Tuscan Marine Shot and Killed By Swat

Friday, May 27 2011 -

This is the second article I’ve read about this and I have to say that the bias in both is appalling. I would expect that some reasonable fact checking and detail verification would take place before writing and posting inflammatory garbage like this:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/27/arizona.marine.death/index.html?hpt=T1

 

You might think I would be on the side of the Marine, after all, he was apparently innocent… The fact of whether this man was innocent or not isn’t actually all that relevant. The focus on both articles has been: Marine, Vet, SWAT, Excessive force (71 shots fired).

Let’s take a look at a few of the pieces of information:

The SWAT team announced themselves and entered the home forcefully. They were confronted with a man brandishing an AR-15. They fired 71 rounds, which sounds like a lot until you consider exactly how long that would take. A semi automatic AR-15 firing 3 rounds bursts can put a lot of rounds down range very quickly. If only 3 officers were able to shoot at the victim they could have easily put more than 70 rounds down range in under 3 seconds… do the math people. 3 seconds isn’t a lot of time. Should they have stopped to see if he was dead? Yeah right. I can tell you, as a Marine, that if cops or anyone else broke into my house, shot me and I was capable of returning fire I most certainly would, if only to gain some time. It’s ridiculous to blame these guys for following their protocol.

I also read they prevented the paramedics from rendering aid for over an hour (until after the victim died). Shame on them. There is no excuse assuming that is really true.

Was the guy a criminal? Well the articles don’t say. They tell us no drugs were found, but assault rifles were as well body armor. Were the weapons registered? Why was a warrant issued for his house if there wasn’t probable cause? To me this sounds like a case of SWAT doing their job and possible shoddy police work up front, but even that you can’t determine because of the biased focus of the writing.