The mother of an unarmed, mentally ill teenager who could be heard on a 911 call yelling "I've got a gun!" cautioned police that she didn't think he was armed before officers killed him in a 20-bullet barrage.
But police officials insisted Tuesday that Khiel Coppin, 18, gave five officers no choice but to open fire after he suddenly charged them outside his mother's home with a black object in his hand; the object turned out to be a hairbrush...
The officers backed up and ordered him to stop, police said. When the teen refused and kept approaching them, they began shooting from a distance of 5 to 7 feet, police said.
"5 to 7 feet," and Bloomberg's highly trained ("all with at least 10 years of experience") "Only Ones" can't tell the difference between a brush and a gun? I was prepared not to even comment on this story until I read that sentence. Had he been farther away, what with moving rapidly and all, I'd have been able to accept that they couldn't be sure. And since when in their training do they let a suspect with a gun get that close?
Naturally:
Well, yeah. The kid lifted a finger.
There does seem to be something missing from this story, though, and maybe you can help me put my finger on it. We know the victim's name. We know his mother's name. We know his brother's name and his stepfather's name, and even the family attorney's name. Shoot (sorry), we even know the neighbor's name (Hi, Bernice!) Now as we all know, the Associated Press assigned three "
Naturally:
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch was quick to come to the officers' defense.
Well, yeah. The kid lifted a finger.
There does seem to be something missing from this story, though, and maybe you can help me put my finger on it. We know the victim's name. We know his mother's name. We know his brother's name and his stepfather's name, and even the family attorney's name. Shoot (sorry), we even know the neighbor's name (Hi, Bernice!) Now as we all know, the Associated Press assigned three "
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch was quick to come to the officers' defense.
Well, yeah. The kid lifted a finger.
There does seem to be something missing from this story, though, and maybe you can help me put my finger on it. We know the victim's name. We know his mother's name. We know his brother's name and his stepfather's name, and even the family attorney's name. Shoot (sorry), we even know the neighbor's name (Hi, Bernice!) Now as we all know, the Associated Press assigned three "authorized journalists" to this story (and we know their names, too), so why do I have the nagging feeling that these highly trained professional watchdogs of government left something out...? Oh well, it probably wasn't important.