Cop Who Fatally Shot Wii Controller-Wielding Teen Had Been Fired Before

Three weeks ago, Beth Gatny, a police officer in
Euharlee, Ga.,
fatally shot 17-year-old Christopher Roupe after he opened the
door for cops. According to the family and some witnesses the
teenager was holding a Wii controller (which is a white stick, more
or less) when he was shot once in the chest. Police claim Roupe was
holding a handgun, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has not
yet completed its report on the incident. Gatny remains on paid
leave. Now, 11 Alive, the NBC affiliate in Georgia, reports that
Gatny, who has been employed with Euharlee police for less than a
year, had been fired from
her last job:

Gatny worked at the Acworth Police Department for 10
years prior to that and personnel records indicate that she was
written up and suspended a number of times for various
infractions.

In a timeline, her supervisors say she “refused to follow orders”
on everything from filing paperwork to carrying her walkie
talkie.

Other details:

Gatny was involved in four car accidents in two years.
In 2007, she reportedly “left her duty belt, along with her
weapon..with a civilian employee” while she had her picture taken
with someone.

In 2008, while confronting three suspects, she fired her service
weapon.  An internal investigation found the suspect was
trying to remove his backpack. She was convinced he was going for a
gun, but a fellow officer said he never thought the suspect was
armed.

Internal Affairs concluded she should not be punished because the
initial call for service said the suspects could have been
armed. 

We’ve covered many police officers
with the type of records and background that ought to, by common
sense alone, end their law enforcement careers and preclude them
from future employment as police officers. I’ve suggested
zero tolerance for cops. Every time an irresponsible gun owner
does something stupid or someone commits a prominent enough crime
using a gun, the incident is used by anti-gun activists to
challenge the notion that individuals have the right to arm
themselves for self-defense. Yet the right to a gun is heavily
restricted. A prior felony, for example,
led to a 20 year sentence for a Philly man who shot his gun
into the air. In the meantime, when former law enforcement officers
are involved in acts of “gun violence,” their background is often
not highlighted. For example, the Florida man who shot a fellow
moviegoer for
texting in the theater was a retired police officer, but it
didn’t stop this anti-stand
your ground editorial cartoon from using the incident to draw a
broader point. Yet, even in states like New York with restrictive
gun laws, politicians have carved out exemptions not just for law
enforcement but
former law enforcement, like the Florida man who fatally shot a
texter. Police officers around the country are pushing back against
the NFL’s no guns rule, not because they believe we all have the
right to bear arms, but because they do. How sick is that
worldview?  

Beth Gatny shot and killed a 17-year-old boy. She should be
presumed innocent in a court of law until proven guilty, a right
that needs to be preserved for all accused. But Gatny isn’t
enjoying those rights right now, but privileges carved out for her
and other police officers around the country, in union contracts
often signed by local government officials long out of power.
Earlier today, for example, I wrote about a Baltimore cop who
choked his girlfriend’s puppy to death and then sent pictures of
the dead dog to her. He admitted as much, and has been charged with
animal cruelty. But he, too, remains employed with the police
department. Unlike Gatny, he is suspended without pay until he is
convicted. But the fact that a police officer can choke a puppy to
death and admit it, or shoot a 17-year-old in the chest after he
opens the door, or
brutally beat a homeless man to death, and expect to keep their
jobs until they have their “due process” is a perversion of the
term. Being fired by a police department is not the same as being
treated as a guilty person, it would be an acknowledgement that
police officers are held to an extremely high standard because
government has decided to give them costumes, guns, badges, and the
wide discretion to use them. In too much of the United States, that
higher standard simply doesn’t exist.

Beth Gatny and Alec Taylor, the puppy-choker, and every other
cop with obviously poor character ought to be fired, and the police
departments and municipalities that employ them should have that
power. Only then will it not be Orwellian to call them “public
servants.”