TexasCHLforum.com

texanjoker wrote:The grand jury has cleared the officers and that is why I await the facts vs jumping on the bandwagon . Glad to see the truth came out vs the media hype! This suspect should not have picked the gun back up and pointed it at the officers. Obviously the grand jury agreed.

The CLEAT Legal Team spent countless hours preparing for this Grand Jury presentation. After a weeklong proceeding, the Grand Jury concluded last week that the actions of Officer Hoeppner to be reasonable and justified under the facts and evidence presented.

After hearing the Grand Jury’s ruling, Officer Hoeppner breathed a deep sigh of relief and expressed to his CLEAT attorneys that he was fortunate to have had CLEAT in his corner.

The CLEAT Legal Team spent countless hours preparing for this Grand Jury presentation. After a weeklong proceeding, the Grand Jury concluded last week that the actions of Officer Hoeppner to be reasonable and justified under the facts and evidence presented.
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http://www.cleat.org/2014/02/cleat-lawy ... -shooting/

The article describes extremely strange behavior by the homeowner that appears to serve no reasonable purpose and, if true, presented the officers with a situation where they justifiably believed they were in danger. The fact that one of the officers was later terminated for falsifying a report certainly raises suspicion about his veracity on what happened in on this incident. These circumstances, taken together, don't resolve all my doubts, but the grand jury has spoken.

That being said, the entire situation would not have come about if they had gone to the house where the alarm had been triggered. Their presence where they shouldn't have been is what precipitated the homeowner's attempt to investigate.

A very sad case all the way around.

K.Mooneyham wrote:As I'm sure I said somewhere earlier in this topic, I sure hope that the FWPD is either reviewing or has reviewed their procedures for handling calls of this sort. And from that review, I hope they are working out better training methods. Obviously, not every situation is cut-and-dried with a verifiable violent offender being the only person around when law enforcement arrives at a call.

This is taught in the academy - for those who are paying attention.

EEllis wrote:

talltex wrote:

drjoker wrote:The fact of the matter is, that this is a case of mistaken identity, HOWEVER, if the tables were turned and the old man shot the cop, I seriously doubt that the old man would be out on "administrative PAID leave."

Not JUST mistaken identity...gross negligence also...they were at the wrong address. They responded to an alarm across the street...they approached on foot and walked up the driveway, which has the street address number clearly painted on the curb right at the driveway entrance, and shot Mr. Waller in his own garage when he raised the door.

Yep because bad guys always stay at the reported address and never hid nearby in things like sheds and, oh my, garages.

In fairness, good police procedure for an unconfirmed burglar alarm call, which is false 99.999% of the time, starts with a search of the right address to find out if a crime has occurred and to determine if the suspect is still there or not before moving to other areas.

Starting out at the wrong address and shooting folks that live there without even checking the dispatched location is pretty hard for me to swallow as good or even excusably bad police work.

The results speak for themselves.

When I lived in Florida some years ago, the local sheriff's deputies were chasing a burglar through the neighborhood's back yards at night.

I had done what they were doing enough times to be well aware of how these situations can go south, and I stayed inside, alert and armed. As they entered my yard they saw me watching through a window with my gun out of sight. They responded by shining their own flashlights on their uniforms for a second to make sure I understood they were the good guys.

I stood protective watch over my family, they did their duty, and the burglar was caught, all without putting any extra holes in anyone.

Yes, I know they took a bit of risk by momentarily illuminating themselves, and no doubt they did too, but on balance it was the best way to handle what could otherwise easily become a dicey and potentially tragic situation.

A little of what used to be called common sense (before it became uncommon) on both sides goes a long way toward producing happy endings for everyone but the bad guy.