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Police use beanbag gun to subdue man holding knife to throat after turning gas on in Dorchester home, attacking mother
By adamg on Sun, 01/11/2015 - 4:03pm
Boston Police report officers resorted to a "less lethal" shotun last night after they responded to an apartment at 383 Geneva Ave. and the large man inside refused to drop the knife:
Officers observed that the suspect had turned on the gas burners on the stove and was threatening to blow up the house. Officers also learned that prior to their arrival, the male had assaulted his elderly mother. After the male ignored several commands by the officers to drop the knife, two supervisors deployed multiple shots from a “less-lethal” shotgun, striking the suspect, and causing him to drop the knife. Officers were able to take the suspect into custody without further incident or injury.
Police Commissioner William Evans praised the officers for their restraint in dealing with a violent individual in a dangerous situation.
Thomas Harrington, 32, was charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Excellent job, officers!
Nicely done indeed.
Good!
Certainly threatening to blow up a house while other people are in it is a tense situation; glad that alternatives were available and used.
Question?
Would use of a firearm even be an option in this case (given the "gas leak")?
And, yes, another example of excellent use of non-lethal skills by BPD.
The less-lethal shotgun is a
The less-lethal shotgun is a firearm.
Yes, but
Plastic pellets don't hit metal objects and spark. Bullets and metal pellets do.
Thus my question. Perhaps I should have phrased it in terms of whether they would even want to fire a conventional firearm in this situation.
Yes
Mythbusters showed that firing a gun in even the most optimal conditions of gas and oxygen mixture couldn't set off a fireball. They were testing the movie myth from "Kiss the Girls" where Morgan Freeman shoots through a milk container to stifle the muzzle flash in a gas filled room.
When they looked at the high speed footage, they saw that the muzzle flash doesn't last long enough to get the gas hot enough to ignite it. They even used a 0.44 magnum with a hugh flash and couldn't get it to ignite. they had to put an electrode gap in the test chamber just to prove it was possible to set it off at all.
Finally, the less-than-lethal beanbag guns still use a gunpowder charge and a normal shotgun to deploy the bean bag, so there was a muzzle flash all the same.
Also, Mythbusters tried lighting things on fire with ricochet sparks. It required steel (core or jacket) bullets because copper and lead don't spark. It was next to impossible even when they did everything right, but they did get it to go once in all of their tests using a steel bullet on a steel surface.
Not just muzzle flash
I had considered that, but also considered that it could have been fired from outside the room/building, where the gas concentration would not be a concern. I was wondering more about the potential for sparking when ammo hits a surface.
I suspect the real concern was for welfare of the hostage, however.
Edited it in
I edited it into my last response. It's *possible* but completely unlikely. I don't even know if BPD carry steel bullets of any kind.
Thanks
Given the circumstances, I'm betting the use of the less-lethal ammunition had to do with not killing the hostage.
Good job
BPD! You used non-lethal force for someone who should've been shot with a bullet. Threatening to harm/showing willful intent to hurt a lot of innocent people is a good use of"police brutality".
Please explain
Are you talking about the hostage or the perpetrator? Since hitting one might mean hitting the other.
That's before we even get to the issue of the gas in the building.
Absurd
If they resolved the situation and nobody needed to die...then you're advocating that someone should have died?
So, bean bags are just for shooting at hippies for fun?
Look up "tueller drill" to
Look up "tueller drill" to see what's widely considered the danger zone for a suspect with a knife. This guy was an EDP, armed, and made threats. I don't think OP was so much advocating death as much as they were pointing out how close the cops were skating on a high-risk, dangerous situation and were able to resolve it with the LTL and no casualties.