SWAT team fires semi-automatic guns at unarmed 18 year old

[MrScorpio]

Members of a SWAT team opened fire on an unarmed teenage girl this week when police officers outside of Washington, DC attempted to serve an early morning search warrant.

Myasia Hughley, 18, is recovering from flesh wounds following Thursday morning’s events in District Heights, Maryland. She was asleep in her bedroom at her family house when 15 FBI SWAT agents stormed the house with guns drawn.

“I’m shouting ‘Nobody is armed, nobody has a gun!’ and then all of a sudden I heard ‘She’s got a gun!’ and they just opened fire,” Emory Hughley, Myasia’s father, tells local station WJLA News.

Myasia didn’t have a gun, though, nor did any other member of the Hughley household. The authorities allegedly saw something, and in their minds had enough reason to unleash a barrage of bullets at the girl. Mr. Hughley tells Washington’s NBC News4 that he saw one agent even fire off around seven shots himself using a semi-automatic weapon.

“They almost hit my daughter, man,” he adds to WJLA. “If I hadn’t told her to go back in her room they probably would have shot her.”

“I’ve got eight holes in my wall. One bullet went past my head, almost hit me, ricocheted off my brick wall and some of the shrap metal hit my little daughter in the back of her neck, all for nothing.”

http://rt.com/usa/swat-teenage-girl-hughley-906/

[Fumesucker]

1. Just another day in the land of the free n/t

[The Straight Story]

2. Well, these are the people some want to trust with guns

Fellow citizens who magically become 'good' and worthy of having guns because of who employs them.

When they use guns in a bad way...time off with pay, etc. Shoot up a truck with people who don't even look like a suspect? That's ok, you work for we the people and we will help you get a new truck.

You and me? If we did the same...jail.

Why is it we are willing to give the same people we don't want having guns, guns, when they work for the people who are most corrupted and owned by big business? And yet we want to remove them from people like fellow progressives and other citizens.

We want to read the emails of everyone, tap their phones, monitor their every move - but we exempt those who work for the government from the same. When did we become a people who believe that those in power are better than us on all of these issues and are to be more trusted than me and you?

They kill innocents the world over via drones, sanctions, depleted uranium, land mines, etc - and yet we want them to be the only ones able to own guns because somehow we trust them more than the rest of us. How did it come to us trusting them more than each other?

[nomorenomore08]

6. I think you make a valid point. In that many are far too trusting of authority.

But I don't know of many people who literally want "only the government" to have any firearms. Sounds a bit strawman-ish.

[Recursion]

9. I can name half a dozen regular DU posters who have said that

It's not unknown.

[nomorenomore08]

10. Okay. As an actual policy position, I would consider that unrealistic and excessive.

As an emotional reaction to recent events, though, I would find it more understandable.

[Duckhunter935]

19. at least

[MellowYellow]

14. Couldn't have said it better. This is becoming a common occurance that shouldn't even be

tolerated once a year. These are public sevents terrorizing the taxpayers. If their jobs scare them so much that they fire on the unarmed public, they're in the wrong line of work. Why are so few willing to hold these bullies accountable?

[sarisataka]

3. I am not sure what bothers me more....

How fast LE is willing to open fire on unidentified targets
or
Their piss poor accuracy
Actually it is an easy choice. The default should always be do not fire until you have identified your target as a threat. Unarmed teenagers are rarely threats.

Thankfully the piss poor accuracy saved the life of an innocent girl.

[bahrbearian]

23. We should Barney Fife them all . Give them 1 bullet ,tell em' to make it count.

Which I hope the never find their target.

[burrowowl]

4. Idiocy!

complete IDIOCY!
JHC!

[Recursion]

5. Why do police have assault weapons?

If, as I keep hearing, their only purpose is to kill as many people as quickly as possible?

[Fumesucker]

7. That whole family would be dead if the cops were better shots n/t

[sibelian]

8. So they're basically Imperial Stormtroopers. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. Ever see this?

[Warpy]

11. Dress them up like Robo Cop

and issue them military weapons and jack them up on caffeine and a lot of nonsense about their targets and of course they're going to want to blast anything that moves.

Militarizing the cops was just as bad an idea as the whole drug war was. Thanks a lot, Tricky Dick.

[Savannahmann]

12. I'll make a prediction now

The cops will not be disciplined in any way, shape, or form. They might even be promoted for their diligence.

[earthside]

29. 'Reasonable' use of force.

You are absolutely correct. The police will not be disciplined in any way.

So, here you have a family "sheltering in place" and they face a 'home invasion' by authorities ... if they had exercised their prerogatives under a 'make my day' law, then they would probably all have been shot to death.

And 90 percent of Americans would defend the police in knee-jerk fashion.

The accepting response even by liberals to the excessive use of force and police and military power in the Boston marathon bombing case just shows how totally deferential Americans have become to 'authority'.

The plutocracy grows stronger everyday (the FAA sequestration exemption, for example), the military is still a sacred cow (the F-35 fiasco, for example), and the police state is here to stay (Boston and the story here, for example).

Why shouldn't we all be cynical these days?

[tofuandbeer]

13. This is awful. It sounds like someone on the SWAT team had a personal agenda.

But why did the SWAT team get called to the home? The article is so vague.

[daybranch]

17. does not matter

the first duty is to appraise the situation rationally and exert necessary force only. I agree they prepare for the worst band they go into a mode of operation. But unlike the drones we fly they have their own brains and are paid to use them to protect the public. It looks to me that they became much bigger heroes willing to confront these people when they found no resistance.
Sometimes sadly police die in performing their duties but they must take that risk in order to avoid killing innocents. That is part of their job, and if we do not believe that we should not hire them.

You know if the one or ones that fired had a bumpfire AR-15 with a 30 round magazine, he could have pumped out two or 3 times more rounds killing a bunch.

[daybranch]

16. Important to understand these police are scared and scared people may shoot crazily

years ago I was helping a person with a broken down vehicle on the highway. At night in the rain i Had missed the vehicle and turned back so I was driving several feet off the right side of the road. As cars came down the road, I would turn off my lights in order to avoid blinding traffic proceeding in the opposite direction. While this was illegal, I was unprepared for the 5 state highway cruisers flying towards me at what they said was 90 MPH. And being an old school guy (idiot), I walked towards them with nothing in my hands into the bright lights of their cruisers. As I apprached the 5 or more troopers, It was clear they had all unholstered their guns and were leaning on the fenders of their car as if to fire. I did not realize that very litle of their pro9cedure has to do with avoiding killing the unarmed citizen, They were plainly shaking from a 55 year old white guy walking calmly towards them. What I did not realize was how afraid of me they were until I reached them and how lucky I was to have avoided being shot. Now while I was wrong to do what I had done, it was not a car chase, no indications of me being armed, so their fear struck me.
I just wonder if their training is not just to deal with the worst case scenarios and by conditioning themselves to do this, they create their fear through their imagination. So when something happens to call them from the station they prepare mentally for the worst and start priming their reactions and emotions for that worst case anticipated event. If they go into this mode, the public become potential victims of the officers fear.
I watched the same situation in Vietnam and whie many appraised the situation rationally, unfortunately the one who was mostv scared and usually least experienced would overreact with his own preservation and then his ego in mind after he was revealed as being afraid. So we need police officers whoare trained for the wide variety of the situations they may face. This SWAT boloney has been acted out to many times.
As an older person I woulkdfeelo much better with Roy Rogers or Gene Autry types guarding our streets and roads rather than these overrated Rambos.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

32. I don't buy it. Not at all. I don't think that any of them are scared. They've been trained to

act like storm-troopers to deliver unnecessary and excessive force.

When people are trained to deliver unnecessary and excessive force, that's what they do.

[elias7]

18. Everybody jump on the bandwagon. Oh wait, article dated November 2012...

With no followup anywhere that I could find. Can we be a little more discerning, people? Lest we look foolish...

[bahrbearian]

24. Thats why its in General Discussion and not Late Breaking News.

[99Forever]

20. Closer to a complete Police State...

.. we creep with each passing day.

[Marrah_G]

21. When you are posting old stories you should make that clear

[MineralMan]

22. November, 2012. There's actual news being covered that

happened somewhat more recently. If you're looking for a story about anything, you can always find it in the archives.

You can do better than this.

[bahrbearian]

25. If you are looking for Latest Breaking New, its not in General Discussion.

[Tempest]

26. Great response

Apparently he doesn't think past stories should be discussed here.

[MineralMan]

28. No. I just think that old stories should have the date

in the post.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

33. What's that word that you use? Oh, yea. "Yawn."

[MineralMan]

34. No, that's someone else. I don't use that word

very often. But thanks for replying to my post.

[bahrbearian]

30. I know . LOL board nannies.

[MineralMan]

27. I'm quite familiar with DU's organization, thanks.

Adding the date to a story one posts is just a good thing to do. Leaving it out? Well...

But, thanks for your reply. It's good to know someone's reading my posts.

[Newest Reality]

31. Ah sweet freedom in this

land of liberty and justice for all.

Freedom seems to smell like gunpowder -- rotten eggs and sulfur like Beelzebub's armpits.

It sounds like shell casings hitting cement. Ping, ping, ping!

It looks like militarized, black-booted, armored hordes of "protectors" running around in a frenzy making us wish they would defend us from them, at least.

It will never be called a police state, so don't look for the official word on that. No matter what stage it is in or comes to, it will be considered necessary, vital, worthwhile and safe.

You are left to figure out what condition your condition is in and what state your inhabit.