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SewTexas wrote:I'm not sure how old the nephew is, but he may not have been the right one to have been put in the situation to take Granny to DPS, esp if the other relatives knew she wasn't going to get to keep her license, and they should have suspected. He may not have been prepared to deal with her losing her license. I do blame them for her having dementia and a gun though, no excuse for that, unless they didn't know, and I sort of find that hard to believe if she got to it that quickly.

Once more...none of the news reports that I've seen, have said anything about her having Dementia. That was just a possible explanation for her behavior mentioned on this forum earlier.

WildBill wrote:

philip964 wrote:The 93 year old woman fired two times before the officer shot her. Seems an important detail that was left out of the earlier news reports.

I wondered how they missed that?

The nephew says she fired two shots before the officer shot her, but the statement by the Police Department just says she "brandished" a pistol and doesn't make any mention of shots being fired by her. That's a pretty odd discrepancy...a rather important detail to be left off a departmental statement after an officer involved shooting.

SewTexas wrote:I'm terribly confused,

in the comments it mentions "dementia" and "they took away her keys"....where are people getting this information? I've not seen any of this.

if this is correct, and the dementia was bad enough to take away her keys, then why not her gun? at that point it's the family's fault, not the cop's, he shouldn't be fired, that's just trying to look good for the press because it's difficult to blame the 'victim' in the press.

The comment about alzheimer's or dementia wasn't in any of the news stories I saw...Wild Bill just mentioned it as a possibilty on the forum...the news story says she was upset because the DPS refused to renew her driver's license (evidently couldn't pass the test) and her nephew came to her house, trying to take her keys from her. She picked up a gun and "waved it around" and threatened her nephew according to what he told the police. We don't know what the relationship betwen her and her nephew was like...he may be a good guy just trying to protect her from herself...or he might be someone she dislikes who she felt was trying to take her car for his own use, and she refused to let him. Regardless, he called the police...we simply don't know WHY it happened....but I'd have trouble coming up with a good reason for her to be shot five times unless she fired a shot at the officer or clearly indicated she was about to do so. From what has been reported so far, it sounds like he told her to put the gun down...she did not obey...and he opened fire. As far as I know the officer hasn't released any statement, but IF he says she pointed the gun at him before he opened fire, unless someone comes forward that witnessed it or a video surfaces to contradict him, it would be difficult to say he was at fault. Even so, I think he is out of a job in Hearne...2 fatal shootings in a couple of years, is not going to sit well with the citizens.