The Prince William County, Virginia PD tweeted out the above welcome to two new officers early this week. Sadly, Officer Guindon’s first shift went as badly as it could go. The former Marine and two other officers responded to a domestic disturbance call and came under fire. All three were hit and Officer Guindon died of her wounds. The other officers are expected to recover. There are good reasons that cops say domestic disputes are about the most dangerous calls they answer. “The suspect, identified as Ronald Hamilton was being held without bond on charges of capital murder of a police officer, assault with a fire arm and murder in the first degree, according to the Prince William County Adult Detention Center.” RIP, Officer Guindon.
End Of Watch, rest in peace now Officer Guindon.
All paid some. Some paid all. Condolences to Officer Guindon’s family. May justice be served to her killer.
Very sad. And by an active duty Army NCO.
You left out the part where the shooter is both black and a high ranking official at the Pentagon. He won’t be convicted for political reasons, especially since Obama is a proud supporter of #OnlyBlackLivesMatter.
Pentagon, yes. High-ranking, no. From what I understand, he is a Staff Sergeant.
A Staff sergeant is not “a high ranking official” lieutenant colonels are a dime a dozen in the Pentagon a SSG might as well be a private.
I was on a command base once. Light colonels were inspecting latrines. In the pentagon they’d be doorstops. An nco would be a runner.
Heh. My last visit to the Pentagon, when my Major General attempted to book a conference room, we were met with laughter – it took a 4 star to get us a room, who laughed and said Lieutenant Colonels make coffee in the Pentagon.
Unless the good Staff Sergeant were a gifted typist, he’d be lucky to no be assigned as PLO (permanent latrine orderly from “No Time for Sergeants).
Sounds like a real swell place, replete with elitism and hazing.
I very much doubt the administration will protect this fellow in any way.
Typo and/or spell correct run amok. The slain officer’s name is “Guindon,” not “Guidon.”
By the way, even my correction got spell-incorrected until I overrode it.
Text amended.
If you kill a cop you should be hanged in public. Bring it back and show everyone how unacceptable this behavior is.
Why if it’s a cop? What if it’s my brother? (I don’t actually have a brother.)
Murder is murder.
Absolutely.
Bingo. Enough with the double standard which blatantly values a cops life more than mine. Only child killers should be executed publicly. And brutally.
Make it all violent offenders period and we’ve got a deal. Or offer to let the victim or victim’s family do the hanging or fire the shots.
This is one of those “damn it, I don’t want to have to take this position, but I must” moments. I do despise the cop carve outs for carrying, for possessing, for domestic violence, you name it. They aren’t our betters. I figure about 1/3 of cops are outright criminals using the badge for cover. About another 1/3 are weak bullies using the badge as a shortcut to unearned respect and as a license to harass. About another 1/3 are cowards who stay silent and do nothing about the other 2/3.
The only good, honorable cops are the very few who number in the rounding errors and approximations in between the “about 1/3” of the others. That’s not too many.
That said, and this is the hard part, and attack on a cop is far more than that. It’s an attack on the rule of law itself, on civilization, on any semblance of separation from wild animals. Automatic death penalty for cop killers. Same for murderers of judges, jurors, prosecutors and elected officials.
Your last paragraph was the point I was going to make. The reason that a cop being murdered is a higher offense isn’t because their life means ‘more’, it’s because it REPRESENTS more. And in most states a judge, prosecutor, or even lowly juror’s murder results in the same sort of capital charge.
You, and others, have caused me to reconsider my position, for the reasons you stated.
I reject your argument for its ridiculousness alone.
Give the victim’s family right of first refusal to off the criminal in a manner of their choosing.
I say we all get tattoos on how we want our murders dealt with. I think I’ll go with Burned at the stake.
You think the murder of an unarmed, non-uniformed citizen to be somehow less vile? Less criminal?
Someone who kills a cop (line of duty) is not just attacking a cop, he is attacking the justice system and due process. It’s the same as someone who kills a judge or a juror. It’s bigger than one person, just like someone who commits the murder of a private citizen for political purposes is guilty of more crimes than someone who kills a neighbor over a parking spot.
You ever read “Starship Troopers”?
Society has gone back to public floggings and hangings.
Personally, I think it’s much better than our current system.
But it’s ok to murder regular people, or knock your fiancé out in an elevator and still play ball for a living? Or horribly mismanage secure emails? I could go on about unacceptable behavior which apparently carries no penalties.
Torture people to death with no public airing of evidence against them? Start a war based on false premises that kills thousand and tens of thousands?
Fly the binladin family and Saudi royals later connected to material support of. 9/11hijackers out of the country while us citizens are atill grounded?
Not that I disagree about the email server
Dead gassed Kurds and numerous no-fly zone violations were not “false”.
Just keeping it real.
Personally I’d like to see a return of public punishments in general. Not only executions, but things like the stockade and public whippings for lesser crimes. Someone guilty of GTA could be forced to pay restitution, and then be whipped with a cane in the middle of dowtown.
Rest in peace Officer Guindon.
First day. Stepped into a shit storm. Hope she didn’t leave any kids behind. RIP.
And some day, if Ronald Hamilton “pays his debt to society” and is released from prison, should his gun rights be restored?
Well the easy solution is the death penalty, but America is a soft and squishy place filled with safe spaces and trigger warnings.
So what wisdom does Dennis have?…..
http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2006/12/12/capital_punishment_–_another_argument_for_it/page/full
There are no “extenuating circumstances” that could ever, in any way, shape, or form, suggest that the killer should ever exit his 8 x 10 cell.
Therefore, the killer will never have a chance to exercise their right to self-defense out of prison and the discussion is a moot point.
Because he killed a person, or because he killed a police officer? What about a wrong address no knock raid? The homeowners in such a case are within their rights to repel the home invasion by any and all means available to them. At least in sane world.
Why don’t you save it for one of those.
I deeply regret the killing of this officer and the wounding of the two others, however, if they had been properly trained and exhibiting proper situational awareness the shooter’s Second Amendment rights should have been revoked immediately when he produced a weapon.
Three cops in a close quarters situation with a single armed suspect? As sad as it is in results, it has to be said that something was missed in their response to the very situation that apparently EVERY cop knows from day one at the academy is the most volatile and dangerous type of call they can respond to.
I write this as a generalization as none of us can know what sort of chaos they encountered at the scene, but as a generalization the results of a confrontation between three armed and trained police officers and a single enraged perp should not have resulted in only the officers being wounded/dead unless he shot them from ambush as they approached the residence.
P.S. I did check the news article on this incident and note that the perp’s female companion involved was also killed. The article did not give any details on where the police officers were when they were shot.
The only way this guy should ever be released from prison is to the county morgue.
I don’t see how he could repay this debt. They are looking at a death penalty latest word.
Rest easy…
Thank you for your faithful service, Off. Guindon. Praying for her family.
Shooter have PTSD?
If I were a gambling man, I’d bet that Ssgt. was doped to the gills on SSRI meds. Army docs hand out psych meds like tic-tacs.
I’ve had three very good psych docs who all held that just handing out meds to deal with a problem is both lazy and irresponsible. Why do government docs get away with it?
Oh, yeah — they work for the government. >sigh<
Domestic’s only account for 14% of deaths to police. Majority is ambush. Annual national average of 54 police deaths per year. 2016 Chicago murders to date is 102. Police know the risk, sign up and worked their way to 100k plus nailing the OT. Dead Chicagoans struggle to get above poverty while jinking gangsters head on or at their six, while police support denying citizens their natural right to lawful self defense. One government two outcomes, one fully supported, the other left to fend for themselves and can say for me, a dead cop doesn’t move the needle.
Keeping it classy.
Ah, but is he wrong? The very fact that a separate charge exists for the murder of a police officer is proof that some animals are more equal than others.
Not that long ago, two forklift operators died in the same week as a cop on the job. The forklift operators got about 10 seconds of local network airtime per. The copper got about 10 minutes.
They are doing a job, just like any of the many more millions of people who do jobs that are far more likely to not have them go home at night to their loved ones.
Not to mention the cop had hundreds of his “brothers” in taxpayers’ cars, on the taxpayers’ dime, rolling a convoy a mile long down the freeway to his funeral.
I say this as someone with more than few cop friends, who’s paternal grandfather was Chicago PD and died as a result of wounds received in the line of duty. (He was shot stopping a robbery.) Not to mention my maternal grandfather who was a sheriff, my uncle a deputy, and a host of others in my family.
It’s a *ucking job. Do it, or don’t. Accept the risk or don’t. You earn no speshul snowflake “hero” bullshit status for doing a job far less likely to get you killed while doing it than a Doritos delivery truck driver. Especially when it (generally) pays far above the median wage, with gravy benes, and a ridiculous retirement scheme.
“It’s a *ucking job. Do it, or don’t. Accept the risk or don’t.”
Ah, here we have the commondare plectrologium, a very common species on the internet. The commondare likes to talk big about what other people should do and pretend that he knows what he is talking about but quickly retreats in the face of any real danger, calling 911 and begging people to come help him in his basement. When the danger has passed the commondare will return to his puffed-up form and pretend that he never needed help. The commondare tends to becomes extinct in any uncontrolled habitat but can thrive in one where it forms a parasitic bond on society.
I’ve known people that were killed in combat. Died natural deaths. Suicide. Murder. By far the hardest death to get over is murder.
All loved ones dying is traumatic. But a murder is a whole other level. When twice as many fisherman or garbagemen or forklift operators are murdered on the job as cops…….
Figured one of the whiny self-important cops would go the ad hominem route – since the facts aren’t in your favor. Delivery truck drivers are far more likely to die on the job than you are, get over yourself. It’s a job. When it becomes a “heroic endeavor”, you lose perspective and start going Ricky Ranger – or Judge Dredd.
Do you actually believe the “danger filled life of a selfless public servant” nonsense? Seriously? You can sell that to ignorant voters who don’t know any better for another round of raises. I’ve been far behind the blue line, give me a break. I’d be willing to wager that I’ve had hostile guns pointed in my face more times than you have on the job – difference being I didn’t have a squad car full of weapons, body armor, and a bunch of friends for backup on the radio when it happened.
Don’t you worry your heroic self about me. I’ve survived several incidents without your help, but I’ll call you when it’s over, so you can write a report.
jwm, Isn’t dead, dead?
Is death less tragic crushed under a 500 gallon plastic vat of fertilizer than shot in the face? I just don’t understand the difference. I’ve buried people over the years – suicide, OD, combat, cancer, accidents. They were equally dead. Regardless of what led up to their demise, in the end they were dead.
Of the small number of cops killed on the job, over half are traffic accidents.
He probably got a speeding ticket and is crying about it, one of those keyboard commando douchebags
Well VOR…My last speeding ticket a CHP in defilade clocked me at 85 on a diverging passing lane. My fun meter pegged because a silver hair, looking through Pries steering wheel was rolling 40 in a 55 and two semis showing no love sealed the gap. The look on the cop face checking his laser was priceless. I immediately pulled over, reversed so he didn’t have to get in his car. He saw ole pokey, as well as the semis and relayed my speed. I told him he must have caught me on the brakes cause it felt like I was doing a buck five. Driving that road 3x a week, I told him where his best three laser spots were and I made the call not to go into the weeds. He grinned knowing I have a pair and wrote me “approx 63”. 235 bucks beats a 2k reckless fine.
So VOR I don’t have a problem with the PO PO cause I man up and take responsibility for my actions. If the the best you can muster is a simple slur I demure to your internet wisdom.
Probably because the officer was in uniform so there is no “justification” for killing an officer whereas if she had been undercover, then it would be simple murder.
Don’t know if that’s how it works or not, but such a reasoning in law would be absurd. The value of life is not based on the clothing worn.
#cheapthreadsmatter
The value of the life, no; the offense to society, yes.
Police deaths have been over 100 for quite awhile now:
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html
I’ve participated in the “Under 100” campaign, an effort to reduce deaths to less than 100 / year annually. Most deaths are due to car crashes and shooting attacks. My agency has had more than 200 deaths in the line of duty.
How tradgic. I wish the best for the department and the family. Be safe out there ladies and gents.
And two garbage collectors will die on the job for every jackboot. No tears for them, though. I guess they just don’t produce enough TV shows about garbage collectors.
Or the fellow driver in the box truck ahead of me last week. Texting woman t-boned his rig and it was pushed into oncoming and took a full 18 wheeler head on. dead on impact. A blip on the police scanner and a few hours of slow traffic. Maybe a blip in the paper in between election BS. And probably for $13 or less.
Regardless. She jumped in with both feet. And a Marine Vet to boot.
Condolences to her family. The country isn’t what it once was.
Looking at this page, I have to agree: we were better before there were comments sections.
RIP will pray for family.
Killing an officer IS worse. The average Joe doesn’t get called to domestic disputes, the officer does. And when he does, it is with the sanction of the public. So when you attack him, you are attacking the public, and the law itself. It’s an extra layer of depravity, demonstrating a dangerous disregard for OUR (the public’s) authority. It’s similar to the ye olde concept that a man condemned to death can not be allowed to escape, since he has nothing to lose and presumably won’t hesitate to kill whoever stands in his way.
+1: the phrase that comes to mind is “any threat to a police officer is a greater threat to an unarmed civilian”.
No. If you believe what you wrote them you have never read Animal Farm. Or you have and you believe that some people are more equal than others.
http://killedbypolice.net/ In 2016 – 1205.
Over 30 people killed by police in vehicle accidents. Cops got to go home, the victims…went to ground in a box. Societies price of being served & protected.
Oh really? Exactly how is it worse?
They’re a dead US citizen, nothing more, nothing less. Unless you believe some animals are more important than others, in which case, you might be in the wrong country – at least for your views anyway.
It’s a job. Nothing more. They get paid better than average and median to do a job. One that’s statistically much safer than tens of million of other jobs “regular” people do everyday. Ones where, maybe, just maybe, you get a 10 second soundbite on the local news if you die doing your job.
LE routinely makes the top 10 or 20 most dangerous jobs in the US per year. Logging, machinery, fishing, roofing and various drivers are very high for deaths. However, police are #2 nationally for being murder victims. That means police are very likely to be murdered compared to other professions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/charted-the-20-deadliest-jobs-in-america/
Accur81, I think you might want to check the facts again. For the first time in over a decade, LE barely squeaked into the top ten dangerous jobs, according to the BLS. Tens of millions of average Americans have more dangerous jobs, and when they die doing them, it’s no big deal. Because it isn’t.
Even though it did finally sneak in to the top ten, the guy who delivers beer and pretzels to your local 7-11 is still far more likely to not go home after his shift to his wife and kids because he was killed on the job. Not to mention he (generally) makes less than LE, let alone the cushy benes and retirement. Especially in CA….
I’m not against LE as a job. Many of my family have done it, I have friends who are doing it. But it’s just a job. Not a particularly dangerous one, and you get a boatload of pay, benes, and retirement to serve the public with some modicum of respect. Which seldom happens in CA. Just ask those two women in a pickup truck….
Fully half of all LE deaths are traffic accidents.
What a pathetic excuse for a person you are. Can’t seem to grasp the gaping differences between accidents vs murder. Ok, go back to your disillusions…….
AJ, Please explain to the class the difference between ‘dead from murder’ and ‘dead from accident’.
We’re all waiting. Do tell.
I briefly lived in a city where no cop with less than three years of experience was sent to a domestic violence situation, nor did any officer so respond without donning Kevlar.
Not that this policy saved one particular responding officer from a certain cast-iron skillet, but nevertheless it seemed wise.
In another city, the cops trained for domestic violence by having college students play the domestic part and get creatively bizarre with their behavior. I doubt any of the officers ever ran into anything quite as wacky as college students can invent, but the raised level of awareness from such training must have been beneficial.
The only way I could agree with laws that make it worse to kill a lawman (judges, politicians, jurors included), because it’s an affront to justice, is if there were a corresponding law that punished those same lawmen severely for any crimes they committed being that they hold such a position of trust and responsibility.
If you hold power over innocents, the moment you abuse it you should be off to the gallows. Not just because of the person you wronged but because you undermine law, justice and civilization by doing so.
But politicians are never going to pass a law that punishes themselves more severely for the corruption they probably all partake in, so I can’t really agree with the idea that it’s worse to kill a lawman than anyone else. The biggest threat to justice is the law itself.