Police officer ‘excused’ after mistakenly using gun instead of Taser to shoot unarmed inmate in cell
BUCKS COUNTY, Pa. – A small-town Pennsylvania police officer will not face charges after shooting an unarmed man during a struggle because the officer honestly believed at the time he was using his Taser, not his service weapon, the Bucks County district attorney’s office said in a statement.
District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said the March 3 shooting was “was neither justified, nor criminal, but was excused,” according to the statement posted on the DA’s office website.
“Weintraub said the law excuses the shooting officer’s conduct from criminal prosecution because of his ‘honest but mistaken’ belief he was deploying his Taser at the time he discharged his service weapon,” the statement said.
The wounded man, Brian Riling, was hospitalized in critical condition for several days after being shot in the stomach but has since been released, the statement said.
The New Hope officer, who was not identified because he wasn’t charged, was placed on paid administrative leave and retired from the department April 10, the statement said.
The investigation conducted by detectives employed by the DA’s office was partly based on a video shot inside a holding cell in the police station in New Hope, a town of 2,500 people about 40 miles north of Philadelphia. The statement refers several times to a letter Weintraub sent to the New Hope police chief, but the DA’s office won’t release that letter, said James O’Malley, the communications director for the DA’s office.
CNN reached out to Riling’s lawyer and has yet to receive a response. CNN also tried to contact Weintraub and the New Hope police chief, Michael Cummings, but did not receive a response.
Struggle inside a holding cell
Riling was in police custody after being charged March 3 with intimidation and retaliation against a victim, simple assault and related offenses stemming from an incident on the same day, the district attorney’s statement said. He was also charged with burglarizing the same victim’s home in mid-February, the statement said.
The video shows Riling removing his belt inside the cell at an officer’s direction when a white, rectangular object falls from his pants to the floor. Riling puts his foot on the object. The DA’s statement said the object was “consistent with a drug baggie.”
The video shows the officer pushing Riling onto a concrete bench but Riling resists and the men struggle. The DA’s statement said Riling threw the object into the toilet, but the toilet is not visible in the video.
A second officer entered the cell to help the first officer. While holding his service weapon in his right hand, the second officer yells “Taser” and shoots Riling in the stomach, the video shows. The two officers leave the cell for a moment. The DA’s statement says Riling flushes the toilet during this time, but the toilet can’t be seen.
The first officer comes back into the cell and at first orders Riling to get onto the seat. But Riling lies on the floor, saying, “I don’t want to die, dude,” and “Why’d you shoot me? Are you kidding me?” Later he asks, “What the [expletive] is wrong with that guy?”
‘He did not possess the criminal mental state’
The DA’s statement discusses the officer’s “mindset” during the incident.
The officer who shot Riling was aware of Riling’s “criminal episodes” before the shooting and heard Riling make violent threats during a phone call with the “previously mentioned victim,” the statement said.
“Given the totality of circumstances, the officer would have been justified in using his Taser to regain control of Riling inside the holding cell, DA Weintraub said in his letter [to the police chief], as the officer had a reasonable belief the scuffle posed a danger to his fellow officer,” the statement said.
“The use of a firearm must be an officer’s last resort, Weintraub wrote, and was not justified in this case. However, the letter [to the police chief] continues, because the officer believed he was deploying his Taser and not wielding his service firearm, he did not possess the criminal mental state required to be guilty of a crime under state law.”
The statement mentions a section of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code which says a person has a defense to a criminal charge if he makes a mistake for which there is “a reasonable explanation or excuse.”
The DA’s statement said the officer violated a department policy by wearing the Taser on his right side, in front of his firearm, instead of on the “non-dominant side, in what is known as a cross-draw position.”
That policy violation didn’t constitute a violation of law, though, the statement concludes.
“Weintraub also considered the officer’s decades of exemplary service to the citizens of New Hope as evidenced by dozens of commendations and letters, as compared to relatively few minor historical infractions on his service record,” the statement said.
The New Hope Police Department posted this statement on its website: “The Department thanks District Attorney Weintraub and the members of his office for their thorough investigation and report. The police department has no further information to release, and no further comment on this matter.”
Previous cases
This is not the first time an officer has shot a suspect with a gun, thinking he was using a Taser.
Robert Bates, a reserve deputy with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma, said he meant to use his Taser stun gun, not his revolver, on suspect Eric Courtney Harris, who had been tackled by other deputies and was being held on the ground on April 2, 2015.
Bates was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and given a four-year sentence.
In a 2009 case, a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer fired his gun instead of his Taser, killing 22-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland, California.
The former officer, Johannes Mehserle, testified that he had meant to use his Taser but drew his gun instead. Mehserle was sentenced to two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter but was released early due to good conduct.
Sacramento State student dies after being shot in chest with pellet gun at fraternity party
(KOVR/CNN/Meredith) — A 21-year-old Sacramento State senior died early Friday morning after being shot in the chest with a pellet gun at a fraternity party.
Now, dispatch recordings reveal what first responders encountered at the house party that turned deadly.
Initially, police responded to a call for a person who had passed out. The recordings reveal that the person who supposedly passed out had actually been shot with a pellet gun.
“…A 21-year-old male…uhhh…he was shot in the chest with a pellet gun…went unresponsive…and is now in cardiac arrest,” the recordings reveal a medic saying.
The victim was identified as Sacramento State senior Will Molina.
Pictures from his Facebook page show Molina graduating from Folsom High School and turning into a Sacramento State business major.
Molina was also a member of Pi Kappa Alpha, a fraternity with members who live at the house where the shooting took place. He was shot during a party there. It’s unclear if Molina lived there.
Police say everyone who witnessed the shooting is cooperating.
No arrests have been made, but police are now investigating if the person who fired the fatal BB gunshot will face a criminal charge.
Linda Fea is a neighbor who says the house has had problem parties before.
“It was just getting out of control,” Fea said.
She complained to Sacramento State in 2017.
“We were concerned about the safety, because we’d also seen at the parties the kids were at the roof, and jumping into the pool,” Fea said.
Sacramento State told Fea at the time that the fraternity house was “out of their control.”
“It’s a private residence so our advice [to Fea] was you’re going to have to deal with it through the channels that are available to you. It’s nothing that we can really deal with directly,” Sacramento State University Spokesman Brian Blomster said.
Now, Fea’s fears have come true — a student is dead.
Will Molina was set to graduate in May. His fraternity is planning a memorial to honor him on campus Sunday night.
A child is found hiding under a bed after father kills mother and 2 siblings over affair suspicions
(CNN) — A Phoenix man killed four people, including his wife and two children, in a shooting rampage that started as a domestic dispute over allegations of an affair, police said.
The suspect, Austin Smith, 30, returned home from a bar Thursday night and confronted his wife over accusations that she had cheated on him, which she denied, according to CNN affiliate KNXV.
He then killed his wife and two daughters at the family home and drove to the apartment of the man he believed she was having an affair with, said Sgt. Tommy Thompson of the Phoenix Police Department.
There, he fatally shot the man and injured two others, he said.
Police: One daughter survived
His wife, Dasia Patterson, 29, and their daughters Mayan Smith, 7, and Nasha Smith, 5, were found dead in the family’s home, police said.
His 3-year-old daughter was hiding under a bed when police arrived and was not injured, Thompson said. The suspect told police that he chose not to kill her because she “reminded him of himself,” the affiliate reported, citing court documents.
Police said the older daughter died of blunt force trauma, and the suspect told investigators that he allegedly killed her because she was crying.
Patterson’s relatives said they are devastated and struggling to come to terms with the loss.
“We are in anguish over the senseless loss of our beloved Dasia and her young children,” her family said in a statement.
“As we try to process our profound grief, our focus is on the welfare of her sole surviving 3-year-old daughter. She just lost her mother and sisters, and we want nothing more than for her to be with her family right now.”
A second crime scene
After killing his family, Smith drove to an apartment complex in Phoenix and fatally shot Ron Freeman, 46, whom he accused of having an affair with his wife, police said.
In addition to Freeman, he allegedly shot two other people at the home — a man and a woman — who have not been identified. The woman, 47, is in critical condition while the man, 33, suffered serious injuries.
Police received a call about the shooting at the apartment and found the suspect’s car fleeing the scene when they arrived, Thompson said.
“The car was stopped a short distance from the scene … and the suspect, Austin Smith was taken into custody without incident,” he added.
At the scene of the second shooting, one of the victims expressed concern for the suspect’s family. When officers did a welfare check on the suspect’s family, they found his deceased wife and two children.
During an interview with investigators at the Phoenix Police headquarters, the suspect said “the reason he shot these individuals is because in God’s eyes it was all right for him to deal with someone in this manner,” Thompson said.
“He admitted to the crimes and said he believed his wife Dasia had cheated with Ron. Austin stated that God had told him to do the things he did,” he said.
Smith was booked into the Maricopa County Jail and charged with four counts of first degree murder, two counts of attempted first degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault.
Information on his attorney was not immediately available.
Texas mother says she wasn’t allowed to enroll her daughter in school due to her outfit
HOUSTON – A mother in Texas claims she wasn’t allowed to enroll her daughter in school because of the outfit she was wearing.
KPRC reported that Joselyn Lewis was asked to leave Madison High School after wearing a T-shirt dress of Marilyn Monroe and a head scarf.
Lewis said an administrator told her she couldn’t allow her on campus because she was not obeying the dress code.
“She said that my head scarf was out of dress code and my dress was too short,” Lewis said.
Lewis said she recently pulled her daughter out of another school due to bullying and wanted to enroll her at Madison.
“I wanted to see proof of where it says parents can come dressed a certain way, but it wouldn’t show me that. I wouldn’t leave, so they called the police department. They called them on me and I guess he was coming to tell me to leave, but I was already on the phone with the school board,” Lewis told KPRC.
KPRC reached out to the school district but has not heard back.
Teen accused of killing 16-year-old boy over feud on Snapchat
BEECH GROVE, Ind. – A 16-year-old Indiana boy is behind bars, accused of murder after a feud that started on Snapchat, police say.
Isaiha Funez is being charged as an adult for allegedly killing another 16-year-old boy in Beech Grove.
Early Sunday morning, Beech Grove police were called after gunfire struck a car full of teens, according to WXIN. Xavier Weir, 16, died after being shot in the head. Just minutes later another 16-year-old boy, Isaiha Funez, showed up at a hospital with a gunshot wound to his leg.
Surveillance video shows two people shoot at the victim’s car which then drove into a ditch and caught fire. Police said when they showed Isaiha the video he confessed to pulling the trigger.
According to court records, the teenage murder suspect told police that four months before the shooting Xavier had robbed Isaiha’s brother of his phone. Isaiha also claimed “Xavier had posted on Snapchat that there was $1,200 on Isaiha’s head,” if someone would hurt him, adding, “Xavier continued to post every single day on Snapchat that Isaiha was scared of him.”
“It’s just sad to hear a 16-year-old took the life of another 16-year-old,” said Rev. Malachi Walker with Young Men, Inc.
“To take someone’s life is totally outrageous,” Walker added. “When people are angry and frustrated, they act out quickly without thinking.”
For years, Rev. Walker has run a well-respected bootcamp for kids, helping them avoid violence by teaching them that their decisions have consequences.
That’s a lesson Walker believes could have helped prevent a social media feud between two teens from turning deadly.
“We have to teach our kids about how to make good choices and decisions when it comes to conflict resolution,” Walker said.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/04/14/teen-accused-of-killing-16-year-old-boy-over-feud-on-snapchat/
Woman asked husband if she was pretty, assaulted him when he didn’t reply
LAREDO, Texas – A Laredo woman reportedly didn’t appreciate her husband’s lack of response when she asked him if she was pretty, causing her to assault him, according to the Laredo Morning Times.
Police said 20-year-old Lizeth Guadalupe Ramirez told them her common-law husband assaulted and tried to strangle her, but her husband had a different story.
The man said he and Ramirez were seeing a movie when she asked him if she was pretty. He said he did not hear the question, but his lack of response irritated Ramirez.
Ramirez then reportedly hit the man several times on their way home before assaulting a relative who tried to break up the fight at the house.
She has been charged with two counts of assault, family violence.
Loaded gun in diaper bag goes off, injuring father and daughter
A man with a loaded gun in a diaper bag shot himself and his daughter while changing his daughter’s diaper in a vehicle in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, police said.
CNN affiliates report the incident happened Saturday afternoon, either at or near a Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza parlor in the Birmingham suburb.
The father, who was not identified, was in the back seat of a vehicle changing the girl’s diaper, and the gun went off as he picked up or reached inside the bag, which was sitting on the floorboard, Vestavia Hills Police Department spokesman Capt. Johnny Evans said.
After the gun went off, the bullet traveled through the adult’s leg and then the child’s leg before lodging in the man’s chest, Evans said.
The child is going to be OK. Her father is in serious condition, he said.
CNN affiliate WBMA reported the shooting happened near Chuck E. Cheese’s, while another affiliate, WBRC, said it occurred in the parking lot of the child-themed pizza and gaming center.
John and Ashley Gerrard of Bessemer were at Chuck E. Cheese’s with their 2-year-old when the shooting happened, leaving them worried for their daughter’s safety, WBRC reported.
“You don’t expect anyone would bring a gun around where kids would be. It just doesn’t make any sense,” John Gerrard told the station.
Both WBMA and WBRC quoted police officials saying the shooting appeared accidental.
Michigan Man Sues Parents After They Destroyed His Porn Collection
A man who was living with his parents in Michigan is now suing them after he says they destroyed his valuable porn collection.
The plaintiff in this story as will be identified as “Charlie,” as this is a civil case without any associated criminal charges.
The case dates back to October 2016 when, according to a lawsuit filed this week, Charlie moved into his parents’ home in Grand Haven, Mich. after going through a divorce from his wife, KTLA’s sister station WXMI reports.
Charlie, who nows lives in Indiana, apparently stayed for 10 months at his parents’ home, doing housework in lieu of paying rent. He was asked to leave after police had to be called to the house in August of 2017 for a domestic situation.
His parents allegedly traveled in November 2017 to his new place in Indiana to drop off possessions he had left at their home.
Allegedly missing from the items they brought: Charlie’s massive pornography collection.
Charlie says his parents told him that they destroyed the entire collection. A collection that consisted of over 12 moving boxes full of movies.
The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office was eventually called about the destroyed items. Charlie filed a police report estimating the value of his collection to be $28,940.72. The prosecutor’s office declined to file charges against his parents.
Just a month after filing a police report, Charlie apparently began corresponding with his father via email. Telling him in part, “If you had a problem with my belongings, you should have stated that at the time and I would have gone elsewhere. Instead you choose to keep quiet and behave vindictively.”
His father, according to the lawsuit, responded, “Believe it or not, one reason for why I destroyed your porn was for your own mental and emotional heath. I would have done the same if I had found a kilo of crack cocaine. Someday, I hope you will understand.”
Charlie’s father said in one email that his son was allegedly kicked out of high school and college for selling porn to other students. Saying in the documents, “I also warned you at that time if I ever found pornography in my house again, I would destroy it.”
Charlie, apparently feeling the situation unresolved, reached back out to investigators — allegedly sending one officer 44 emails’ worth of movies he says were destroyed, listing many as valuable out-of-print films, writing, “Not Just Out of Print. But the entire studio making it dissolved, and that was 20 years ago.”
The prosecutor’s office again declined filing charges.
Charlie is now suing his parents for a total of $86,822.16 in damages.
WXMI reached out to the attorney representing “Charlie.” They have no comment at this time.
via:
https://ktla.com/2019/04/13/michigan-man-sues-parents-over-trashed-porn-collection/
Manhattan mom ticketed while breastfeeding in backseat of parked SUV
MIDTOWN — A Manhattan woman said she was given a $115 ticket while breastfeeding her baby in the backseat of her SUV.
Guillermina Rodriguez told PIX11 she was driving when her 3-week-old daughter started crying and needed to be fed. With an end to traffic nowhere in sight, Rodriguez decided to pull over and park.
Rodriguez said she pulled over on 8th Avenue, between 30th Street and 31st Street, in a no-standing commercial zone, just down the block from Penn Station in midtown.
While she was breastfeeding her daughter in the backseat, Rodriguez said a traffic officer pulled up with a tow truck, without looking to see if anyone was inside. She honked her horn to alert the officer that the car was not empty, she said, before taking cell phone video.
“I showed him the baby and my breast, and I’m like, ‘I’m breastfeeding the baby.’”
She said the officer said nothing, left the ticket on the windshield, and walked away.
The mom told PIX11 she did what she had to do for her hungry baby and doesn’t believe she should have gotten a ticket for it.
Rodriguez said she plans on fighting the ticket.
PIX11 did talk with police about the incident, who said the traffic agent issued the ticket before he realized anyone was in the vehicle.
It’s still unclear if the ticket will be dismissed.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/04/12/manhattan-mom-ticketed-while-breastfeeding-in-backseat-of-parked-suv/
Utah man has pleaded guilty to a felony terroristic threat charge after authorities said he threat to target women in a mass shooting because he couldn’t get a girlfriend
Utah prosecutor Chad Grunander tells the Deseret News that 27-year-old Christopher W. Cleary of Denver was in court on Thursday.
Police said Cleary wrote on Facebook he was planning to become a mass shooter because he was still a virgin and wanted to kill as many women as possible.
He was arrested during a trip to Provo, Utah, on January 19, the same day women’s marches were held around the country. Colorado authorities have said he was on probation after stalking and threatening women there.
His attorney Dustin Parmley did not immediately return a message seeking comment.