She Should Have Driven to a Krispy Kreme

[Axxon]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/07/06/prof.murder.ap/index.html

Now, bad joke in the title aside, I'm not making any assumptions on why this happened. There are a variety of reasons why it COULD have happened. All I know is, it really sucks when you can't count on a police station to be a place of safety. :(

[duckman]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/07/06/prof.murder.ap/index.html

Now, bad joke in the title aside, I'm not making any assumptions on why this happened. There are a variety of reasons why it COULD have happened. All I know is, it really sucks when you can't count on a police station to be a place of safety. :(
That's just really messed up. There was no reason for this to happen. :(

[JeeberD]

How very sad... :(

[Noop]

That is sad. I could never understand why someone would kill someone then proceed to place one to the head. Strange Indeed.

[Axxon]

That is sad. I could never understand why someone would kill someone then proceed to place one to the head. Strange Indeed.

Usually, it's probably just an act of passion. If I can't have you no one will and I don't want to live without you. Bam, two dead.

In this case he drove off. I'd imagine the reality of what he'd done finally caught up to him and he didn't want to deal with the consequences.

[Noop]

Usually, it's probably just an act of passion. If I can't have you no one will and I don't want to live without you. Bam, two dead.

In this case he drove off. I'd imagine the reality of what he'd done finally caught up to him and he didn't want to deal with the consequences.
Tru indeed. This is beyond sad because now a kid is now without parents. Sigh... :(

[Schmidty]

I'm not going to say what I really think here, or my wife'll get pissed.

Screw it.....Cops are, for the most part, chumps. All of these guys were probably out trying to catch their quota of people with license tags that expired 2 days ago. :mad:

I've seen too many bad, lazy, and corrupt cops in my day to have much faith in them. Or in the totally chaotic justice system.

[Axxon]

I'm not going to say what I really think here, or my wife'll get pissed.

Screw it.....Cops are, for the most part, chumps. All of these guys were probably out trying to catch their quota of people with license tags that expired 2 days ago. :mad:

I've seen too many bad, lazy, and corrupt cops in my day to have much faith in them. Or in the totally chaotic justice system.

Of course, it couldn't be that the city didn't give them enough funding to run at full staff or it couldn't be that they had an inordinant amount of call ins that day or something?

I'm not taking the side of the police blindly but I'm sure not going to slam them blindly either. Fact is, we don't know what happened but it sure shouldn't have. :(

[Schmidty]

Of course, it couldn't be that the city didn't give them enough funding to run at full staff or it couldn't be that they had an inordinant amount of call ins that day or something?

I'm not taking the side of the police blindly but I'm sure not going to slam them blindly either. Fact is, we don't know what happened but it sure shouldn't have. :(

You're probably right.

This is a sore subject for me and I admit that I react too emotionally regarding it.

[Axxon]

You're probably right.

This is a sore subject for me and I admit that I react too emotionally regarding it.

No problem, after all, look at the title for my initial albeit brief reaction. ;)

[Raven Hawk]

Tru indeed. This is beyond sad because now a kid is now without parents. Sigh... :(Actually the kid doesn't have grandparents. I found it strange that the article mentioned that the 8 month old went home with her parents after the incident when I thought they were dead, so I had to reread it. Turns out the eight month old was a grandchild.

Still sad, nonetheless.

[judicial clerk]

This sucks. I wish this guy would have just put one in his head before he killed his wife. If you can't drive to the Police Station in this type of situation, where are you supposed to go? I don't fault the line cops, though. i am sure that they would have risked their lives to save this lady, if they had the opportunity.

Its too bad this lady wasn't teaching class. Maybe the students would have kicked this guys ass like those high school students in Georgia.

At least he didn't kill the granddaughter.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Nothing like a local newspaper to help fill in the blanks created by short little blurbs on the national wires.

http://www.starbanner.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040706/NEWS/207060341&nocache=1

While Mayor Gerald Ergle and Deputy Police Chief Greg Graham said they'll re-examine the policy, they made it clear there is good reason not to keep an officer at headquarters 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crimes seldom happen at the police station, Graham said, and the 10 officers on patrol Sunday - and about three supervisors - are generally better used in areas where crime is more likely.

"It's not really a smart use of resources to have a sworn police officer sitting in the lobby," Graham said. The department will look at its procedures - and the crime itself is still being investigated.

It may not be real popular to be that blunt, especially not under these unfortunate circumstances, but I think the guy has a pretty good point. I have to admit that I find it kinda unusual in a town of 40k-50k population, but in smaller cities, this is pretty common stuff AFAIK, especially since the use of 911/centralized dispatch for emergency services became common.

[Axxon]

Nothing like a local newspaper to help fill in the blanks created by short little blurbs on the national wires.

http://www.starbanner.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040706/NEWS/207060341&nocache=1

While Mayor Gerald Ergle and Deputy Police Chief Greg Graham said they'll re-examine the policy, they made it clear there is good reason not to keep an officer at headquarters 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crimes seldom happen at the police station, Graham said, and the 10 officers on patrol Sunday - and about three supervisors - are generally better used in areas where crime is more likely.

"It's not really a smart use of resources to have a sworn police officer sitting in the lobby," Graham said. The department will look at its procedures - and the crime itself is still being investigated.

It may not be real popular to be that blunt, especially not under these unfortunate circumstances, but I think the guy has a pretty good point. I have to admit that I find it kinda unusual in a town of 40k-50k population, but in smaller cities, this is pretty common stuff AFAIK, especially since the use of 911/centralized dispatch for emergency services became common.

Isn't the reason why there's no crime there because, well, there are cops there? If not, it's just another building right? I think their logic falls apart at this point.

Also, I am familiar with substations like this so it's common in that respect but this guy called it headquarters. If it's headquarters I've never heard of them closing and forget about it in a town of that size. Maybe he was misquoted but it does seem weird.

In any case I figured this was the likely reason. The city doesn't want to spare the resources to man the place and to be blunt, that sucks.

[JonInMiddleGA]

In any case I figured this was the likely reason. The city doesn't want to spare the resources to man the place and to be blunt, that sucks.

But let's spin it a little differently, just for the sake of discussion.

You're paying for the on-duty officers (presuming you live there & are a taxpayer) ... where do you want them to spend their time? On the street, particularly in high-crime neighborhoods? Or behind a desk on the odd chance that there's a walk-in?

I mean, it does seem unusual to me in a city of this size, but it's really the same principle that small towns have worked under for as long as I can remember -- you have X resources to allocate across Y demand, use them as efficiently as possible. And in most cases, that probably isn't going to include paying a certified officer to sit behind a desk & answer the phone, at least not in "every cop is a beat cop" sized communities. There's not an unlimited amount of money available to any agency, and certainly not to city police departments. They can only spend what they get in the budget cycle.

There's another article at that same site that focused more on the incident itself instead of the staffing/policy/procedural aspect of it. One of the quotes in it was to the effect that "it doesn't appear that the presence of someone, even an officer, would have changed his decision to pull the trigger". Granted, having a shootout in the police station would have given the victim better odds but it wouldn't have been a sure thing either.

And, as the situation would have been in smaller departments (which seems to be the way this one is run, city population notwithstanding), if there had been someone sitting there at the front desk, there's a pretty good chance it would have been an unarmed civilian employee, a glorified receptionist with a uniform -- and we'd probably wouldn't have heard a bit about this story beyond an odd little story about some guy gunning down his estranged wife and a police employee before turning the gun on himself.

I mean, picture the scene -- upset woman comes in, probably trying to explain the whole situation in a hurry to a bored admin ... seems to be a situation filled with confusion at best ... shooter comes in, blasts away, the only thing that changes is the body count.

Lest I come off as an insensitive bastard unintentionally (I don't mind much when I do it on purpose, but I don't want the label when it's unintended) ... I'm working from the belief that this department is working with a budgetary limit just like pretty much ever other law enforcement agency out there. Now run it through the "reality filter" for a minute -- a community that says "we need cops on the street", a department stretched to its limit for manpower ... makes it kind of tough to justify putting one on desk duty 24/7. And if you do that in spite of the feedback, you're probably going to find yourself replaced by somebody who will put that cop back on the beat & make them visible in the street. And that replacement might find themselves hailed as someone who "knows what we need, more cops on the street". Much like, as I imagine will be the eventual outcome here, somebody gets laurels for taking an office off the streets in the aftermath of this rather unlikely incident. And then eventually takes heat when somebody is gunned down on the beat that officer would have been walking otherwise. And around & around it goes.

[Axxon]

But let's spin it a little differently, just for the sake of discussion.

You're paying for the on-duty officers (presuming you live there & are a taxpayer) ... where do you want them to spend their time? On the street, particularly in high-crime neighborhoods? Or behind a desk on the odd chance that there's a walk-in?


I know of one substation in tampa that staggers its employee break times and encourages officers to use the facilities and generally there's always one or two officers there at all times but there isn't a scheduled employee who has to stay there 24/7. Sometimes creative solutions can be used.


I mean, it does seem unusual to me in a city of this size, but it's really the same principle that small towns have worked under for as long as I can remember -- you have X resources to allocate across Y demand, use them as efficiently as possible. And in most cases, that probably isn't going to include paying a certified officer to sit behind a desk & answer the phone, at least not in "every cop is a beat cop" sized communities. There's not an unlimited amount of money available to any agency, and certainly not to city police departments. They can only spend what they get in the budget cycle.


That's why I said the city not the police in my reply. To answer your first question I'd want staffing to be enough officers to effectively cruise the streets plus one to stay in the office. As you said, it's my money being used and I am certain I could figure out places in the budget that I wouldn't mind cutting to provide this. Maybe not there, but in every city I've ever lived anyway.


There's another article at that same site that focused more on the incident itself instead of the staffing/policy/procedural aspect of it. One of the quotes in it was to the effect that "it doesn't appear that the presence of someone, even an officer, would have changed his decision to pull the trigger". Granted, having a shootout in the police station would have given the victim better odds but it wouldn't have been a sure thing either.


I had considered that and you know, it's the chance you have to take but if it had happened and there had at least been help there, we'd have a tragedy but one of a different nature. The point of THIS tragedy is that a citizen went to a presumable place of safety only to find that it was closed.


And, as the situation would have been in smaller departments (which seems to be the way this one is run, city population notwithstanding), if there had been someone sitting there at the front desk, there's a pretty good chance it would have been an unarmed civilian employee, a glorified receptionist with a uniform -- and we'd probably wouldn't have heard a bit about this story beyond an odd little story about some guy gunning down his estranged wife and a police employee before turning the gun on himself.


Which is why I would want an officer there but really bottom line is, creating alternate scenarios only obscures the real issue. If this was a manned police station then reasonable effort would have been made to insure the safety of this woman. It wasn't. She made a fatal mistake by having faith in the safety of a police station which would presumably be a reasonable assumption. Due to funding, it wasn't a true assumption and she died.


I mean, picture the scene -- upset woman comes in, probably trying to explain the whole situation in a hurry to a bored admin ... seems to be a situation filled with confusion at best ... shooter comes in, blasts away, the only thing that changes is the body count.


I agree that this would be the likely outcome but really who can say? At least one of the two might have had a chance.


Lest I come off as an insensitive bastard unintentionally (I don't mind much when I do it on purpose, but I don't want the label when it's unintended) ... I'm working from the belief that this department is working with a budgetary limit just like pretty much ever other law enforcement agency out there. Now run it through the "reality filter" for a minute -- a community that says "we need cops on the street", a department stretched to its limit for manpower ... makes it kind of tough to justify putting one on desk duty 24/7. And if you do that in spite of the feedback, you're probably going to find yourself replaced by somebody who will put that cop back on the beat & make them visible in the street. And that replacement might find themselves hailed as someone who "knows what we need, more cops on the street". Much like, as I imagine will be the eventual outcome here, somebody gets laurels for taking an office off the streets in the aftermath of this rather unlikely incident. And then eventually takes heat when somebody is gunned down on the beat that officer would have been walking otherwise. And around & around it goes.

We agree 100% here that's why I was saying blame the city. I never blamed the department. They can only do what they can do but I really don't feel staffing headquarters is a luxury. Merge it with other buildings like the jail if you have to or simply don't have one but don't give off the illusion of safety when it isn't there, that's reckless.

I'm betting if you took a poll and asked people if they felt they'd be safe at the police station they'd overwhelmingly say yes.

What are women told when they are travelling at night and they're stopped by an unmarked police car? Try to get to a heavily populated area or a police station. Well, guess what? In this town, that wouldn't have helped much.

It's a pleasure as always debating with you, you insensitive bastard. :)

[Shepp]

If the public knew how inadequate their police protection was at any given time they would probably be shocked. In department where I work, we regularly field 10 to 11 officers in a precinct that is divided to accomodate 24. Don't even get me started about the 70 officers that were in full time training for a month to be sent to Savannah for the G8 summit. In the ten hour day that I work, I'm lucky to get 15 minutes to eat dinner let alone time to hang out at the precinct or at Krispy Kreme. If all I had to do in a day was write an expired tag ticket, to someone who should have paid their taxes on time to begin with, I would be in seventh heaven.

Personally I hope this tragedy has the positive effect of prompting the department brass and the politicians above them to address what is probably a dangerously understaffed agency. Its just too bad that something like this has to happen and the following public outcry to force them to fix the problem that has probably existed for a while.

[Dutch]

Next week the media will sell you a story about how a victim was gunned down on the streets of Ocala while a cop sat idle in a police station watching a baseball game.

[Axxon]

If the public knew how inadequate their police protection was at any given time they would probably be shocked. In department where I work, we regularly field 10 to 11 officers in a precinct that is divided to accomodate 24. Don't even get me started about the 70 officers that were in full time training for a month to be sent to Savannah for the G8 summit. In the ten hour day that I work, I'm lucky to get 15 minutes to eat dinner let alone time to hang out at the precinct or at Krispy Kreme. If all I had to do in a day was write an expired tag ticket, to someone who should have paid their taxes on time to begin with, I would be in seventh heaven.

Personally I hope this tragedy has the positive effect of prompting the department brass and the politicians above them to address what is probably a dangerously understaffed agency. Its just too bad that something like this has to happen and the following public outcry to force them to fix the problem that has probably existed for a while.

Hey, Shepp, thanks for fighting the good fight.

I'm all for better staffing the departments and not just to get "tough on crime" but to just plain be effective against it which is the more logical reason. I hope you saw that in my post.

Where I'm living now, we have the best coverage of anywhere I have lived in a long time. By coverage I mean visibility. I see more patrol officers on a daily basis than in other cities I've lived in and even then it's obvious that it isn't enough.

It seems to be a double edged sword though having to balance traffic control with crime control. That's how I see it anyway. The increased visibility does deter crime but on the other hand it puts the average citizen on edge because there's this lurking presence who could turn a simple mistake or even a mistake made due to nerves into a costly expense. I'm not talking about the ticket either, I'm talking about the insurance costs. That's where you are getting the line about the tags etc. That's how most ( lucky ) law abiding citizens interact with you and it does leave a bad taste in some mouths.

Oh, and the Krispy Kreme line was a joke btw but I was watching an episode of cops a while back and the officer was calling for backup and when asked his location he said "about four blocks from Krispy Kreme. Good televison. ;)

[Axxon]

Next week the media will sell you a story about how a victim was gunned down on the streets of Ocala while a cop sat idle in a police station watching a baseball game.

Are you planning something we don't know about? :D

[SlapBone]

JoinInMiddleGa is correct.

Small towns have to place their officers where they are going to net the most amount of traffic tickets.

[judicial clerk]

She should have driven to the jail. Always officers there.

[JonInMiddleGA]

She should have driven to the jail. Always officers there.

But I believe the door is usually locked
(unless you're in Fulton County, GA that is)

[Ben E Lou]

(unless you're in Fulton County, GA that is):D
:D :D :D :D :D :D

[JonInMiddleGA]

:D
:D :D :D :D :D :D

LOL, I figured it was gonna be a matter of which metro Atlantan got to that post first :D

[Ben E Lou]

Fulton's make us look pretty good over here in DeKalb lately, which is a dadgum scary thought. :eek: