The first to open fire Saturday is a 28-year-old black man of Haitian descent who lives with his mother in Brooklyn.

[..]One detective, Michael Oliver, 35, fired 31 rounds, according to an individual who knew the identities of the officers involved but was not authorized to release them.

Detective Oliver, who is white, joined the department 12 years ago, and has more than 600 arrests to his name, and multiple arrests involving guns, which the individual said underscored a history of restraint with his own firearm. His name was reported yesterday in The Daily News and The New York Post.

on TV but i can’t remember the details.. sorry.

Yes, to agree with mango, some police officers are better than others. And some jobs are certainly better than others. I’ve often wondered exactly what sort of toll is taken on the human psyche for those with abnormally high stress jobs such as being a police officer in a city with high crime, being a fire fighter, a soldier or working in a slaughter house. I read in Omnivores Dilemma that people who work in slaughter houses are more prone to violence. All that constant death has got to effect you. I wonder how noble or horrible we all would be in these positions. I wonder how many of us would snap.

Yeah, it would certainly be nice not to have armed policeman in this country, but like it or not, guns are such a fabric of our nation and they are just out their, in alarming numbers. It would certainly be hard to get rid of them all.

How should we feel about the NYPD? Be proud or be shamed?

One of the officers fired more than half the rounds, pausing to reload, and then emptying it again, 31 shots in all, according to the police. Another officer fired 11 shots. The others fired four shots, three shots and one shot apiece, the police said.

Nothing in there about the race of the cop who fired the most shots. Where did you read that?

I wonder who took the other 9 shots. Two a piece, or all from the other white guy?

Shame it wasn’t all caught on video.