Posts Tagged ‘PA’
Pizza Guy turns the tables
Armed robber shot with his own gun, in critical condition
Police Chief Inspector Scott Small gave this account:
Around 8:15 p.m., a 33-year-old pizza delivery driver was taking an order to Price Street near McMahon and realized the house he was supposed to make the delivery to was abandoned.
“Then, a male approached him, pointed a gun at him, and demanded his money and his wallet,” Small said.
The driver handed the man his wallet, which contained $100, and began fighting with the suspect.
During the struggle, the delivery driver was able to wrestle the gun out of the suspect’s grasp. The driver shot the man once in his neck and once in his buttocks. Police found two boxes of pizza, a bag of food and the suspect’s blood on the scene.
Sort of weird:
The delivery driver drove back to the restaurant he works for, threw the suspect’s revolver into a recycling bin in front of the restaurant and called police.
Don’t quite get that part. Why dump the gun into an outdoor recycling bin? And didn’t the pizza guy have phone to call the cops from the scene?
‘Dangerous and Stupid’
It don’t get any stupider than this:
Dauphin County prosecutors said a Hershey man was shot by his girlfriend while the two were playing with a gun.
Ryan Martin, 29, is recovering from a bullet to the face that broke his jaw. First Deputy District Attorney Fran Chardo said Martin and 20-year-old Erica Clayburn were playing a game they had played in the past, but this time the gun was loaded.
“She would close her eyes with a pistol in her hand. He would go somewhere in the room, say ‘gun,’ and she would have to open her eyes and dry fire the pistol,” Chardo said.
The guy is an MP at the Army War College. This takes “WTF” to a whole nother level.
Bill expanding self-defense law reintroduced in Pa. House
Good:
Legislation to expand Pennsylvania’s so-called “Castle Doctrine” so that gun owners could use deadly force without the “duty of retreat” has been reintroduced in the state House of Representatives…”The bill eliminates the duty to retreat before using lethal force outside of your home if the attacker displays or uses a lethal weapon,” [Rep. Scott Perry (R-York/Cumberland)] said in a statement.
Pennsylvania’s “Castle Doctrine” law is currently quite weak compared to other states with Castle Doctrine.
A similar bill was vetoed last year by Democratic Governor Ed Rendell. Republican Tom Corbett now holds that office.
Got that Bass Ackwards, Fran
Philadelphia cops don’t like Florida concealed carry permits. They also arrest security guards with state-issued permits. Then they keep the legally-owned and legally-carried guns:
Lt. Fran Healy, special adviser to the police commissioner, acknowledged that some city cops apparently are unfamiliar with some concealed-carry permits. But he said that it’s better for cops to “err on the side of caution.”
“Officers’ safety comes first, and not infringing on people’s rights comes second,” Healy said.
Both Healy and Craig Straw, chief deputy city solicitor with the civil-rights unit, said that they could not speak to individual cases because of pending litigation, but said that the main issue with Florida permits is that officers on the street are not able to check the validity of a permit 24 hours a day.
“There’s a lot of bad guys out there,” Healy said. “I want to use my time on them and not waste it on this nonsense.” [emphasis Murdoc's]
Checking to see if detaining citizens who are abiding by the law is “nonsense” according to Lt. Healy. Lt. Healy thinks that police officers’ safety trumps civil rights.
Lt. Healy seems to misunderstand what, exactly, a police force is actually for.
Via Say Uncle and Random Nuclear Strikes.
ARs for Hunting
The Pittsburg Tribune has a pretty good story on the increasing number of ARs showing up in the hands of hunters: AR-style rifles spurring some debate
(“Spurring some debate” is the unofficial middle name of the AR, by the way.)
There are still some states — just how many the NSSF hopes to determine via survey within a week or so — where it’s illegal to hunt with a semiautomatic rifle.
Pennsylvania is one of those.
“It’s not the AR styling per se. That really has nothing to do with it,” said Scott Tomlinson, law enforcement supervisor in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s southwest region office in Bolivar. “It has to do with the capacity for shooting multiple rounds.”
That issue is easily addressed with low-capacity magazines. I’ve never really understood that limitation. Is there fear that someone with a 30-round mag is going to mow down an entire herd of deer at once? Do they have tags for all those deer?
Even within the hunting community, some “traditionalist” hunters dislike the rifles. That’s led the NSSF to mount a campaign aimed at getting sportsmen to quit arguing amongst themselves.
Because it’s unusual for gun owners to argue amongst themselves.
You want to really see the fur fly? Call that 5-round low-cap hunting magazine a “clip”.
Man turns in 105mm shell at police station
Earlier this month in Philadelphia:
A southwest Philadelphia police district was evacuated after the man brought in a 105 mm projectile for a howitzer.
Police say the 53-year-old man got the shell in 1977 from a friend who was a Marine and kept it in a storage facility since then, and decided to turn it in for safety reasons.
The police say it was a live shell.
No Cornrows
White Philly officer told to get rid of cornrows
Police in Philadelphia say a white officer who came to work with cornrows was ordered by a black superior to get a haircut because the braids violated department standards.
The Philadelphia Daily News reported Monday that Officer Thomas Strain was put on desk duty this month because of the braids, even though the paper reported dozens of black officers wear cornrows [Emphasis Murdoc's].
No, not a big thing in the grand scheme of things. But it doesn’t sound right.
Joe Sestak (D-PA) Calls for AWB Renewal
UPDATE: Bitter points us to Sestak coverage over at PA Gun Rights.
‘There wasn’t much more we could do at that point’
Police questioned club gunman, let him go
The man who carried out a massacre in a women’s aerobics class had been questioned a week earlier by police because he matched the description of a man seen pulling what appeared to be a grenade from a computer bag, authorities said Monday.
George Sodini, 48, of Scott Township, was ultimately let go by Port Authority of Allegheny County police because they couldn’t confirm he was the man on the bus July 28, authorities said.
As told in this article, it seems tough to fault the police on this one.
Armed Robber Shot in Pizza Shop
PORT RICHMOND – August 9, 2009 (WPVI) — A pizza shop owner in Philadelphia fought back when a man tried to rob him at gunpoint.
The attempted robbery happened inside Tony’s Pizza on the 2900 block of Frankford Avenue in the city’s Port Richmond section.
Police say an armed gunman walked into the pizza shop at 11:45 Saturday night demanding money, but the owner pulled out his own gun and shot the robber.
The would-be thief is now in critical condition.
The ‘Pizza Guys‘ category was originally intended for delivery drivers defending themselves against would-be robbers, but it’s basically expanded to include pizza shops as well.
Murdoc likes him some pizza, and crimes committed against the makers and deliverers of pizza are essentially an attack on Murdoc’s way of life.
Pennsylvania Shooter
Gym killer leaves dark Web diary, details of plot
A man who sprayed bullets into a fitness class filled with women, killing three and then himself, apparently kept a Web page in which he wrote about years of rejection by women and an earlier plan for violence at the gym in which he said he “chickened out.”
Neighbors described 48-year-old George Sodini as anti-social, and the Web page in his name showcased a resume setting forth his credentials as an unhappy loner. It listed his date of death — Aug. 4, 2009 — and his status of “Never married.” The page ended with the words “Death Lives!”
Obviously not a “he just snapped” moment. He’d been planning this since at least November and had actually gone in on January 4th intending to go before chickening out.
If he thinks he was lonely, unhappy, and unfulfilled while alive, I wonder what he thinks about his situation right now.
Reports: 4 dead in Pittsburgh-area shooting
Witness says up to 15 shots fired at L.A. Fitness Center
Some guy apparently walked in, turned off the lights, and started shooting.
UPDATE: One of the four is the shooter. More here.
