Tell me how you think this story ends. An armed drunk decides to go boating, leaves his gun on the dock, causes $300 damage to the marina by driving in a prohibited area, and then passes out while on the water. The fire department finds him and tows him back; meanwhile the police have been called. They were planning on giving the man his gun back but one of them had the brilliant insight that giving a loaded weapon to a drunk might be just a little dangerous, so they decide to talk to him first.
Fire personnel towed his boat back to the marina and arranged for his girlfriend to come pick him up. But two Tacoma police officers had also responded and tried to assess Dearth's mental state before giving him his gun back. "Dearth initially ignored them but became verbally aggressive, accusing them of taking his firearm and demanding that they return it to him... He became physically aggressive and generally belligerent when he was not allowed to leave on his own. The officers decided to hang on to the weapon, and at one point, Dearth grabbed an officer's wrist and threatened to punch him in the face"
You won't believe what happened next. (#16 is a shocker!)
So to recap, a man who has committed a felony (drunk boating is the same as a DUI) encounters the police -- ignores them, and then threatens to punch them out if they do not give him his gun. What do the police do? Chokehold? Feed him a lead sandwich? Tazer? Pepper spray?
In fear for their lives, the officers did... nothing. They were too busy.
The officers later insisted that they didn't arrest Dearth because they were busy with other calls and because they would not have arrested any other drunk in a bar for behaving that way."
Surprisingly this fine example of police restraint happened in Tacoma, Washington -- which is the home of the same police department that
tasered an innocent deaf woman and tossed her in jail for three days after she called 911 for help. Perhaps this is good news and indicates a change of heart or at least training in America's Police departments?
So what led to this remarkable non-exercise of deadly or even just painful force in response to an imminent threat from a man who has just grabbed the officer's arm and threatened to punch him out? Are these police shining examples of how non-paranoid the police should be and how they should even take a small risk to their own safety in preference to killing a fellow human being? Is this a sign of something big coming?
Oh, I forgot to tell you something:
A King County sheriff's deputy has been fired after he reportedly passed out drunk while boating in the Tacoma Narrows and left his gun behind on the dock, where it was found by teenagers
Now I am not sure why a drunk officer is any less dangerous than an overweight cigarette vendor, a high school kid, or even a young boy with a "realistic looking" weapon but somehow that seems to be the rules.
And now you know the rest of the story.
Goodnight!