Officer Saved at Gunpoint by His Own Wedged Finger

[alp227]

At the tactical meeting that began Friday night’s tour, the members of the plainclothes anticrime unit in Brooklyn’s 81st Precinct were told pay a little more attention to livery cabs. Several drivers had been robbed at gunpoint.

Hours later, a sergeant in the unit, Michael Miller, barely escaped being shot in the abdomen when he stopped a speeding livery cab at Quincy Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He did not realize it as his ring finger became wedged between the hammer and the cylinder of a .38-caliber revolver and prevented it from firing.

Sergeant Miller, 38, and his partner, Officer William Reddin, 30, pulled over a Lincoln Town Car about 4 a.m. Saturday. The cab was missing the required partition that separates the driver from passengers.

“At a minimum, we’ll talk to the driver and explain the dangers of it,” Sergeant Miller recalled thinking. Two men sat in the back seat and the two officers approached the car from both sides.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/nyregion/wedged-finger-in-gun-prevents-police-officer-from-being-shot.html

[MADem]

1. Lucky bastard. That could have been ugly. NT

[mvccd1000]

2. What I took away from that article was...

... the thought that gun control in NYC is clearly NOT taking guns away from the intended segment of the population:

On Sunday evening, Sergeant Miller, who has been on the force for 13 years, said it was all in a day’s work, even as he acknowledged that that sounded like a cliché. “The majority of our arrests involve loaded guns,” he added.

“We made almost the identical arrest the Friday before this one,” he said. “Livery cab stop on Atlantic Avenue. Loaded .38 revolver. That individual also fought with us.”

Sounds like NYC's strict gun control laws meant to help reduce crime are doing a great job of keeping guns away from.... everybody BUT the criminals.

Maybe the next law will do it.

[one-eyed fat man]

3. Surely the suspect was a paragon of virtue

The suspect, Eugene Graves, 30, of Madison Street in Brooklyn, was later charged with attempted murder of a police officer, weapon possession and possession of a controlled substance: Sergeant Miller said Mr. Graves was carrying a plastic bag containing cocaine as well as more than $1,300 in cash. The police said Mr. Graves had a lengthy arrest record, including on charges of murder and robbery. The disposition of those cases was not immediately known.

This is directly attributable to legacy of Prohibition. Making recreational drugs illegal puts the manufacture, distribution and sale in the hands of criminal enterprises. The users, for the most part, do not care how many Mexicans are killed, how many politicians are bribed, or how many cops are corrupted. None of it matters as long as they can snort, smoke or inject their favorite contraband.

[rl6214]

4. It's amazing how difficult it is to grab someones flailing arms

Had a guy try to steal a truck of mine once and my brother in law and I saw it happening. Brother in law is a sheriffs deputy and we chased the guy back to his truck where he jumped in and tried to start it. We were grabbing at his arms trying to pull him out and shut off the trucks ignition twice after he started it. He got it started a third time, got it into gear and took off with us hanging out the drivers door.