Arrests in close confines deserve close scrutiny

The scene inside Sak's Trailer Park on Monday. (Harrison Thorp photo)

If a toddler had been shot and killed as bullets were flying on Monday at Sak’s Trailer Park, there would have been hell to pay.

The fact that a life was taken, perhaps during an event that might have been otherwise executed or planned, is bad enough.

The thought of a wayward bullet somehow striking a child, perhaps directly or ricocheting off metal, is unfathomable.

But we contend it could have happened.

And if it could have happened, it would be prudent for lawmen and the attorney general’s office and the Probation/Parole office and the Strafford County Sheriff’s Department to rethink and perhaps recalibrate the parameters of how an arrest warrant is served, especially in a crowded mobile home park brimming with kids.

We’re sure officials were following proscribed procedures when they sent four lawmen inside a single-wide trailer to arrest and handcuff Ben Shannon, 34.

But we’re not sure there wasn’t something they could have done differently to have averted such a tragedy.

We don’t believe it was suicide-by-cop, a situation where the person killed is trying to force lawmen to take his life.

We don’t believe Ben Shannon would have endangered his mother and another woman who were in the trailer at the time.

Perhaps, in fact, they should have been sent out of the trailer at the outset.

Another question is did officers urge Ben Shannon to come out with his hands up before moving down the tiny hallway toward a bedroom in the back of the mobile home where Ben Shannon was?

We realize there is a measure of “hindsight is perfect” in this writing, but that shouldn’t stop us from considering what was and perhaps what should not have been.

We are confident the attorney general’s office will pursue this investigation with vigor and bring charges against anyone who is deemed to have broken the law.

But we also hope that officials look at the bigger picture of how arrest warrants are served and consider the public’s safety, especially in the close confines of an apartment building or mobile home park.

- HT