Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: RocketMan on January 03, 2009, 02:40:39 PM
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This is both sad and stupid. Mixing an idiot college student, alcohol, vintage WWII German memorabilia, and firearms, just doesn't work.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475505,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475505,00.html)
Fox News / Associated Press
Student Dressed as German Soldier Shot to Death by Police
Saturday, January 03, 2009
SEATTLE — A college student dressed in a vintage German military uniform who was fatally shot by police on New Year's Day was a harmless, eccentric history buff, his family and friends said Friday.
Miles Murphy, a University of Washington senior, was shot several times at his apartment early Thursday after police said he pointed a rifle affixed with a bayonet at officers and refused orders to drop the weapon.
Seattle police had converged on Murphy's apartment after receiving complaints that several men were firing rifle and shotgun rounds into the air. Murphy emerged from inside and pointed what was later identified as a World War II Kar 98 German infantry rifle at the officers, police said.
When he refused several orders to drop the weapon, two officers fired seven shots, police Officer Jeff Kappel said. Murphy was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died.
A witness told some officers at the scene that Murphy had been firing blanks that night.
Police searching the house found alcohol, live ammunition and a large collection of German, Russian and Nazi memorabilia including photographs and uniforms, Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said.
But Murphy "wasn't a Nazi," Hattie Taylor, a friend, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "He was just fascinated with the past... He liked to dress up and have fun."
Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske called the situation "truly sad" but stood by the officers' actions. "Right now, I don't see any other choice that they had," he said.
The two officers who fired at Murphy were placed on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure.
Murphy, 22, was a senior Germanics major, university President Mark Emmert said in a statement Friday mourning his loss.
Murphy wanted to be a German literature professor and had a large collection of WWII memorabilia, said his friend Spencer Bray.
He was "a peaceful and loving young man," his mother, Dianne Murphy, told the local newspaper.
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Death by Stupidity...
Sad to be true but one does not go about pointing potentially lethal weapons at agents of the state whose lives have been determined by the courts over and over again to be more valuable to the state than the lives of the proles. (read Officer Safety)
Just another instance that proves Darwin always wins!
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Death by Stupidity, or Suicide by Cop? =|
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Death by Stupidity, or Suicide by Cop? =|
There's a difference?...
Rule to live by....don't go pointing deadly-looking weapons at law-enforcement officers...and, if you do, expect to be shot dead--sooner or later....
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Death by Stupidity, or Suicide by Cop? =|
It makes one wonder.
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Well. That's just odd.
SEATTLE — A college student dressed in a vintage German military uniform who was fatally shot by police on New Year's Day was a harmless, eccentric history buff, his family and friends said Friday.
Miles Murphy, a University of Washington senior, was shot several times at his apartment early Thursday after police said he pointed a rifle affixed with a bayonet at officers and refused orders to drop the weapon.
Seattle police had converged on Murphy's apartment after receiving complaints that several men were firing rifle and shotgun rounds into the air. Murphy emerged from inside and pointed what was later identified as a World War II Kar 98 German infantry rifle at the officers, police said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475505,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475505,00.html)
To be fair, though, I suppose it was the ultimate sort of re-enactment of WWII German stuff...he got shot by Americans.
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Don't dress as a German soldier and point a Mauser at police
Well, I plan to be a harmless crank the next time I point a rifle at someone after firing it into the air. So I'll be safe, ya know?
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Can't blame the law. Soft armor isn't going to so much as slow that 8mm down on it's way though...
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It wasn't even a toy gun, it was
. . . a World War II Kar 98 German infantry rifle . . .
If someone pointed that at me, I'd be inclined to shoot him, too.
Sounds like a Darwin Award candidate . . .
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Sad and stupid is right. You wonder what is in people's minds when they point a rifle at police. The article didn't say if the rifle was loaded. RIP
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wasn't his first stupid i read a comment that the cops had taken a gun away from him before
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ouch apparently his dad got the cops to release the rifle to him last time kid screwed up. dad returned it to his adult son
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pity, kid dead, the cops who shot him are probably pretty upset, and an historical rifle is gonna end up destroyed. =(
my vote is stupid kid. if i was the cops i would have shoot him too. i don't like it when people point potentially loaded rifles in my direction.
i'm not to impressed by the dad either.
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wasn't his first stupid i read a comment that the cops had taken a gun away from him before
Wow, if that is the case (dunno how reliable a comment is) then I really wonder if he wasn't "practicing" kind of leadin gup to a crime. Although most crimes, including crimes involving guns, having nothing to do with mental illness, performing increasing alarming, dangerous, and socially unacceptable behaviors can be sign of worsening problems, even an indication of planning. I'm guessing the actions worsened as he wasn't shot the first first time.
I suspect "eccentric" was a little more than eccentric and crossed the line into nuts.
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Join Date: 08-24-05
Posts: 253
hmmm...?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ooting03m.html
Seattle police in 2006 confiscated rifle held by slain student, then returned it to his father
The rifle held by a University of Washington senior when he was fatally shot by Seattle police Thursday is the same weapon taken from him...
By Christine Clarridge and Jennifer Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporters
The rifle held by a University of Washington senior when he was fatally shot by Seattle police Thursday is the same weapon taken from him by officers in late 2006, according to Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske.
On Friday, in the wake of the New Year's Day shooting of Miles Allen Murphy, police defended their actions, and witnesses described what they heard and saw before the 22-year-old man lost his life.
At a news conference, Kerlikowske said the Mauser Kar 98K rifle that Murphy "pointed at officers" had been confiscated from him in November 2006 "for safekeeping."
Neither police nor Murphy's parents would provide details about what prompted police to seize the weapon in 2006.
Police said, however, that Murphy's father made repeated requests for return of the rifle and, ultimately, they gave it to him less than three months later.
Michael Murphy, of Maple Valley, said Friday that he'd given the rifle back to his son for military "re-enactments" because it was his son's property and his son was an adult.
Murphy did not specify when he returned the weapon to his son. He said the earlier incident had no bearing on his son's death.
It "doesn't change what happened. ... It is senseless and tragic, and we're dealing with what happened here," he said.
Kerlikowske also characterized the shooting as a "tragedy," but said he stands firmly behind his officers' actions.
The police chief said decades of research show that officers facing firearms cannot safely deploy nonlethal tactics, such as firing Tasers.
"There isn't another option available ... when you're facing a firearm," Kerlikowske said. "We don't face lethal weaponry with nonlethal means."
Report of shots fired in alley
According to Seattle police, the UW student was killed around 2 a.m. on New Year's Day after officers responded to a call about shots being fired by a group of males in an alley west of the 5200 block of 17th Avenue Northeast.
Police learned from witnesses that one of the men lived in a basement apartment of a multifamily boardinghouse. Officers staged themselves at the top of a narrow staircase leading to the basement entrance.
As they did so, police said, Miles Murphy emerged from the basement wearing a World War II-era German military uniform and carrying the Mauser Kar rifle with affixed bayonet in both hands.
The officers identified themselves as Seattle police and ordered Murphy to drop the weapon, police said.
Murphy pointed the weapon at the officers, Kerlikowske said, then lowered it, then pointed it at them again "while taking a step forward."
The officers said they had direct eye contact with Murphy during this exchange and that Murphy did not utter a word, the police chief said.
Two of the officers -- 10-year-veteran Kirk Waldorf and 7-year-veteran Adam Elias -- fired a total of seven rounds at Murphy.
The young man -- well-known on campus as a smart, eccentric history buff who loved to participate in WWII re-enactments and who would even show up in class dressed in a historic uniform -- died later at Harborview Medical Center.
The cause and manner of his death were not released by the King County Medical Examiner's Office on Friday.
Waldorf and Elias, neither of whom has been involved previously in an on-the-job shooting, have been placed on routine administrative leave pending an investigation.
Kerlikowske said he expects an inquest to be called into Murphy's death.
The two men with Murphy when he was firing the rifle told officers the three of them had been drinking earlier in the evening, police said.
Police said they found alcohol, live ammunition and World War II memorabilia in Murphy's home.
Daniel Ray, a resident of the complex, said he had talked to the three men about half an hour before Murphy was shot.
"They were totally lucid and cooperative, not belligerent and not swaying," Ray said.
Ray said he, his wife and his brother had returned home at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday when they saw Murphy and two other men shooting a rifle into the air in the parking lot.
Concerned, Ray and his brother approached.
Ray said Murphy and his friends were "sort of embarrassed -- like kids," when Ray pointed out that their actions could be dangerous. One of them told Ray, "It's not a real gun. Well, actually, it's real, but we're shooting blanks, and we only have two left."
Another neighbor then started yelling at them to stop, Ray said.
"They shuffled away into the alley," Ray said. "Then [Murphy] dropped to one knee and fired the last two shots." Ray said he believed Murphy "was kind of re-enacting a New Year's celebration, when it was very common to shoot rifles into the air."
Murphy and his friends then walked down to the basement, and Ray unloaded his car and went inside.
When he last saw Murphy, Ray said, the young man was holding the gun "safely, with one hand on the barrel and one hand on the stock, slightly pointed up."
Ray was at his computer in his hallway, directly above the basement stairwell, when he heard officers identify themselves and order Murphy to drop the weapon.
He then heard shots.
"It seemed to happen super, super fast," Ray said.
"I don't know if he was stunned, and not used to the police yelling at him or what, but he might have just froze," Ray said.
Ray said his neighbor was basically a "good kid," quiet and shy, who seemed to wear his uniforms and costumes as a sort of "fashion statement."
According to a friend, Murphy studied German and Scandinavian culture, could play piano, violin, banjo and guitar, and had aimed to be a professor of German literature.
Despite Murphy's fascination with World War II, Spencer Bray said, his friend never espoused Third Reich ideologies.
Ray said he heard later from police that they thought Murphy might have hostages.
"They thought they were going into a very difficult, dangerous situation," Ray said. "He wasn't aggressive. He was a good guy, but of course there was no way for the police to know that then."
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i feel for the dad and the cops
i do some things with my critters that are a trifle risky. always have that fear in the back of my mind
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So he was standing at the bottom of the steps leading out of his basement apartment. If you were holding a rifle in your hands, you would naturally point it up, to keep it from hitting the steps, or the (presumably) narrow walls of the stairwell. If you saw cops standing at the top of the stairs, and weren't terrifically inebriated, though, you'd put it down, or find some other way to hold it.
So was he just too drunk to know what he was doing, or just drunk enough to play Butch and Sundance?
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Drunk + guns = a bad day for everyone.
If some drunken kid pointed a rifle at me I'd be inclined to shoot him to. Can't fault the cops.
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Murphy did not specify when he returned the weapon to his son. He said the earlier incident had no bearing on his son's death
Wow, Dad is dumber than his kid. It is a wonder of modern society that junior made it all the way to his senior year in college.
Jim
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In some of the followup stories in the Seattle media, it is reported that the rifle was confiscated for several months back in 2006 due to a suicide attempt by Mr. Miles Murphy. The articles did not specify if the rifle was used in the attempt or was part of the customary seizure of firearms from the home after a suicide attempt.
I don't know how other jurisdictions do it, but when I was a paramedic, it was SOP for local LEO to seize any firearms in the home after a suicide attempt. They would give you a receipt and you could pick them up at the local station after a period of time.
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The two men with Murphy when he was firing the rifle told officers the three of them had been drinking earlier in the evening, police said.
Police said they found alcohol, live ammunition and World War II memorabilia in Murphy's home.
This is a lesson. Remember it.
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I don't know how other jurisdictions do it, but when I was a paramedic, it was SOP for local LEO to seize any firearms in the home after a suicide attempt. They would give you a receipt and you could pick them up at the local station after a period of time.
What's a little due process among friends eh? Luckily not everywhere allows the police to seize firearms without it.
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Luckily not everywhere allows the police to seize firearms without it.
wrong