ribit, what's your take on this?
BLUE ON BLUE09.02.151:00 AM ET
Trigger-Happy Cop Shot One of His Own and Kept Blasting Away
A detective who worked narcotics with an undercover officer walked up to a car, shot his fellow officer twice, and then seven more times against the victim’s pleas.
The number of signs that Albuquerque Police Lt. Greg Brachle ignored or didn’t see before putting nine .45-caliber bullets into his fellow officer’s body are simply staggering.
There was the fact that Brachle knew Det. Jacob Grant was involved in a drug buy last January, a sting the superior officer walked up on while Grant sat in an undercover police car. There were Grant’s clothes, an outfit specially worn according to a safety protocol to prevent friendly fire incidents. Even Grant’s position in the car—behind another undercover narcotics agent in the driver’s seat—was to signal to other officers that the two men were cops.
But most damning—and the most confusing part of it all—is that Brachle and Grant were well-known to each other. For nearly two years, they worked in the narcotics division of the department.
The lieutenant and the detective had “substantial, frequent, and almost daily interactions with each other,” said the civil lawsuit filed last week against the city of Albuquerque and the police department.
According to Bernalillo County court documents filed by Grant’s lawyer, Grant was taking part in a drug buy with another undercover officer while the sting was being monitored by Brachle and others. A briefing was held prior to the bust and officers in attendance learned not only of Grant and his fellow undercover cop’s presence in the car, but also of descriptions of their clothing and seating positions. Brachle didn’t attend the briefing, Grant’s lawyer says, but nonetheless took an “active and aggressive role in the operation.”
Brachle went against protocol by approaching the driver’s side of the car Grant was sitting in. The lieutenant again broke the rules when he ripped open the door and started firing into Grant, alleging without offering a single “hands up,” or “freeze,” according to the complaint.
Brachle’s actions were called “overzealous and aggressive,” in Grant’s lawsuit. Another way of saying it might be that Brachle went John Wayne, swooping into a situation he apparently knew little about, guns blazing. Even if Grant wasn’t a cop, Brachle’s alleged zealousness to fire on a suspect presenting no apparent threat would be disturbing.
Brachle first putting two bullets into Grant’s torso at point-blank range. The detective’s body slumped over in the back seat, Brachle fired seven more times as Grant tried to crawl away.
“Please stop shooting,” the detective pleaded as the lieutenant kept firing.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/02/trigger-happy-cop-shot-one-of-his-own-and-kept-blasting-away.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
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