Murder A Cop -- Then Take The Coward's Way Out

In just the past week there have been three tragic incidents where the lives of law enforcement officers were taken, with the suspects subsequently shooting themselves dead.

The incident with the most media play because of the April 16th, 2007 massacre where 32 people were killed and 26 were wounded:

1. Virginia Tech Shooting, Thursday, December 8th:

Virginia State Police said Ross Truett Ashley, a 22-year-old part-time business student at Radford University, about 10 miles from the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, walked up to officer Deriek W. Crouse after noon on Thursday and shot him to death as the patrolman sat in his unmarked cruiser during a traffic stop. Ashley was not involved in the stop and did not know the driver, who is cooperating with police, they said.

Authorities said Ashley then took off for the campus greenhouses, ditching his pullover, wool cap and backpack as police quickly sent out a campus-wide alert that a gunman was on the loose. Officials said the alert system put in place after the nation's worst mass slaying in recent memory worked well, but it nevertheless rattled a community still coping with that tragedy.

A deputy sheriff on patrol noticed a man acting suspiciously in a parking lot about a half-mile from the shooting. The deputy drove up and down the rows of the sprawling Cage parking lot and lost sight of the man for a moment, then found Ashley shot to death on the pavement, a handgun nearby. No one saw him take his life and he wasn't carrying any ID.

State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Ashley appears to have acted alone and didn't know the slain officer: "At this time we have no connection between the two of them, that they knew one another or had encountered one another prior to the shooting," she said.

2. Atchison PD (KS) Officer Ambushed & Shot In Head, Friday, December 9th:

An Atchison Police Officer was killed during a late Friday afternoon shooting near 12th and Division streets.

Authorities confirmed that Officer David Enzbrenner, 46, died Friday evening from a gunshot wound.

It has also been confirmed that Skyler Barbee, 25, was the alleged shooter in the incident. Officials report that while Officer Enzbrenner was on duty serving a nuisance order at the home of Jerome Bratton, Mr. Barbee appeared out of nowhere and shot the officer in the head. The assailant then turned the weapon on himself and shot himself. He died at the scene.

"The officer didn't have time to react," Atchison County Sheriff John Calhoon said of Officer Enzbrenner, a husband and father of three girls.

Barbee had at least one prior arrest involving an assault on an officer.

On Aug. 2, he was picked up for vehicle burglary, battery on a law enforcement officer and obstruction of the legal process.

3. North Carolina Deputy Shot & Killed, Wednesday, December 7th:

VASS, N.C. — A North Carolina deputy sheriff was shot and killed Wednesday as he tried to arrest an Iraq war veteran with an outstanding arrest warrant for not paying child support, authorities said. The suspect then took his own life.

Moore County Sheriff Lane Carter said that Deputy Richard Rhyne had spoken to the suspect around noon and determined he had an outstanding arrest warrant.

Carter said the suspect, Martin Poynter, pulled out a gun and fatally shot Rhyne outside an abandoned home near Vass, which is 60 miles southwest of Raleigh.

Poynter then turned the same gun on himself and also died, the sheriff said.

The sheriff said the 58-year-old Rhyne went to the home after deputies received a trespassing complaint. The deputy found the 33-year-old Poynter and his brother and had time to check their names before he was killed.

Rhyne had been in law enforcement for 37 years and a Moore County deputy since 2007.

The constants in these three incidents?

• Officers working solo;
• Assaulted by solo suspects with handguns;
• Purposely targeted and/or ambushed;
• Two of the three were shot to the head;
• With a subsequent suicide by the perpetrator

I submit that these times are every bit as dangerous for today's law enforcement officer as it was for officers working during the societal anarchy of the late 60s and early 70s -- a time I am familiar with: because I worked then. And now. In law enforcement.

Not because stats indicate that crime is necessarily soaring.

Instead, I submit it is because many individuals encountered by law enforcement officers have been raised on entitlements, a welfare mindset, an inflated sense of esteem and ego, narcissism, lack of respect for authority or others, an indifference to the immediate utilization of violence and lack of discipline.

God bless the officers who gave their lives -- and God bless their families.

The thin blue line.

BZ

Related:

• A Deputy Killed: At Christmas;
• ODMP.org;
• Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs.