Recent Shooting Raises Questions
Last week, another contributor to this blog made a post about the recent increase in police shootings in Anne Arundel County. While that particular piece did not attract any comments (yet), there has been a firestorm in the comment section of The Capital.
Just this past weekend, The Capital reported that the man most recently shot by police has retained an attorney and is planning to sue the County and the Police Department. As to be expected, the comments are overwhelmingly in favor of the police.
We all know that it is a stressful job and honestly they never know what they are getting into. This recent column shows just how dangerous a call can become at times. There are two decidedly different stories being presented in this most recent shooting:
- An out of control man who refused to listen and threatened a cop’s life with a chair who was shot.
- A somewhat reasonable man who questioned why police were on his property and only became agitated when the police tried to manhandle him without cause or explanation.
To be honest, the truth most likely lies somewhere in between; however the suspect’s attorney is alleging the officers overreacted.
A bad cop is not unheard of. Not even in Anne Arundel County. It was not too long ago that Anne Arundel County cop Joseph Mosmiller was using his authority to get nudie pictures on his cell phone to add to his collection. Edwin Caraballo (Annapolis City Police Department) recently caused a serious accident on I-95 and it was discovered that he was operating the vehicle recklessly, without a license, without a registration or without insurance. So there are indeed bad cops. And when you consider the two cases above, both bad cops apparently had “good cops” covering for them. Mosmiller’s partner, and every Annapolis City cop who watched their fellow officer park his unregistered, uninsured motorcycle in the police department lot.
But the question remains, why are these shootings on the rise? Perhaps it is the economy–causing general stress on everyone making the officers (and everyone else) a little more on edge? Do we have a decided increase in violent crime that warrants the use of lethal force? If so, someone needs to do something about it. Or, and hopefully this is not the case, do we have some trigger happy cops.
