UPDATE: Officer who stopped man for jaywalking shot to death

[Ptah]

Source: Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona

PHOENIX — A Phoenix police officer was killed Tuesday by a man
who was himself later fatally shot as he pointed a gun at a carjacking victim’s head.

The officer, 33-year-old Nick Erfle, had been trying to arrest the suspect on a
warrant when the two got into a fight. That’s when the suspect pulled his gun and fired,
police spokesman Sgt. Joel Tranter said.

As Erfle was taken to a hospital, police scrambled to find the suspect. The man had run away,
flung open the passenger door of a car stopped in traffic, pointed his gun at the man inside,
and told him to drive.

Officers found and stopped the car a short time later. As the officers approached,
Tranter said, the suspect pointed the gun at the hostage’s head.



Read more: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/201852.php

---

If I was a police officer, I'd be jumpy, all day long.

[Evergreen Emerald]

1. he died trying to protect us

how sad for his family.

[UpInArms]

2. here's a link for articles on downed officers

there have been a greater number killed in the line of duty this year than ever before (I might be wrong, but I don't think so)

http://www.policeone.com/officer-down/

[Retired AF Dem]

28. Killed in the line of duty can be misleading

people think damn so far this year 129 cops have been gunned down which isnt the case. The media likes to use the numbers for gun control but never bother to break down the numbers.


The numbers for 2007

Total Line of Duty Deaths: 129
Accidental: 1
Aircraft accident: 2
Animal related: 1
Automobile accident: 34
Boating accident: 1
Bomb: 2
Drowned: 3
Exposure to toxins: 1
Gunfire: 53
Gunfire (Accidental): 3
Heart attack: 5
Heat exhaustion: 1
Motorcycle accident: 5
Struck by vehicle: 4
Vehicle pursuit: 6
Vehicular assault: 5
Weather/Natural disaster: 2

http://odmp.org/year.php

[Lex1775]

3. This is the third or fourth cop killed in the Phoenix Metro area this year.

[SirBlackAdder]

4. What is the cause?

Overpopulation is the underling issue. Too many people. Too crowded.We need a moratorium on legal immigration if they wont end illegal immigration. But which party will do this>? NEITHER.

I'd rather have eagles than assholes. I gotta move in a couple years. Grrrrrr

[clixtox]

5. It's the GUNS, it is too easy to kill... or be killed!

People with guns kill people including way, way too many police.

Perhaps the alienation was created when the police are used in the front lines in the class war keeping poor people marginalized and incarcerated.

There is little justice in our so-called justice system, especially in the criminal justice sphere, and the police are in the crossfire.

Of course the police kill and brutalize way too many innocent, and perhaps guilty people also, which doesn't help!

The police are the shock troopers of our fascist corporate masters keeping everyone in line and quiet. Demonstrating, even in "permitted" actions against government policies is a risky way to exercise our supposed rights to assemble and protest with police intimidation and violence a real possibility.

They are spending too much time and resources fighting victimless "crime" and alienating broad swaths of the people.

And on and on...

[Auntie Bush]

6. Maybe hearing about all the deaths, killings and torture going on

in the war/world today is desensitizing the people...especially those who have violent tendencies anyway. In other words...it's our violent culture!
Those violent movies and video games don't help either.

[CRF450]

13. Well, if guns kill people, then spoons made Rosie Oddoneld fat.

[LanternWaste]

23. You're right. It wasn't the guns

You're right. It wasn't the guns that killed them. It was the bullets.

[Irreverend IX]

17. You're saying the police are fascist shock troopers...

And yet you want private citizens to give up their weapons. Nice logic. If you really want to cut down on crime, ending the drug war would do more than any form of gun control, since around 85% of all violent crime is tied to the drug trade.

[clixtox]

21. I wish! I am all for concluding the "drug war"...

But that alone won't end gun violence. It would help quite a bit, I am sure

Despite the fascist shock troopers I would like the gun laws in the USA to be similar to those in other, more civilized, countries.

I wonder how many gun owners would be willing to resist the governments slide towards fascism by combatting and shooting their oppressors?

I have the feeling that many, if not most, of the gun owners would probably be more interested in backing up the fascists oppressing the people.

Thank you for complementing my logical argument. Your reply was bereft of logic, but please, keep trying...

Any citation (or link) for your assertion that 85% of violent crime is related to the "drug trade"?

[qdemn7]

18. Guns are a scapegoat object

This article by David Kopel articulates my feelings precisely about guns and those who would ban them.

Underlying the gun control struggle is a fundamental division in our nation. The intensity of passion on this issue suggests to me that we are experiencing a sort of low-grade war going on between two alternative views of what America is and ought to be. On the one side are those who take bourgeois Europe as a model of a civilized society: a society just, equitable, and democratic; but well ordered, with the lines of authority clearly drawn, and with decisions made rationally and correctly by intelligent men for the entire nation. To such people, hunting is atavistic, personal violence is shameful, and uncontrolled gun ownership is a blot upon civilization.

Part of the way to resolve the cognitive dissonance of loving America but despising certain parts of it is to rationalize away the parts one despises. If American violence and crime (and the rural values embodied in gun culture) are caused by the very existence of guns, one need only do away with guns.

The gun prohibition lobby apparently believes that firearms turn normal people into criminals, and asserts that each year thousands of gun murders "are done by law-abiding citizens who might have stayed law-abiding if they had not possessed firearms ... most murders are committed by previously law-abiding citizens". The assertion that most murders are committed "by previously law-abiding citizens" is patently false. Two-thirds to four-fifths of homicide offenders have prior arrest records, generally for violent felonies.

By blaming objects, a person can avoid having to blame individuals for their moral choices and lack of self control. Some gun controllers base their position on their sincere belief that gun control could reduce crime. Other advocates of gun prohibition seem motivated by a desire to express their disdain for the kind of people who own guns. Other controllers may be reluctant to condemn groups (particularly the inner-city underclass) for their actions, and guns therefore become a substitute scapegoat object. Perhaps it is easier to trace America's problems to "wicked" objects like guns or drugs, rather than to consider the depressing possibility that America may include a disproportionately large number of wicked people.

[clixtox]

19. What would you suggest?

Are you content with the way things are now?

[qdemn7]

20. Fully fund and enforce the laws already on the books.

When the Brady Law was passed, people adjudicated mentally defective were one of the reasons being denied purchase of a gun. The problem was Congress did not fund the states inputting their records into the National Instant Check System (NICS). So we ended up with Cho and VT because the system was flawed. Why? Because once again Congress wanted to LOOK like they were "doing something" while only engaging in another feel good unfunded mandate.

Second, despite the fact it is a crime for anyone with a criminal recored to even ATTEMPT to even purchase a gun less than 10% of the people denied under Brady / NICS have even been prosecuted. Why?

[NashVegas]

25. I Can't Agree With It's "Pansy Europe" Slant

Europe was settled long before guns, and, generally, there were no lawless wilderness areas where guns were necessary for survival. That style of raiding went out of fashion after 1066, for the most part. Weapons of violence were the province of those who did the fighting for the individuals who owned all the assets of the feudal system.

I suspect the asset-ownership aspect is highly significant in the gun issue. Those with the strongest anti-gun control stances often seem to place an equally high value on property rights.

Most architecture in the US is less than 70 years old, almost all is less than 250. You go to Europe and stuff is 200, 400, 700 years old - public buildings that are 700 years old! And some, even older. You get the feeling, maybe, that owner-property rights are of less concern as in most quarters, it's right there in your face that most of the stuff was there long before you, and it's going to be there long after you.

[mark414]

8. we're a big country...we have the room

give people jobs and an education and a stake in the world around them and they won't go around shooting each other up

[Ptah]

9. I don't agree with you.

The percentage of bad actors among the immigrants
is no different than the percentage of citizen bad actors.

Welcome to DU, and thanks for your concern.

:hi:

[Retired AF Dem]

27. Wouldnt know it from this list

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/vc/murders/vc_murders.htm

[LeftyMom]

10. Most of phoenix's immigrants are coming over the California border

in search of cheaper housing.

But nice try race-baiting.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

11. Buh-bye.

:eyes:

[grilled onions]

7. It Starts From Childhood

Most of us thought police were the good guys when we were kids. Today many think just the opposite. Guns seem to be the solution for everything. They will shoot if you have it and they want it. They shoot out of anger. They shoot if they have a bad day. Police used to know most of the people "on their beat". Of course many used to walk their beat. People used to know their neigbors. Now many just burrow from the world and become alienated from others. We have become suspicious of others. This has only been made worse by a certain administration which has cranked up the level of fear. Will it get worse when the troops come home when many start having flashbacks???? What is the solution? We never have the time or resources to find out because we are too busy on "other agendas".

[Lex1775]

12. Update: Cop Killer WAS illegal immigrant, had been deported, had felony warrants.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/0919officershot0919.html

And people wonder why those of us in the Southwest are screaming for some kind of border control...

[brentspeak]

14. I completely agree

The USA has the most ridiculous and self-defeating lax enforcement of illegal immigration policy there could possibly be. We have enough criminals born and raised in the U.S. without having to deal with Mexico's on-the-lam criminals.

[mitchum]

15. But...but...but they do the crimes that Americans won't do!

[ohio2007]

16. LMAO....wasn't drinking,....keyboard fine nt

[LanternWaste]

24. ...because God-fearing American blue-bloods would never do something like that.

...because God-fearing American blue-bloods would never do something like that.

:sarcasm:

[Lex1775]

26. Never said they wouldn't.

But this guy would still be alive if that piece of trash had been kept out of the country. I'm sure the dead cops wife and two sons would've appreciated that.

[2rth2pwr]

22. And people wonder why officers who face suspects who resist are

rightly concerned about their own safety. If you resist you will probably get your ass kicked or tased.