Midterm

I’ve been following the story about Robbie Tolan being shot in his parents’ driveway. The incident occurred after an officer entered Tolan’s license plate incorrectly which resulted in the plate coming back to a stolen vehicle.

Normally, when I hear of a police shooting in the news I find that the public, in my opinion, is being ridiculously over critical of the shooting and that it was understandable why the police handled the situation in the manner that they did. However, as I heard the details of this story unfold on an HBO sports news show my interest was peaked, and for once I questioned the polices’ actions more than the reaction of the public.

I do not know what the standard procedure for running plates is, however, not rerunning plates which come back as stolen seems to be where the trouble of this night starts. I understand that the police wanted to follow the “stolen” car to its destination, to see if they would be led to a chop shop, but when the car was parked in the driveway of a well kept residence, I would think that the police would have begun to relax. Tolan and his cousin walked almost to the front door before being surprised by two policemen with guns drawn. Here again, it seems that it might have been a good idea to call for more backup. When Tolan’s parents heard the commotion, they came out to defuse the situation, however, from all counts that I have read, the police seemed very high strung and unwilling to listen to anything that the homeowners had to say. I’m not saying that the police should have backed off to the point that they ended up putting themselves in harms way, but allowing the homeowners to quickly show ownership of the car would have resolved the situation right away.

The shooting, has left a bullet lodged in Tolan’s liver and unsure of his future in baseball, is under investigation by both the city of Bellaire, Texas, and the police department to determine whether or not the two officers used an excessive amount of force. I would think that they would also want to review procedures for running plates.

I felt although this was a bad situation that most of the media did a good job handle/presenting the story:
http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/txcn/houston/stories/khou090202_mh_bellaire_mayor_tolan.1343cece.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal/2009/01/robbie_tolan.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/08/baseballer.shot/

However, there were some cites which had articles that did not seems to do as good of a job, having missing facts, additional facts, or statements of opinion.
http://celebgalz.com/bobby-tolans-son-robbie-tolan-shot-by-police-photo/
http://www.afro.com/tabid/456/itemid/2576/Outrage-over-Racial-Profiling-Police-Shooting-i.aspx