About a month ago, Derek Copp, a 20 year old Grand Valley State University student was shot during the execution of a drug warrant on the apartment in which he lives.

Ryan Huizenga, the 37-year old officer who accidentally shot Copp, will probably face nothing more than a slap on the proverbial wrist. He was initially placed on unpaid leave pending investigation. And although yesterday, Huizenga was charged with “careless discharge of a firearm,” a misdemeanor offense, he has also been reinstated, and is now performing “administrative duties.”  In other words, he’s being paid to do nothing. What’s alarming is the Undersheriff’s logic for reinstating Huizenga:

Undersheriff Gregory Steigenga says Huizenga was reinstated because it could take a long time for the case to wind its way through the court system.

I’d be less offended if they just put up the Blue Wall and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Let’s think about it for a moment: If you’re pointing a gun at someone, it’s pretty impossible to “carelessly” discharge it. The only reason you point a loaded gun at someone, is because you plan to (or anticipate that you might) shoot him. It might well have been an accident, but it wasn’t “careless”.  No — it’s never merely “careless” to point a loaded weapon at anyone who is not posing a clear and immediate threat — it’s reckless and criminally negligent.

If Copp had had “carelessly discharged a firearm” at one of the officers, and lived to tell about it (in all likelihood he’d be very, very dead), he’d most certainly be facing several felony charges.

Particularly discomforting, is the blind deference to the authorities summed up in a statement from Joe Putra, one of Copp’s neighbors who although describing Copp as a “real nice guy”, automatically assumes that Copp must be guilty of something and implies that he probably deserved whatever he got:

It must have been something more than just weed

Otherwise he wouldn’t have been shot, right? Because the police can’t make mistakes, right? Because kicking down some college kid’s door in the dark of night with guns drawn is not a recipe for disaster, right?

And what if it was “just weed”? Did he deserve to be shot?