You know, I wasn't going to respond to this but it kept hounding me. "IF" this was a real stolen car situation. How many of you would have been rooting for the cops for catching the bad guy? You know, catching the piece of shite that stole my car, got what he deserves kind of statement. Just curious. OK, now lets examine how he and his wife were treated. Do you think there are 60 year old criminals? Could a 60 yr old shoot a police officer and permanently put an officer at the end of his tour of duty in a fraction of a second to never see his children or spouse again, a pine box. (I know seems a bit over the top, but still) could it happen. Or is it once you get so old you can't be a criminal? Next, how much do you think the car is worth? More than 5K? 10? 20? because anything over 5K puts you into a felony. So now we are talking felony stop on a stolen vehicle. This is the information that the cops had at the time of the stop. Next, Troopers are trained in traffic stops and they are trained for felony stops and to react to a bunch of stuff in between. This is now a clear case of a felony stop (value and stolen)and they have no way of knowing any different until they get to the end of thier procedure. They followed training and procedures (near as I could tell) no matter how you want to media spin this. Were there mistakes made? Do you wish things like this never happen? Would it have been nice for someone to have been able to straighten things out in the field faster? How much fun would you be making of the "keystone cops" if they had let them go and it turned out it was a stolen car? There are more issues at work here than people even consider. We don't have all of the information. Also, there was some media editing going on with the footage along with the media narration which was meant to invoke your reactions. Do you think state computer systems all operate on the same system? How about issues across state lines? Unfortunately a perfect world does not exist. But perfect doesn't make for sensational news. I'd be pissed if it was me and my wife but I also understand it. An apology and expenses? Sure. A payday?
Poor police work? More like poor data entry.
I encourage anyone to go sign up for a ride along, or go tour a jail.