Vermont cops hunt 'violent' serial offender armed with a knife who officers were too scared to chase

[Carlitos Brigante]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9955621/amp/Vermont-cops-hunt-violent-serial-offender-officers-scared-chase.html

On Friday, he slapped a traffic flagger and threatened to stab him 

The worker said he was brandishing a hunting knife and also threatened one of his colleagues

Burlington Police officers caught up with him to arrest him but he refused to get out of his car

He then drove away and the cops were too scared to chase him

[ColinC]

1. ..

[North Shore Chicago]

2. Come on LEOs!

Do your job!

[Aristus]

8. "But I don't want to get hurt!

Pain is so icky-poo!”

F*****g cops, man…

[paleotn]

11. That's rather ignorant of the actual situation in Burlington VT.

[Aristus]

14. If there's more to the story other than the guy had a knife,

the guy drove away, and the cops hesitated before going after him, then yes, I plead ignorance.

[paleotn]

16. Way more.

Some recent wrangling about policing in Burlington. This crap has been going on for months and months.

https://vtdigger.org/2021/08/10/burlington-city-council-rejects-raising-police-officer-staffing-cap-for-second-time/

"Re-imagining policing" in Burlington has gone to the point of loonyville. Officers are under such scrutiny that they're afraid to do their damn jobs, not afraid of some goober with the knife, white, black or otherwise. Police reform is one thing, and desperately needed for cities that actually HAVE a problem with out of control police. Burlington is NOT one of them. The BPD is just a convenient kicking bag for local progressives who can't do anything to change policing in Minneapolis, St. Louise, etc. etc. They've gone waaaay to far and unfortunately won't get reeled in I fear until one of the high and mighty council members gets assaulted, robbed or potentially killed. It's insanity.

[Maraya1969]

19. So what happened to Tasers or do they only work on black people? And the cop

could have shot out his tire so he couldn't have driven off.

[stopdiggin]

23. shooting out a tire?

Christ on a crutch! You're entitled to an opinion - but it's not very well informed.

(taser is another situation - providing the officer is equipped - but they still require certain parameters, and 'head and neck' are not considered optimum targets)

[Maraya1969]

24. Well splain it to me. What s wrong with making the car not work?

[stopdiggin]

25. Sigh. Shooting at tires is strickly

Vin Diesel, Claude Van Damme stuff. In the real world ...

[paleotn]

10. Intense scrutiny by Burlington city hall...

has ham strung the Burlington police. My hope is someone doesn't get killed before the city council lays off and lets BPD do its goddamn job.

[dalton99a]

3. "We wouldn't want to hurt him or anything"

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Literally lol'd at this.

[XanaDUer2]

5. This might be a legit tazing or shooting situation nt

[Hotler]

7. Now if the guy was black........... nt

[grumpyduck]

13. You beat me to it.

[dclarston13]

18. In Vermont????

[paleotn]

9. I wouldn't call it fear.

Burlington police are more than capable of taking down some goober with a knife. But the department is under intense scrutiny for better or ill. Mostly for ill as this perp should have been drug out of the vehicle and arrested. Even we on the left have a very bad tendency to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Makes me wonder how many robberies, assaults and murders it will take before the Burlington powers that be recognize they've gone waaaaaay too far. Hopefully not too many, but I'm not terribly hopeful.

[stopdiggin]

20. kind of suspected

that this was something along those lines. And thank you for giving a more ear to the ground explanation of local conditions.

The idea that you can just drive away from a stop (the police can always find the person later, why risk ...) - has become somewhat popularized in certain quarters. (we needn't name names) But this kind flies in the face of the fact that sometimes public safety demands that people be 'stopped' and furthermore, 'detained.'
---- --- ----

[MrsCheaplaugh]

12. It's the scary white skin! Nt

[paleotn]

15. No, it's not.

Might want to read more about recent events in Burlington, VT before making grossly ignorant comments. Just saying.

[Mopar151]

17. Shooting at fleeing suspects is a big no-no!

High speed pursuit isn't all that great an option, in VT. The cops know who he is, he'll turn up in a few days.....

[stopdiggin]

21. problem with that scenario

is what sort of damage is this 'loose cannon' gonna' cause in the next few days? Wife, girlfriend, in-laws, children, neighbor, employer .. ? You want to gamble on those odds - with a person that has already acted out and demonstrated violent tendencies? The public is going to scream blood murder - and quite rightly.

[Mopar151]

26. Are you in Vt?

'Cuz it ain't that big a place...... But there are ample opportunities to make this fracas into something a LOT bigger and uglier.

De-escalation means that, sometimes, you let something go to avoid something worse.

[stopdiggin]

27. I agree. Deescalation is SOMETIMES warranted

We possibly hold different opinions about when that sometimes might be. But I'll grant that there is a aspect of judgement call in the decisions made. Also grant that there are variables that enter in - and demographics, and possibly a largely rural setting might be among those. But - I'm also pretty certain that a proven ability or propensity toward violence is one of those variables too. And I don't like the idea of those characters skating off -- to potentially have another go at it.

You originally mentioned something about turning up 'days' later - in my opinion, even with 'deescalation' as the goal - that is way, way too long. The article linked describes and individual that is a ticking time bomb. He needs to be off the streets.

[stillcool]

22. guess it's no fun being a cop

unless you can kick some ass indiscriminately. Why bother?