Cowardly Cops in Anne Arundel

These cops are fucking cowards, or just lazy, or perhaps they use their job as an opportunity to satisfy their out of control bloodlust. Whatever the reasoning behind this senseless killing, there's no reason that 5 police officers shouldn't be able to safely subdue an 18-year old male brandishing a pair OF FUCKING SCISSORS! Why did they have to kill this guy? No tazers on hand? No pepper spray or mace? What gives?! A professional law enforcement official should have the courage and agility to casually disarm with only his night stick and sharp wits some one wielding a knife in a threatening manner. Oh, that assumes these cops are competent professionals and not a pack of out of control cowboys. Nope, these cops are cowards, plain and simple, no guts, no steel nerve, no special capabilities worthy of respect at all and a waste of the tax payers money. Public servants my ass! pfftt.. What's being taught in our nations police academies these days that would produce such reckless and lazy administration of ones duties to the community at large? Cops in England have these skills as they aren't permitted to carry a sidearm while on foot patrol, for these talented professionals it's an easy matter to disarm a knife wielding perp, much less someone who is suicidal and wielding a FUCKING PAIR OF SCISSORS!?!? These lazy police officers should be required to take a hand to hand combat course after this disgusting display of sub-par police work. Another sickening note, this story quotes an eye-witness who claims he didn't see any knife or scissors at all, so it's likely that the cops would rather shoot a man dead than deal with a complex situation. At the very least the cops involved should be charged with negligent homicide. Fucking cowards, all of them.

Arundel Officers Shoot, Kill Man, 18
'Suicide by Cop' A Police Theory

By Jo Becker and Ray Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 15, 2006; Page B01

Four Anne Arundel County police officers shot and killed an 18-year-old man early yesterday morning after he allegedly charged them with a pair of scissors and repeatedly urged the officers to fire, authorities said.

Justin J. Fisher of Glen Burnie was shot several times in the upper body after a tense, 35-minute standoff during which officers attempted to persuade the distraught teenager to drop the nine-inch sewing shears while Fisher threatened to stab himself and yelled, "Shoot me, shoot me," Lt. David Waltemeyer said.

It was the third shooting this month and the fourth over the past year involving the Anne Arundel County Police Department.

Neighbors near the intersection of Park and Roland roads in the quiet, middle-class Pasadena neighborhood where the shooting took place shortly after 5 a.m. reported hearing a loud argument followed by between five and eight rapid-fire shots.

Charles Cronise, a 78-year-old retiree, said he saw a line of about a dozen officers clad in dark clothing advancing on Fisher, who was holding something in his hand and kept backing away. Then Cronise heard gunfire.

"I heard this rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat -- there were quite a few shots," he said in a telephone interview. "It sounded like a machine gun."

Authorities said the confrontation began when Fisher's mother phoned the police at 4:24 a.m. to report that her son had stabbed himself and possibly his girlfriend at a home in the 8400 block of Arbutus Road. The girlfriend, whom police have not identified, was not injured.

An officer responding to the scene about 4:30 a.m. found Fisher nearby, driving a silver Honda Accord. Fisher got out of the car wielding the scissors, police said.

Officers said they set up a moving perimeter as Fisher walked about a block and half to the corner of Park and Roland, while a police sergeant pleaded with Fisher for more than a half-hour to drop the scissors. "He had the scissors up to his neck; he was yelling and threatening to stab himself," Waltemeyer said. "He was very aggressive."

At 5:06 a.m., Fisher turned away from the sergeant, pointed the scissors at four uniformed officers about 20 feet away and charged at them, authorities said. The four officers ordered him to drop the weapon, and when Fisher refused, all four fired their handguns, according to police reports.

"About eight shots rang out, and then everyone started running and ducking," said Ken Padgett, a neighbor.

Jim Moon, a 48-year-old telephone service technician who lives at the corner where Fisher was shot, heard what he thought were firecrackers, rushed outside and saw an ambulance and about 15 police officers in front of his house. Fisher lay bare-chested on his back, his bloody shirt ripped open by paramedics and his shoes removed, Moon said.

"I could tell he was seriously injured," Moon said, adding that he did not see scissors or a weapon.

Fisher was taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, where he was pronounced dead.

The four officers involved in the shooting, whose names were not released, have between 1 1/2 and five years' experience with the department and were placed on routine administrative leave while the incident is investigated, Waltemeyer said.

He said that initial indications are that the officers followed procedure and that the shooting was a "justifiable use of deadly force."

Any "edged weapon," including scissors, is considered deadly, Waltemeyer said, and officers are trained to shoot at the upper body to stop a threat. Fisher, he added, might be a victim of "suicide by cop," a phenomenon in which someone deliberately threatens a law enforcement officer in order to provoke a lethal response.

Fisher's shaken family members declined to comment and referred calls to their attorney, Daniel Held. Held did not return calls seeking comment.

Two other shootings this month by department officers are also subjects of ongoing investigations.

On May 2, a patrol officer responding to a report of a possibly suicidal person shot a Herald Harbor man in the stomach after he allegedly threatened officers with a rifle, according to authorities. He was critically wounded.

On May 4, a detective seriously wounded a Pasadena man by shooting him in the head when the man rammed another officer's car in an attempt to resist arrest.

Last May, officers shot and killed an unarmed and disoriented naked man who had allegedly fired a handgun inside a home a few blocks away. Officers were cleared of wrongdoing in that shooting.

Staff researcher Don Pohlman contributed to this report.