If You Are Taken Hostage - Supreme Court Rules Cops Can Kill You - Welcome To Freedom

OUTRAGEOUS RULING GIVING GOV THE RIGHT TO KILL YOU WHENEVER THEY WANT, WOW
What a crazy ruling giving already out of control Gov and Cops More power and LESS responsibility. LINK TO PDF: http://www.thinklikeacop.org/cops can shoot hostages.pdf

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A federal appeals court has ruled police can shoot hostages — even intentionally — if they fear for their lives or to stop a fleeing felon.

The case is more than just a legal footnote to Don Davis. The Georgia truck driver was shot nine times by troopers and deputies who were trying to stop a murder suspect holding Davis hostage in his truc

While the shooting occurred in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court just this week let stand a federal court ruling that police owe the hostage nothing for his medical bills or the lasting effects of the officer-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s deputies and Georgia State Patrol troopers were waiting on a dirt road outside a logging camp in August 2015.

Murder suspect Ryan Arnold was terrorizing the loggers and was planning his escape. Arnold had already shot his pregnant girlfriend and left her for dead before leading police on a chase. A trooper exchanged gunfire with the murder suspect before his getaway car ran out of gas at the logging camp.

Don Davis was getting ready to pull out with a full load of lumber when Arnold jumped in his truck with a rifle. “He fired a shot, and blew my side mirror out. I thought that was my head. But look, you know, I got lucky,” Davis said.

“He’s in my truck and we coming out of the woods now,” Davis calmly told the 911 operator. “He says that I won’t survive if I don’t get him out,” he added.

Dispatch records confirm police were told that the hostage was driving the logging truck with the killer threatening his life. “The subject you all are looking for is in the vehicle with him advising if he does not go where he tells him to he will kill him,” a dispatcher said over the radio minutes before the shooting.

Some officers testified they didn’t hear that message, while others confirmed they knew there was a hostage in the truck.

The 18-wheeler rolled toward the police cars that were blocking the road and started pushing them out of the way. Officers had taken cover behind the cars. The driver’s window of the logging truck was completely missing because the murder suspect had already shot it out while taking Davis hostage.

Two Georgia State Patrol troopers and a pair of Oglethorpe County deputies opened fire on the cab of the truck using shotguns, a pistol and a fully automatic tactical rifle.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined the gunfire was concentrated on the driver’s side of the cab, where Davis was driving.

“Shooting the driver, shooting who is driving that truck, will stop that truck,” GBI Special Agent in Charge Jesse Maddox told lawyers in a deposition.

The truck was riddled with more than 35 bullet holes.

“We’re not aware of any case in the country that says that an officer may strategically choose on purpose to shoot the innocent hostage as a way of apprehending the criminal,” Freeman said.

11th Circuit Judge Jill Pryor agreed with the rest of the panel’s decision, but she determined the trooper who shot the hostage when he jumped out went too far, ruling the “final shotgun blast violated Davis’s constitutional right to be free from the unreasonable use of deadly force,” but the judge said the trooper was still not liable because he was “entitled to qualified immunity.”

“As as long as none of us gets hurt, we’re making memories”

There are no dash or body-worn camera recordings of the shooting itself. One Georgia State Patrol dash camera recording was damaged. Another state cruiser didn’t have a camera. One deputy’s body cam was dislodged while other deputies weren’t wearing them at all.

However, one trooper’s dash camera was recording while that unit was responding to the scene. The two troopers in that patrol car were not involved in the shooting itself, but their dash camera did capture audio of a phone conversation between officers.

“We shot a hostage?,” a trooper in the cruiser asks. The officer on the phone answered, “yeah.”

“Did we shoot him?,” meaning the murder suspect. Again the unidentified officer on the phone answered in the affirmative.

“Good,” the trooper in the cruiser responded. The other officer added, “we shot them both.”

The trooper in the cruiser can be heard saying, “hey, all’s well that ends well.” The officer on the phone added, “Amen.”

The trooper summed up the conversation. “As long as none of us gets hurt, we’re making memories.”

The Georgia State Patrol said the agency could not comment on the nearly eight-year-old shooting because the civil suit was still pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice declined to hear the case on Monday, leaving the 11th Circuit ruling in place and ending the case.

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