Public Safety Issues Must be Raised
Esther Evans, 22-year-old
mother of three young children, had just been shot in the head by police
officers when I exited the Tamarack exit of the interstate 5 last Thursday
night on my way home. I could plainly see the bullet holes in the passenger
side of the SUV, where she had been riding. Esther Evans was airlifted to
Scripps Memorial Hospital where she died.
According to news
reports, the police were pursuing the driver of the car, Brian Olsen. They were
attempting to arrest him for a parole violation. Olsen exited a home and jumped
into the SUV. During the pursuit, Olsen rammed two police cars and
hit an officer. No officers were seriously injured or hospitalized. No police
officer’s life was being threatened when Esther Evans was so brutally shot and
killed.
It is my understanding
that there is high tech equipment available like helicopters, and specially
trained swat teams, for apprehending dangerous felons while scrupulously
protecting public safety in residential neighborhoods. Police apprehended
Olson, who had been also shot, within a block of my property, after he ran
past my home on foot. Family members have commented that Olson had never been
arrested for a violent crime.
The public needs to
demand why officers believed they should exercise deadly force against the
inhabitants of the car when Olson failed to stop. Did officers know who else
might have been in the car? Possibly, Esther’s three young children? Were the
police absolutely certain that Esther was not being held hostage by their
suspect?
I believe the public must
be concerned with what other options or methods might have been exercised to
apprehend Olson, and as to what kind of risk the police exposed innocent
bystanders to with bullets flying around the streets of Carlsbad.
We need to be concerned with the dangers to our life and liberty if
the police officers we, the public, hire to protect us (whose duty it is to
safely apprehend and confine suspects until trial in a court of law) appoint
themselves judge, jury and executioners, in the heat of a chase. Being a police
officer involves a great deal of risk. But unless they are being actively
threatened with a weapon, gunning people down who are evading arrest, should not
be an option. In many countries where police do not carry guns, such as England
fewer officers are actually killed on the job. Citizens are not killed by
officers during pursuit.
A state where police can punish people by killing them in the
street, and explain their justification later is called a Police State. Then we
are only a short step away from the Gestapo tactics used in Nazi Germany.