Al Zone Media.
Ah welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where the host Robert Evans, one of the hosts, has recently recovered from a terrible, terrible sickness by by engaging in some fascinating experiments with theah flu, largely using a friend's diabetic needles, just shooting it straight into the veins my co host today, Garrison Davis, Have you ever shot flu medication into your veins?
Garrison, No, I've only shot one thing into my veins.
Well, speaking of shooting, today's episode of It Could Happen Here is about a shooting it before you are like, oh, man, I don't really have it in me to listen to a horrible story about people dying today. Don't worry. Nobody gets shot in this story, Thank God.
Miraculously nobody gets shot, Like against all odds, it's stunning that nobody got shot.
This is the tale of a police officer fucking up. Not worse than any cop has ever fucked up, because again he didn't kill anybody, but fucking up in a way that's like more baffling and incompetent than I think I've ever seen before.
It's probably the most embarrassing.
And certainly the most embarrassing and not even really malevolent, just like outrageously incompetent. But I'm gonna let you take over from here, Garrison.
So, yeah, we are going to be talking about in acorn involved shooting today. Happened that happened in Florida.
Finally we know what the A and A cab stands for.
That's right, son, We're gonna play some clips here, but I think it's important to set the scene so you kind of understand what you're hearing. So this cop walks up to his patrol car. There is a suspect locked in the back.
Sunny day, Houston suburbs, big houses, wide streets.
Yeah, now something happens as the cop is about to open up the door. He then dives onto the ground. It does two like action roles, double barrel rolls, and then starts shooting at the car and starts yelling to another officer who's in the area. And I think we'll just we'll just play the rest here.
Yeah.
The first clip is about thirty seconds long, and then I just have a few shorter clips kind of that that I've kind of stitched together that just just to get a sense of like what he's saying and what he's communicating after he opens fire on this patrol vehicle. So here is here is that audio.
Barn jot, Barn jut Bart.
Shots Barn, you know who? I love? That love.
What that I the car?
Shot the car.
Oh, I'm I'm good. I'm feel weird, but I'm good. I might have hit my best Mark. It might have hit my best I don't know, but I'm not.
Okay, I don't know.
I found like it.
I got you.
You wanted me, Jesse, come back? Uh uh Mark right back, dude, of my hit? Okay, further back, further back to the back. All right.
So that was a lot of gunfire. Again, it is shocking that no one died because it's not immediately evident if you just watched the video. But there is somebody who's trapped in the back of that car, and there's multiple officers shooting at the car.
And here's the thing. The guy. The distance the guy is shooting from. God, from when I watched the video last I would estimate maybe about twenty.
Yards, probably even shorter than that.
Maybe sure, maybe more like fifteen. It's medium to maybe medium long range for a handgun. For a full size handgun like that, I'd say it's about medium range. So a competent shooter should be able to hit a target about the size of a human torso at that distance with most of the rounds. But he is not that. When I say competent, that is somebody who is bracing themselves and who has two hands on the gun. He is shooting like a character in an action movie. And
I cannot imagine. So a lot of those rounds did not even hit the truck. I imagine they went flying into a neighborhood where we can hear children playing.
Yes, Yes.
So the.
Officer who encountered this a core in which we will get to in a sec was named Deputy Jesse Hernandez. He'd been a cop for almost two years, and we'll learn more about his background as we as we continue on with this little story. The second officer, well not officer, but a sergeant of this Sheriff's department named Beth Roberts, and she's been a cop since two thousand and eight, so she has a little bit more experience under her belt.
So let's kind of explain what happened here. So there was a series of calls that happened earlier in the day about a vehicle who was kind of driving erradically around a nearby neighborhood, honking its horn kind of just like making a lot of sounds at like three am. The suspect was described as a black mail in his late twenties. And then a few hours later, a separate call was made by someone talking about how her boyfriend has been refusing to return her vehicle and has been
sending her threatening text messages. So this caused police to go to this girlfriend's house. She showed some of these threatening text messages and they were talking with this woman when her boyfriend approached the scene, so the suspect of coach the police in front of his girlfriend's house. Deputy Hernandez himself did a pat down to search for weapons and observed a more thorough search once the suspect was handcuffed.
The missing car was located a few miles away, and Hernandez was on his way back to the car to do a tertiary search of the suspect, who is currently locked in the back seat with handcuffs, and then as Deputy Hernandez passed the passenger side door in acorn fell onto the roof of his car, which is barely barely audible in the bodycam video that we have access to, so.
You would not notice it were you not listening for it.
No. No. Three days later, Deputy Hernandez was interviewed by two investigators as a part of the Office of Professional Standards investigation into this incident of discharge gunfire and this this interview in this report is probably one of the most telling things about how police psychology operates. And Wow, okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna read through a few a
few quotes here from Deputy Hernandez. He talks about how, quote, I'm about to reach for the door handle and simultaneously I hear to at the time what I believe would be a suppressed weapon off to the side. I definitely heard this noise about the same time I felt an impact on my right side, like an upper torso area. I feel the impact. My legs just give out. I don't know where I'm hit. I think I'm hit. I'm struck. I roll back. I rolled to the like.
He's the hard boiled detective in a novel.
I rolled to the back of the car. Now I'm stuck in the street, and I knew where the fire where the shots came from. I or I believed where they came from. It was right there as I'm reaching for that door handle. So I'm laying behind the car. I'm yelling shots fire, shots fired, shots fired. I returned fire once I could get covered behind another vehicle that
was parked in the driveway there. So when asked to describe what he felt, because he's not just claiming that he heard a sound, he's gonna be keep he felt like he got hit.
Yeah, he felt an impact. He felt an impact, and his legs went out from underneath him. Yes, which again in the video, he clearly does a double barrel role. He doesn't. That is not I have I have seen people get hit and drop. They did not do double barrel rolls like.
A little action star. Yeah, yeh yeah, yeah, he says, quote it felt like an impact to my upper torso around here he motions up to his right shoulder on the right side. It was like a sound impact, like almost that quick. I guess I just loved it the phrase it was like a sound impact.
Yeah. I think he's saying I think what he's saying from from reading it is that like we're missing some of the body language that he was going to. It was like sound and then like moving his hands to.
Get sound impact, heard the sound, and then he got impact.
I think he was actually trying to which is not like them, which is actually not in person. Probably very awkward, but yeah, it does. It comes across weird.
And so more more funny than sound. Impact. For again, any corn that's falling on a roof, we have quote, my legs weren't working the way I wanted them to be working. I think I yelled at one point to Sergeant Roberts. I think I might have been hitting the leg or something along those lines, because I was struggling to get cover. I think at one point I reached up to touch my head. I think I still had the sound in my head. I wasn't sure if I
had been hit in the head. I was getting a funny tingling around all sides of my body, and I think some of that mighty just been adrenaline putting together the fact that what I just heard and the impact that I felt. I've never been shot before, so I don't know what that's like or you know, unquote great oh man, So he is, he's unsure if you would be able to notice if he got shot in the head or not, which is kind of interesting. I mean, I'm sure he could get grazed, but like, come on, buddy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's one thing you It is true that like you can be hit like an armor. She will not be sure if you've gotten a hit because it didn't penetrate. But you would also not mistake a corn shrapnel hitting you reasonably for a bullet like That's simply not a mistake a reasonable person is going to make.
So the investigator asked him, like if there was any other sense that there could have been a gunfire, like if you saw any like shattered glass coming from the car, and Hernandez said no. When asked why he decided to stop firing, Hernandez said that he stopped firing once he emptied his clip, moved to cover behind it nearby Tesla end quote, didn't observe any rounds coming back at me. Just just great, because why there's the Hernandez claimed that he was never able to see the suspect while in
the patrol car. And Hernandez remained behind cover till other deputies arrived. And was rushed to a hospital, where only then he was informed that he did not in fact, it shot.
It's amazing he made it all the way to a hospital, So you had a lot of chances. You had a lot of chances to not fuck that up.
Man.
As soon as the other cops arrive on the seat, he's like, I don't know, I just I just feel so weird.
Yeah, buddy, you you had an adrenaline drop because you panicked, Like that is why you feel weird.
Like a lot always this like mirrors, the police fentanel things, how they can like talk themselves into feeling into like feeling symptoms. Yes, but all right, So Hernandez hadn't been a cop for very long. He had he had no prior law enforcement experience before joining this Florida Sheriff's department, but he did attend to West Point and served as a Special Forces Infantry officers in the Army for ten years.
So one could maybe assume that the deputy's outrageous behavior was the result of some kind of PTSD from serving as Special four. Like, maybe maybe I could kind of explain some of what's going on here.
I had multiple people when I posted this on Twitter be like, oh, this is maybe people with like PTSD shouldn't be cops. And I had to be like, no, no.
No, Well see the funny thing about that is that he never actually served in combat.
No, this guy flew a fucking desk, yeah, which, like you need that in a war. But like this, this man did not have any combat trauma that caused him to react this way.
You know, like I totally I've had I've had PTSD. You know, I've certainly gotten like I can get really jumpy with certain sounds.
Yeah, that is not that six months period where fireworks made us all very unhappy.
Yeah, like or like keys dropping was a big one for me because it sounded like a tear guest canister rolling on her bottles.
But you know when in the many times that I had bottles fall near me and set me off, or that fireworks went off near me and set me off, I was often carrying a gun and what I never did was empty at vaguely in the direction of a car.
So he never saw combat. He did claim that he was aware of what suppressed gunfire sounded like, and he affirmed that the noise he herd reminded him of suppressed gunfire.
I'm sorry, bro, what the fuck?
Under questioning her Nada said that he did not perceive any other sounds, visuals, or physical indicators of gunfire besides the initial tapping sound and his upper torso feeling. In the interview, he was asked why he decided to fall onto the pavement, and he said, I'm not sure if it was adrenaline or just what, but the numbness of my legs and realizing, Okay, I'm going to be on the ground, but also realizing the windows are right there, you know, i need to be on the ground anyway,
so I'm not exposed. So yeah, and that just kind of led to my legs just kind of gave out on me. Fascinating. He then was asked to explain to the two action roles he performed on the road, and her D just replied, Uh, the.
Press STARNX at the same time was supposed to do pretty much.
He said, uh, the rolling kind of reaction to what was going on, and we realizing like my legs are not working the way I need them to work right now, but I can roll over to the next vehicle. So that's kind of where I was trying to get to unquote.
Sure, okay, okay, bro.
So after his little action roles, this is where he started yelling shots fired. He emptied his clip into the car and told the sergeant that shots were coming from this vehicle, and she began firing in the vehicle as well. At what point Hernandez tried to move off to the side because he was concerned about being shot by the
other cop. He says, when I was done engaging the vehicle, I was trying to get off to the side over there because I was worried about possibly having possibly me being in her line of fire.
Now, sure, this is this is the first reasonable threat that he has expressed. I would also be concerned about them shooting me, and that is yes.
So, after Hernandez is an a explanation of events, the investigator showed him video stills of an acorn coming into frame and bouncing off the roof of his car. I'm just gonna read directly from the from the report, quote, Deputy Hernandez asked, acorn. Investigator Hogan answered, acorn, I'm quote amazing, amazing, just an amazing sentence.
This is this is so perfectly how you would like script it in a really good police procedural comedy. Like if you had some A game writers on the team and it's it's gonna take some really good you'd need like the wire quality actors to pull those lines off. Bunk and Bunk could have pulled them off right, Like.
There's two more lines I want I want to get to before before we take an out of break here. When asked if the sound he heard could have been an acorn instead of supress gunfire, the deputy answered, quote, I'm not gonna say no, because I mean, that's but what ten seconds pause and speaking. What I heard three second pause and speaking sounded almost like twelve second pause and speaking. But I heard sounded what I think would be louder than an acorn hitting the roof of the car.
But there's obviously an a chord hitting the roof of a car unquote.
Amazing. Uh.
The investigator then had to ask herd d does if he was in general familiar with the sound of acorns, which must be so embarrassing.
That is that is that is a low point in your career. That is.
Hernad has said that he was. He was then asked if the sound could have been what led him to believe the car theft suspect shot him, to which the deputy answered, it could be seven second pause and speaking, but I don't think so, but it could be uncurt great.
So then Hernandez's lawyer said that they could maybe watch the video again and see if see if the acorn striking matches the time that he says that he heard the sound, And then they deliberated for a little bit and ultimately Hernandez refused to watch the video s second time once he was told it was an acorn. I mean, yeah, come on, what's there to do understandable?
No, that's uh, that's that's going to really do some damage to your self esteem right there.
Less than a month later, just a few days before a second interview was scheduled, he quit the job.
So you know what first decision he's made them, I mean.
Yeah, like, what what else can you do at this point?
This story starts with a bad cop, but it ends with a good one.
Like imagine returning to work and everyone's gonna call you like the acorn guy, Like you can't, you can't. It's just an.
Anytime there's like a there's like a fucking acorn tree anywhere new you get like you okay, man, okay, do you need to take.
Him to call it? Did you call this? Hit the watch out? Watch out?
One hundred, one hundred times a day. Guys would be getting on his radio being like I just saw an acorn.
Dispatch, got a can you get in on a possible acorn? Negative? Negative?
That is a pine cone? No need for assistance, just some gunfire. We're good, We're good, not an acorn. Repeat, We're safe, seene is safe. No acorns in sight. All right, let's let's take it out of break and we will return to hear about Sergeant Robert's recollection of events. Welcome back to Acorn Cop streaming now on the Discovery Channel. Two cops, one acorn. No survive, Actually no, thankfully everyone survived. This would be much much, much less funny.
We would not be laughing about this now. There is some permanent psychological damage done to the guy who was shot at but not shot and that is unjust and sad, yet not enough that we are not willing folks. You have a right to laugh at something like this, you know, even if there are some consequences to it. That's just keeping yourself sane in this world.
So Sergeant Roberts was a member of the Sharf's department for fifteen years. She has a bachelor's degree in criminology from the Florida State University, so that's cool. She's been teaching at the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission for
ten years. So I think one thing that led to some of them thinking it could have been suppressed gunfire is that in the threatening messages that the suspect had shown to or had sent to his girlfriend, included was a close up picture of this dark kind of gray cylinder pressed up against the center of the dash in his car. Less than two inches of the cylinder were visible. No parts of a firearm could be seen. But they believed that this was a suppressor, and the victim said
that he a suppressor. So I think that that's that is one thing that happened in the interview kind of or in the in the like exchange leading up to this incident. But no one got any confirmation that he had a gun on him. Again, he was searched two times. There was no gun found on him. It is possible to like hide a gun on you, It is much more difficult to hide a gun with a suppressor. Like that is that is a pretty a pretty big object.
They are they are larger like it. Basically doubles are more than doubles the length of the firearm, and it also does so in such a way that makes it difficult to carry in a concealed fashion.
So when Sergeant Roberts was collecting an affidavit about the stolen car, she said that she heard quote some type of noise and shortly thereafter Jesse, who is Hernandez screaming? Shots fired? Quote. It was loud enough that it got my attention and made me think we're about to have a fight with a prisoner or the suspect. Either he's escaped somehow and Jesse is in a tussle with him. I can't tell you he was that what it was, but it made me look and then immediately heard Deputy
Hernandez screaming. Shots fired. So Sargent and Roberts right out into the street. Quote. I saw that Hernandez was down. He had his gun point to the back of his patrol car. I was drawing my pistol and my magazine that was in my meg pouch somehow flew out again. Amazing police work.
These guys incredible stuff. That's someone who never practiced.
Yeah, at which point I thought there was a malfunction. I thought that I dropped the magazine somehow I hit the mega release on my firearm, and that that was the magazine that fell out. Turns out it wasn't. It was the one from my meg pouch.
Uh huh.
At which point I think I fired. So you just have magazines fly you freak out, Yeah, start pulling your trigger.
Yeah. I will say that last part extremely common experience. Police officers are not well trained, and most of them in terms of combat stuff, and most of them do not shoot regularly. The FBI has done studies of like people who kill police officers, and they nearly always train way more often than the police officers they kill trained.
It's very Most cops are not putting one hundred and fifty rounds a month downrange, and like, I fire three hundred rounds a month in training, and I'm not particularly good. That's what I consider like minimum level of competence. And so it is extremely common in police shootings for the officer to say I don't know how many I fired, or I fired two shots and they fired seventeen. That
happens fun. Oftentimes even more than that, people will reload and not realize that they reloaded and emptied a second magazine because in an actual violent situation, and it is for that lady, I will say that she just knows that her partner is emptying his firearm. So for her, she's this is less unreasonable, right, It is.
More complicated for Sergeant Roberts. But I think it also points to some of the inherent problems with policing.
Oh good god, yes, and the way.
Police are trained, Like the how quickly it was for her to start fight, firing at a suspect who's locked inside of a patrol car, who she knows has been searched multiple times.
And who she has not seen shooting.
Yeah, she has not seen any gunfire, She's not seen any evidence of that. She's heard one man screaming. And how quickly they decide to use lethal force is I think very notable. Quote. I fired at the vehicle because I saw Deputy Hernandez down on the ground and he tells me that shots are fired and he's hit, and it scared the hell out of me. I thought I was watching him be killed, which is yeah, it gets to like how they are trained to constantly be in
fear for their lives, their fellow officers' lives. Quote. It was the patrol car that was where the threat was coming from. I'm thinking, we've we missed the gun and the pack down somehow he shot Jesse from the car and Jesse's down. Shots are being fired. I couldn't tell you exactly where they were coming from, but I fired because of my concern.
On gut and you get this is a thing that does not get represented in fiction. People don't like to talk about it. This happens with soldiers too. I have a friend who was shot in the leg by a fifty count by one of our fifty cows one of his guy's guns, because they were told anyone from this building over that you see on the thermal scope is an enemy. They saw him on the thermal scope and
they lit him up. It was just a series of bad calls being made and nobody checking to confirm, because you're in an actual chaotic, dangerous situation, checking to confirm is there actually a threat in that area? They're just shooting, you know. It's people panic all the time. It's one of the problems with sending people with guns into neighborhoods. Like this is part of why the way we do policing, it's such a bad idea because there's no way to
train out all of this. You can train out acorn guy maybe maybe, but they didn't, but you cannot train out people panicking and doing things with guns that can never be taken back.
Well.
And one other aspect is like Hernandez starts firing his gun very shortly after he's yelling shots fired. Like getting that linear cause of events can be tricky because like you are hearing gunfire at the same time you were hearing him yell shots fired because he is shooting. And Roberts said that she wasn't sure if she or her
Endaz even shot first. Like all of your memory in these instances can get really kind of blurry, like like all of these like high stress scenarios, it actually can be hard to remember the exact manner of.
Oh, yes, easily, yes, she.
Said quote I'm seeing him on the ground yelling shots fired. I'm hit. I'm hit. I thought I thought I saw a deputy get murdered. I was close enough to see his facial expression that was fear, anxiety. It was it was horrible. I'm seeing him kind of trip fall, stumble something behind the vehicle. At some point he's able to kind of post up, but he was stumbling, crawling on the ground. I don't know how to explain it. He wasn't standing up straight, he was not in a tactical position.
Was he was off as momentum, he was off balance, he was standing behind that car. It did not look like he was in control of himself.
Yeah, no, yeah, that's like what she is saying. I'm not gonna say this is like a good response, but it makes sense to me that she reacted the way she did. Most people would write which is why most people should not be given firearms and legal immunity to do whatever with them, right, But most people would have reacted in a why broadly similar manner without training, you know, without training and experience.
Now, there's one way that she describes his kind of like weird stumbling on the ground quote. The auditory tone in his voice was terror. The best way to describe it was like watching a baby giraffe trying to walk for the first time. I sat of the road.
Oh that is that is going to echo in his mind until the day he dies.
So baby giraffe something learning to walk for the first time. Do you know what else is learning to walk? I don't know. That doesn't really work. Now. Do you know what else could perceive acorns as a threat to business?
Oh? Yeah, we I mean the one thing all of our sponsors agree on is that acorns and all trees should be eliminated in the interest of better profit margins. So dangerous, kill the natural world, live free. I want to know one other thing as I'm talking about, like why they I'm not surprised they reacted this way, and what it says to me about like how I think.
Like I think that a group of moderately competent civilians with concealed firearms would have responded better than both officers in this situation, large not for the reason that they're more smarter or better trained, because they probably aren't, but because they go through the world carrying a gun knowing that if anything they do with that gun, they're legally accountable for every shot fired they're accountable for, which is a different mind state than what police are trained to do,
which is the instant you feel endangered, you should draw and be prepared to shoot or shoot immediately, because nothing matters more than you getting home, and you have qualified immunity on your side, right.
Yeah, which allows you to interpret a very quiet tapping sound as a lethal threat to your life. Now. Sergeant Roberts said that she did observe Hernandez move himself into kind of a kneeling shooting stance on his left knee with his right foot planted in front, but still quote, it seemed like his motor functions were not operating properly from what I saw. He told me, again, shots are fire. He's completely out in the open. No one would think that's a good place to take a knee to tactically fire.
So he was.
He was still tried to respond in some way, but still very very baby draft coded.
It seems yeah, yeah, I mean that seems like a constant thing for this fella.
So. Roberts also admitted that she did not ever see the suspect. She could not see inside the patrol car, and she couldn't hear anything coming from that area. Quote. If there would have been something going on in that vehicle, I don't know if I nescessarily would have heard it was I hearing or seeing the windows be blasted?
Out.
No, I couldn't see the right side of the vehicle, but based on the circumstances, I'm thinking that somehow he shot Jesse from the back and it had struck him some way, somehow. I don't know if the individual's gotten out of the car and it's on the other side, you know, like he's escaped somehow. I couldn't see if the door was wide open. I don't know if he's gotten out and they've had a little tussle. Is he's
shooting from the back of the car. All these things are going through my head, but the main thing is that he's in the back of the car. He's got a gun and we missed it, and somehow he shot Deputy Hernandez. So she also couldn't remember who shot first, but she denied the notion that she started shooting because she thought Hernandez fired his gun first. She was confident in her her own use of gunfire before she could tell that Jesse was firing.
Yeah. Interesting quote.
The threat was someone had shot him. We had an arm suspect from the back of the vehicle. Jesse was shot. I'm watching him, you know, fumble on the road. How do I give him more time. How do I draw the attention to me? How do I save him? I thought I was watching him get murdered, the tone in his voice, look on his face, the physical reactions. I'm thinking, we missed the gun and this is it. How do
I get to Jesse to save him. She talks about how she quote couldn't let him be shot again again, as all this is like so confident that this has happened, and they're so confident in their own use of force. She was also concerned that if the suspect got away, other people's lives could be in danger, like his girlfriend who was nearby and the friend who was talking to police about their domestic issue. Quote, there was a threat
in the back of the patrol car. I had a deputy that was on the ground that was still a threat to Jesse's life. I needed to provide him some sort of cover or bring the attention to me. I'm watching him die. I've got to do something. I've got to do something. There's that just like overall constantly throughout this interview with the Professional Standards Investigation, she's just constantly saying how she thought that this man was gonna die.
That's why she responded the way she did. Like she talks about how she can't render aid if there's still a threat, she has to like get regain control the situation.
All of those are reasonable things to say. Yeah, all of those are reasonable things to say in a ReHO gunfight.
Yes, it's just a little bit less less valid when the ending incident is an acorn falling on a roof. Yes, and you're shooting directly at a man.
Who's your own car been searched two.
Times and is trapped inside, who has handcuffs on. Like. So Yeah, after both cops fired off this large valley of bullets, they both repositioned behind cover, called in more backup, and Roberts tended to manage the situation and the other individuals in the area and eventually check in on Deputy Hernandez. Quote, the threat was still a threat until we were able to remove him from the car. Again, they're not viewing him as a person, They're viewing him as a threat.
Like that is that is like he's no longer like a human being. He is he is a threat. That is what he represents now.
Yeah, well, and that is that is how they're trained to talk, and that is by the way like in a court of law, how you should talk, right, you don't. You would not say if you were involved in a legal defensive shooting, I shot to kill, you would say I shot to stop the threat. That is like how people are trained, because that's what plays best in a court. Yeah.
No, she all of her interview is very polished. She's she's like very she's she's been a caught for fifteen years, like she yeah, is she knows what she's saying here.
Yes, she's been coached before. Yeah, she's she's aware.
So after they were able to get to cover, she called in more resources. Quote, that's when we were able to treat it as more of a barricaded armed suspect situation. This poor dude, Yeah, like what do you do? Like you're hanging in the back of the car like everywhere.
Like like it seems like this guy is guilty of having a little bit of having an emotional breakdown with his partner and doing things he should not have done, none of which the penalty for is getting shot at while strapped into a car.
Yeah, he stole his girlfriend's car, He sent her threatening messages. He was described as being a massive in the past yeah, yeah, there's bad things, but that doesn't mean you can get executed by police because they hurt an a chord like.
No, that is not that is not what our society has deemed the punishment for those options, for those behaviors should be.
So Roberts closed this interview by saying, quote, I don't think there's anything funny about it. It just went from zero to one hundred within the drop of a hat. I know we talk about it all the time, but when it does, it does. And she's talking about how, like how fast the situation escalates, like from a very standard interaction towards you're now multiple people are shooting, like this is it happens so quickly. It went from zero to one hundred within the drop of a hat.
Yeah, that's that is what happens with shootings.
She knew that Hernandez was prior military and when in training Hernandez was training on her shift, she described him as quote a very squared away person, somebody that if they tell you something, you don't question it. I wanted Jesse on my shift. When I observed him in high stressful situations, he reacted appropriately, He wasn't afraid to respond and he's I think that last part is certainly true. He was not afraid to respond well.
And this is why, again, when the response for a lot of people when I would talk about this to them is suspecting it had something to do with his military training that he responded this way. Soldiers aren't trained this way. Again, this is so content in the field. But soldiers are generally trained to not air on the side of opening fire blindly because war crimes are a thing they're concerned about and they have a sense of professional pride against Again, not to say that they do
not kill innocent people. They do all the time, because that's what war is. But this is not the way. So this is police training. This guy's bias towards reacting this way is the result of police training, not special forces training.
She kind of reaffirmed her trust in Hernandez as a person who was like reliable, saying when they were on night shift during training, quote, he acted appropriately, He did not lose control of his emotions. I have a lot of respect for him. Actually, when he tells you something, it's not something like are you sure you know he tell you something and that's what's happening, or that's what happened. I don't think there's anything malicious about what he did.
I'm not mad at him. I'm not upset about it because I truly believe that he thought that's what was happening, unquote, which is again, it.
Just i'd be pissed you almost, Like.
I don't if if I was tricked into almost killing someone, I don't. I don't understand this reaction.
Like it's it's this thin blue line shit, right.
Yeah, like like they have to group together so so hard.
Yeah, it's it's and it's like this guy got you into a situation where you could have shot a child, Like I would never forgive someone who put me in that position for no good reason, right, Like it's why that's such such an insane response to me, Sopran.
She has to keep affirming that he has like a good judgment, and it's it's so bizarre, like he very clearly doesn't. Dude, you'll watch the video. Oh, it'd be.
One thing if like they were under fire and he shot and his bullet went wide and hit a civilian and it's no, that's like absolutely just a horrible accident. But like his judgment wasn't bad. It was just a terrible situation. This is so different, and that she's still going to bat for him. Says everything about cop cops, cop brain.
Yeah, there's a few lines that I want to read before we close out here that are in the conclusion of the of the report.
Can't wait.
They describe Hernandez's legs as quote, stopped working correctly. But I think it's just a really funny way to phrase it.
I would describe his brain that way.
But yeah, his legs weren't responding as he intended. But there was no evidence to support anything impacted Deputy Hernandez. No defects are found on his uniform or his blistering vest to support the impact. Hernandez's response was not objectively reasonable, so they they ruled that hernandez His response was not objectively reasonable, that it was not appropriate.
Positively surprised about that, but.
Found Sergeant Roberts response as being reasonable because she believed Hernandez has been shot because of his tone of voice, his stumbling, attempts to move and stand up, and as a parent quote lack of control over his body.
Yeah, I would not call it. I wouldn't say her response is reasonable. I would say her response is what I would expect most people to do.
No, or it is reasonable in terms of how police procedure operates, like she followed the correct protocols for interacting as a police officer.
Yeah. I don't believe under the law she's she would have been found liable by any court.
No, they said. Quote. Roberts found out Hernandez to be a reliable depity that she could trust. She had no reason to doubt what Hernandez had been telling her. She described the auditory tone of Hernandez's voice as terror, the look on his face as being quote consistent with being in fear. I love that kind of cop speak, consistent with being in fear.
Yeah, he looked scared. Yeah amazing. Oh, I do want to go over one thing before we come out, because this is again something I've been asked by people, and you know, maybe this is actionable. If you ever found yourself handcuffed in the back of a police car and they start shooting at you, you should know how this guy survived. Because reading the interview with him, he was like, as soon as I realized they were shooting at me, I like flung myself down sideways and laid flat. I
think in front of the seat. He might have been on the seat. I would get in front of the seat if you can. But the reason he survived is that handguns. Number one, police carry hollow points in their handguns, which is a bullet that has a hole in the slug the thing that goes into somebody. And the reason why you make a hollow point is that a hollow point expands immediately upon impact, so it doesn't penetrate as well. It will not go through armor, and it will not
go through objects very well. But when it hits meat, it expands and so instead of going through a body, it stops and it imparts all of the force from the bullet into that body, so it is better at stopping people. But what that means is when someone is shooting at something like a car and shooting into the back of a car, and you have that whole reinforced trunk and backseat of a police car to go through, those nine millimeters rounds are unlikely to penetrate very far.
So if you are laying down in front of the seat or flat on the seat, your odds of not getting hit are pretty good. Like he had. I'm not surprised he survived. Having done what he did. You know, if you're sitting up and you've got body parts that are like in view with of the windows, you're very likely to get hit. But because he did what he did, he essentially saved his own life, is what it's my interpretation of what I've read.
Yeah, no, I mean it's it is a terrifying scenario that there was. There was an instant recently of this officer who made his first ever arrest. He had two suspects locked in the back and he got distracted about driving. He drove his car off the road into a lake, and both of the suspects drowned.
Jesus fucking Christ, Like.
This is this is like all these things point towards just inherent problems with the policing system.
Cops bad avoid at all costs.
It's terrifying, Like it's it is like these people can just act like this can kidnap, people can do all these things and face basically no repercussions at least turn end as is no longer a cop, which is good, but like that doesn't fix any of the underlying problems with training that cause people to react like this in the face of a squirrel armed with an acorn being the most dangerous thing that you can encounter.
Yeah, it's very bad police work. Avoid cops.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much, pretty much. So, Yeah, that is that is what we have to say on the acorn involved shooting.
Yeah, great stuff.
Watch out for acorns, watch out for droops. Also dangerous. They can fall off a tree.
Yeah.
Pine cones can sometimes be lethal.
Oh they call those the widow makers.
Eyes on the sky folks. You never know, all right that Bye?
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