And More on the Florida Theater Shooting

Posted by DetectiveEstes in Uncategorized      No comments

Feb
10

The following is in addition to the shooting in the Florida theater. Foxnews.com presented a surveillance video that was shown in the courtroom during a two-day bond hearing. It is ongoing as this post is written. Attached is this video, fox theater shoot video. (If you cannot get this by clicking on the link, just copy and paste this web address -http://video.foxnews.com/v/3167274807001/surveillance-video-shown-during-fla-theater-shooting-case/#sp=show-clips). Now, when anyone watches this, you’ll have to listen to the reporter discussing the case. Then you see the video. Finally, Fox has a defense attorney come and analyze the video for viewers.

Anyone who read the first post knows the incident as well as the analyses. I’ll quickly go through the incident to bring readers up to speed for this post. The suspect and the victim were attending an afternoon showing of “Lone Survivor”. Both were males, both had their wives in attendance. The suspect was bothered by the victim’s texting on his (victim’s) cellphone. The suspect and victim had some words over this texting. Subsequently, the suspect reported the victim and his texting to the management. There is nothing in the news that management did anything about that. When the suspect returned from the report to management, he and the victim got into more words over the texting. The victim then throws a bag of popcorn on the suspect. The suspect sits down, and subsequently feels something hit him in the face. Feeling that he is being attacked, the suspect shoots the victim. The victim dies. The bullet that strikes the victim also strikes the victim’s wife in the finger. The suspect remains and is arrested inside the theater.

My analyses of the incident is that the suspect, Mr. Reeves reacted as a police officer would when under attack. Mr. Reeves is a male, 71 years old, and a retired police officer, retiring at captain’s rank. Mr. Reeves did everything in this incident lawfully and followed the use of force standard department regulations throughout this incident even though he is retired. A lifetime of law enforcement bring with it a great deal of restraint and following the law of the land as well as the rules of the department the officer was employed at.

Today I discovered that Foxnews was showing a video surveillance of the entire incident. I went to Foxnews and found the video. From news reporting, the video is not the entire incident, but did show the attack on Mr. Reeves. The video begins with the return of Mr. Reeves from reporting Oulson to the theater management and then Reeves sits down in his seat. This video was portrayed as being a surveillance video of the theater shooting involving Mr. Reeves & Mr. Oulson. Foxnews reported that the video had been shown at the bond hearing of Mr. Reeves which had been ongoing for the past two days. Foxnews also reported that some part of the statement that Mr. Reeves had given to the police had been shown at the bond hearing. Also, Foxnews reported that Mr. Oulson’s wife had testified at this same bond hearing. I observed her photo in which her hand had a bandage on it.

I watched the surveillance video. I found a few things out that I had not known before. I was under the impression that Mr. Oulson was behind Mr. Reeves. Not so, he was in front of him, in the next row of seats down. This means that his texting had to be so loud that Mr. Reeves was able to hear it even with Mr. Oulson’s body between he and Mr. Reeves. The video was dark, but human forms are able to be seen with a little more detail than just a form. I observed what Mr. Reeves said, and the victim’s wife testified was a bag of popcorn. Except that it wasn’t a bag at all, it was the definite hard shape of the box of popcorn sold at theaters. I saw no popcorn come out of the box. I also saw that Mr. Oulson did not throw the box at all, he delivered it, right to Mr. Reeves’ face! That means Oulson actually struck Mr. Reeves’ face with his (Oulson’s) hand. Not sure which one as it was under the box and it was too dark to see the hand being pulled back. It was also too dark to see the second strike that Mr. Reeves felt to his face. Subsequently, Mr. Reeves drew his handgun and fired.

I also listened to the testimony that Ms. Oulson gave at the bond hearing that was shown by Foxnews in this report. Ms. Oulson stated that she put her left hand on his chest and she said to her husband, “Don’t do it, it’s not worth it.”

I think, based on the surveillance video, as well as Ms. Oulson’s statement to her husband, that this proves that Mr. Reeves was following the law and the rules of the use of deadly force in this incident. Ms. Oulson told her husband not to do it, it isn’t worth it. She placed her hand on him to hold him back. We’ll never know what he was going to do since he was shot right after that. But this should indicate that Mr. Oulson was definitely intent on following up his attacks on Mr. Reeves, already, and his wife was trying to stop him. This also proves that Mr. Oulson had lost his temper, had attacked Mr. Reeves and was intent on following that attack up yet again. Mr. Oulson’s position at the time of the shooting was that he was facing Mr. Reeves. Ms. Oulson’s finger was shot because her hand was on her husband’s chest when Mr. Reeves shot him in the chest. All of this shows that Oulson is the primary aggressor in this incident and Mr. Reeves being much older than Mr. Oulson was acting on the reasonable belief that he was about to be further attacked. Mr. Oulson’s position when he was shot helps to prove that.