"Let's sling bullets at the suspect while there's a mundane hostage in the line of fire. What could go wrong?" -Officer Friendly
http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/1...llege-student/
Imagine if you accidentally broke into someone’s house and shot them to death. You’d face some pretty serious criminal charges, right? That’s because you’re not the Nassau County police officer who fired the fatal shots that killed a Hofstra University student.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice issued a 28-page report that said officer Nikolas Budimlic was not in the wrong when he opened fire in the direction of hostage Andrea Rebello, 21.
An armed intruder was holding her hostage, during the May 17, 2013 shooting.
Following a review of whether police personnel acted appropriately during the deadly encounter, Rice said that prosecution of the 19-year police veteran, is not warranted, according to local New York CBS 2.
Budimlic was one of the first officers to respond to the break-in, when he found Rebello being held in her an off-campus apartment, in a headlock.
The hostage-taker threatened to kill her if the officer didn’t lower his gun.
Budimlic said that the hostage-taker pointed a gun at him, and he opened fire, shooting and killing Rebello.
Budimlic said that “kept saying, ‘I’m going to kill her,’ and then he pointed the gun at the police officer.”
County homicide squad Lt. John Azzata said that smith was hit with seven bullets, and Rebello one. There was no official word on why the officer sprayed so many bullets, or how he could have ever expected to have aimed subsequent shots when firing so rapidly.
Still, the prosecutor’s report read, “Andrea Rebello’s death was not caused by any criminal misconduct by Officer Budimlic. Her death was caused by Dalton Smith’s decisions. Officer Budimlic reasonably perceived threats of deadly force against himself and others and acted accordingly. Though the results were unquestionably tragic, criminal charges under these circumstances would be inappropriate and legally unsustainable.”
But firing nearly a dozen shots so quickly in the direction of a hostage was at the very least reckless. The report does not address this.
“Police are trained to use guns and weapons. That’s part of the job,” Aaron Rodwin, a former classmate of Rebello’s said. “When they have situations like this where they might have to shoot, they need to know when is the right time to do it, and they need to also be accountable for their actions.”
“That’s what he thought he should have done, but that was not the best call,” former Hofstra student Jared Goodman added. ”Obviously, she’s dead, and the whole Hofstra community was mourning afterwards.”
Rebello’s family has filed a “wrongful death, civil rights and negligent actions against the County of Nassau and its police officers and possibly other defendants to be named after discovery,” according to a report from Newsday.
Do you think the officer was right to unload his gun in the direction of a hostage? What else could he have perhaps done to neutralize the situation? Should he be held accountable, or should he be immune from prosecution?
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