slayings of cops rise

[hammAR]

As slayings of cops rise, a new brutality surfaces
'Hunter' mentality among killers raises concern across USA
By Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY

ODESSA, Texas — The bodies of two local police officers — both shot in the head — had just been removed from the backyard. A third lay mortally wounded at a hospital with a shotgun blast to the neck, when accused killer Larry Neil White calmly emerged from his weathered frame house and offered a chilling explanation for the early evening slaughter.

"You got these guys coming to your door," White told authorities, who originally went to his home on a domestic disturbance call. "What would you do?"

Never in the 73-year history of the Odessa Police Department had an officer been fatally shot in the line of duty. Nearly as striking, says Texas Ranger Capt. Barry Caver, was the "matter-of-fact" manner of the 59-year-old suspect who, before he was carted to jail, demanded that officers retrieve his glasses.

"I told him he didn't need any glasses where he was going," Caver says.

The shootings of Cpls. Arlie Jones, 48, Abel Marquez, 32, and Scott Gardner, 30, on Sept. 8 plunged this West Texas town into a state of grief that, more than a month later, continues to temper the giddiness of a new oil boom.

Their deaths are part of a rising number of fatal police shootings across the nation that have led police officials and law enforcement analysts to suggest that an increasing number of suspects are adopting a troubling disregard for cops. Miami Police Chief John Timoney describes the phenomenon as an emerging "hunter" mentality among criminals.

As of Tuesday, 60 officers had been fatally shot this year, up 54% from the same period last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund in Washington, D.C., which tracks officer fatalities. There already have been more fatal shootings of officers this year than in all of 2006, when there were 52 such slayings, a decline from 59 in 2005. The rate of police slayings began to accelerate in late 2006, and the trend has continued this year.

Police officials from departments across the country say they are confronting more combative suspects in situations ranging from robberies to routine traffic stops.

"There is a basic lack of respect for authority," says Caver, who is overseeing the Odessa investigation and has noticed a significant shift in attitudes in other Texas cities. "Lately, it seems like there is a brutality and a willingness to cross a line, to take a life, even if it is a police officer. The capacity is growing, and it is disturbing."

•Since March, five police agencies — in New York City; Bastrop, La.; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.; Monck's Corner, S.C.; and Henderson County, Texas — each have lost two officers in brutal attacks.

"To actively kill multiple cops is another animal altogether," says Craig Floyd, chairman of the memorial fund. "I can tell you that a lot of police chiefs are very concerned."

•At least one-third of the 60 victims this year were shot in the neck or head, including Clay City (Ky.) Police Chief Randy Lacy, who was killed June 13 by a drunken-driving suspect. The location of the wounds, some police officials say, could suggest the suspects had lethal intent because many officers wear body armor that better protects their torsos.

•In one of the worst assaults, South Carolina Constable Robert Lee Bailey was found May 19 after being fatally shot and buried in a shallow grave. Five days earlier, he had disappeared while on patrol. Investigators found Bailey's abandoned police cruiser burning in Lincolnville, S.C., about 5 miles from his last call, a traffic stop.

The escalating brutality has driven many police agencies, including Miami and the Orange County, Fla., sheriff's department, to provide more powerful guns to patrol officers, including military-style assault weapons. Others are moving toward updated communications systems to offer more information about potential suspects. The nation's largest association of police chiefs is urging Congress to enact a new ban on assault weapons such as some types of AK-47s.

Jack Levin, director of Northeastern University's Center on Violence and Conflict, says the police killings are a disturbing outgrowth of rising violence across the nation. In September, the FBI reported that violent crime had increased in 2006 for the second consecutive year after more than a decade of decline.

"With crime re-emerging, we are asking police to become more aggressive," Levin says. "They are confronting gang members and an increasing number of offenders released from prisons."

Many suspects, he says, have "little regard for the consequences of their actions. … They will shoot to kill."

More than a month after the Odessa police slayings, the house at 2912 Ventura Ave. still bears the scars of a vicious assault and a community's grief. The chain-link fence that once ringed Larry White's backyard is in a crumpled heap.

On a recent afternoon, curious local residents were still driving by White's home, a sign of lingering questions surrounding what neighbor Garry Givens, 51, describes as Odessa's "dog-day afternoon."

Caver gives the following account of the events of Sept. 8, based on interviews with witnesses and evidence collected from the scene:

Before the shooting started, Marquez and Jones responded to the disturbance call at White's house about 6:30 p.m.

White's wife, Judith, met the officers outside and told them her husband had struck her and had been drinking. According to local court records, Judith White had filed abuse complaints against her husband as early as 1996.

In the Sept. 8 incident, she told officers her husband had a knife and other firearms stored in a vehicle inside the closed garage. Caver says about six firearms, a mix of hunting rifles and handguns, were found later in the house.

After knocks at the front door went unanswered, Marquez and Jones went to the backyard. Investigators believe White, peering through the cracked opening of the back door, opened fire at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Caver believes Marquez fell first, hit with a blast in the left side of his neck. Jones was shot in the head. The first distress call came shortly after 6:30, when Marquez somehow gathered himself and spoke into a body microphone to summon help.

As backup officers arrived, they found Marquez, despite his grave wounds, standing near the front of the house covered in blood, his gun drawn. As gunfire again rang out, he lurched back toward the yard before he slumped near a patrol car.

Odessa Police Sgt. Pete Marquez, one of the backup officers, says his dazed brother was still trying to direct arriving officers as Pete bundled him into the patrol car that rushed him to the hospital.

At some point, another group of officers, including Gardner, was sent to the back of the house. Caver says they believed the shooter was incapacitated, based on information that Abel Marquez gave before he was whisked away.

As Gardner crept along the back wall of the home trying to locate White through a rear window, Gardner was shot in the head. After he fell, White tried to burst out the back door. He was driven back inside by officers returning fire.

About four hours later, the standoff ended. White, wounded slightly, surrendered and walked out the front door.

Besides the criminal investigation, Odessa Police Chief Christopher Pipes says, the case will be reviewed to determine whether the officers should have handled the situation differently. So far, Pipes and Caver say, the evidence suggests they acted appropriately.

White's attorney, Woody Leverett, did not respond to requests for comment.

Among the evidence investigators have reviewed is a videotape of Abel Marquez taken from a camera mounted inside the patrol car that rushed him to the hospital.

The video, aimed at the backseat where suspects usually sit, shows Marquez in apparent shock, gripping his gun, peering at wounds on his arm.

"He was moaning," Caver says. "He told the (driver) to roll the window down. He had this shocked look on his face. "Looking at that image, knowing that he later died, it's hard to watch."

Until the internal review of the officers' response is complete, Pipes says he'll hold off on making changes to department policy. Other law enforcement agencies, however, are bolstering their defenses, alarmed by the apparent increasing threat to officers.

In addition to pushing for a new ban on assault weapons, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) wants a ban on high-caliber sniper rifles and armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

A previous assault weapons ban expired in 2004, and proposals to reinstate it have been bitterly opposed by the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association.

Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, says, "There's no comprehensive evidence" to support the ban. "The focus should be on substantive reform, not on arbitrary proposals like this."

The IACP sees it differently. "For the first time in decades, more officers are being … killed with firearms than are being killed in car crashes," it said in an April report. "The startling statistics make plain the need for more protections for our officers and more action from policymakers to keep them safe."

Scott Knight, chairman of the IACP's firearms committee, says an informal survey of about 20 police agencies earlier this year showed that since the assault weapons ban expired, departments either have increased the number of weapons in officers' patrol units or upgraded to military-style arms.

"There is a bit of an arms race out there to outgun the criminals," says Knight, the police chief in Chaska, Minn. "There is a view that (suspects) are more prone to shoot first."

Knight cited an armored car robbery Oct. 4 in Philadelphia, where two guards, both former Philadelphia police officers, were killed in an apparent ambush by a gunman.

Because they were retired, the guards are not included in the official officer death count. But Knight says the shootings signify a more dangerous environment. He notes that recent anecdotal evidence suggests that suspects, especially in robberies, are more likely to use force against officers than in the past. "It is disturbing," he says.

After the March slayings of two officers, the Monck's Corner Police Department in South Carolina is trying to expand its communication system. The changes would give police and other first responders access to broader background information about potential suspects, says Capt. Mark Murray.

In Florida, after the fatal shooting of a Miami-Dade County officer Sept. 13, Miami Police Chief Timoney announced his officers could carry department-issued assault rifles if they completed training.

"We're seeing a huge increase in the number of AK-47s on the street," Timoney says.

"It reminds me of the early '90s back in New York," he says of the drug-fueled violence that plagued the city when he was its second-highest ranking police official. "Here we are again."

Less than a month after his brother was killed, Sgt. Pete Marquez was back on the street. Not long into his first shift, he was the first to respond to an armed robbery call.

Was there any hesitation?

"Not one bit," says the sergeant, whose surviving brother, Phillip, also is an Odessa officer. "I wanted to get back into the game."

Eager to return to something familiar, Marquez concedes everything felt different, draining. Every day, he thinks about his brother — and how he couldn't save him.

He seizes on an awful irony: Abel Marquez was supposed to be off that day but signed on to earn overtime pay.

Only recently have Pete Marquez's nightmares lessened in intensity. "I get up in the morning and I think it was all a bad dream, and then it hits you," he says. "That's been hard. It's still so hard to believe."

[justaguy]

A.

[Pinnacle]

At least it happened in Texas where there is a good chance White will be put to death.

How many assaults happen with AK/AR weapons? If there is such a big rise in it they must have the numbers for it. If it wasn’t for EBR’s the world would be safe.

No matter how I hat to admit it - there has been a rise in the prevalence of AR/AK related Police Assaults over the past couple of years.

It is not the guns - it is the simple fact that there are really hardened criminals out there that could frankly care less.

[chunkstyle]

It's still much safer to be a cop than to deliver pizzas.

[GregM]

It's still much safer to be a cop than to deliver pizzas.

That's a different topic.

[Fubar]

It's still much safer to be a cop than to deliver pizzas.

I've been seriously considering a career change lately and as a guy who likes to drive fast and receive the occasional discounted meal, I was throughly torn between pizza delivery and law enforcement. Thank you for your thoughtful insight into which path I should take. You may have saved my life.

[chunkstyle]

It's still much safer to be a cop than to deliver pizzas.

I've been seriously considering a career change lately and as a guy who likes to drive fast and receive the occasional discounted meal, I was throughly torn between pizza delivery and law enforcement. Thank you for your thoughtful insight into which path I should take. You may have saved my life.

Don't mention it. Free career advice is just another of those many, under appreciated acts that I do...

[Fast351]

No matter how I hat to admit it - there has been a rise in the prevalence of AR/AK related Police Assaults over the past couple of years.

It is not the guns - it is the simple fact that there are really hardened criminals out there that could frankly care less.

Which of course is true. As this story shows, a good ole fashioned 12 gauge is just as affective (if not more so) at killing than any "assault weapon".

Tell you the truth, I would rather take a closeup hit from a 5.56/7.39, than a 12 ga 00 round. The odds of survival are higher.

[chunkstyle]

No matter how I hat to admit it - there has been a rise in the prevalence of AR/AK related Police Assaults over the past couple of years.

It is not the guns - it is the simple fact that there are really hardened criminals out there that could frankly care less.

Which of course is true. As this story shows, a good ole fashioned 12 gauge is just as affective (if not more so) at killing than any "assault weapon".

Tell you the truth, I would rather take a closeup hit from a 5.56/7.39, than a 12 ga 00 round. The odds of survival are higher.

Much higher. The numbers I have seen say about a factor of 3.

[Pinnacle]

The popularity of Rifle Defeating Concealed Body Armor among Police is on the rise.

The entire threat scenario is shifting

[justaguy]

.

[Andrew Rothman]

John Caile called my attention last night to this article from the Force Science Research Center in Mankato about an FBI study of cop-shooters.

http://www.forcesciencenews.com/home/de ... ?serial=62

Here are some excerpts:

I. NEW FINDINGS FROM FBI ABOUT COP ATTACKERS & THEIR WEAPONS

New findings on how offenders train with, carry and deploy the weapons they use to attack police officers have emerged in a just-published, 5-year study by the FBI.

Among other things, the data reveal that most would-be cop killers:

--show signs of being armed that officers miss;

--have more experience using deadly force in "street combat" than their intended victims;

--practice with firearms more often and shoot more accurately;

WEAPON CHOICE.

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. What was available "was the overriding factor in weapon choice," the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun "because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being."

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws."

Nearly 40% of the offenders had some type of formal firearms training, primarily from the military. More than 80% "regularly practiced with handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year," the study reports, usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards and "street corners in known drug-trafficking areas."

One spoke of being motivated to improve his gun skills by his belief that officers "go to the range two, three times a week [and] practice arms so they can hit anything."

In reality, victim officers in the study averaged just 14 hours of sidearm training and 2.5 qualifications per year. Only 6 of the 50 officers reported practicing regularly with handguns apart from what their department required, and that was mostly in competitive shooting. Overall, the offenders practiced more often than the officers they assaulted, and this "may have helped increase [their] marksmanship skills," the study says.

SHOOTING STYLE.

Twenty-six of the offenders [about 60%], including all of the street combat veterans, "claimed to be instinctive shooters, pointing and firing the weapon without consciously aligning the sights," the study says.

"They practice getting the gun out and using it," Davis explained. "They shoot for effect." Or as one of the offenders put it: "[W]e're not working with no marksmanship....We just putting it in your direction, you know....It don't matter...as long as it's gonna hit you...if it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever....Once I squeeze and you fall, then...if I want to execute you, then I could go from there."

HIT RATE.

More often than the officers they attacked, offenders delivered at least some rounds on target in their encounters. Nearly 70% of assailants were successful in that regard with handguns, compared to about 40% of the victim officers, the study found. (Efforts of offenders and officers to get on target were considered successful if any rounds struck, regardless of the number fired.)

MIND-SET.

Thirty-six of the 50 officers in the study had "experienced hazardous situations where they had the legal authority" to use deadly force "but chose not to shoot." They averaged 4 such prior incidents before the encounters that the researchers investigated. "It appeared clear that none of these officers were willing to use deadly force against an offender if other options were available," the researchers concluded.

The offenders were of a different mind-set entirely. In fact, Davis said the study team "did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don't hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the next instant."

The numbers clearly show that if cops want to become better shooters, they should join street gangs!

I'm kidding...but it IS clear that violent criminal offenders, on the whole, take their shooting a lot more seriously than do police officers, on the whole. That doesn't seem to be working out too well for them.

Maybe we should sponsor a "take your local cop to the range" event?