CRIME Cops manage to kill the hostage during home invasion

Update: Hofstra University student killed during home invasion robbery in Uniondale, New York was killed by police gunfire, officials say - @NBCNewYork

12 mins ago from www.nbcnewyork.com by editor

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Hofstra Student in Home Invasion Was Killed by Police: Officials

| Saturday, May 18, 2013 | Updated 8:38 PM EDT

The 21-year-old Hofstra student who was killed during a Long Island home invasion was shot dead by a police officer as the gunman had her in a headlock and was trying to drag her out of the house, officials said Saturday.

Nassau County Police said at a news conference Andrea Rebello was killed by police, not by the armed gunman who was trying to rob the off-campus house where she was living with her twin sister Jessica and several other women.

Rebello, a Hofstra junior studying public relations, and suspect Dalton Smith, 30, were both shot and killed as he was trying to back away from police with a gun to her head, police said.

An officer fired eight rounds, seven of which hit the suspect and one that hit Rebello in the head, police said.

Police said the officer that fired the fatal shots is a former NYPD cop who has been with the Nassau department for 12 years.

Police said Smith had gotten into the house through a front door that was left open. He forced three women and a man who lived in the home upstairs at gunpoint to get money and jewelry.

They did not have a lot of money at the home, and Smith told one of the women to go withdraw money from the bank, and threatened that he would kill one of her friends if she didn't return in eight minutes.

She called 911 as she drove to the bank and did not return to the home.

Police responded shortly after the 911 call. When they arrived, Smith told one of the women, the twin sister of the woman who was later shot, to go downstairs and tell police everything was OK. When she opened the door, she ran out and told officers there was a man with a gun.

Police said two officers then entered the house and went up a narrow staircase. At that point, one of the officers saw Smith with Rebello in a headlock, and Smith pointed a gun at the officer.

The officer then fired the fatal shots, police said.

Smith was released on parole in February after serving time for first-degree robbery and has a lengthy criminal record that includes assault, police said. A warrant for his arrest was issued last month for parole violation.

Police identified the gunman through fingerprint analysis.

Andrea Rebello and her sister were 2010 graduates of Sleepy Hollow High School, according to principal Carol Conklin-Spillane.

"They were smart happy beautiful young women," Conklin-Spillane said. "I speak about them together because they were very much a matched pair. They were best friends by choice."

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...207993511.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_NYBrand

They couldn't find a dog to shoot??

Damn. Always call the police after the home invasion is over. Your life may depend on it.

Reading that and see they went to Sleepy Hollow school and thinking of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Another beautiful person dies from the actions of a thug...

As long as the cop goes home safe, Who cares who else gets hit.

Looking at the picture... Why was this animal let out of his cage?

DrJerry said:

Looking at the picture... Why was this animal let out of his cage?

Click to expand...

Because people don't want to pay the true level of taxation needed to fund the construction and operation of more cages. Well, I take that back. People where I live would rather taxes go up to rake in a couple of billion for mass transit and fancy "FUTBAW!" stadiums than build more jails and prisons.

As far as the shooting, cops aren't yet robotic in nature, so the human survival element is also going to be present. It is human nature for most to defend yourself, and pointing a gun at someone who has their own gun is likely going to result in at least one person shooting. This cop choose the path of making entry, and he will likely suffer greatly from it. In fact, he will absolutely suffer more than had they just secured the perimeter and let whatever were to happen happen (remaining girls raped, killed, suspect lets them go, suspect kills self, suspect surrenders, etc.). All of those situations would have been a million times better for the officer than what will happen now. Police are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

DrJerry said:

Looking at the picture... Why was this animal let out of his cage?

Click to expand...

Looked like an animal, and acted like an animal. He should have been in a cage or put down.

This isn't T.V, the bad guy doesn't crumple to the floor and the victim saved once again. No winners here. Though i see the same pattern of criminals being released to commit crimes again.

Most folks who own a handgun don't shoot it very often, especially these days with ammo costs being what they are. When they do shoot their handgun, it's usually from a stationary shooting position and they fire at a stationary target.

Most folks who own a handgun never get any kind of formal training in using it in a life and death situation when the pressure is really on.

Most folks who meet the descriptions above think they are well prepared to defend themselves with their handguns. Truth told, much of the time they are correct in their assumptions. Most of the time, statistically, the mere presence of a firearm in the hands of a defender is sufficient to put an assailant to flight without a shot being fired.

And then there's Murphy. He showed up in this case.

Gunfights are DYNAMIC EVENTS and training for them needs to be dynamic as well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaJ1QhafjI). The shooter is moving, the target is moving, there are bystanders in front of the target and behind it, the presence or threat of bullets going both ways ups the ante considerably. I hear a lot of flat-range commandos woof about how they could have easily handled a situation like this.

Not so.

One of my favorite defensive shooting trainers, Louis Awerbuck, runs 'graduation exercises' in every class on a hellishly complex target system of his own devising known as the Mirage. I've shot this drill several times now. It's always demanding. Note how long the youtube video below, and the others posted on the web as well, each run. Just a few seconds, that's all.

http://www.yfainc.com/mirage.html

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=9&f=19&t=226391

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=aLsS7cyQMU4&NR=1

Is the Mirage system a perfect preparation for such an event as the one described in the OP? No, nothing at all can be - including prevailing in such an event the first time it happens to you (you can still blow it the second time). But a multi-day class from an instructor like Awerbuck, who knows how to build more and more pressure on students to perform in class by subjecting them to drills with ever increasing levels of difficulty and complexity culminating in the Mirage drill, is as likely to succeed as anything available in preparing a student to cope with something like this successfully. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=KYoDW1yfK9g&NR=1

It will at least teach you how long the eternity is between the time your brain says "FIRE!" and your finger presses the trigger and starts your bullet on its way. An amazing amount of stuff can happen in the .25 second or so it takes for all this to happen.

And Murphy is always there... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGe_G3HDKFQ

Can't wait to hear 'someone' in high govt. places proclaim how he could be his Son...and should've gotten better 'treatment' - and Just Us.

Sasquatch said:

Looked like an animal, and acted like an animal. He should have been in a cage or put down.

Smith had what police described as "an extensive criminal history," which included
- 1999 robbery in the first degree
- 2000 promoting prison contraband in the second degree
- 2003 robbery in the first degree
- 2003 assault in the second degree
- 2003 robbery in the second degree
http://news.yahoo.com/hofstra-student-killed-police-during-break-065118864.html​

Click to expand...

Its not the cops. If they arrest a criminal and jail him, that should be the end of the crime spree. But often before the ink is dry on the police blotters, the perp is released on 50$ or 75$ bond which is chump change to a drug dealer or gang member.

The bottom line is that crime IS profitable. Consider the Billions of dollars in fines, extentions, court costs and lawyers fees and Bail Bond Fees. ALL of that ca$h comes to a halt if the prep is incarcerated forever making our streets safe. So we have the revolving door cash system and the taxpayers continue to fund it while being savage by the courts and the criminals.

This is the county next to me and it happened about 20 miles away from me, it's a bad area. The worst part is the police department there has had a lot of problems lately (my sons friend is an officer there) and they are one of the highest paid police departments in the country!

From what I've read so far, it's pretty hard to blame the cops in this situation. It's also easy to play Monday morning quarterback after a deadly shooting. If seven rounds hit the perp and (only) one hit the victim, that indicates a very high degree of marksmanship in a stressful, dynamic situation. Is the one round that hit the victim unforgivable? Maybe, but I've yet to meet the perfect human. As Ravekid noted, the cop who did the shooting will be tormented by his own demons.


It takes a lot of guts to confront an armed suspect in a situation like this. Unless I hear other information which drastically changes my opinion, I give the cops an "attaboy" on this one.

Best regards
Doc

Ravekid said:

Because people don't want to pay the true level of taxation needed to fund the construction and operation of more cages. Well, I take that back. People where I live would rather taxes go up to rake in a couple of billion for mass transit and fancy "FUTBAW!" stadiums than build more jails and prisons.

As far as the shooting, cops aren't yet robotic in nature, so the human survival element is also going to be present. It is human nature for most to defend yourself, and pointing a gun at someone who has their own gun is likely going to result in at least one person shooting. This cop choose the path of making entry, and he will likely suffer greatly from it. In fact, he will absolutely suffer more than had they just secured the perimeter and let whatever were to happen happen (remaining girls raped, killed, suspect lets them go, suspect kills self, suspect surrenders, etc.). All of those situations would have been a million times better for the officer than what will happen now. Police are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Click to expand...

Dozdoats said:

Most folks who own a handgun don't shoot it very often, especially these days with ammo costs being what they are. When they do shoot their handgun, it's usually from a stationary shooting position and they fire at a stationary target.

Most folks who own a handgun never get any kind of formal training in using it in a life and death situation when the pressure is really on.

Most folks who meet the descriptions above think they are well prepared to defend themselves with their handguns. Truth told, much of the time they are correct in their assumptions. Most of the time, statistically, the mere presence of a firearm in the hands of a defender is sufficient to put an assailant to flight without a shot being fired.

And then there's Murphy. He showed up in this case.

Gunfights are DYNAMIC EVENTS and training for them needs to be dynamic as well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaJ1QhafjI). The shooter is moving, the target is moving, there are bystanders in front of the target and behind it, the presence or threat of bullets going both ways ups the ante considerably. I hear a lot of flat-range commandos woof about how they could have easily handled a situation like this.

Not so.

One of my favorite defensive shooting trainers, Louis Awerbuck, runs 'graduation exercises' in every class on a hellishly complex target system of his own devising known as the Mirage. I've shot this drill several times now. It's always demanding. Note how long the youtube video below, and the others posted on the web as well, each run. Just a few seconds, that's all.

http://www.yfainc.com/mirage.html

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=9&f=19&t=226391

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=aLsS7cyQMU4&NR=1

Is the Mirage system a perfect preparation for such an event as the one described in the OP? No, nothing at all can be - including prevailing in such an event the first time it happens to you (you can still blow it the second time). But a multi-day class from an instructor like Awerbuck, who knows how to build more and more pressure on students to perform in class by subjecting them to drills with ever increasing levels of difficulty and complexity culminating in the Mirage drill, is as likely to succeed as anything available in preparing a student to cope with something like this successfully. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=KYoDW1yfK9g&NR=1

It will at least teach you how long the eternity is between the time your brain says "FIRE!" and your finger presses the trigger and starts your bullet on its way. An amazing amount of stuff can happen in the .25 second or so it takes for all this to happen.

And Murphy is always there... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGe_G3HDKFQ

Click to expand...

Doc1 said:

From what I've read so far, it's pretty hard to blame the cops in this situation. It's also easy to play Monday morning quarterback after a deadly shooting. If seven rounds hit the perp and (only) one hit the victim, that indicates a very high degree of marksmanship in a stressful, dynamic situation. Is the one round that hit the victim unforgivable? Maybe, but I've yet to meet the perfect human. As Ravekid noted, the cop who did the shooting will be tormented by his own demons.


It takes a lot of guts to confront an armed suspect in a situation like this. Unless I hear other information which drastically changes my opinion, I give the cops an "attaboy" on this one.

Best regards
Doc

Click to expand...

+1 to all of your points.

Options seem to have been go in on arrival as they did or go into "siege mode" with SWAT and a negotiator.

The "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" on this tragedy has only just started.

Crappy day for all involved. I feel bad for the cop.....even worse for the twin sister. Damn shame.

I learned something from reading this thread. If you're going after someone in a home, use a damn shotgun with rifled sights, or a short barreled carbine at the very least. Even though the cop put 7 rounds (assuming he used a handgun) into the perp, I think that with a rifle/shotty he could have put ALL his rounds into the perp with no collateral damage.

Gotta hate that collateral damage.......

BFC

BigFootsCousin said:

Crappy day for all involved. I feel bad for the cop.....even worse for the twin sister. Damn shame.

I learned something from reading this thread. If you're going after someone in a home, use a damn shotgun with rifled sights, or a short barreled carbine at the very least. Even though the cop put 7 rounds (assuming he used a handgun) into the perp, I think that with a rifle/shotty he could have put ALL his rounds into the perp with no collateral damage.

Gotta hate that collateral damage.......

BFC

Click to expand...

Yeah, that thought occurred to me as well.

As much of a horror show as this is -- for me personally, the worst part is:

The door was unlocked. He walked right in.

mzkitty said:

As much of a horror show as this is -- for me personally, the worst part is:

The door was unlocked. He walked right in.

Click to expand...

Very true.

Yep, it sounds like the cops were trying their best to save the girl. By reading the article I would say that she was just unlucky.

I am the very opposite of a "badge licker" and am consistently critical of their actions. However, in this case, I applaud the officer and feel very sorry for him. There are way too many stories where the police set up a perimeter and wait it out while unspeakable things happen to hostages. This time (IMO) the police did their job and like someone else said Murphy did his too. Unless other fact come out to contradict what is known so far I think the department and especially the officer are to be commended.

Did the perp die from the 7 gunshots? No story I have read thus far gives that info.

Yes, the intruder was also killed. Here's the latest update I've seen on the story.

ETA - Oops-hope this fixes it
========================================
http://www.mail.com/news/us/2097298...with-ny-student-dead.html#.7518-stage-hero1-2
May 20, 2013
Split-second choice ended with NY student dead

NEW YORK (AP) — The Long Island college student was being held in a headlock by a masked intruder with a loaded gun to her head, police said. Then the gunman took aim at an officer.

A moment later both Hofstra University junior Andrea Rebello and the intruder were dead— killed after a split-second decision that is perhaps the most harrowing in law enforcement: when to pull the trigger.

"The big question is, how do you know, when someone's pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?" said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who helps train police officers. "That's what makes the job of an officer amazingly difficult."

She spoke Sunday as Hofstra University students honored Rebello, a popular 21-year-old public relations major, by wearing white ribbons at their graduation ceremony. Rebello's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County, north of New York City.

Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officer to make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student's death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department.

The bare facts are simple. Rebello and the intruder, Dalton Smith, died early Friday when the officer fired eight shots, hitting him seven times, with one bullet striking Rebello once in the head, according to county homicide squad Lt. John Azzata.

With a gun pointed at her, Smith "kept saying, 'I'm going to kill her,' and then he pointed the gun at the police officer," according to Azzata. The officer acted quickly, saying later that he believed his and Rebello's life were in danger, according to authorities.

No doubt, he was acting to try to save lives — his own and that of the young woman, Galietta said. "What we're asking the cop to anticipate is, 'What is going on in the suspect's mind at the moment?'" she said. "We're always trying to de-escalate, to contain a situation, but the issue of safety comes in first, and that's the evaluation the officer has to make."

Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and professor of law and police studies at John Jay College, said the crucial issue may be whether or not police had deemed it a hostage situation. If so, he said, there are protocols police follow to buy time, slow down, isolate and assess.

But O'Donnell said the officers may have had few options because of "an eyeball to eyeball confrontation between the officer and the offender." "It may have been too fluid to deteriorate for the officers to do anything else," O'Donnell said. "It underscores that there's no two of these that are exactly alike."

Police tactical manuals are meant to assist officers in making the best decision possible, but in the end, "they're not 100 percent foolproof," Galietta said. "In a situation like that, you can follow procedure, and it doesn't mean it comes out perfectly."

Hofstra student John Kourtessis told the New York Post that he'd gone to a bar with Rebello and a few other friends to celebrate the end of school. When they got back to Rebello's house, she asked him to move his car and he went upstairs to get his keys.

When he came back down, he said, Smith was there. He said Smith kept talking about "the Russian guy," insisting the house's residents owed a Russian man money and that he was outside waiting. "He was saying . . . that he just needed us to cooperate. I said, 'Listen, we have all this money here.'"

Kourtessis said the students offered Smith computers, jewelry and other items from the house but that Smith kept demanding more money. The officer who fired the shots is an eight-year NYPD veteran and has been with Nassau County police for 12 years.

He is now out on sick leave, Azzata said. Procedurally, the Nassau County district attorney's office would determine whether an officer's use of deadly force was justified, O'Donnell said. A spokesman for the district attorney's office did not respond to a request for comment Saturday night.

"Police said two officers then entered the house and went up a narrow staircase. At that point, one of the officers saw Smith with Rebello in a headlock, and Smith pointed a gun at the officer."

I feel so bad for the surviving twin. I understand a twin sister is a very unique relationship.

Of course, the still alive policeman tells the story. In my opinion, this is another keystone cop screwup and coverup. Was it too much time and trouble to call in a negotiator? Another 2 week paid vacation, or do they get 2 weeks for each death?

China Connection said:

Yep, it sounds like the cops were trying their best to save the girl. By reading the article I would say that she was just unlucky.

Click to expand...

Luck is the residue of design, and she was not a very good designer by leaving the front door open.

Doc1 said:

From what I've read so far, it's pretty hard to blame the cops in this situation. It's also easy to play Monday morning quarterback after a deadly shooting. If seven rounds hit the perp and (only) one hit the victim, that indicates a very high degree of marksmanship in a stressful, dynamic situation. Is the one round that hit the victim unforgivable? Maybe, but I've yet to meet the perfect human. As Ravekid noted, the cop who did the shooting will be tormented by his own demons.


It takes a lot of guts to confront an armed suspect in a situation like this. Unless I hear other information which drastically changes my opinion, I give the cops an "attaboy" on this one.

Best regards
Doc

Click to expand...

I believe the issue was that shots were fired in the first place when the victim was in the arms of the perp. You DON'T shoot when they have the victim in the headlock and there is a possibility that a shot might miss. That's what hostage negotiators are for. You descelate the situation and back off, allowing time for the negotiator to come.

When you have a hostage situation, your job as a cop is not to get the perp, it is to save the victim. Always. The capture of the perp is secondary.

I'm among the last here to offer excuses for LEOs.

But in this case I think the decision of the officer to fire was justified- the perp was swinging his own gun away from the hostage and toward the officer, and I believe that's what pushed the officer's decision to fire.

How the situation evolved to the point where the officer confronted the intruder and his hostage is a different matter. I don't know sufficient details to address that evolution, it could be a perimeter should have been established from the outset and a SWAT team brought in to resolve the situation, I don't know and that's not for me to say. Note there were TWO officers who went into the scene, apparently trying to determine what the situation was, and things went bad so fast there was no time to do anything else. Again, I don't know, because I don't know all the facts.

I also don't know the circumstances of the actual shooting by the officer. I don't know his training or abilities. I've had an abbreviated version of Andy Stanford's class on surgical speed shooting, which emphasized delivering multiple rounds into a target very quickly, and I have thus had some exposure to the concept. In some circumstances in my opinion (which isn't worth much) it is appropriate, in others, not so much so. I personally had rather concentrate my efforts on placing bullets carefully rather than dispatching lots of bullets very quickly. But again, I don't know the full circumstances of this shooting and a lot can happen in a quarter of a second. Remember, while it takes a quarter of a second or so for a person to START shooting, it takes the same amount of time for them to STOP - and that's enough time for another round or two to be fired if shots are being delivered at maximum rate. If I find potential fault with the LEO anywhere, it's in his shooting.

Baseline to the incident is, the door was open and the perp walked in. Lock your freaking doors. There is no such thing as a "safe neighborhood." Security comes in layers, and if there are NO layers there is NO SECURITY AT ALL. Living in Condition White (see Cooper Color Code, http://www.teddytactical.com/Redesign/SharpenBladeArticle/4_States of Awareness.html) can get you killed, and IMHO that if anything is what killed this young woman. If you want to call that blaming the victim, so be it.

Ravekid said:

Because people don't want to pay the true level of taxation needed to fund the construction and operation of more cages.

Click to expand...

Yea thats the answer .. MORE PRISONS! We've already got more people imprisoned than all the countries in the world COMBINED. But we need more in jail!

LET'S IMPRISON EVERYONE, that'll solve the problem.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/hofstra_cop_blames_self_tpyllJn9gGPDezfSXAiiOP

LI cop ‘inconsolable’ over friendly-fire death of Hofstra student during hostage standoff
‘Torn up’ at killing beauty he tried to save

By C.J. SULLIVAN and KIERAN CROWLEY
Last Updated: 5:22 AM, May 20, 2013
Posted: 12:37 AM, May 20, 2013

The Nassau County cop who fatally shot a Hofstra University student during a terrifying home-invasion standoff is “inconsolable,” sources told The Post yesterday.

“He blames himself and keeps replaying it in his mind,” a police source said. “He is torn up about the poor girl.”

The veteran officer was identified by sources as Officer Nikolas Budimlic, 42, a former NYPD cop with two young kids of his own, including a daughter.

Budimlic accidently shot and killed 21-year-old Andrea Rebello on Friday as violent felon Dalton Smith held her in a headlock and used her as a human shield while he trained a 9mm pistol at the officer.


Andrea Rebello
Dennisthephotog.com
TRAGIC: Long Island cops yesterday investigate the Uniondale home (above) where student Andrea Rebello was killed by an officer’s bullet in a standoff with hostage-taking intruder Dalton Smith.

Dalton Smith
Budimlic fired eight shots at Smith. Seven bullets hit the perp; one struck Rebello in the head, authorities said.

Rebello’s family was still reeling yesterday from the news that friendly fire had killed the pretty public-relations major — whose twin sister, Jessica, was in the Uniondale home with her moments before the bloodshed.

“The family is in severe shock over this. This has been the worst,” said Rebello’s godfather, Henry Santos. “When we found out [she was killed by an officer] it was a real second shock . . . like it happened again.”

Nassau police sources insisted Budimlic — a 12-year Nassau veteran who also spent seven years in the NYPD — followed police rules in an impossible situation.

“It was a tragic accident. There’s no reason to believe that any protocol was not followed,” one source said.

“There’s no playbook. You arrive at a home, and the guy has a gun to the victim’s head — what do you do?” the source said. “You rely on your training and your instincts and hope for the best outcome.”

Budimlic and another officer were the first to respond to the early-morning call at the rented California Avenue home where the twins had just returned with a group of pals after toasting their last day of classes.

Authorities said Smith — wanted on a parole violation and fresh off a prison stint for attempted robbery — broke into the home and brandished a gun at the terrified group.

Smith allowed one of the friends, Shannon Thomas, to leave the house, presumably to go to an ATM to get him money, Jessica’s boyfriend, John Kourtessis, told The Post on Saturday.

Instead, Thomas left and called 911 and said the perp was putting a gun to her friends’ heads.

Police responding to a known hostage situation are required to call for backup, a Nassau law-enforcement source said yesterday.

“And under no circumstances should they go through that front door,” the source said.

But — despite radio transmissions mentioning hostages — it wasn’t clear if Budimlic and his partner heard the broadcast, another source said.

The two cops arrived at the house just as Jessica was escaping through the front door, screaming that Smith had a gun.

Budimlic saw movement in the house and stepped inside. Almost instantly, he was separated from his partner when the front door slammed shut and locked the other cop out.

“The officer was trapped inside,’’ a source said of Budimlic.

Budimlic then “hid behind a wall” hoping to surprise Smith, the source said.

When the terrified Kourtessis, hiding behind a couch, suddenly yelled that police were inside the house, Smith pulled Rebello closer and spotted Budimlic, the source said.

“The officer lost the element of surprise” and was alone with no backup, the source said.

The Nassau DA’s Office has been a part of the investigation from the beginning and will receive the results of the inquiries and decide whether anything needs to be presented to a grand jury.

Several people answering the phone at Budimlic’s home hung up on a reporter. Other relatives declined to comment.

"LET'S IMPRISON EVERYONE, that'll solve the problem." /sarc

The real problem is the catch and release program of incorrigible criminals. This program has been implemented to grow the legal system, i.e., more cops, more lawyers (spit) and more judges. Once a criminal has been declared incorrigible they get hard labor. No panty waist country club prisons. They don't work, they don't eat, they don't eat, they die.

I lived in Uniondale for over 20 years, The house where this happened is not too far from where I lived. The problem with Uniondale is that it is a mostly Black and Hispanic area which is bordered by Hempstead and that is another very bad area. Recently there have been a lot of Hofstra students renting out houses in Uniondale and almost all of these students are white. It;s strange because you will drive through parts of Uniondale and see a lot of white college students but it is an all black/hispanic neighborhood. The students have been targeted before by criminals, right after Hurricane Sandy the house down the block from where I lived was broken into and the girls all tied up while they robbed everything from the house. I'm shocked something like this shooting never happened before... I am sure Hofstra attendance is going to suffer when parents realize the neighborhood that surrounds the college..

There are MANY situations where, "Just back back out, set a perimeter and call a negotiator." results in at least one death. In THIS one I believe that doing so would have ended in the deathS of both sisters LONG before the SWAT guys with the long arms and sniper training could have gotten in position and actually gotten a reasonable firing solution.

BUT...

I'm 700 miles away and this chair is dang nice and comfy, and I ain't standing in a house with a wildman waving a pistol at me and a kid tucked under his arm. I ain't standing there while said wildman tells me he's going to kill the kid under his arm.

I'd like to THINK I would shoot to save the kid.

The REALITY is that I'd likely stand there in a puddle of my own making....

US May 20, 2013 Questions linger in shooting of NY college student

http://www.mail.com/news/us/2097298...llege-student.html#.23140-stage-mostviewed1-1

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — As a grieving family prepared for the funeral of a Hofstra University junior killed by a police officer's bullet during a standoff with an armed intruder, some on Monday questioned whether police should have waited for help, including a hostage negotiating team.

"I think the police is not very professional," the dead woman's godfather said outside the family home in Westchester County, north of New York City. "If he's professional, he should have tried negotiation," Henrique Santos said.

Advertisement

Santos earlier told the Journal-News: "He should have hit the guy with the first shot, not eight." A key question is whether the officers responding to the house near the Hofstra campus at 2:30 a.m. Friday were aware the intruder was holding hostages. Police officials described the initial report as simply a robbery in progress.

One of the two officers who entered the home found the intruder holding 21-year-old Andrea Rebello in a headlock and "kept saying 'I'm going to kill her,' and then he pointed the gun at the police officer," said Nassau County homicide squad Lt. John Azzata. That's when the officer, who has not been identified, fired eight times, fatally striking 30-year-old Dalton Smith with seven shots and Rebello with one shot to the head.

Smith, who had a 9 mm pistol, never fired a shot, police said. Edward Mamet, who spent 40 years as a New York City police officer and appears as an expert witness on police procedure, said if the responding officers knew hostages were inside the house, they should have taken a cautious approach and waited for backup.

"Unless it's clearly indicated that the lives of hostages and any bystanders are in jeopardy," Mamet said. "If that's the case, then everything goes out the window." Police Commissioner Thomas Dale said the criminal investigation is ongoing and an internal police department investigation will follow. A spokesman for the district attorney's office said Monday it also was monitoring the police investigation.

James Carver, president of the Nassau County Patrolman's Benevolent Association, which represents the officer, did not return telephone calls for comment. He scheduled a Tuesday news conference to discuss the case.

One woman who was in the house when the intruder broke in was permitted to leave the house to get money at a nearby ATM; she called 911 and never returned to the house. It was not immediately clear if that woman told a 911 operator the intruder was holding several people at gunpoint inside the house, or whether that information was relayed to responding officers.

"There's a balancing act of trying to take decisive action, but wise action," said Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and professor of law and police studies at John Jay College. "These situations are so unique and are differentiated by what the cops knew at the time."

A Nassau County spokesman on Monday cited state law in declining to release 911 tapes of the incident. Some news organizations have posted audio of police scanner chatter of the incident from the Internet, but its accuracy could not be verified. At certain points in the recordings, officers can be heard referring to hostages, but the chronology of events is not clear.

Azzata has said that when the first two officers approached the front door of the two-story home, a woman later identified as Jessica Rebello came screaming out of the house yelling "he's got a gun." Azzata said at that moment, officers believed Smith was in the home alone. It was only once inside the house that an officer learned two others besides the gunman were inside.

A young man was hiding behind a couch when Smith came down the stairs with Rebello in a headlock. As he headed for the back door while clutching the woman, the officer confronted him and shots were fired.

Mamet cautioned that in such circumstances, information broadcast on police radios may not always get to the officers in a timely fashion. Factors that could disrupt communication include whether sirens were blaring — drowning out the radio — or other conversations were taking place between the officers in a patrol car.

"It's going to be so important to review all the messages and the recordings of their responses and put it all together," Mamet said. O'Donnell cautioned that even with that information "radio transmissions can be wildly inaccurate, but it's the only tool you have."

He also noted that "inaction can also have a cost." "As bad an ending as this is for the police, imagine how bad it would have been if they were outside and something terrible was happening inside. That would be a story if the police were paralyzed standing outside while people were being killed inside," O'Donnell said.

He said the tragic circumstances that occurred Friday morning are ultimately the responsibility of the gunman. "He's the one who chose the escalation of violence," O'Donnell said. Nassau County Police were criticized in 2009 after they waited outside a New Cassel home for several hours while a young woman was being abused, and ultimately killed, by her ex-boyfriend. The county later reached a $7.7 million settlement in a federal civil rights lawsuit with the woman's family.

The news that Rebello died from a police bullet only served to compound the tragedy, said Carol Conklin-Spillane, principal of Sleepy Hollow High School, where Rebello and her twin sister graduated in 2010.

"My heart goes out to everyone. You have to empathize with the police officer. He's dealing with the consequences of a split-second decision," Conkin-Spillane said. Santos also issued a statement on behalf of the Rebello family:

"We are heartbroken and overwhelmingly devastated by the loss of our beautiful daughter, Andrea," the statement said. "We are grateful for all of the kindness and sympathy shown to our family. In our grief, we ask for privacy as we try to make sense of all that has happened."

Speaking about the surviving twin Jessica, Santos said, "She's sleeping too much. We had to try to give her some food. When she wakes up, she says 'Oh my god, what did I do wrong?'" The officer who fired the shots is an eight-year NYPD veteran and has been with Nassau County police for 12 years. He is now out on sick leave. Andrea Rebello's funeral is Wednesday.

TheRevelator said:

Yea thats the answer .. MORE PRISONS! We've already got more people imprisoned than all the countries in the world COMBINED. But we need more in jail!

LET'S IMPRISON EVERYONE, that'll solve the problem.

Click to expand...

your response is sort of WACKED in this instance

> I < am of the opinion that if you commit a violent crime you should be put away a long, long, time

obviously, this individual was not put away long enough to begin with - long enough being until he is too old to take effective physical force against someone else


do you get it? huh?

The folks I know who used to run NTI (the National Tactical Invitational, http://www.teddytactical.com/Redesign/NTI_Event.html) always stressed that there were four levels of human physical skill. Shooting is a human physical skill...

unconscious incompetence, we can't do something and we don't even know how to do it;

conscious incompetence, we can't physically do something even though we know in our mind how to do it;

conscious competence, we know how to do something but can only do it right if we concentrate on doing it properly; and

unconscious competence, at this final stage we know how to do something and can do it reflexively (as second nature) on demand without having to think about it.

If you carry a gun, or own a gun for self protection, where are you on that scale? Honest answers, now - if you lie, you're only lying to yourself.