In a moment caught on cell phone video, a reported Langston police officer got into a scuffle with an alleged shoplifter, who broke free and drove away. Even though the reversing vehicle cleared the officer without endangering him, he decided to pull his pistol and — turning it sideways as he must always have done in his fantasies — emptied the entire clip at the fleeing driver in the crowded parking lot.
The driver, who was wounded, was later arrested on a shoplifting complaint. Meanwhile, the police must still be “waiting for all the facts to come in” to determine whether it’s a criminal act to endanger citizens by firing a dozen rounds into the distance while your own life isn’t imperiled.
The case will most likely land on Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater’s desk for a decision, but he might be too busy prosecuting vandals as terrorists these days to bother with an actual threat to public safety.
This article appears in 2020 Mixtape.
Your article “Fleeing bullets” was certainly an odd mix of speculation. Aside from the fact that an off-duty police officer, unnamed, fired his weapon there were no substantiated facts presented. You disparaged Wal Mart and Del City as dangerous without any supporting rationale. You hypothesized that the officer was “trigger happy” and that he fantasizes about holding his weapon in a certain way while firing it. Did you contact the police and they told you they were “waiting for the facts to come in” because that was what you quoted them as “saying”. Finally you second guess the District Attorney David Prater about a case he doesn’t even have and suggest that vandals aren’t terrorists and shouldn’t be prosecuted. I hadn’t picked up a copy of the Gazette in a long time and Now I remember why.