Doesn't make sense. The cops were waiting outside the house, meanwhile 3 people were savagely murdered while the cops were just outside. What were the cops waiting for? Why didn't they go inside the house? Raid the house! The murders could of been stopped in the nick of time.
This is a terrible tragedy! So heartbreaking!
I agree! The police department needs to be held more accountable for this tragedy. The news conference where the town manager kept talking about what a *great* job the police did was ridiculous.
shareYeh, talk about covering your azzes. what a disgrace. At least have the balls to come out and say we phuqued up and here's why. Nothing. And the grandmother and grandfather will probably go to their graves not knowing any reasons why.
Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...share
I agree. Why spin and emphasize what a "great" job the cops did when the perps left the house and rammed the police car (and were therefore caught by virtue of their stupidity) while those girls were heard screaming inside the burning house, and nobody tried to rescue them? Appalling.
"I love those redheads!" (Wooderson, Dazed and Confused, 1993)
As best I can tell this was a hostage situation, no? The police won't rush in, barge in as long as it seems there are hostages, in case the suspects inside are threatening to kill them.
You have the benefit of "after knowledge" The police do not!
And I know, because there are many times people thought I had information I didn't have, SIMPLY BECAUSE I WAS A COP and I was there!
We deal with the unknown, just as you would if you go to a situation while it's happening.
People don't get that the police don't have any special skills or magical powers to know exactly what's happening when it's happening. They are vulnerable to have to waiting it out and letting the facts reveal themselves. It's awful. It's sad. But it's a fact of life.
Stop watching so much TV and movies thinking that cops are like the ones you see on the screen.
The majority of cops try their best to prevent and solve crimes. Do they ever screw up? Sure from time to time. But you can't "know" what is going on inside a house, just because you are a cop.
Indialm makes EXCELLENT points about the reasons police wouldn't have attempted to enter the residence during a home invasion with 4 hostages, including 2 daughters under the age of 18. It would not have occurred to me that citizens assume cops are mind readers with databases that are linked and cross-referenced and fingerprints searched instantaneously at the push of a button thanks to CSI, Criminal Minds, et al fiction. THANK YOU for revealing that unconscious assumption of many.
I've dated and/or lived with current/former/retired cops in different communities, including a very gung-ho SWAT cop for 5 yrs, so even without officers like Ferguson, MO's Darren Wilson, I know not all cops or departments are the same; officer qualifications, training, and departmental philosophies vary greatly. Enough that I apologize but I can't just accept one cop's opinion without doing some research.
If hostages appear to be safe, no sane person, cop or otherwise, would attempt to enter a residence during a home invasion. That's too easily a recipe to turn what could be a purely pragmatic financial transaction into a Jonestown or Branch Davidian charnel house.
This is the transcript of the 911 call from the bank: http://www.scribd.com/doc/65549913/Bank-Call-Transcript-State-s-6a-9-1 9 . Again and again, the bank manager repeats Hawke-Petit's comments that the robbers were being "nice" and wouldn't hurt anyone as long as they got the money. With this being all the information available, of course they wouldn't attempt a rescue, that would be crazy. Departments lose those lawsuits.
I would hope that officers were stationed a safe distance away with polarized binoculars looking in the windows. Surely they should have the available tech after 9/11 as federal funding and programs transferred boatloads of military equipment to local law enforcement. They should also have had parabolic microphones for listening at a distance. However, if you review crime rates in Cheshire, you'll see the local police had NO experience with this type of crime, and very little experience with violent crime in general. The 2006 crime statistics,http://cheshire.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm , from the year before this event, reveal that crime in Cheshire was only 20% of the national average, 80% below average. More astounding, the violent crime rate was less than 5% of the national average, 95% less than average. If local PDs have a choice in what military equipment they receive, in this tony bedroom suburb of NYC, equipment to help catch white collar financial crime would be much more useful than the tank Ferguson, MO, got. There were NO murders in Cheshire the year before this. Who knows if it would have gotten the kind of high tech surveillance equipment more typical communities did. Based on crime rates, it looks like it would have been better used elsewhere. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I'm not in a position to know for certain if the police heard screaming and failed to act, or explain why they didn't even help Mr. Petit out of the burning building. It seems more manpower should have been devoted to rushing in to insure the safety of the hostages when the suspects departed, rather than all descending on the burglars, but again, local police had no experience with violent crime to know what to do. In lieu of other instructions, I'm sure most would want to be in on the action, catching violent criminals, not sweeping up what sounded like a pretty secure swap of money for freedom. It's heart-breaking it didn't turn out as expected. I'm sure it could have been handled better, and that some officers still have regular nightmares about just how wrong it went.
The FBI turned the Branch Davidian siege into a charnel house. Just because you chase cop=dick, doesn't make you an expert, does it. And last time I checked, US police DO have cross=referenced computer databases! The media brainwashes us into thinking the cops are the good guys, millions of people across the Western (not to mention the REST of the world!) know otherwise....
"Hot lesbian witches!"
Exactly. In fact we can thank the infamous jackazz Ted Bundy for inspiring the invention of crime-related databases and cross-referencing back in the seventies. The police had time here to respond in a way that might have saved the lives of those girls. In the doc it was stated that the girls were heard screaming (this was after the perps had left the house and rammed the police car). As another poster noted the police also did not assist the obviously seriously wounded Dr. Petit either as he crawled out of the house. That is just a fail on the part of the police in this case.
"Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys! I am talking about the central nervous system!"
I posted this on another discussion thread:
Posted May 27, 2015:
Most people are posting negative comments about the cops, with the main reaction being "How can they just stand around and not go in to rescue the girls?"
I have some thoughts and comments about that.
1. Hindsight is 20-20. So, of course, Monday morning quarterbacking is easy to do, after all the facts are in.
2. My understanding is that the cops followed proper protocol (whatever that is). I am sure that proper protocols are instituted for a reason. And there is good reason (and expectation) that the cops follow these protocols. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. But, the people who really "know" about this stuff - and have expertise in this field - say that police followed proper protocol. So who are we, in the general public, to think that we know better than experts in the field?
3. The Police Commissioner (or Town Manager?) praised the cops and said that "it could have been worse". While his comments seemed insensitive, I also think that they were misinterpreted. I think he was saying "Thank God my officers caught these two scum bags right away". He wasn't saying "Well, even though three women were raped and murdered, I guess it could have been worse".
4. I don't believe that cops can just go barge in, Rambo-style, during a hostage crisis. Think about it. If they did, that would probably agitate the criminals (hostage-takers) even more. And it would probably prompt the hostage-takers to kill the hostages, when they otherwise might not have.
5. It is my understanding that Dr. Petit himself had high praise for the police department. I think that speaks volumes.
Thanks.
I think what the OP is trying to say is that there WERE proper protocol that even these 'inexperienced cops of small-town brutal home invasions' did NOT follow through with by common logical sense, let alone common techniques used in such a situation. The first thing they should have done was at least USE A BLOWHORN to notify the intruders that they were in fact out there waiting for them, and offer trading of services if they will comply appropriately, which is usually the first-response tactic when dealing with a barracade/invasion type situation. It could have deterred the intruders significantly from even carrying out their horrendous crimes. But no, they just sat there silently like the lazy, cowardly cops they were.
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But no, they just sat there silently like the lazy, cowardly cops they were.