Police Kill Shopper Talking On The Phone

[Rainman]

Just when you thought we won't be hearing news about police shooting innocent people, it happened again. This time it's in Ohio. The man it's said had a plastic air rifle in his shopping basket. Another person in the store thought he wanted to shoot people and called the police.

“There is a gentleman walking around with a gun in the store,†a man named Ronald Ritchie reported during his panicked 9-1-1 call. “He’s like pointing it at people… He’s like loading it right now.â€

Upon arriving, the Police, without hesitating or even trying to verify if the man really was a threat, they shot him. At that time he was still talking to someone on his phone.

His final gasps for breath were heard via a phone conversation he was having with another person at the time of the shooting.

Naturally, the police claimed they'd issued verbal warnings to the person they shot and might get away with it. Again.

Police have defended the shooting, claiming that officers were acting out of fear for their lives.

 

[js85]

Like always, it's good to be on alert, but maybe not *that* alert. I think with all the issues we've had lately with guns and mass shootings, people are particularly on edge - but that doesn't mean you can go around shooting people. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

 

[Jokester050288]

Man this some bs. Im so sick and tired of the got damn police doing what they want to do and getting away with it. There need to be some more action taken towards polices and all these weird uncalled for shootings of innocent people.

 

[LuckyGirl08]

The person who called the police is also to blame for this shooting. The caller should have noticed that the gun was fake and was plastic. I do not think that the police gave the man any type of warning before killing him because it is stated above that the police starting shooting as soon as they arrived. I am sure that if there was any type of warning, then the victim would have put the toy gun down for the police to see that is was plastic.

 

[DancingLady]

I just do not understand how something like this can happen. If it's not a real weapon, how do the police not even look for a moment and realize this is just someone on the phone with something they are maybe about to purchase in their basket? I mean, I get that the guy calling maybe had some trauma in his past and overreacted out of fear, but the professionals should be able to recognize the difference between a genuine threat and someone shopping.

 

[Profit5500]

Another poor person now sent to the afterlife due to stupid police officers and a panicky person. I mean the caller should have checked if the gun was really a real gun or not. Besides this innocent person buying a plastic gun that probably was more like a child's toy from how it looked, which I thought should not have not been a problem. The panicky individual should have just been calm and assess the issue correctly. Its people like this who do not understand the difference between a real gun and a toy.

 

[Profit5500]

Another poor person now sent to the afterlife due to stupid police officers and a panicky person. I mean the caller should have checked if the gun was really a real gun or not. Besides this innocent person buying a plastic gun that probably was more like a child's toy from how it looked, which I thought should not have not been a problem. The panicky individual should have just been calm and assess the issue correctly. Its people like this who do not understand the difference between a real gun and a toy.

 

[Gelsemium]

This is scary, someone being killed while holding a plastic gun doesn't make any sense at all, officers cannot be light trigger.

 

[Determined2014]

I wonder why they had to shoot, if at all the fake riffle was in the basket and he was talking on the phone at the same time, that is very sad, the caller has alot to do with this shooting and also the cops for not beeing very keen.

 

[helaofthenorns]

Trigger happy, police officers. Don't get me wrong. It's right for the police to always be on alert. But how many times have we heard stories like this? An investigation should be conducted.

 

[askanison]

So this poor guy was just executed without any investigation at all to see if he was a threat. Wow. I don't see why something like this isn't all over the news when all the rioting and unrest is going on in Ferguson. I can understand shooting someone who is waving a gun around at people, but this poor guy was on the phone not harming a soul. Sad part is the officers will probably be slapped on the wrist and sent right back out to work again.

 

[GemmaRowlands]

I am not entirely sure how something like this can happen, because there is no way that the police officer should have shot to kill without even being sure that the person was a threat, or that they had a weapon of any kind. Now, a family has lost a member because of a mistake that should just never, ever have happened in the first place. It is absolutely shocking, and I just hope to goodness that there have been lessons learned from what has gone on here. It is likely that this will cause a huge detrimental back lash for the police now, and I am just hoping that they will be able to get through it whilst keeping the respect of the local people.

 

[mrsbright]

This is so ridiculous.

Also, yes, the caller got it complete wrong. He could be excused for it though -- panic attack, not wanting to risk getting closer to check, anything, really. The police receive a lot of calls from paranoid and scared people, right? This is not something out of the ordinary. What is even more ridiculous is that the police could not instantly tell the difference. The person was on the phone with someone, obviously not busy pointing a gun at people, how could shooting this person be justified??

You really have to be pissed about events like this. I cannot even imagine what it'd be like for the person on the phone -- you talk with the guy, at some point he's probably like, "Hold on, there's some weird cops pointing guns at me" and then the guy is dead.

This is beyond fucked.

 

[donnalynn47]

Well I see several problems with this story. For one the damn cell phone, put the phone down sometimes people. Two don't be walking around with a toy gun pointing it anywhere in public. Three put yourselves in the shoes of these law officers. They are getting a bad wrap I'm not crazy about cops either, but I do respect them. We live in a lawless land these men, and women try to enforce the law for what its worth. You couldn't pay me enough to be a cop. My hat is off to ever good decent law officer. Stupid people get shot for doing stupid sh%t end of story.

 

[missbishi]

Well I see several problems with this story. For one the damn cell phone, put the phone down sometimes people. Two don't be walking around with a toy gun pointing it anywhere in public. Three put yourselves in the shoes of these law officers. They are getting a bad wrap I'm not crazy about cops either, but I do respect them. We live in a lawless land these men, and women try to enforce the law for what its worth. You couldn't pay me enough to be a cop. My hat is off to ever good decent law officer. Stupid people get shot for doing stupid sh%t end of story.

He wasn't walking around pointing it at people. The OP clearly states the toy gun was in his basket. Absolutely nothing stupid about having a toy gun in your basket in a store which sells them!

 

[mrsbright]

Well I see several problems with this story. For one the damn cell phone, put the phone down sometimes people. Two don't be walking around with a toy gun pointing it anywhere in public. Three put yourselves in the shoes of these law officers. They are getting a bad wrap I'm not crazy about cops either, but I do respect them. We live in a lawless land these men, and women try to enforce the law for what its worth. You couldn't pay me enough to be a cop. My hat is off to ever good decent law officer. Stupid people get shot for doing stupid sh%t end of story.

Like missbishi says: if it was in his basket and just happens to point at people, you really cannot blame it for this.
And Jesus Christ the fact that you are acting like he somehow deserved to fucking die because cops were too dumb to realize how ridiculous the situation was is too weird for me. I am not a fan of people always talking on their cellphone, but you really cannot judge what importance the call had to him, and it's not really that talking on a phone makes him dangerous. If he was calling home to know what else to pick up, and cops jump out of nowhere and point guns at you like you're a mass murderer, and the person on the phone starts to panic because they care for you and are scared for you, you do NOT just fucking put down the phone and give your family a heart attack. You wonder what the fuck is wrong with those cops.

And something is clearly wrong with those cops.

I don't "respect cops", I respect people who are doing good things for the good of people.
Those cops clearly murdered an innocent man and I have no special respect for them. Yeah, yeah, they may have a tough jobs, but millions of people in this world have life-threatening jobs and it's not an excuse to fall back on when you mess up and you ruin the lives of many people by killing someone they love.

Point.

 

[RingoBerry]

Jesus freakin' Christ. If they did issue verbal warnings to the poor guy, person on the phone would have heard it too at the same time the person on the phone would've heard the victim respond to the officers.

 

[mrsbright]

Well, if anyone is interested, they do have footage of the moment of the call and an article about the event (and who will be surprised to know that the guy they shot down is a young black male?):

'It was a crank call': family seeks action against 911 caller in Walmart shooting | US news | The Guardian

and he does hold the rifle, but at no point does he point it at anyone. The only people, as you can see on the video, are a distance away and he's not even pointing or turned in their angle. The call is obviously making up the story and exaggerating.

Also, apparently, the woman who was with her two kids died of a heart attack after the commotion caused by the police and the murder of the young man. The article talks about bringing the caller in court for lying on his call.

 

[mrsbright]

Oh, here's more. I'm not sure why nobody is ever looking for more information on the cases coming here. Anyway, here are a few excerpts:

Crawford was a high school graduate who had two young sons. On the evening of 5 August he was at the Walmart in a suburb of Dayton, with his girlfriend, Tasha Thomas. They were to buy ingredients to make S’mores for a family cookout, according to his family’s attorneys.
The couple separated inside the store. Crawford began a conversation on his mobile phone with LeeCee Johnson, the mother of his two sons. Walking in the sporting goods section, he approached a shelf and picked up a MK-177 BB/pellet air rifle, which was already unboxed.

“You can clearly see people walk past him, and they didn’t think anything about it. Everybody was just kind of minding their own business,†his father added. “He wasn’t acting in any type of way that he would have been considered menacing, if you will.â€

The Crawford family’s attorneys contend that Ohio’s “open-carry†law means that he could have been legally holding the rifle in the store even if it had been a full-powered firearm. “We never saw him waving this rifle in front of kids or people,†said his father.

Doubts cast on witness's account of black man killed by police in Walmart | US news | The Guardian


And this other article has footage of the event but apparently it does not record sounds:

Wal-Mart death: Cop yelled 'put it down' before shooting man with air rifle, 911 caller says | cleveland.com

The people seem unclear as to how many seconds lapsed between orders from the cops and shooting:

Ritchie's comments and an interview with another shopper who overheard the shooting indicate little time elapsed between the officers' orders and the gunshots. The second shopper said he didn't see the shooting but estimated the first gunshot came one or two seconds after he heard yelling, according to a report on that interview.

Lee Cee Johnson, Crawford's girlfriend, told investigators she was on the phone with him and heard him say, "It's not real" almost immediately before she heard two gunshots.

The two officers and at least one other witness recalled the commands in different wording, something like "Drop your weapon!" That witness estimated the gunshots came five to 10 seconds later.

But a grand jury decided the shooting to be justified. The Crawford family wants to check if race might have been at play, since the police were white and the dead guy was black. According to the dad, the caller would not have felt the same sort of paranoia/fed the lies about how dangerous the man seemed if he had been white, and the police might not have been so brash either.