Murder in Utah
11January 18, 2011 by J. Madson
I dont want to detract from katy’s excellent post below and Im sure many of you have already seen the video released by the SL tribune today but I think its important for people to see the “war on drugs” firsthand and some of its victims. For some more insight into our criminal justice system you can look at these prior posts
Im not sure whether we should call this police brutality or the probably more apt description of murder. You can read more details here
The Mormon Worker 
Wow. Just wow. The police officer shot him without hesitation, almost like he decided beforehand that he was going to start shooting. The victim was ten feet away with a golf club and not particularly threatening in any way. Incredibly disturbing.
Murder, pure and simple. The killer said he was pleased with his training. “It did the job,” he said of his ammo.
I’d like to know if the killer, Sgt Burnette, was LDS. Wouldn’t surprise me.
Have any of you been awakened in the night, by loud noises? This man obviously, just like me, thought in his just awakened state, thought that these “thugs”were burglars or worse!
Looks like in his sad final moments, that this is exactly how the scenario played out.
Thugs DID enter his home to hurt or kill him. They did just that.
How very tragic.
It is a haunting video for me personally. I try to think how I would feel if it was my child that was murdered in such a way. The police acted as judge and jury and passed a death sentence on someone’s child because he allegedly had taken some drugs. It is so revealing the callousness and sense of judgment
Here is an article published in Sept, 2010. You can compare what the police claimed versus what the video shows.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700066160/Roy-man-shot-and-killed-during-police-drug-raid.html
quote:
The first officer through the door was confronted by a man carrying a golf club.
“That suspect had a club, had it raised above his head, went towards the officer in an attacking motion,” said Roy Police Chief Greg Whinham.
Fearing that either he or his colleagues were in imminent danger, the officer fired, fatally striking the man.
“Had the officer not made a decision and taken action at that moment that he did, there would have been grave results,” the chief said…
Whinham said if he had been faced with the same circumstances, he would have fired, too.
“If you take whatever the club might be, the mechanism — golf club, pipe, ax handle — it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “The fact is, what can be the result, and in this case the result could have caused a lot of serious injury and potentially death to that officer or others that were trying to do what we have them do in our communities.”
In 1987 Pat Morita starred as Lt. Ohara, a cop who never used a gun, in a TV show that lasted one year. I guess that it couldn’t compete with the more violent shows in the same genre.
I wonder there are any cops who had Ohara as a role model.
Did anybody else regret the demise of that show?
the shooting was bad, yeah… but it would be suicidal to think you can slap on a bobby hat and a night stick and confront suspected and possibly armed criminals in the U.S.
Wow. Talk about a fearsome dude with a club over his head. With all that man power behind them, it sure doesn’t look like they took much time to “assess the threat” before pounding his body with bullets. It’s much easier to kill, then ask questions later, then not – it seems. ;(
True NonNom—btw I really appreciate your acronym NOM
Good grief. That was an awful thing to see.
Very disturbing – causes you to wonder who the goodies are – and question authority.
5 Forest. In Australia we have a choice of watching American, British or Australian cop shows. There is a different attitude to the perpetrator if the police are not carrying guns. The British cop shows are best with more character development, more reality(the goodies don’t always win or even win your sympathy)and less violence.