A grand jury has indicted both the shooter and the undercover cop shot in a road rage encounter that escalated into rank stupidity.
Some regard any sanction of shooter Martin Treptow as a miscarriage of justice. Based on available accounts, charging both men sounds about right to me. I'm not hugely invested in either case and am willing to leave it up to the juries who can hear the evidence to determine guilt.
Back in June when the shooting occurred, I put up a post that could've been more carefully considered and better focused. It provoked some howls from people who thought the former security guard acted reasonably in defending against what he perceived as a threat to his family. You can find other related posts and comments here.
In that first post, I made three statements that I'll revisit here.
Presumably witnesses will surface to sort out what happened, since neither party seems all that reliable.
We would not need a courts system if everyone told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Someone lies or shades the truth in most disputes. After reading press accounts, neither party's reliability has exactly soared in my estimation, but I am less inclined than before to accept the cop's version.
But for sure, there was plenty of stupidity and testosterone at 99th and Woodward that day.
This is still the lesson for today. Road rage incidents almost always require two idiots to reach the point this one did. Unfortunately, both idiots had guns. Did the shooter have other options? I believe so, but I wasn't there. Should the cop have behaved differently? There's no question in my mind that he should have.
So I'm waiting, too, for an official report that fills in the gaps. And if Treptow is blameless, you can be sure I'll admit it.
For "official report," read "jury verdict." I still do not think Martin Treptow is blameless. I'm skeptical about whether he was powerless to avert the situation. A family man with his wife and kids in the car who gets into a road rage situation on a local street is not someone I want driving around with a weapon.
But neither do I want a cop on the force who gets himself in this situation. If the evidence shows that officer Landen Beard brandished his gun before Treptow fired, then Beard should be out of law enforcement forever.
If you're interested in hearing about this case from people who care more than I do, you can read Mitch Berg and Joel Rosenberg, who has followed it very closely.
