What's The Thin Blue Line's Excuse This Time?
- Thread starter astonmartin708
- Start date
Defiantly not good.
But where are the reports and outrage for the officers harmed in the line of duty.
But where are the reports and outrage for the officers harmed in the line of duty.
1) Dude obviously wasn't following orders.
2) Cops could've had their tasers out.
3) Dude shouldn't have tried to get into the car.
4) Cops should have acted more aggressively to keep him from opening the door to prevent the issue of the guy possibly going for a gun.
5) Cops should've tased him vs shooting him in the back.
A lot done wrong by both sides on this one.
2) Cops could've had their tasers out.
3) Dude shouldn't have tried to get into the car.
4) Cops should have acted more aggressively to keep him from opening the door to prevent the issue of the guy possibly going for a gun.
5) Cops should've tased him vs shooting him in the back.
A lot done wrong by both sides on this one.
Certainly looks like the cops acted prematurely. Have to wonder if the guys history of violence and gun related offenses resulted in jumpy officers. Hopefully there will be a full investigation and prosecution if justified. I'm still waiting on the outrage, media and celebrity coverage of all the black children being murdered every week in this country btw. Haven't seen a single mention of the Atlanta toddler who was gunned down by those champion the black lives matter cause.
No one gives common thugs a badge, gun, and the authority to arrest / detain anyone they want. They should have taken this guy down to the ground before he ever got near the drivers side of the vehicle if they were that scared about him going for a gun.
I’m certainly not arguing g that the guy did the right thing, but he shouldn’t have ended up shot in the back either.
Or you know, just prevent situations where you feel the need to shoot unarmed civilians in the back.
if a suspect does not follow direction, acts erratic, puts his hands into his pants, does not follow direction, ...
do the police have to wait until the suspect fires first?
It's hard to criticize the police too much as they deal with the worst of human behavior daily.
That said, if they held their own more accountable, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
I'm not for defunding at all. The reason they're so armed is because of the 80's Crips and Bloods where the cops showed up with 38's and shotguns to bad guys having AK's and Uzi's.
LEO has to start holding their own accountable EVERY time.
I still can't believe the lady cop in Tulsa got off on killing the guy in the middle of the street.. That was an ideal time to use tazers.
As for the above instance, LP is right. he should've been taken down as he was walking around the car and no way in hell should he have been shot in the back. They had ample back up to take him down. It will be interesting to see some video with audio and different perspectives.
To answer your question directly, no. LEO shouldn't have to wait for shots to be fired before taking drastic action.
They have to wait until they actually see a weapon...
Not following directions does not give you a right to use deadly force. It gives you a right to use force, but not deadly force.
It looked like there were at least three cops there. He didn't have his hands in his pockets. No idea if they knew he had any kind of history or not, or if they even knew his name when they fired.
But in answer to your question, no, they don't have to wait until someone is actively firing at them. But they do have to wait until there is a credible threat that they didn't just imagine in their heads.
And they had every opportunity to tackle the guy and cuff him before he got to the car door if the situation warranted it. It was (at least) three on one, and he had no obvious weapons out like a knife or gun. There was absolutely no reason to shoot him in the back 7 times, or even let it get to the point where the cop apparently felt that was the only decision to make.
Agree with Weatherdemon, too. Police Departments across the country simply must start taking care of their own. If a cop makes a decision like this, they should be held accountable quickly and reliably.
Investigate complaints from the community faithfully. That doesn't mean crucifying every cop that ever has a complaint filed against them by a bitter citizen, but do take them seriously, track them, and look into them in a good faith way. I don't believe that happens enough. If a cop is known to be a bit jumpy with the taser and quick to pull out the gun, but are otherwise smart and motivated people, you can find another department for them where they aren't on patrol responding to calls before they shoot someone in the back 7 times. Don't set them up to fail by putting them into situations they aren't well-suited for.
Not to shoot unarmed men in the back? Yeah, that one's pretty easy. Most of these cops get paid far better than grunts in combat zones overseas. I expect them to be able to show as much if not more judgement and restraint with our own citizens as is expected of privates in warzones.
Sure. I’ll grant it is a tough job and that mistakes can happen, and will happen. But I’ll stand by my assertion that it is pretty easy to avoid shooting an unarmed guy 7 times in the back in front of his children.
Most cops I’ve ever run into, either on or off duty have been nice guys and helpful. I assume the vast majority are like that. It just doesn’t take that many to cause problems.
Take this guy: https://losalamosreporter.com/2020/...-charged-with-dui-and-evading-police-officer/
He just got arrested for his second DUI and evading police. He’s previously been charged in separate incidents with cruelty to animals, battery on a household member, evading police, and the first DUI. He sounds like a nice guy, right? The kind of guy that might get shot by police for not obeying an order, right? I mean, he’s now been twice arrested for evading police. Guess what, he’s a cop himself. And he has excessive force complaints against him. Do you think they should just sweep this crap under the rug for him again and wait until he kills someone?
Most cops aren’t like that. But in any profession, you get a few crazies that work their way in somehow. The police in many cities have a real problem with identifying them and throwing them out of the force though, in some misguided sense of solidarity with the scumbags and otherwise incompetent or ill-suited among them. They need to fix that and a lot of the rest will melt away.
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Meh and no.
1) Yes.
2) No. The female officer had hers out and it would appear she deployed it and it wasn’t effective. The two other officers followed the use of force spectrum by unsnapping when he walked away towards the car. She’s there just outside the picture with the less than lethal when he tries to go into the car (which didn’t work moments before). Having the firearm out of the holster instead of the taser is consistent with training standards for the two male officers. You don’t wait until they have a gun pointed at you to put away the taser and I holster your weapon.
3) Yes.
4) Probably. Need more info. Need to know how many people are there. Two guys going hands on with their backs turned and defenseless to a large crowd is a problem. Also need to know what that department’s use of force spectrum states for going hands on. Some agencies prohibit pre-emptive touch or strike for liability reasons if they have a taser, which didn’t work here. (The main argument for the use of the taser is it reduces insurance/legal costs. Not that it work consistently and only rarely kills people).
5) Tasing didn’t work it would appear. We need the audio or a transcript to know if this is unjustified shooting for sure. We also need to know if the subject was under investigation for a violent felony at the time.
Deadly force is ok as a last resort in the defense of oneself, when there is reasonable cause to believe
that you are in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. Also as a last resort in the defense of another person, when you have reasonable
cause to believe they are being unlawfully attacked and is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. As a last resort to prevent escape of a suspect, where you have probable cause
to believe that the person to be arrested has used deadly force in the commission of a felony, and you reasonably believe there is no other way to make the arrest or retain custody of the person once arrested, or the person to be arrested can reasonably be thought to be intent on endangering human life or upon inflicting
serious bodily harm.
Kenosha does permit batons, but only to cops without tasers. The baton is a deadly weapon, could have been a good use of intermediate level of force to impede the subjects progress to his car. The problem with non-lethal techniques is that they may not have been proper under the circumstances and we don’t truly know. They are authorized to use whatever force, including deadly force to prevent death or GBH to themselves or others, if a reasonable officer would react that way to the threat. And we don’t know a lot about what he was saying at that time when he ignored commands and went into the truck.
Leave it to a Huffy to try to justify shooting an unarmed man in the back 7 times in front of his children.There is no way I reasonably believe that 3 cops couldn't (without firing a weapon) apprehend one man. Heck, one cop should have been able to apprehend him. If they believed they couldn't then they weren't acting as LEO's they were acting as meter maids with guns.
I don't care if he was high on whatever substance. I don't care if he did have a gun in his pants, or his car. I don't care if he had committed violent crimes before. These officers did not handle the situation in the right way when they had a very clear opportunity to. And their inadequate job performance led to a situation where they felt they had to kill a man. They should all be fired and the shooter should be in jail for 10-life. I think that such a clear violation of our social contract (attempted murder) should have charges with enhancements specifically for police officers, when they who are trusted with more authority than normal citizens, so grossly break the law.
What's to say the cop didn't purposefully refrain from tackling the guy, knowing he really wasn't a threat, just so he could heinously commit murder? Maybe, missed the shot of the taser on purpose? Maybe they were angry that the guy wasn't complying and their anger clouded their judgement?
The statutes that you're trying to defend people with are so flawed, and their phrasing so broad that pretty much any cop can get away with Murder with little effort in terms of planning or cover up.
Quick Question, how many times have you seen videos like this from other 1st world countries? Why are police in Canada, Australia, The UK, France, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Germany, etc... all able to regularly avoid such tragedies? Yet we have one seemingly every month.
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I said we don’t know all the facts so it’s tough not to know if it’s justified.
For instance, we don’t know if he said. “I’ve got a bomb in the car” or “I’m gonna drive my kids into a tree”. Both are unlikely but illustrate examples of how words alone could change how the incident is reviewed. I’ll wait to hear more. And what I hear will likely be aggravated battery with a firearm enhancer.
For instance, we don’t know if he said. “I’ve got a bomb in the car” or “I’m gonna drive my kids into a tree”. Both are unlikely but illustrate examples of how words alone could change how the incident is reviewed. I’ll wait to hear more. And what I hear will likely be aggravated battery with a firearm enhancer.
To be fair you attempted to justify the murder of an innocent little girl by posing the question.....maybe her mom reached for a gun while driving down a street despite not one report of her even having a gun or her mom being involved in a drug deal, etc... Basically throwing out wild scenarios where the grieving mother might be to blame for her child's murder despite no evidence to support it.
"My question is, why? Was it gang violence, was it a drug deal gone wrong, was there a confrontation between the car driver / passenger and the protesters? Did the person driving the car reach for a gun? It just seems odd that someone would shoot at a car randomly. I'll reserve judgment until I know more facts".
Might I suggest that both statements are a bit distasteful. The only blame I see on the deceased man’s part is failing to follow police orders and resisting arrest. Something someone with his criminal background should be very familiar.
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That's not justification. I fully acknowledge that the person that shot the child is still a criminal. In no way was the killing just. I was just trying to say that it wasn't necessarily related to the protests at large.
In this case, Huffy, and maybe you, refuse to acknowledge that the cop who paralyzed and almost killed this guy acted in a manner that simply can't be justified.
EDIT: BTW, The shooting of the little girl could be a bit more complicated than people just randomly shooting at a car... from the account of one person charged in the crime who claims he was armed but did not shoot...
Conley said the SUV drove through a barricade and hit a man armed with a rifle, which prompted the shooting, Patterson said.
"When that person started shooting, somebody thought that a person inside the car was shooting back so that's when three other individuals fired upon the car," he said.
Go figure that more people with guns don't make any situations better, and people's opinions on their rights to defend themselves (instead of having a duty to retreat) are flawed in that they can easily end up hurting innocents during misunderstandings.
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No. You were coming up with scenarios where the grieving mother would be to blame somehow justifying or at the minimum explaining why her child was murdered. Take a child to a drug deal or pull a gun on someone with your child in the car and you do share responsibility. That was the comment.
It certainly doesn’t look good, but as someone who has made charging decisions after watching videos like this, I know you need more facts than just what you see. It’s somewhere between Floyd, which was clearly improper after a certain point, and Brooks, where there were possible alternatives to the shooting, the shooting may not be justified but some of the elements of a crime are missing.
Taking a child to a drug deal does not make you responsible for that child's murder. It just means that maybe the child's murder wasn't related to the mother and the child playing in a park, but instead it was related to being in a shady park with a drug dealer. The dealer is still the one that committed the crime.
Even in this case, where their's an argument that the car driven by the mother drove through a barricade and hit someone who then began firing, I don't think the shooting is justified even if the person who was hit was scared for their life. I don't think 'scared for your life' is an excuse to shoot someone in every single scenario when other options to not shoot someone and save your life (or the lives of others) are present.
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Legally responsible no. Morally responsible (at least in part) yes. Same as pulling a gun which was also one of your scenarios. Both are obviously child endangerment if we want to get into a legal discussion. In both the inference was the grieving mother could have been partially responsible for her child’s death. Yet you didn’t bring up the actions of the guy who was shot here which led to his death. Just odd you would attempt to blame (even hypothetically) the grieving mother but not mention the actions of what appears to be a hardened criminal.
I suppose. But I'm not talking about the lady's conscience. I don't think that pulling a gun in a situation where you feel threatened justifies someone shooting you. Nor do I think being at a drug deal justifies someone shooting you or a companion.
For example, I don't think those Lawyers in Missouri should have been shot, and I don't think one of them pulling a gun on protesters would make them responsible legally for their spouse's death if a protester, feeling threatened, shot back. Their conscience - if lawyers actually retain those after the bar - might think otherwise though
I don't think the actions of the protesters in Atlanta were those of a hardened criminal. I don't think the protesters came to the protests as criminals. I think they were seemingly normal (though understandably angry) people and there was an event which led to them making morally wrong, and legally wrong decision to fire at a car that wasn't actually threatening their lives, and they need to be brought to justice for that.
I might compare it to following someone home and shooting them for them cutting you off in traffic. Yes, the person who cut you off might have committed an offense, even a dangerous one that might have threatened your life. But, they don't deserve to be shot. And if you shoot them you are a criminal.
Anger is a major component in these cases. I would be willing to bet that in all situations (the cops in Kenosha, the protesters in Atlanta, the hypothetical road rage shooter) that anger clouded the shooter's judgement to the point that they make heinous criminal decisions that they might not make if they weren't as angry. Angry, that a suspect was resisting arrest. Angry that a car pushed through protesters and angry that cops are committing unjust murders. Anger that someone cut you off in traffic. Anger combined with fear does not justify shooting.
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I don’t disagree with most of that except when you put yourself in a drug deal situation, pull a gun on someone or resist arrest you are putting yourself in a dangerous situation. Are they justifications for someone to get killed...no. Are they contributing factors in a series of events which led to the shooting....absolutely.
However it doesn’t address my original post. You somehow felt the need to post scenarios where the grieving mother could have contributed to her child’s murder yet failed to address the actions of the deceased here which contributed to his death. Surely you see the hypocrisy here not to mention it’s a bit distasteful to attempt to blame a mother (at least partially) for her child’s death.
I don't think so. I think the man who was shot in Kenosha, would never have been shot if he hadn't resisted arrest. The mother in Atlanta might not have lost her child if she didn't drive through a barricade / protesters (that's a speculative story btw... she may have done nothing); however, just because these people might have committed a more minor offense that led to their, or their child's death, that doesn't justify the killing. Just because I get on a rickety roller coaster that I know isn't well maintained, doesn't mean that I deserve to die when a bolt fails and the car runs off the track.
Here's a new and very well written article on the difficulties regarding 'police reform' and how that means different things to different people. In some cases we're just unable to get meaningful data to make appropriate changes. In some cases the data police departments are using is missing the bigger picture. In some neighborhoods, the community argues that having fewer police on the beat and an increased quality of living would have a more dramatic decrease in crime.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-police-reform-a-fundamentally-flawed-idea/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-police-reform-a-fundamentally-flawed-idea/
How is driving through an illegal barricade placed in the street by private citizens committing a crime ? A barricade the city kept taking down. Why do you keep inferring the mother whose child was murdered committed a crime?
I was saying that driving into a pedestrian MIGHT have been a relatively minor crime or a more serious one depending on what actually happened. I don't really care about the barricade itself. (Also, that's the argument from a defendant, so I'm not saying it absolutely happened... but it's plausible that it did) Even if it did, the person that was allegedly hit weren't justified in shooting, and the people who allegedly started shooting, thinking someone in the car was shooting, were absolutely at fault as well.
My intent is not to say that the shooters in the Atlanta case weren't at fault... but that they weren't shooting randomly at cars just because they were being violent protesters from the outset. They were shooting at a car because something happened and they undertook a criminal act in response. Much like the cop in Kenosha probably wasn't a homicidal maniac out to kill people when he left for work that day... but something happened and he committed a criminal act in response.
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our law enforcement bodies are out of control; local police shootings, fbi false documents, bogus investigation, house kangaroo impeachment court,
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Police report.
Cliff notes: the kid had been threatened sufficiently by the crowd previously that another armed adult had been assigned to protect him. He ran away from the crowd. Reporters observed him running away from the first person he shot, who had lunges at his long rifle and had his hands on it when he was shot. The defendant fled and was chased by a large group of individuals, some of whom were yelling threats. He tripped while running and was hit by someone with a skateboard who attempted to grab his gun. The defendant shot that person. The next person approached with a gun in his hands. That person raised his hands in the air, but did not drop the weapon, and continued to advance towards the defendant. He was shot too, but unlike the first two alleged victims, he was not killed. Police recovered the gun brandished by the third alleged victim.
Most murder cases don’t have witnesses. Those that do are dogs. This one is very defensible. He may very well be convicted, but it will depend upon the courtroom testimony and veracity of the two reporters who saw everything. He will likely see one count of manslaughter on the first victim and walk on the other two. But that’s just a gut feeling reading the police report and news accounts of people there. A jury could reasonably conclude differently, hence the charges, but that seems unlikely. There isn’t a crime here in other states, if in fact the first victim had his hands on the gun, except the misdemeanor weapons charge for being underage.
Cliff notes: the kid had been threatened sufficiently by the crowd previously that another armed adult had been assigned to protect him. He ran away from the crowd. Reporters observed him running away from the first person he shot, who had lunges at his long rifle and had his hands on it when he was shot. The defendant fled and was chased by a large group of individuals, some of whom were yelling threats. He tripped while running and was hit by someone with a skateboard who attempted to grab his gun. The defendant shot that person. The next person approached with a gun in his hands. That person raised his hands in the air, but did not drop the weapon, and continued to advance towards the defendant. He was shot too, but unlike the first two alleged victims, he was not killed. Police recovered the gun brandished by the third alleged victim.
Most murder cases don’t have witnesses. Those that do are dogs. This one is very defensible. He may very well be convicted, but it will depend upon the courtroom testimony and veracity of the two reporters who saw everything. He will likely see one count of manslaughter on the first victim and walk on the other two. But that’s just a gut feeling reading the police report and news accounts of people there. A jury could reasonably conclude differently, hence the charges, but that seems unlikely. There isn’t a crime here in other states, if in fact the first victim had his hands on the gun, except the misdemeanor weapons charge for being underage.
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Factually incorrect! Grunts overseas in the combat zone get paid very well. On top of that, if someone doesn’t obey a grunts orders In the combat zone, they die........no F’s given! It’s really hard to go to some of these big high crime US cities Where predominantly minorities live and differentiate between a place like South Chicago and Raqqa. I don’t justify police needlessly killing people like GF but people who actively resist the orders of the police get no sympathy from me whatsoever!
Especially after they have been tased and are reaching for a knife
why does the media obsess over the negative encounter while ignoring the tens of thousands of encounters that ended well?
There is an narrative in our country that’s being pushed with malicious and calculated intent leading us towards complete and total fracture. This is clear to all of us! The question then becomes who is pushing this narrative and what is the end game?
Shot in the back sounds like a violation of the Code of the West.
When most people get into a car they go in foot and butt first. I don’t claim to know all of the details. But if the officer believed or saw he had a knife, should he wait for him to turn around and attack? The guy had already been tazered and continued not following instructions. They should fully investigate, but this does not compare to setting on someone’s throat for eight minutes.
Let’s talk about the battlefield situation mentioned earlier. When someone is thoroughly defeated, it is a rout. If they turn and run, they get shot in the back. It is not a movie.
When most people get into a car they go in foot and butt first. I don’t claim to know all of the details. But if the officer believed or saw he had a knife, should he wait for him to turn around and attack? The guy had already been tazered and continued not following instructions. They should fully investigate, but this does not compare to setting on someone’s throat for eight minutes.
Let’s talk about the battlefield situation mentioned earlier. When someone is thoroughly defeated, it is a rout. If they turn and run, they get shot in the back. It is not a movie.
