2 West Virginia police officers shot, wounded while stopping vehicle

[Omaha Steve]

Source: LA Times

By MATT PEARCE

Two West Virginia police officers were shot and wounded Thursday while attempting to stop the driver of a possibly stolen vehicle, an emergency official told the Los Angeles Times.

The Lewisberg, W.Va., police officers were trying to stop the vehicle after a police license-plate scanner reported the vehicle's tags as stolen, according to Donna Hinkle, administrative director of the Greenbrier County 911 Center.

"Neither one of their injuries, we’ve found out, are going to be life-threatening," Hinkle said, adding that one of the officers may have been shot in his bullet-proof vest.

When the officers tried to stop the vehicle, a man inside opened fire, Hinkle said. A second man in another vehicle, possibly traveling in tandem with the first vehicle, also started shooting at the officers, Hinkle said.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nn-wv-police-shooting-20150101-story.html

[onehandle]

1. Guns provided by gun culture. nt

[philosslayer]

2. It's a dangerous job

n/t

[kath]

14. Actually, it is way less dangerous than a lot of other jobs.

[24601]

20. It's far more dangerous than most jobs. I served in the military 1972-1997. When I finished

training, Vietnam had would down. The average cop in the street during the same period faces more danger than my peers and I did. And when we deployed, we knew that we would face people wanting to shoot us. The average cop makes a traffic stop or is called to a domestic disturbance and has no indicators whether he/she is facing a person who may be armed and/or may be violent.

[Starry Messenger]

23. Nope. Not even in the top 10:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/10-most-dangerous-jobs-us-1.aspx

[24601]

28. You should look a primary source data. Count up the career fields on the 20 pages of BLS Data.

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0281.pdf

Yes there are some with higher accident rates. Very different than assholes gunning for you.

Law enforcement is more dangerous than most.

[Starry Messenger]

32. From the link I provided:

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent figures, there were 4,693 fatal occupational injuries in 2011, 146 more than reported in 2010. The majority of these injuries occur in a handful of sectors representing the most dangerous ways to earn a living in the country."

Agriculture has higher fatality rates listed than LEO at your link. LEO is about on par with Maintenance.

[24601]

33. Read the rest of the Story, per capita rates, LE was #10 - one of the most dangerous, and

as the article points out...

"Of all the jobs listed, only police officer deaths include a significant number of murders. That is to say that no one is trying to kill fishers or loggers or refuse collectors."

http://criminologycareers.about.com/od/Career_Trends/a/Dangers-In-Criminal-Justice-Careers.htm

[Starry Messenger]

34. Still very low, even with murder factored in.

"In these occupations, the smaller number of workers greatly affects the fatality rate; one or two accidents can easily send the rate skyrocketing, while the actual raw numbers may be significantly lower. If we were to rank dangerous jobs based on raw numbers as a opposed to rates, the list would look like this:

Drivers / sales workers and truck drivers - 683
Farmers and ranchers - 300
Police and sheriff's patrol officers - 133
Industrial machinery repair and installation - 96
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers - 70
Roofers - 57
Logging workers - 59
Fishers and related fishing workers - 29
Refuse and recyclable material collectors - 26
Mining machine operators - 23"

Dead is dead. If you want to say it's a scarier danger to face a man with a gun than get caught in a winch or something, that's fine. That's a different issue though.

[Cha]

3. Damn. Glad they made it through the ambush okay.

[cosmicone]

4. The assholes shooting at the police have totally destroyed

the Brown/Garner narrative. Now cops will appear even more justified in killing civilians.

[KingCharlemagne]

5. No, they haven't, except in the minds of those eager to see the Brown/Garner

narrative destroyed.

[George II]

7. Actually they're totally unrelated incidents.

[Bandit]

19. I don't think so

I think criminals now believe there is a good chance they will be killed by police if arrested so better to shoor first and try and get away. It is only going to get worse I'm afraid.

[EX500rider]

22. "I think criminals now believe there is a good chance they will be killed by police if arrested"

I suppose if they are real bad at math.....about 900,000 peace officers in the US....if they each only arrested one person a month, that's about a million arrests a month.

[Yo_Mama]

30. That has nothing to do with this story.

And I doubt that there any criminals dumb enough to think that they improve their chances of survival by shooting at the cops except those who are mentally deficient, which, sadly, many are.

Now, among the very small group of individuals out there who don't want to stop for the cops because they have a dead body or two lying around and might have difficulty rebutting the corpus delicti due to the habeas corpus, I suspect incidents of police brutality rank very low among their worries.

[Live and Learn]

8. +1 nt

[RandiFan1290]

27. They look like your Cliven Bundy boys

Probably Tea Party people

[951-Riverside]

6. Well now Cops are gonna blow your brains out if you even flinch the wrong way during a stop

"Officer safety is paramount and all that jazz now TURN IN THOSE GUNS for a $25 grocery store gift card*"





*This only applies to poor minorities, the wealthy, angry white land moochers and white power militia members are exempt.

[valerief]

9. Did the officers shoot each other? Maybe they saw each reach for their waistbands. nt

[HipChick]

10. yes, and they were in fear of their lives..

[JEFF9K]

11. That doesn't fit the narrative here.

[PatrynXX]

12. Bad cops are endangering the lives of most good cops

and NYPD seems to be almost all bad cops can't say that about others..

[Rozlee]

13. My ex-daughter-in-law in WV said something about them transporting dead bodies from NC.

But, that may be local hysteria.

[Petrushka]

15. Dead bodies found in truck of man who shot two police officers

http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150101/GZ01/150109936/1419#sthash.LGLRcZDy.dpuf

[840high]

16. Thanks for link. Glad

the policemen are going to be ok.

[Petrushka]

17. UPDATED: Bodies of a North Carolina couple found in truck identified

http://www.wdbj7.com/news/local/breaking-two-police-officers-shot-in-lewisburg-west-virginia-two-suspects-in-custody/30492254

[freshwest]

18. Thanks for the link with the complete reporting there:

If I read it correctly, it went like this:

The father and son came from Texas and randomly picked out a house in NC, where they apparently killed the couple, set the house on fire and stole their vehicle.

Why they decided to take the two bodies for a ride under a mattress in the trunk of the vehicle, who knows, but they crossed the state line into WV. After shooting the cops at a traffic stop generated most likely by those who found the house on fire, they shoot.

Then one steals another vehicle and runs off but surrenders. The other one got shot in the leg. The cops are going to be okay, or as okay as one can be after getting shot, and the father and son will get what's coming to them if found guilty of all of what the story has.

If there'd been no organization to act in this case in both states, they'd have most likely gotten away with it altogether, or else committed some more murders wherever they were going. They may have killed some people on the way up from Texas to NC, as well.

Whew...

[Historic NY]

21. Just plain dumb luck for the cops to stumble on them...

even when the license plate reader went off. Its not a normal thing to be riding around with dead bodies.

http://www.wral.com/deaths-of-granville-county-couple-linked-to-shootout-on-w-va-highway/14322988/

[freshwest]

26. You might characterize it that way. It required a data base, is what I'm saying.

Not too likely that their sons would be able to institute a search, would they?

Nor have the authority to pull people over in their own state, much less another one in search of the killers.

Hope more comes out about the deadly tourists, but most likely the news cycle will forget it now. We won't even hear about the trial, unless there is a narrative the media wants to push.

[OldRedneck]

25. Maybe this explains things

[OldRedneck]

24. Sounded like a good idea at the time

Let's see if I understand their reasoning:

1. Murder two people in NC.
2. Put their bodies in the back of my truck.
3. Attach stolen license plates to the truck.
4. Drive to WV, bodies still in truck, stolen plates on truck.
5. Shoot at cops while driving truck with bodies in back and stolen license plates.

"Hold my beer and watch this!!!"

[hollowdweller]

29. Most WV Troopers are fairly nice guys.

I've had contact with a lot of them and most are friendly and cut you a lot of slack.

I wasn't looking and went too fast on the way back from backpacking and got pulled over. The officer saw my packs and we got into a discussion about our favorite places in the woods. He only gave us a warning ticket. I was sad when later I saw this:

http://www.odmp.org/officer/21372-corporal-marshall-lee-bailey

[Termin]

31. Wow

I hope they fully recover.

[Petrushka]

35. More details --->

http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150102/GZ01/150109908

[MADem]

36. Well, they caught 'em--wonder if they got any of it on dash/body cam?

The officers shot one of the men and arrested him, Hinkle said. The other man fled, ditching his vehicle in the woods about a mile away. A suspect was found after a resident called the police, Hinkle said.