Cop scuffles with kid over gun, doesn't shoot him

I'm sorry, but you must realize that your friend's relative will now be tagged by much of the public as a traitor to gun carriers everywhere because he failed to exert his right to shoot. We can't have people weakening the rules that way. This is a nation of laws, by damn!

Seriously, kudos to him. And to the many others like him, who all too often react with coolness and sound judgment in tough situations but don't get a lot of notice.

That's a good story

We had a cop get shot (not fatally) here within the past year, and none of them fired at the guy! He was in a building. They backed off and waited, talked to him, etc, and eventually he came out alive with no weapon.

(Eta: http://www.camelcitydispatch.com/wspd-officer-shot-overnight-on-anson-st/)

More recently, we also had an unarmed guy get shot once for physically attacking one of our cops. That one shot did kill him. I do believe the officer, though, because they really never shoot much locally. They are ready to, with guns drawn, because I've seen that personally (for my neighbor!).

He's very lucky that he managed to handle this situation and not get shot.

Kudos to him. This is the best possible outcome for this scenario. But I would not want to mandate that police always attempt to handle these situations this way, because the next cop may not have been so successful with it.

raburrell said:

The other thing that struck me in the article was it described what transpired that made Officer Bennes see the gun in the first place - he saw a prescription bottle with the kid's name on it and tossed it to him so he'd have it. It strikes me as a respectful gesture, and again, something very different from many of the cases we hear about.

As I said above, I'm just glad for how this ended

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I'm not *just* glad for how this ended. Officer Bennes did something that is frequently missing in the stories we read here. He didn't approach this as a confrontation from the very first moment.

We all think what we think about the numerous laws of the land, but officers are (by vast majority) really trying to act in our best interests when they have to pull us over.

In nearly every case, it seems that the officer in question came in with a "guns blazing" attitude. What I mean, I think, shows in what happened once Officer Bennes saw the gun. He reports that he had every right to draw his weapon. He does. But having a right is not always the same as being right when exercising that.


Except in the cases we read here. In the cases we read, the gun comes out and immediately we're in a deadly force situation. Good on Officer Bennes for thinking outside that box.

And, side note, boo to the citizens around him, with one exception.

"I didn't want to have to shoot this kid," said Officer Bennes, 31. "I was screaming in the street, 'He has a gun.' There were people in the streets taping me on their phones or stopping in the streets watching the whole thing unfold."

...

Mr. Beeman allegedly had bitten him, and Officer Bennes began calling for people to help him. While some people only watched, a man dressed in military-style clothing got out of his car. The man asked what he could do.

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I don't expect anyone to get involved in a potentially dangerous altercation. But I *do* expect citizens to either render assistance when it's called for, or get the hell away so the officer has that much less to worry about. Stop worrying about whether you can upload this to Facebook, or YouTube.

At the end of the article, it mentioned that he used to be swat. I think that had a lot to do with it. He'd been in tense situations before.

raburrell said:

As I said above, I'm just glad for how this ended

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I am too. You have no idea how much I needed this. Particularly this part.

Officer Bennes doesn't think twice about his chosen profession after what occurred. He has recovered weapons from motor vehicles during his career. He is part of the SWAT team and he been involved in struggles in the past.

"We're portrayed as something so much more militaristic than we are," he said. "We are family men, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives. We are good folks out trying to do the right thing."

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I'm sure to some here they think of me as some Angry Black Man who hates White people in general and White cops specifically and go out of my way to find a pretext to dump on both.

Which is patently untrue. I don't hate White people and I don't hate cops. I hate bad people and bad cops.

I'm glad to read about a cop who chose not to kill the suspect to neutralize the threat posed by the suspect. Sometimes that choice isn't available to the police and they have to put the suspect down hard. That probably will give some of them sleepless nights. Others will go home and sleep like a baby.

I'd imagine Officer Bennes is simply glad he can go home knowing he did his job well.

One of the worst things to happen to policing in the U.S. is the pervasiveness of the "Whatever I have to do to get home safe" philosophy - which has encouraged the "us vs. them" mentality that casts every member of the public as a potential threat to an officer's safety.

Being a cop is dangerous. They have every right and obligation to protect themselves. But sometimes they also have an obligation to protect the public even at increased risk to themselves. Even members of the public who may be criminals.

Police are supposed to be trained in disarming and taking down armed suspects. He was in close quarters with this kid, and saw a gun. The "safe" thing to do might have been to draw his gun and blow him away, but it would have absolutely been the wrong thing to do. I'm glad he actually acted like a professional.

I'm not sure why someone having a concealed weapon is a threat. What if Beeman had a permit? It was only because his clothing shifted that the officer even saw that he had it on him.

What if he had been carrying openly?

I'm not familiar with the laws or the police procedures in various places, but I'd be interested in finding out the answers to these questions.

There is that, too. Though I think most states that allow CC set the minimum age at 21.

AncientEagle said:

I'm sorry, but you must realize that your friend's relative will now be tagged by much of the public as a traitor to gun carriers everywhere because he failed to exert his right to shoot. We can't have people weakening the rules that way. This is a nation of laws, by damn!

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I'm one of those people you are being flippant about. Kudos to the cop for not having the death of that kid on his conscience and being able to control the situation.

Karen Junker said:

I'm not sure why someone having a concealed weapon is a threat. What if Beeman had a permit? It was only because his clothing shifted that the officer even saw that he had it on him.

What if he had been carrying openly?

I'm not familiar with the laws or the police procedures in various places, but I'd be interested in finding out the answers to these questions.

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Indiana is an conceal carry/open carry state. Indiana does not require you to tell an officer if you are conceal carrying, but if he asks then you must answer truthfully. Most people I know who do conceal carry generally treat it as good form to inform the officer, even if he doesn't ask, just to prevent misunderstandings.

Karen Junker said:

I'm not sure why someone having a concealed weapon is a threat. What if Beeman had a permit? It was only because his clothing shifted that the officer even saw that he had it on him.

What if he had been carrying openly?

I'm not familiar with the laws or the police procedures in various places, but I'd be interested in finding out the answers to these questions.

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As stated in the story:

"I saw the gun, but I knew he was 18 so it was pretty reasonable to assume he was not able to carry this gun," Officer Bennes said.

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Oh, I missed that.

I'm not sure what the laws are here, but I've never really carried, except from my house to my car when I shot black powder!

badwolf.usmc said:

I'm one of those people you are being flippant about. Kudos to the cop for not having the death of that kid on his conscience and being able to control the situation.

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I didn't know I was being flippant. I just thought I was making a mild joke, based on the number of heated discussions we've had in this forum about people shooting first and asking questions later. I guess flippancy is in the eye of the beholder.

The outcome of the story makes me glad, but like Karen I'm kind of confused what the threat was.

Even if the kid shouldn't legally have the gun, if the situation was one where they were being friendly enough that the cop was tossing the kid his meds, why would noticing his having a gun change that?

Why should an officer be able to use his or her weapon in a situation like that...? That part doesn't make sense.

kuwisdelu said:

The outcome of the story makes me glad, but like Karen I'm kind of confused what the threat was.

Even if the kid shouldn't legally have the gun, if the situation was one where they were being friendly enough that the cop was tossing the kid his meds, why would noticing his having a gun change that?

Why should an officer be able to use his or her weapon in a situation like that...? That part doesn't make sense.

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When the cop tossed the pills, he saw the gun.

He knew the gun was illegal, because of the age of the kid, so he started to do a pat down.

Kid stopped being friendly and started to fight, biting the cop and trying to go for the gun.

onlookers took pictures except for 1 guy who helped out.