Dashcam video shows Arizona police officer in a Tucson suburb, swerving the car around another police vehicle, speeding up and running over a suspect who was carrying a rifle. This incident occurred on February 19th, but it hasn’t been released until now.
Disturbing video appears to show police officer Michael Rapiejko using police vehicle as a weapon against armed suspect identified as Mario Valencia. Valencia was captured walking casually along the side walk with a rifle in his hand. You can clearly hear the police dispatcher saying: “Stand off! Stand off! The gun is loaded”. The next thing, the suspect gets rammed by the police car that ended up slamming into a brick wall.
Mario Valencia survived the crash, but he is facing several charges: for robbing a convenience store in Tucson, breaking into a church, invading a home, stealing a car and for stealing a rifle from a Wall-Mart.
The police officer, Michael Rapiejko was cleared from any wrongdoing and he is back on duty.
Although Valencia was obviously breaking the law, was it really necessary to use this much force?
Of course this wasn’t to much force. The officer did what was necessary to stop the threat. Should he have waited until the idiot criminal shot someone? Also, get your facts straight before publishing a story. The voice heard is not the dispatcher, it is the first officer on scene. He isn’t even speaking to the car who did the ramming, He is speaking to the cruiser that is approaching in the opposite direction. People had better wake up and realize that without the police this country is gone very quickly.
First officer on scene is in charge. All officers are on the same police radio frequency. First officer is analyzing the situation and advising other responding officers and the dispatcher of the situation, when in flies the other officer who obviously is out for glory and runs the suspect over. He sure didn’t learn that at the police academy. People had better wake up and realize that there are police officers in every police department that should not be police officers. These are the bad apples that get the honest, courteous, and professional police officers hurt. Police departments nationwide need to wake up and realize that the more they protect these idiots, the more citizens will strike back. Get rid of the bad police officers because they are getting the good police officers killed.
Deadly force is justified both legally and ethically when a criminal is using deadly weapons. Action was correct.