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Author Topic:   Police Shootings
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 199 of 670 (849273)
03-02-2019 6:10 PM


More on the Stephon Clark Shooting
The police shooting that opened this thread (see Message 1) is back in the news: Sacramento police officers who fatally shot Stephon Clark will not be charged
On March 18 of last year Stephon Clark was breaking car windows. Two officers cornered him in his grandmother's backyard. The two officers then fired 20 shots at him when they observed him holding a cell phone that they thought was a gun. Clark was hit eight times, all but one in the back. The one shot in the front was thought to have occurred after he was already lying on the ground.
Both officers had body cams. When other officers arrived all hit mute. What were they talking about? Reports don't say.
Drivers who refuse a breathalyzer are automatically charged with DWI. Officers muting their body cams in the aftermath of a crime should also be automatically charged, perhaps with destruction of evidence.
Also, and of course, these officers should not have had guns. Anyone who is going to fire 10 or 20 shots in response to a glint of light off a cellphone shouldn't be allowed within a mile of a gun.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Add title.

Replies to this message:
 Message 200 by ringo, posted 03-03-2019 1:19 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 201 by Percy, posted 03-06-2019 7:45 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


(1)
Message 201 of 670 (849328)
03-06-2019 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 199 by Percy
03-02-2019 6:10 PM


Re: More on the Stephon Clark Shooting
Rolling Stone has an article that contains a little more information about how it was decided not to charge the officers in the Stephon Clark shooting. It says that the district attorney, Anne Marie Schubert, implied that Clark was suicidal that day, making "suicide by cop" an element in absolving the two officers.
Rolling Stone also writes about other ways Schubert may have been influenced:
quote:
The district attorney’s decision was the result of an unjust process: Cops investigate other cops, then a prosecutor ” who works with those cops all the time on cases ” relies upon their judgment. This one also relied upon their cash: Schubert took in $13,000 in campaign donations from law enforcement last March less than a week after Clark was shot. No matter how many outside experts she lined up to bolster her decision, the D.A.’s Sunday announcement not to prosecute the officers with murder or another related crime was injury enough. This is a Sacramento community that has seen the newly re-elected Schubert investigate more than 30 such police shootings and not file a single charge. It was an insult to African-Americans throughout the nation who have seen district attorneys give cops a pass for these types of incidents all too regularly.
This is precisely the situation I've been complaining about. It happens again and again. The police conduct the investigation and then are absolved by people who work closely with the police, and who in this case donate money to elect the people who absolve them. While the Rolling Stone article only mentions Sacramento, the entire country is the same: police are almost never charged when they injure or kill someone. Almost all shootings are judged to have been justified. How lucky we are to have a very nearly perfect police force in this country.
Source: The Sacramento Cop-Out
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 199 by Percy, posted 03-02-2019 6:10 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 204 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-07-2019 9:03 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 202 of 670 (849385)
03-07-2019 11:47 AM


Sometimes Your Win One
ABC News is reporting that a Florida police officer has been convicted of manslaughter.
Fired Florida police officer Nouman Raja was today convicted of the 2015 manslaughter and attempted murder of a black man whose van had broken down by the side of a highway. An audio recording shows that Raja, in plainclothes and driving an unmarked white van, never identified himself. Corey Jones, a musician with $10,000 in drums in the back of his vehicle, pulled a licensed gun to defend himself from what he thought was a robbery. Raja fired his own weapon a number of times, striking Jones three times, once fatally through the heart.
Raja's sentencing has been set for April 26.
Until Raja, no Florida officer has been tried for homicide since 1989. Amazing.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 203 by ringo, posted 03-07-2019 11:57 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 207 of 670 (849426)
03-09-2019 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 204 by Hyroglyphx
03-07-2019 9:03 PM


Re: More on the Stephon Clark Shooting
Hyroglyphx writes:
Unlike the hard-hitting data offered by the music-oriented magazine, Rolling Stone, an actual properly sourced, properly cited, detailed and painstakingly thorough analysis looks like this. And this is the kind of care and attention to detail that I'd like to see concerning your welfare check case in order to come to a proper deliberation.... and quite honestly, so should you.
Report of the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office on the Stephon Clark Shooting
The report is 61 pages long. I assume you've read it cover to cover. Can you please bring the information you found forward into this discussion and quote the portion where it contradicts Rolling Stone's characterization in the The Sacramento Cop-Out article that the district attorney's office, including the prosecutor, routinely work closely with cops, and that it's basically just cops investigating cops (I already quoted it in Message 201)? Does the district attorney report offer some other explanation for why cops are exonerated in shootings like 99% of the time? Does it explain why it is okay to mistake cell phones for guns? Does it explain why it is okay to let a shooting victim bleed out while police watch? Here's a chilling quote from the district attorney:
quote:
While it is tragic that Clark in fact was holding a cellular phone, the law judges the officers’ actions based upon the reasonable perception of the threat. The evidence proves that Officers Mercadal and Robinet acted lawfully under the circumstances.
Keep those phones in your pocket, folks, else the folks charged with protecting you will shoot you. This is chilling, too:
quote:
Furthermore, Clark took a shooting position while holding a metallic object out in front of his body. Clark did not have this phone in his hands moments before, as can clearly be seen in the STAR video as he jumped the fence and walked up to the vehicle in the side yard.
Clark took a shooting position with a cell phone? Yeah, sure. Cops panicked and murdered a common non-violent criminal and father of two, then said what they knew from experience they had to say to justify their shooting. They knew just saying they saw a glint of light wouldn't cut it, so they said Clark took a shooting position. With a cell phone. Yeah, sure. But it helped the district attorney argue for a "suicide by cop" theory.
These cool, calm, collected, expert, professional police officers each estimated they fired around 5 times, for a total of 10 or 12. Actual number of shots fired was 20. Studies have shown it is common for cops to get into an emotional state where they simply empty and reload until they no longer feel threatened.
Each case where police get away with murder will have its own specifics. The one constant is that in almost all cases they *will* get away with it. These police, like most others, should not have had guns.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 204 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-07-2019 9:03 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 208 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-09-2019 11:49 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 209 of 670 (849442)
03-10-2019 11:07 AM
Reply to: Message 205 by Hyroglyphx
03-08-2019 2:00 AM


Re: Shot While Filming Outside Jewish Synagogue
Hyroglyphx writes:
First you say I "have yet to qualify" my claims of police secrecy (implying it doesn't happen), then you say "I would never say that...because 100% it has happened." You have to make up your mind. Right now you're making no sense by ping-ponging between the opposite viewpoints of (paraphrasing) "it doesn't happen" and "I of course acknowledge it happens."
You make it seem that this line of "secrecy" is so prevalent that its basically part and parcel a function of law enforcement itself.
Yes, it's built in. It's structural. That's what happens when the agency doing the investigating isn't independent of those being investigated.
That's the qualification I'm looking for, because you have a tendency to paint with the broadest strokes possible. Just because there's evidence of, say, 10 boxing matches being fixed in human history does not equal that all boxing matches are fixed.
If during a police homicide the police are frequently found to have done something wrong when there's a camera present, that's pretty conclusive.
You're not responding to what I said. I was responding to what you said, and I quoted what you said. Here it is again: "If that's the case, then why have there been in-car cameras far longer than there have smart phones? Spoiler alert: its because there's evidentiary value to them and departments want them."
And you are conveniently omitting relevant information to the overall CONTEXT of the discussion.... rather underhandedly, I might add.
Ah, I see, quoting your words is underhanded to you. Your entire Message 193 is still there for everyone to see, including the entire context. People can see that your accusations of underhanded dealing are false, and you must also know they're false.
Your ENTIRE point was that the police are so secret and want to bury the light as often as possible... my retort was then why did they specifically create in-car and bodyworn cameras?
I've never said anything like that. The comment that I would make is that the police are secretive when they have to be.
You still haven't answered it because it's rather obvious at this point that you're wrong and you are aware of it. So instead you attack strawmen to deflect away from it.
But I did answer you, and there's no strawman. You quoted my answer, here it is:
Looked at from above through rose-colored glasses this is of course the justification, but once police turn the video on it captures all of reality, not just the parts that back up the police. Video is proving to a major embarrassment to police forces all across the country as it capture one police misbehavior after another.
Yeah, its called "accountability." You should be leaping with joy that the non-transparent police force not only has such technology at its disposal but that you, the common citizen, can open-records request any footage you want and scour it for unnoticed malfeasance.
All good, but you're ignoring what that information already tells us: rank-and-file police shouldn't have guns.
My "default judgment" is not "constant suspicion." It is prudence. When a gun enters the vicinity I exit the vicinity, including an armed policeman. Guns are not safe, no matter whose hands they're in. I see no reason to trust an armed policeman to safely employ his firearm.
Thank you for regaling us with anecdotes that represent .0002% of the entire population,...
If you're again implying that police who make mistakes are bad apples, then again, not only am I not saying that, I reject it. You don't understand bell shaped curves, do you?
...but again, your infinitesimally minute number does not and cannot compare to the billions of incidents that don't happen.
Just as the billions of passenger miles driven by cars and airplanes where no accident happens do not mean they're as safe as we can make them or as they need to be, the large number of police interactions where nothing goes wrong does not mean the job is being done as properly and safe as it needs to be.
Its a question of utility. Does the utility of this object outweigh the potential harm it could create. Answer: yes.
How do you know "yes" is correct? There were 3.22 trillion passenger miles in the US in 2016. How do you decide whether that's so many that 40,200 vehicle fatalities is acceptable? When you can answer that question then you should be able to tell me whether the number of police/public interactions justifies the number of police homicides.
And for curiosities sake, what is your gameplan to defend your home, your wife, and little dog Pluto against armed intruders? Are you gonna read passages about non-violence from Ghandi and hope they stop?
You're scaremongering again. It's already been pointed out that a gun in the home is far more likely to be used against family, friends or others nearby than against a criminal.
That's a 2014 study with flaws because officers were each day randomly assigned cameras or not. The just released study I mentioned above fixes this flaw and the results contradict the earlier study. When officers wear cameras every day they become accustomed to them in a short time and revert to normal behavior.
Oh, and what is that normal behavior? What's your baseline?
The study shows that complaints about police misbehavior against the public revert to pre-camera levels (i.e., "normal behavior" or the "baseline") after they've been wearing the camera for a little while. Once the body cam becomes familiar and just settles into the background of the rest of the police uniform it no longer affects police behavior.
If who benefits the most is a "who gives a fuck" question, then why did you spend so much time claiming the police had the most to benefit?
I very clearly indicated that everyone benefits, Percy. The police have vested interests in it just as the general public does.
Have you ever heard the parable of the chicken and the pig? When making a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the chicken is making a mere contribution while the pig is sacrificing its entire life. The level of sacrifice of the police versus a largely unarmed public is also on completely different levels. The police are only subject to possible discipline while the public sacrifices their entire lives. When the police pulled their guns on an unarmed Stephon Clark they risked a disciplinary hearing and possible legal charges, while Stephon Clark risked his entire life. The "vested interests" are not the same.
Imagine how many police shootings there would be if everyone were armed. The police wouldn't have to see a gun, they could just assume everyone has one.
Your figure is made up. You never seem able to bring real data into the discussion. I never mentioned any figure, but however often it happens it turns up in story after story that the video or audio was off during crucial points.
Yeah, just like the figure that exists about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.
That's a very poor analogy, but I sense that what you're trying to say is that you're going to ignore all the news reports and footage examples of body cam audio and video being turned off.
Because those figures don't exist,...
I don't have figures for how many leaves fall on my lawn every year, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Just as I have video of leaves falling from the trees, there is body cam footage where audio and/or video cuts out. I just provided you a couple examples, like the murder of Justine Damond in Message 191, and the murder of Stephon Clark. "Omigod, what did we just do? Mics off, everyone. Okay, now we can get our story straight."
There's another case I'm not going to look up right now, but it's upthread, where the policeman didn't realize that while his camera was turned off that it still kept a 30-second audio record prior to being turned on, so when he turned his camera on after everything had already gone down there was still that incriminating audio record. Those who don't learn the nuances of the body cam will possibly be hoisted on their own petard.
...but you seem to think that police conveniently turning off cameras is so problematic.
I'm surprised if everyone didn't think that problematic. Evidently you're an exception - why?
So the onus is on you to prevent the evidence, otherwise you're just making shit up as you go.
Except that I'm not making anything up. I don't have statistics and never claimed to, but those news stories of police turning off the audio and/or video of their body cams do actually exist, as well as the body cam footage itself. You can't pretend they don't.
You continue to be unable to respond to what I actually say. You instead make up things I didn't say and then respond to that. You do this so frequently that I'm going to have to call you a liar. I never said all police shootings are unjustified. What I said was that the police rule almost all police shootings justified, which is absurd on its face and obviously can't be true. And when there's video it turns out it's not true a lot of the time. That's why rank-and-file police should not have guns.
And I am saying that YOUR metric as a DIRECT RESULT of your fear of guns taints your judgment on how most courts decide in terms of justified or unjustified shootings.
We've been over this. I am not the only one who fears guns. The police profoundly fear guns. Just listen to the Stephon Clark footage again. "Gun, gun, gun," then a fusillade of 20 bullets fired at a man armed with a cell phone.
You seem to think someone needs to actually fire a weapon at an officer before they can lawfully return fire... Your severe lack of objectivity is what's in question.
I've been pretty clear about what I think, and your characterizations of it are way off the mark. Obviously I don't think someone needs to actually fire a weapon before police officers can legally return fire. But I do think police officers should only fire their weapons at someone they know is armed. That means not someone they think is armed because they saw a glint of light, but someone they know is armed because they saw an actual gun.
You are repeating a lie. Again, I never said that. If the only way you can win an argument is to make up what the other guy said then you may as well give up in a forum such as this, because what I actually said is right there in my posts.
I wonder how on Earth I could have arrived at such a conclusion. It might have something to do with page after page of commentary you've elucidated thus far.
The thread is an open book, and if I'd said anything like that you would quote it, but you don't. Again, I suggest you respond to what I say, not the things you make up me saying.
You're talking nonsense. Rulings concerning whether a police shooting is justified don't come from grand juries. You're again making stuff up off the top of your head. Jurisdictional attorneys or review boards make the decisions about whether the shooting was justified, and only when they conclude it was unjustified would it go to a grand jury.
Departments investigate internally and decide whether or not an officer's actions were criminal in nature or not criminal.
That's what I just said when I mentioned review boards. What's with you? Do I have to use the identical vocabulary you would use before you can understand what I'm saying?
They may arrive to a decision that while not explicitly criminal, they may still feel the need to fire that employee. But make no mistake that all shootings go far beyond the department or even the District Attorney's Office.
All shootings go beyond the district attorney's office? Really? You mean like the Stephon Clark shooting where the decision that the officers would not be charged was made by the district attorney's office, as linked to by you in Message 204? The same district attorney's report that doesn't even contain the phrase "grand jury?"
Shootings are scrutinized by civilian review boards.
I believe the term "review board" appears verbatim in what I said.
Officers can be indicted on charges.
I've certainly mentioned legal charges, too.
The departments can be sued civilly. The officer themselves can be sued civilly.
These I've mentioned over and over again. In Message 185 I even asked people to pick a number between $0 and $10 million in the Vanessa Marquez case. I picked $3 million. Care to take a chance and pick a number?
And it can and does go to a Grand Jury if there's even a hint of impropriety.
You're making stuff up again, and it's the same stuff. It is very rare for a prosecutor to bring charges against police officers, and unless they do then it isn't going to a grand jury. There are "hints of impropriety" all over the Stephon Clark case, yet that one's' not going to a grand jury. There are "hints of propriety" all over the Vanessa Marquez case, but that one's not going to a grand jury, either.
This isn't "The Shield," Percy... this is how it works in the real world, not your fictionalized, far-removed Hollywood version of reality.
I don't know what "The Shield" is, but you basically repeated what I'd just said, and then for some strange reason known only to yourself claimed that when I said it it was wrong but when you said it it was right. You are very weird.
If you're just trying to say that there are times the police need guns then I agree with you. It's just that it shouldn't be rank and file police who have guns, only specially trained units.
Those officers in the videos are rank and file police. Patrol officers, which is the lifeblood of every single department and are the one's on the front lines are the ones who need them more than anyone else because they statistically encounter the highest frequency of deadly force scenarios.
Of course they do, because they're the ones armed with deadly force. Take their guns away and the number of deadly force scenarios will go way down.
I'm not saying that cops are stupid at all. I'm saying that the vast majority of police lie under the huge belly of the bell shaped curve and are somewhere around average, which isn't good enough to be carrying a gun.
Says you... the guy who doesn't even know the measure deadly force shootings are based upon.
Says me? Are you daft? You really have no clue how a bell shaped curve works, do you? That's okay, I can say the same thing a different way.
The majority of those in our nation's police forces are just average. The very best and the very worst represent a very small proportion. On average your average police person is just average and doesn't have the skills, knowledge or judgment to be armed with a deadly weapon.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 205 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-08-2019 2:00 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 210 of 670 (849443)
03-10-2019 11:30 AM
Reply to: Message 208 by Hyroglyphx
03-09-2019 11:49 PM


Re: More on the Stephon Clark Shooting
Those are all post facto rationalizations for why the police were justified in firing 20 shots at a man armed with a cell phone, and all these rationalizations fail. Stephon Clark was a criminal, ill-tempered and confused person. That's not a capital offense, just as needing a wellness check is not a capital offense, nor is calling 911 a capital offense, nor is running away from cops a capital offense, nor is being obnoxious when placed in a police van a capital offense.
You need to find reasons why armed police are not a public safety hazard. So far you're not finding any.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 208 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-09-2019 11:49 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 211 of 670 (849505)
03-12-2019 9:44 AM


$30 Million Dollar Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed in Nashville
As first mentioned in Message 195, this past July Officer Andrew Delke of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department shot and killed Daniel Hambrick while he was running away. The murder was captured on video:
Delke has already been indicted for murder by a grand jury (hey, Hryo, finally an example for you of how grand juries actually fit into the legal process), but now Hambrick's family has filed a lawsuit asking $30 million in punitive damages.
And just look at where Delke fired his weapon: in a residential neighborhood where anyone who was checking their mailbox or picking up their newspaper or walking their dog or children playing in the front yard would have been exposed to any of his shots. How far does a bullet travel after missing it's target? Would a mile be a reasonable guess? Officer Delke was firing bullets that could probably travel a mile or more before striking an object - or a person. He supposedly fired four bullets, and Hambrick was struck only three times. Do you think they ever found that fourth bullet? Since there were no other bodies on the ground besides Hambrick's we know it didn't strike a person, but it struck something. What did it hit, and how close did it come to hitting someone?
Delke's likely just an average guy with average judgement and average emotions and average skills (actually, given that he hit a running Hambrick three times from a fair distance, I'd say he has above average marksman skills), yet he fired shots in a residential neighborhood full of families and children. He shouldn't be carrying a deadly weapon.
That's no shame on him - very few possess the necessary qualities to carry a deadly weapon around in public. Poor schmucks like Delke are not to blame. Statistically in a large country like the US where we issue deadly weapons to all our police, incidents like this are going to happen to some police officer somewhere every day, and this particular day it was Delke's turn. It is our local governments and our society in general that allows our public spaces to be peppered with individuals carrying deadly weapons. Until it stops the police condoned murders (usually, though not this time) will continue.
Source: Family of Black Man Killed by White Nashville Officer Sues Him and the City
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Spelling.

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 212 of 670 (850066)
03-30-2019 9:30 AM
Reply to: Message 170 by Percy
02-13-2019 8:09 PM


Re: Yet Again
Back in February six police officers in Vellejo, California, shot and killed 20-year old rapper Willie McCoy as he awoke after sleeping in his car. The police report laid all the responsibility for McCoy's death on him. I said we wouldn't really know what happened unless there was body cam footage. Well guess what - there was, six of them to be exact (be warned that it is disturbing):
The police were faced with a man sleeping in a car with a gun in his lap. As he groggily awakens he moves in a way that police interpret as reaching for his gun and they fire 25 shots. McCoy dies at the scene.
These police were obviously unprepared for handling an armed waking man. I'm no police expert, but one idea is to have a sharpshooter train his gun on the sleeping man, then from a distance throw rocks at the car window until the man wakes up, for as long as it takes. When he wakes up you give him instructions with the understanding that a waking man, particularly one who might have been on drugs, will be groggy and disoriented. But if he is seen with a gun in his hand then the sharpshooter fires.
The police also showed wanton disregard for public safety. The Taco Bell where this happened is within 200 feet of Route 80, and right on major artery Admiral Callaghan Lane. Within 1000 feet are a mattress company, McDonalds, Target, a jewelers, a nail salon, a clothing store, Panda Express, Bank of America, a diner, a Mexican restaurant, Applebees, Home Depot, Olive Garden, Black Angus Steakhouse, T-Mobile, PetCo, Bed Bath and Beyond, Michaels and more.
As I said earlier, though it won't make up for the loss of their son, the McCoy family can expect a serious payout from the city of Vallejo.
AbE: Rhetorical question: How is a sleeping man with a gun in his lap a significantly different danger than a man in an open-carry state with a gun on his hip?
Also, why is it that open-carry requires more legislation and permits than concealed carry? People have a right to know who is armed on their streets. Firearms should be carried out in the open where they can be seen. The concealed carry people should have to wear a red warning sticker on their forehead.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : AbE.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 170 by Percy, posted 02-13-2019 8:09 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 213 by Percy, posted 04-14-2019 3:41 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 213 of 670 (850808)
04-14-2019 3:41 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by Percy
03-30-2019 9:30 AM


Re: Yet Again
Just adding a little detail to the police murder of Willie McCoy. In my previous post I said Vallejo police were obviously improperly trained to handle an armed waking man and suggested that they should have followed a much less lethal approach, such as having a sharp shooter aimed and ready while they threw pebbles at the window of McCoy's car until he woke up, for as long as it took.
It turns out that this is pretty much part of standard police training in such situations. As the McCoy family pointed out in Police release body cam video of fatal Taco Bell drive-thru shooting, family plans to file lawsuit, other area police departments use a "time and distance" approach. Their suggestion was staying back a safe distance while using a loud speaker.
In Willie McCoy Should Be Alive Today the ACLU makes a similar suggestion, saying:
quote:
Many police departments require officers to prioritize the preservation of human life, and not create dangerous situations that lead to an unnecessary killing. For example, the Seattle Police Dept.’s policies instruct officers to “take reasonable care that their actions do not precipitate an unnecessary, unreasonable, or disproportionate use of force, by placing themselves or others in jeopardy, or by not following policy or training.” These kinds of policies are in line with best practices recommended by the Police Executive Research Forum, which directs law enforcement agencies to train officers on using distance, cover, and time to manage potentially dangerous situations without the use of lethal force.
But it isn't possible or reasonable to expect all one million police officers in the US to have and maintain the necessary degree of proper training, not to mention the presence of mind to adhere to that training in stressful situations.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 212 by Percy, posted 03-30-2019 9:30 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 214 of 670 (850809)
04-14-2019 3:57 PM


When is a stun gun not a stun gun?
Answer: When it's a handgun.
The Bucks County District Attorney decided that a Pennsylvania police officer will not be charged after shooting an unarmed man with his handgun because he believe he had pulled out his Taser (Police officer 'excused' after mistakenly using his gun instead of his Taser to shoot unarmed inmate in cell, DA says). The man recovered.
Eric Courtney Harris and Oscar Grant were not so lucky:
quote:
Robert Bates, a reserve deputy with the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office in Oklahoma, said he meant to use his Taser stun gun, not his revolver, on suspect Eric Courtney Harris, who had been tackled by other deputies and was being held on the ground on April 2, 2015.
Bates was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and given a four-year sentence.
In a 2009 case, a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer fired his gun instead of his Taser, killing 22-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland, California.
The former officer, Johannes Mehserle, testified that he had meant to use his Taser but drew his gun instead. Mehserle was sentenced to two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter but was released early due to good conduct.
Police firing their handguns when they meant to fire their Tasers: who woulda thought. Well, actually, this is what everyone should have expected. When you issue a million handguns to normal people there are going to be accidents, and innocent people (of capital crimes, at least) are going to die.
--Percy

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 215 of 670 (851518)
04-26-2019 7:37 AM
Reply to: Message 191 by Percy
02-23-2019 7:05 PM


The Shooting of Justine Damond Goes to Court
I briefly mentioned the Justine Damond police shooting at the end of Message 191. Damond was shot and killed when she reported a rape, then walked up to the window of the police car when it arrived and was immediately shot.
The shooter, Officer Mohamed Noor, is now getting his day in court, and it's very revealing about police practices. From Minnesota officer says he fatally shot unarmed woman to save partner's life:
quote:
His attorneys have said he feared an ambush, and Noor testified about "counter-ambush" training that included scenarios such as two officers in a squad car, doing routine tasks, and an instructor yelling "Threat!" The officers had to make a quick decision about whether to shoot, Noor said.
"Action is better than reaction," Noor said. "If you're reacting, that means it's too late ... to protect yourself. ... You die."
Noor described another training exercise where he was sent to a location, heard gunshots and instead of assessing the threat, he ran toward it. An instructor shot him with a paintball gun, he said.
"So the point is if you don't do your job correctly, you'll get killed," Plunkett said.
"Yes sir," Noor answered.
Noor was a victim of his own department's training, putting him in a state of extreme paranoia and telling them to shoot first and ask questions later, otherwise they'd end up dead.
Police without guns don't drive themselves into ambush situations for which they've been trained to shoot themselves out of trouble. No guns means police would be forced to adopt (and receive training for) a more careful and circumspect approach.
Obviously the police are deathly afraid of guns. That's why there are so many cases of the police firing 10 or 20 shots at unarmed people.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by Percy, posted 02-23-2019 7:05 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

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 Message 216 by Minnemooseus, posted 04-26-2019 7:45 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 217 of 670 (851532)
04-27-2019 10:28 PM


The Police Really Shouldn’t Have Guns

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 219 of 670 (851691)
04-30-2019 9:19 PM
Reply to: Message 218 by Minnemooseus
04-30-2019 8:10 PM


Re: Minneapolis Police Officer Convicted Of Murder In 911 Caller Death
I'm sort of both happy and sad. Happy because it *was* murder, and sad because I'm not convinced Noor should be the only one held accountable. Unless his characterization of police training procedures is false, his department should be held accountable, too.
Noor could be sentenced to prison for up to 12.5 years (I think - the article says he was convicted of both 2nd degree manslaughter and 3rd degree murder, so if he can be sentenced for both and the sentences do not run concurrently then it could be as much as 16.5 years). Sentencing will be June 7th at 9 AM. I assume he'll file an appeal.
Damond's family is suing "his partner Harrity, former Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau, current Chief Medaria Arradondo and the city of Minneapolis. The family is seeking millions of dollars in damages over what it considers a violation of Ruszczyk's civil rights." (Noor guilty in Damond's killing: Here's what happens next). Even though police officers are almost never found guilty of manslaughter or murder while on duty, it's still extremely expensive and time consuming for their bosses and employers, though probably only the insurance companies pay.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 218 by Minnemooseus, posted 04-30-2019 8:10 PM Minnemooseus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 220 by Minnemooseus, posted 05-04-2019 2:38 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


(1)
Message 221 of 670 (852109)
05-07-2019 11:36 AM


The Police Just Keep Shooting
This past March in Oklahoma City eighth-grader Lorenzo Clerkley and his friends wanted to play basketball, but it was raining so they gathered a few air-soft and BB guns and went to an abandoned house to play. A neighbor called in a report of breaking and entering with guns to police, also saying they weren't sure if the guns were real. The police arrived as Lorenzo was jumping out a window (the back door was locked). Police Sergeant Kyle Holcomb ordered "Show me your hands, drop it!" Six tenths of a second later, according to body cam footage, Holcomb fired four shots, hitting Lorenzo twice, once in the hip and once in the leg, neither life threatening.
Lorenzo's family has no health insurance and does not know how they will pay his medical bills. Lorenzo missed three weeks of school. Officer Holcomb was cleared of all blame and has already returned to work. The family has filed a civil suit.
Some might remember that in 2017 Oklahoma City officers investigating a hit-and-run saw Magdiel Sanchez standing on his porch with a two-foot long metal pipe. They ordered him to drop the pipe. Neighbors yelled, "He's deaf, he can't hear you." Never aware of the police or their shouted orders, Magdiel descended the porch steps. Police opened fire, killing Magdiel. The officers were completely cleared.
In another incident the same year Oklahoma City Sergeant Keith Sweeney and two other officers were dispatched to investigate a man threatening to kill himself. Upon arriving at the scene Sweeney found Dustin Pigeon armed with a Bic lighter and a can of lighter fluid. Dustin was ordered by the two other officers to put them down, and he complied. But Sweeney escalated the situation by approaching Dustin and threatening to shoot him. One officer fired a bean-bag round at Dustin, presumably because Sweeney had approached Dustin closely enough to be vulnerable to attack, then Sweeney fired four shots. Dustin Pigeon died at the scene. Sweeney was charged with murder and is still awaiting trial.
None of these situations, not eighth-grader Lorenzo's, not deaf Magdiel's, not despondent Dustin's, required police to be armed with guns. If police did not have guns Lorenzo would not have been shot, and Magdiel and Dustin would not be dead.
These situations also show that not only are police deathly afraid of guns, but also of pipes and lighter fluid.
Source: Officer Opens Fire on Eighth-grader
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 223 of 670 (852641)
05-14-2019 8:51 PM


Texas Police Officer Commits Another Shooting
Reports are sketchy thus far, but I would venture to guess that Pamela Shantay Turner was not an upstanding law abiding citizen. She was wanted on several outstanding warrants for assault and criminal mischief. And yes, my use of the past tense means she is dead.
A Baytown, Texas, police officer attempted to arrest Turner last night. A struggle ensued, he tased her, she fell to the ground, he moved to stand over her to cuff her, she grabbed the officer's Taser and fired at him, grazed him, the officer backed away, then drew his gun and fired five shots. Turner died at the scene. A video taken by a bystander has gone viral:
Now imagine the officer had no handgun, no Taser. He sees Turner, tells her she's under arrest, a struggle ensues and Turner breaks away. While the officer has no handgun or Taser he does have a handheld walkie-talkie and calls for assistance as he remains within visual contact of Turner. Another officer or two eventually arrive and together they take her into custody.
I like to guess the payouts on these police shootings, and in this case I'll guess that Baytown, Texas, will pay out about $2 million. The officer will be found to have conducted himself properly and no charges will be filed, even though he failed to secure his Taser before attempting to cuff Turner.
Source: Police Officer Fatally Shoots Woman
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 224 by Percy, posted 05-18-2019 10:10 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
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