Delaware State Trooper Killed. It's personal when you live here

General The Pub
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Sorry, this isn’t vaping related, but stuff hits home, when it’s close to home. State trooper pulls over vehicle, getting ID’s, passenger jumps out, shoots trooper who attempts to obtain cover behind vehicle, suspect follows (as trooper is retreating) and fires more rounds. Trooper critical, civilians perform CPR on trooper, suspect fleets on foot for for 15 miles to his parents home, exchanges gun fire with troopers for approaching 20 hours from inside home. No one else in home, suspect continues to fire on troopers. Governor (assumed) will not allow troopers to apprehend suspect firing on them from within home. 20 hours later, suspect leaves home, armed, firing on troopers and is killed.

Everyone here may or may not love Police officers, but they have a really rough gig. Please note, Trooper and suspect were both black, so no need to delve into alternate narratives. Tragic loss of life. Had friends who were in the Wawa parking lot when this went down, and some may never be the same. Prayers go out to the newly married Trooper’s family. Had the opportunity to pull over and speak with a few Troopers today. Very sad time for many of us in the “Small Wonder” state of Delaware.

If you see an officer, trooper in your area, give’m a thanks, most of them deserve it.

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I saw that on my local news this afternoon. How far is Middletown from Camden? I was just there a month ago.

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Well the shootout was up near us in Bear, then (who’d a thunk it) the suspect fled on foot 15 miles south to Middletown, then the rest happened. Camden is just a little south of Dover, which is about 50 minutes south of us, so Camden is probably about 30 minutes south of Middletown.

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There’s not enough money in the world to pay me to deal with the crazies out there… :pensive: I have much respect for those individuals who do it because they love it, feel the need, and shoulder the responsibility to keep the rest of us safe.

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On a side note, we do have many armed citizens up here (some of whom should NOT, and are illegal hence this entire story), some with CCW and some without. There are a LOT of running conversations up here regarding, what if an armed citizen with a CCW was able to intervene on the Trooper’s behalf, and eliminate the threat, would said citizen be a hero, or ???

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That Sucks. It’s a shame that our Police Men and Women have been so demonized lately. I know there are some bad apples as with any group but this is getting out of hand.

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Roger that Louie, wasn’t really sure if I should have posted this or not, even in the Pub, but after talking to people who were actually in the parking lot when it happened, and watching the local reaction(s), and talking to a few Delaware Troopers, just couldn’t help myself.

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Very sad world we live in right now.
I have great admiration for anyone willing to be a cop these days.

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If most people knew how many of these criminals have mental illness issues, they would fall over. I’m not by any means justifying the shooters actions but about 85% of the people in prison are seriously mentally ill or developmentally disabled. If you think about what kind of mind it takes to shoot an officer, I mean come on - they are sick. Cops get paranoid because they know most violent people they deal with are mentally ill and unpredictable.

Before Kennedy was the President a lot of these folks would be put in mental hospitals but funding was cut and the states had to close the mental hospitals. Mental hospitals kept a lot of crazy people out of the general public with these violent tendencies before they killed someone.

There are always going to be a statistical part of the population with these problems and it comes down to cost. Prison is cheaper so even though they know a person is not right in the head when they are young and acting crazy the long term prognosis for that type of individual is a prison pipeline. The problem with this social crime management model “is” this incident with this officer. In the prison model they have to “wait” until they do kill someone to incarcerate them.

There’s no words, his family is going to be broken in spirit for years.

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@Maureeenie all valid points, and we DO have a serious “hole” in our mental heath system for sure. I’ve had time to reflect on this incident more now, and have talked to even more people who either witnessed it personally, who lived in the area, and more state troopers. We do have a high TARD factor on some who are posting locally on the story, and have gone off track, and missed the big points here.

If you want to dive deep, compare how society would benefit from each of the victim and/or perp had they survived. One who serves and protects the public, vs. the perp. No real contest there. It turns out the perp. had already been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon in FL, and he didn’t seem to learn his lesson, which is a shame. Many comments from neighbors, or people who knew the perp. stating “good christian family”, etc. Common to hear that. What IS different than so many other of these cases, is when the perp called his family to inform them of what he had done, and that he was returning to their home, the family immediately called the police. They didn’t try to hide/harbor him, get him out of state, etc. To my knowledge this rarely happens (at least up here), so God bless the family for doing the right thing.

What no one up here can figure out, is after the perp shot the trooper and he was retreating (remember daytime, packed parking lot, tons of witnesses), why didn’t the perp just leave, escape, exit the scene ?? Why follow the trooper who was wounded/retreating ? Doesn’t really matter, but that’s the hot topic up here now. Because the house was damaged in relation to a felony, there will be NO money paid for the damage, no insurance coverage, no restitutions made. So now the family not only has to live with the guilt/shame, and the loss, but now really have no home.

I’m bringing up these “other” facts, as they often get lost in the mix, beyond the obvious loss of life.

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Having spent 12 years is a police member I would say and this is from experience (no firearms involved as ccw is just not available here for anyone) that for every person that steps in and helps police there is one who steps in and while attempting to help actually inflames or escalates a situation. That said if a police member was in danger of losing his or her life and someone stepped in and saved them then for sure they would be treated as a hero (particularly over here in AU not so sure about the U.S. and I am not qualified to comment)

Having been flamed on this board for expressing and opinion involving firearms before I am reluctant to comment on ccw so i will not.

When I was a police member 4 police lost their lives from direct action of a criminals (one of whom I counted as a close friend) many many more lost their lives due to depression and stress.

Having seen first hand the damage the loss of another police member does to family and colleagues my heart goes out to his family and his work mates.

Family second guess themselves and choices that their lost family member made, his colleagues - working police get a little more careful (or paranoid).

If you live in Delaware you need to remember that even though the offender has been caught the police will be on edge.

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Regardless of AU or US, I find your perspective and comments valuable to this discussion. The troopers I spoke with had two responses, the “offical” response, and the “not” response. I used to have a CCW in a different state, but never re-upped or reciprocated it. Officially the police do not want hoards of untrained civilians creating a crossfire, or injuring other civilians due to a lack of tactical training, etc. You COULD indeed turn a bad situation worse, then when other police respond you have armed perps. and armed civilians, which is just a hot mess waiting to happen. With all of that said, and respected as valid, many CCW’s here are indeed trained, regularly train on ranges, and tactical courses, and more. So even if the police’s “official” stance is “Don’t get involved”, and looking past possible infractions such as “discharging a weapon in public”, and “public endangerment”, the “unoffical” response was if you can intervene, safely, and save an officer’s life, that’s not a bad thing.

I am a civilian, not an officer, so MY stance on CCW will clearly differ from an officer’s point of view. Guns can’t solve everything, and many times they can make things WORSE, especially in untrained hands, or in the hands of a criminal. Those facts being accepted, we can all agree there are many people who should NOT have them as well. Reality IS reality, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be to some people. Some people are bad people, and will do bad things, unless they are stopped. Perhaps I’ll get flamed, perhaps not, but because this situation was literally on my own doorstep, these other questions came to mind.

@woftam I do appreciate your perspective, and comments.

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Sorry for the uninterested members, for the NON-vaping skew here…

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We are in the pub, we can talk about cops, guns, rainbows and unicorns if we like.

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Whew, thank God, I’ve been waiting forever to post this…

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See… everything has a purpose. You need to imbed a rainbow in that image and we are covered.

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lol… yep that’s the one!

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