Thinking out loud.

First, I love how everyone tells me about how careful I need to be because going to Cambodia is sooo dangerous or because Malaysia is Muslim or because Africa is, well, Africa. A couple of years ago my house was broken into and tore up right here in suburbia Colorado. The other day we had a full blown shootout effectively right here my neighborhood. The Denver Post even called us a “sheltered suburb”. Crazy people are everywhere.

The question I ponder today however is does it make sense to expend resources and bad press to conduct an investigation into the shootout? Apparently some folks saw the getaway car on the news and thought maybe the police were a bit overzealous with their gun fire. I saw that car myself, in person, and it was seriously shot up. But, according to police, they were fired on first when attempting to pull the bank robbers over and then fired further once actually stopping the car. In such a situation, is there such thing as too much fire? They were in the middle of town. But what do you do? Establish a precedent that if you rob a bank and then snap off a few shots at the cops, they will just let you go?

I think many cops (particularly younger, white, male ones as a gross generalization), abuse their power and think they are much hotter shit than they actually they are. I make no secret of that. But I think in this case, it was probably time for society to stand up a say we aren’t going to put up with this shit in our neighborhood.

Both cops were at least grazed, they were obviously under fire and their lives were endangered. The bystanders nearby needed to flat take cover. Bad stuff happens, this is the time to get the hell out of the way. And in the aftermath when the officers are asked why the car was so full of bullet holes and why there was that level of gun fire… I am inclined to tell them to answer “because that is how much ammunition I had”. Well done Westminster PD.