TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) — Florida authorities say a police officer was shot and killed in Tarpon Springs early Sunday.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the shooting occurred at around 3 a.m. in the Tampa Bay-area city and that a suspect has been taken into custody.
Authorities say the suspect fled the scene of the shooting in a vehicle and crashed into a pole and another vehicle. He was then apprehended by police at that location.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said the officer was a member of the Tarpon Springs Police Department, though no names have been released.
A news conference is to be held later today, the statement said.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
I am greatly saddened by this death and the two officers in New York City. There is no cause for this, and they will be mourned.
This is why the discussion of police in the United States and how they treat the poor, disenfranchised and minorities is so difficult. Police generally have good hearts and work in extremely dangerous situations even in the safest of communities, and so are deserving of a certain amount of latitude. However, they are also granted vast powers over other citizens and residents of the United States, and so need to be held to a higher standard.
It doesn’t help when people paint all cops with any brush, either that they are all bad or that any criticism is an attack on all cops. The binary nature of so many conversations actually retards any growth or change that will benefit both the public and the police.
One of the things I’d like to see is more discussion of the systemic failures rather than the individual failures. I think the two big cases – Ferguson and Staten Island – were both, and am horrified that the individual officers were not held accountable … yet. But also the willingness to arrest over small infractions, to demand absolute obedience from the public over minor offenses, is a systemic problem because it is encouraged from the top. The flaws in our prosecutorial and grand jury systems have been glaringly highlighted in recent weeks, and need to be addressed as we’ve learned that not only can a prosecutor indict a ham sandwich but they can also ensure the guilty go free.
In hospitals there are many errors, some of which cause significant harm or death. They have a system where EVERY error is reviewed and talked about to see how things could have been done better. A physician or nurse who makes consistent errors is held accountable, but a single error can be forgiven in order to root out the systemic flaws.
“kendyZdad, post:2, topic:14671”]
“One of the things I’d like to see is more discussion of the systemic failures rather than the individual failures.”
I suggest the the two big cases – Ferguson and Staten Island were in fact systemic failures. Ferguson started with jaywalking. NY started with the sale of 1 ciz. If this level of crime took place in a white area, the cops would have just driven off. They treated these activities as real crimes requiring police action - because they can f-with Blacks with immunity. That is the systemic failure.
Sadly the political environment has provided too many wide brushes for oppositions to paint one another. Insights, rational and objective discussions have fallen by the way side in order to win votes, positions and campaign donations.
We are beginning to see the effects of these reactionary factions, good guys with guns, bad guys with guns, “those others” are the evil ones, poor people are lazy, single mothers are sluts, “my God” is the only right one, corporations are the new deities and rulers who set the rules, standards in order to quash the opposition.
Accountability is good, but we must make sure that the standards are appropriate and enforceable. Medical standards of care are the results of much study, research and observations, we need to find an objective way to develop those same valuable standards for our police and law enforcement agencies. The men and women who go into law enforcement are no different than those in health care when it comes to stress, long hours, risk, and the undersides of life and trauma.
My hope for the new year would be less political destruction, propaganda and some kind of logical approaches to our problems and big bond fires of wide brushes. We are all individuals.
If you Google the ten most dangerous jobs, being a cop is not even in the top ten. Commercial fishermen, loggers, steelworkers, and even truck drivers have more dangerous jobs. The average salary for a Saddle Brook, NJ police officer is 120,000 annually. The commercial fisherman average salary is 25,000 annually. There is no comparison when it comes to working conditions. “During Christie’s first term, in a particularly appalling scandal, it was revealed that six state troopers had cashed in nearly $276,000 in overtime pay alone while overseeing a construction project on the New Jersey Turnpike”. Can you imagine Christy’s outrage if 6 teachers made that kind of taxpayer money? Police should be held to a very high standard considering the extensive taxpayer paid training they receive. They also need to be held accountable when they make wrong decisions.Granted, there may be some officers with good hearts, but they are a definite minority.
You and I don’t disagree. That’s why I wrote two sentences after the one you quoted, “The willingness to arrest over small infractions, to demand absolute obedience from the public over minor offenses, is a systemic problem because it is encouraged from the top.”