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Author | Topic: Police Shootings | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Recent events have pushed me over the top and changed my mind:
If police think their lives are threatened they have the right to shoot you to death. It almost never happens that authorities rule the police were wrong and reckless in believing their lives were threatened. Day or night, but especially at night if you're carrying anything that glints (like a cellphone - white cellphones might be safer than black - AbE: OMG, Stephon Clark's cellphone was white - so much for the misidentification as a gun being due to the glint off a shiny black surface) then police will think their lives are threatened, shoot you to death, and suffer no penalty. Often the municipalities are sued and settle for large sums, but this is no remedy for death. Not shooting people to death is the remedy. One thing seems clear: If you're carrying a cellphone and are ordered by a police officer, "Put the gun down," you likely would not do anything. You would be confused. If you raised your hand to show you had no gun you would be shot. Police need to improve how they determine when they're threatened. I think many times the police are placed in untenable situations having to make rapid fire decisions based on incomplete information, but just the same, it is wrong that there are people in our midst whose mission is to serve and protect but who have the right to shoot us with impunity. Maybe knowing that they'll be held personally accountable will force both top-down and bottom-up change to the way police are trained. Taking their guns away would also go a long way toward preventing deaths and confrontations. --Percy Edited by Percy, : AbE.
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
NoNukes writes: One thing seems clear: If you're carrying a cellphone and are ordered by a police officer, "Put the gun down," you likely would not do anything. Are you kidding me? If I hear that, I'm going face down it the dirt and I'm making snow angels. "Please put your knee in my back officer" Yeah, maybe that's best. I'd definitely be confused. I would not recall this discussion and think, "Oh, he thinks my cellphone is a gun, I'll put it down." I would think, "Someone's got a gun? Who? Where? Do I need to take cover?What, he's talking to me? What gun? Etc..." Life is so precious that many states and countries refuse to take it away even from criminals who have committed the most heinous acts. In those states here in the US that do have capital punishment it takes years for the legal process to run through the appeals that attempt to guarantee a mistake is not made. Yet police who are only human and who make mistakes can take life away in an instant and almost never face true accountability. But it's not 100% dismal. This Newsweek article says there were "an average of 390 justifiable homicides by police each year" from 2000 to 2014, while this CNN article says, "Between 2005 and April 2017, 80 officers had been arrested on murder or manslaughter charges for on-duty shootings." Only 35% were convicted, which would be 28, with the remaining being pending or not convicted. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled against a plaintiff who charged a policer officer with using excessive force for shooting her four times, arguing that the police officer in question had the qualified immunity from excessive force lawsuits that is normally granted police officers under the right circumstances. The ruling (ANDREW KISELA v. AMY HUGHES) describes those circumstances:
quote: But officers were only called to the scene to check on someone's welfare, not because of suspicion of a crime. As the police officers arrived Any Hughes emerged from the house holding a knife by her side, then walked down the driveway to stand about six feet away from her roommate. Writing in dissent for both herself and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote:
[quote]Officer Andrew Kisela shot Amy Hughes while she was speaking with her roommate, Sharon Chadwick, outside of their home. The record, properly construed at this stage, shows that at the time of the shooting: Hughes stood stationary about six feet away from Chadwick, appeared composed and content, Appellant’s Excerpts of Record 109 (Record), and held a kitchen knife down at her side with the blade facing away from Chadwick. Hughes was nowhere near the officers, had committed no illegal act, was suspected of no crime, and did not raise the knife in the direction of Chadwick or anyone else. Faced with these facts, the two other responding officers held their fire, and one testified that he wanted to continue trying verbal command[s] and see if that would work. Id., at 120. But not Kisela. He thought it necessary to use deadly force, and so, without giving a warning that he would open fire, he shot Hughes four times, leaving her seriously injured. If this account of Kisela’s conduct sounds unreasonable, that is because it was. And yet, the Court today insulates that conduct from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity, holding that Kisela violated no clearly established law. See ante, at 5—6. I disagree. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Hughes, as the Court must at summary judgment, a jury could find that Kisela violated Hughes’ clearly established Fourth Amendment rights by needlessly resorting to lethal force. In holding otherwise, the Court misapprehends the facts and misapplies the law, effectively treating qualified immunity as anabsolute shield. I therefore respectfully dissent.[/quote] What does this mean? Do not be suffering from a mental condition or be mentally ill or drunk or drugged or confused or slow when confronted with a police officer, because they can shoot you without consequence. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
I ended my last post with the sentence, "Do not be suffering from a mental condition or be mentally ill or drunk or drugged or confused or slow when confronted with a police officer, because they can shoot you without consequence." Prophetic or what? Well, no, because it was inevitable, but yesterday saw another needless fatal police shooting of a mentally ill person: NYPD cops shoot, kill bipolar black man waving metal pipe
The cops thought it was a gun, so they fired 10 shots and killed Saheed Vassell, a 34-year old Jamaica-born welder and father. To their credit, the number of police shootings in New York City has declined year over year for a couple decades. There were 147 police shootings in 1996, 59 in 2005, 37 in 2016, and around 25 in 2017 (source). This is good news, but the police can't take much credit because shootings in general are down in New York City, not just police shootings. I just read the Vital Signs column of the November issue of Discover magazine last night. It was about a man brought into a psychiatric hospital because he'd been found running naked down the center of the street in the middle of the night. Testing and investigating revealed no drugs, no schizophrenia, no bipolar. More testing revealed a misbehaving parathyroid gland. Removal (I think we have four, so removal of one is okay) returned the patient to normal. What if instead of running naked down the middle of the street this man had begun threateningly waving around some object that at night police couldn't identify. If they felt threatened they'd shoot him. That's their solution. They can't take up safe positions and observe - they have to shoot. Add to this that guns have become more lethal. The bullets are more deadly, and the guns can be fired faster. That's why shootings more and more often involve a fusillade of bullets, 10 in this case, 20 for Stephon Clark in Sacramento. Visit a bullets website and you'll see they tout stopping power and describe their ability to penetrate deeply while causing maximum damage. That's why shootings have such a high kill rate. If it seems to anyone that guns have become more and more lethal over the years, that's because it's true. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
NoNukes writes: Percy writes:
Please explain your logic here. While police may not be responsible for who others shoot, the police certainly have some input into who they (the police) shoot. This is good news, but the police can't take much credit because shootings in general are down in New York City, not just police shootings. The New York City Police represent a tiny subpopulation of New York City. As such they are subject to the same social/environmental forces as the city as a whole. Probably the factors for the crime drop are multifaceted, but certainly a major factor for the decline in police shootings must be that the general decline in shootings and of crime in general means that the police must less often find themselves facing situations where lethal force must be considered. I think the way reactions to police misshootings have recently become more strident is due to three factors that contribute to diminished tolerance for police misadventures in general:
As crime rates declined across the country over the past three decades police departments tended to take credit, especially in the early years of this trend, but that wasn't it. It wasn't increased incarceration, either. We don't really know why crime declined, though there are plenty of theories. A couple decent articles are The Many Causes of America’s Decline in Crime and What Caused the Great Crime Decline in the U.S.?, both from The Atlantic, but there's lots of articles out there, just do a Google search. My own theory about the dominant factor for the crime drop has always been demographics: The post WWII baby boom generation moved completely out of the crime-committing age range during the 1990's. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
About Alek Minassian's Toronto van rampage that yesterday killed 10 and injured 15 the New York Times reports:
quote: I think that had this happened in a United States city that Mr. Minassian would have been shot 20 times. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Percy writes: I think that had this happened in a United States city that Mr. Minassian would have been shot 20 times. Turns out I wasn't the first to have this thought. From today's Washington Post: How do you capture a mass-killer suspect without firing a shot? Ask Toronto police. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
In a confrontation with two white males Desmond Marrow, a black former football player at the University of Toledo with short stints in the NFL and CFL, was wrestled to the ground by responding police officers who had been told he had a gun, which turned out to be a cell phone in his back pocket. He was handcuffed, then slammed into the back of an SUV and wrestled to the ground where he was choked and complained he couldn't breath. He claims he never resisted. There's a graphic video where he is never shown resisting, but the full incident isn't captured. This YouTube version repeats the incident three times for some reason:
Said Marrow's attorney, We are working to determine why the (officers) resorted to this level of violence with a man who was already handcuffed and complying with orders. We are also investigating why the (officers) lied and included false information on their report. Marrow claims he was the victim of a hate crime, but he was charged with making terroristic threats and obstruction, both felonies, and reckless driving and aggressive driving, both misdemeanors. The terroristic threats charge was later dropped, and the rest of the case is with the DA who will decide whether to present the case to a grand jury. The best account of what happened from the police point of view comes from Video shows Georgia police slamming ex-NFL player to the ground:
quote: Why do I believe the attorney's account that the officer's lied? Because of all the times officers have been caught lying when they attempt to justify their unjustifiable actions by making up just the kind of stuff they know would justify the actions they took. And they're not even able to be original. It's always, "He resisted, witnesses (always white witnesses when the perp is black) said he made threats, we thought he had a gun." Can't they ever think of something new? One of the officers has been put on administrative leave, so obviously the department realizes something ain't right. I do believe that Mr Marrow is guilty of losing his temper when the white men verbally taunted him and threw hot coffee in his car, and that he is guilty of following the white men to a white shopping mall. Here's another account: Video shows former NFL player's violent arrest after he said police mistook a phone for a gun --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
NoNukes writes: I disagree. No you don't. Let me explain.
Police don't commit more crimes because of the same social pressures that cause criminals to do so. Being hungry or addicted may prompt robberies, thefts, etc., but those things are not why police shoot people. I agree with this, but I was actually saying something different. When I said that police "are subject to the same social/environmental forces as the city as a whole" I didn't mean they experienced those forces in the same way. I meant it in the way described by the sentence that followed: "Certainly a major factor for the decline in police shootings must be that the general decline in shootings and of crime in general means that the police must less often find themselves facing situations where lethal force must be considered." So when you say:
If you want to argue that police were in fewer life and death situations, and made fewer bad decisions, I might buy that. Yes, that's basically what I said. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Rrhain writes: How about the time you banned me for a post I hadn't made. You remember...the time when the entire board blew up because you (and Percy, for that matter) couldn't bother to read the threads they were moderating. And then punished the people who brought it to your attention. Just for the record, Mod wasn't involved. Whatever the specific events, whatever other moderator actions may have occurred around the same time, the board dustup was all me. All I recall now is that the trigger was when someone laid into AdminPD (PurpleDawn) for patiently explaining for the nth time what she saw as the thread's problems and what direction she'd prefer the thread to take. There had been increasing abuse of moderators, and I had become increasingly concerned that we had too many moderators, so I suspended (permanently, I think) some people and reduced the moderator roles. Many people were so upset that they requested they also be suspended (I honored their requests) and many just left. The upset was so great that most everyone still remembers it. Your specific involvement, if any, I don't recall. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Rrhain writes: But, that isn't the point of this thread. If you want to continue this elsewhere, just tell me where. Right, this isn't the topic of this thread. I was just trying to briefly provide a little information, not divert this thread off-topic. I did notice later that you're already discussing this in another thread. I'm always in favor of resolving differences, but judging from your post here that I'm responding to and your posts to Mod in the other thread, you seem to carry grudges for a long time, have a big emotional stake in your own narrative, and exhibit hostility toward anyone who disagrees with you, so no thanks, I don't want to continue this. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
I became curious and looked in on the Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum? thread. When you referred to "the time when the entire board blew up" I assumed you were talking about Jan/Feb 2008 (see Changes at EvC Forum). Apparently you were referring to something that happened around July 2007. I have no recollection.
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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In 2008 the Supreme Court disconnected the right to bear arms from service in a militia, ruling that there was a right to own guns for any lawful purpose. One of the arguments for the majority, written by Antonin Scalia, related to the phrase bear arms:
quote: But Scalia was wrong, as explained in detail in Antonin Scalia was wrong about the meaning of ‘bear arms’. In new databases for the period, such uses of the term "are not just rare they’re almost nonexistent." There were, of course, other arguments in the ruling, but the definition of bear arms seems fundamental. If Scalia were correct that it was used primarily outside a military context, then his reasoning to separate "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" from "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" would make sense. But he had his facts backwards and so his argument does not hold water. The term bear arms was used in military contexts in the 18th century, and the right of the people described in the Second Amendment was specific to militias. Since government militias are non-existent today, there can be no constitutional right of the people to keep and bear arms. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Hyroglyphx writes: There would be daily assassinations. The murder of law enforcement officers would decrease, and the profile or character of those murders would change as officers became less likely to place themselves in confrontational situations. Guns usually, though not always, increase the danger in any situation. For this reason, getting rid of guns will usually, but not always, make everyone safer. Eliminating guns will cause a huge drop in the firearm death rate. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
As long as I'm posting to this thread, may as well mention this recent event: Unarmed 17-Year-Old Fatally Shot as He Ran From East Pittsburgh Police
Quote from woman at the scene: Why are they shooting? the woman recording the video says. All they did was run and they’re shooting at them! Link to Facebook video: Murder Video Take away most officer's guns, no murder. Only officers in special units should have guns. --Percy
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