Tag: Police Shooting
Judge: FBI agent charged after backflip shooting can carry gun
An FBI agent who is accused of accidentally shooting a man while performing a backflip in a bar can have his gun back, a judge has ruled.
Chase Bishop, 29, was off-duty when he was filmed dropping his gun while dancing. As he picked it up he fired one shot, seriously wounding a man.
Video of the 2 June incident in a Denver nightclub led to his arrest.
On Tuesday a county judge in Colorado – where he is facing a second-degree assault charge – issued the ruling.
During the court appearance in Denver Mr Bishop’s protection order was amended to allow him to resume carrying his service pistol both while on and off duty, a spokesman for the Denver District Attorney’s office told the Denver Post.
Image copyrightCBSThe judge issued the ruling “so long as it is done in a manner pursuant to FBI policy,” said the spokesman Ken Lane.
Mr Bishop, who lives and works in Washington DC, was off duty and on vacation when he was filmed at Mile High Spirits, a distillery and dance club in Denver.
Mobile phone video shows him dancing in a circle of people. A gun falls out of his waistband while he does a backflip, and goes off as he picks it up from the floor.
Image copyrightDENVER POLICE DEPARTMENTA lawyer for Mr Bishop told the judge that the man who was shot in the leg, Tim Reddington, 24, and his family did not object to the agent continuing to carry his gun.
In an interview less than a month after the shooting, Mr Reddington, who had recently moved to Denver from Chicago, said he did not blame the agent.
“I don’t want to blame anybody, throw anybody under the truck,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America programme.
Dancing FBI agent charged after shooting
Mr Bishop’s drug and blood alcohol tests, which will not be released, do not warrant any further charges, prosecutors told the Denver Post.
Colorado law prohibits anyone from carrying a gun while under the influence of alcohol.
Lawyers say that a plea deal is being negotiated to settle the assault charge, but did not disclose any details.
According to the FBI website, “agents are to be armed at all times”.
Article via: Judge: FBI agent charged after backflip shooting can carry gun
Police shoot, kill man on Facebook Live, family responds. “He Was Asking For Help”
Rodney Hess, 36, went live on Facebook twice Thursday. The first stream is of him mostly quietly driving his white SUV for several minutes. He is unintelligible at some points talking to himself, and he periodically stops the car on a two-lane highway in Crockett County, blocking traffic before he finally parks his car perpendicular to traffic in the middle of an exit ramp. That video stops shortly after police arrive and park near Hess’ vehicle.
The situation turns deadly in the second broadcast, which only lasts for about a minute, as police approach Hess’ vehicle. He twice asks for “higher commands to come out.” The situation escalates quickly as Hess’ vehicle, still perpendicular to the road, is put into reverse and then drives forward off the road. A gunshot is heard and Hess screams in pain. The car continues rolling until it crashes, and Hess’ phone falls to the floor of the car where broken shards of window glass lay scattered. On Thursday, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) released a statement, confirming Hess was shot by at least one Crockett County deputy, who “fired his service weapon through the front windshield of the vehicle driven by Hess, striking him.”
The report states that Hess was airlifted to a hospital in Memphis, where he was later pronounced dead. No law enforcement officers were harmed during the incident.
In a press conference, Josh DeVine, Public Information Officer for TBI, said the deputy who responded to the scene requested backup when “drivers were obviously not able to get where they wanted to go.”
The statement from the TBI also says that Hess was “refusing officer commands and making erratic statements,” and the situation escalated after Hess “attempted to use his vehicle to strike the officers at least twice.”
TBI has not released the name of the deputy who shot Hess. Mark Donahoe, the deputy’s attorney, told WBBJ, “The video that I have seen, the part that I have seen appears consistent with all of the statements that I have taken in the case so far.”
“I’m confident at this point that there wasn’t anything done that was not following proper procedure,” he said.
A man who identified himself as Hess’ grandfather said that he was “praying that justice will be served.”
“If there’s anything that’s covered up, that it be brought to light. That it wouldn’t be just another black man shot by police officers,” Lee said. “All we are asking for is justice.”
Hess’ fiancee, Johnisha Provost, told WWL that he suffered from bipolar disorder and “couldn’t get his mind together.”
“He was not on a suicide mission,” Johnisha Provost said Friday from her Texas home, where she lived with Hess. “He was not trying to harm anybody. He was asking them for help and they shot him down.”
“That’s why he asked for a higher command,” she said. “I always told him, ‘Babe, if you are ever in a situation where you need help, ask the person in charge for the higher command to help you,’ and that’s what he kept saying.”
The Crockett County Sheriff’s Department released their own statement, asking for prayers for “the family of the deceased as well as all officers/dispatchers/first responders/EMS involved in the shooting today.”
“As you can imagine, this is a very difficult time for all involved,” the statement said.
via: https://www.rt.com/usa/381208-hess-facebook-live-killed/