It Could Happen Here - Acorn Involved Shooting

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Robert and Gare discuss the story of a Florida sheriff's deputy who responded to a fallen acorn by shooting at someone locked in his own police car.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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CallZone Media. Call zone media. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where the host, Robert Evans, one of the hosts, has recently recovered from a terrible, terrible sickness by engaging in some fascinating experiments with Theraflu, largely using a friend's diabetic needles, just shooting it straight into the veins. My co-host today, Garrison Davis. Have you ever shot flu medication into your veins, Garrison? No, I've only shot one thing into my veins. Well, speaking of shooting, today's episode of It Could Happen Here is about a shooting.

And before you are like, oh man, I don't really have it in me to listen to a horrible story about people dying today. Don't worry. Nobody gets shot in this story. Thank God. Miraculously, no one gets shot. Like against all odds. It's stunning that nobody got shot.

This is the tale of a police officer fucking up. Not worse than any cop has ever fucked up because again, he didn't kill anybody. But fucking up in a way that's like more baffling and incompetent than I think I've ever seen before. It's probably the most embarrassing. Certainly the most embarrassing and not even really malevolent, just like outrageously incompetent, but I'm going to let you take over from here,

Garrison. So yeah, we are going to be talking about an acorn involved shooting today. That happened in florida finally we know what the a and a cab stands for that's right so we're gonna we're gonna play some clips here but i think it's important to set the scene so you kind of understand what you're hearing so this cop walks up to his patrol car there is a suspect locked in the back sunny day houston suburbs big houses wide streets yeah now something happens as the cop is about to open up the door he then dives onto the ground does two like action rolls double barrel rolls and then starts shooting at the car and starts yelling

to another officer who's in the area and i think we'll just we'll just play the rest here yeah the first clip's about 30 seconds long and then i just have a few shorter clips kind of that i've kind of stitched together that just just to get a sense of like what he's saying and what he's communicating after he opens fire on this patrol vehicle. So here is, here is that audio. Shots fired! Shots fired!

Shots fired! Shots fired! You know! I'm hit! I'm hit! I'm hit! What? I'm hit! I hit the car!

I was shot through the car! Oh! I'm good. I feel weird, but I'm good. I might have hit my vest. Marquis! I feel weird, but I'm good. I might have hit my vest. It might have hit my vest, I don't know. I'm not. I don't know. I felt like it.

Jesse, move over to me. I got you. Move over to me. Jesse, come back. Mark me if you like that. Dude, am I hit? Come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Let's get further back, further back, further back. All, go, go, go, go, go. Go, go, go, go, go. Let's get further back, further back, further back. All right. So that was a lot of gunfire. Again, it is shocking that no one died because it's not immediately evident if you just watch the video,

but there is somebody who's trapped in the back of that car and there's multiple officers shooting at the car. And here's the thing. The distance the guy is shooting from, from when I watched the video last, I would estimate maybe about 20 yards.

Probably even shorter than that. Maybe shorter, maybe more like 15. It's medium to maybe medium long range for a handgun. For a full-size handgun like that, I'd say it's about medium range. So a competent shooter should be able to hit a target about the size of a human torso at that distance with most of the rounds. But he is not that when I say competent, that is somebody who is bracing themselves and who has two hands on the gun.

He is shooting like a character in an action movie. And I cannot imagine. So a lot of those rounds did not even hit the truck. I imagine they went flying into a neighborhood where we can hear children playing. Yes, yes. So the officer who encountered this acorn, which we will get to in a sec, was named Deputy Jesse Hernandez. He'd been a cop for almost two years. And we'll learn more about his background as we continue on with this little story.

The second officer, well, not officer, but a sergeant of this sheriff's department named Beth Roberts, and she's been a cop since 2008. So she has a little bit more experience under her belt. So let's kind of explain what happened here. So there was a series of calls that happened earlier in the day about a vehicle who was kind of driving erratically around a nearby neighborhood, honking its horn, kind of just like making a lot of sounds at like 3 a.m. The suspect was described as a black male in his late 20s. And then a few hours later, a separate call was made by someone talking about how her boyfriend has been refusing to return her vehicle and has been sending her threatening text messages.

So this caused police to go to this girlfriend's house. has been refusing to return her vehicle and has been sending her threatening text messages. So this caused police to go to this girlfriend's house. She showed some of these threatening text messages. And they were talking with this woman when her boyfriend approached the scene. So the suspect approached the police in front of his girlfriend's house. Deputy Hernandez himself did a pat down to search for weapons and observed a more thorough search once the suspect was handcuffed the missing car was located a few miles away and hernandez was on his way back to the car to do a tertiary search of the suspect who was currently locked in the back seat with handcuffs and then as deputy

hernandez passed the passenger side door an acorn fell onto the roof of his car which is barely barely audible uh in in the body cam video that we have access to so you would not notice it were you not listening for it no no three days later deputy hernandez was interviewed by two investigators as a part of the office of Professional Standards investigation into this incident of discharged gunfire. And this interview in this report is probably one of the most telling things about how police psychology operates. And wow, okay, so I'm going to read through a few quotes here from Deputy Hernandez. He talks about how, quote, I'm about to reach for the door handle and simultaneously I hear to, at the time, what I believe would be a suppressed weapon off to the side. I definitely heard this noise. About the same time, I felt an impact on my right side,

like an upper torso area. I feel the impact. My legs just give out. i don't know where i'm hit i think i'm hit i'm struck i roll back i roll to the describing this like he's the hard-boiled detective in a novel i roll to the back of the car now i'm stuck in the street and i knew where the fire uh where the shots came from i or i believed where they came from it was right there as i'm reaching for that door handle so i'm laying behind the car i'm yelling shots fired shots fired shots fired i returned fire once i could get cover behind another vehicle that was parked in the driveway there so when asked to describe what he like felt because he's not just claiming that he heard a sound he's claiming he felt like he got hit yeah he felt an impact he felt an impact and his legs went out from underneath yes which again

in the video he clearly does a double barrel roll he does that is not i have i have seen people get hit and drop they do not do double barrel rolls that is like a little action star yeah yeah yeah he says quote it felt like an impact to my upper torso around here. And he motions up to his right shoulder on the right side. It was like a sound impact, like almost that quick, I guess. I just love the phrase. It was like a sound impact. Yeah, I think he's saying I think what he's saying from from reading it is that like we're missing some of the body language that he was going.

It was like sound and then like moving his hands together. Like sound impact. Sound impact. You hear the sound and then you've got impact. I think he was actually trying to, which is not like the most, which is actually not in person probably very awkward. But yeah, it does. It comes across weird.

And so more funny than sound impact for, again, an acorn that's falling on a roof. We have, quote, my legs weren't working the way i wanted them to be working i think i yelled at one point to sergeant roberts i think i might have been hitting the leg or something along those lines because i was struggling to get cover i think at one point i reached up to touch my head i think i still had the sound in my head i wasn't sure if i'd been hitting the head i was getting a funny tingling around all sides of my body and i think some of that might have just been adrenaline putting together the fact that i what i just heard and the impact that i felt i've never been shot before

so i don't know what that's like or um you know unquote great oh man so he is he's unsure if he would be able to notice if he got shot in the head or not uh which is kind of interesting i mean i'm sure he could get grazed but like come on buddy yeah yeah i mean it's one thing it is true that like you can be hit like an armor and not be sure if you've gotten hit because it didn't penetrate but you would also not mistake acorn shrapnel hitting you reasonably for a bullet like that's simply not a mistake a reasonable person is going to make so the the investigator asked him like if there was any other sense that there could have been gunfire, like if he saw any, like, shattered glass coming from the car. And Hernandez said no.

When asked why he decided to stop firing, Hernandez said that he stopped firing once he emptied his clip, moved to cover behind a nearby Tesla, and, quote, didn't observe any rounds coming back at me. Which is just great because there was no— I wonder why. coming back at me. It's just great because there was no... I wonder why. There's the eye. Hernandez claimed

that he was never able to see the suspect while in the patrol car. And Hernandez remained behind cover until other deputies arrived and was rushed to a hospital where only then

he was informed that he did not, in fact, get shot. It's amazing. He made it all the way to a hospital. You had a lot of chances. You had a lot of chances to not fuck that up, man. As soon as the other cops arrive on the scene, he's like, I don't know.

I just feel so weird. Yeah, buddy. You had an adrenaline drop because you panicked. Like, that is why you feel weird like a lot of ways this like mirrors um the the police fentanyl things how they can like talk themselves into feeling into like feeling symptoms yes but all right so hernandez hadn't been a cop for very long he had he had no prior law enforcement experience before joining this florida sheriff's department but he did attend west point and served as a special forces infantry officers in the army for 10 years so one could maybe assume

that the deputy's outrageous behavior was the result of some kind of ptsd from serving as special forces like maybe maybe i could kind of explain some of what's going on here i had multiple people when i posted this on twitter be like oh this is maybe people with like ptsd shouldn't be cops and i had to be like no no no well see the funny thing about that is that he never actually served in combat no this guy flew a fucking desk yeah which like you need that in a war. But like this, this man did not have any combat trauma that caused him to react this way. You know, like I totally I've had I've had PTSD. You know, I've certainly gotten like I can get really jumpy with certain sounds. Yeah.

That is not the case for this guy. There was that six month period where fireworks made us all very unhappy. Yeah, or like or like or like keys dropping was the big one for me because it sounded like a tear gas canister rolling on concrete bottles but you know when in the many times that i had bottles fall near me and set me off or that fireworks went off near me and set me off i was often carrying a gun and what i never did was empty it vaguely in the direction of a car so he never saw combat he did claim that he was aware of what suppressed gunfire sounded like and he affirmed that the noise he heard reminded him of suppressed gunfire i'm i'm sorry

bro what the fuck under questioning hernandez said that he did not perceive any other sounds visuals or physical indicators of gunfire besides the initial tapping sound and his upper torso feeling. In the interview, he was asked why he decided to fall onto the pavement. And he said, I'm not sure if it was adrenaline or just what, but the numbness in my legs and realizing, okay, I'm going to be on the ground, but also realizing the windows are right there. You know, I'm, I need to be on the ground anyway, so I'm not exposed. So yeah. And that just, that just kind of led to my legs just kind of gave out on me. Fascinating. He then was asked to explain the two action roles he performed on the road.

And Hernandez replied, uh, the rolling. I pressed R and X at the same time. What was I supposed to do? Pretty much. He said, uh, the rolling. Pretty much. He said, uh, the rolling, um, kind of reaction to what was going on and me realizing like my legs are not working the way I need them to work right now, but I can roll over to the next vehicle. So that's kind of where I was trying to get to, unquote. Sure. Okay, bro. So after his little action rolls, this is where he started yelling shots fired. He emptied his clip into the car and told the sergeant that shots were coming from this vehicle. And she

began firing at the vehicle as well. At what point Hernandez tried to move off to the side because he was concerned about being shot by the other cop. He says, when I was done engaging the vehicle, I was trying to get off to the side over there because I was worried about possibly having, um, possibly me being in her line of fire now. Sure. Which is great. This is, this is the first reasonable threat that he has expressed. I would also be concerned about one of them shooting me in that instance. Yes. So after Hernandez's initial explanation of events, the investigator showed him video stills of an acorn coming into frame and bouncing off the roof of his car i'm just going to read directly from the uh from the report quote deputy kernandez asked acorn investigator hogan answered acorn unquote amazing amazing just an amazing sentence. This is,

this is so perfectly how you would like scripted in a really good police procedural comedy. Like if you had some a game writers on the team and it's, it's going to take some really good, you'd need like the wire quality actors to pull those lines off bunk and bunk could have pulled them off. Right? Like there's two more lines. two more lines I want to get to

before we take an ad break here. When asked if the sound he heard could have been an acorn instead of suppressed gunfire, the deputy answered, quote, I'm not going to say no because I mean, that's, but what?

10 second pause in speaking. What I heard, three second pause in speaking. Sounded almost like 12 second pause in speaking. What I heard sounded what second pause in speaking, sounded almost like 12 second pause in speaking. What I heard sounded what I think would be louder. the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep

getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day

1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something

that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in

someone else's head, search for Therap therapy gecko on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts it's the one with the green guy on it and an acorn hitting the roof of the car but there's obviously an acorn hitting the roof of a car unquote amazing uh the investigator then had to ask hernandez if he was in general familiar with the sound of acorns which must be so embarrassing that is that is that is a low point in your career that is hernandez said that he was he was then asked if the sound could have been what led him to believe the car theft suspect shot him to which the deputy answered it could be seven second pausing speaking but i don't think so but it could be unquote great so then hernandez's lawyer said that they could maybe watch the video again

and see if see if the acorn striking matches the time that he says that he heard the sound. And then they deliberated for a little bit. And ultimately, Hernandez refused to watch the video a second time once he was told it was an acorn. I mean, yeah, like, come on. What's there to do? Understandable. No, that's going to really do some damage to your self-esteem right there.

Less than a month later, just a few days before a second interview was scheduled, he quit the job. You know what? First decision he's made that I fully endorse. What else can you do at this point? This story starts with a bad cop, but it ends with a good one. Like, imagine returning to work and everyone's going to call you, like, the acorn guy. Like, you can't. You can't.

It's just impossible. No, anytime there's, like, a fucking acorn tree, anywhere near you, you're like, you okay, man? You okay? Do you need to take a minute? Do you need to call in? Do you need to call the SIF?

Yeah, I saw a squirrel over there. Watch out. Watch out. A hundred times a day, guys would be getting on his radio being like, I just saw an acorn. Dispatch, we got a 322 on a possible acorn. Negative, negative. That is a pine cone.

No need for assistance. Just some gunfire. We're good. We're good. Not an acorn. Repeat. We're safe. Scene is safe.

No acorns in sight. All right. We're safe. Scene is safe. No acorns in sight. All right. Let's take an ad break, and we will return to hear about Sergeant Robert's recollection of events. Welcome back to Acorn Cop, streaming now on the discovery channel two cops one acorn no survive actually no thankfully everyone survived this would be much much much less funny we would not

be laughing about this now there is some permanent psychological damage done to the guy who was shot at but not shot and that is that is unjust and sad. Yes. Not enough that we are not willing. Folks, you have a right to laugh at something like this, you know, even if there are some consequences to it. That's just keeping yourself sane in this world. So Sergeant Roberts was a member of the Sheriff's Department for 15 years. She has a bachelor's degree in criminology

from the Florida State University. So that's cool. She's been teaching at the criminal justice standards and training commission for 10 years so i think one thing that that led to some of them thinking it could have been suppressed gunfire is that in the threatening messages that the suspect had shown to or had had sent to his girlfriend included was a close-up picture of this dark kind of gray cylinder pressed up against the center of the dash in his car less than two inches of the cylinder were visible no parts of a firearm could be seen but they believed that this

was a suppressor and the victim said that he owned a suppressor so i think that that's that is one thing that happened in the interview kind of or in the in the like exchange leading up to this incident but no one got any confirmation that he had a gun on him again he was searched two times there was no gun found on him it is possible to like hide a gun on you it is much more difficult to hide a gun with a suppressor like that is that is a is a pretty big object. They are larger. Like it basically doubles or more than doubles the length of the firearm. And it also does so in such a way that makes it difficult to carry in a concealed fashion.

So when Sergeant Roberts was collecting an affidavit about the stolen car, she said that she heard, quote, some type of noise. And shortly thereafter, Jesse, who is Hernandez, screaming shots fired. Quote, it was loud enough that it got my attention and made me think we're about to have a fight with a prisoner or the suspect. Either he's escaped somehow and Jesse is in a tussle with him. I can't tell you exactly what it was, but it made me look and then immediately heard Deputy Hernandez screaming shots fired. So Sergeant Roberts ran out into the street, quote, I saw that Hernandez was down. He had his gun pointed to the back of his patrol car. I was drawing my pistol and my magazine that was in my mag pouch somehow flew out. Again,

amazing police work. These guys, incredible stuff. that's someone who never practiced yeah at which point i thought there was a malfunction i thought that i dropped the magazine somehow i hit the mag release on my firearm and that that was the magazine that fell out turns out it wasn't it was the one from my mag pouch at which point i think i fired. So you just have magazines fly. You freak out. You start pulling your trigger. Yeah. I will say that last part, extremely common experience.

Police officers are not well trained and most of them in terms of combat stuff and most of them do not shoot regularly. When the FBI has done studies of like people who kill police officers and they nearly always train way more often than the police officers they kill trained. It's very, most cops are not putting 150 rounds a month down range. And like I fire 300 rounds a month in training and I'm not particularly good. That's what I consider like minimum level of competence. And so it is extremely common in police shootings for the officer to say, I don't know how many I fired, or I fired two shots and they fired 17. That happens. Oftentimes, even more than that, people will reload and not realize that they reloaded and emptied a second

magazine. Because in an actual violent situation, and it is for that lady, I will say that, she just knows that her partner is emptying his firearm yeah so for her she's this is less unreasonable right this is it is it is it is more complicated for sergeant roberts but i think it also points to some of the inherent problems with policing oh good god yes and the way police are trained like the how quickly it was for her to start firing at a suspect who's locked inside of a patrol car yes who she knows has been searched multiple times and who she has not seen shooting yeah she has not seen any gunfire she's not seen any evidence of that she's heard one man screaming um and how quickly they decide to use lethal force is is is i think very notable um quote i fired at the vehicle

because i saw deputy hernandez down on the ground and he tells me that shots are fired and he's hit and it scared the hell out of me. I thought I was watching him be killed. So which is, yeah, it gets to like how they are trained to constantly be in fear for their lives, their fellow officers lives. Quote, it was the patrol car. That was where the threat was coming from. I'm thinking we've, we missed the gun in the pat down. Somehow he shot Jesse from the car and Jesse's down. Shots are being fired. I couldn't tell you exactly where they were coming from, but I fired because of my concern. Unquote. Yeah.

And you get, this is a thing that, like, does not get represented in fiction. People don't like to talk about it. This happens with soldiers, too. I have a friend who was shot in the leg by a.50 cal, by one of our.50 cals, one of his guy's guns, by a.50 cal, by one of our.50 cals, one of his guy's guns, because they were told anyone from this building over that you see on the thermal scope is an enemy. They saw him on the thermal scope and they lit him up. It was just a series of bad calls being made and nobody checking to confirm, because you're in an actual chaotic, dangerous situation, checking to confirm, is there actually a threat in that area they're just shooting you know it's people panic all the time it's one of the problems with sending people with guns into neighborhoods like this is part of why the way we do policing is such a bad idea because there's no way to train out all of this you can train out acorn guy maybe maybe but they didn't but you cannot train out people panicking and doing things with guns that can never be taken back.

Well, and one other aspect is like Hernandez starts firing his gun very shortly after he's yelling shots fired. Like getting that linear cause of events can be tricky because like you are hearing gunfire at the same time you are hearing him yell shots fired because he is shooting. And Roberts said that she wasn't sure if she or her end has even shot first like all of your memory in these instances can get really kind of blurry like like all of these like high stress scenarios it actually can be hard to remember the exact like manner of oh yeah easily yes she said quote i'm seeing him on the ground yelling shots fired i'm hit i'm hit i thought i thought i saw a deputy get murdered i was close enough to see his facial expression that was fear anxiety it was it was horrible i i'm seeing him kind of

trip fall stumble something behind the vehicle at some point he's able to kind of post up but he was stumbling crawling on the ground i don't know how to explain it he wasn't standing up straight he was not in a tactical position he was he was off his momentum he was off balance he was standing behind that car it did not look like he was in control of himself yeah no yeah that's like what she is saying i'm not going to say this is like a good response but it makes sense to me that she reacted the way she did most people would right which is why most people should not be given firearms and legal immunity to do whatever with them, right? But most people would have reacted in a broadly similar manner without training, you know, without training and experience. Now, there's one way that she

describes his kind of like weird stumbling on the ground. Quote, the auditory tone in his voice was terror. The best way to describe it was like watching a baby giraffe trying to walk for the first time trying to get out of the road oh that is that is gonna echo in his mind until the day he dies um so baby giraffe stumbling fucking incredible learning to walk for the first time do you know what else is learning to walk I don't know that doesn't really work do you know what else

could perceive acorns as a threat to business oh yeah we I mean the one thing all of our sponsors agree on is that acorns and all trees should be eliminated in the interest of better profit margins. They're dangerous. They're dangerous.

Kill the natural world. Live free. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists

in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough,

so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez,

will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. González wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban,

I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now,

and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.

I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's the one with the green guy on it. I want to know one other thing as I'm talking about like why they I'm not surprised they reacted this way and what it says to me about like how I think like I think that a group of. Moderately competent civilians with concealed firearms would have responded better than both officers in this situation. Large, not for the reason that they're more smarter or better trained because they probably aren't, but because they go through the world carrying a gun, knowing that if anything they do with that gun, they're legally accountable for every shot fired. They're accountable for,

which is a different mind state than what police are trained to do, which is the instant you're, you feel endangered, you should draw and be prepared to shoot or shoot immediately because nothing matters more than you getting home and you have qualified immunity on your side. Right. Yeah. Which allows you to interpret a very quiet tapping sound as a lethal threat to your life. Now, Sergeant Roberts said that she did observeandez move himself into kind of a kneeling

shooting stance on his left knee with his right foot planted in front um but still quote it seemed like his motor functions were not operating properly from what i saw he told me again shots are fired he's completely out in the open no one would think that's a good place to take a knee to tactically fire so yeah he was he was still trying to respond in some way, but still very, very baby giraffe coded, it seems. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that seems like a constant thing for this fella. So Roberts also admitted that she did not ever see the suspect. She couldn't she could not see inside the patrol car and she couldn't hear anything coming from that area. Quote, if there would have been something going on in that vehicle, I don't know if I necessarily would have heard it.

Was I hearing or seeing the windows be blasted out? No. I couldn't see the right side of the vehicle. But based on the circumstances, I'm thinking that somehow he shot Jesse from the back, and it struck him some way, somehow. I don't know if the individual's gotten out of the car and he's on the other side, you know, like he's escaped somehow. I couldn't see if the door was wide open. I don't know if he's gotten out and they've had a little tussle. Is he shooting from the back of the car? All these things are going through my head. But the main thing is that he's in the back of the car. He's got a gun and we missed it. And somehow he shot deputy Hernandez. So she also couldn't remember who shot first, but she denied

the notion that she started shooting because she thought Hernandez firedandez fired his gun first she was confident in her own her own use of gunfire before before uh she could tell that jesse was firing yeah interesting quote the threat was someone had shot him we had an armed suspect in the back of the vehicle jesse was shot i'm watching him you know fumble on the road how do i give him more time how do i draw the attention to me how do i save him i thought i was watching him get murdered. The tone in his voice, look on his face, the physical reactions. I'm thinking we missed the gun and this is it. How do I get to Jesse to save him? She talks about how she quote, couldn't let him be shot again. Again, as all of this is like so confident that this has happened and they're so confident in their

own use of force. She was also concerned that if the suspect got away, other people's lives could be in danger, like his girlfriend who was nearby and the friend who was talking to police about their domestic issue. Quote, there was a threat in the back of the patrol car. I had a deputy that was on the ground that was still a threat to Jesse's life.

I needed to provide him some sort of cover or bring the attention to me. I'm watching him die. I've got to do something. I've got to do something. There's that just like overall, just constantly throughout this interview with the professional standards investigation,

she's just constantly saying how she thought that this man was going to die. That's why she responded the way she did. Like she talks about how she can't render aid if there's still a threat. She has to like regain control control the situation all of those are reasonable things to say yeah all of those are reasonable things to say in a real gunfight yes it's just a little bit less less valid when the inciting incident is an acorn falling on a

roof yes and you're shooting directly at a man who's your own car been searched two times and is trapped inside who has handcuffs on like so yeah after both cops fired off this large valley of bullets they both repositioned behind cover called in more backup and roberts attempted to manage the situation and the other individuals in the area and eventually check in on deputy hernandez quote the threat was still a threat until we were able to remove him from the car again they're not viewing him as a person they're viewing him as a threat like that is that is like he's no longer like a human being he is he is a threat that is what he represents now yeah well and that is that is how they're trained to talk and that is by the way like in a court of law how you should talk right you don't you would not say if you were involved in

a legal defensive shooting i shot to kill you would say i shot to stop the threat that is like how people are trained because that's what plays best in a court yeah no she all of all of her interview is very polished she's she's like she's very she's she's been a cop for 15 years like she yeah isn't she knows what she's saying here yes she's been coached before yeah she's she's aware so uh after they were able to get to cover she called in more resources quote that's when we were able to treat it as more of a barricaded armed suspect situation this poor dude yeah like what do you do like you're hanging back in the car just bullets flying everywhere like like it seems like this guy is guilty of having a little bit of having an emotional breakdown with his partner and doing things he should not have done none of which the penalty for is getting shot at while strapped into a car yeah he he stole his girlfriend's car he sent her

threatening messages he was described as being abusive in the past yeah he doesn't yeah there's bad things but that doesn't mean you can get executed by police because they heard an acorn like no that that is not that is not what our society has deemed the punishment for those options for those behaviors should be so uh roberts closed this interview by saying quote i don't think there's anything funny about it it just went from zero to a hundred within the drop of a hat. I know we talk about it all the time, but when it does, it does. And she's talking about how fast the situation escalates.

Like, from a very standard interaction towards you're now, multiple people are shooting. It happens so quickly. It went from zero to a hundred within the drop of a hat. Yeah. That is what happens with shootings. She knew that Hernandez was prior military.

And when in training, Hernandez was training on her shift. She described him as, quote, a very squared away person. Somebody that if they tell you something, you don't question it. I wanted Jesse on my shift. When I observed him in high stressful situations, he reacted appropriately. He wasn't afraid to respond and he's i think that last part is certainly true he was not afraid to respond well and this is why again the the when the response from a lot of people when i would talk about this to them is suspecting it had something to do with his military training that

he responded this way soldiers aren't trained this way way. Again, this is panic in the field, but soldiers are generally trained to not err on the side of opening fire blindly because war crimes are a thing they're concerned about. And they have a sense of professional pride against, again, not to say that they do not kill innocent people. They do all the time because that's what war is. But this is not the way. So this is police training. This guy's bias towards reacting this way is the result of police training, not special forces training. She kind of reaffirmed her trust in Hernandez as a person who was like reliable, saying when they were on night shift during training, quote, he acted appropriately. He did not lose control of his emotions.

I have a lot of respect for him, actually. When he tells you something, it's not something like, are you sure, you know? He tells you something, and that's what's happening, or that's what happened. I don't think there's anything malicious about what he did. I'm not mad at him. I'm not upset about it, because I truly believe that he thought that's what was happening, unquote. Which is, again, just...

I'd be pissed, actually. You almost, like, I don't... If I was tricked into almost killing someone i i don't yes i don't understand this reaction like it's it's this thin blue line shit right yeah like they they have to group together so so hard yeah it's it's and it's like this guy got you into a situation where you could have shot a child. Like, I would never forgive someone who put me in that position for no good reason. Right.

Like, it's why that's such such an insane response to me. So she has to keep affirming that he has, like, good judgment. And it's so bizarre. No, he doesn't. Like, he very clearly doesn't. No, he doesn't. We all watched the video. doesn't like he he very clearly doesn't no he'll watch the video yeah it'd be one thing if like they were under fire and he shot and his bullet went wide and hit a civilian and it's no that's

like a completely different horrible accident but like his judgment wasn't bad that was just a terrible situation this is so different like and that she's still going to bat for him says everything about cop cops cop brain yeah there's a few lines that i want to read before we close out here that are in the conclusion of the of the report can't wait they describe hernandez's legs as quote stopped working correctly i think it's just a really funny way to phrase it i would describe his brain that way but yeah his legs weren't responding as he intended but there was no evidence to support anything impacted deputy hernandez no defects were found on his uniform

or his ballistic vest to support the impact hernandez's response was not objectively reasonable so they they ruled that hernandez's response was not objectively reasonable that it was not appropriate positively surprised about that but But they found Sergeant Roberts' response as being reasonable because she believed Hernandez has been shot because of his tone of voice, his stumbling attempts to move and stand up, and his apparent, quote,

lack of control over his body. Yeah, I would not call it, I wouldn't say her response is reasonable. I would say her response is what I would expect most people to do. No, or it is reasonable in terms of how police procedure operates. Like she followed the correct protocols for interacting as a police officer.

Yeah, I don't believe under the law she would have been found liable by any court. No, they said, quote, Roberts found Deputy Hernandez to be a reliable deputy that she could trust. She had no reason to doubt what Hernandez had been telling her. She described the auditory tone of Hernandez's voice as terror. The look on his face as being, quote, consistent with being in fear.

I love that kind of cop speak, consistent with being in fear. Yeah, he looked scared. Yeah, amazing. I do want to go over one thing before we come out, because this is, again, something I've been asked by people. And, you know, maybe this is actionable.

If you ever find yourself handcuffed in the back of a police car and they start shooting at you, you should know how this guy survived. Because reading the interview with him, he was like, as soon as I realized they were shooting at me, I like bunged myself down sideways and laid flat, I think, in front of the seat. He might have been on the seat. I would get in front of the seat if you can. But the reason he survived is that handguns, number one, police carry hollow points in their handguns, which is a bullet that has a hole in the slug, the thing that goes into somebody. And the reason why you make a hollow point is that a hollow point expands immediately upon impact. So it doesn't penetrate as well.

It will not go through armor and it will not go through objects very well. But when it hits meat, it expands. And so instead of going through a body, it stops and it imparts all of the force from the bullet into that body. So it is better at stopping people. But what that means is when someone is shooting at something like a car and shooting into the all of the force from the bullet into that body. So it is better at stopping people. But what that means is when someone is shooting at something like a car and shooting into the back of a car, and you have that whole reinforced trunk and backseat of a police car to go through, those 9mm rounds are unlikely to penetrate very far.

So if you are laying down in front of the seat or flat on the seat, your odds of not getting hit are pretty good. I'm not surprised he survived having done what he did. If you're sitting up and you've got body parts that are in view of the windows, you're very likely to get hit. But because he did what he did, he essentially saved his own life is my interpretation of what I've read. Yeah.

No, I mean's it is a terrifying scenario that there was there was an incident recently of uh this officer who made his first ever arrest he had two two suspects uh locked in the back and he got distracted while driving he drove his car off the road into a lake and both of the suspects drowned jesus fucking christ like this is this is like all these things point towards just inherent problems with the policing system cops bad avoid at all costs it's terrifying like it's it is like these people can just act like this can kidnap people can do all these things and face basically no repercussions at least hernandez is no longer a cop which is good but like that

doesn't fix any of the underlying problems with training that cause people to react like this in the face of a squirrel armed with an acorn uh being the most dangerous thing that you can encounter yeah it's very bad police work avoid cops uh yeah yeah pretty much pretty much so yeah that is that is what we have to say on the acorn involved shooting yeah great stuff watch out for acorns watch out for droops also dangerous they can fall off a tree yeah uh pine cones can sometimes be lethal oh yeah they call those the widow makers eyes on the sky, folks. You never know. All right. Bye.

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