Heard one today.

I was listening to Iowa public radio today and heard that a guy was walking down the highway in Van Buren county, southern Iowa next to Missouri, and was carrying an assult rifle. This guy was dressed in fatigues and making guestures at people driving by. Someone called the sherrifs office and a patrolmen was sent. The Sherrif arrived and told the guy to drop his weapon and he pointed it at the sherrif and the sherrif shot him.

Anyone know anything about this and what happened. My first thoughs are a digruntled person or one of the anti government groups. Could have been anybody and am wondering if its any of the anti governments groups as I haven’t heard of any there, wondering if there are any of those groups in that part of the state.

He didn’t look like this mug shot did he?

Isn’t that Pug Brian?

It ok! I’m alright. And I wasn’t pointing the gun at the sheriff, there was a wolf behind him I swear!

Daing- – -now I can see why people have trouble liking you jerr

The guy had some personal issues and was bi-polar. Was off his meds and didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. Sad day. It was my nephews girlfreinds father.

Sorry to hear this MX.

Mental illness is such a serious and most people don’t understand it. That tough when you got someone who can basically manage it until they are off medication and they pretty much become a person who has a completely different reality of what is going on around them.

Ya thats too bad, he was probably a nice guy too and no doubt a hard decesion for the sherrif to make too, had he known he no doubt would have tried to talk to the guy or tried something else.

I don’t want to sound insensitive but. Drugs or no drugs if anybody points a gun at a cop they can expect to get shot. It’s to bad that this was a fatal shooting but according to the little bit of information posted here it sounds justified.

My thoughts and prayers to both the victim’s family and the officer and his family.

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I don’t want to sound insensitive but…

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I think it would be more insensitive to say the sheriff didn’t have to do it.

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I don’t want to sound insensitive but. Drugs or no drugs if anybody points a gun at a cop they can expect to get shot. It’s to bad that this was a fatal shooting but according to the little bit of information posted here it sounds justified.

My thoughts and prayers to both the victim’s family and the officer and his family.

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I dont know if he could expect to be shot if he wasnt in the right frame of mind.. but I think you meant it as anyone who points a gun at a cop is going to get shot no matter what their illness is, and I agree. Its just really sad that it had to happen, and I feel for the family. But it sounds like there was no other option, no way for the officer to tell if the guy was really going to shoot him or not and it had to be done.

I know nothing about this story, but sounds like suicide by cop to me. Some people don’t have the nerve to do it themselves so they make someone else do it.
DT

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I know nothing about this story, but sounds like suicide by cop to me. Some people don’t have the nerve to do it themselves so they make someone else do it.
DT

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Sounds like he was mentally unstable and had no idea what he was doing. You ever delt with a bipolar individual in a manic state? I don’t fault the cop for shooting the guy but calling it suicide is pretty lame!

Another sad case of the problem this country has with a complete inability to have even the most mentally ill people committed for treatment. Until a mentally ill person commits a violent act, nothing can be done. The problem is that as we saw in Minneapolis last month, the violent act usually results in the person committing suicide as well.

How many times do we have to go through this? The recent mass shooting in Minneapolis, thArizonaon shooting, Virgina Tech, on and on and on the list goes.

And then the family of the shooter always says the same thing. Yes, the shooter suffered from extreme and long-term mental illness, but there was nothing they could do because the person refused treatment.

Until we get much stronger laws that allow authorities and mental health professionals to treat these very sick people at a much earlier stage, nothing will change. We need to recognize that in many cases there is no way the mentally ill person will ever get treatment on a voluntary basis. As it stands now, we all just sit and watch and hope it isn’t our loved ones who end up in the line of fire. All in the name of “protecting” the “rights” of someone who needs the protection that only professional treatment can provide.

Grouse

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Until a mentally ill person commits a violent act, nothing can be done.

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Not to be argumentative, but yes, they can be committed prior to a violent act.

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Not to be argumentative, but yes, they can be committed prior to a violent act.

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Really? I take it you haven’t had to deal with Crisis Management lately. We deal with the mentally ill on a daily basis in our service area. We get called to deal with people for a variety of mental illnesses. It used to be we (EMS) could transport them to the hospital for psychological evaluation. Then the laws were changed to where Law Enforcement had to put a Chapter hold on them before we could transport. Now, LE has to call in Crisis Management first. Most times the talking is done by phone between the Crisis case workers and the patient while LE and EMS are still on scene. Half the time the pt ends up not being transported due to Crisis feeling it is not needed. This is regardless of what we witness and explain to the case workers.

Another additional issue is where to take people with mental illness for evaluation and care. There are very few mental illness facilities that can take patients due to the facilities being maxed out as it is.

If the person harms themselves or someone else, that is the ONLY time we can bypass the red tape of government laws regarding transporting these patients.

I beleive it is 1 in 4 people in today’s society are prescribed medication for some type of mental disorder.

I agree Wats, its too bad that under the explaination from the EMS, that a person can’t be taken to atleast an emergency room for further evaluation. I’m sure with all the reports that EMS ambulance staff has seen, that thats good enough. By the time all the propper routes are taken, by then its too late and someone gets seriously hurt or worse. Why can’t they just rely on the EMS’s savy at the time, Id bet alot of these people really know whats going on, even more so then the person on a phone taking information from EMS personell.

Hey Wats…you did some serious education time not so long ago. Now that that is behind you and you have some time on the job under your belt…worth it? Do you like your job now? Just curious since you were shared a lot of the why’s amd wherefores’s as you were going to school.

I can honestly say I LOVE my career. After my first full year as a Paramedic in a busy 911 service, I look forward to going to work everyday.
It was definitely worth the long hours and the fact that I pretty much sacrificed “fun” time. But, financially I am better than I have ever been. I have more free time now unless I pick up OT shifts.
This career is definitely a roller coaster some days. One minute you are sitting in the recliner at the station. The next minute the tones go off and you are jumping in the ambulance for who know’s what.

Thanks for asking