Something smells bad about this case. A double amputee in a wheelchair, armed with apparently a very deadly-looking pen (sarcasm) was shot and killed by a police officer (Matthew Jacob Marin). The victim was showing aggression, but the facts show he was not using deadly force.
Side Example: When I personally worked in a mental hospital, one of the patients did stab a guy with a pen. If you shot every mental patient that showed this sort of aggression, half of them would be dead.
Observation: The facts show that the double amputee in a wheelchair was within a foot or so of the police officer who shot and killed him. First, it is inconceivable that a reasonable person would mistake a pen as a deadly weapon. To even claim that the officer couldn’t see what it was is ridiculous. The reason I say “reasonable person” is because the officer could defend himself by saying he reasonably believed that the double amputee was using deadly force. But it is utterly illogical to think that a trained police officer is so inept as to mistake a pen for a deadly weapon.
Something stinks really bad about this case. Talk about trigger happy. Again, I have worked in a mental hospital and seen this sort of thing happen. You might as well build a body-bag factory next to the mental hospital if you are going to shoot and kill every patient that displays this kind of aggression.
And quadruple LOL to the claim that a double amputee in a wheelchair had a police officer cornered. That doesn’t pass any smell test. The dude has one arm and one leg. Kick his butt in the face if he tries to corner you. A pen is not a deadly weapon. The whole incident shows that the officer had a “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude.
Matthew Jacob Marin doesn’t have the judgment to be a police officer in a violent place like Houston, Texas. That’s for sure.
Sources:
Washington Post
Are you aware of Marin’s history? He has a long history, Marin has a lot of past issues AND in addition to the first shooting, in 2008, Marin was one of three Houston police officers who were accused of assaulting the father of Green Bay Packers’ player Donald Driver. Although all three officers were later cleared that investigation was “questionable at best.” The officers filed a defamation suit but quickly dropped it when a new investigation began. That was all “swept under the rug” and sort of “disappeared.”
Now the FBI is investigating this shooting because his own department called them in. I’m going to guess his past history will come back on him. I get the feeling that his own department thinks something smells fishy here too…
Thanks for your comments. I don’t know about the past events. I mean, he may have been justified in those. But it doesn’t matter. Anyone with one day of training dealing with the mentally ill would know the guy could have been subdued in seconds without shooting him. As someone else said on a different blog, even those Police Academy movies were more believable than this.