Autopsy: 110 rounds shot at Fla. suspect

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Officers fired 110 rounds of ammunition at the man suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy, according to an autopsy and records released by the sheriff's office Saturday.

Angilo Freeland — who was suspected of fatally shooting the deputy after being pulled over for speeding Thursday — was hit 68 times by the SWAT team members' shots, the examination showed."

<snip>

"Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he was not concerned by the number of shots fired.

"You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9 and he shot and injured another deputy," Judd said by phone Saturday. "Quite frankly, we weren't taking any chances."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061001/ap_on_re_us/deputy_shooting

[rzemanfl]

1. That is really excessive and some really bad shooting. n/t

[progdonkey]

7. yeah, especially considering they're SWAT...

I'd like to think that a SWAT team is highly trained and wouldn't panic and start emptying their entire magazines at one target.

[file83]

11. Not to mention - for every round you fire, you increase the chance

it could ricochet off into a nearbye neighborhood and kill some innocent bystanders. With 110 rounds fired, I'd like to see what insurance companies have to end up replacing near bye (windows, car bodies, etc.).

[MADem]

29. Naaah, they all wanted to take turns and share the "credit" I'll wager

It was probably deliberate shooting. I certainly don't approve of that sort of excessive force, but I'm not crying over the dead guy, either. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he'd die in a shoot out after what he did.

Killing that DOG and that cop (leaving wife and three kids) and wounding that other guy was just unnecessary, and he shouldn't have done it. Had he not had a dodgy car, he might not have been stopped in the first place.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[The_Casual_Observer]

2. I sure hope they are certain that they got the right guy.

[rzemanfl]

10. Well they say he had a gun. How could they have missed the

guy with well over 30% of their shots at close range? Must have been getting shooting lessons from Cheney.

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. Speaking as a guy who can't knock over the little ducks swimming

by at the carnival shooting galley, I guess I can't even speculate, other that to say that there is probably a lot of confusion and nerves involved in something like this.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

20. SWAT Teams...

Like any other "Special Operations" teams, are supposed to be so highly trained that they would not engage in such an orgy of shooting.

Rule#1: Count your rounds expended. You only have so many on a loadout.

Tom from Tib, I believe, can confirm that.

[Kagemusha]

3. I'm wondering what weapons these were.

Having said that, this was a deadly criminal who needed to be taken down if he was a continued threat to more officers' lives. But not being concerned about the amount of ammunition is just feeding a devil-may-care attitude about the militarization of police. Even if this case was justified, will the next one be?

[SledDriver]

4. "we weren't taking any chances"?

So... you executed him prior to arresting, trying, and convicting him?

[rzemanfl]

12. First thing I thought of was the end of Bonnie and Clyde flic. n/t

[Tess49]

5. Was Cheney there? n/t

[file83]

6. Talk about going down in a blaze of glory....wow. n/t

[whoneedstickets]

8. Execution by Firing Squad

...Sans trial.

[Skip Intro]

9. Did they know he was the right guy?

The article doesn't make it clear. One minute he's a suspect, the next he's the guy that shot the two officers and the dog. There's nothing about eye witnesses.

Of course, if he did raise a gun, it becomes self defense, regardless. If that's what happened.

[Scurrilous]

14. Police kill Miami drug suspect after Polk County deputy slain

September 29 2006

<snip>

"The man accused of shooting a sheriff's deputy to death was killed by SWAT team members Friday, after he raised the slain officer's gun in his right hand as he hid underneath brush and a fallen tree in a rural area.

Law enforcement officers walking shoulder-to-shoulder to comb over the 150-acre search area stumbled upon the suspect just before around 9:35 a.m., and one of them grabbed him by the shirt, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

When asked to raise his hands early Friday, only one came up, Judd said. A group of 10 SWAT members fired and shot him several times. It is unknown at this time how many rounds were fired, Judd said.

``He raised his hand and it had a firearm in it,'' Judd said at a news conference Friday afternoon. ``That was the last thing he ever did.''

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-929polkshooting,0,744351.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

[lfairban]

39. That's a good question.

The man who was killed was identified as Angilo Freeland.

The person who was arrested, "showed an identity card bearing the name Eswardo O. Ramclaim, but Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd cautioned that that the suspect used many aliases."

http://www.myfoxal.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=1055368&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.3.1

[ShortnFiery]

15. Far too many of these Authoritarian Personalities have lost all

logical perspective. It's all testosterone and mimicking B.S. cop series. It's not effective - because it's not based in reality.

Pathetic bastards with little to NO self control. :( :thumbsdown:

[zonkers]

16. Okay, a bit excessive. R.I.P. Officer Mathew and K-9 officer Diogi.

[ShortnFiery]

18. Then the extra bullets were a tribute to their memory?

No, I believe this brave Officer and his K-9 Assistant would not appreciate any OVER-KILL. Your respect and love is all that their memory requires. Plus some justice for those who are responsible. Nope, the extra "over kill" does nothing to honor their memory albeit it makes the self-righteous feel better about themselves. That's all. Nothing more. :(

[zonkers]

21. Am not about to defend 110 rounds fired. Nor am I shocked by the excessive

firepower. Florida is gun country. You can't believe how many kids have killed each other in the past nine months. Makes Angelinos look like amateurs.

[krispos42]

32. Ten officers found him. When he drew a gun, each opened up

It would only take about three seconds for ten officers to fire 110 rounds. Maybe four. Each officer fired until the guy stopped moving. And with all the unmuffled gunshots going off, the officers probably were not aware of the volume of gunfire going around.

Same thing happed in NYC a few years ago. That immigrant that the NYPD shot at 41 times. Well, it was four cops and when the guy pulled what the cops though was a gun from his back pocket (it was a wallet), all four cops fired their guns until empty. They were using Glocks with 10-round magazines, so three officers had simply inserted a full magazine in their guns and racked the slide at the start of the shift, and one had taken the trouble to load a round in the chamber before inserting a full magazine. 10+10+10+11+41.

I don't know what the cops were carrying, but SWAT officers often times carry .45 autos with 7-round magazines. One or two of them may have has a submachine gun or a shotgun instead of a pistol. Submachine guns fire about 10 rounds a second, usually from a 30-round magazine, and shotguns deliver 8 or 9 buckshot pellets per shell.

I'll leave it to the investigators to determine what happened, but in the 4 seconds it takes for a suspect to go down a lot of lead can be delievered by ten officers. Hell, I've fired 5 buckshot shells in three or four seconds, pumping as fast as possible, and I'm just a civilian. Kick like a friggin' mule, though. Damn near bruised my shoulder, and I was sore (and red) for a couple of days. I was using 12-pellet Magnum 00 buck, showing off to my brother-in-law.

[benEzra]

42. I didn't even think about shotguns...

yeah, that could account for part of it, if that's the case. I know 000 buckshot has 8 or 9 projectiles per shell; 00 buckshot has a lot more, but I don't remember how many, off the cuff.

[judaspriestess]

17. We weren't taking any chances? How fucking ridiculous is that

no dude, you're just a cop who is trigger happy. This is America nowadays. Did Katherine Harris do a photo op?

RIP to the officer and K-9 who were killed

[ShortnFiery]

19. "RIP to the officer and K-9 who were killed"

Yes, but to seethe with venom does nothing to honor their service.

Has our entire nation turned into a group of crazed vigilantes?!?

Bless those who gave their lives for justice ... don't dishonor their memory by acting like a bunch of vigilante thugs instead of a measured and public serving police department. :(

[TomInTib]

22. Put yourself (myself) in their place(s)

ShortnFiery, if you and I were walking down the street together and some clown popped out and shot you dead and I had a weapon with 110 rounds in the magazine guess how many times I would shoot that fucker.

That's right...

110

Tom

Put yourself in their place.

[ShortnFiery]

24. Nope, if I were a professional, I would not have

lost control. I would have taken the suspect down with no more than 3 - 4 rounds.

I'm the last person to ask because I'm a former Intelligence Officer and a gun owner, i.e, both handguns and two shot guns.

We must remember what our great country was founded upon.

YES! Justice BUT not Vengeance. :(

[TomInTib]

28. You are leaving emotion out of the equation.

Human nature is what it is, and there is no use denying it.

I, too, am a gun owner. And ex- (in 6 more years, anyway) Special Forces.

If I was pissed off enough I would totally unload.

There was a man down and the idiot had bought what he got.

And what is the difference if the 1st shot got him or not?

After that, it was just what it was.

Dead is Dead.

[ShortnFiery]

30. OK, I am doing exactly that - sure, if I was emotionally connected

I would unload everything. That does not make my actions right, just emotional. :(

[ngant17]

38. don't think discharging their firearms was the best way to arrest suspect

there should be plenty of creative and non-lethal ways the police could have used to try and arrest the guy without getting any one in harm's way again.

Hose down the suspect with a water cannon, use a stun gun, tear gas, those are just a few non-lethal ideas that come to mind. What's the point of using excessive force when the guy was cornered with nowhere to escape?

Police work is an occupational hazard, that comes with the territory. When you can transcend the violence of the common criminal, you take the moral high-ground and the respect that comes with it. Shoot-em ups just seem so gangsta-ish to me. Why stoop to that level, it's an easy way out.

[benEzra]

41. From a news report upthread...

From a news report upthread, it looks as if the guy was lying prone under some brush. In a situation like that, it might be hard to tell if the guy was down or not, or even if you're hitting the guy.

Be interesting to see how the details pan out.

[lgn19087]

37. Did you bother to read the article?

10 guys surrounded the suspect. As an above poster noted, the time it would take for 9 or 10 guys, some of them likely carrying automatic weapons, to put 110 rounds downrange is just a couple of seconds. Use your head.

[Screwfly]

23. Stuff doesn't add up

There's something about the official version that doesn't add up with how the two deputies came to be shot. The suspect is being questioned by the cops. Then he takes off running for the woods when he thinks the cops are on to him. Once in the woods he produces a shotgun from somewhere & shoots the cops. WTF did the cops not notice the suspect concealing a shotgun under his clothes--even a sawed off shotgun is a pretty big thing to conceal under normal clothing in Florida--or did they foolishly chase after the suspect after grabbed a shotgun from his car?

The only story that makes sense to me is that the cops tried to pull the guy over & for some reason the guy knew the cops were going to do him harm, so he bailed from his car & tried to escape on foot. The cops not knowing the guy had a gun (how could they since they never got that close to the guy) go chasing after him with a dog like old time chain gang guards.

I wonder what a federal investigation of incident (if there is one) would turn up.

[ShortnFiery]

25. Valid Points Screwfly since we are without the official police report.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[thomas15]

35. shotgun

Could someone point me in the right direction? I would like to know more about the suspect having a shotgun on his person. Is there a link to a news story regarding this fact? I have not seen one.

Thanks

[truebluecollar]

26. Yuck! What a mess...

...sure would hate to have been on the Sherriff's Work Program with the DPW that day. Hey, mister, we're gonna need some more kitty litter and plastic bags please. Yeesh

[ShortnFiery]

27. and squeegees + a body bag?

:evilgrin: :puke: :blush:

[Bigmack]

34. They gotta "hold 'em and squeeze 'em"...

There's a lesson somewhere in these two stories.... but I'm not too sure what it is.

A few beers and one deputy gets a perfect score... 1 shot, 1 hit. The swat team was sober and took 110 rounds to get 68 hits.

I dunno. Maybe the SWAT callout should include an alcohol ration.

- - - - - - - -
Fla. Deputy Shoots Self Showing Off Gun
September 30, 2006

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- A sheriff's deputy showing a handgun to friends at his birthday party accidentally shot himself in the face, killing himself, authorities said Saturday.

Matt Barnes, 26, told guests at the Friday night celebration his .45-caliber revolver was not loaded, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office. He pulled the trigger around 10:30 p.m., authorities said, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Barnes, who had been a deputy for two years, was off duty at the time of the accident. The sheriff's office said alcohol was believed to have been involved.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns...
- - - - - -
Autopsy: 110 rounds shot at Fla. suspect
Suspect hit 68 times

<snip >

"Officers fired 110 rounds of ammunition at the man suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy, according to an autopsy and records released by the sheriff's office Saturday.

Angilo Freeland — who was suspected of fatally shooting the deputy after being pulled over for speeding Thursday — was hit 68 times by the SWAT team members' shots, the examination showed."

<snip >

"Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he was not concerned by the number of shots fired.

"You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9 and he shot and injured another deputy," Judd said by phone Saturday. "Quite frankly, we weren't taking any chances."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061001/ap_on_re_us/deputy_...

[Lowell]

40. How many of you have ever been in a shooting situation?

I had met both Officers Speirs and Matthews several times. Officer Diogi was a fine K9. I've talked to several LPD and PSO members since this shootout. I am not about to judge.

The suspect had already killed two PSO officers and wounded another. When he began to exit the hole he was hiding in he was brandishing Officer Williams service pistol. That is suicide by cops in my book.

As far as I'm concerned the SOB got off easy. And as another poster pointed out it doesn't take but seconds for 9 to ten officers to fire off a hundred rounds. Remember these men had been searching nearly 24 hours and were living on pure adrenaline. It is easy to second guess, especially if you have no first hand experience with a shooting situation. I'm just glad the sorry bastard didn't take anyone else and I'm grateful the PSO and other law enforcement agencies got him before he escaped and was able to do it again.

[bonito]

43. He already shot two cops

so what would you do, your putting your life on the line every day and the cops working around you depend on each other to stay alive. It doesn't take very long to empty 15 rounds when in that situation, and I bet most of them are Democrats.

[ngant17]

44. police do find themselves in a combat situation

and even in a war zone, you still have the Geneva Conventions to keep yourself from completely losing your sense of humanity and compassion in the face of all the random death and destruction around you.

In a suicide mission, these situations are common in Iraq these days, there are suicide bombers who fail and are arrested and are put in jail. With no need for retribution.

I still maintain that my respect for law enforcement agencies would be kept at a much higher level when they can avoid deadly force against suspects, especially in difficult situations such as was played out in Lakeland.

A single man with a 6 or 7 round clip, dug in under a tree, that doesn't justify the overwhelming response by a 500-man police battallion with every sort of weapon and gadget at their disposal.