Cops shoot at attacker, hit pregnant woman

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.4029tv.com/cnn-news/19902903/detail.html

Slain Woman Also Accidentally Shot By Police
Stray Bullet From Police, Stabbing Listed As Cause Of Death For Jill Ulmer
POSTED: 9:28 am CDT June 30, 2009
UPDATED: 10:32 am CDT June 30, 2009

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- What was already a gruesome killing turned even more disturbing Monday as the autopsy results were made available.

Police say they got to 26-year-old Jill Ulmer's Fayetteville apartment Friday night as the suspect was stabbing her.

Officers said they were trying to stop 41-year-old Ricky Anderson from killing his ex-girlfriend when they opened fire into the apartment.

Monday, the Fayetteville Police Department said one of those gunshots fired by an officer actually hit Ulmer and is listed as her cause of death, along with multiple stab wounds.

Police also confirmed that Ulmer was pregnant.

Some are running out of words to describe the situation.

"It's absolutely horrible. Fayetteville is a small town, and it's a friendly town, and I feel safe. I just feel bad for her family, and my prayers go out to her," said neighbor Anne Kearney.

Neighbors still dealing with Friday night's killing got even more troubling news Monday when they learned a shot fired by police officers hit Ulmer while she was being stabbed.

[Mythsaje]

1. Isn't THIS when a taser might work better?

Or, failing that, a swift kick to the ribcage?

It's sure good they're well-trained, isn't it?

[Tim01]

3. They are not trained in shooting and stuff as much as other stuff.

They get lots of training on how to avoid getting the dept sued, since people love to sue cops. And they get lots of training on how not to botch the investigation because criminals love to hire expensive lawyers to get them off for the lamest of reasons. All of this training costs money. Nobody wants to spend that money, but everybody wants to blame the cops.
Cops who are better trained in shooting bad guys would have done only that.

[Mythsaje]

5. I'm not sure if this is so much a training problem

as an INTELLIGENCE problem. "Hey, let's open fire on the guy AND his victim."

Not all cops are morons, but too many morons are cops.

[Tim01]

10. Maybe better to wrestle around in the blood with psycho who has a knife? nt

[Mythsaje]

12. No... Just taser the asshole.

[Nailzberg]

17. They were unable to enter the apartment. They fired from outside a window.

[Gwendolyn]

21. Yes, I read that as well.

The medical examiner also said the shooting didn't change anything. She was already dying from the multiple stabbing.

This story will turn into a cop hate fest, when the reality is, no safety net was in place to prevent the rapist/criminal from getting to her. That's the real scandal.

[RamboLiberal]

24. Did you read the story? Cops were outside the house

Guy was inside stabbing the woman. When they arrived she was already severely stabbed. They probably had seconds to act. They chose to try to shoot him instead of taking the time to break down a door or bust the window to try to get in the house. None of us were there to armchair quarterback this one.

[pleah]

2. What a bunch of dumbasses! Did they not take target practice

in their police training? Hey, what happened to all those tasers? What a bunch of dumbasses.
I hope someone is fired over this one.

[vadawg]

4. yeah i guess you have all the answers,

my prayers are with the family and the officers involved, in trying to save her they accidently contributed to her death, in answer to the tazer question, when confronted with ta knife cops are trained to use their firearm, it becomes second nature and unfortunetly this poor women was accidently shot, but the person to blame is the guy knifing her not the responding officers.

[Mythsaje]

7. Training is NOT hypnotism...

Maybe shooting at the perp and the victim when they're inches apart isn't a good idea. Duh.

[pleah]

11. I was asking questions. Here is another one.

How many officers responded? Why didn't they rush the guy and overpower him instead of spraying bullets that ended up killing the innocent person involved?

They were dumbasses.

[Tim01]

16. I think there were 2 officers, not sure.

But I would guess tackling a crazy person with a big knife is against policy, and against training. And I am sure they are to avoid coming into contact with blood. Especially getting sprayed with blood.
I've done some training with knives. Getting close sucks real bad.
If it was my decision, I am sure I would choose shooting the guy over getting close enough for him to cut the shit out of me and pouring all that questionable blood into my wounds.

[pleah]

19. It still doesn't excuse what they did. Apparently, they knew

she had an order of protection out against the guy. He was know as a suspect in a rape.

And, apparently, this guy Anderson wasn't even wounded. At least it doesn't say he was in the article.

I still say they are dumbasses. Just spray bullets and let the chips fall where they may.

[anigbrowl]

20. I have been in some actual knife fights

As in, where someone pulled a blade on me while I was unarmed. Sure it's dangerous and scary, that's why the people in uniform get paid the big bucks and are heavily insured. I don't blame the individual officers in this case, but it would be appropriate for them to have more hand to hand combat training, which my police friends tell me they do not actually receive enough of to be useful.

Crazy people, even ones with knives, are not superhuman. They can be tackled and disarmed successfully: I have done it and I am a small guy without any high-level training (it's possibly because I'm small that I've had to learn growing up how to defend myself against larger bully types). I feel that police should be trained sufficiently to have a physical option available if someone's life is at stake, although it might or might not have been enough in this individual case.

[vadawg]

26. we do train to fight a knife wielder, but the preferred option is to shoot

, i have been knifed twice in the line of duty, and i can tell you if i had seen the blade before it was deployed i would have drawn my weapon and shot the person. As to us gettting paid the big bucks and being insured, try explaining that one to my wife when she gets the call to come to the ER or worse the morgue. Realistically we will put our life on the line to protect people but our job is to make it home at the end of the day to our families as well, so if you bring a knife to a gunfight the popo should and will use their weapon against you. I should add that we get a lot of hand to hand as we work the jail as well and in there we are unarmed so we get a lot of groundfighting training as well as weapon work.

[anigbrowl]

27. Quite so, which is why I'm not blaming the cops in this incident

My point was more to disagree with the poster above who was suggesting that a knife-armed criminal is impossible to confront any other way. I see a big difference between having a healthy respect for the dangers posed by violent people and attributing superpowers to them.

I'm glad to hear you are well trained, wherever it is that you are. My remarks about training were based on the complaints of a detective friend who I sometimes take martial arts training with, and who feels the local PDs training regimen is inadequate. I've heard similar remarks from a trainer in an adjoining PD, who felt such skills were under-represented in the program. I realize that funding is often limited and there are competing imperatives.

[vadawg]

28. yeah no problem, i work in a sheriffs dept, in the jail and on the road

i feel the training i have received has been excellent, comparable to what i received in the army, mayby even better in some respects, but if i see a knife or bat etc i am still going to use my gun,

[Tim01]

30. Just wondering.

I know one soldier and one cop who were cut in a fight. Both said they didn't know they had been stabbed until after the fight was over. Was your experience similar? I hope you recovered OK. Sorry you got cut.

[vadawg]

32. first one i thought the girl just slapped me, other one was a punch i thought

but your friends are right its not until you see blood or the weapon that you freak out, i come from a knife culture and i gotta say it never gets easier to either sustain a cut or see one.

[Gwendolyn]

34. Someone I know was stabbed in the back, in the men's room of a restaurant.

The stabber was mentally ill. I asked out of curiosity once how it felt. He said it was horrifically painful. Like fire burning his insides out, and he couldn't breathe.

[Tim01]

9. I am very experienced with a lot of different guns, and I'm not surprised.

I have lots of pistol combat training under my belt and probably 30,000 rounds down range. I am not at all surprised an innocent got hit in that bloody nightmarish mess.

And you feel you can pass judgment on them why?

[pleah]

13. How about you answer some of my questions.

Read my posts.

[Tim01]

14. Fair enough. nt

[Tim01]

18. Tasers are probably tools for dealing with gray areas.

They have probably been told a thousand times the taser is for dealing with a situation that could get dangerous, but isn't dangerous yet.

If it is situation where somebody is going to kill somebody else, shoot him to stop him.

I would like things to be as they should be, but they are not. They are what they are. Cops are usually trained to the cheapest minimally acceptable standard. And that is because we are not willing to pay more taxes to get them trained better.
If these cops had more range time especially training that involved people moving around, there probably would have been a dead bad guy and that's it.
Mostly cops just have to be good enough to calmly hit the paper target on a sunny day, with plenty of time and a target that doesn't move, and doesn't try to stab anybody.

It's sort of like expecting UPS drivers to have driving skills as good as professional race car drivers.

[RamboLiberal]

23. Your comment on this is dumbass

Bet you never even fired a gun or know what the hell you are talking about.

[pleah]

31. Wild accusations about me prove the reverse.

I know how to fire a gun and besides is that all you have? Do you not have a coherent discussion about the tactics they used? Just throwing out that I am the dumbass is in itself an idiotic thing to do.


to add: They were questions.

[anonymous171]

6. And yet certain individuals here still believe that only police officers should be allowed guns

[Mythsaje]

8. I know...

They're trained, after all.

[aikoaiko]

15. Its seem like a risky attempt to stop the attacker didn't pay off.

Before condemning the officer, I'd like to hear more details. I suppose if the officer thought shooting the assailant while the victim was near the line of fire is was the best chance to save the victims life, then it was a calculated risk. Its possible it was a thru and thru.

[RamboLiberal]

22. Love all the armchair police officers here who think

while the woman was being stabbed severerly the police had time to break in and Taser the guy. If you read the stories the stab wounds to the victim were severe and very well could have caused her to die before she was shot.

The cops probably had no choice but to shoot from the window to even try to save this woman's life. It's unfortunate that they could not. They probably had only seconds to act and make their choice.

And for all of you criticizing their marksmanship I challenge all of you to go down to the range, get a gun of caliber police carry, get a bad guy and hostage target, do something that gets your heart rate up and your adrenaline pumping and then see if you can hit the bad guy and miss the hostage. And remember you have the luck that the targets aren't moving, unlike what the responding officers faced in this unfortunate scenario.

I feel for the officers who will relive this shooting over and over.

On edit I watched TV report here: http://www.kfsm.com/news/kfsm-news-nwa-murder-stab-shot-ulmer-anderson,0,6347155.story

That window would've been tough for an officer to climb through without risking that the stabber wouldn't have been on officer with the knife and it would've been tough for partner to cover. They did first try to break down the door.

[angstlessk]

25. I am absolutely NOT one fo the cop appologists here, yet I agree

with your assessment. They did what they were able to do given what was happening at the time. I agree also, they are probably going to feel guilt over this for years to come, although I don't think they should.

[Echo In Light]

29. Agreed. I'm not a fan of cops at all, but this incident sadly just was what it was, bad aim or not.

[Gwendolyn]

33. I'm sure seeing a woman viciously stabbed right in front of you is no picnic either.

People must get burned out on the violence eventually.