Details are continuing to emerge about a gun rampage that took place in the streets of Colorado Springs on Saturday morning, in which 33-year-old Noah Harpham shot three people to death before police killed him in a shootout. On Monday, a troubling detail came to light in a Denver Post report suggesting that police may have had a chance to intervene before the slaughter began—but that a police dispatcher may have reacted without urgency to a 911 call about Harpham because of Colorado's open carry law:
Witnesses watched in horror as Harpham picked his victims off. One of them, the bicyclist, pleaded for his life before being killed.
"I heard the (young man) say, 'Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!' " Naomi Bettis, a neighbor who witnessed the killing, said Monday.
Bettis said she recognized the gunman as her neighbor—whom she didn't know by name—and that before the initial slaying she saw him roaming outside with a rifle. She called 911 to report the man, but a dispatcher explained that Colorado has an open carry law that allows public handling of firearms.
"He did have a distraught look on his face," Bettis said. "It looked like he had a rough couple days or so." It's unclear how much time lapsed between Bettis' 911 call and when the rampage began, but according to The Gazette the initial police response didn't come until after the carnage was in progress.
Gee a man is walking around with an assault rifle right out in public?
What could possibly go wrong?
Just imagine how many lives could have been saved if Colorado had a common sense gun law that stated if you are walking around carrying an AR-15 like a psychopath you have to surrender it to the police and get a ticket.
And stack that against the number of lives that have been saved because some 2nd Amendment asshole was wearing his metal penis extender in public to compensate for his deficiencies.
Because that number is zero.
Must have been a white guy. Only black guys are prohibited from carrying guns or toy guns in "open carry " states. Remember John Crawford and Tamir.. To give the police credit, if they were informed that this was a black guy, this would never have happened.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. If they 911 caller had said the guy is Black, they would have dispatched a dozen police units to the scene immediately. Guaranteed.
DeleteIt's REAL easy. If you see someone carrying a gun in a neighborhood, a store, a restaurant, on the street corner. Call 911 immediately, and get everyone in your group to call 911 immediately, even the kids, call your neighbors, get them to call 911. Drown the police with 911 calls until this insane situation is changed.
ReplyDeleteIf you did this in Ohio for example, an open carry state, the dispatcher would tell you it's perfectly legal to carry around a gun and would probably ask if there's any other problem. If there isn't, they'd tell you there's no crime just carrying a gun. Once you've been informed open carry is legal in your state, if you continued to "drown" your dispatch with calls, then you'd be the one doing something that may be illegal. If you want the laws to change, put your energy into trying to change the law, not into deluging 911 dispatchers with calls about something that's legal.
DeleteNope, bad advice. All the 911 calls can be from different people. Remember the one a hole who took an assault rifle to a hill right above a little league game, in an open carry zone? Everyone called 911, stopped the game, and that ahole was escorted away. It's our country, and the police ask us to report suspicious goings on. Looks pretty suspicious to me, a guy carrying a gun around a neighborhood on Saturday morning.
DeleteActually, you've misremembered what happened at the Little League game. The man was not escorted away.
DeleteHere's what happened when lots of people called the 911 about a man with an assault rifle at the park in an open carry state:
"Local law enforcement officials reported 22 calls to 9-1-1, but there was nothing they could do about the man flashing his gun because he had a permit and wasn’t threatening anyone."
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/man-flaunts-gun-little-league-game-tells-parents-theres-nothing-can/
And this:
"The park users flooded 911 lines, but because the man had a permit, the police could neither ask him to leave the park nor arrest him. "
http://aattp.org/gun-nut-causes-panic-at-little-league-game-look-i-got-a-gun-and-theres-nothing-you-can-do-about-it-video/
You're mistaken if you think police would act against something that's legal just because a lot of people call 911 to report the same thing. They may come by and ask the person what they're up to but legally they can't cite him or arrest him if the person isn't breaking a law. They can't even legally tell him to go home no matter how many people call the 911. In the meantime, I'm happy be able to see the gun if someone has it instead of concealed in a waistband or a purse. At least I know there's a gun nearby.
Flood your legislators with calls about guns, not your 911.
You were doing great until you typed your last sentence. Although the numbers are very low, saying it hasn't happened just isn't true.
ReplyDelete… saying it hasn't happened just isn't true.
DeleteCitation, please. Fervent belief doesn't count here.
You know as well as I do that facts matter little to this blogger.
DeleteThen why don't you start your own blog?
DeleteYes I would also be interested in seeing some citation of a person walking around with an assault rifle having saved a life of stopped a crime.
DeleteBut if such information exists please feel free to share.
Anonymous 1:19 PM opined: You know as well as I do that facts matter little to this blogger.
DeleteCitation, please. Random insults from a commenter who chooses not to have any history here really don't count for much.
Colorado is not an open-carry state. I'm not sure if its a county-by-county, or municipality decision. There are a lot of not-crazy people here! Colorado Springs, not so much...
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter if it's open carry or not, call 911. Call 911 call 911 this is our nation, not some abomination resulting from the NRA owning the legislators.
ReplyDeleteThis is insanity in action and if our lawmakers refuse to address this problem we are in deep trouble. I live in a neighborhood in Alaska full of guns and if I saw somebody with an assault rifle roaming about I would certainly call 911.
ReplyDeleteWhy should ammo be sold without background checks? California is once again ahead of the nation with it's new proposals.
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:56--- It is illegal to open carry in Denver, but it is legal in Colorado Springs.
ReplyDeleteGood luck getting all those open carry laws changed---we in Denver and Boulder are doing our best, but we're up against a whole lot of redder-than-red counties. Part of northern Colorado actually wants to secede, for universe's sake.
This is just terrible. The dispatcher did not tke this serious because of open carry. NOW innocent people are dead.
ReplyDeleteI knew nothing good would come from this open carry law.