Florida Cop Empties His Gun, Runs For Cover After Acorn Falls On Car and Mistakes It For Shots Fired
Florida deputy Jesse Hernandez screamed “shots fired,” and frantically fired his gun after an acorn fell onto the roof of his squad car, making him jump.
Headline is kind of funny, but I wanted to know what he shot at
In body cam footage shared across social media, the officer was seen jumping to the ground and shouted “shots fired” after the acorn strikes the roof of his car. He then turned and emptied every bullet from his gun, each aimed squarely at his squad car.
Funny again...
While Hernandez fired on the car, Marquis Jackson, who was accused of stealing his girlfriend’s car, was in the back of the police cruiser. Officers had searched, handcuffed and loaded the accused into the back of the police car and, despite being cuffed, it was Jackson that the officer thought was shooting at him.
Nope, he was trying to kill someone handcuffed in the back of his squad car and had already been searched for weapons.
Cop should at least be facing reckless endangerment, if not attempted murder.
He also yelled "I'm hit" while unloading on his own vehicle.
Same as when they think they're doing on fentanyl...
After hearing the sound of the acorn, the deputy reported that he also felt a “tingliness” all along the side of his body. He then said his “legs just give out” and he fell to the ground, assuming that he had been seriously injured by something.
Because of this, the video also showed Hernandez complaining about feeling “weird” and shouting to his colleague that he’s been hit. It’s all very dramatic.
Cops are constantly terrified because of their training, so they panic and mistake a panic attack for something else.
Being a cop sucks so much (because of their own leadership and culture) that good qualified people do t want to be a cop. So we end up with these fragile snowflakes that shouldn't be allowed to carry at all. Let alone be a cop
"It hit my vest" and "I feel weird". Them be signs that his fat ass has coronary artery disease. Fucking Okaloosa County. Good riddance. Don't miss it.
I deal with PTSD vets every day so I understand the snap buuuuut.... No one else gets to get away with a slap on the wrist because of their mental illness so fuckem
And most of us would still wait for an actual target in a built up area.
See I'm like, I don't even think you could qualify most of the things you would do to this guy as being punishment. Preventing this guy from being a cop forever (pretty unlikely, but could happen), isn't really a punishment. If he's discharging his firearm into his own car, he's obviously just unfit to be an officer and that's a pretty clear safety concern. If you sent him to prison, that might be more of a "punishment", but that's also, you know, what cops do basically their whole careers, is send people to prison, and we still have all the same problems with the prison system as we've always had, so, you know, I'm like. I dunno. That doesn't seem like a clear "win", to me, both in terms of improving society and in terms of helping him out if he's mentally ill which, you know, seems to clearly be the case, here.
You could also maybe think, hey, this guy goes to an asylum or something for mental illness, but that kind of has the same problems as sending someone to prison, it's not usually a helpful system.
No where in the article does it mention PTSD.
Cop should at least be facing reckless endangerment, if not attempted murder.
The review board found his conduct was not reasonable; so, it'll be up to the prosecutor (which I'm sure in FL is an office eager to go after cops). The other officer, who began shooting after the officer wearing the bodycam in the OP began shooting, was found to have acted reasonably.
Essentially, you can't think an acorn is a bullet and get away with shooting at a detained and secured civilian. But, if another officer on scene thinks, even unreasonably so, that an acorn is a bullet and starts shooting at a detained and secured civilian, you can too. If this doesn't make a lot of sense to you, take that as reassurance that your critical thinking remains, at least partially, intact.
Nah, it kind of makes sense for the second guy.
Remember, he's not getting triggered by the acorn, he's reacting to his coworker yelling that they've been shot and actual gunfire. That's a justified reason to pull out your weapon IMO
Granted, he should've tried to take control of the situation and de-escalate so he could "save" his panicked coworker, but that kind of calmness "under fire" would take actual training
Essentially, you can’t think an acorn is a bullet and get away with shooting at a detained and secured civilian. But, if another officer on scene thinks, even unreasonably so, that an acorn is a bullet and starts shooting at a detained and secured civilian, you can too. If this doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, take that as reassurance that your critical thinking remains, at least partially, intact.
IIRC Sympathetic Fire seems to be insta-forgiveness (by other police and the courts) whenever it comes up.
As one example, I think it played a role in the Daniel Shaver case, but it's been a long time since I read all those details and I really don't want to dive into that pool of anger and sadness again to verify.
Keep in mind, this is Florida. It is perfectly legal to murder anybody if you can prove that you felt threatened.
If a random loud bang from an acorn falling nearby is enough to get someone to behave like this, they really should not be walking around with a gun. This is completely insane and unhinged behavior.
theres no reason for most officers to be lethally armed their entire shift.
they are trained the exact opposite; be afraid of everything and empty the clip. ask questions later.
this cop behaved as he was trained
Fun fact: ‘police officer’ isn’t even in the top 10 most dangerous professions in the US. It’s solidly beat by things like garbage collector, delivery driver, maintenance worker, and pilot. None of those professions typically carry weapons on the job.
Lots of police officers were former bullies with an inferiority complex. Some are wusses who only feel powerful because they’re carrying a deadly weapon.
Another fun fact: police in several other western countries don’t carry deadly weapons and yet are able to do their jobs just fine.
American police are trained to think everything and everyone is against them, through programs like David Grossman’s Killology course. Weird how a program designed to teach recruits to kill without empathy would result in people killing without empathy.
Elsewhere, police are learning de-escalation tactics, but police in the US are learning escalation.
It’s absurd, and leads to scared, trigger-happy morons shooting at acorns.
e: missed a word
What was he shooting at? This man just blindly ptied his gun at something or someone he couldnt see!
He was shooting at the unarmed suspect cuffed and trapped in the back of the police car.
Read the story.
From the body cam footage it was quite a soft bang
I want to stress that I am in no-way attempting to excuse this cop, nor am I suggesting that there is any reasonable way to confuse the sound of an acorn with the sound of a gunshot. Even if there were, there is no justification for blindly "returning fire" in the general direction of the noise. That is so batshit crazy a scenario that it is completely irredeemable. This cop needs to be in prison.
That being said, I do want to comment on the capabilities of recording and playback. They completely lack the dynamic range necessary to make any sort of reasonable judgment on the intensity of the "bang". What we hear in the video and what the officer heard in real life are two completely different things.
I have heard black walnuts (golf ball to tennis ball sized outer shell) hitting vehicles at close range. While they certainly can't be reasonably confused with a gunshot, they are startlingly loud.
Again, I want to stress: completely unreasonable that an acorn hitting the cruiser could be confused for a gunshot, and criminally stupid to fire in the general direction of the noise.
Kinda sounds like PTSD or anxiety or something.
That doesn't make it ok. Just ml saying police need more support and supervision.
And yet the most surprising thing about the story is that the bodycam footage was released, smh
Likely to protect the cop/department too, since he shot at his own car that already had a disarmed, detained suspect inside. He very nearly killed someone that was already a non-threat. If the body cam footage got out it might make people think their cops are negligent or improperly trained! /ghasp
It's like a business. If the liability rests with their officer and they are afraid of a lawsuit causing significant political blowback they are going to take action against the officer to minimize their liability. Hearing about an officer doing something like this and then leaving the force means there is nothing left for them to take action for.
If he didn't resign, perhaps it would be slightly harder for the chief a town over to hire the guy, but since he resigned he may have minimal marks on his record.
I'd bet a thousand bucks this guy gets another job as a cop within 1yr though.
Of all the stupid that exists in Florida, they actually have pretty powerful open records laws.
It's actually one of the reasons Florida has the "Florida Man" reputation. We know more about what's happening there.
More like that it was on in the first place.
Not even close. The most surprising thing is that the cop resigned, by far.
He resigned when he knew he was going to be fired. Probably easier to look for a job in another department before the dust settles.
Obtaining a barber license means that you have completed a minimum of 1,250 hours of instruction in barbering education within a period of at least 9 months or completed 1,250 hours of training. It takes 1,250 to 2,000 hours to be a cosmologist. Police in Germany get 2.5 years of training, and in Finland, police education takes three years to complete. Police in the USA get 750 hours.
Plus, it's one of the few jobs that will disqualify you for being too smart.
cosmologist
uh... this is why we didn't approve of the word "cosmetology". It takes more than 2000h to be a publishing cosmologist/astronomer.
Our brave boys in blue, ladies and gentlemen.
There are 22 jobs in the U.S. statistically more dangerous than being a cop.
Cowards. So many of them are cowards.
And the leading cause of injury/fatality for police officers by far: vehicle accidents. Not being shot at.
Also COVID for a couple of years there as they refused to wear masks in most cases.
Bullies are always cowards.
That's why they form a gang, because the only way they can feel strong is if they outnumber you.
That's why it takes fifteen fucking cops to "deal with" a single homeless person in a public park who isn't bothering anybody.
If they do that during the day, with enough people around, people will whip out their phones to record the cops and the cops will give up and leave and stop harassing.
If they do it during the evening, and there's not very many people around, and only one person whips out their phone.... The cops will arrest the person who whipped out their phone, too, because they outnumber them.
Yep, and this is just tracking mortality. You would think, oh hey maybe they look better if you included things like workplace violence......nope. Pretty much 80% of work place violence happens to healthcare workers and social workers.
So pretty much every healthcare worker has experienced more violence in their work than police officers. I've had patients take swings at me in my hospital, it's a fairly natural response to being in pain, on drugs, or disoriented. But just because your occupation has the potential to introduce you to a violent environment, that doesn't justify your own participation in it.
I’m a very nonviolent and nonconfrontational person, but I once had a boil in a sensitive spot lanced without adequate pain control, and it took all my self control to not FIGHT it. Stone cold sober, knowing it needed to be done, my body physically wanted to fight the doctor to make it stop. It’s nuts to expect someone who’s not completely there for whatever reason to be completely in control of that instinct, but it’s what cops expect people to do.
Cops will taser or shoot you before you can take a swing at them. Healthcare workers and delivery drivers don't get tasers and guns.
Looking forward to my next traffic stop so I can mention that crossing guards have a more dangerous job than cops 🫡
- Small engine mechanics
Fatal injury rate: 15 per 100,000 workers
Total deaths (2018): 8
Salary: $37,840
Most common fatal accidents: Transportation incidents, violence and other injuries by persons or animals
What the absolute fuck?
Crossing guards being on a list with derrick operators and power linemen is a disturbing commentary on our road infrastructure priorities.
Virtually every main cause of death on this list is falling or getting struck by a vehicle.
Yes. A lot of them also involve being killed by the machines they use too. Safety measures can only go so far.
Everyone, stop what you are doing and check your local police department for this guy.
During the course of the investigation into the shooting, deputy Herandez resigned from the force.
He is out there somewhere, getting scared and shooting at his own car.
Yeah. Both he and his partner opened fire without a clear sight of a target.
It's easy to shit on cops but I hope the guy is okay. It kinda sounded like he resigned after self-realizing how this is not an okay situation. He's probably been in a handful of fucked up situations to be triggered like that tbh.
Either that or he's actually retarded.
I do hope he gets the treatment he needs. It is not normal behavior.
I also don't want him with a gun near a school, mall, or any other place with lots of bystanders. Not until he has a good record of not overreacting.
I’m sorry, this is fucked up and I shouldn’t be laughing, but you really can’t make this shit up
What’s more, in his body cam footage you can clearly see the acorn fall into frame and strike the roof of his car. When asked if this was the sound he heard, Hernandez had this to tell investigators:
“I’m not gonna say no, because I mean that’s, but what I, [10 second pause in speaking] what I heard [3 second pause in speaking] sounded almost like [12 second pause in speaking] what I heard sounded what I think would be louder than an acorn hitting the roof of the car, but there’s obviously an acorn hitting the roof of the car.”
So has he been tested for drugs already?
Guy served two tours overseas.
I think it's kinda fucked up to laugh at what clearly seems like a PTSD attack. He shouldn't be a cop, and it's a good thing he resigned, but you shouldn't mock someone for this. Even if it's super easy to.
Yeah I know, taken out of context it’s really funny but it’s not when you consider the circumstances.
I hope he actually resigned and found a safer job instead of just being moved to another department and that the mental health checks for cops get better, but I’m not holding my breath for the second one.
Thanks for that. You really captured it
Top comment really nails it:
This is unironically the most embarrassing video I have seen in my entire life. I am not exaggerating at all. I would kill myself if there were footage of me acting like this. Dude gets scared by an acorn, does a Max-Payne-backwards-dive, unloads 20 roads into his own car (luckily not murdering the unarmed guy in the back of it), does some horrid Arnold-Schwarzenegger impression while crawling over the floor bawling his eyes out, and then forces an armed stand-off with literally no one. Actually absolutely insane, the most unhinged behaviour I have ever had the pleasure to witness.
"SHOTS FIRED!"
(combat roll)
"SHOTS FIRED! SHOTS FIRED! SHOTS FIRED!" (still rolling around)
(gets up, unleashes hail of bullets at the car with his partner pretty much directly downrange)
(slight pause, beat of silence)
(falls backwards into the road)
"Eaaahhh!"
(fires several more times, now lying on his side in the road)
"I'm hit! I'm hit!
(fires until his gun is empty)
(his partner asks something)
"What?"
"Ablbla! Abinica!" (crawling across the road now) "In the car! Ow!"
(catches his breath, taking cover behind a different car)
(after a while, his partner comes nearby, frantically asking if he's okay)
"I'm good! I feel weird! But I'm good!"
Wow. Listen to those screams of traumatized neighbors as he continues to claim he was hit ~1:35/1:40 in. Can't tell if it's the other cop yelling at screaming people to stay back, or a mother yelling at her screaming child to stay back or what.
And that guy in the car - they're just going to shrug and say "my bad" about the fact that if the cop was even the slightest bit competent with that firearm he'd be dead?
That's nuts
Thank you.
Headlines like this are often a stretch, if not outright BS. Read the story. The headline does not begin to do justice as to how fucked up this was.
Even better, watch the video without any sort of narration or commentary.
Lul, that was a good suggestion. He 'felt weird', hid out of the acorn way (with some epic fat-rolling), still decided his car needed suppressive fire and get shot (maybe) multiple times (I guess fancy red-dot sights don't improve skills like they show us in vidya games?). Just perfect.
But the cherry on top will be his inevitable medal, promotion, lifetime rent for emotional damage suffered, and a whole bunch of murders he will commit (after all, anyone could be hiding acorns, or perhaps would have at some point in the future, can't take that chance).
This story pairs nicely with the other one that's currently trending.
Florida Legislator Files Bill That Would Keep Killer Cops From Being Named And Shamed
This dipshit is what they want to protect so he can just go work in another district and kill someone else.
Police aren't brave, they 're the biggest cowards in societies, and we let them kill without consequence... This should frighten you
One of the biggest reasons I'm glad I did an enlistment in the Army is having got a couple years experience in Iraq to genuinely understand what a fucking joke American cops are.
Can we please stop pretending Twitter is a video hosting platform? It's not, the links never work. When you only include Twitter video in the article it's like not including the video at all.
Thank you
I mean it’s a website that hosts videos as part of the services it offers. And the video loads fine on mobile and desktop. I would check your network or browser settings. Unless it’s hosted by the actual article writer, hosting it somewhere is basically another social media.
The only thing more dangerous than a Florida man is a Florida cop.
Isn't that just a Florida man with a gun tho...
No, it's Florida man with a badge.
What a very composed and calm individual that is perfectly suited for a job as a public servant.
Unpopular opinion: Cop pay and training is inadequate. If you want professional cops, you need to hire professional people and train them professionally. The only people that apply to become officers are morons and the power hungry. People with integrity don't apply because the money is shit.
Any job that trades money for fraternity is a job that's garbage. And boy oh boy are cop houses frats.
I'm a combat veteran and the fact that cops aren't held to half the standards I was drives me nuts.
Vet as well that worked with a few police departments and was planning to transfer to a department post service. I was completely dismayed that I had better training in every single aspect of policing than the departments I had worked with, as a combat arms trade.
Needless to say, but I didn't become a cop.
they dont want professional cops.
They want hyper aggressive bullies that have no problem with getting down and dirty with the corruption.
Profesionals would be a threat to cops. Which is why they try so hard not to hire anyone that would actually be qualified for such work.
Cops in my area get paid about 70-100K USD yearly, but it's a high cost of living area. Sergeants and above, though, make bank. We're taking $120K and above. They're just as shitty as cops in the sticks. It's anecdotal, but I wonder if fixing income alone has little effect.
The median gross pay among Seattle PD’s more than 2,000 employees 2020 was about $153,000, not including benefits, with 374 employees grossing at least $200,000 and 77 making at least $250,000
Income and proper mental health management as well as proper holiday/forced holiday's post stressful engagements.
That's a fun myth not at all backed up by fact.
My job is orders of magnitude more dangerous and I make less than an officer with the same amount of experience.
For reference average around here is ≈40k while an officer with equivalent experience to me is 90-100k.
There should be a 2 year criminal justice degree requirement. It requires more schooling to be a fucking barber than it does to be an armed police officer, and a massive number of them couldn't quote basic laws, let alone explain them.
I would also posit there needs to be at least 6 months of situational simulations in proper threat engagement and another 4 months in situation de-escalation training. The fact I had more peace-officer training as a combat arms trade is ludicrous.
There's vastly more to being an officer of the law than just hitting the target range and that shows with the number of issues presented every year.
Cop pay and training is inadequate
For what though? That's the problem. They have to do a lot of different things, and they're not trained well in any of them.
They have to deal with homeless people who are trespassing. They have to deal with people having mental issues. They have to deal with domestic disturbances. They have to deal with violent crime. They have to investigate thefts. It's really a grab-bag of different jobs, and they're not trained well in any of them.
Making it worse, the training they do receive focuses on violent crime. And, in particular, the training is how to survive the most violent possible criminal who is actively trying to kill them. That's what the TV shows are all about, but it's not what the job is about 99.99% of the time. Only 27% of officers say they have ever fired their guns in their entire careers. If they're always thinking about this worst-case scenario, they're not going to be doing very well at any of the other jobs.
And from what I've been lead to understand from people who discuss policing issues in the US, cops are made to feel terrified of those 'worst case scenarios'. Fear is instilled deep, deep in their psyches and it is pervasive in every facet of their work.
My city actually has a whole segment of cops who are unarmed that focus on the less risky aspects of policing. This specialization could help.
Any human with a job should have a living wage and proper training imo. Cops are no different.
I don't think that training (of which they have a lot, most of it to my knowledge teaches them that they are at war with citizens and always in danger) is the entire answer.
We need to figure out what we want cops to do.
To my knowledge:
So, why do we have them? They seem to be an armed gang that waits for us to commit a traffic infraction and then write us a ticket and possibly kill us or steal our property. They have no duty to protect us from criminals or disasters and if they get scared and kill us, at worse they transfer to a new department.
I think we need law enforcement and police, but the current system is irrecoverably broken imo. They have had decades to reform themselves and haven't done so unless under duress from a court. We need to rethink why we have them and what their job is. Indeed if we want them to have a dangerous job where they protect us from "things" and put themselves in harms way they need to be compensated properly, but I don't think we can fix the current system.
I got off on a tangent, my apologies.
So, why do we have them?
I think it's a pretty common narrative that police agencies came about as a result of slave catchers and strikebreakers, thought I'm not sure to what extent that's true, and to what extent that's been the case with, say, police in the UK, or other countries, who obviously still have police forces with different reputations than those in the US.
In any case, even if the narrative might not necessarily be accurate, it's still somewhat reflective, to me, at least, of what police are supposed to do in the modern day. They have no duty to protect citizens, they steal our property, they can kill us, and they're immune to the law. They are the law, is basically what it is. They are an armed gang, they're an armed gang that the city pays in order to manage all other forms of violence which might happen in the city, even systemic violence which the city might create from, intentional or otherwise, resource mismanagement. They deal with the homeless, and mentally ill, and push them into a prison system where for-profit and public prisons can use them for free labor and generally lock them away into chaotic, meaningless, and authoritarian microcosms of society.
We also need homelessness to be rampant as a kind of threat, which we can levy against labor, since a population which can quit their jobs and go and still have a house obviously has more leverage against their employers, a higher capacity to unionize and strike. Homelessness also means housing is in more demand which helps drive up housing prices as long as you are trafficking the homeless away from the housing, when, otherwise, homelessness would generally decrease the value of the housing in a neighborhood since they would just kinda stick around, being, even formerly, embedded and tied to a community. Drugs need to be illegal as a form of protection on intellectual property laws, enforced at the behest of pharmaceutical companies, who want to monopolize particular sectors of the market, and sell to our extremely privatized hospitals at an absurdly high premium. The police serve these interests, and more. That's their purpose. They just exist as an extension of society and serve it's whims. They exist, basically, to maintain status quo, good, or, in this case, bad.
Currently the police nationwide live up to the saying 'police exist to protect home prices, not lives'
The money is only shit if you're ethical. https://divestspd.substack.com/p/nearly-50-seattle-patrol-officers
Cops in central IL were making 100k+ easy in 2010. Who knows what that is now. It is pretty good money compared to similar training and risk.
Afaict the money is pretty good.
You're totally right about the training though.
I haven't done a nationwide investigation personally, just several areas I looked into and a couple that reached out toward the end of my service had dogshit pay for the level of stress.
They literally reject candidates who are too intelligent.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
I think it's kind of a multi-tiered issue. What you say is true, but police are also kind of structured in the way they are in the US because we have so many issues that we basically use them as a band-aid for, so we spread them very thin and kind of go with a quantity over quality approach. Which hasn't ended up working out very well, except in that, sometimes, and particularly for your white middle class neighbors that are going to call the cops for a noise complaint, cops appearing is basically the only thing that they needed to do. It's just for security theater, just so you can have an interlocutor that can do all the work of dealing with someone else for you, at your behest. A cop is just kind of meant to be around in order to make your dwindling population of middle class white people feel safe, more than they're supposed to actually make everyone safe. Such is why private institutions in a lot of places basically just have their own LARP cops in the form of security guards, who just stand around 95% of the time, and eat up way more in salary than they would save from product losses, or increased insurance premiums on product.
You pair this with the actual built environment in a lot of places, where cops have to be even more spread out than they otherwise would be, enforcing traffic tickets and shit like that, and it's kind of an obvious formula for a shitshow. Even if you gave police departments just straight up more money, three times as much, you'd still probably see complaints that they're underfunded, because they'd just spend all the money on hiring more people, and more equipment, rather than making a smaller number of people who are maybe better equipped to deal with, say, psychological problems that somebody might have. And obviously, in such a case, you're not going to get a better return on investment, than had you, say, dumped all the money into infrastructure that could've benefited your community, created jobs, lifted people out of poverty, and decreased the systemic causes of crime.
It's not that they don't get enough training. They are trained to do the wrong things. A lot of their training is basically desensitizing to shooting at people. They are trained like soldiers: you see something - shoot at it. They should be trained in de-escalating instead. No additionally to the desensitizing, instead.
As a former soldier who has worked with officers they are 100% not trained anything like us.
Your comment is entirely baseless and comes from someone who doesn't actually understand nor have any experience in either policing or military service.
"Desensitization" is not a specific course offered by either services. The entire point of training in military service is to 'train how you fight' there is NO desensitization training, there is training that promotes self control, self discipline and of course trigger discipline, learning when not to shoot is as important as learning when to shoot.
Police are given inadequate training in all avenues and if they had anything remotely resembling military training (especially our de-escalation and negotiation training) they wouldn't be even a quarter as trigger happy as they are currently.
Was the dude they had the in the back of the car hit? They just casually mention they had a guy in the back of the car and that's who they were shooting at but then just never bring him up again.
That is incredibly fortunate and I am happy they are unhurt. However, that isn't really a better situation imo. That means that the cop fired multiple shots and never managed to hit their target. That puts them in danger if they ever are in a fire fight, and dangerous for everyone nearby who isn't who they are trying to shoot.
Officer Scaredy Pants is luckily a very, very bad shot, as are his fellow officers.
Did I miss what's been done about this? Surely he has been fired and disqualified from ever working in LE again. And surely the handcuffed person in the back of the police car has been offered therapy for the PTSD he must suffer from? (sadly, /s)
Yeah, the Jalopnik article is shamefully written. The cop wasn't shooting at his car, he was shooting at a handcuffed suspect in his car. Regardless of his terrible aim, his intent in that moment was to kill a man because he imagined that he had been shot so hard that he actually fell down. When the New York Post gets gets it more accurate, you know the journalism is bad.
What's even more horrifying about the situation is that another officer on scene also started shooting even though she didn't fully know what was going on. Oh, actually, not just an officer, she was a sargent. She didn't fully assess the situation, she just started shooting as well.
These people are no smarter and no more stable than poorly trained dogs.
There's also a post on FB by him detailing the experience:
A few moments later I hear an officer scream "I’m hit, he’s armed"! As soon as that was announced multiple shots were fired at me while I was stuck in the backseat. All I could do was lean over and play dead to prevent getting shot in the head.
Windows were shattering on me the whole time as bullets continued flying across me.
It's a miracle he got physically unscathed
I had to read the article three times to make sure I didn't miss something. How do you write this article and not mention whether the person in the car was hit?
In the past I would have thought someone procrastinated on a deadline, but these days it's probably written by an AI.
This is what happens if way undertrained people are hired for police work. People who think with their guns.
I think they're overtrained by fear based training like Killology. They're afraid of everything. I guess we can now add acorns to the long list of things that justify astounding incompetence and willful endangerment of others.
It's also a product of the America the gun lobby has built.
This guy isn't undertrained! He served two tours in Iraq. This is literally the result of training, not only training but training cemented by military service.
This guy likely has PTSD. Should not be a cop, but you're dumb to think he's untrained. Not only has he likely seen live combat, the guy will likely be more proficient with firearms at 80 than you are right now; if he lives that long.
If US police is this incompetent, the only real solution is to take their guns away. It works in the UK.
And yes, there are more guns in general in the US, but that means that the police needs to be BETTER at deescalation than in the UK, not worse.
(Also: Obviously there are exceptions for specialized units in the UK, and the same would have to happen in the US, but your standard run-of-the-mill cop really doesn’t need more than pepper-spray and a stick.)
How about we also give them actual training? You know, basic 4 year training like in Europe, to become basic police officer, additional training to become more, and not the "6 months and here is your gun" as they do in the US?
Imo this is a key problem with police in the US. You're meant to take something like this video, analyse it, grow from it and provide a better procedure/training in what to do in that sort of situation so that it is more safe for both police and the public in the future.
Instead you get "police tried to stop a robber by shooting into a crowded street, two civilians were killed and the robber only has slight injuries". And the police response is "oh we have qualified immunity, this is actually whats meant to happen, we stopped the robber didn't we etc etc etc" and nothing is learnt.
If you look into this story a little further, it turns out that there are a few things to consider.
One, this is actually the result of training. The man served two tours overseas, this is quite literally what he's trained to do. Do you have any idea what a gunshot sounds like from far away? Because it's not exactly a clear sound, and there are a shitload of different bullets (and gun barrels, compensators, silencers, sub sonic ammunition as an even further layer) to make different noise. When you're used to being shot at from far away, yeah a sound like this actually does sound like you're being shot at. I could also easily see someone mistaking it for a bullet landing near them.
He also describes experiencing a tingly sensation and thinking something was wrong with his left(? going from memory, lazy) side. It very much sounds like he had a PTSD attack.
Lastly, he resigned during the course of the investigation into the shooting. Not to mention, the investigation into him concluded that no he should not have unloaded his firearm after hearing an acorn hit the car.
Should he be a cop? Fuck no! He likely has undiagnosed PTSD and should be getting help, not putting himself into circumstances where he is much more likely to be shot at.
However this is not the result of incompetence. This man is a military veteran. He will likely be more proficient with firearms than you or I ever will be. You need to stop thinking of cops as pigs in tight bullet proof vests. This guy, and there are absolutely others like him, is not at all untrained.
That too.
Take their guns away and give them acorns.
I mean fuck cops for sure but UKs gun laws are extremely strict for civilians I think you can only have antiques, even. In america there is guns everywhere. That kid you're frisking and giving a hard time could have daddy's pistol in his backpack. Its just a different environment in us
Perhaps you shouldn't be giving him a hard time then? Perhaps you should politely ask to check him.
Every single time I've ever watched US cops deal with the situation they always seem to escalate it they get their guns out and start yelling immediately. I've seen situations where the suspect is being entirely cooperative and they're still yelling. What are they trying to prove at that point?
Shut the hell up, calm down, and actually evaluate the situation.
We as a society have really dropped the ball on the low IQ population among us. We need more options that don't include giving them guns. We can give them badges if they want - and whatever quasi military rank they prefer without giving them the means to kill us.
You mean dropped the acorn...
Problem is, they would take guns away from us too as a compromise. Then they'd give the cops their guns back.
I am loathe to use the word retarded... but I just have no other words to describe this.
It's a trauma reaction tbh. Huge red flag that they need to be in therapy.
He has no known history of trauma. He was, IIRC, a special forces officer that was deployed (Afghanistan?), but he never saw combat operations.
This is more likely the result of being trained that everyone is out to kill cops, that cops are the "sheep dogs", and that they need to be ready to kill people at a moment's notice ("Killology").
Pigbrained
This story has an extra chromosome. Florida Cop might too.
Is it lemmy.world filtering out words they don't like? Who is censoring free speech? Why am I seeing removed everywhere?
Your account is on lemmy.ml my guy, you're doing this to yourself
Why did he say "I'm hit"
Cops are trained to say that before shooting as a psychological trick to manipulate witnesses. Your brain doesn't perfectly record the order of events in a situation like that, so to make sense of things you're likely to misremember one or more of the gunshots being before the "I'm hit" rather than correctly remember that the cop shot first.
"It's coming right for us!" -South Park hunting episode
Because he's a hysterical fucking moron who believes himself to be some for of hero warrior.
Reading the article is hard.
... felt a “tingliness” all along the side of his body. He then said his “legs just give out” and he fell to the ground, assuming that he had been seriously injured by something.
My bad, just watched the vid on another thread and was asking here
Why is it always Florida
Sunshine laws...shit happens everywhere, Florida just isn't embarrassed enough to keep it private.
Officer and ACORN are a dangerous aural combination to some folks
Florida Man has nothing on Florida Squirrel. This brave officer barely escaped a brazen assassination attempt by the infamous terrorists, Squirrels Anonymous!
Damn, if squirrels started going after fascists in uniforms we really could start getting some serious positive momentum couldn't we.
If you’re that scared you have no business being a cop. What a fucking idiot thinks he got shot too.
This is what happens when you spend your life fantasizing about how you're a hero under constant attack.
Tbf The acorn sounded like a bag of Skittles
That cop was way to squirrelly for the job.
Nah, if he were squirrelly, he'd know exactly what an acorn falling would sound like...
empties one full magazine on the car, not a single hit Would you like to enlist in the imperial army?
Dude should have applied to be a Stormtrooper. Would have fit right in, got to wear a snazzy set of white armor, black little pew-pew laser rifle, the works.
and he can create all the drama he wants and no one will say a thing "The rebel scums were shooting at me!"
Every story such as this contains at least one police lie. Even this one.
In his statement, Sheriff Aden said that the department was “limited in further response due to pending litigation.” Motherboard could not find court records related to the incident online and reached out to the Okaloosa County Courthouse, which confirmed it did not have any recent records related to either party. Motherboard reached out to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office for clarification but has not received a response.
They are pieces of shit like that. That's part of why you don't ever talk to them without a lawyer
Reminder that Uvalde is only the most famous example of cops being cowards.
From other accounts, he had arrested a suspect, handcuffed and searched them, and put them in the back of the squad car, and apparently thought that the suspect--the one they'd searched, cuffed, and locked in the car--was shooting at him. So, in his mind, he was returning fire.
I gotta ask - did he hit the guy in the car? Did he even his his car? Where did the bullets all end up? When you start shooting in public, you're supposed to be responsible for each on of those pieces of lead.
The guy in the car was not hit, but mentally fucked up, according to a better news article I just found on Reddit a few minutes ago.
Wait did you shoot at his own car? That's amazing.
Both officers riddled the cop car with bullets at the front and back of the car. None hit the guy at the back seat of the car who immediately ducked on the floor.
I hope he's oakay
Acorn hardly believe he didn't kill someone.
This is the kind of video they should show in the academy. A cop so scared that he put the public (and a person in his care and custody) in danger.
a person in his care and custody
hahaha
they would be showing this video at the academy as a demonstration of a failure to kill the guy in the back seat, therefore allowing all this to look ridiculous. to other cops, this is a grim tale of not sufficiently escalating the reality of the situation to match their internal narrative, and with this cop's public humiliation, a demonstration of how vital it is that there be a corpse if you ever act rashly for some reason.
The only good thing to be said is that for a short time there was one less cop car pulling over black people, then it came back from the body shop.
Honestly, my first thought after reading this was “like they wouldn’t spend the money on having more cars than officers.” I have no idea if that’s ever a thing though, lol. Maybe they temporarily use the armored vehicle for laughs.
The next evolution of "Florida man" is "Florida cop". A wild acorn appears. Florida cop uses "9mm Glock". Is is not very effective.
Killology is replacing "policing" with "warlording".
From now on when I feel stupid I will make sure to remember I'm not this level of stupid....
One commenter added some critical context to the story:
I actually just read about this, early today. I think two things were involved here, neither of which were mentioned in this article:
The officer served (2) tours overseas. Seeing the lasting affects a tour in Afghanistan has had on a relative, I believe this officer has undiagnosed PTSD which impacted his reaction here.
The officers had reason to believe Jackson owned/possessed a firearm with a suppressor. The sound of a suppressed 9mm isn’t terribly dissimilar from an acorn falling on sheet metal.
Doesn't matter if it was a perfect replay of an exact recording of the weapon they expected to be facing. He emptied a clip into an unknown target with no visual confirmation.
PTSD will do that. Not an excuse, but a possible explanation.
A pistol with a suppressor on it is still loud as fuck though. You would have been able to hear it in the cam footage. Also, these are the kinds of situations that happen when you get soldiers trained to kill to come back and play police duty with civilians. Its inexcusable, even if he does have PTSD.
Fact is that guns with silencers are still really loud with silencers, correct. Not like in the movies... with normal ammunition. In that case, the sonic boom is what you hear. But with subsonic ammunition and a slightly larger silencer it is really very quiet and can sound like in the video or in movies almost. It's hard to find on youtube because very few people want to shoot with such weak cartridges + with a silencer additionally, but if you're really interested you can find it. If I remember after work I can look for another demonstration and post it here. if you are interested.
They patted the suspect before cuffing and putting him in the car.
So it's a story about the absolute state of mental healthcare in the US after all.
Especially for veterans.
If only cops had training.
No, we should never hire people to be cops and then train them. We don't do that with any other people who have command over life and death AND operate autonomously that I can think of except maybe some positions in the military. Even EMT certification is basically "you exist because we need way more EMT's than we could possibly hope to have if being an EMT required a four year degree, and you won't be reasonably expected to do anything other than what we train you to do".
We should require cops to be well trained. Make it a four year degree at a minimum, and let the rage hearted idiots be weeded out in college when they fail all the ethical training courses.
Don't think that applies here. If you need training to know that you shouldn't open fire on a handcuffed man in the back of a squad car because you heard a light "thud" sound, police work is definitely not the job for you.
Me looking around the article for a satire tag.
It's more than the Uvalde cops did at least
Firing indiscriminately at an area without a clear sight of the suspect?
Fire that cop and give the acorn a badge.
If we had proper care for the mentally ill and living on disability payments wasn’t so awful, people with severe PTSD (and likely sleep deprivation) wouldn’t be forced to have jobs.
I'm GLAD this very Stable Man has a License to Freely Kill anyone he wants!
-Pro Life Republicans.
The few, the proud, the acorn popper.
Sorry folks... I dropped something.
My bad.
How the actual fuck do you mix up an acorn hitting a car to a gunshot? Has he never been to the range?
I watched the video with the volume all the way up, and I couldn't even hear the acorn.
I definitely heard him unloading his gun into the car where the unarmed suspect was trapped.
You are just not trained to properly recognize modern acornfare.
Considering he is a police officer... probably not.
So,,, he's already in Florida, where is he gonna go to get re-hired?
Next town over. Probably make his comute shorter too
So where exactly did he fire at? The site itself is crap and the way it's written it sounds almost made up. Not saying that it is, Florida police officer shooting at acorns sounds about right, but do we have a better source?
He shot at his own squad car. I guess he assumed the suspect inside that they had already performed a search on earlier was firing from within.
He shot at the unarmed, and handcuffed suspect he had locked in his car.
In the video it also looks like there is an officer or bystander down range. Like if you pause the video and forget the context it would not be obvious if he was sitting at the car or pedestrian.
...............the video is right in the article.
To Serve and Protect
Nice Motto
Somehow thinking of this today, on the anniversary of Parkland.
The story of piggie little and his panic attack.
c/nottheonion