Off-duty Camden officer shoots autistic man, caretaker

[The Straight Story]

The daily routine of a young autistic man coming home from school with his caretaker went terribly awry Friday afternoon, when he banged on an off-duty police officer's front door rather than his own in Camden.

The Camden officer, believing his house was being broken into, fired through the ajar door and hit both men outside, authorities said.

The autistic man was shot in the arm and was in stable condition, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said, while the caretaker was seriously wounded. Both men were being treated at Cooper University Hospital on Friday evening.

Authorities did not identify any of the men, but a neighbor said the 21-year-old autistic man was Luis Medina, who she said was returning from a school he attends.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20130223_Off-duty_Camden_officer_shoots_autistic_man__caretaker.html

[frylock]

1. what kind of chicken shit mutherfucker starts shooting people when they come knocking on your door?!

just another "responsible" gun owner exercising his constitutional freedums. absolutely sickening.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. Obviously, the irresponsible actions of this off-duty cop should justify greater restrictions

on responsible home-owners who never have and never will start "shooting people when they come knocking on" their doors.

We have to equate this off-duty cop with them.

We have to do so because we just can't been too careful.

Let's also quickly act irresponsibly.

[Ikonoklast]

5. Just another gunner living in fear of the entire world.

Seems to be more like him every day.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

17. You failed to mention the magic letters "NRA."

[Ikonoklast]

28. Why? The vast majority of gun humpers aren't members.

I didn't mention penguins, either.

[The Magistrate]

6. The Technical Term For This, Mr. McIntosh, Is 'Fucking Bullshit', And One Suspects You Know That

Just about everyone who manages some colossal cock-up with a gun was a 'responsible, law-abiding gun-owner' right up until the moment they shot themselves or a neighbor or a passing stranger by accident, or by calamitous mis-judgment, the latter generally tinged with paranoia and conditioned by eagerness to finally get the chance to shoot somebody.

People who imagine they have to have a gun to defend themselves should be shamed and mocked as fools and paranoid loons, which is exactly what they are.

"If you seriously think the government is cominig to take away your guns, it's high time somebody did."

[The Straight Story]

14. You mean like the paranoia that has us killing innocent people with drones?

And we can't complain about this guy, he worked for the government whom some believe are the only ones we should trust with guns.

He might have thought it was al qaeda at his door, better safe than sorry - and since he works in a government role we should not question him if he says they were terrorist, cause 'shit happens and innocent die for our liberty and security'.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

15. "Just about everyone ..." Not this guy. They said he was a cop.

It's unlikely that he thought that anyone was coming to take his guns away (except, perhaps, as part of whatever else he owns). He was wrong. Obviously. The law does not allow homeowners to shoot through doors, even when someone is loudly banging on a door or loudly banging on a door at 2:00 a.m.

Cops deliver violence. It's what they do. It's what they get paid to do. It's what they do and get away with, even when what they do clearly involves unnecessary and excessive violence. For whatever reason, this cop thought that he could shoot through a door and get away with it. (He might be right. Cops get away with a lot of illegal actions.)

What some people are concerned about is the rolling authoritarianism. Some are concerned about the loss of the right to make choices, or the loud and aggressive efforts to take away the right to make choices. All in the name of being more-liberal-than-thou.

You did not use the magic combination of letters, "NRA," to show your disapproval of such choices but others have.

Here's some news for you. You're not going to take away anyone's firearm. You may show your disapproval and your effort to do so, but you don't have such authority. And you're not going to get it. You may believe or pretend to believe that liberal Democrats who own firearms and are opposed to the rolling authoritarianism are "gun nuts" or are paranoid, but here's the reality. You don't have the authority to take away firearms, and you're not going to get it.

[The Magistrate]

22. Again, Sir, You Deliver Another Pile Of Barn-Yard Effluent

As a police officer, he may be take to be the epitome of the 'responsible, law-abiding gun owner'. He shot two people dead through his front door. There is no particular reason to believe the ordinary, run of the mill, common as dirt examples of that class of person would necessarily behave any better, if given the same opportunity to make the decision to fire with a live target before the muzzle.

The rest of this is exceptional swill. The authoritarians in this matter are the 'Team NRA' types, not the persons wishing to mitigate the harm their obsessions wreak on society at large.

That persons imagining they require a firearm for self-defense are indulging in paranoia is a simple statement of fact. Persons who maintain this ought to be, in fact need to be, shamed, belittled, ridiculed, pointed at, patted on the head, excused from serious discussion and consideration, and in general be recognized as operating under crippling mental and moral deficits, to a degree that no one would dream of emulating them, and they themselves, to the degree they are capable of it, begin to reassess their ideations and interests.

[frylock]

24. fortunately, they're still alive.

[upaloopa]

8. Let's work to reduce gun violence ok?

Why don't you instead promote not acting irrationally and shooting kids with skittles and loud rap music and those pulling into the wrong drive way and knocking on the wrong door? We have way too many guns in way too many hands. You should be as concerned about the safety of the unarmed victim of gun violence as you are about your precious right to one guns.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

16. It's "for the children"?

Why don't you promote having TSA's not act irrationally and molesting toddlers and other young children who are being taken to Disneyland or elsewhere?

We've seen the political exploitation of "it's for the children" by top-level politicians when seeking greater gun restrictions, but those same top-level politicians show an absolute indifference with respect to how the TSA's treat young children at the airports.

Why is that? Could it be that you actually care more about children than they do? Could it be that they are using the it's-for-the-children reasoning to yank your chain? Or are they really sincere?

If you say that you believe that they are really sincere, show us where any of these top-level politicians are acting to reign in the TSA.

[frylock]

18. i am in complete and full agreement with your bullshit strawman..

now go and hug your precious little guns before Obama's Black Death Squads come and pry them from your cold dead, mkay sport? and one other thing in parting; you gun fucking 2A evangelists just keep up the good work, please. you guys are doing more to get NORMAL people to embrace common-sense gun laws than anything the Brady Campaign can ever hope to do.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

21. You didn't say the magic letters "NRA". Was than an oversight?

How often have you used that strawman?

[frylock]

23. get some new material dood..

you've already used that throwaway in this thread. save some for later.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

25. We can agree on this as soon as soon as there are those who stop using the NRA-strawman.

They have to use it because they really can't think for themselves and don't have much material.

You may be different.

[frylock]

26. oh yeh. you are clearly the epitome of a "free thinker"

and to satisfy your desires i'll say straight up, fuck the NRA. happy now?

[MattBaggins]

33. I'll say NRA just to make you happy

The NRA should be added to the list of disallowed organizations on DU. Promoting the NRA should result in a tombstone.

[Liberal_in_LA]

31. well said

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Pity the poor girl scout who shows up at his home.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

7. My freeper sister in law went all gun nut a couple years ago.

She went from zero to AR-15 in six months. All guns all the time.

She keeps a loaded gun on her nightstand now. She takes one in the bathroom with her (wrapped in a towel).


I told the 17 and 21 year old nieces that, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, were they to knock on her door at night if, say, their car broke down in her neighborhood - or any other emergency that required her help/attention.

[liberalhistorian]

10. Who the fuck in their right mind

takes a gun into the goddamn bathroom with them all the time? I can see having one in your dresser or nightstand (I wouldn't do it myself, but I can see it), but the fucking bathroom? What a loon.

[Glassunion]

12. Depends. You're only paranoid until you aren't.

http://m.wsbtv.com/news/news/woman-attacked-in-shower-i-cant-go-back-home/nJTfP/

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. She has a "prep room". Nuff said?

Somehow, after the black guy got elected, she realized the end was near.

I guess she has a point. I've always said a gun in the home is useless unless you have it at your fingertips 24/7. livin the dream I guess.

[frylock]

20. if you want to truly stay safe, you'll creep around the house with the muzzle trained on anything..

and everything. you'll want to peer around every corner before entering a room as well. I even go so far as to clear the closet before I hang up my jacket every evening. if it were me, i'd put the gun in a Ziploc bag and take it in the shower. you just never know. practice massaging shampoo into your scalp with one hand while holding your gun in the other. keep yourself sharp and focused by exercising drills and running scenarios through your head. you and your fambly's lives are at jeopardy at any given moment! practice sleeping with one eye open, and spend at least 20 minutes of every day grabbing your gun from the nightstand and training it on the bedroom door. mix it up a little by checking up the window as well. in time you'll develop a muscle memory that could mean the difference between the paperboy overshooting the stoop and hitting the front door or death.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

4. I wonder what he does on Halloween.

[markpkessinger]

9. We've all heard the adage . . .

. . . "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I would like to posit a corollary: To a paranoid citizen with a gun, every knock at the door looks like a home invasion.

[bluestate10]

11. That cop should be fired. Of all people, a cop should know not to take blind shots. nt

[Iggo]

19. Cowards with guns.

Oh and he's also a cop!

Perfect.

[JI7]

27. Just another piece of shit hoping for any excuse to shoot someone

stupid fucker . someone knocks on your fuckign door and you just fucking shoot ?

[mokawanis]

29. That cop has shit for brains

Shoots people who are knocking on his door in the afternoon? He should be fired, banned from owning a gun, arrested, and sued. If he handles a gun in a no-threat situation like he did yesterday I wonder how he'd do in a real life-or-death situation while on duty?

[Logical]

30. No doubt this idiot COP will get NO punishment. You or I would go to jail. n-t

[JPZenger]

32. "why didn't he first look out the window?"

According to the news this morning, the cop had lived near the autustic guy for a number of years. If he had just peaked out a window before he opened fire, he would have seen that it was not a real threat.

To complicate matters, the Camden Police is being replaced. The city police force is being disbanded, and some of the officers are being hired for a brand new "county" police force that only serves the city. It is an end-run around the existing police contract.