http://mfile.akamai.com/12948/wmv/vod.ibsys.com/2006/0728/9591734.300k.asx
How many times have you felt like this?
I feel that Cop’s pain and appreciate his straight forward candor and laying-on-the-line attitude. If I was him I’d be hopping mad too! It really rankles…no it PISSES me off that the bad guys are too often made out to be the victims, and the actual victims are either blamed or forgotten entirely, at least by the media! Sickens me.
I would like to read the actul newspaper article this refers to before forming any sort of opinion.
Below is one. Here is a link to a search on, Birco, the officer’s name against sfgate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle’s website. Similar search for the Oakland Tribune.
SAN FRANCISCO / Slain officer was deploying road spikes
Jaxon Van Derbeken
Chronicle Staff Writer
594 words
1 August 2006
The San Francisco Chronicle
FINAL
B.1
English
© 2006 Hearst Communications Inc., Hearst Newspapers Division. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
The San Francisco police officer killed last week in the line of duty was in the process of deploying a strip of road spikes – a standard police technique aimed at stopping fleeing drivers – when a speeding van containing four robbery suspects slammed into his patrol car, authorities said Monday.
Investigators have now pieced together the events leading up to the death of Nick-Tomasito Birco, 39, who officials say acted bravely early Wednesday in trying to disable the van and bring an end to a 12-minute chase.
Birco was working at Bayview station when he left to respond to a robbery call on Bayshore Boulevard just after midnight. The van’s driver sped away from other officers after the robbery victim pointed out the suspects, and the vehicle led police on a chase to Colma and back on Interstate 280 before exiting into the Portola neighborhood.
Birco drove to the neighborhood after he apparently heard several calls from dispatchers for an officer to deploy road spikes, investigators said Monday. The spikes are designed to blow out a vehicle’s tires and can be quickly retracted to avoid doing the same to pursuing police cars.
Authorities say Birco apparently was trying to lay down the spikes at Felton and Cambridge streets, decided it was too risky and threw the kit onto the front seat. It appears he was trying to move the patrol car when he was hit by the van being driven by 19-year- old Steven Petrilli of Hayward, authorities say.
The police car was spun 360 degrees and slammed into a power pole before coming to rest on its side. Birco was declared dead at San Francisco General Hospital. No one else was hurt.
Assistant District Attorney Eric Fleming, a former police officer who is prosecuting Petrilli, said the road spikes had been found in Birco’s cruiser. “That’s why he was there, to deploy road spikes,” he said.
Police said that although Birco had not notified dispatchers that he was in the area and was going to use the device, it might have been difficult for him to do so because of the volume of radio traffic prompted by the pursuit.
Petrilli and two other men in the van, Nicholas Smith, 22, and Carl Lather, 20, have been charged with murder, manslaughter, evading and multiple robbery charges. All have pleaded not guilty. The fourth person in the van, Petrilli’s girlfriend, has not been charged.
Police say Petrilli was out on bail in connection with separate charges of burglary and sex with a minor. He led San Francisco officers on three chases at various times last year, investigators said.
Petrilli had been convicted of auto theft and carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle and was awaiting trial on the burglary and sex crimes at the time of the crash.
The funeral for Birco, a Marine Corps veteran who was on the force for five years, will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco. A vigil at St. Mary’s is set for 5 p.m. today.
The family has asked that donations be made to a trust fund for Birco’s godson, nieces and nephews. Donations can be sent to the Police Credit Union, 2550 Irving St., San Francisco, CA 94122, and made payable to the Nick-Tomasito Birco Fund, account No. 1365645.
Well after reading a bunch of articles about the situation I couldn’t find a single article that blames the police department. Maybe there were some blogs or something that did that, but not the legitimate papers. The articles reported by the papers just give an account of the facts known about the case at the time.
Just some more of the right wing blog-o-sphere at work.
Here is an exchange on the subject in a gun group that is not unlike our own exchanges except we don’t often resort to such profanity laced name calling.
It’s interesting because the person who started that thread on the google group didn’t even have the facts. She said it was the police cheif. It’s not the police chief it’s the head of the local Police Officers Assosciation. So clearly she didn’t research what the video was actually about or the circumstances of the case in question.
Once you actually look at the facts surrounding the case it’s really not so cut and dry.
Here are some blogs on the subject.
It goes without saying that officer Birco’s death is terrible. And that the driver of the van certainly did not belong out on the street.
I can’t comment on why he was out on the street. It is possible someone screwed up. It is also possible that the legal system that is designed to protect the innocent let him slip through, a risk inherent in such a system.
I will say that discussions about the appropriateness of high speed chases and the dangers they pose are perfectly acceptable, particularly in the wake of an event like this. Raising such issues in now way necessarily involves blaming the victim, in this case officer Birco.
What also seems to be the case is that the blogs I looked at in the link above accuse the MSM - turns out to be how the “main stream media” is referred to - of blaming the victim, officer Birco, but don’t provide any links to stories or news reports where this actually takes place.
Can anyone point to an MSM source that clearly blames officer Birco or the SFPD for officer Birco’s death?
They said a higher up, not hte police chief. And the head of the Officers Union is typically an officer. Interestingly in the video, he repeatedly refers to “my officers” which may have lead someont to believe. In any case, I can understand his frustration with media reports blaming the victims rather than the criminals.
THe article Raphael posted seems pretty fair to me as well, someone just sent me the video, and it rang true with many reports I have seen in the paper, and an incedent that occurred here recently. So I thought it was pretty interesting.
He was not involved in the chase as the argument in the google chatroom that Raphael referenced, but trying to set up tire strips to cause flat tires on the van. After realizing it wouldn’t be safe he pulled them up, and ended up dying as of a result of the van swerving out of control.
In Georgia any death that occurs in the commision of a Felony can be a charge of murder. Even if it was a heart attack, and not intentionally caused by the criminal. I would say fleeing an officer, and even accidentily killing someone justifies a murder charge.
Another news link.
http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_207091013.html
I am kind of curious too what article was written to so upset this “rep” I havn’t found one yet either.
Chad,
Just curious, what spiked your interest in this situation?
Like I said, somebody sent me the video, and I found it believable based on my experiences with the local media. It seems that the criminals always get the benefit of doubt, while the victims get the blame. I had never seen anyone make such a direct response to the media the way this man did. I found it refreshing.
Me too.
If criminals always get the benefit of the doubt why is it that the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world?
“The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 714 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by Belarus, Bermuda and Russia (all 532), Palau (523), U.S. Virgin Islands (490), Turkmenistan (489), Cuba (487), Suriname (437), Cayman Islands (429), Belize (420), Ukraine (417), Maldive Islands (416), St Kitts and Nevis (415), South Africa (413) and Bahamas (410).”
Source: World Prison Population List 2005, King’s College London, International Centre for Prison Studies.
I was referring specifically to the discussion in the Google Group. The person who started the thread in that discussion labeled it as “SFPD Chief Tells it Like it Is”.
The reason why the benefit of the doubt is given to the criminal is because we live in the United States where you are innocent until proven guilty. If you don’t like that you can leave. 
- I meant in the Media.
- In other countries, they don’t put you in jail, the stone you to death, cut your hands off, etc…
- They don’t arrest you when you chop peoples heads off, quartering them, growing and selling drugs…(which by the way is okay by me.)
I have lived and watched the news in an area second only to the Bay area in terms of liberalism and I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about in no 1.
As for 2 and 3, you’re talking about a small number of countries. Clearly the source I cited shows that even, nay especially, in comparison to our modern western counterparts around the world we have far and away a much higher rate of incarceration.
+1
The media is there to ask unpleasant but necessary questions, but sometimes it gets unnecessary and in very poor taste.
My favorite example is from a demonstration which went out of hand a few years ago. A group of officers where surrounded and attacked, some where wounded, and the media still asked if it was ok for them to use their guns.
Of course all that is true(2&3). I am just curious if your crime statistics are for all crimes. I would imagine our “War on Drugs” criminalizes many people who may not be in counties that don’t have a similiar “War”.
http://www.nbc11.com/news/9576568/detail.html
This is probably the kind of comments that ticked of Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association.
No doubt, and those caught up in the war on drugs account for a large part of our prison population, I suspect. But still, you also have to take into account that there are many countries with crimes that don’t exist here too. Crimes like criticizing the government, maligning the sovereign, etc. Well they don’t exist here yet.
It is fine to criticize the government official who made these comments, if Delagnes so chooses. But to blast the press for reporting what an elected official said is not appropriate.