Police State Blowback? 19 of 50 slain police killed in ambushes

[Ares]

WASHINGTON – Nearly 40% of police officers fatally shot this year have been slain in ambush-style attacks or when they were surprised by suspects with firearms, according to a USA TODAY review of officer deaths.

The killings, many stunning for their brutality, have some law enforcement and Justice Department officials scrambling to provide additional protection or training for their forces.

Of the 50 officers killed by gunfire this year — a 32% increase from the same time last year — at least 19 were victims of ambush or surprise attacks, according to a review of the case summaries and interviews with police officials.

The increase in gun-related officer deaths is particularly troubling since violent crime in much of the nation has been in steady decline. "This is a devastating and unacceptable trend," Attorney General Eric Holder told law enforcement officials this month in Washington. "Too many guns have fallen into the hands of those who are not legally permitted to possess them."

Holder has launched a broad review of officer-safety in the wake of rising gunfire fatalities, citing the need for more research to help officers survive violent encounters, including ambush-style attacks.

In several cases, the victims suffered fatal head wounds, which Robert Kaminski, a University of South Carolina criminologist who studies attacks on police officers, and other analysts said suggests that the attackers deliberately aimed to avoid protective body armor that leaves the neck and head exposed.

"There is an increasing trend in the number of fatalities involving ambush," Kaminski said. "I think it is a big concern."

Kaminski said ambush killings of police have been generally rising since 1994 when 10% of officer slayings were the result of ambush attacks. Although the numbers have fluctuated over the years, ambush killings increased to 31% of firearm-related officer deaths in 2009, according to the most recent statistics gathered by the FBI.

Police officials and analysts said motivations for the killings stem from a wide range of social problems, from mental illness to increased desperation caused by domestic or economic pressures. Bernard Melekian, director of the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, said the "collision of stressors" often places officers "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Among the recent attacks:

•San Diego. Officer Jeremy Henwood, 36, a Marine veteran, was killed Aug. 7 while stopped at a streetlight. The shooter, a suspect in a separate attack moments before, pulled next to Henwood's patrol car and opened fire with a shotgun, fatally wounding the officer in the head.

•San Antonio. Like Henwood, Bexar County Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Vann, 48, was killed May 28, when a car pulled next to the deputy's patrol car stopped at a red light. Without warning, the suspect fired on Vann with an AK-47 assault rifle.

•Grundy, Va. Buchanan County Sheriff's Deputies Neil Justus, 41, and William Stiltner, 46, were murdered March 13 by a sniper as they responded to a call for assistance.

Sheriff Ray Foster said he was walking "shoulder-to-shoulder" with Justus when he was hit between the eyes by sniper fire. "We never saw him," Foster said of the shooter, whose position was found more than 50 yards away. Foster said the suspect was armed with a high-powered rifle mounted on a tripod to steady his aim. Stiltner was killed when one of the rifle rounds penetrated his protective vest.

This month, Foster took a major step toward changing the outcome in future confrontations with armed suspects when he placed an order for 20 assault rifles and two sniper rifles for his 33-deputy force. The sheriff also is applying for a $300,000 grant to purchase an armored vehicle. "I'm just trying to level the playing field," he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-08-25/19-of-50-slain-police-killed-in-ambushes/50138148/1

[solid]

Cops have always been ambushed, and should be trained to minimize the chances of it happening. Cops have the disadvantage there. You lose 3/4 of second from the time you see a firearm, and your brain processes that it's a threat. The attacker always has the advantage, initially.

[Ponce]

Interesting that in the UK in the old days when they used to patrol with only a night stick almost none of them got killed and were always rispected.........then they were given guns and that's when their killing started.

[MAGNES]

then they were given guns and that's when their killing started.

They let in the civilization destroyers, that is when the killing started,
from promoting degeneracy from the top to importing thugs operating
on the streets. Flooding Europe with heroin also does not help, their
partners they put in power the Albanians are doing this, filling Europes
jails, the UK, and the heroin comes from Afghanistan.

Same thing is happening in the US.

Then you got cop thugery mixed into the equation,
how much more are people going to take ? Something
will break eventually and will go beyond hooliganism.
All planned.

[Hatha Sunahara]

I remember not long ago there were 4 cops sitting in a booth at a restaurant in Tacoma, Washington when somebody passing by the booth opened fire with a pistol and killed all four of them and disappeared before any of them could pull their fingers off of their coffee cups. I wonder if that is considered an ambush.

I remember when I read about it, I thought it was cosmic justice. I didn't think anything like that would ever happen if the cops hadn't become what they are today.


Hatha

[lapis]

I remember not long ago there were 4 cops sitting in a booth at a restaurant in Tacoma, Washington when somebody passing by the booth opened fire with a pistol and killed all four of them and disappeared before any of them could pull their fingers off of their coffee cups. I wonder if that is considered an ambush.

I wonder if it's the same story by Dave McGowan (the guy who wrote the entertaining "Inside The LC The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation"):

"Sleazefest in Seattle (http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/Seattle.html)"


Before Monfort had even made his first court appearance, Seattle was rocked by yet another brazen attack on law enforcement, this one by far the most brutal and deadly. As the Associated Press reported on November 29, 2009, the day of the attack, “Four police officers were shot and killed Sunday morning in what authorities called a targeted ambush at a coffee house in Washington state.” The Times Online (“Police Killed in ‘Ambush’ Outside US Air Force Base,” November 30, 2009) added that, “The four uniformed officers, one of them a woman, were gunned down while working on their laptop computers as they prepared for work around 8:30am local time. They were all wearing bullet-proof vests and their marked patrol cars were parked outside.”

The Times Online added another curious detail as well: “The shooting took place at the Forza coffee shop, just across the street from the McChord Air Force Base outside Tacoma, Washington state, 35 miles south of Seattle.” Nothing suspicious about that, I suppose.

The official story quickly and predictably took shape: one crazed gunman – undoubtedly a ‘lone domestic terrorist,’ though a different ‘lone domestic terrorist,’ since the first one was paralyzed and in police custody – had strolled into the coffee shop and swiftly taken out all four officers. All four armed officers. All four armed and trained officers. All four armed and trained and body-armored officers. One lone un-body-armored assailant with a handgun had done that.

That seems about as likely as a lone suicide bomber strolling onto a secure CIA base in a war zone and taking out eight operatives and wounding a half-dozen more. And we all now that that could never happ … oh, wait a minute, what I meant to say was that it seems about as likely as a military psychiatrist armed with a pair of handguns putting down some 30 people at a military base, several of whom were seasoned combat veter… oh, never mind.