This story perfectly illustrates the fallacy of "A Good Guy With A Gun".
Oh, you acted on impulse and did a little vigilante shit for us? Great - here's a fatal bullet wound in the back, courtesy of the cops you were "helping". Thanks. Anything you want us to tell your family?
A gun fight is ridiculously fluid and chaotic. The last thing the actual good guys need is for some random asshole with a gun and a Wyatt Earp complex to make it worse.
The Denver Post: (pay wall)
2 minutes, 20 gunshots, 3 dead: How the Olde Town Arvada shootings unfolded minute by minute
Law enforcement released some details over five months, but new documents paint fullest picture yet
Twenty gunshots exploded in Olde Town Arvada one Monday afternoon last June, shattering windows, killing three and undermining the sense of safety previously held by those who live and work nearby.
In less than two minutes, the scene turned from a pleasant summer day in suburbia to a cacophony of screams and sirens. Diners sitting outside restaurants in the Colorado sunshine heard shotgun pellets whiz by their ears. People in the busy commercial district hid behind dumpsters and in restaurant attics.
In the end, three men lay bleeding outside the library: a beloved police officer, a gunman intent on killing as many law enforcement officers as possible, and a nearby shopper with a legally concealed handgun who stepped in and prevented further bloodshed.
In the five months since the June 21 shootings, police and prosecutors have released information in fits and starts. But records obtained by The Denver Post after First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced on Nov. 8 that she would not prosecute the Arvada police officer who shot and killed “good Samaritan” Johnny Hurley offer the most complete picture of the chaos that day and how law enforcement responded.
The 1,090-page report includes interviews and accounts from dozens of law enforcement officers who responded to the scene as well as descriptions of radio traffic and witness interviews. Though Arvada police officers did not wear body cameras at the time of the shooting, The Post used the documents, surveillance videos and body camera footage from other responding agencies to piece together the following account of the chaotic scene.
“It was the absolute scariest thing I’ve been a part of in 15 years at this police department,” said one of the first officers on scene, whose name was redacted from the report. “I thought that I was going to have to either have to use lethal force or I was going to be murdered.”
One witness, a guitar teacher, told investigators he heard gunshots and saw Beesley fall. He fled as the sound of more gunfire echoed in the square.
“I was visualizing that Olde Town Square was a bloodbath,” the witness, whose name also was redacted, told police. “I was freaking out.”
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The piece goes on to detail the kind of cluster fuck we all knew was coming. And what we all know this is bound to happen again and again until we figure out how to sit down and hash out a few sensible rules to govern the sick shit growing from the worship of guns and violence here in USAmerica Inc.
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