Young Cop & Killer Tyler Peterson; Should have NEVER BEEN QUALIFIED to be a COP!
UPDATE: October 8 2007 8:30PM BELOW:
Shocking Crandon Wi. Young Deputy Killing & Rampage is More of Americas Fault in Hiring Younger & CHEAPER Unqualified Law Officers:
By Marc Chamot
That is why I believe that any one under 25 year old shouldn’t be in law enforcement. They have no maturity in dealing with people or any mental motor skills in dealing with problems. Most small towns across this nation hire teens from 19 to 20 year olds to be law officers and carry a gun and a badge.
I have heard numerous complaints and horror stories from citizens in towns around the Midwest that their towns want and use them for duty just to save money instead of hiring an adequate qualified person for the job…
By experience and knowledge, I have always felt that a police law officer should have at least two years of college to qualify for duty. If you look into all of these rogue cops past incidents around our nation; that abuse on the public citinzenry, you would find that most are nothing but high school graduates and most ARE without people skills.
It’s time that congress regulate law enforcement and get these kids out of there and put qualified men…
There is more to qualifying a police officer for duty than just being physically fit , shooting straight and passing a background check. What’s missing is their educational maturity and age to be able to grasp the EGO of having a gun and a badge and BULLY any one around them…
Deputy fired 30 shots from rifle in killing 6, officials say
CRANDON, Wisconsin (CNN) -- An off-duty sheriff's deputy used a police-style AR-15 rifle to kill six people at an early morning party in a small Wisconsin town, officials said Monday.
Tyler Peterson, a sheriff's deputy, shot and killed six people, police said.
Twenty-year-old sheriff's deputy Tyler Peterson went to an apartment where a group of high school students and recent graduates were watching movies and eating pizza early Sunday, authorities said at a Monday news conference.
Peterson got in an argument with someone, got a rifle from his truck, forced his way back into the apartment and fired about 30 rounds at about 2:45 a.m. (3:45 a.m. ET). Six people were killed; one person survived and is hospitalized, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said.
Peterson was killed in a shootout with law officers Sunday afternoon after negotiations for his surrender failed, officials said. The town's mayor said Tyler was killed by a SWAT team sniper.
The dead and wounded were all students or graduates of Crandon High School, and Peterson was a graduate of the school, which has a little more than 300 students.
Witnesses said the victims ranged in age from 14 to 20, and one was apparently Peterson's former girlfriend.
Peterson's family, in a statement read by Bill Farr, a pastor, expressed condolences to the victim's relatives and said they could not find any reason for the killings.
"We are grieving for your losses. We are very sorry for what has happened. This huge tragedy has deeply affected everyone, including us. We also feel a tremendous amount of guilt and shame for the horrible acts Tyler committed. This is not the Tyler we knew and loved," the statement read.
Jenny Stahl said her daughter, Lindsey, was the youngest victim.
"I don't want to believe it. I'm waiting for somebody to wake me up," she said. "She's only 14 -- she'll be 15 next month; she's just starting to live.
And the sad thing is who killed her -- a cop. Cops are supposed to always protect you, I thought, and it's one who took my daughter and how many other people's lives."
It was the high school's homecoming weekend.
Friends of the victims said Peterson also worked part time as a Crandon police officer.
Residents near the scene of the shooting told the Associated Press it was hard to accept that a police officer was the shooter.
"The first statement we said to each other was, 'How did he get through the system?' " David Franz told the AP. "How do they know somebody's background, especially that young? It is disturbing, to say the least."
The town's schools were closed Monday, with grief counselors available to students, said Superintendent Richard Peters.
"This was the kind of scenario where every small town in the USA says, 'This could never happen here,' " Peters said.
Crandon, a town of about 2,000 people, is 220 miles north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Crandon Mayor Gary Bradley said the town will work together to get over the tragedy.
"There's a lot of people weeping and gnashing their teeth and the emotions are very raw right now," Bradley said. "But we'll rebuild brick by brick."
Forest County Sheriff Keith Van Cleve called the situation "very difficult" for his deputies and the community.
Karly Johnson, 16, told the AP she knew the shooter.
"He was nice. He was an average guy -- normal. You wouldn't think he could do that," Johnson said, adding that Peterson had helped her in a class and had graduated with her brother, according to the AP.
The state attorney general's office will investigate the case, Van Cleve said.
Kevin St. John, a spokesman for the state Department of Justice, said the agency's criminal investigation unit routinely investigates cases of a "statewide or significant nature."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/08/wisconsin.shooting/index.html
UPDATE:
Wis. Deputy Flew Into Rage After Rebuff
By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer
Monday, October 8, 2007
(10-08) 17:43 PDT Crandon, Wis. (AP) --
A young sheriff's deputy who opened fire on a pizza party and killed six people reportedly flew into a rage when he was rebuffed by his old girlfriend, and others at the gathering called him a "worthless pig."
A longtime friend told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday that 20-year-old Tyler Peterson came to his door in the hours after the rampage and calmly explained what he had done.
"He wasn't running around crazy or anything. He was very, very sorry for what he did," Mike Kegley told the newspaper, adding that he gave Peterson coffee and food and later called 911.
Peterson told Kegley that he had gone to his ex-girlfriend's house early Sunday morning in hopes of patching up the relationship after a recent breakup. But, he said, Peterson lost control when the meeting ended in an argument and other people started ridiculing him as a "worthless pig."
Kegley declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press.
Police, who declined to provide details of the argument, said Peterson stormed out, retrieved an AR-15 rifle from his car outside and burst back into the house firing 30 shots that killed all but one of the people at the party.
"We had no idea, obviously, that anything like this would ever occur," Crandon Police Chief John Dennee said at a news conference Monday.
Peterson, a deputy and part-time police officer, later died after exchanging gunfire with law enforcement officers. Whether Peterson was shot by police or took his own life was unclear.
The rampage raised questions in the remote northern Wisconsin community of 2,000 about how Peterson could have met requirements to become a law enforcement officer, especially after police acknowledged Monday that Peterson received no psychological screening before he was hired.
Some questioned the wisdom of hiring someone so young.
"No person that I've ever known at 20 years old was responsible enough to be a police officer," said Steve Bocek, of Oak Creek, whose nephew Bradley Schultz was killed. "It's unbelievable. You don't have the mind to be a police officer. It takes a lot."
But Crandon city attorney Lindsay Erickson said age doesn't matter as long as officers do their jobs well. Peterson testified for her in several cases. He wrote good reports and was "true to his job," she said.
"From what I saw of him, I didn't see any warning signs or red flags," Erickson said.
Peterson was hired as full-time deputy sheriff on Sept. 11, 2006, at the age of 19, according to personnel records released by the Forest County clerk. His yearlong probation ended last month.
Dr. Phil Trompetter, a police psychologist in Modesto, Calif., estimated at least 80 percent of states require psychological testing of prospective officers.
"Wisconsin must be in a very small minority of states," he said.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice Law Enforcement Standards Board requires only that applicants be free of any emotional or mental condition that might hinder them in their duties. It does not say how that is determined.
No formal national standards exist for hiring police, although individual states are adopting requirements such as mandatory psychological tests, said Craig Zendzian, author of several guidebooks for police applicants.
In Minnesota, for example, police officers must be licensed by the state Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training — a process that includes an evaluation by a licensed psychologist.
At the news conference, which gave the most detailed explanation yet of the shooting, the police chief said Peterson and the young woman had been in a relationship for a few years.
"They had broken up and gone back and forth," Dennee said.
After the attack, in phone conversations with the police chief and others, Peterson identified himself as the shooter, authorities said.
The rifle used in the shootings is the type used by the sheriff's department, but investigators had not confirmed whether the gun came from law enforcement.
The six young people killed in the rampage were either students or graduates of Crandon High School. They were at the house to share pizza and watch movies during the school's homecoming weekend. Classes were canceled Monday, and many teens went to a church to meet with counselors.
The other victims were identified as Jordanne Murray, who was believed to be the girlfriend; Katrina McCorkle; Leanna Thomas; Aaron Smith; and Lindsey Stahl. Autopsies were scheduled to be completed Monday, but results were not immediately available.
Schultz, 20, was a third-year criminal justice major at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who hoped to be a homicide detective. He was home visiting friends and appeared to have died trying to protect one.
"We still don't have many details, but from what they've told us, there was a girl next to him and he was covering her, protecting her," said an aunt, Sharon Pisarek, as she sobbed. "He was loved by everybody. He was everybody's son. Senseless."
The lone survivor, Charlie Neitzel, 21, of Pickerel, was upgraded to serious condition and was improving Monday at a hospital.
Pastor Bill Farr read a statement from Peterson's family in which relatives expressed their shock and sorrow.
"Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and their friends. We are grieving for your losses. We feel a tremendous amount of guilt and shame for the acts Tyler committed," it said.
It continued: "We may never receive the answers we all seek. Like those close to Tyler we are in shock and disbelief that he would do such terrible things. This was not the Tyler we knew and loved."
Associated Press writers Todd Richmond in Madison, Wis., and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this story.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/08/national/a163842D18.DTL
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