You can't have it both ways...

.... and Soledad O'Brien is a total moron, a fact that she insisted on repeatedly demostrating as she interviewed a former LAPD officer concerning the recent incident in which a baby girl was killed by the LAPD SWAT. Said interview aired this AM on CNN. (CNN SUCKS!)

For those of you critical of the LAPD in this case, answer the following:

1. Have you ever shot a gun?
2. Can you shoot so accuratly that you can hit a baseball from across the long way of a basketball court?
3. Can you make the shot every time you try?
4. Can you do it under extreme stress, of the life or death kind?
5. Can you do it with your life at risk (bullets coming at you)?
6. Can you do it knowing that you target is a person and will most likely die as a result?
7. Are you/have you been a cop or a soldier?

If you did not answer yes to all those questions, than you have no right to criticize the LAPD Officers' actions. These guys know what they are doing. Too, there is a risk of death to anyone in a tactical scenario... ANYONE. This includes YOU. Now, this is only the second time that the LAPD has killed somebody innocent in a situation like this in something like 40 years.

Now also consider this:
1. Would you accept a person firing a gun at your house?
2. Would you accept a person firing a gun at their daughter in cold blood?

If you answered no to either or both of those questions, you must support the LAPD's decision to act when they did. This man had to be stopped. That the operation went wrong is tragic, but the threat was eliminated, an evil man was killed. He got one of his kids killed, but the cops saved the other. We should be grateful that her life was saved, not critical of efforts made in good faith to save another. This is not a situation like Columbine where the cops'actions were inappropriate, flawed, negligent, and ill concieved. These guys did well, but accidents do happen. The world is a dynamic place and no situation is really ever fully under control... there are just too many variables.

What really frosts me is that people are blocking police cars in LA now and demonstrating against the police. Yeah, don't bother to remember that these guys are out there 24/7 with little pay risking their lives to protect you. Most of them are not only good men and women, but better people than most.
Is it not enough that the men involved in this shooting may never work again... not for being fired, but from the toll exacted from them from the knowlege that they killed an innocent insted of saving her?

I heard Ms. O'Brien repeatedly question why efforts were not made to negotiate. Well, WAKE UP! You can't negotiate with the muzzle of a 9mm pistol! You must have a party willing to negotiate. Also, many times, there is nothing to be gained from negotiation. It does not always wor, especially when one party is hell-bent on killing another. Lastly, when a guy says he will kill his kid and he punctuates the remark by attempting to gun down his other daughter, do you really think that negotiations have any place at all?
We CAN'T all just get along, we CAN'T just talk things through. When the times are such as these, you are left only with getting your hands bloody and removing (read kill, destroy, end...) the person responsible.

Oh yeah... Ms. O'Brien also suggested shooting the guy in the leg...
She was too dumb to even see the response from the cop coming:
"You shoot a man in the leg who has a gun to sombody's head and he just pulls the trigger."

CNN sucks, too.
Charlie Foxtrot out.