Because we have a “stupid cops” tag and see a lot of abuse by law enforcement, it’s worth remembering that it’s not always that way:
[Iraq Vet Brock Savelkoul’s Father]: And he had his own 9mm Ruger. He had my brand new 9mm Ruger. He had my brand new .357 Ruger with laser sights on it. He had my Marlin 30-30 with a scope on it. He had my Ruger .22 rifle. And he had a DPMS, AR15. So yeah, he had six loaded guns – three long guns and three handguns. And that’s when I thought: Oh man, I’ve got to call the cops.Unidentified Man #1: I am in pursuit of a black Toyota Tacoma, and we are approaching speeds of 105 miles an hour southbound on Highway 85.
BLOCK: When we come back, we’ll take you to the farm field where the police and highway patrol caught up with Brock Savelkoul, and we’ll hear what happened next.
What happened next is that this group of cops didn’t shoot Savelkoul, in part due to the work of Highway Patrol Officer Megan Christopher:
Ms. CHRISTOPHER: Put the gun down, Brock.I think he yells: How do you know my name? I started to use his name to try to kind of humanize it. My name is Megan. Nobody needs to get hurt here, Brock. It’s not worth it. Go ahead and lay that down.
ZWERDLING: Savelkoul doesn’t lay the gun down. In fact, this standoff will last for two more hours, two freezing hours. It’s sleeting. Christopher tries everything she can think of to bond with him.
Ms. CHRISTOPHER: It’s not nice to make a girl beg. Could you please drop the gun, Brock? Could you please drop the gun?
ZWERDLING: It’s not nice to make a girl beg?
Ms. CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, that’s what I said. Try to be funny, you know, just trying to get it out of this just broken record of drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun.
Christopher tried a number of ways to get him to drop the gun, including singing to him, over a two and a half hour standoff. None of the cops shot, even though Savelkoul fired one of his weapons at his car. Finally, he gave up:
Ms. CHRISTOPHER: And I put my hand on his cheek and just tell him, I’m Megan.
(Soundbite of crying)
ZWERDLING: What makes you cry now?
Ms. CHRISTOPHER: That I got to meet him. I actually wanted to go out and meet him and say thanks, you know, life is hard. This – it’s definitely not the way to end it. There’s a lot more out there.
This is the kind of journalism that won’t exist if NPR is defunded. There’s an excellent multimedia slideshow on the site, with maps and excerpts of police video footage, in addition to the story that aired yesterday. And, if you want to know what a real-life Margie sounds like, Megan has a classic North Dakota accent.
Rook
There is hope.
cmorenc
Wingers would prefer instead that airwaves were filled with more programming like e.g. Sean Hannity yesterday giving the “breaking news” that Libyan rebels were shouting “AL AKABAR!”, which Sean breathlessly then proclaimed is clear evidence they are anti-US and directly connected with Al-Qaeda. (And so, by implication, Obama’s policy in Libya indirectly supports Al-Qaeda).
Joseph Nobles
“And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.”
Suffern ACE
@cmorenc: That’s the problem with the next leader of Libya. He hasn’t even bothered to announce who he is, or even give his name, and already he’s tricked his nation into joining the axis of evil.
MikeBoyScout
The way that MS. Christopher and her colleagues brought the situation to closure without shooting, injury or death is inspirational.
The story; discovered, reported and produced is easily NPR’s best so far this year, and one you almost never find anywhere else.
Is there any tribute or collection anyone is aware of to recognize Trooper Christopher and her colleagues?
horatius
Now, if only every cop in America were like Megan.
Uplift
This is the kind of journalism that won’t exist if NPR is defunded.
I disagree. This is the kind of journalism that ensures, even if NPR is defunded of federal funds by Congress, that you and I will step up our support of NPR to make up the shortfall and more.
debbie
I heard this report on the way to work. Just one of those often-lampooned “driveway moments.” I wonder what Fox’s version of this story would have been?
MikeBoyScout
@6, There’s hope for a better world and there are examples of that hope all around us. If only the emphasis of our propogandist mega media would focus nearly as much on hope as it does fear.
Guster
I don’t wanna get all gendery, but …
Sly
Was Mr. Zwerdling kinda funny lookin’?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
She can’t be all that great. She’s just another lazy union worker, amirite?
evap
I gave money a few days ago to my local NPR station, more than I might normally give because of the defunding issue. Life without Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me would not be worth living!
one_outer
I guess when cops don’t have any minorities or poor people around to harass they’re forced to do useful things with their time. Good for her, even if she is the exception that proves the rule.
Face
Liz Taylor, RIP.
bk
OT, but RIP Elizabeth Taylor.
Felonious Wench
@Guster:
That’s where I went too.
mistermix
Here’s a mediocre Bismarck Tribune article on her:
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_83184f64-d419-11df-9fe5-001cc4c03286.html
Corner Stone
What happened to the ABL post? I was laughing so hard I didn’t get a chance to comment before somebody pulled it. Mercy killing, IMO.
honus
NPR is also the only place I’ve heard anything at all in depth about TBI from Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a huge problem, the effects of the concussions last for years, and take huge human toll.
New Yorker
@horatius:
Most of them are. But just like all the jetliners that take off and land safely don’t make the news, the cops who do their extremely difficult job with professionalism and courtesy don’t make the news either.
Yes, I’m biased. My father was NYPD from 1969 to 1996, you know the good ol’ “Taxi Driver” and crack epidemic and Crown Heights riots days.
Benjamin Cisco
I say good on Megan, and the reporters too. And screw how Faux and the other Kochsuckers want to play it, I’m sick of them and their crap anyhow.
mistermix
@Corner Stone: It’s still up over at her place:
http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/03/22/libya-i-hardly-know-ya
Dennis SGMM
@mistermix:
Hoping that her legal clients get a more factual and reasoned defense,
Speaking as a boozer myself, she needs to cut down.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
Contrast this story with the one in today’s Times about the cop-on-cop CF that occured in NY. Overresponse can be deadly.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
mistermix: kind of a sad response to getting called on sloppy work.
JPL
Mistermix, Thank you for linking to the article. After listening to the tape, I had to wipe my eyes. I hope Brock continues receiving the treatment that he deserves and I am pleased that he adopted a dog.
Just Some Fuckhead
Yay for megan. She prolly hates paperwork.
burnspbesq
@Dennis SGMM:
Straight to ad hominem? That’s generally a sign that the argument to which you’re responding has left you nowhere else to go.
If you don’t agree with ABL, say why and engage on substance. Anything else is worthless.
stuckinred
We had one cop killed and another badly wounded yesterday. The killer is still on the loose and things are a bit edgy here. The killers brother was killed by the cops 9 years ago, he had his gun at a cops head and it misfired. This killer did 9 years for robbing a pizza guy of three bucks. The situation is so fucked up it’s hard to figure out where to start. BTW the cop that died was white, the wounded one is black and the killer is black so you can imagine the comment in the local paper.
Dennis SGMM
@burnspbesq:
That her arguments were bereft of fact, chronology, math, and substance weren’t enough for you? Your reflexive defense of another lawyer says more about you than it does about me.
Stop trying to be the smartest person in the room based on your years-ago legal education and you will be a much happier person.
Corner Stone
@Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was sloppy work. Seemed on par, IMO.
stuckinred
Bombing in Jerusalem. Hang on.
Valdivia
hey, is there a reason why the ABL post is gone?
ETA: I guess she pulled it from what I can gather.
Jason
The very best police work always comes from the recognition that the person they are talking to is a human being, and responding to them on that level. It gets murderers to confess, suicides to stand down, and speeders to slow down.
LGRooney
@mistermix: Bismarck? Is that where you are? My mother was born up in Wilton… almost 80 years ago.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Jason: THIS. RIGHT. HERE.
slag
Megan did a great job under really trying circumstances. She seems to have had unspoken command of the situation the entire time. Which is a good thing because, if the guy who got all tazered up at the end of the standoff had command, the soldier probably wouldn’t have survived the incident. It’s probably not the greatest idea to demonstrate so clearly how the police won’t harm you until after you put the gun down.
So, contra New Yorker, I don’t think officers like Megan represent the majority of our police force. But it would be nice if they did.
ETA: It goes without saying that, if the person with the gun had come from a different background, it’s hard to know how even Megan would have approached the situation. It obviously helped the guy that he was a PTSD victim and not just a run-of-the-mill victim of our fracked up socio-economic system.
Catsy
@burnspbesq:
You appear to be confused about which blog this is.
Bubblegum Tate
@debbie:
“Lazy public-sector union employee spends the day gabbing, singing songs, and flirting–on the taxpayers’ dime!”
kindness
Thanks. Good post. Gets me out of my NPR sucks rut.
This morning coming in I (as usual) had NPR on and what is really frying my ass now is that somewhere along the line, NPR decided their audience could only track two issues at any one time. This week it is all either Libya or Japan. I know they’ve been this way since bush43, but honestly, does it actually cost them more to run stories on more than two things? What do all those people who work for them do with their time?
trollhattan
@slag:
Happened to listen to ATC yesterday and was riveted by the story. More such standoffs could end without a shooting if the offcers are only persistent and patient, as in this instance. Good for everyone involved, and I hope the young man overcomes his challenges–we owe him that.
When they interviewed the father I was puzzled by his accounting of their armory, which included many new weapons at the casa. Couldn’t help but wondering why folks living in a trailer in North Dakota would choose to spend their money that way, and for what reason. It’s not like they spent their spare hours shooting skeet.
Also, too, another cop story I never expected to see.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/nyregion/23cycle.html?_r=1&hp
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Jason: That’s exactly it. I might add that some of the best lawyering can come from the same place.
Oh, and thanks for the link to it, too. I’d missed it.
gex
@Guster:
@one_outer:
Both highly relevant points, I think. Not to diminish what this officer did. Her actions definitely help to restore some sort of faith in people, but that doesn’t make the police in general any different.
slag
@trollhattan: Apparently the father is a weapons dealer. With a PTSD son. What could go wrong?
And that story is surprising. Although it’s interesting that bicycles have lower speed limits than cars there. Who is it designed to protect?
gex
@trollhattan: Wonder if they are the kind of gun owners who insist that gun ownership makes everyone safer. Because, um, not really in their case, huh?
@slag: They’re fucking sick of Lance Armstrong and his bullshit when he comes through town?
slag
@gex:
True. If this guy was less relatable (ie, pale), how many people would be blaming the parents for his problem?
Gus
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about Minnesota Public Radio. It’s not great, but at least here some political analysis. It’s really amazing the agenda the state’s Republican legislative majority is trying to push. They’re trying to fuck over the parts of the state that vote Democratic in a number of ways (withholding funding to Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth and taking money from the part of the state that is still heavily union oriented). I get exactly zero coverage of that in the local papers.
Paul in KY
I’m just gonna assume the would-be-perp in question was white.