The IHOP where this took place is just down the road from where I used to live. In fact, I’ve eaten there several times.

It appears that an off-duty cop working security at the IHOP chased down a group of teenagers who appeared to have walked out on their tab, though at least one report on the radio this morning says they in fact paid the tab, but had left money on the table instead of paying at the register.

The off-duty cop then ran out to the parking lot to confront the group, and jumped in front of the vehicle to stop them from getting away. What happened next is unclear, but it resulted in the officer firing 4-5 shots at the vehicle, one of which struck and killed 18-year old Aaron Brown, a passenger.

Hard to see how an unpaid tab would need to escalate to the use of deadly force.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2006 at 12:55 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.