DC - Militarized police kill unarmed woman.

With a two year kid in the car.

Now, what this woman's motivation, if any, was is unclear. Of course, we'll never know now, she's dead.

Heroes do not execute unarmed mothers.

But, you know, nothing says freedom like stopping at nothing to protect the safety of our Dear Leaders.




Woman shot and killed by Capitol police after chaotic chase from White House

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/03/20805397-woman-shot-and-killed-by-capitol-police-after-chaotic-chase-from-white-house

By Michael O'Brien, Pete Williams, Richard Esposito and Tracy Connor, NBC News

A woman who tried to force her car through a White House security fence Thursday afternoon was shot and killed by police after a 12-block chase past the Capitol, which was locked down for a half-hour, authorities said.

The suspect — a dental hygienist with a history of mental issues, according to sources — had a 1-year-old child with her who was not hurt, police said.

One Secret Service officer was struck by the woman's car, and a Capitol Police officer was injured when he slammed into a barricade during the pursuit.

All the shots fired came from the officers involved in the pursuit, and the woman — identified as Miriam Carey, 34, of Stamford, Conn. — did not have a gun, law-enforcement sources said.

"She was using the car as a weapon," one source said.

Dramatic video showed officers with guns drawn surrounding the woman's black Infiniti before she suddenly sped away. Several shots could be heard as cops took off after her.

“This appears to be an isolated singular matter with no nexus to terrorism,” Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine said at an evening news conference as police and FBI agents converged on the woman's condo complex in Stamford.

The U.S. Capitol was placed on lockdown following a car chase and shooting involving a woman who attempted to ram the White House gates.

President Barack Obama was briefed about the harrowing incident, which came in the midst of the government shutdown that has created a tense atmosphere on Capitol Hill.

For more local coverage, go to NBC Washington

It started at 2:18 p.m. when Carey tried and failed to breach a White House checkpoint, a temporary "outer perimeter" fence at 15th St. and E, officials said.

As she fled east on Pennsylvania Ave., she struck a Secret Service officer, and a chase ensued.

Capitol Police caught up to her at Garfield Circle near the Capitol reflecting pool, but she sped off again. An officer in hot pursuit struck a barricade and was hurt, officials said.

The 12-block chase ended at Constitution Ave. and Second St. with Carey mortally wounded, police said. The child was removed from the car by a police officer and taken to the hospital.

The woman's motive was unknown, but Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier dismissed any suggestion that she had tried to breach security by accident and said the officers "acted heroically."

Travis Gilbert, who watched the high-speed chase from the roof of the Newseum, said there were several close calls as police cars raced after the Infiniti.

NBC's Brian Williams reports on the shooting at the US Capitol, with NBC's Kelly O'Donnell in the Capitol building, NBC's Pete Williams with what's known about the shootings, and NBC's Kristen Welker at the White House.

"It was very dangerous," he said.

Frank Schwing, 57, a furloughed Commerce Department worker, said he was on the House side of the capitol when he saw police surround the car only to have the driver suddenly hit the gas.

"The sedan backed up and smashed into one of the cruisers, took off again around the south side of the Capitol," Schwing said. "And that's when I heard the gun shots. "

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Mass., who was on the balcony talking to his colleagues, described a "burst" of gunfire from the House side of the Capitol, towards the House office buildings.

"It was like the first volley in a 21-gun salute," Rep. Matthew Cartwright, D-Penn., told MSNBC.

The FBI responded to the scene, and a helicopter landed in front of the Capitol to medevac the injured officer.

A message from the Capitol Police ordered anyone in a House office to "shelter in place." The House recessed, and the Senate went into a quorum call — dispensing momentarily with its official business — shortly thereafter.

“We’ve locked the doors. We closed the window shades. And we are awaiting further instructions,” Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., told MSNBC during the lockdown. “We’re more or less cut off here. We’re watching TV and just trying to figure out what happened.”

The lockdown was over around 3 p.m., but nerves were still jangled.

"Shaken is a good word to describe how I'm feeling," said Peter Plocki, a government worker furloughed during the shutdown who was on Capitol Hill to take a tour of the Supreme Court building and heard the shots.

The House reconvened at 3:30 p.m., and Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, asked for a brief moment of silence in tribute to members of the Capitol Police injured in the incident. The House immediately pivoted back to debate over a small stopgap bill to reinstate funding for veterans’ affairs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, called the injured officer at the hospital. "The only thing I do every day is to make sure you and everyone who works up here is safe," the officer said, according to Reid.

Congress has been locked for the past week and a half in a contentious debate over funding the government, a disagreement in which contributed to a government shutdown that began Monday.


Individuals can be seen running Thursday at the U.S. Capitol following gun shots.

Last night, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wisconsin, was the victim of a "minor incident" outside of the Capitol complex.

"A random individual, unknown to the Congressman, began screaming at him and grabbed his arm," a spokesperson for Duffy said in describing the incident. "Mr. Duffy was unharmed. He reported the incident in compliance with House security procedures. Congressman Duffy has requested no further action be taken and there will be no further comment on the matter at this time."

On September 16, a deadly shooting occurred at the Navy Yard just blocks south of the U.S. Capitol complex which contributed to a partial lockdown of the Capitol at that time.

A shooting on July 24, 1998 left two Capitol Police officers dead. And at a constituent event in her district in January 2011, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was seriously injured and six others were killed in a shooting.

She had opportunities to stop or surrender.

What should they have done?

fshnski wrote:She had opportunities to stop or surrender.

What should they have done?

Surrounded and boxed in the car, and then calmly, and with as little fuss as possible, bring in hostage negotiators to de-escalate and de-fuse the situation.

Not light her ass up like a hostile in Fallujah.

I'm sick of living behind enemy lines in my own country.

She was in the act of trying to injure people with her car. If she was trying to run me over I would have shot her.

It does feel like behind enemy lines. And the enemy is us!

fshnski wrote:She was in the act of trying to injure people with her car. If she was trying to run me over I would have shot her.

It does feel like behind enemy lines. And the enemy is us!

No Barrycade was breached by the front of this car.



Yes, the enemy is us, according to the government.

Never before have we, the American people, been more docile and compliant, violent crime and cop killings are at historic low levels...there is no need for this response.

It is not freedom.

Chris Matthews:

“The death will no doubt become an iconic tragedy in this period of government shutdown driven by the hatred of the President’s Affordable Care Act and the compulsion of his critics on the hard Right to punish him politically,” Matthews declared..."

BTW: This is a black woman suffering from depression, and may have simply gotten lost.
______________________________________________________________________________

Anti Federalist wrote:"...No Barrycade was breached by the front of this car..."

 
 

 
When you intend to breach a gate, using the rear of the car will keep your "avenue of escape" open. "Destruction Derby" drivers--and home invaders--know this.
 
'Course, in the USSR, "Mental Illness"  meant not agreeing with the will of your rulers.
 
 
 

Anti Federalist wrote:Yes, the enemy is us, according to the government.

Never before have we, the American people, been more docile and compliant, violent crime and cop killings are at historic low levels...there is no need for this response.

It is not freedom.

 
 
Can they take away your EBT card for committing a violent crime?
 

When I saw that I wondered why they couldn't just shoot her tires all out. There were quite a few cops surrounding her car. Without good tires, it would have been pretty hard for her to get away with all of them surrounding her, wouldn't it? And it seems they always now say that someone is mentally ill.

WHL wrote:When I saw that  I wondered why they couldn't just shoot her tires all out.  There were quite a few cops surrounding her car.  Without good tires, it would have been pretty hard for her to get away with all of them surrounding her, wouldn't it?  And it seems they always now say that someone is mentally ill.

Life in the USSA.

If you commit any crime against the State, you are, de facto, insane, because only an insane person would attack or criticize the State.

The State is perfect, Comrade.

All ironic jesting aside, of course WHL, there are any number of options that could have been used.

But they were not.

Because the police are militarized.

They are taught to light up any hostile, without hesitation, they are taught we are the enemy.

Not a free people, with rights, to be served and protected.

This was the final seconds of the poor woman's life.



She was hemmed in, the car was blocked, she was unarmed, and there was a toddler in the car.

Nothing more would have happened.

You de-fuse and de-escalate the situation at this point.

They did not.

They executed her.

Mission Accomplished.

That is not the end. This was after she had rammed the gate at one of the White House entrances. She raced away from that incident injuring an officer who tried to stop her. They were able to corner her in the shot you show. She rammed the car behind her to get away sending the agents diving for safety. She then drove around the traffic circle with cops in pursuit. She then tried to break through another barrier where the cops used deadly force to stop the rampage.

Use of force to be studied in DC police chase

By LARRY NEUMEISTER and ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CAPITOL_LOCKDOWN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-05-23-48-57

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police in Washington are reviewing the use of officers' deadly force in the killing of a woman who tried to ram her car through a White House barrier, a shooting her family says was unjustified.

The investigation will reconstruct the car chase and shooting, which briefly put the U.S. Capitol on lockdown, and explore how officers dealt with the driver and whether protocols were followed.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer said he was confident the officers "did the best they could under the situation." Police guarding national landmarks must make fast decisions without the luxury of all the facts, especially when a threat is perceived, he said.

"This is not a routine highway or city traffic stop. It is simply not that," Gainer said Saturday. "The milieu under which we're operating at the United States Capitol and I suspect at the White House and at icons up in New York is an anti-terrorism approach, and that is a difference with a huge, huge distinction."

Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine said that while the shooting remains under investigation, he was proud of his officers' "heroic" response and their overall efforts in protecting the Capitol campus and keeping it open for visitors.

Still, the family of 34-year-old Miriam Carey called the shooting unjustified, and some deadly force experts agree it merits scrutiny.

"We're still very confused as a family why she's not still alive," Amy Carey-Jones said in New York late Friday after traveling to Washington to identify Miriam Carey's body. "I really feel like it's not justified, not justified." Another sister, retired New York City police officer Valarie Carey, said there was "no need for a gun to be used when there was no gunfire coming from the vehicle."

Secret Service agents and Capitol Police officers fired shots during the Thursday afternoon encounter, which began when Carey - in a black Infiniti with her 1-year-old daughter - rammed a White House barricade and was pursued by police toward the Capitol during a high-speed chase.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said she was confident after the shooting that Carey's actions were "not an accident," but the department's internal affairs division is investigating as part of standard protocol.

Carey struck a Secret Service agent with her car at the White House and reversed her vehicle into a police car, authorities say. A Capitol Police officer was also injured. Both are expected to recover.

Experts in the use of deadly force said there were more questions than answers at this point. Many police departments direct their officers not to fire at moving vehicles - even if the driver is using the car as a weapon - or permit it under extremely limited circumstances. And experts wondered whether police should have relied on other options, such as establishing a roadblock, to diffuse the situation.

"I think the question we have to ask is, `What threat did she cause?" said Geoffrey Alpert, an expert on police use of force at the University of South Carolina. "What threat was she to the officers, to the public, to the politicians?"

Chuck Drago, a former Oviedo, Fla., police chief who now works as a police consultant, said he was concerned officers approached the vehicle on foot while the conflict was still unfolding. That kind of direct contact can elevate the tension of an already dangerous scenario and leave an officer feeling anxious and vulnerable, he said.

"Their main concern should have been trying to keep that vehicle from moving, and then exposing themselves only adds to the danger and lessens their options in the long run," Drago said.

Authorities were investigating why Miriam Carey, who lived in Connecticut, turned up in Washington on Thursday. A search warrant application for Carey's car seeks bullet fragments, maps or other documents pertaining to the White House, alcohol or drugs, "and/or evidence of a mechanical malfunction or lack thereof."

A federal law enforcement official said Friday that her mental health appeared to be deteriorating in the last year and that she was apparently under the delusion the president was communicating with her. The official was briefed on the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Her family said she had been suffering from postpartum depression with psychosis but was not dangerous. Carey-Jones said her sister had been on medication for postpartum depression but was being taken off the drugs under medical supervision.

"They told her she could get off medication," Carey-Jones said, adding, "There were no indications she was unstable."

Valarie Carey questioned the characterizations of her sister's mental health and said Miriam Carey "did not believe the president or any government official was going to do her harm."

But interviews with some of those who knew the Stamford, Conn., woman suggested she was coming apart well before she loaded her daughter into the car for the 275-mile drive to Washington. She had suffered a head injury in a fall and had been fired as a dental hygienist about a year ago, her former employer said. Carey's mother, Idella Carey, told ABC News that she began suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth in August 2012 and was hospitalized but had no history of violence.

After Carey rammed the barricades at the White House, police chased her down Constitution Avenue to the Capitol, where she was shot. At one point near the Capitol, police say, she stopped her car abruptly, drove over a median strip and put the vehicle into reverse and refused to stop. She was then shot.

Carey's daughter escaped serious injury and was taken into protective custody. The woman's family hasn't identified the child's father. Gainer said he hasn't seen any indication officers knew the child was in the car when they fired.

"There'll be lessons to be learned from this," Gainer said. "There'll be recommendations to be made about, `Could we have done this, or should we do that?'"

Carey's death comes less than three weeks after a shooting rampage in Washington that also involved an apparently unstable person.

On Sept. 16, gunman Aaron Alexis shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard before being shot by police. Alexis, a defense industry employee and former Navy reservist, said in writings left behind that he was driven to kill by months of bombardment with electromagnetic waves.

I'd shoot her ass if she did this to my car:

Casy wrote:I'd shoot her ass if she did this to my car:

That would not have been a fatal shot.

 

The police car would have to have been moving (to block her in) to receive this extreme extent of damage.

I can't say I've ever seen a tire ripped in-half like that one!

News Hawk wrote:The police car would have to have been moving (to block her in) to receive this extreme extent of damage.

I can't say I've ever seen a tire ripped in-half like that one!

That's the cop car that hit the pop up barrier, if I'm not mistaken.

That makes sense.

...I'd say you were right...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao3617loZ0k

What accent is coming from the videographer? Chinese? Ebonics?

Holy sheesh! Good find NH.

Who Cares About Miriam Carey?

http://reason.com/archives/2013/10/09/who-cares-about-miriam-carey

The epidemic of police violence in America is largely ignored

Ed Krayewski | October 9, 2013

The story of a shooting on Capitol Hill last Thursday unfolded in the typical way. Reports of “shots fired” led to speculation of a mass shooter. Local police, in this case the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), ordered a lockdown “requiring” members of Congress and their staff to “shelter in place.” The news gathered through Twitter. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), for example, tweeted the entire message from Capitol Hill security: “Gunshots have been reported on Capitol Hill requiring all occupants in all House Office Buildings to shelter in place. Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows,” the message began. It also insisted no one would “be permitted to enter or exit the building until directed by USCP”.

Another Congressman, Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), got into some trouble for appearing to blame the “violent rhetoric” of President Obama and other Democrats for the shooting. Attempting to do some damage control, before any facts were known, Griffin excused his comments by saying he had “tweeted out of emotion.” He texted a response to BuzzFeed: “The shooting today is a terrible and inexcusable tragedy and an act of terrorism. No one but the shooter is to blame.”

But the only shooters in last Thursday’s incident, despite the reaction by Capitol police and members of Congress, were Capitol police officers themselves. Miriam Carey, the woman they shot, was unarmed. Police say she tried to ram a barricade (an “outer perimeter” fence, or checkpoint) in front of the White House before speeding off, leading police on a chase through Washington, D.C.

How did the District of Columbia’s chief of police describe the behavior of cops who shot an unarmed woman to death in front of her one-year-old daughter because she tried to hit a barrier and reportedly knocked over a Secret Service agent with her car? They “acted heroically.” Jack Dunphy, an LAPD officer who blogs pseudonymously, admitted Carey “was neither a terrorist nor a hardened criminal,” before adding that, nevertheless, police couldn’t have known that because “[w]hen she fled from that initial encounter, rather than drive into a random neighborhood in Northwest Washington, she drove straight to the Capitol.” Dunphy calls Carey’s car a 3,600-pound “weapon.” After being shot at, Dunphy points out she went “skirting the Capitol grounds” before getting a block away from the Supreme Court. What reasonable officer, asks Dunphy, would not think a terrorist attack was taking place?

After Carey was shot and killed, a task force including the FBI and local police in Connecticut, where Carey lived, raided her home and began an investigation into the dead mother. They were not able to find any “nexus” to terrorism.

In 1976, a man named Chester Plummer was shot trying to scale the White House fence. The Nation’s Rick Perlstein compared the response now to the more muted response then, pointing out “how much more frantically we respond to scary stuff than we did in decades past.”

While apologizing for the poor timing of his tweet, Griffin defended his belief that “violent rhetoric only coarsens our culture.” But what about violent actions? Nearly every mass shooting picked up by the media is taken up by anti-gun pundits and politicians as evidence that American citizens’ right to self-defense ought to be abrogated in the name of safety.

But there was no Piers Morgan special on CNN about Miriam Carey and the plague of police shootings. In fact, data on “officer-involved shootings” is rare to come by. The Department of Justice, for example, collects data on the use of force by police and complaints about excessive use of force, but does not release the number of police shootings or fatalities. In its fairly comprehensive collection of crime statistics, the FBI even includes totals for the number of police officers almost every town in America has. But it does not ask those police departments to let it know how many people they’ve killed in the line of duty, even as the Department of Justice runs a “roll call” honoring lawmen killed in the line of duty that includes slave catchers from the 18th century.

Police shootings like that of Miriam Carey happen on a regular basis. Carey’s may have remained a local news story, like the shooting of Jack Lamar Roberson, whose fiancé said she called 911 to get him an ambulance, or 107-year-old Monroe Isadore, who did not want to leave his bedroom, or Alex DeJesus, shot in the head while fleeing a police drug sting, had it not entered the news cycle as “shots fired” on Capitol Hill. Other police shootings, like that of Jonathan Ferrell, who was looking for help after an early morning car accident, may make it to the national news cycle. Ferrell’s case was notable because the cop involved was quickly charged with voluntary manslaughter. The cop’s probable cause hearing, originally scheduled for Monday, has been delayed. And these cases are just a sample. None of them are household names, and neither is Miriam Carey’s. Some, like DeJesus, who was selling drugs, and Isadore, who reportedly shot at police, can be easily excused by police apologists as having “had it coming.” In cases like Jack Roberson, who was likely having some kind of diabetic attack, police will say they felt threatened (they claim Roberson had two unidentified weapons in hand).

And in every case, as Dunphy noted in his Miriam Carey blog post, police will say they acted reasonably based on the facts known to them at the time. Officer Dick Haste, who shot and killed 19-year-old Ramarley Graham in his grandmother’s bathroom in the Bronx after chasing him over a marijuana purchase, had his indictment thrown out after successfully arguing the grand jury should have been informed that he was told by other officers that Graham had a gun. Graham did not have a gun; the grand jury failed to re-indict Haste, and no one ever even mentioned what kind of criminal charges his colleagues might have to face for providing him with wrong information that led to someone being killed.

Even when there are politicians who take up the cause of victims like Ramarley Graham, they turn a blind eye to the root causes of police violence. Bronx city councilman Andy King, for example, blames Graham’s death on racial profiling, even as he continues to push police to be more aggressive in pursuing the drug trade in his neighborhood, where Graham was shot and killed.

But sometimes victims of police violence haven’t been racially profiled. Sometimes they’re white. Sometimes police can’t even manufacture a potential crime to pin their shooting on. When 24-year-old Seth Adams was shot in the parking lot of his family’s business by an undercover police officer who was loitering there, police said Adams “decided to assault the deputy.” Adams’ family say he was worried because he saw someone in the parking lot of his family’s business after hours. The police later said the deputy, Michael Custer, was involved in a surveillance operation unrelated to the Adams’ family business. Broward County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw dismissed the incident by commenting that “there's only two witnesses here: the suspect and the deputy. And the suspect was not able to be interviewed.” The sheriff claimed the investigation would “verify” everything he already knew about a situation he was not a witness to. The shooting of Seth Adams was eventually ruled justified.

As for Miriam Carey, authorities haven’t even announced any kind of investigation into her shooting*. And why should they, when D.C.’s police chief already determined the shooting was heroic? Who cares about Miriam Carey?

*Update: Barnstormer notes the Washington Metro PD is leading an investigation into the shooting.