Police shoot and kill suspected arsonist (Cal State San Bernardino:)

[seriousstan]

Source: latimes

A suspected arsonist was shot and killed by San Bernardino police last night, authorities said.

The man was spotted in a remote, brushy area behind Cal State San Bernardino, said Lt. Scott Patterson of the San Bernardino Police Department.

University police called in San Bernardino officers. When officers approached the suspect, he jumped in a car and fled, Patterson said. The man drove north on Waterman Avenue, then up a dirt fire road into the foothills, he said. When officers tried to stop him, he rammed their vehicles with his car, Patterson said.

"The officers fired their weapons in self-defense, and the suspect was struck and died as a result of his injuries," Patterson said.



Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/breakingnews/2007/10/a-suspected-ars.html

[Richard Steele]

1. Fascinating. nm

[Scairp]

18. My stepdaughter goes there

I haven't had chance to ask her about it as I just found out after reading this.

[bluestateguy]

2. Right now I don't think Californians are going to have a lot of patience for arsonists

Cleanup in aisle 3!!!!!!!!!

[DaveJ]

3. Apparently not...

Ramming police cars always seems to work in the movies, not so much in real life.

[Froward69]

4. It occoured to me that these fires in cali

were set. not just started. too many have broken out all at once, too far apart.

[MnFats]

5. it seems like one starts through natural means, like lightning, and then...

...every lunatic firelover comes out of the woodwork....
but yeah, arsonists in so call will probably be drawn and quartered, or burned at the stake...

[tekisui]

9. This Summer Greece had a huge amount of fires, by arsonists.

They burned up a lot of land and many people died. I never heard if they were organized or copycat.

[0007]

14. I don't think that's a proved fact. I heard just the opposite

Do you have a link? :shrug:

[MnFats]

15. no offense, but what would the opposite be?

i was just speculating. if you can shed some light, please do.

[tekisui]

16. I don't know if its been proven.

The officials at the time were saying they suspected arson.

"A wildfire on the slopes of Mount Hymettus, blanketed the greater Athens area with white smoke and soot Sunday. Firefighters have now extinguished the blaze. Local officials suspect arson after discovering rags and small gas canisters at the site where the fire broke out. Across the country, police have arrested seven people in connection with the fires.

"Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis laid the blame for the more than 190 separate fires on arsonists and pledged to root them out and bring them to justice. So many fires "at the same hour, in so many parts of the country, it cannot be coincidence," he said during a televised address to the country Saturday. "

from Aug. 27, 2007:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2007/2007-08-27-01.asp

[0007]

26. I didn't follow it though, so I indeed don't know.

Thanks for the link.

[la la]

11. my thoughts...........

and I don't usually get this insane, but- start burning them one appendage at a time. First the toes, then the foot and so on, up the body...

sorry, that is horrid, but it's the way I feel right now.

[kestrel91316]

6. Well, the firebugs DO come out when it's forecast to be hot and windy.

But they already know that Malibu was due to downed power lines (wind - they had 75 mph) and Magic Mtn was sparks from welding equipment.

Several of them will turn out to be arson, but not all by a long shot.

[msongs]

7. cal state SB is closed all week this week because of wind and dense smoke

although the fires are not nearby, many students and instructors live in the nearby mountains. Cal State is directly against the mountains at the base and in a zone of very high wind potential. In 2003 the huge fire threatened the campus itself.

Msongs
CSUSB student who is off this week

[Hekate]

13. Stay safe, okay?

:hi:

Hekate

[Bitwit1234]

8. After Fox's irresponsible terrorist claim they will see arsonist

coming out of the ground.

[razors edge]

10. Regardless of arson guilt or innocence,

acting the way this guy did will get you put "IN" the ground.

[cstanleytech]

12. They actually played the terror card??

I must have missed it since I try to avoid them because the slanted way they do their reporting sets my teeth to grinding and I feel like throwing something at the TV.

[Zhade]

35. Yes, the liars at Fox "News" played that card.

It was the stupidest thing I've heard in a while!

[gateley]

17. And under every bed. nt

[SyntaxError]

33. I was joking around about that the other day...

I didn't know anyone seriously tried to make such claims.

[rabies1]

19. This is a hoot! Who do they think they're kidding?

"They THOUGHT there COULD be the POSSIBILITY that he's an arsonist".

Excuse me? What?
Well as long as you're sure.
Well you better hope so, cause he's dead.

[Pavulon]

20. Note to self

Dont ram police with my car..Attempted murder= justified use of force.

[legaltender]

21. He's not dead because he's an arsonist

he's dead because he tried ramming police officers. There's a difference.

[ohio2007]

22. if he's dead they should release his name soon enough. nt

[robinlynne]

23. well, if you ram your car into a police car, you are expecting what exactly?

[rabies1]

28. I was expecting that they would still let him live, I guess.

Why couldn't they've shot his tires?
There are other alternatives other than murder aren't there?





And that's the weakest/silliest statement I've ever heard.

[Marrah_G]

31. Shot out his tires?

Like in the movies right?

You do realize that a car is an extremely deadly weapon right?

Perhaps they should have asked him nicely to stop trying to kill them.

[SyntaxError]

34. Well, they could have tried to give him a hug...

:sarcasm:

[rabies1]

36. Yeah tires, radiator, windshield, or a leg or a hand or anywhere else??

We can't question him now. Can we?

I'm Really just sorry you don't see the humor in that statement.

[Mike Daniels]

37. Just like a cop should shoot a perp in the leg when facing one with a drawn gun?

You shoot at the critical mass when trying to stop a perp. In the case of someone on foot you shoot at the chest. When the perp's in a car you shoot at the driver.

[rabies1]

39. I think the subject you're trying to get at is force vs excessive force

You want to throw different scenarios out for me but
All I tried to say
was what a funny statement they made about how certain they were.
That's all.
Nothing more.
It was just a funny remark to me.
Please don't verbally tase me.

[Mike Daniels]

27. He has "ceased to be" because he used a deadly weapon while trying to escape arrest

What point were you trying to make?

[BadgerLaw2010]

38. Don't assault police with deadly force. They don't like it much.

And yes, cars are deadly force.

[deminks]

24. Arizona man killed by police in Calif., may be arson suspect

Source: The Arizona Republic

An Arizona man who authorities believe could be connected to arson in fire-ravaged Southern California was shot and killed after trying to run police over Tuesday night.

Police officers from California State University, San Bernardino saw the man in the brush land behind the school a little before 6 p.m., said Scott Patterson, a spokesman for the San Bernardino Police Department.

"The officers were worried he might be an arson suspect," Patterson said.

When officers approached the man, he fled into the foothills in a white pickup truck, Patterson said.


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1024abrk-azman1024-ON.html

[lala_rawraw]

25. is there a name for this person?

other than "man"?

[Peace Patriot]

29. How about we wait until we find out if the police are telling the truth about this

killing? Jeez, people, you're going to believe police accounts on first read? You born yesterday?

Everything they said, including that this "suspect" rammed a police car, could be a lie and a cover up.

And aren't you going to be shame-faced if it turns out to be a professor or a student, innocently returning to campus to retrieve some personal belongings, who DIDN'T run--or ran for some good reason--who DIDN'T ram a police car--but GOT rammed BY the police--and who shouldn't be dead--if you are among those posting here who want to torture and hang INNOCENT-UNTIL-PROVEN-GUILTY people, because they MIGHT BE "arsonists," according to "the police"?

For guilty parties, I think we should look, first of all, at all the real estate developers in San Diego County and other affected areas, and the politicians who are in their pay, who have constructed thousands of square miles of new homes in extremely unsafe areas, with inadequate fire protection and inadequate water. Secondly, that goddamned criminal in the White House, who wants $50 billion more to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights, while SAN DIEGO'S FIRE CHIEF QUIT HIS JOB LAST YEAR IN PROTEST OF UNDERFUNDING FOR FIRE PROTECTION, and a third of California's National Guard is IN IRAQ fighting a corporate resource war.

Some nuts may have lit some matches. We don't yet know the whole story (--although posters here have pointed out that some of the fires were NOT started by arsonists). But the CONDITIONS for this conflagration were created by corrupt developers and politicians, not by arsonists.

The INSANE new housing development in southern California, over the last decade, has not only decimated California forests (and other forests), paved over wetlands and wildlands at an unbelievable rate, and put a tremendous burden on the inadequate water supply, it has created numerous tinder box situations for santana wind fires. Like many disasters of late, THIS disaster is largely the result of criminal POLICY.

Whatever the immediate causes of the fires--arsonists, sparks from machinery, etc.--destruction on this scale from natural disasters generally has deeper causes, in unsustainable living, wrongful allocation of resources, and a corrupt and callous political establishment. And you only have to drive through the counties in question, in southern California, to SEE what is wrong: new subdivisions on hill after hill after hill after hill, for miles and miles, in tinder box grasslands, and up near the mountains, and in the mountains, where vast areas of pine forest are dead and dying (with the ultimate cause of that likely being smog). As with Katrina and New Orleans, much of the ruin, and much of the suffering of ordinary people, is the result of rightwing/corporate POLICY, for the benefit of the rich.

Blame some UNARMED "man," who may or may not have rammed a police car, or buy into Faux News and its "terrst" hysteria, if you want to. I can't stop you. But the sensible among us need to consider how much danger rightwing/corporate policy has put us all into--from many directions, not just natural disasters--and try to figure out and remedy what the hell is wrong with this country. If I were a San Diegan, I'd start with the VERY riggable voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, for the cause of vast mismanagement, both locally and federally. As a matter of fact, that entire region east and south of Los Angeles has some of the most corrupt election officials in the state. You want to be better prepared for disasters, and see less grief for ordinary people? Look to the voting machines, get rid of them, and start electing good leftists.

[Lance_Boyle]

30. So they have no reason at all to suspect he *was* an arsonist...

I won't fault the cops for responding with deadly force when the guy rammed their vehicles. Entirely appropriate, assuming that's the way it went down (aren't cruisers equipped with cameras these days that might verify the ramming?). But the only suggestion that the guy might have been an arsonist is "in wrong area at wrong time." Story doesn't say they found anything fire-starty on his body or in his car. I think the San Bernardino PD made a mistake in slipping the "arson" word into the report. Totally inflammatory, and unnecessary.

[tuckessee]

32. I've heard nothing else about this incident since last night.

So you probably are correct. Had an arson suspect been killed it would be major news.

If the cops fudged a bit on the "arsonist" aspect then I suspect they fudged a bit on the "ramming" part as well.