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Note for film-makers
Posted by David Hardy · 6 November 2006 02:47 PM
If filming a scene in a public place, involving a woman handcuffed in a car, bloody bodies all over, and an actor viciously pistol-whipping the remaining victim....
Inform your local police first. If a squadcar happens to drive past the filming scene, there may be misunderstandings.
Most frightening sentence:
“deputies said the only reason they didn't shoot was because they saw a cameraman.”
Uh,...didn’t shoot...whom, exactly? Had the Cameraman not been there (or had the officers not noticed the cameraman amid the stress of coming upon this horrific scene) would the officers have shot the man doing the pistol-whipping? This seems terribly reckless, since to (effectively) pistol-whip, one’s victim must be in very close proximity; too close, I suspect to warrant shooting the whipper without endangering the whippee.
Perhaps they would have shot some of the victims strewn on the ground on the notion that they should do SOMETHING, and those folks already looked dead, so what could be the harm? Maybe they would have shot the victim of the pistol-whipping so as to squelch the motive of his attacker? Just maybe they would have shot the girl handcuffed to the car because “They’ll NEVER suspect that!”
Maybe by “shoot,” they meant “approach the scene intending to prevent a felony in progress.” Unfortunately, the two concepts are often conflated.
P.S. Obviously, I’m just teasing, here. I understand that the officers were confused and may have felt in danger (legitimately), and the person giving the statement to the press was exaggerating a bit.
-Jingolaw