Horror: Arvada PD Killed the Good Guy
2 min readWill the police be held accountable for the death of Johnny Hurley?
It has now been confirmed that Hurley, after heroically confronting and shooting cop-killer Ronald Troyke, was shot and killed by an Arvada Police officer. Currently, the department is hailing Hurley as a hero and describing his killing by Arvada PD as “equally tragic” to the killing of officer Gordon Beasley (it was) without accepting any responsibility for killing him.
No doubt the statement released by Arvada PD is an attempt to soften the blow for what will likely become a multi-million dollar lawsuit paid out by Arvada taxpayers.
Further investigation is likely to reveal the details. Questions like whether or not the officer issued verbal commands to Hurley or simply shot him because he was holding a rifle must be answered. Arvada is a city that has seen an uptick in violent crime in the last five years – non-sexual violent crime has doubled since 2015, but the crime rate is only one-third of the city of Denver.
Was Hurley’s death a “fog of war” mistake, or dereliction of duty and complete lack of situational awareness by the responding officer? Either way, the tragedy is likely to further erode public trust in policing, which has been declining for years and recently reported at below 50 percent.
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I wasn’t there, but the training I received when earning my CCW told us, if we’re in a shooting incident and the police arrive, we should take cover if necessary, drop our firearm, and hold our hands up. If a cop comes on the scene of a known shooting and sees someone with a rifle standing over a person on the ground (if that’s what Hurley was doing), the officer possibly believed Hurley was about to shoot that person again. It’s a tough one and so, so tragic.