4 cops shot, 2 dead, in St. John shooting

[soontobeka]

Four St. John Sheriff's deputies were shot in the LaPlace area early this morning in two separate shootings.

Officials say an officer was wounded in an initial shooting in a parking lot near the Valero Complex when a gunman opened fire.

St. John Parish Sheriff Mike Trege says two of his officers were later killed at a trailer park as they were questioning suspects possibly involved in the earlier shooting.

In an emotional news conference, Trege identified the dead deputies as Brandon Nielsen and Jeremy Triche.

According to the Sheriff, at least five people are in custody related to the two shootings.

The Sheriff described the shooting at the trailer park as "an ambush" by one or more of the suspects using an AK-47 rifle.

Click HERE to listen to the news conference with Sheriff Mike Trege.

Trege said that the area is secure and that the investigation is being turned over to the State Police.

The first shooting happened near Bayou Steel on Highway 3217 in a Valero plant parking lot. The parking lot is located in St. John Parish, while the Valero plant itself is located in St. Charles Parish.

A witness on the scene called WWL First News and said that he heard "seven or eight shots" when it happened. The witness said it appeared a police vehicle had been shot multiple times.


Police officers from several parishes were involved in the hunt for the gunman, including State Police, and deputies from Charles Parish, St. John Parish, and Jefferson Parish.

One deputy was air-lifted to the hospital, according to a witness.

Emily C. Watkins Elementary, located on River Road, is closed for teachers and students today.

Valero Energy released the following statement:

This morning there was a shooting involving law enforcement officers providing security at an off-site parking lot used by contractors working at the Valero St. Charles Refinery. Valero employees offer their thoughts and prayers to the officers and the families of the officers involved in the shooting. Refinery operations have not been affected. The incident remains under investigation, and questions about the incident itself should be referred to local law enforcement. Any contractor who normally parks in the Montz lot should not report to work today. All other employees and contractors should report as scheduled.

Another nearby facility, ArcelorMittal Laplace, also remains under lockdown. Employees are asked to call the ArcelorMittal Laplace information line at 888-880-3677 for more information on reporting to work and plant status.

www.wwl.com/2-cops--2-civilians-shot-in-St--John/13999689

[ttt]

These are the kinds of shootings that stricter gun control would help prevent. They happen all.the.time. But 2nd amendment! Freedom! Small government!

I guarantee there will be zero response to this. No calls for gun control, no widespread outrage. Just another shooting, just more people dead, and just a matter of time before it happens again.

[aw]

Aug 16, 2012 11:28:09 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

But criminals get guns now (when they aren't supposed to) and they would get them in the future if there were stricter gun laws. I just don't understand this argument. Non-criminals are not the ones having shoot outs with police.

I could get with the penalty for weapons charges being greater, but I don't see how restricting guns fixes this. They will just be bought on the black market. It is actually quite easy to buy a gun illegally.

Stop making so much sense.

[ttt]

Aug 16, 2012 11:28:09 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

But criminals get guns now (when they aren't supposed to) and they would get them in the future if there were stricter gun laws. I just don't understand this argument. Non-criminals are not the ones having shoot outs with police.

I could get with the penalty for weapons charges being greater, but I don't see how restricting guns fixes this. They will just be bought on the black market. It is actually quite easy to buy a gun illegally.

A certain percentage of guns will make it to the black market, no matter what. This happens everywhere, no matter how strict gun control is. Let's say it's 5% of all guns that end up available to buy illegally. If you have 400,000,000 guns, like we do in the US, that's 20 million guns on the black market. If you restrict the availability of all guns and now you only have 400,000 guns in your country, that's 20,000 guns on the black market. Supply and demand obviously means that those guns are going to be MUCH more expensive.

Let's say you're a petty criminal. Not a big time drug dealer with tons of cash, just a run of the mill mugger. Are you going to be able to come up with $20,000 to buy an illegal handgun to do your stickups when you only make a few hundred dollars each week? Not likely. So you'll either use a much less lethal weapon or you'll find something else to do entirely to make your money.

So yes, some criminals will always be able to get guns. But whether ALL criminals can get guns or just a small percentage is what we're talking about. The fewer criminals that have guns, the fewer shootings like this that you will see.

The reason that it is SO easy to get a gun illegally in the US is because there are SO many gun floating around available for purchase.

[ttt]

Aug 16, 2012 12:01:32 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

I really don't have a firm opinion on the subject. I constantly go back and forth. So I am open to hearing both sides.

I guess I just cannot envision a US where there aren't guns readily available and I will always think that criminals will find a way to get guns.

Are the gun control laws so much better in other countries, or is it that the penalty for a gun crime is so much stricter that the risk is not worth it to petty criminals?

Yes. That's why you don't see anywhere near the level of gun violence as you do here in the US. Other countries have crime, but they don't have the kind of gun crime that we do.

It might be possible to still have a lot of guns and few illegal guns, but that would require some *very* strict laws regarding purchase, registration and tracking of guns. Switzerland and Norway come to mind as countries that have this. We don't seem to have the political will for that at all. Our society has decided that the constant deaths of civilians and police officers are an acceptable price to pay for the ability to buy a gun anywhere and anytime you want.

[pamela]

Holy crap. I head a blurb about the shooting this morning through the local industrial hotline since I was in our control room. We're practically right across the river. After seeing the names, no wonder our operators were so concerned, one of the last names mentioned (not as a perpertrator) is the same as one of the crew. I really hope they aren't related.

[pamela]

And so you restrict guns, crazy people who want to ambush police will come up with something else. Homemade bombs to booby trap the property perhaps? And I don't believe that it's a straight correlation that it's a % of guns legally available that are then available on the black market. The US isn't the only country with guns and we're not so good with controlling what comes over our borders.

[ttt]

Aug 16, 2012 12:28:53 GMT -5 pamela said:

And so you restrict guns, crazy people who want to ambush police will come up with something else. Homemade bombs to booby trap the property perhaps? And I don't believe that it's a straight correlation that it's a % of guns legally available that are then available on the black market. The US isn't the only country with guns and we're not so good with controlling what comes over our borders.

There are more guns in the US than in Mexico or Canada. In fact, the vast majority of guns in Mexico come from the US.

I don't see the point in saying "well people will smuggle guns so we might as well not even try." Again, it's supply and demand. If you restrict the number of guns available, they become both harder and more expensive to get.

I am not arguing that you can totally stop gun violence by stricter gun control laws. You can't. No country has successfully brought gun violence to a 100% halt. It won't happen. But countries with very strict gun control have FAR less gun violence than we do and it is significantly harder to get a gun in those countries than it is here.

Again, you can't ever really stop the crazies. You can't stop the people who want to blow up movie theaters. They'll find a way. But you can stop a huge percentage of the everyday criminals who use guns to commit violence. I seriously doubt we will start to see bar fights escalate to homemade explosives or muggers using bombs.