A police officer in Montana fataly shot a passenger in a car he had stopped.
Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison can be seen sobbing on the hood of a police cruiser after shooting 38-year-old Richard Ramirez three times during a traffic stop.
“I thought he was going to pull a gun on me,” Morrison can be heard telling a fellow officer.
“Maybe he was, maybe he was,” the other officer replied, attempting to console Morrison. “Jesus, Grant. You survived.”
The passenger didn’t comply with the officer’s commands and then made a bad move.
…Ramirez, who was seated in the back, would not comply and reached for his waistband, police say.
“What are you doing? Why are you moving your hands so much?” Morrison can be heard saying earlier in dashcam footage taken just before the shooting. “Get your hands up. I will shoot you. I will shoot you. Hands up!”
Morrison, a five-year veteran of the force, then fired into the car. The actions of Ramirez could not be seen in the video.
An autopsy later showed Ramirez was high on methamphetamine and “had enough in his system at the time that it may have been lethal to someone not accustomed to the drug,” a forensic pathologist testified. Fellow officers told jurors that Morrison recognized Ramirez as a suspect in a recent drug-involved shooting.
So let us see – Ramirez was high on meth and was also a suspect in a Prohibition related commercial dispute. And that was on top of the furtive movement. Reaching for his waist band. You know the outcome for the officer. The shooting was justified. Not at a regular trial mind you. A coroner’s jury.
There are two saving graces in this story. The officer cried after killing the guy (there is video) and no one else in the car was shot.
The history of meth is interesting.
Methamphetamine went into wide use during World War II, when both sides used it to keep troops awake. High doses were given to Japanese Kamikaze pilots before their suicide missions. And after the war, methamphetamine abuse by injection reached epidemic proportions when supplies stored for military use became available to the Japanese public.
In the 1950s, methamphetamine was prescribed as a diet aid and to fight depression. Easily available, it was used as a nonmedical stimulant by college students, truck drivers and athletes and abuse of the drug spread.
So once upon a time there was widespread use but before prohibition use was not a killing offense. After all pilots of military aircraft and housewives took the stuff. The pilots to stay awake. The housewives to lose weight. So it went from a problem to a drug that turned people into demons. All through the magic of Prohibition. And the shooting was justified.
Comments
8 responses to “Survivor”
Amazing that someone can be shot and killed just for reaching into their waistband. Granted it’s suspicious and I’d certainly get my feelers up in that situation. But I’d withhold actually pulling the trigger till I saw a weapon that could actually hurt me, become visible. This officer did what he was trained to do. Overly aggressive training that teaches officers to shoot first and ask questions later. He’s breaking down and crying because he conscious couldn’t handle what his training taught him to do.
Here is a short, informative article on stimulants including meth and its cousin Benzedrine (amphetamine sulfate) which Ayn Rand was “addicted” to for years. Note that at the bottom of the list are caffeine and nicotine, both legal.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/566394/stimulant#ref76836
Nicotine just barely. Cigarettes sell for about $8 a pack here. That’s for about $.50
worth of tobacco, the bulk is taxes. There are reports of schizophrenics self-medicating with tobacco. I’m sure all those poor homeless nut cases have no trouble at all raising the requisite 8 bucks.
Coffee is probably next.
Man Mountain Molehill,
Re: Nicotine and schizophrenics.
Not just anecdotes. Visit a place where a number of them live. Tobacco city.
Wah wah wah there goes my pension!
Hey Zonetard:
you spelled “penis” wrong.
Seriously,it’s really not a good idea to act jittery and reach into your waistband
in front of an armed cop, armed anything, really. And, waiting until the weapon is in clear sight is a good way to get killed. How stupid and/or effed up on drugs does someone need to be not to know to keep their hands in sight while talking to the nice police ossifer? This idiot was warned and kept reaching into his pants. I would likely shoot in that kind of situation. Better to be judged by twelve that to be carried by six.
Man Mountain Molehill,
I agree up to a point. The question is – why didn’t we see such shootings when meth was legal?