Campus officer kills naked freshman

[Hum]

(CNN) -- Authorities are investigating why a University of South Alabama officer fatally shot an 18-year-old freshman who they say was naked and acting erratically outside the campus police station early Saturday.

With few details of the shooting, the student's mother and one of his friends said they could not understand how a six-year varsity wrestler and good-natured teenager could have died under such strange and sad circumstances.

According to a statement from the school, the campus police officer heard a loud banging noise on a window at the station at 1:23 a.m. CT (2:23 a.m. ET) Saturday. When he left the station to investigate, the school said, "he was confronted by a muscular, nude man who was acting erratically."

The man, later identified as Gilbert Thomas Collar, of Wetumpka, Alabama, repeatedly rushed and verbally challenged the officer in a fighting stance, the school said.

The officer, whose name hasn't been released, drew his weapon and ordered Collar to stop, the school said. The officer retreated several times to try to calm the situation.

"When the individual continued to rush toward the officer in a threatening manner and ignored the officer's repeated commands to stop, the officer fired one shot with his police sidearm, which struck the chest of the assailant," the school statement said. "The individual fell to the ground, but he got up once more and continued to challenge the officer further before collapsing and expiring."

Collar's mother, Bonnie, said the two people who called her with the news of her son -- someone from the school and another involved in the investigation -- did not mention that her son was trying to attack anyone when he was shot.

"He was wearing no clothes and he was obviously not in his right mind," she told CNN. "No one said that he had attacked anybody, and obviously he was not armed. He was completely naked."

"The first thing on my mind is, freshman kids do stupid things, and campus police should be equipped to handle activity like that without having to use lethal force," Bonnie said.

Campus police immediately contacted the district attorney's office to request an external investigation, and the Mobile County Sheriff's Department will assist, the school said.

The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of internal and external investigations, according to the school, which enrolls about 15,000 students.

Investigators are looking at security camera tape of the shooting, Collar's mother said.

Earlier Saturday, Ayers called it a "campus tragedy" for the university family but offered no other details, citing the active investigation.

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[moloko]

sounds like this guy might of been high? Maybe a taser would be better to use in this situation.

[Farstrider]

:ermm: guns, what cool things to put into the hands of idiots! :rolleyes:

[tiagosilva29]

"The individual fell to the ground, but he got up once more and continued to challenge the officer further before collapsing and expiring."

I have no idea if the agent had a baton or a taser with him and I don't really like triggerhappiness, but the dude in question is a trained wrestling athlete and if he was high on PCP, a lot of people got lucky.

[xendrome]

"When the individual continued to rush toward the officer in a threatening manner and ignored the officer's repeated commands to stop, the officer fired one shot with his police sidearm, which struck the chest of the assailant," the school statement said. "The individual fell to the ground, but he got up once more and continued to challenge the officer further before collapsing and expiring."

?I definitely would not have fired a taser at this guy knowing that if he got a hold of me he would likely bash my skull in... I mean if you guys want to take that risk, then that's fine, Hum would just be posting about you in a few days and we would all be posting comments of "Darwin award winner"..... so... yeah..

[+LightEco Subscriber²]

Don't do drugs kids and maybe you wouldn't run around naked and attempt to attack an armed man.

[MDboyz]

Another case of high on 'Bath Salt' maybe? ...

[Rippleman]

baton wouldn't help with drugs, taser would only help till the charge ran out... then the guard is dead.... he did the right thing and could have saved a couple innocent lives....

[ArialBlue]

It is called a Taser

[Hardcore Til I Die]

Sad that people are condoning this kind of behaviour.

Officers should never use lethal force on an unarmed man.

This is inexcusable and I hope he's charged with a criminal offence.

[ILikeTobacco]

The officer, whose name hasn't been released, drew his weapon and ordered Collar to stop, the school said. The officer retreated several times to try to calm the situation.

Pulling a weapn is A. not retreating and B. not going to calm the situation. Guns are not made for calming a situation. They are made for ending them.

[MDboyz]

Really? why don't you try to stop these kind of people high on drug w/o using force. What you do if you don't have anything besides gun at that time? You want to stop him with bare hand alone?

Sad that people are condoning this kind of behaviour.

Officers should never use lethal force on an unarmed man.

This is inexcusable and I hope he's charged with a criminal offence.

[tiagosilva29]

Officers should never use lethal force on an unarmed man.

When was the last time you faced someone under the influence of PCP/bath salts? I am not going to describe what I had to do in order to get out of his grip.

[Growled Member]

Sounds like the officer didn't really have a whole lot of choices.

[Hum]

A good choice would have been to just let him continue to run around -- he would have tired out eventually.

[Ryoken]

The officer retreated a few times to try and calm the situation, but it didn't work.. And because people are soo scared about Tazers that they don't want the police to have them, then the gun is the only real option.

You can't just let him run around, what if someone else unaware of the situation shows up and he goes after them..

And dealing with him one-on-one is just a no-go.. if an officer feels threatened, then the officer should never get within a few metres of the individual, because most dangerous place for police to be in, is in CQC.. Remember, most cops that get shot, get shot with their own gun. Once you are that close, anything that happen, regardless of training.. and if the man was on some sort of drugs, that made him ignore pain, then he's just that much more dangerous.

This isn't the ideal outcome. All can agree on that. But this campus officer didn't just show up waving a gun and shooting. He tried to calm down the situation, tried to back off, but to no avail.

[statm1]

Did the officer forget that he could of shot the guy in the feet or arms or aimed for the shoulders. Eventually no matter what drugs hes on he won't have the ability to get up. Instead he went straight for the deadly shot......

[Growled Member]

Did the officer forget that he could of shot the guy in the feet or arms or aimed for the shoulders. Eventually no matter what drugs hes on he won't have the ability to get up. Instead he went straight for the deadly shot......

I have never been in that situation but I can imagine that I would not be taking any chances either.

[JaredFrost]

baton wouldn't help with drugs, taser would only help till the charge ran out... then the guard is dead.... he did the right thing and could have saved a couple innocent lives....

It's not a one or the other situation, a baton maybe not, but you can tase someone, if that doesn't work, tase again, if this mutant of a human happens

to be immune to electricity, THEN you use deadly force, this isn't the movies, someone with 50,000-100,000 volts pumped into their bodies will

be stopped in their tracks.

Sounds like the officer didn't really have a whole lot of choices.

Sure he did, he had lots of choices, but that's easy to say with hindsight and all.

Did the officer forget that he could of shot the guy in the feet or arms or aimed for the shoulders. Eventually no matter what drugs hes on he won't have the ability to get up. Instead he went straight for the deadly shot......

Again, this isn't the movies, hitting a moving target in the arms or legs is very hard, this isn't CoD this is something called real life.

--

Not having been there, or seen the situation, I still think the officer erred, if a less deadly option was available, that should have been used first

And if it wasn't available, why the hell not, this is a college, you'll get all kinds of drunk kids causing problems, and this man simply could have been

drunk, it doesn't have to be drugs.

[Dot Matrix]

sounds like this guy might of been high? Maybe a taser would be better to use in this situation.

Maybe, but depending on what was in his system, a taser might not have worked. Drugs have been known to enhance the body enough to reduce and nullify the electrical impulses the taser delivers.

[statm1]

Again, this isn't the movies, hitting a moving target in the arms or legs is very hard, this isn't CoD this is something called real life.

Umm, so officers only have gun training in the movies? Of course this is real life and not some d**n game. He had the opportunity to shoot somewhere else besides the chest, period.

[JaredFrost]

Umm, so officers only have gun training in the movies? Of course this is real life and not some d**n game. He had the opportunity to shoot somewhere else besides the chest, period.

Of course they have training, the training is to shoot for center mass, how different would the story be if he aimed for the leg, missed 5 times, finally hit him and meanwhile

5 other bullets ricocheted, maybe hitting someone else minding their own business in their dorm room.

Firearms are used for deadly force, period. I was also arguing he chose the wrong option, but he performed the wrong option correctly.

[tiagosilva29]

Not having been there, or seen the situation, I still think the officer erred, if a less deadly option was available, that should have been used first And if it wasn't available, why the hell not, this is a college, you'll get all kinds of drunk kids causing problems, and this man simply could have been drunk, it doesn't have to be drugs.

The article doesn't seem to imply that there was a less deadly option available. And secondly, I am not sure the kid was drunk. I don't know if you ever saw a drunk man being shot, but they do not ignore the pain and charge again at the shooter. If you think the officer did not properly do de-escalation... let's wait for the conclusion of the investigation.

Umm, so officers only have gun training in the movies?

A police officer's training (like any other combat training) asserts that a firearm must be used for defense only as it's the highest level of force: deadly. When you shoot, you shoot to kill. And a (more) guaranteed hit is the center of the body.

[Ryoken]

Did the officer forget that he could of shot the guy in the feet or arms or aimed for the shoulders. Eventually no matter what drugs hes on he won't have the ability to get up. Instead he went straight for the deadly shot......

Forget.. no.

They are trained NOT to do that.

When an Officer pulls a gun, unless they are SWAT or otherwise specially trained, their are to shoot center mass (chest), and normally in a burst of 2-3 shots.

It offers the best chance of rendering the target innert.

A gun is for deadly force, not for trying to hit feet and such.. Not to mention, shoot at the foot, miss, it deflects off the concret and hits someone, and the world goes nuts too.. No, you shoot at the target, in the place with the best chance to Hit the target.

Of course they have training, the training is to shoot for center mass, how different would the story be if he aimed for the leg, missed 5 times, finally hit him and meanwhile

5 other bullets ricocheted, maybe hitting someone else minding their own business in their dorm room.

Firearms are used for deadly force, period. I was also arguing he chose the wrong option, but he performed the wrong option correctly.

Not to mention the arteries, in your legs especially, will kill you just as well as a center mass shot..

You'd make it if you were next to a hospital maybe, but short of that you'll bleed out before an ambulance will even get turned in your direction.

*edit*

Oh and one last thing.. ever fired a handgun ?

They are not the most accurate weapon even in ideal conditions... add a heart rate, adrenaline, and any kind of distance at all, and hitting something like a foot becomes a very low-chance shot for most officers. Police, at least most, are far from the best shots. They CAN shoot at a range, and meet a minimum standard, but in most cases, they are outclassed by most hunters, hobbyist, etc. You don't want them taking that shot..

Now give them a rifle, a scope, and some more training, like SWAT gets, then ya, the risk might be worth it. But for beat cops with a sidearm, no..

[siah1214]

Natural (or unnatural in this case) selection is a bitch.