two Clearwater Florida police officers have been suspended for two days and removed from their specialty units because one of the officers shot the other one during an incident Charlotte check your fire that's me to the South what do you got that all right as a department I think we made a multiple errors in how we handled this situation I think I think we could have done a much better job we can't just indiscriminately empty a handgun into a building as if we're playing a video game good talking to firearms on January 1st at around 7 PM two police officers with the Clearwater Police Department Officer Jonathan Reed and officer Langston Woody arrived at this guy's house it was 60 year old James wassman and it was reported that he was firing gunshots in the backyard of his home all right according to the article in the Tampa Bay Times the officers set up a perimeter around the home and upon arrival officer Woody did not check in with supervisors and he positioned himself in a tree in the backyard of the home next door swapping places with another officer he did not tell dispatch or any of the supervisors where he was according to documents provided by Internal Affairs officer Reed then jumped the fence and he went into the backyard of the house on the other side of Mr wassman's home another police officer communicated his location and officer Reed's location over the radio but officer Reed did not update the supervisors on his location again according to the internal affairs documents but first I want to thank ground news for sponsoring this video every day we're bombarded with misleading and biased news making it difficult to form a clear understanding of the world around us well ground News is here to help the challenges of misinformation media bias and political polarization are real social media algorithms and clickbait content can manipulate our understanding of the world it's essential to seek different perspectives and to engage in critical thinking to avoid getting trapped in our own Echo Chambers ground news is the world's first news comparison platform it's a website and app that shows you how breaking news is being covered across the political Spectrum making it easy to swipe between headlines and discover which details are emphasized exaggerated or left out entirely with ground news you can compare news coverage spot media bias check your blind spots and understand your reading habits you can customize your feed by choosing from over 150 000 topics locations and people to follow plus you get Global coverage of how International stories are being covered across the globe using the interactive map so take advantage of the chance to stay informed and make informed decisions visit ground.news tcrl to try ground news for free or subscribe to access all features and support Independent Media making the news more transparent affordable at the moment we cannot fly there's like a fog out there talking to us after this happened the homeowner James wasman ended up firing at the officers then both officer Reed and officer Woody returned fire Reed fired 18 rounds and Woody fired six Batman hey that's me that's me in the South yard officer Reed fired towards where he saw a muzzle flash believing that direction to be wasman's location however he did not see wassman he didn't actually see what he was shooting at according to the documents acrylic check your fire that's me to the South what do you got that all right we need officer Woody told Internal Affairs that he saw a person in dark clothing holding a gun and believed he was firing at wassman however one of Woody's bullets ended up hitting Reed's arm and officers also found four projectile materials from Woody's rounds in a neighboring home Reed was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries around the front of the house for his FD stage one house south of I'm gonna be coming around the back to officer Omar Woody and crawlik I'm going to be moving south just cover that rear for me again okay all right I'm moving south yeah hold that foreign here both of these police officers ended up being disciplined by their employer for not for shooting at the homeowner but for shooting at each other accidentally because they both were wearing dark clothes standing in the darkness and shooting at something that they did not positively identify first they were fired at and that there was a deadly threat that they were exposed to however the manner in which they responded was not consistent with their training and their and their responsibility officer Reed on the other hand feels that he did nothing wrong and he went to the news media and telling him that it was just all about officer safety it was justified to basically shoot up the whole neighborhood send bullets flying everywhere including into a neighboring house including into one of his colleagues he believes he fired enough shots in the right direction to keep other officers safe and was following orders to get behind cover to the best of his ability but do you think your actions that day deserve the punishment that you got no and I never never saw this coming never saw this coming I mean you literally shot each other and shot the neighboring house and I don't believe they even hit the guy I mean how would you not see this coming only a government employee would feel that he had done nothing wrong and deserved no accountability whatsoever no discipline not even a two-day suspension but the the crazy thing is is it's not even that that has this guy upset it's that they took away his dog he took away his weaponized pet it's not the suspension Reed cares about it's his dog Mando Reed says Mando took on a kind of therapeutic role ah so him being removed was kind of the worst punishment I could have received from this he took on a much larger role it was my support he was therapy to me he uh he was family so it was a very hard thing to lose wait a minute I mean why did this police officer have a canine that is his official Duty canine that serves some other role as a therapy dog for him perhaps he's talking about after he would I think this is the guy who was shot so after he was shot by his partner he needed this therapy dog and if that's the case then why is he having therapy with this dog that he's taking around and potentially sicking on people and having bite people I mean there's maybe Internal Affairs needs to take another look at this this guy's all upset that they took his dog away but like wait a minute therapy for what in the end the homeowner James wasman is facing charges not surprisingly of attempted second-degree murder on a law enforcement officer aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and discharging firearm in public in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times this guy officer Reed said that he wasn't surprised about his two-day suspension but he was just upset at the removal of his canine said I knew there were things that probably could have been done better that night all around for many different people on the team talk about an understatement I knew there were things that probably could have been done better I mean all right a guy shot at him just setting those facts aside about whether that should have even happened in the first place or whether it did happen or whether it was justified just setting that aside he shot at you and it doesn't appear that they effectively shot him they just shot each other I mean what do you mean things probably could have been better that night all around yeah yeah like no [ __ ] and this is actually a really big problem in my opinion we see so many tragic cases happen sort of like this or police officers just show up to some sort of gun call at a guy's house they don't really even know who the guy is or what the specifics are they don't have any information necessarily that anyone's in imminent danger they just sort of rush up to the scene in in silence no blue lights going officer safety reasons of course but usually that in ends up hurting the homeowner because they walk outside to see you know what the whether there's a Prowler out there what the noise is and they end up getting shocked by the police here and I think it has happened before in in other recent incidents where the the police officers just end up shooting each other and Crossfire or friendly fire because they're acting with incompetence in the end however there really can be no doubt that if police officers show up on a scene somewhere and they encounter somebody with a gun then they're likely going to be justified in using deadly force against that individual the more interesting scenarios are the opposite is when the homeowner is Justified in using deadly force against government officials who are coming onto his property you know for instance without a warrant or other exigent circumstances or consent that could justify their their their presence in the first place but here I think the the takeaway is that you should never underestimate the incompetence of your government of your government officials now only will they shoot you but they will shoot each other in the process as always thanks for watching if you enjoy looking at these sorts of scenarios and going through constitutional law and looking at issues of police misconduct in general Please Subscribe not just here but also on the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com also check out my two recent videos that I did with the institute for justice lawyers those were very well received and I've already heard that the there was a huge wave of donations that came in as a result of those videos and the institute for justice was really happy with that and I'm really happy with that I want to again urge you I'll put the donation Link in the description to if you care about these issues and you want to do something if you're able to financially help donate to the institute for justice and if you don't believe me that this would help go to their website at ij.org and take a look at the cases that they're working on right now and all the wonderful work that they do remember freedom is scary deal with it oh foreign