers, etc, while risking their own lives by running into dangerous circumstances. Mind blowing to me, but expected, as the shittest news is the most profitable news.
I assume this is in context with the story as I have only read the summary, as I can’t see the whole story.
Graziano killed his estranged wife, 45-year-old [Tracy Martinez], near a Fontana elementary school, police said. The area was locked down and he fled the scene with Savannah.
The next morning, a witness spotted Graziano’s Nissan pickup truck and notified the police, which led to a chase and shootout on the 15 Freeway in Victorville around 11:15 a.m.
The deputies who responded to the call said that Graziano was shooting at them “constantly” through his rearview window and police responded with gunfire of their own.
Graziano was killed in the shootout as was his daughter, whom the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department claimed was in “tactical gear.”
Savannah had attempted to flee the car during the chaos and ran toward deputies. However, she was shot in the firefight and was later transported to a hospital where she was pronounced dead around noon.
Absoluetly tragic. 
A man murdered the mother of his teenage daughter, then abducted her and ran from the police. When he finally stopped the cops appeared to treat them as a duo and killed them both, rather than treating it as the hostage situation is seemingly was. The official line from the cops though is that she was shooting at the cops, thus justifying their actions. Increasingly though people are coming around to the reality that the cops’ version of events will always be focused on justifying their actions rather than telling the truth.
2 Likes
From the summary above (story posted), I really don’t know what they are supposed to do? I’m not downplaying the tragedy, its tragic on all accounts. Are they supposed to just let him shoot indiscriminately? Do they have foresight as to the involvement of the girl? Did she run to them with her arms up? Lots of unanswered questions, and I am sure they have body cam footage, they always do these days.
It’s going to be a case of, if they in the right, sweep story under the rug as it doesn’t put the cops in bad light, but if it proves they acted otherwise, then lets make a huge story out of it until the next time it happens. Rinse and repeat. So many cases of this. Unarmed man gets shot…in truth armed but discarded the gun 2 mins before getting shot.
This being a very important word in the sentence.
when you have a high-speed police chase with shots being fired, I would sadly have to think the police are just as concerned for their own safety as that of any unidenfied persons fleeing the vehicle.
I’d also like to think that it’d be pretty near impossible to be driving a vehicle forward and shooting backwards with any kind of efficiency, but with the back window being blown out (as seen in the pic) then the police behind would/should be able to see who is firing back at them…
nobody knows except the officers themselves.
1 Like
It is rather disturbing how often ‘something went wrong with the body cam’. It is a difficult situation, but compounded by poor training and an early use of firearms in these situations.
3 Likes
very easy for us to say, in the safety of our offices and desks. they’re the ones out there getting shot at by a guy who just killed his wife and took his daughter hostage. in an ideal world, this situation wouldn’t happen. but it does, and more often these days as the stress levels rise across the world.
I don’t think that excuse fly’s anymore as they know its guilty until proven innocent, its assumed police brutality if there is no footage. The footage from the police always comes out a while later, and I assume this is for legal reasons. I find it amazing how often bystander footage is taken for gospel and then the body cam footage dispels all doubt.
I read an interesting study a while back. It looked at the distance needed between a person with a holstered/upholstered gun vs a person with a knife before the gun became useless in saving you from potentially fatal injuries. The distance needed for safety was surprisingly large. It was quite a detailed study, looking at different body masses, if they were in motion, etc.
I agree, but that situation alone is bad doctrine or training. The ‘firefight’ offroad served no purpose, the only reason for any urgency with the vehicle stuck where it was the safety of the girl that the sheriff’s department is now insisting wasn’t a hostage. Properly, that should have been a 12 hours standoff situation, not a firefight.
1 Like
I know you’re coming from a good place, but situations where the police face threats to their person are treated with disdain by American law enforcement. to think otherwise, I would consider a bit naive. Especially when in the USA.
I am across the border bi-weekly these days as I have property 30min south of the border. To think that you’d be treated the same by a local or state police as you would by the RCMP…well that mentality is just playing with fire.
Absolutely, which is a problem with US policing and training. An RCMP officer would be facing serious questions over tactical decisions at Hesperia. American police are trained to escalate situations and readily reach for lethal force. So they get situations like this. The investigation will likely drag on long enough to defuse most of the tension, but it is already obvious what happened. An unarmed girl was shot by trigger-happy American police. There was only one firearm found at the scene, in the vehicle.
2 Likes
I only recently found out that police training is not centralized. I’m amazed they don’t have a federal system for training officers before sending them back to their districts. Some states don’t even have state level training and all of it is done in house at shitty little stations in towns with miniscule populations. Absolutely blew me away that.
most of the rest of the world knows this.
Doesn’t mean it will ever change, though. That house is broken and all the patchwork in the world is not going to fix the crumbling foundation it’s built on.
This is part of the problem from the pov of police vs bystander and/or media perception. The police can only determine how many weapons there are until after the fact. There are lots of things that can only be determined afterwards, and there are way too many variables to take into account when dealing with your own safety.
Sure, but it makes it very hard to say she was armed at the time and creating an imminent threat. As for the proximity, it sounds like the distance was relatively small (pistol fire), but for no reason. So it may not have been a true failure by those officers, just woefully poor training/doctrine.
like, the fact that the previous day the suspect in the vehicle murdered his wife outside of a school. intent to kill, established. threat to their safety was imminent, when he started shooting at police…
Looking at this photo, I see at least one bullet mark on the windshield of the Chevy SUV with the door open…
1 Like