The following excerpts are from an article in today’s Washington Post:

The fatal shooting of a college student outside a pancake house last weekend by an off-duty Alexandria police officer was a “horrible, horrible tragedy,” but an investigation will prove that the officer acted within the department’s policies, the officer’s attorney said yesterday.

[Officer Carl] Stowe was working as a security guard, wearing his police uniform, at the International House of Pancakes when he pursued a group of teenagers who had not paid their check and then shot at their fleeing Jeep Cherokee, killing Aaron Brown, 18. Brown was one of six teenagers in the vehicle.

Afterward, Stowe told police that he feared for his safety when the vehicle headed toward him. One of the passengers disputed the initial police account Tuesday, saying the officer was not directly in front of the SUV when he opened fire.

Police Chief Charles E. Samarra has declined to comment on the investigation, but he briefed the City Council at its meeting Tuesday night. He told the council that “there’s been a lot of things on the TV and a lot of people saying a lot of things, much of it inaccurate.”

Although Samarra would not discuss details of the shooting at the meeting, he said it is “very untrue that an officer would shoot someone because they didn’t pay a bill. Nothing that I have seen or been told indicates that that’s what happened or why the shots were fired.”

A spokesman for IHOP Corp. said that each franchise decides whether to hire security guards but that the company prefers that trained police officers be employed when possible. It is the responsibility of the security guard to protect the restaurant, including pursuing anyone suspected of breaking the law, spokesman Patrick Lenow said.

“The security guard is there to ensure a safe, comfortable dining environment,” he said. “This was a tragic loss of life over something as minor as an unpaid bill. We’re waiting for a full investigation to find out what happened and what could have been done differently.”

This is not the only coverage I’ve heard on this particular incident, and the solid conclusion I’ve drawn from myriad sources is that these kids skipped out on the bill, the officer chased them into the parking lot, stood in the path of their vehicle as they were fleeing, and then shot one of the passengers because he felt endangered by the oncoming car.

Now when I leap in front of a moving vehicle, I too fear for my safety, but I don’t blame the people in the vehicle, I blame myself for being an idiot. Even if I legitimately felt endangered by my poor choice to stop an SUV with my body, I think I’d probably try to shoot the driver, as opposed to a passenger who has absolutely no control over the vehicle. But that’s just me. And I mean, come on, it’s the International House of Pancakes, not the International House of Beluga Caviar. How much could the bill really have been? If you truly loaded up, if you ordered all the pancakes and scrapple and sausage you possibly could, your bill would still only be roughly $24.87. Is that really worth chasing people out into the parking lot over? Hell, if I owned a restaurant and somebody actually ordered something as mysterious and revolting as scrapple, I’d pay them to take it. But I digress.

This story just irks me. I’m a huge proponent of social Darwinism and natural selection, and rarely a champion of the people, but even I have to side with the kids in this case. The article concludes with the statement that the nineteen-year-old driver failed field sobriety tests, which has got to be the biggest heap of bullshit. His BAL was a paltry 0.02, which is roughly akin to accidentally swallowing your morning Listerine. Did anyone consider that (a) the police were exaggerating to build a more solid case for their misdeeds, or (b) the poor kid had trouble standing on one foot because somebody shot and killed his friend less than two feet away from where he was sitting?

Somebody needs to address the proverbial elephant standing in the corner and call this entire situation for what it is: a pile of bullshit.