COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The officers involved in the fatal shooting of a double homicide suspect in northeast Columbus will not be indicted, the county prosecutor said Thursday.
A grand jury voted against prosecuting two Franklin County Sheriff’s Office SWAT deputies, according to the office of Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Gary Tyack. The pair were attempting on June 7 to serve an arrest warrant on 20-year-old Pozz Striblin.
At around 7 p.m. that evening, the two SWAT deputies went to a Sunoco gas station at Stelzer and Agler Road, and blocked in a vehicle that was attempting to back out of a parking spot. Striblin, a passenger in the car, got out of the vehicle and brandished a handgun. As he moved to the front of the car, he raised the gun in the direction of the deputies, according to Tyack’s office. The two deputies fired multiple rounds, hitting Striblin three times. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Deputies recovered a weapon from Striblin and no deputies were injured during the incident. The deputies did not yet have the sheriff’s office’s new bodycams deployed at the time of the shooting.
Striblin was a suspect in a double homicide that occurred May 31. He was also a registered sex offender, …
This was interesting primarily because the individual was a Tier 1 registrant …. but only required to register for 10 years?? In California, Tier 1 is lifetime registration.
(It would be nice if, one day, all this crap were made consistent or, far better yet, completely abolished!!)
It’s people like this that make it harder on all of us, because the media loves the shock value for ratings, and the lawmakers use examples like this to make a blanket case to keep the registry going and further harden the laws that already exist.
We, on the other hand, should comment on the media websites where we can and use it as proof that the registry does not prevent further crime or protect anyone.
Ok, assuming what I just read is accurate, I’m ok with the shooting. I’m not happy about it, and I still have doubts about some of it, but…he had a gun… that’s going to get you shot…PFR or not.
Interested to know how and why he became a, “Person of Interest” in this investigation. Just because he missed his annual update? That’s all it takes to become a, “Person of Interest” in a double homicide investigation? Really?
Also, how did these SWAT Deputies know he was at this gas station? They obviously did know. SWAT doesn’t just block cars in at gas stations to give out tickets. So how did they know he’d be there…and SWAT deputies would be the correct personal to engage him? Suspected he had a gun because a gun was used in the homicides they were interested in him for?
I still have some unanswered questions about this. Questions that leave me, uneasy. However, if he did indeed level a handgun at these deputies…yeah…that’s going to get you shot. Out here, LACS will shoot you for far less than that!
Funny how they spent so much time discussing his FTR issues – seems like that was more important than the homicide. Click bait article in my opinion.
Well I guess we will never know for sure how or if “SWAT” murdered this guy, sense LE was not wearing cameras ! and why would SWAT be pulling up on an FTR if he was not being looked at in a murder case at that time ? Do you all trust LE now ? In OH ? Really ? so basically the “Press” and “LE’ are saying a level 1 FTR committed suicide pulling a gun out on SWAT, and no one has an issue with that BS story ? How Bout why were the cops even looked at as could be indicted if something did not stink? much more needs to be looked at when it comes to the killings of FTR’s because of this registry we have targets on our backs , Where have you people been ?
If your suspected of any type of crime, being a “sex offender” just opens the door to a full blown investigation, it don’t matter if you’re innocent or not the “sex offender” label gives them the power to stop you, detain you, question you, follow you, take your DNA, get arrest warrants and in this situation even murder you
Odd that they found it necessary to deploy SWAT to serve an FTR warrant. Odd that they attempted to serve that warrant at a gas station instead of his house – just sheer coincidence that they happened to run across him there. Odd that he wasn’t a person of interest in a double homicide until after the warrant was issued.
Guess it’ll also be odd when their investigation reveals the registrant killed here was, in fact, the person who committed the double homicide.
More thoughts…
Assume for the purposes of this post, that our man is in fact completely innocent of these homicides. I don’t know if he is or isn’t, but if he is, I have some thoughts on that. In the grander scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if this man is, or is not, innocent of these crimes. The thoughts remain concerning to me. Here goes…
Is it possible that the Homicides created the FTR? Is it possible, the fear of being named a, “Person of Interest” motivated this man to hide? Is it possible, that despite being innocent of these crimes, he became so concerned that he might be suspected for them, he was laying low?
Is it possible he didn’t do his annual, risked getting an FTR conviction, all to avoid being scrutinized for these homicides? So afraid that, despite being innocent, he would be detained while the Sheriffs investigated a possible connection to the crimes? If not detained, at least actively scrutinized, questioned, harassed?
What if he had absolutely no alibi for either crime? What if, despite being innocent, there was something about these crimes that might point the Sheriffs his way? Maybe it is geographically motivated, like the crimes transpired near his home? Near his place of work, or other location he was known to frequent?
Something about the victims that was similar to his Registration Requiring conviction? Something that, despite having nothing to do with these crimes, made him think the Sheriffs will be keenly interested in him. Some reason that made him fear he was going to start getting Sheriffs in his face way more often. Sheriffs talking about murder victims they think he is responsible for. That could panic a person into all kinds of panicky idiocy…right?
People panicked into idiocy do seriously irrational things. Things like:
* Hiding from the cops looking for you for crimes you didn’t commit
* Hiding from the cops so long, you get an FTR
* Carrying a gun with you.
* Pointing that gun at the SWAT Deputies that cornered you at the gas station.
He would not be the first person to engage in this level of panicky idiocy. He wouldn’t even be the first innocent person to engage in this insanity…I suspect.
Of course, this all assumes he is in fact completely innocent of these crimes. Maybe he is, but then again…maybe…yeah.
Either way, the issue remains. PFRs can so easily find themselves, “Persons of Interest” in investigations, a certain level of fear should be expected. I recall being in the general neighborhood of a child disappearance some years ago. A boy, about 9 or 10 years old. Poof, gone with no reason to think he was not taken right off the street. Fact is he was taken right off the street, by his estranged Father, who told nobody of this for days. I think it was not OK for him to take his Son with him for some reason, so he just let everybody think his son had been abducted by someone. Great guy…real class act him.
The 2 or 3 days this kid was, “Missing” were…terrifying for me. I kept thinking I’m going to get some cops dropping by to have a “Chat” with me about this boy.
I was new to being a PFR in a slummy part of LA then. Today, not so scary for me, should something like that happen again. Way too many PFRs in my general area for cops to do comprehensive PFR Sweeps everytime something goes down. Thousands of PFRs with in a ten mile radius of my home….multiple thousands.
I could get a visit, under certain circumstances, but no way I am at the top of the LAPD, “To do” list for this. On the list maybe, but nowhere near the top. Way better options for that than me.
I have never had a cop drop by to ask me questions about anything, ever. Not because there has never been anything the cops wanted to, “Chat” with people about…those happen everyday around here…just never wanted to “Chat” with me. That could change at any moment however.
Even with that missing boy, the fear never turned to panic. Mostly because,
1: I had nothing to do with this kid
2: No real reason the Cops would look at me for this
3: Not the only PFR in that neighborhood.
4: Even among PFRs of that hood, not my current hood, there were better options than me.
However, I had no alibi for the time, other than my Buddy. Yeah, the guy that ended up being my, “Reg Buddy”, that I have mentioned before. Yeah, he was…years before I knew him…9 year old girl….a “Friend of the Family” inside job kinda thing. However, at that time I didn’t know that about him. Had I known that about him then, I may not have felt so confident in him as my alibi.
As it was, however, his 2 Prison sentences, which included the parole he was on at the time, left me shakey enough about him as an alibi. At the time, I assumed both his convictions were drug related. However, he did have a GPS device on him that could have cleared us both….no where near that kid at the time.
Yeah, lots of, “Howevers” that kept the fear from turning into panic.
So even if this man was not quite so innocent as I was during the, “Missing boy” drama, I could see a PFR “loosing it” like this guy. I could even imagine an innocent PFR going full tilt panicky idiot, under the right circumstances.
Is it just me, or is that possible? Look at it from a, “Big picture” perspective, and not just this man, in this particular situation? See it now?