Okay, I've got to sound off now. I'm in the bank yesterday and all the tellers know me by name. I walk in the place and it's like Norm at Cheers. So after saying howdy to everyone I start transacting my business at the window. The guy at the teller window next to me asks the teller if he heard about the Modesto PD shooting at the school yesterday. The teller, a friend of mine who went to school with my girls, says yes he did. Then this guy says, "That cop is going to be in a lot of trouble." "They can't shoot people in the head, that's execution!" The teller looks over at me and I respond with (No I didn't scream bullshit) that is not true, police can shoot people in the head. Then this guy wants to argue the point. Silly me. 30 years of being a cop, I think I know what I'm talking about here but HEY, what do I know right? So when he gets done saying his piece again (No, I still didn't yell bullshit yet) I just said to him, "Well you should do some research on that."

Lets make this point loud and clear. YES, the cops can shoot you in the head to stop you from whatever your doing that puts them or someone else in jeopardy. It's the fastest way to end a fight "IF" you can hit the ocular zone in the head, getting the bullet into the midbrain area, and turn off the lights. The head is a well armored, moving target that is not that easy to hit particuarly when the adrenilin is doing the backstroke in your blood stream. The officer who made that shot is to be congratulated for his marksmanship, keeping his cool, and making sure this chick who went cuckoo for coco puffs didn't get an oppurtunity to hurt him or anyone else. I see MPD has stated publicly that they think it may be a suicide by cop event. If thats the case, then the only victim in this situation is the officer who had to take the shot. If you decide suicide is the only option for you then take pills, jump off a cliff, or whatever, but don't make the police (or anyone else for that matter) the instrumentality of your own destruction. Hopefully the officer is handling the event okay, but there is always going to be that second guessing and "What if I'd a done this" going on for awhile. You can bet though that if the officers had allowed her to get past them and sprint down the hall into the school that somebody would be screaming about why they didn't shoot. I don't know who the officer is yet that was involved in the shooting but my prayer for them is that he/she realizes they did what they had to do and they are okay with it. I know that if I had a kid still in elementary school today, and especially at that school, I would be calling the MPD and saying THANK YOU OFFICER!

You know, when I was in grade school back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, we learned Duck and Cover for a whole other reason. It was for when the Commies dropped an A-Bomb on us. Yeah, that little wooden desk was sure going to keep me safe! I think it would just make it easier for someone to figure out who the little crispy critter corpse belonged to under the charred desk. Pretty sad that Duck and Cover has a completely different meaning in todays world. I recently saw a training site where their telling kids to think of their school backpacks as a bullet resistent vest in the event of a school shooting. "If your running from the gunman throw it on your back to protect yourself." "Or you can hold it in front of you as you run past them using it as a shield." Damn sorry state of affairs our world is coming too. And before some idiot reads this and says to get rid of all guns to prevent that, yeah, that'll work! How about one CCW carrier in any of these school shootings might have been able to stop some of these. As for MPD's shooting yesterday with the woman with a knife, you guys did good! Kudo's to the school personnel who saw this unfolding, yelled for a lock down and made sure the kids were safe. Nice Job all!