Faith-based killing

February 26, 2001 10:18 AM

Faith-based killing Onward Christian soldiers, etc This took place in Jersey. Is it religious profiling?
posted by Postroad (13 comments total)

Another sad case of suicide by cop.
posted by mister scratch at 10:30 AM on February 26, 2001

Maybe it was a Bible with a hollowed-out gun holder inside!
posted by aaron at 11:11 AM on February 26, 2001

If you yell "I'm Armed" while running at a cop and waving something over your head, even if the object you are waving is a helium balloon with a smiley face on it, you are going to get shot.
posted by Optamystic at 11:13 AM on February 26, 2001

This has nothing to do with the Bible, this has everything to do with a deranged man who continued to charge police after he had already been shot once.

Instead of projecting some ludicrous concept of "religious profiling" onto this story, we should be looking at this as a springboard to discussion on how we treat the mentally ill. People don't just snap and go around begging the police to shoot them, especially not after they already have a bullet in them. I'd be interested to know whether or not this grieving wife ever did anything to help this man to seek the treatment he so clearly needed.
posted by Dreama at 11:15 AM on February 26, 2001

You can try to do everything for people like this, but unless they agree to accept the help (which happens far more rarely than we'd like), there's nothing more you can do. Until they start threatening cops, of course, at which time you can have them committed. If they don't get killed first.
posted by aaron at 11:23 AM on February 26, 2001

Which is my point, Aaron. We see incidents like this happening at an alarming frequency, with no particular compulsion to reviewing the standards by which people can get help. Clearly this man was a danger to himself; at what point should the people around someone be able to act on their behalf when someone is decompensating?
posted by Dreama at 12:28 PM on February 26, 2001

Dreama, I'm scared. That's twice this month that we agree on an issue. (Although, I kind of thought Postroad was being facetious with the "religious profiling" remark.)
posted by jpoulos at 12:33 PM on February 26, 2001

When, oh when, will our society learn that the easy availability of Bibles causes needless death and suffering?

We need to register and regulate all Bibles, and ensure they are sold only with locking covers.
posted by mikewas at 12:46 PM on February 26, 2001

It just goes to show, guns don't kill people, Bibles kill people.
posted by jpoulos at 1:42 PM on February 26, 2001

Potsy -- I wasn't speaking strictly of instances such as these, of suicide by police. I was address the "alarming frequency" of situations wherein someone who is clearly in need of help deteriorates to the point where they bring harm to themselves or others, even though there were warning signs all over the place that a cataclysmic end was coming, sooner or later. It seems that far too often there was "nothing anyone could do" because the person who is ill isn't willing to be helped, but when their illness makes them unable to recognise that they need help, it seems truly wrong that they have to actually hurt themselves or others (or make extremely serious threats) before they can be given the care that they so desperately need.
posted by Dreama at 2:37 PM on February 26, 2001

All this killing remids me of my wife: just say no.
posted by Postroad at 3:23 PM on February 26, 2001

This guy belonged in a net, not in a morgue. The technology is widely available. Time for the end of state-sponsored murder.
posted by Twang at 3:08 AM on February 27, 2001