A family of a Dallas-area man wants to know why cops showed up and shot 52-year-old Bobby Gerald Bennett, especially after their official description of the incident is proven wrong on a surveillance video.
The police report read that officer Cardan Spencer shot Bennett as he walked towards him with a “knife raised in an aggressive manner.”
But the video shows that Bennett was standing still with both arms at his sides when he was struck in the abdomen by a single bullet. Bennett is currently in intensive care due to the gunshot wound.
The original story, based on the police report, can be read here. The Dallas News articles says that the officers asked Bennett to show his hands, but he allegedly told them “you all are going to need more officers out here.”
Bennett began walking toward officers with the knife raised, police said. One of the officers on the scene fired four times, striking Bennett once.
Police said Bennett’s mother told them he had been off his antipsychotic medications for several months.
Bennett was arrested and faces an aggravated assault to a public servant charge. His bond hasn’t been set.
The surveillance video shows that Bennett clearly did nothing that would merit an aggravated assault charge.
Already angered that a gun rights movement planned a campaign to promote the “good side of guns” on the first anniversary of the massacre in Newtown Connecticut, CNN’s Piers Morgan couldn’t contain himself when Alan Gottlieb, Founder of the Second Amendment Foundation brushed off the concerns of a Newtown family member.
Morgan read a statement from Erica Lafferty – whose mother along with 20 children and 5 other adults, were killed in Sandy Hook. In the statement, Erica called the planned event a “disgusting political stunt.” Gottlieb shook his head and smiled.
A bad move on his part.
“Why are you laughing?” Morgan asked
“Because that’s totally over the top. That’s not what our intent was. It’s not what anything we were going to do was.” Gottlieb answered.
“Wait a minute!” Morgan shot back. “You plan a campaign to promote the good side of guns on the first anniversary of the worst mass shooting at a school in American history, and you have the gall to laugh when I read out a quote from one of the victims’ families? How dare you?”
Gottlieb’s lame excuse was to accuse the “anti-gun movement” of politicizing the shooting. But that lameness was not calming fir Morgan. “How dare you laugh at them,” he continued.
The woman shot dead by a Brooklyn cop after she crashed a stolen car was part of a violent crew who police say forced a man into his home at gunpoint, robbed him and shot him as he ran away.
Shantel Davis, 23, took a bullet in the chest during a wild struggle with police after she tried to drive away from the smashup on Church Ave. and E. 38th St. in East Flatbush on Thursday, cops said.
No gun was found on Davis. Her rap sheet — which included robbery and drug busts — shows she was no stranger to run-ins with the law.
Davis was due in court Friday on charges stemming from an attack on April 23, 2011 — when she and a band of brutes allegedly held a man hostage as they robbed his Clarendon Road apartment, court papers show.
The heist netted cash, video games and jewelry, the documents show. But the thieves threatened to take 29-year-old Ralph Ragoobar to East New York and torture him for more loot. He managed to break free and started running down the street, court papers show.
That’s when Davis’ crew opened fire, striking the fleeing man three times in the back and once in the leg. He survived the wounds.
“I was shot five times,” Ragoobar told the Daily News. “I just want to move on with my life.”
Davis and two others were later booked on charges that included kidnapping, attempted murder and weapons possession.
Davis was out on $25,000 bail when two narcotics cops saw her blow a red light at E. 48th St. and start speeding westbound down Church Ave. about 5:35 p.m. Thursday, cops said.
The two plainclothes officers — who sources identified as Detective Phillip Atkins, 44, and Police Officer Daniel Guida, 27 — began to follow Davis in their unmarked car as she sped through a series of red lights before she crashed, cops said.
Davis was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry that she allegedly stole the week before. Armed with a pistol — and just a block away from her E. 52nd St. home — Davis approached the car’s owner, Vilma Craig, 57, and told her to hand over the keys, sources said.
“She had the gun pointed at me,” Craig told the Daily News Friday. “She took my car, my pocketbook and everything in the car.”
It was not clear whether the two cops knew the car was stolen when they approached Davis after she wrecked it.
The 5-foot-6, 185-pound Davis slid into the passenger side of the car in an attempt to flee, cops said.
After a brief struggle with Guida, Davis hopped back in the driver’s seat and tried to drive away.
Atkins, holding his service-issued Smith & Wesson 9-mm., began to grapple with the frantic woman and tried to stop her from putting the car into gear.
But Davis managed to put the car in reverse and hit the gas. During the struggle, Atkins fired one shot, hitting Davis in the chest and killing her.
A dental hygienist from Connecticut was the female driver who tried to ram her car into a White House barricade and was shot dead near the US Capitol after a high-speed chase through Washington streets Thursday afternoon, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Sources said Miriam Carey, who formerly lived in Brooklyn, was licensed to practice in New York and Connecticut and had a permit to work as a hygienist in Connecticut prisons.
At least a dozen gunshots were fired when she tried to flee cops, who had trapped her two blocks from the Capitol. She was believed to have been hit several times.
A child believed to be a girl about 2 or 3 years old was found unhurt in her black Infiniti sedan, which had Connecticut license plates.
Authorities had no immediate explanation of the woman’s motive. But Capitol Police chief Kim Dine told reporters there was no reason to believe it was an act of terrorism “or anything other than an isolated incident.”
ABC News said the 34-year-old woman had a history of mental health issues. A task force of FBI and Secret Service agents was executing a search warrant at her Connecticut home, CNN said.
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A two-decade family feud came to a violent end when a man shot dead the two home invaders that killed his wife and son, not knowing the assailants included his long-estranged daughter, authorities said Sunday.
Though the investigation of Friday’s shootings continues, authorities said it appears Josephine and Jeffrey Ruckinger planned to murder her family at their rural central Pennsylvania home — but it remains unclear what exactly led to the deadly confrontation.
“They parked at the bottom of a long driveway, and walked up, heavily armed,” said Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan.
Josephine Ruckinger was armed with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun and her husband had a Derringer pistol and a .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun as they approached the Frew family home in Ashville, about 40 miles southwest of State College, according to investigators.
John Frew, his wife Roberta, and their son John Jr., 47, had just returned from dinner out, and were watching TV in the living room of the white mobile home when there was a knock at the door, authorities said.
Police say Roberta, 64, answered the door, and cried out something like “Oh my God, they have guns!” before her daughter shot her at point-blank range. John Jr. then may have attempted to arm himself with a gun, but Jeffrey Ruckinger shot him multiple times in the chest, killing him, police said.
The elder Frew, 67, grabbed a .22 revolver and came out from the bedroom to find the daughter he didn’t initially recognize pointing the shotgun at him. Frew fired once, hitting her in the head, then turned and exchanged fire with Jeffrey Ruckinger, killing him. He then called police.
Josephine Ruckinger was still alive when police arrived, but later died at an area hospital. John Frew was not hurt
We already hold the record for the most guns on iur streets with an armed population like no other in the world. And naturally with all those guns floating around, we also hold the record for the most gun-related deaths worldwide with mass shootings quickly becoming the norm.
These disturbing distinctions and the record setting gun related deaths are problematic and require sensible solutions. Here’s the solution from gun group called Armed Citizen Project – Give away more guns.
A gun advocacy group has announced plans to give away shotguns to homeowners in Florida about 20 miles from where 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed by former neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman.
WESH reported that members of the Armed Citizen Project had gone door-to-door in Orlando passing out fliers to advertise the free firearms.
Armed Citizen Project program director Ron Ritter explained that giving away shotguns was “perfectly legal” in Florida because the guns were being transferred by dealers with a Federal Firearms License (FFL).
But not every resident who got a flier thought that the program was a good idea.
“That doesn’t mean we should all have a firearm,” Robin McLaughlin told WESH. “I would not need to have a shotgun.”
The Armed Citizen Project announced earlier this year at the National Rifle Association conference that it intended to give away shotguns in 15 U.S. cities, including Chicago and Houston.
Thirteen people, including a 3-year-old boy who suffered a gunshot wound to the head, were shot at a Chicago park in the Back of the Yards neighborhood Thursday night, authorities said.
Ten adults and the 3-year-old were transported by Fire Department ambulances after the attack in the 1800 block of West 51st Street in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, said Fire Department Deputy District Chief James Mungovan at the scene. A 12th victim was believed to have driven himself to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, a source said, citing preliminary information.
Police said later a total of 13 people were shot, the boy, two teens, and 10 adults, with the boy the most seriously wounded. The boy suffered a gunshot wound to the head at an ear that exited through his mouth, and was in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital, police said.
The attack took place about 10:15 p.m. and fire officials called an Emergency Medical Services Plan II, sending at least 10 ambulances to the scene.
Chicago police were making no information about what happened public, except to say that the shooting appeared to be gang-related. The shootings took place on a basketball court on the 51st Street side of Cornell Square Park near Wood Street.
A witness at the scene said three police officers carried the child to an ambulance.
“I didn’t hear no sounds,” from the child, he said.
Family members identified the boy as Deonta’ Howard, whose uncle was shot to death on Labor Day, Sept. 2.
David Frum on The Daily Beast made the point that auto makers took the necessary steps to reduce fatalities in the auto industry, and asked why gun manufacturers won’t do the same.
Gun-rights advocates insist that the U.S. faces a choice between the status quo and the repeal of the Second Amendment and mass confiscation of firearms. That is false. Improved gun safety no more requires a gun ban than improved auto safety demanded the outlawing of cars. Gun design could be regulated to enhance safety. Those who wish to own guns could be required to take safety courses and pass a test. Individuals who are found to store their weapons unsafely could forfeit for a time their ownership rights. Persons convicted of drug offenses or drunk driving could be deprived of gun rights in their sentence, as felons now are deprived of the right to vote in many states. The classes of weapons associated with mass casualty shooting could be more strictly controlled.
It’s not all-or-nothing, not all-one-way or all-the-other way: moderate steps could achieve substantial results. The goal is not to reduce the level of gun violence to zero, any more than it is to stop all auto fatalities. The goal is to enhance safety while upholding legitimate rights. It’s been done before. It can be done again.
The Washington Navy Yard gunman who killed 12 today has previously claimed to be suffering from PTSD after helping rescue efforts in New York following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Gunman Aaron Alexis was shot dead by responding officers after he opened fire inside a Navy facility around 8am on Monday morning.
Since he was identified as the shooter, reports have come out revealing that it was not the first time that he was involved in a shooting.
In 2004, he was arrested in Seattle for shooting the tires of someone’s car during an anger-fueled ‘blackout’.
‘He said that he didn’t remember pulling the trigger of his firearm until about one hour later,’ according to the Seattle police report.
Later he said that he felt the intended victim ‘disrespected him’.
The report states that his father said his anger issues stemmed back to his time in New York where he helped the rescue efforts following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The shooter’s father told police ‘that his son had experienced anger management problems that the family believed associated [sic] with PTSD.’
He was arrested in relation to this instance but never charged, and the same outcome occurred in Fort Worth, Texas where Alexis was living in 2010.
A man brandishing an assault rifle, shotgun and handgun opened fire Monday inside a building at the Washington Navy Yard — killing at least four people and wounding at least seven more, including two police officers, authorities said.
SWAT officers swarmed the building, the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command, and a shooter there was killed, sources told NBC News.
More than two hours after the first gunfire, there were reports that tactical teams were entering a second building at the Navy Yard, but there was no hard evidence of a second gunman.
Terrie Durham, who works at the Naval Sea Systems Command building, said the gunman appeared to be wearing dark fatigues. Another worker there, Todd Brundidge, said he heard a fire alarm go off, and later saw the gunman come around the corner.
“He turned our way and started firing, and we ran downstairs to get out of the building,” Brundidge said. “No words. He raised the gun and started firing.”
A naval security guard was among those shot and was hit in both legs, U.S. military officials said. Washington city police told WRC, the NBC affiliate in Washington, that one of their officers was also among those shot. It was not clear how many of the others shot were civilian and how many were military.
DUNDEE, Mich. — A 3-year-old boy in a small Michigan town was killed over the weekend when he accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun he found on the closet floor of his home.
The shooting death will undoubtedly renew the debate about gun safety, particularly after the boy’s father took to Facebook calling for it.
The incident took place Sunday at a home in Dundee, near the Ohio border.
Police said Damon Holbrook discovered the gun, which belonged to a family friend.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
