FL: Dispatcher sends police to wrong home 9 rounds fired

[VoiceofReason]

Guys, the unbelievable fact is that trained police officers fired through a door, window, wall...whatever it was. They had no regard for what or who was in the house.

Our police officers have a hard job and I know and work with several officers. Unfortunately, we are hearing more and more stories of shoot first ask questions later, which is in line with the latest theories that are part of the training they all receive.

If this is the new normal, the good guys don't stand a chance.

[twomillenium]

The shots fired into the home is what bothers me. I don't care if the cop saw a gun or not. They have no warrant. I don't see how it would be justified to start blasting away into the house just because they see a gun. This is Texas. A good portion of the citizens will answer the door with a gun if you wake them up in the middle of the night.

Definitely sounds like use of poor judgement. Going by what has been reported.

[Excaliber]

And the paid leave thing bothers me every time...

"Innocent until proven guilty"

Yeah, but for almost any other job, it does not work that way.

Being involved in a deadly force incident with rounds fired is a bit different than mouthing off to a customer or making an inappropriate comment on Facebook. The psychological and emotional impact can be quite severe.

Officers are placed on leave so they don't bring those thoughts and emotions into the interactions and decisions they have to make on duty. The "paid" part is to maintain the neutrality of the investigation, which is not developed enough initially to make a solid judgment of whether officers' actions were justified or not. It is also to be fair to the officer, who may have been fully justified but it may take weeks or months to definitively sort that out.

If officers were routinely suspended without pay in these circumstances, there would be a lot of badges on chiefs' desks and we'd have a pretty hard time filling the ranks with folks smart enough to do the work because they all know that they could be involved in one of these incidents at any time through absolutely no fault of their own.

It would nice for them to stay paid until they are found guilty, then that amount is immediately revoked from their account. Or something similar. Currently, even if found guilty, they keep that money from their free vacation.

Being relieved of duty after a deadly force incident is hardly a free vacation. Whether his actions are ultimately ruled justified or not what the officer goes through during that period is nothing anyone would submit to voluntarily.