| Commentary J
INBOX
Omitted details important
in understanding shooting
I read with interest your /ecent
editorial about the Springfield offi
cer that shot the 15-yeai-old who
had stolen a pickup truck. It is an
incident that I’m sure all parties in
volved wished hadn’t happened. It
is a tragic event and it serves every
one well to have the facts about
what happened. That is why the
omission of some very important
details in your editorial has caused
me to write.
The first omitted detail is that the
26-year-old Springfield man you
mention as having witnessed the
shooting was in the back seat of the
police car of the officer involved in
the shooting. It is unknown
whether the man was in custody,
but if he was and it is likely he was,
he might not have an unbiased view
of what transpired between the
youth and the officer that had just
arrested him.
Second, the witness was 50 feet
away, which is not mentioned in
your editorial. Further complicating
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the reliability of the account of what
was witnessed is that the shooting
occurred around midnight, not
broad daylight, another piece of in
formation not included in your edi
torial. There is a big difference in
viewing something in daylight com
pared to midnight, particularly
when you are 50 feet away and in
the back of a police car.
Finally, you mention that the offi
cer was chasing the stolen truck
with lights and sirens and that
Porter had tried to evade the police
before pulling over. The pickup
didn’t turn into a well-lit public
place, like an all-night convenience
store; Porter turned into a Weyer
haeuser Co. parking lot and circled
around before stopping on some el
evated railroad tracks that run
through the property. Had Porter
been in a well-lit area, is it possible
that the officer may have had a bet
ter view of what Porter did or didn’t
have in his hands?
That being said, I agree that we
have to be on guard of police using
less-than-impeccable judgment or
using excessive force. I think a
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better, more effective way to make
this point would have been to write
an editorial about the Register
Guard’s editorial published June 29,
“A premature call: DA should have
waited until review was done” and
take them to task as being part of
the problem rather than the solution
of calling for the use of certainty
and impeccable judgment. The edi
torial is archived at www.register
guard.com/news/2005/06/29/ed.e
dit. copshooting, phn.0629. html
The editorial is ridiculous and ir
responsible when the RG editorial
writers wonder “why the officer
fired only one shot if he believed his
life was in danger.” Had the officer
emptied his weapon into Porter,
would the Register-Guard have been
praising the officer’s thoroughness?
Assuming that using more force
than necessary is the definition of
excessive force and that a single
shot stopped the immediate threat
to the officer, is it irresponsible for
the Register-Guard to be condoning
or even encouraging the use of ex
cessive force by police officers? How
many bullets are enough? As law
abiding citizens of Eugene and
Springfield, should we be con
cerned that the Register-Guard is
calling for the police to be firing
more bullets than necessary to stop
an immediate threat even though it
endangers bystanders?
Police officers have a difficult
enough job using good split-second
judgment without being second
guessed by some middle-aged guy
with a bad comb-over criticizing
them from a cushy chair and er
gonomically designed keyboard. To
discharge a weapon at another per
son requires a split-second decision
by a police officer who is trying to
not only protect their own life, but
also those around them. It is a big
and important decision with enor
mous ramifications and officers
know it. Is what the Register-Guard
wrote now going to be in the back
of the minds of officers when they
need to use good judgment in one
of those difficult decisions and de
cide they had better squeeze off an
other couple of rounds just to satis
fy bad comb-over man?
Ken Frazer