Breaking News...

As every morning, waking up this morning at Roseholme Cottage was accompanied by the TV turning itself on to the local news. The very first story was a BREAKING NEWS story about a police action shooting here in the city. The reporter said something about officers responding to a burglary and shooting the armed suspect in the stomach.

Thus, my first conscious words today were "*$&%ing B27 targets." The X-ring on those classic silhouettes is too low and someone who shoots those things all the time is going to gut-shoot people out of habit. (And to steal a line from Tom Givens: "Can a shot down there be fatal? Sure, but probably not in your lifetime.")

There were other stories, and commercial breaks, and about thirty minutes later came an update to the shot burglar story: The newscaster now said that it was apparent that the police had shot the homewowner and more details would be forthcoming.

I said to Bobbi: "Dude thinks there's a robber with a gun outside his house, calls the cops, goes outside with a gun his ownself. Then cops show up, the light on the homeowner's 'I'm A Good Guy' IFF beacon is burnt out, the cops yell 'Drop the gun, Buddy!', he thinks 'Surely they don't mean me!', turns toward them, and gets hisself popped."

Looking at the TV station's freshly-updated webpage, it looks like that's more or less what happened:

Police arrived on scene after a report of an attempted robbery or carjacking. A woman was being carjacked and ran inside her home to tell her husband. He came outside the home with a gun to chase the suspect.

Police encountered the husband and shot him, instead of the suspect.

The homeowner was taken to Eskenazi Health.

The suspect remains at large.

Lessons:

1. Once the cops have been called, you don't need to be running around outside with a gun in your hand. The chances for a blue-on-blue shooting skyrocket in incidences like that. Plainclothes officers get shot all the damn time in similar circumstances. It's easy to tell who the responding officers are because they show up in a car with blinking lights and they're all dressed the same. You want to not be on the playing field wearing the other team's uniform when they show up.


2. If you are on the playing field when they show up and you hear "Drop the gun!" then you need to drop the gun. Seriously. Like it just turned white-hot. (This is a good reason to carry drop-safe pistols, BTW. I realize that carrying that 1904 Ruritanian army surplus Schnellblitzenselbstlader in 8.3mm semi-rimmed is really cool, but aren't you going to feel funny getting shot twice when you drop it: Once in the junk by your own gun when it hits the ground ass-end first, and again in the gut by the responding officer because he's startled by the gunshot?)