_(excerpted from original article)_
He can’t drop it. It’s a holy thing! That’s what Percy Freeman says he desperately tried to tell police on a warm August evening in 1999, outside his friend Gary Busch’s basement apartment in Boro Park, Brooklyn. Freeman was talking about the hammer Busch was holding—an ordinary, 11-inch household implement. The next morning, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani would describe it as a deadly weapon, after police had killed Busch, a 31-year-old Hasid, and Giuliani was scrambling to justify what appeared to be yet another instance of New York City cops out of control.
3 comments
hwy505
Jun 18, 2007
Gidone “Gary†Busch was an EDP (Emotionally Disturbed Person) responding offiers did everything in their power to isolate and contain. Busch was carrying and threatening the officers with a claw hammer – which when used against another living object is deadly. The officers had NO other choice but to protect themselves and the neighborhood. His family then comes out of the woodwork after not giving a crap abount him for some time and yell murder! Hiring all the private attorneys in order to get one good thing from their sons existence – $$$$$$$
CB
retired NYPD – Brooklyn South
Hesed
Jun 19, 2007
Of course, how else could you expect several trained officers to respond to a single person holding a hammer except with deadly force? Imagine if he we holding a screwdriver in the other hand or a crescent wrench.
I guess we should be happy that you are retired, CB. The citizenry is that much safer for it. Cops…any excuse to get their gun off.
iconic
Jun 19, 2007
hwy505, Please tell us how you know that the family of Mr. Busch did not give “a crap about him for some time.”
Hesed
Jun 21, 2007
Iconic, don’t introduce rational thought into this. LOL
But since you did let’s continue and try to break hwy505 out of his institutional indoctrination into the police-state mentality. Here’s some more good questions:
Who had Busch previously attacked with the hammer? No one.
Which officer had he attacked with the hammer? None
So it break down like this, they ordered him to drop the hammer and when he didn’t obey they shot him. Of course to a policman the penalty for not obeying agents of the state should be death. 12 shots, 1 in the back.
iconic
Jun 21, 2007
You got it right Hesed. Like hwy505 said, “NO other choice.”