[Jeff Higgins]

If a private citizen emptied their gun at someone, I suspect a prosecutor would attempt to portray him as some kind of psychopathic nut case, even in a case of justifiable self defense.

I remember years ago a young man whose police officer father was tragically killed in the line of duty, right here in Seattle. The guys in his dad's precinct took the kid under their collective wing, providing multiple father figures in his life when he needed it the most. Can't say enough about those guys.

Well, apparently, one day the young man decided to go for a joy ride in one of the cruisers. The cops naturally thought someone had stolen it. This is where it gets good...

Two cops who were driving marked cruisers, but in plain clothes, spied one another somewhere downtown. Naturally, each assumed the other was the "perp", as they parked kitty-corner across an intersection from one another. And, in the finest cop tradition, once they challenged one another as the likely car thief, neither one would shut up long enough to listen to the other, or back down one stinking inch.

So, naturally, they started shooting at each other. Both of them emptied a couple of magazines. No one was hit, but the storefronts behind each of them suffered some serious damage. It wasn't until both had emptied a couple of magazines at each other that it occurred to either one of them, "hey, he might be a cop...". I'm sure it was the stellar marksmanship that finally clued each other in.

You just can't make this stuff up.