Litchfield man killed by officer for shooting off his porch

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................The cop could have shot the gun out of his hand and then gave him" a Hard Block ". [sac]
 
So you're saying he should have been psychic, and since he wasn't he deserved to be shot?
Where did I say that? Do you think a cop came around a corner, saw him holding a gun,then just started blasting away? I don't like a lot of shit cops do, but I really don't think the majority of them are evil,bloodthirsty bastards.
 
Where did I say that? Do you think a cop came around a corner, saw him holding a gun,then just started blasting away? I don't like a lot of shit cops do, but I really don't think the majority of them are evil,bloodthirsty bastards.

I don't think the majority is either. I think unfortunately the majority is apathetic to the evil bloodthirsty bastards which is only marginally less scary. He was shot in the back, through a lung. If I shot someone in the back and they died, I'd be in jail, period.
 
I could think of a few scenarios where a suspected criminal could be shot in the back and it would be justified. I also read a study on reaction time and how a person could start to engage a threat and by the time the shot is fired and the round impacts the threat is now turned around. The point is we don't have enough facts at this point to really condemn either side.
 
Cop shows up on scene to investigate a reported crime

Cop sees armed man

From this point I find it hard to believe a cop can draw and fire without being fired upon. In order to draw and fire on a suspect the officer must have felt his life was in danger. Kind of hard to justify that when as you aim your gun at the suspect he, instead of firing on you first, turns his back to you.

If it was suicide by cop the suspect would not turn his back. If the suspect raised his firearm and was pointing it at or near the officer or advanced in any aggressive manner towards the officer he would not have been shot in the back, he would have been shot in the front.

Even with the limited circumstances presented it is much more likely the cop was out of line based on the lack of shots fired by the victim and the fact he was shot while not facing the officer.

Again, if this was not a cop, shooting someone in the back is a guaranteed trip to jail.
 
Ok, I'll play the what if game.
What if the cop saw him on his porch holding a gun, drew his own firearm, then ordered the suspect to drop his. The suspect is acting agitated and the gun is being waved around. He makes verbal threats to the cop. There is another person present in the home. The suspect spins to run inside the home after refusing to drop his weapon. The cop shoots the suspect avoiding a standoff and possible hostage situation. Did this happen? Probably not. Though it's as likely as your purely speculative scenario.
 
Not trying to play the "what if game" but consider the facts so far:

neighbors reported hearing gun fire
police respond, saying they found an armed man and had a confrontation with him.
Witnesses say they heard "a volley" of gun fire
Man was shot with a single gunshot wound to the back, perferating the lung.

You don't stand there and shoot at someone, you actively seek cover. It's possible there was an exchange for fire and during the exchange he turned to get cover and was hit at that point. A hit to the back does not mean the man was standing with his back to the police, only that his back was to the police at the instant the bullet struck him. While I don't expect details to be very forth coming, a hit to the back does not immedately condeme the shooter.
 
Doesn't matter. In that exact scenario replacing a cop with a neighbor or other citizen ends in the civilian being arrested.

When a man is shot in the back on his own property, I fail to see how it's justified baring a hostage situation, which this clearly was not. Police are supposed to defend life and liberty, not take it.
 
Not trying to play the "what if game" but consider the facts so far:

neighbors reported hearing gun fire
police respond, saying they found an armed man and had a confrontation with him.
Witnesses say they heard "a volley" of gun fire
Man was shot with a single gunshot wound to the back, perferating the lung.

You don't stand there and shoot at someone, you actively seek cover. It's possible there was an exchange for fire and during the exchange he turned to get cover and was hit at that point. A hit to the back does not mean the man was standing with his back to the police, only that his back was to the police at the instant the bullet struck him. While I don't expect details to be very forth coming, a hit to the back does not immedately condeme the shooter.

If the suspect shot at police, that would be the main focus of the story. Police and media never fail to mention a cop being shot at. The only time you see details suppressed in a fatal shooting it's because a cop killed someone under dubious circumstances. When the tables are turned every single possible second of media coverage is used to bury the non-cop. That's my point.
 
If the suspect shot at police, that would be the main focus of the story. Police and media never fail to mention a cop being shot at. The only time you see details suppressed in a fatal shooting it's because a cop killed someone under dubious circumstances. When the tables are turned every single possible second of media coverage is used to bury the non-cop. That's my point.

This is so true it's not even funny.

Like the helmet cam of the JG raid in AZ... they only showed the cam footage from some schmuck that never even was part of the entry stack. They did not show the cam footage from the officers actually making entry. Had that footage confirmed their story of a gun pointing at them, it would have been "leaked" real early.

We haven't forgotten about you, Jose.
 
Doesn't matter. In that exact scenario replacing a cop with a neighbor or other citizen ends in the civilian being arrested.

When a man is shot in the back on his own property, I fail to see how it's justified baring a hostage situation, which this clearly was not. Police are supposed to defend life and liberty, not take it.

It's not the job of a neighbor or other citizen to confront a man with a gun in a situation like this. As was posted before, this was a tightly compacted area. This guy wasn't plinking. It sounds like he wanted police attention and he got it.
How do you know there were no other civilians present at the scene that could have been in danger or hav ebecome a hostage? Are you privy to details the rest of us are not?
 
It's not the job of a neighbor or other citizen to confront a man with a gun in a situation like this. As was posted before, this was a tightly compacted area. This guy wasn't plinking. It sounds like he wanted police attention and he got it.
How do you know there were no other civilians present at the scene that could have been in danger or hav ebecome a hostage? Are you privy to details the rest of us are not?

How do you know he wasn't plinking?

I don't know. And my point is when no one knows what happened and a man is shot in the back, the shooter is normally arrested, not allowed to continue walking around with a gun and authority to do it again. I don't rush to someone's defense just because they wear a uniform. If there's no extenuating circumstances to immediately clear the cop of wrong doing, he should be arrested. I'm going to go ahead and assume we'll never hear about any such circumstances since police and the media would be all over it spouting it from the rooftops if they existed.
 
I'm getting tired of this shit. Justified or not, NH cops killing civilians and then keeping information from the public has got to stop. You shoot a man in the back on his OWN PROPERTY, you had better have a ****ing statement ready when the media gets there.

What ever happened with that shooting in Keene? Same thing that is going to happen with this one. A statement of "don't worry about it sheeple", and everyone will forget about it.

Oh and I love how the headline say he was "armed". What better way to get public support than to make the guy out to be a body armor wearing AK-47 wielding mall shooter?
 
I am always amazed that everyone who slams the media takes it a full value when a story like this breaks.

One of the Ayoobisms (to use Mike dr. grant's term) is that autopsies can be subjective. Sometimes back shots are really exit wounds (even with hollowpoint ammunition) or the person being shot turns and suddenly when the other shooter engages. Another more likely scenario is that the shooter was engaged with the police in one direction, while other police officers were approaching the shooter from a different angle and engaged the shooter from his rear. A perfectly legitimate tactic.

According to the generally accepted police rules of engagement, an armed suspect who is waving a gun around at police is generally subject to getting shot. Like Jose said: "In for a pound." The idea of a back shot somehow not being part of the "code of the West" or something has crept into gun culture. In all probability he was given the opportunity to put the gun down before he was shot. The objective is always to neutralize the threat, not follow the rules of the Code Duello.
 
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mark056 said:
I am always amazed that everyone who slams the media takes it a full value when a story like this breaks.

One of the Ayoobisms (to use Mike dr. grant's term) is that autopsies can be subjective. Sometimes back shots are really exit wounds (even with hollowpoint ammunition) or the person being shot turns and suddenly when the other shooter engages. Another more likely scenario is that the shooter was engaged with the police in one direction, while other police officers were approaching the shooter from a different angle and engaged the shooter from his rear. A perfectly legitimate tactic.

According to the generally accepted police rules of engagement, an armed suspect who is waving a gun around at police is generally subject to getting shot. Like Jose said: "In for a pound." The idea of a back shot somehow not being part of the "code of the West" or something has crept into gun culture. In all probability he was given the opportunity to put the gun down before he was shot. The objective is always to neutralize the threat, not follow the rules of the Code Duello.

This!
 
Even the title of this thread, "Man killed by police for shooting off his porch", is all assuming and full of speculation. All any of you have is speculation. You fail to see how someone could be shot in the back and have it be a legit shooting? How about if he raised his gun toward cops in front of him and a cop behind him fires? Does a cop defending the lives of other cops have to be standing in front of a suspect before being allowed to use a service weapon? Nope! Likely there are 3 sides to a "porch", facing 3 different directions, so it is more than a little possible for a guy on that porch to face one direction and have cops behind him.
I don't think the man was routinely plinking, I think he was doing something unusual that very quickly drew the attention of his neighbors. Sorry he died, but more speculation is that he did the classic suicide by cop thing. Otherwise, all I can say is that I'll wait and see what emerges for details before I start throwing judgements around.

BTW, the shooting in Keene was found to be justified by the AGs office.
 
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I am always amazed that everyone who slams the media takes it a full value when a story like this breaks.

One of the Ayoobisms (to use Mike dr. grant's term) is that autopsies can be subjective. Sometimes back shots are really exit wounds (even with hollowpoint ammunition) or the person being shot turns and suddenly when the other shooter engages. Another more likely scenario is that the shooter was engaged with the police in one direction, while other police officers were approaching the shooter from a different angle and engaged the shooter from his rear. A perfectly legitimate tactic.

According to the generally accepted police rules of engagement, an armed suspect who is waving a gun around at police is generally subject to getting shot. Like Jose said: "In for a pound." The idea of a back shot somehow not being part of the "code of the West" or something has crept into gun culture. In all probability he was given the opportunity to put the gun down before he was shot. The objective is always to neutralize the threat, not follow the rules of the Code Duello.

This is very well written, as is post #44, and I agree wholeheartedly with both. The truth, I am sure, exists somewhere between the two. If we learned nothing else from Zimmerman vs Martin we should notg speculate too heavily until the facts emerge. Of course emerging facts may be a point of contention in itself when the thin blue line kicks in.
 
I never said it would be unjustified in every situation to shoot someone in the back. What I did say was that when it is justified there is an immediate statement about what happened. You don't even need media coverage to post such a statement on your departments website. No story = we have something to hide and we're busy making one up.

And using Zimmerman is a perfect example of media jumping all over a story, not a lack of attention. It also shows how they will spin a story to fit what they perceive as "the victim". Again if there was any Blantant evidence of him shooting at or pointing a weapon at the cops the brass wouldn't hesitate for one second to be spouting it off and issuing statements.
 
I never said it would be unjustified in every situation to shoot someone in the back. What I did say was that when it is justified there is an immediate statement about what happened. You don't even need media coverage to post such a statement on your departments website. No story = we have something to hide and we're busy making one up.
It could be that something as serious as the shooting of another human being they don't want to rush out with a story until they fully investigate and can provide an accurate explanation. I disagree with a lot of what the police do and the attitude many of them have against mere civilians, but I'm not what you would call anti-cop. I work third shift and one night my wife needed the police in the middle of the night due to an attempted break in. She didn't call the fire department, a plumber, or a dentist. She called a cop, and they came and did their job in a very polite and professional manner.
 
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Giving info to the press is the same thing as making statements to cops. Both will do thier best to shove it up your ass.

Really? So it's understandable for cops to go around killing people and telling the media "don't worry 'bout it"? This is the second NH police shooting in less than 3 months where the details seemed fishy, information was withheld, and the whole thing just disappeared.

When making a statement they're not giving information to the press, they're giving it to the people.
 
I am always amazed that everyone who slams the media takes it a full value when a story like this breaks.

One of the Ayoobisms (to use Mike dr. grant's term) is that autopsies can be subjective. Sometimes back shots are really exit wounds (even with hollowpoint ammunition) or the person being shot turns and suddenly when the other shooter engages. Another more likely scenario is that the shooter was engaged with the police in one direction, while other police officers were approaching the shooter from a different angle and engaged the shooter from his rear. A perfectly legitimate tactic.

According to the generally accepted police rules of engagement, an armed suspect who is waving a gun around at police is generally subject to getting shot. Like Jose said: "In for a pound." The idea of a back shot somehow not being part of the "code of the West" or something has crept into gun culture. In all probability he was given the opportunity to put the gun down before he was shot. The objective is always to neutralize the threat, not follow the rules of the Code Duello.
Add me in the line of agreeing with the above post...

Really? So it's understandable for cops to go around killing people and telling the media "don't worry 'bout it"? This is the second NH police shooting in less than 3 months where the details seemed fishy, information was withheld, and the whole thing just disappeared.

When making a statement they're not giving information to the press, they're giving it to the people.

You can't honestly expect to have REAL answers to a shooting that happened YESTERDAY... You relize this is real life, not "CSI" TV, investigations take more than an hour...You would be lucky to get a motor vehicle accident report with in 24 hours...or would you prefer they release information that is incomplete/wrong/based on conjecture not fact???

Evidently it is easier for some of you to think that cops from 3 agencies decided to get together yesterday and randomly murder some happy go lucky guy who was just plinking off his porch, than it is for you to believe that some guy went "nuts" and started shooting around in his trailerhood and he got shot by police...
 
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Add me in the line of agreeing with the above post...



You can't honestly expect to have REAL answers to a shooting that happened YESTERDAY... You relize this is real life, not "CSI" TV, investigations take more than an hour...You would be lucky to get a motor vehicle accident report with in 24 hours...or would you prefer they release information that is incomplete/wrong/based on conjecture not fact???

Evidently it is easier for some of you to think that cops from 3 agencies decided to get together yesterday and randomly murder some happy go lucky guy who was just plinking off his porch, than it is for you to believe that some guy went "nuts" and started shooting around in his trailerhood and he got shot by police...

It may take more than an hour for all the facts to come out, but how long does it take to look and see that the cops fired X rounds and the dead guy had fired Y rounds? How long did it take the cops involved to tell the other responding officers what happened? Why couldn't that be repeated to the media? This crap of officers KILLING A PERSON (that is a HUGE ****ING DEAL) and then turning around and declining to explain what happened is sickening. With the amount of details released, the authorities might as well have told the media to go F themselves.

I used to work in a dog kennel, and if I stomped a dog to death I guarantee they'd want answers right that second... not in a week.
 
It may take more than an hour for all the facts to come out, but how long does it take to look and see that the cops fired X rounds and the dead guy had fired Y rounds? How long did it take the cops involved to tell the other responding officers what happened? Why couldn't that be repeated to the media? This crap of officers KILLING A PERSON (that is a HUGE ****ING DEAL) and then turning around and declining to explain what happened is sickening. With the amount of details released, the authorities might as well have told the media to go F themselves.

I used to work in a dog kennel, and if I stomped a dog to death I guarantee they'd want answers right that second... not in a week.

Unfortunately sir, your concept of investigation and police procedural appears to be limited to what you have seen on television or in the movies. I am not a police apologist, but I do know something about procedure, and you sir do not have a clue what you are talking about, You no doubt are a true red blooded Son of Liberty who knows that a man standing on his front porch was gunned down by a bunch of jack booted cops (in NH of all places) because that is what you want to believe and you will never let the facts surface. It may be presumptuous of me, but I am willing to bet that you see yourself as one of the three percent who will never yield to tyranny and are itching for "go-time" whatever that means.

You response is quite emotional and not rational and you are seeing in this what you want to see to fuel your own worldview, IMO.
 
Unfortunately sir, your concept of investigation and police procedural appears to be limited to what you have seen on television or in the movies. I am not a police apologist, but I do know something about procedure, and you sir do not have a clue what you are talking about, You no doubt are a true red blooded Son of Liberty who knows that a man standing on his front porch was gunned down by a bunch of jack booted cops (in NH of all places) because that is what you want to believe and you will never let the facts surface. It may be presumptuous of me, but I am willing to bet that you see yourself as one of the three percent who will never yield to tyranny and are itching for "go-time" whatever that means.

You response is quite emotional and not rational and you are seeing in this what you want to see to fuel your own worldview, IMO.

If you took a moment to actually read my posts, you would see I never said the cops were wrong in shooting him. The thing I find infuriating is the police's complete disrespect for the people of NH by not explaining a single thing. They couldn't elaborate on how many shots were fired? How hard is it to take the cops mags, check them, and do some kindergarten math? Not hard, yet the police refuse to "elaborate". That article is riddled with "no comments" and "did not elaborates". They didn't even tell us if he was shooting an AR15 or a BB gun. Gives off a "we answer to nobody" kind of vibe.

Is it unreasonable to think that if a police officer kills a citizen then some things should be answered immediately? I feel like if they asked that cop what he had for lunch, he'd come back with a "cannot speculate at this time".
 
I don't think any of you understand what I am trying to communicate to you. I am not speaking about whether or not it was justifiable, I am talking about the police and their complete disregard for the people of NH by not making a comment.

That fishy part is the story that you tell yourself, So that you can be right. You don't have any experience in these things or you would not be making the comments that you are. Most importantly YOU WEREN"T THERE AND NIETHER WAS I. As such I will not make comments as to whether it was a good shoot or not.

No, the fishyness comes from the fact that the guy was shot in the back on his own property... 2 pieces of evidence that would have the prosecutor salivating if this were a civilian shooting. But I agree that I wasn't there so I don't know, which is why I didn't come in here screaming about the Gestapo. This whole thing sat perfectly well with me until I realized that not one minute piece of evidence was offered by the police.

No comments should be made until the investigation is completed, But you wouldn't understand that would you.

Haha that is so incorrect Alex Trebek just defecated himself. Cops make statements all the time even immediately after the fact. How hard is it to say "The officers approached the man and he opened fire, officers returned fire"? Is it so difficult or risky to make a statement as simple as a round count? I'm sure when he was interviewed Agati he knew tons of details that would in no way interfere with the investigation. How many officers were involved? How many shots fired by both parties? What caliber guns were used?

Agati just told NH "F you, that's my comment".


Oh, and what's with the "But you wouldn't understand that would you" remark?
 
Like I said you weren't there and niether was I. We don't know if the person was squared off with another officer and an officer coming around the trailer, made the shot, DO WE? You just want to rush to judgement, haven't we seen enough of this lately. That is why the remark about you wouldn't understand. You are showing that you refuse to think about all the possibilties that could have been involved in that incident.

Again you fail to grasp what I even BOLDED in my last post.


I am not saying this shooting was unjustified. My concern is with the fact the police refused to make even a simple statement about the shooting.



Not ONCE did I say that the police shouldn't have shot the guy. What is so hard to understand about what I have made so clear even a 2 year old could understand it??
 
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