SmarterthanYou
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you may soon have a legal duty to protect police officers.....
A lawsuit recently filed in New Hampshire demonstrates that police are taught to assume that citizens have a moral and legal duty to protect them.
Beverly Mutrie of Greenland, New Hampshire is being sued by four police officers who were wounded during an April 12 shootout at the home of her late son, Cullen. Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney was killed in the gunfight. Following an eight-hour standoff involving SWAT operators and dozens of police officers, Cullen and his girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts, were found dead in what was described as a murder-suicide.
Mrs. Mutrie’s only connection to the events of April 12 is the fact that she owned the home where the shootout took place. The lawsuit filed by the officers claims that she “indirectly supported and facilitated” illegal activity that supposedly occurred on the premises. She has not been charged with a crime.
In addition to being an act of simple vindictiveness, the lawsuit against Beverly Mutrie is probably an attempt by the municipality – which wasn’t cut in for a share of the “forfeiture” haul – to confiscate her home. An interrogatory interview of Mrs. Mutrie focused entirely on her insurance coverage. The DEA seized three vehicles found on the property and $14,320 in cash that was found on the body of Brittany Tibbetts.
The persecution of Beverly Mutrie is neither the first, nor the worst, case of its kind.
In June 2007 Karen Mies, a 66-year-old hospice nurse from Shingle Springs, California, suffered two losses no wife and mother should ever endure. Her husband, 72-year-old Arthur, was killed in an entirely unanticipated act of irrational violence on the part of their 35-year-old son, Eddie.
After the police were notified, Eddie was killed in an armed stand-off involving the local SWAT team, a helicopter provided by the state police, and several deputies from the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.
More than one hundred rounds were fired in the June 5, 2007 shoot-out. In addition to the deaths of Arthur and Eddie, three deputies -- Jon Yaws, Greg Murphy, and Melissa Meekma -- suffered gunshot wounds. The injuries suffered by deputies Yaws and Murphy required multiple surgeries and lengthy hospitalization, but weren’t life-threatening.
Displaying preternatural grace, Karen inquired after the health of the injured deputies, telling a friend that her sole consolation was the fact that they would survive. A measure of the depth of her good character is offered by the fact that she didn’t recant that statement after Yaws and Murphy filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against her and her husband’s estate.
The deputies claimed that Karen – who was not charged as an accomplice – shared the culpability for the injuries allegedly inflicted on the deputies by her son. Eddie Mies was characterized in the document as "a diagnosed schizophrenic" with a "criminal history" who displayed "paranoia and [a] propensity for violence." For these reasons, insisted the deputies, Karen should have known it was "necessary to avoid allowing Eddie Mies access to firearms," and they claimed that she displayed actionable negligence by permitting such access.
In a television interview, Yaws appeared to accuse the Mies family of conspiring to endanger his life and those of his fellow officers. When Jake Mies, Eddie's brother, made a frantic 911 call to report that his father had been shot, he told the operator that he didn't know who had committed the crime. Yaws characterized this as a deliberate lie, and accused Karen of being a party to the deception.
"We were directly lied to when they said they didn't know who had done it," asserted Yaws. "We thought it was a random person [on the ground] through the neighborhood. We would have handled it entirely differently if we had known it was someone from the residence."
Even if this had been true, it's difficult to see how the knowledge that the shooting was an aggravated domestic dispute would have changed the tactical situation. The police deployed overwhelming force, then used a CHP helicopter to flush Eddie into the open where he was quickly killed by the SWAT team.
Immediately after the incident the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office peddled a self-dramatizing version of the episode in which Eddie Mies supposedly “tried to bait the officers” into a thicket near the house. The department also claimed that he had devised "an elaborate system of bunkers and tunnels" akin to the labyrinth Colonel Hogan's resistance cellcreated beneath Stalag 13. The lawsuit asserted that Eddie was "found dead in a bunker with a cache of weapons and ammunition, as well as a change of clothes."
After the suit was filed, Karen Mies took a reporter from the Sacramento Bee on a walking tour of the family's 2.5 acre property, where she and her late husband had raised six children.
The "ammunition cache" was an old toolbox containing bullets, birdshot, and useless junk. The "change of clothes" was a jacket. At the time of his death, Eddie was armed with a shotgun and a revolver he had purchased legally as an adult. The warren of "bunkers" and "tunnels" consisted of a handful of small depressions and sunken trails "where the kids used to play," Karen pointed out.
In similar fashion, Eddie's psychological problems and "criminal" history were generously embroidered by the deputies. Although his behavior had become alarming to his friends and family, Eddie was never diagnosed with schizophrenia or any other mental disorder. His "criminal history" consisted of traffic arrests in Wyoming and Nevada.
Although it is clear that Eddie had killed his father, it was never firmly established that he actually shot the deputies, who may well have been injured as a result of “friendly fire.” When asked about this possibility, Bill Clark, who at the time was chief deputy DA for El Dorado County, blithely replied that his office had been “too busy” to complete its official inquiry.
A lawsuit recently filed in New Hampshire demonstrates that police are taught to assume that citizens have a moral and legal duty to protect them.
Beverly Mutrie of Greenland, New Hampshire is being sued by four police officers who were wounded during an April 12 shootout at the home of her late son, Cullen. Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney was killed in the gunfight. Following an eight-hour standoff involving SWAT operators and dozens of police officers, Cullen and his girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts, were found dead in what was described as a murder-suicide.
Mrs. Mutrie’s only connection to the events of April 12 is the fact that she owned the home where the shootout took place. The lawsuit filed by the officers claims that she “indirectly supported and facilitated” illegal activity that supposedly occurred on the premises. She has not been charged with a crime.
In addition to being an act of simple vindictiveness, the lawsuit against Beverly Mutrie is probably an attempt by the municipality – which wasn’t cut in for a share of the “forfeiture” haul – to confiscate her home. An interrogatory interview of Mrs. Mutrie focused entirely on her insurance coverage. The DEA seized three vehicles found on the property and $14,320 in cash that was found on the body of Brittany Tibbetts.
The persecution of Beverly Mutrie is neither the first, nor the worst, case of its kind.
In June 2007 Karen Mies, a 66-year-old hospice nurse from Shingle Springs, California, suffered two losses no wife and mother should ever endure. Her husband, 72-year-old Arthur, was killed in an entirely unanticipated act of irrational violence on the part of their 35-year-old son, Eddie.
After the police were notified, Eddie was killed in an armed stand-off involving the local SWAT team, a helicopter provided by the state police, and several deputies from the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.
More than one hundred rounds were fired in the June 5, 2007 shoot-out. In addition to the deaths of Arthur and Eddie, three deputies -- Jon Yaws, Greg Murphy, and Melissa Meekma -- suffered gunshot wounds. The injuries suffered by deputies Yaws and Murphy required multiple surgeries and lengthy hospitalization, but weren’t life-threatening.
Displaying preternatural grace, Karen inquired after the health of the injured deputies, telling a friend that her sole consolation was the fact that they would survive. A measure of the depth of her good character is offered by the fact that she didn’t recant that statement after Yaws and Murphy filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against her and her husband’s estate.
The deputies claimed that Karen – who was not charged as an accomplice – shared the culpability for the injuries allegedly inflicted on the deputies by her son. Eddie Mies was characterized in the document as "a diagnosed schizophrenic" with a "criminal history" who displayed "paranoia and [a] propensity for violence." For these reasons, insisted the deputies, Karen should have known it was "necessary to avoid allowing Eddie Mies access to firearms," and they claimed that she displayed actionable negligence by permitting such access.
In a television interview, Yaws appeared to accuse the Mies family of conspiring to endanger his life and those of his fellow officers. When Jake Mies, Eddie's brother, made a frantic 911 call to report that his father had been shot, he told the operator that he didn't know who had committed the crime. Yaws characterized this as a deliberate lie, and accused Karen of being a party to the deception.
"We were directly lied to when they said they didn't know who had done it," asserted Yaws. "We thought it was a random person [on the ground] through the neighborhood. We would have handled it entirely differently if we had known it was someone from the residence."
Even if this had been true, it's difficult to see how the knowledge that the shooting was an aggravated domestic dispute would have changed the tactical situation. The police deployed overwhelming force, then used a CHP helicopter to flush Eddie into the open where he was quickly killed by the SWAT team.
Immediately after the incident the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office peddled a self-dramatizing version of the episode in which Eddie Mies supposedly “tried to bait the officers” into a thicket near the house. The department also claimed that he had devised "an elaborate system of bunkers and tunnels" akin to the labyrinth Colonel Hogan's resistance cellcreated beneath Stalag 13. The lawsuit asserted that Eddie was "found dead in a bunker with a cache of weapons and ammunition, as well as a change of clothes."
After the suit was filed, Karen Mies took a reporter from the Sacramento Bee on a walking tour of the family's 2.5 acre property, where she and her late husband had raised six children.
The "ammunition cache" was an old toolbox containing bullets, birdshot, and useless junk. The "change of clothes" was a jacket. At the time of his death, Eddie was armed with a shotgun and a revolver he had purchased legally as an adult. The warren of "bunkers" and "tunnels" consisted of a handful of small depressions and sunken trails "where the kids used to play," Karen pointed out.
In similar fashion, Eddie's psychological problems and "criminal" history were generously embroidered by the deputies. Although his behavior had become alarming to his friends and family, Eddie was never diagnosed with schizophrenia or any other mental disorder. His "criminal history" consisted of traffic arrests in Wyoming and Nevada.
Although it is clear that Eddie had killed his father, it was never firmly established that he actually shot the deputies, who may well have been injured as a result of “friendly fire.” When asked about this possibility, Bill Clark, who at the time was chief deputy DA for El Dorado County, blithely replied that his office had been “too busy” to complete its official inquiry.
