National Guard shooting in NOLA

[AdamG]

Posted here since this is where the likely impact may fall, considering the ROEs on the Mexican border.

Update: Guardsman shoots, kills man whose rifle turns out to be BB gun
March 8, 2007
The Associated Press

A National Guardsman shot and killed a man who threw a piece of broken glass at a National Guard patrol and later pointed what guardsmen and police thought was a rifle at them early today, police said.

Homicide detectives are investigating the shooting, but the guardsman, whose name was not released, appears to have been acting appropriately, said Sgt. Joe Narcisse, a New Orleans Police Department spokesman.

The dead man has not been identified, Narcisse said.

The National Guard members saw the man at about 1 a.m., carrying a hacksaw while riding a bicycle in the Lower Ninth Ward, which remains largely vacant since Hurricane Katrina. They thought they should check him out because thefts of copper pipe are common, Narcisse wrote in response to an e-mail.

''As the guardsmen approached the man, he produced a knife, threatening the military men and then threw a piece of broken glass at them, cutting a sergeant's arm,'' Narcisse wrote in his news release.

The man ran into a rundown house, he said. When police and guardsmen entered the house and approached the man, he pointed a BB gun that looked like a rifle at them. A Guardsman shot the man several times, police said.

Narcisse said the man did not carry any identification, and there was none in the house.

''It's unclear if the home was his or not. He clearly knew the (gun) was there,'' Narcisse wrote.