Bossier City police chief Mike Halphen held a press conference this afternoon regarding the Friday shooting of an unarmed suspect.
Halphen said that according to his family, Scott Gray, 42, had a history of bi-polar disease. On Friday afternoon he walked into Walgreen's at Shed Road and Airline Drive, walked up to the photo counter and announced that he was Jesus Christ. When a 77 year old woman spoke up and said 'no you're not', Gray hit her and knocked her down. He then left the scene in a red pickup truck headed east on Shed Road.
Police broadcast the information to their units, knowing only that they were looking for a man with an orange cap in a red pickup. A police unit on Old Minden Road spotted the vehicle as he was approaching Old Minden Road, turned his unit around and stopped Gray's truck. Gray immediately ran from the truck and attacked the officer, pinned him to the ground and was beating him when the second officer arrived on the scene. Gray would not obey the orders of the second officer, and began to try to dislodge the first officer's service weapon.
At this time the second officer fired two shots, and after Gray still didn't stop, fired three more.
Chief Halphen noted that this was a very tragic event for Gray's family as well as for the officers involved.
I have written this based on what I heard the chief say as I watched the streaming video of the press conference on KSLA.
For more complete information, Chris Redford has a story up at KTBS.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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thats great, as long as they release the incident report that includes all witness interviews as well as the tape. KTBS reported that a witness said "they did not wrestle the guy down or tell him his rights, they just shot him"
ReplyDeleteOk, this is to the anonymous idiot who obviously watches too much TV. A cop does not have to read anyone their rights when they are arrested. The rights are read only before taking statements. Any statements made prior to the rights being read cannot be used against a suspect. It has nothing to do with whether a person is legally arrested or not.
ReplyDeleteStill I wonder what are tazers for?
ReplyDeleteThey do have them, don't they?
Or is that considered inhumane now?
They don't carry tazers and they don't determine the mental state of a person as they are being beat Alex. The tazer comment tell's me you have no clue what you are talking about. By the way, if the guy was beating your wife or children would you shoot him to make him stop?
ReplyDeletewell, i dont think someone has to be judge, jury, and executioner, if they can shoot someone they can achieve the same goal by using a taser, however bcpd dont carry them
ReplyDeleteAlex. The tazer comment tell's me you have no clue what you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteMy comment:
In other words they do not give their force the elementary training they need? It is easier to stop a person with a tazer than to kill them in that type of situation..(common sense)..Tell me now, who is clueless?
Alex
Well, actually, they do have to read them their rights, however, that's kind of hard to do when someone is in the middle of getting a beatdown. You can't arrest someone and cuff them if they are beating the crap out of you. As for the tazers, BCPD is not issued them. Its very easy to arm chair quarter back if your not in the situation. Sounds like the officer had to make a split second decision as to whether he was going to allow that suspect to disarm the other officer. I can tell you from experience, I would have done the same thing. See...what some of you may not understand is that law enforcement considers and is trained that disarming is a deadly force encounter. I personally, would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
ReplyDeleteI personally had rather be carried by 6 than judged by someone's family of a mentally handicapped person..........shot 5 times....really...pepper spray would do.......I feel for the officers involved, but they are supposedly trained ...execution is not carried out in this manner lawfully.....their actions should not be glazed over....
ReplyDeleteIf this man was so handicap then maybe his family should have kept him at home instead of acting crazy in public and fighting old women.
ReplyDeleteThe Bossier police have become as bad New Orleans PD. It is obvious some one needs to come in a clean up a group of people that constantly violent citizens rights.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's pathetic that this man was killed. I mean, come on.. TWO officers on the scene, and instead of helping the other officer get control of the suspect, he just pulls a gun and shoots him because he "thinks" that the suspect was going for the other officer's gun? I'm sorry, but I think that BCPD SUCKS and they always have. Cops that don't have enough training to get a man to the ground and handcuffed without resorting to killing them should never be on the force in the first place. Yeah, the man was mentally ill, but I don't think that he should have been killed. I think the officers should have a little more muscle and be able to fight with their suspects if necessary. This is so sad. I'm so glad that I don't live in Bossier anymore.
ReplyDelete