DC Officer Who Shot at and Wounded Trans Women Sentenced

[Guest chngnwnd]

It is kind of sad and sick that if you shoot a trans person, this is all that happens:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/10/dc-cop-sentenced-shooting-incident/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

He is still even employed by the MPD...

Bobbi

[Guest Kelly-087]

I think trans status is irrelevant.

Do you have any idea what would happen to any one of us if we: Solicitied prostitutes, menaced with a firearm, harassed people, then drove drunk, and then shot at un-armed people?

I guarantee it wouldn't be 14 months in prison, rehab and community service. They should give officers more time, not less than the average civilian.

[Carolyn Marie]

I guarantee it wouldn't be 14 months in prison, rehab and community service. They should give officers more time, not less than the average civilian.

As a former police officer, I agree with you, Kelly. Along with all the other offenses, there is the violation of his oath, and the trust that the public placed in him. But I'll also say this; assuming this was his first offense, if you or I did similar, and we had never been in trouble before, I'm not sure we would have gotten a substantially harsher sentence. He should certainly lose his job, as well.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Kelly-087]

I guarantee it wouldn't be 14 months in prison, rehab and community service. They should give officers more time, not less than the average civilian.

As a former police officer, I agree with you, Kelly. Along with all the other offenses, there is the violation of his oath, and the trust that the public placed in him. But I'll also say this; assuming this was his first offense, if you or I did similar, and we had never been in trouble before, I'm not sure we would have gotten a substantially harsher sentence. He should certainly lose his job, as well.

Carolyn Marie

It was one thing to chase them.

But to jump up on the hood of a crashed car (that you crashed) and fire at the group of people inside.. That has to be at least several accounts of attempted murder. Not to mention one of them died.

I really hope that firing a gun at people carries more than a 12 month sentence.

[Guest KimberlyF]

There are so many conflicting stories with this one. The police reported from the start one man was shot and two TG women in the car claim they were also shot, but when he was indicted, he was charged with a single shooting. These women could have been hurt when the driver of their car rammed this guy after they chased him down. There are numerous reports that the cop left first and his car was struck from behind by the other car that left a short time later.

From everything I've read there were no heros, the cop should be out of a job and a few people in the car should be in jail with him.

[Drea]

I am fairly confident that regardless of the earlier incident of the evening, had I seen the guy (off duty cop) while driving later, verbally assaulted him, then chased him in my vehicle when he left and then escalated it further by ramming his car rather than get the heck out of there when he got out of his car and pointed a gun at me, I am pretty certain I be the one in jail regardless of being trans or not.

For the activists to get up in arms claiming bias when some of those in the car were taken into custody seems specious as there seems to have been plenty of grounds to do so.

These events were evidently enough for the off duty cop to claim self defense and the jury believed it and he was not found guilty of these later actions.

The actions he was found guilty of were only the earlier non-shooting incidents. I don't know what typical sentencing for first time without history so I'll accept what Carolyn said.

I don't think that cop should have a job anymore, but I suspect that the other shoe hasn't fallen on that yet. There was enough going on there, including the fact with a 0.15 blood alocohol and there was no question he was driving I would think there is a matter of a DUI and enough actions to question his fitness for duty.

It seems to me, like Kimberly says that there was lots of guilt to go around. Between all parties there was a nice mix of alcohol, drugs, prostitution and solicitation of prostitute. Not the sort of thing I see as a bias based attack nor does the acquittal on the more serious charges seem unreasonable and indicitive of bias. The fact that none of those in the car were charged with anything suggests that if anything officials were bending over backwards to not be preceived as biased.

Like Colleen Francis I don't see this group as the sort of trans people to put up as stellar examples of innocent community menbers who were just a victims of bias.

[Guest chngnwnd]

I am very familiar with the case. The victims did make some poor judgement calls, but I can say with a certain degree of confidence that this incident had its roots in bias.

Bobbi

[Guest KimberlyF]

I am very familiar with the case. The victims did make some poor judgement calls, but I can say with a certain degree of confidence that this incident had its roots in bias.

Bobbi

At which point in the process? The cop who should be canned seemed to want to be with a TG woman. He was charged with 8 or 9 counts and the jury found him innocent of most because in the trial it came out that there was plenty of blame.

Should he have more charges?

He's on admin leave. Lots of times these things don't play out until all the legal stuff is over. If he got fired, appealed and won, the city would owe him a lot more money. They avoid that more often than not. Plus unions almost always defend their own. Lots of groups seem to almost always defend their own to a fault.

Should the judge have sentenced him to more? Possible. But that just happened.

What is the bias? I've just read what's avail on the net like the indictment and initial reports up to the arrest and trial. And each story seems to have a slight different telling. Most of the heart of the story was the same.