Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

Off-duty Phoenix police officer witnesses fatal shooting (http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/08/07/20100807phoenix-shooting-officer-witness.html)

Not a lot of details. Headline from article doesn't do justice to his actions as he actually ran down a suspect and arrested him, not just witnessed it.

I think it does a disservice to the officer when these stories are written this way. He has no vest, probably no radio. May not have even called in 911 when he acted. He's probably been told hundreds of times that he is not required to act and to just be a good witness as he has none of the safety net tools such as radio and vest. Nor does he have a good way to distinguish himself from bad guy in potential blue-on-blue confrontation.

Still, he strapped it on and chased him down. It ended well and I'm sure he did what he had to do to sleep at night. I think that's the definition of "Good Guys".

I didn't want my negative rant to take away from the above post. But I hate the press. Even this article which isn't negative buries the heroics. A civilian would have had the exact opposite written.

Off-Duty cop chases down armed murder suspect = "witness" tone
Civilian chases down armed murder suspect = "vigilante" tone

Tone is everything in these articles and I wish they would highlight heroic aspects instead of just ironic or negative aspects.

I think the earlier headline was "Off-duty officer witnesses murder, 3 escape". Unreal. Someone must have pointed out how bad that sounded.

/rant off

Maybe when more information comes out, they'll actually paint this Officer as a hero.

Press doesn't care about accuracy.....just a sensationalized story.

This looks like a breaking news piece rather than long form journalism. I think more details could be expected in an "above the fold" story.

Has the article changed since it was initially posted? It doesn't look sensationalized at all to me. It does mention he engaged in a foot pursuit with the suspect. It didnt sensationalize good or bad for the officer. Straight fact reporting.