A British expat has been shot dead by police after pointing a gun at them outside his home in Pennsylvania.
Officers opened fire on Gregor Fleming, 44, after he “displayed a firearm” and moved towards them on March 7 in Hampden Township.
He died immediately, with his American fiancee, Kelly Thompson, 47, a medical assistant, witnessing the shooting.
Pennsylvania State Police have begun an investigation but Ms Thompson refused to criticise their handling of the incident.
She told the Daily Record: “I watched everything happen. He left the police with no choice.
“They told him to drop the gun several times and he refused. He started walking towards them with the gun and they had no choice but to do what they did.
“It’s an image burned in my mind that I will never forget. I watched the love of my life die right in front of me.”
Police training between the UK and the US is very different, primarily because of the regular use of firearms in the US, which is not typically a feature in the UK.
If you start waving a firearm around in the UK they’ll call in the specialist firearms team and attempt to keep matters calm until that team arrives, usually with a senior firearms officer with some hostage negotiation training. This leads to a more measured and less confrontational approach in which the armed person will only be shot in very exceptional circumstances and even then is likely to survive.
In the US, they simply give warning after warning and if the dumb mofo “reaches” (in US police terminology, makes any motion towards potential use of a weapon), then they will unload everything they have on him / her and there will be very little consequences for US officers doing this given the strength of police unions and qualified immunity for law enforcement. As long as they follow their own guidelines, they are in the clear.
Anyone who doesn’t understand this difference, probably should be wandering around the US with a bloody firearm.
Or wander around Liverpool with a chair leg.
@Jog Galt:’…and even then is likely to survive.
Sadly so, in the case of those terrorists a few years ago who then went on to sue the prison service.
FAFO in the wild…
…or Brazilian electricians fare dodging on the London Underground.
“As long as they follow their own guidelines, they are in the clear.”
Provided the person shot has a low melanin content skin. Otherwise, even if you are a career criminal and out of your head on fentanyl the Western world will kneel down at every opportunity to show how appalling the police are…
“ This leads to a more measured and less confrontational approach in which the armed person will only be shot in very exceptional circumstances and even then is likely to survive.”
Really? In which case I contend that they aren’t doing their job properly. If they are going to shoot it means that there’s an immediate risk to someone’s life and in that case you don’t mess about trying make an injury shot you go for the kill.
It’s so common it’s got a name: suicide by cop.
US cops need to adopt the British practice. “We are armed basterds, drop the gun!”
But more seriously, they are described as an expat, which means they have resigned their original culture and joined another one. If you haven’t realised that the culture you have voluntarily adopted is “drop or you’re dead” you really are polluting the gene pool.
I don’t remember the murdered Brazilian fare dodging. I do remember that he wasn’t doing anything suspicious and went into the station when Plod jumped the barriers without paying and murdered him by firing six bullets into his head.
“Pennsylvania State Police have begun an investigation but Ms Thompson refused to criticise their handling of the incident.”
They’d had a massive domestic row, then, which is why the police were called in the first place. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had said he was leaving her for another woman, but hadn’t yet changed the recipient of his life assurance payout.
Lord T has it right.
JCDM did nothing wrong, except live on the same level of the block of flats as some of the 21/7 wankers.
The police made a misidentification, then proceeded to murder the poor chap.
Of course the token lesbian in charge at the Met got promoted not much later.
. . . as some of the 21/7 wankers.
Yes. that little bit of context re mass murder on the tube has some bearing on the issue.
And, click – whir, it was 7/7.
If UK police are shooting in such a way that the target tends to survive, then they’re doing it wrong.
If you shoot, it’s because you have no other choice – you or a third party is likely to be dead otherwise.
At that point you shoot to kill until the target is down. If he (it’s usually a he) survives that, well that’s ok – but it should not be your goal.
“Shooting to wound” has a much higher chance of either other deaths because of the target killing them, or you end up missing and shooting someone else.
“Shooting to wound” belongs to the world of people who’ve never used a firearm. It’s hard to be accurate, even on a range when you have all the time in the world. In a real life situation, you aim for the centre of the target & hope you get a hit somewhere on it. I’ve hunted pig & at 20 yards, side on, the target’s equivalent to a 5p coin held at arm’s length.
I am reminded of Lord Emsworth at Blandings
“Hit a moving butler at ninety feet ? Impossible !”
ps The Brixton shooting was such a huge balls up by the rozzers that even given the context it is a disgrace that no one was charged for it.
Police in the US are certainly trigger happy – there was a recording going around Twitter not too long about with two female cops who let loose with an absolute torrent of gunfire because they say the homeowner (who’s door they were knocking on) walk through his own house, to answer someone banging on his door in the middle of the night, with a pistol in his hand.
They managed to not hit anyone, somehow.
But here, if even the fiancee is saying it was a good shoot then that dude must have been off his rocker.
@Agammamon
They managed to not hit anyone, somehow.
One gets the feeling that it’s not far from “par for the course”… I saw a report some years ago that gave details of a mass “shoot-out” between a load of cops (including the local SWAT team) and a group of “wrong-uns” where, in the aftermath, they collected all the spent cartridge cases and found that something over 10,000 (!!!!) rounds had been fired – and nobody had been hit!!