Officers face many difficult situations

NEW MADRID, Mo. — On the afternoon of March 19, officers responded to a house on Davis Street for a disturbance in progress, with one party possibly armed with a gun.

When officers arrived it became clear that some type of family dispute had taken place and one subject was possibly having a seizure. The man having the seizure was transported by ambulance to a local hospital and was later found to have facial injuries that were not immediately apparent to the officers.

The rest of the people at the scene gave conflicting stories about what had occurred. One person said an assault happened but two others said it didn’t. Two people said a gun had been brandished, but one said no gun was present.

Officers eventually located a fake gun that one of the parties had used in the altercation. Also, after learning that the man taken to the hospital had facial injuries consistent with an assault, they went back to the house and arrested one of the original parties involved for first degree assault due to the severity of the victim’s injuries.

This is a good example of the type of difficult situations that officers must try to work through to get the best possible outcome. Suspects and even witnesses are many times untruthful in order to sway the officer’s judgement and distort the facts.

In these cases, officers at the scene can only gather the facts and make the best decision they can based on what they know.