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Author Topic:   Police Shootings
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 401 of 670 (868096)
12-07-2019 9:13 AM
Reply to: Message 388 by DrJones*
12-06-2019 9:57 AM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
DrJones* writes:
What action did the man take that police responded to by shooting him dead?
he put on a suicide vest and went out in public.
I know there's enormous impetus for people to view this as a heroic outcome for the police, especially given the backstory (unknown to police at the time he was killed) of having served time in prison for terrorist activity and having already murdered two police, but you have to consider what dangers are presented to society in general in approving the killing of a defenseless man lying on the ground.
Yes, he put on a fake suicide vest. So does a guy trying to make it into comedy on open mic night by doing his terrorist routine. As he walks past the bars on the way to his gig an unrelated skirmish breaks out, someone screams "suicide vest," he's attacked and attempts to defend himself, he's lying on the ground and passersby are being pulled off him while policemen point their guns, and the next thing you know he's dead.
And the worst part of it is that likely no policemen would be charged.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 388 by DrJones*, posted 12-06-2019 9:57 AM DrJones* has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 408 by DrJones*, posted 12-07-2019 1:42 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 402 of 670 (868097)
12-07-2019 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 393 by ringo
12-06-2019 12:17 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
ringo writes:
Percy writes:
At least in this country, police are almost never prosecuted when they kill someone. That fact is why this thread exists.
I think you're weakening your case by nitpicking about an example where the shooting was clearly justifiable.
I think the pushback my views on this incident are receiving are a reflection of the degree to which the culture of guns has affected everyone. It is so pervasive that it has shifted the entire debate rightward. There's been no diminishment in the number of situations where the public believes police were justified in using lethal force.
I'm not playing a political game in this thread by carefully choosing cases that best support my views. I'm taking on all unjustifiable (in my view) police shootings without regard to how difficult making the case will be. This one is, on the surface, a tough one. It's the obvious execution style of the killing that makes this incident worth taking on.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 393 by ringo, posted 12-06-2019 12:17 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 404 by Tangle, posted 12-07-2019 9:57 AM Percy has replied
 Message 405 by ringo, posted 12-07-2019 10:42 AM Percy has replied
 Message 407 by Hyroglyphx, posted 12-07-2019 1:33 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 403 of 670 (868098)
12-07-2019 9:50 AM
Reply to: Message 394 by Tangle
12-06-2019 12:26 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Tangle writes:
Percy writes:
The suspect was not attempting to kill anyone prior to the moment he was killed but was being held down by passersby. He was killed immediately after the last passersby was pulled off.
And then shot - presumably in the head - ...
And yet not a single news report says where the suspect was shot. Just now was the fourth or fifth time I've tried to find this information. So sure, presumably in the head, I agree, but we can't forget that's not yet a fact.
...because he had a fake suicide vest on and had already proved his intentions.
Police somehow do often manage to arrest rather than kill violent offenders who "had already proved his intentions."
That's policy and training and I can't see what other policy could work...
Since the suicide vest was fake, a policy of not killing people when it's not necessary would have worked just fine. I know the police couldn't know the vest was fake, but it isn't clear they ever saw the vest before killing him. The policemen were already positioning themselves for a shot (this cannot be denied, since they did shoot him - twice) before the passersby were all removed.
This can be sold as being prepared to take a shot in case it becomes necessary because if the shots were fired when we think they were (immediately after the last passersby was removed from danger, but no video I've seen includes the actual shots, so this is difficult to confirm) then this argues that the police were preparing for a shot, not just remaining prepared.
...in anything more than an armchair tactician's mind with all the time in the world to replay videos of the event from all angles.
The policemen in the videos had a much better view than any of the videos. Did the policemen have body cameras? There's another fact we don't know.
Remarkably little additional information (more like none) is emerging. The relevant stories returned by a Google News search are all several days old.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 394 by Tangle, posted 12-06-2019 12:26 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 406 of 670 (868111)
12-07-2019 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 395 by PaulK
12-06-2019 1:12 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
PaulK writes:
quote:
I think I am only guilty of arguing for my position, as are you.
I think that it should be self-evident that a trained professional would not be taking silly risks.
How many trained professionals (not just police but in any field) are in jail or dead from taking unnecessary risks or making mistakes? Trained professionals aren't movie superheroes. They're just people - they're not perfect and they make mistakes, just like everyone else.
To argue against that with anything but sarcasm seems pointless. Yet this goes on and on.
There was something grammatically wrong with your words as originally written, so I've modified them to what I think you intended.
If all you've got is sarcasm then I guess that's all you've got. Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying that ridicule is the proper response to unintelligible propositions - perhaps assessing whether my propositions are truly unintelligible is worthwhile before resorting to solely sarcastic responses.
quote:
Uh, because you're not?
Since I am obviously correct that isn’t it.
An obviously sarcastic response.
quote:
And you know this how?
Because a head shot at close range with an accurate weapon is very unlikely to hit the vest.
Assumptions you're making that are reasonable but that are, at this stage, still assumptions and not facts:
  • It was a head shot (or two shots - reports are that the suspect was shot twice, but there's not yet any information about where)
  • The shots were at close range. There's no video that includes the actual shots.
  • The head shot was unlikely to hit the vest. But what if the suspect suddenly jumps up just as a policeman is firing. If you watch the video carefully around 23 seconds you'll see the suspect appears to be rising from the ground as the last passersby is pulled off.
quote:
I'll interpret this confused explanation as an indication that you'd like to drop this point.
I’ll interpret that as a desire to be let off the hook for the obvious misrepresentation. Especially as there is nothing confused in my explanation at all.
I'll interpret this as an inability to defend your confusion of verbiage while substituting an unsupported and unspecified accusation of misrepresentation.
quote:
That's always the police defense: they felt threatened, and the threat justified use of deadly force. Courts and the public are very gradually diminishing their acceptance of this defense.
Since the nature of the attack and the apparent presence of a suicide vest give good reason to perceive a threat - extending to the members of the public the police were extracting from the situation - I think that defence holds up in this case.
Since it was a fake suicide vest and the man was unarmed on the ground, this is just another case of the police claiming they felt threatened when the reality was there was no threat. Figuring out that the suicide vest was fake does present a conundrum, but separating the real from the fake is a very necessary police skill without which there would be many shootings of innocent civilians. It reminds me of the case of Tamir Rice, who was shot by police mere seconds after they arrived for carrying an authentic looking toy rifle that had lost its orange barrel marker indicating a toy.
quote:
It is neither newly-invented nor a misrepresentation. I described this before, though not in a post to you. Read the thread
I have and I see no such message,
Message 368
quote:
If you had "already explained" this then the words "detonator" and "hand" would have appeared in one of your earlier posts, but they don't.
It is a fact that English has many ways of expressing things. For instance the phrase reaching for the detonator implies that it was not in his hand.
That would be your Message 356, which makes no comment about the comparative ease of a detonator switch versus a dead man's switch. Care to try again?
quote:
How small can they make switches these days?
You missed the reference to the wiring - also he would have had to be holding it closed even if the switch was too small to be visible.
In all the hubbub you think it likely that little wires disappearing up a sleeve would have been noticed?
quote:
You raised the fact that "he would have had to arm it first" as an objection to the dead man's switch possibility, so I pointed out that one only has to press the switch to activate the bomb.
I raised it to point out that it would make the dead man switch effectively the same as a manual detonator.
I've made the same point. On this we agree.
quote:
No you didn't.
The board software makes it easy to advance forward and backward in a subthread, and it does have a search facility. Prior posts are not a black box.
Message 371:
But he clearly planned to die. Taking the chance that he changed his mind doesn’t seem to be a good risk.
OMG, you've included a link and even an excerpt in your message! Be still my heart!
Unfortunately your excerpt is completely unrelated to the issue about the carnage the suspect could cause. Your excerpt was actually a response to my assertion that we couldn't know what was in the mind of the suspect, and all it does is make more claims about what you think you know about the mind of the suspect. Your ability to read minds, especially after someone is dead, is amazing. Maybe you can tell us why the Los Vegas shooter did it, that one's still a mystery.
quote:
We were talking about your certainty of the mind of the suspect. The question wasn't about the reality of the unlikelihood of him escaping. It was about your certainty about what the suspect believed was possible, because what he believed possible would govern his decision making about what actions to take.
I think we can be certain that he was aware that he was in the ground, surrounded by armed police.
You think that while fighting off a pile-on of passersby that he would have noticed police arriving? It's certainly possible but nothing near a certainty, not even close.
quote:
When there are many possible ways something could play out, i.e., many possibilities, of course they're not all consistent with one another. We mustn't become stuck upon one scenario based upon what actually played out but must keep in mind the variety of ways things could have played out.
Disingenuous. The issue is the evaluation of the vest as a threat, given the information the officers had. That should remain constant unless you can give a good reason why it might not. It should not change drastically depending on the argument you wish to make.
I've already said several times that we don't know the police were aware of the vest. It is part of the narrative that has been made public, but no video shows the vest being visible before police shoot him. There is a poor quality image I posted earlier of the deceased suspect possibly lying in what is possibly a pool of his own blood with two silver bands around his torso that could be anything, including duct tape. Here's the image again:
I’ll also point out that merely coming up with unlikely possibilities that happen to favour your view does nothing to advance the discussion.
Declaring possibilities unlikely is one way of ignoring them, but you might be missing that one must also take into account the potential consequences of any possibility. If someone said to you, "If you don't take this pill you have a .01% chance of getting a cold," you probably wouldn't take the pill. But if someone instead said, "If you don't take this pill you have a .01% chance of dying," you'd definitely take the pill. The potential consequences matter. A lot. But probability and statistics like this are not natural to the human mind. It's why most people fear shark attacks more than lightning strikes.
quote:
The YouTube video is a sequence of shorter videos of the event concatenated together. I can't know what you're looking at unless you tell me the point in time in the video that you're looking at. Here's the video again, it would be appreciated if you could tell me the time in the video I should look at
20-23 seconds in.
So you're saying that you could tell the gun was pointed at the suspect's head at between 20-23 seconds.s Here's the video queued up to just that point. Please explain how you can tell where he's aiming, especially given the movement of suspect. Put it in pause mode and advance frame by frame by hitting ".", then explain how your stance makes sense:
Note that Tangle confirmed in Message 378 that the Met’s firearms doctrine calls for a headshot.
Wow, two links in one message. Again, step through that video one frame at a time starting at 20 seconds and tell me where you think you see something resembling a suicide vest being visible to police.
quote:
How does it undermine the point?
Underline, not undermine,
Ah, okay, sorry. So you're saying that a fake suicide vest gives you insights into the mind of the suspect, and a real vest even more so. I'm not following you. Fake versus real suicide vests seem to lead down completely different realms of possibilities. A fake vest would lead you to consider scenarios where he wants to threaten or cause fear and panic or make people run away or make people leave him alone. A real vest would lead you to consider scenarios where he wants to kill people and/or doesn't want to be captured alive and so forth.
quote:
This repeats the same error. If you don't know the mind of the suspect, you also can't know if he changed it
I didn’t claim to know.
You did claim to know. You repeatedly keep claiming to know the mind of the suspect with statements like, "But he clearly planned to die," etc.
Whether he did or not is irrelevant because we can’t know - and nor could the armed police on the scene.
Yes, I agree, that's what I've been arguing all along.
quote:
I could agree that they seem less likely, not "far less likely," but even "far less likely" is not the same as "can be ignored" given the catastrophic consequences of being wrong.
I’ve seen no reason to think that my evaluation is wrong.
If you do say so yourself.
But even if I am...
Oh, heaven forbid, you can't think you'd ever be wrong. Where would that lead? Humility, perhaps? Can't have that.
- given the catastrophic consequences of being wrong - either way - it would be insane to go with the choice most likely to be wrong. Yet here you are...
You're operating with incomplete information.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 395 by PaulK, posted 12-06-2019 1:12 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 409 by PaulK, posted 12-07-2019 2:50 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 410 of 670 (868225)
12-09-2019 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 396 by Hyroglyphx
12-06-2019 3:41 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Hyroglyphx writes:
I said I was done with you in Message 339, and as long as you continue with your "argumentation through misrepresentation" I'm still done with you.
Are you done with me on this thread or done with me period? I can always leave the forum if my presence is not welcome. Just say the word and I'll fall on my sword.
I can't be sure if this is true, but sometimes it seems like you confuse Percy with Admin. I'm just Percy. I have no moderator power, especially in threads where I'm a participant. I can't keep completely separate the two personas, and as Percy I probably reference Forum Guidelines issues more than your average member, but I have no enforcement powers. My opinion about whether you should leave the forum (which you should't, in my opinion) carries no more weight than any other non-admin.
Before that happens, perhaps you can tell me what I'm saying that's so different from what everyone else is. If I'm arguing through misrepresentation then isn't everyone else? Thus far their arguments seem very rational and reasonable.
The forum is approaching it's 19th anniversary, and if I've learned anything in those 19 years it's that you can't explain to people what they're doing wrong. People do what they do and post what they post because they believe it right and true. But their believing this doesn't make them right. It isn't uncommon for people to have gross misperceptions of reality, as attested to by the several conspiracy theory aficionados here.
One of us must be wrong. Either you're determined to misrepresent what I say and to argue against straw men (though that's clearly not how you see it), or I don't see the wrongness in what I'm saying and so don't recognize my own ideas when they're echoed back to me by others.
Arguing for the former view is that Theodoric also saw you as playing the misrepresentation game, and we both became fed up with it at about the same time.
How did this happen that someone trying hard to get things right can get them so wrong while still believing he's right and being bewildered by the responses he's getting? I don't know. Your avatar still makes no sense to me - it clearly states you're anti-alt-right while your posts echo many of their talking points.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 396 by Hyroglyphx, posted 12-06-2019 3:41 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 419 by Hyroglyphx, posted 12-09-2019 3:23 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 411 of 670 (868231)
12-09-2019 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 397 by Hyroglyphx
12-06-2019 4:02 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Hyroglypx writes:
They should have ordered the suspect to remain on the ground as the passersby were removed from on top of him. When the last passerby was pulled away then any attempt by the suspect to rise would justify shooting him.
How would his standing or lying alter whether or not a bomb would detonate?
It wouldn't. Only a few people were close by and in danger from a possible explosive device. Once the last passerby was removed you don't want the suspect running toward a crowd or a bus.
In the leg. I of course don't buy the argument that every police use of their weapon must be a kill shot.
I don't know how it works in the UK, but I imagine that the rationale is similar if not exact to US methodology -- that the only reason to ever fire your weapon is only if there is a deadly force situation. So if you shot with the intent to maim where there is no justifiable reason to assume a deadly force situation, you're committing a crime. That is what less lethal options are available for.
That's a significant part of the problem in a nutshell, that given police training if they decide to shoot that it can only be to kill. It's a binary decision dependent upon whether in their judgment lethal force is required.
But the real world isn't binary. It's analog, and that means there's a continuum ranging from "clearly no lethal force is required" all the way up to "clearly lethal force is required." Where does one place the point beyond which one is close enough to the upper end of the range to use lethal force? How does one accurate assess that point? I think everyone would agree that that's a judgment call, but the evidence clearly suggests that possessing a gun makes people choose a lower threshold.
And if they can hit a head, the brainstem in fact as suggested in the description of Operation Kratos tactics, then they can hit a leg.
In any event, based upon the way these officers were moving and shot placement...
I have the same question for you as I've had for PaulK. What video and timestamp are you looking at that tells you anything about shot placement?
As I've said earlier, had the police done nothing substantial and it ended up being a real vest packed with explosives, many more people surely would have been killed. And then the police are placed in a situation where they had the ability to mitigate lives lost and failed to respond appropriately.
"Nothing substantial" is kind of vague, but we're probably in agreement that doing "nothing substantial" was not appropriate.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, most would agree that the lesser of evils was acted upon that day.
Yes, I know. I've seen no indication in the news of anyone questioning whether killing the suspect was necessary. It seems to be just me.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 397 by Hyroglyphx, posted 12-06-2019 4:02 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 412 of 670 (868236)
12-09-2019 11:24 AM
Reply to: Message 398 by PaulK
12-06-2019 4:17 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
PaulK writes:
I note that you avoid quoting the section of Tangle’s post that is most relevant to this case.
In extreme situations, the policy recommends that covert police officers fire on suspected suicide attackers without warning, aiming multiple shots at the brain stem to minimise the risk of detonation of a bomb.
Tangle cut-n-pasted without attribution, and I sought out the source of his cut-n-paste and posted a link to the full Wikipedia article. Of what use would quoting from Tangle's cut-n-paste be?
I have asked time and again for evidence or testimony of where the suspect was actually shot. It's been insisted many multiple times that he must have been shot in the head, that in fact there's video showing that he was shot in the head, and that he was shot there because he was wearing what appeared to be a suicide vest. There has been no response to my repeated requests for evidence the suspect was shot in the head.
I have also questioned at what point the police had visual evidence that the suspect was wearing a suicide vest, and there's been no answer to that either.
I don't know why searches didn't turn this up earlier, but I have now come across an article that states where the suspect was shot, and it wasn't in the head. This is from https://www.mirror.co.uk/...ge-terrorist-bled-death-21026112:
quote:
London Bridge terrorist Usman Khan bled to death from "multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen" after his murderous rampage, an inquest has heard.
The convicted terrorist was repeatedly shot in the chest and stomach by a police marksman, the Old Bailey was told.
I don't consider this definitive because it's only a single report, but it's the only report we have so far. I will continue to take no firm position on where the suspect was shot until the evidence is definitive, but I will also continue to question the judgment of those who claim they know where the suspect was shot.
But I'll still do a "what if." What if the police didn't think the suspect was wearing a suicide vest or thought he was only wearing a fake one or thought that it was only a suicide belt that was easy to avoid hitting. The suspect was already disarmed and lying on the ground. Why was it necessary to kill him?
I know the suspect had already served time in prison for terrorist related activities, but the police didn't know that at the time. I know the police knew that he had attacked people with knives, but they didn't know that it was two fatally, and in fact one of them didn't die until after the suspect was killed.
Police arrest dangerous murderous people all the time. It's why many murderers are in prisons instead in cemeteries. Why not this one?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 398 by PaulK, posted 12-06-2019 4:17 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 413 by Tangle, posted 12-09-2019 11:44 AM Percy has replied
 Message 414 by PaulK, posted 12-09-2019 12:03 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 415 of 670 (868252)
12-09-2019 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 400 by PaulK
12-07-2019 2:45 AM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
PaulK writes:
quote:
PaulK writes:
If he had a detonator in his hand and if the police officer standing right over it couldn’t tell how he was holding it you might have a point.
If you knew the suspect's hands were visible while passersby were atop him then you might have a point.
No. That’s just nuts. If they can’t see his hands they can’t confuse a deadman switch in his hand with a manual detonator in his hand.
More importantly, they can't even tell if either type of switch even exists.
quote:
I can tell you think an argument was made where the point about a detonator was necessary but missing, but without more information I can't tell what argument you're referring to.
No, we’re talking about my argument that a manual detonator was more likely than a deadman switch because the belt hadn’t detonated.
Oh, okay, I understand now that "the argument" and "it" referred to an argument you had made, not me. I was assuming the opposite. Could you please remake your point if you think it important?
quote:
Sure, if that were the whole story, but 2019 London Bridge stabbing - Wikipedia says the knives were taped to his wrists. Was that done in a way that left his hands free? We don't know at this time.
It would be pretty hard to use a knife while clenching a switch in his hand.
With the knives taped to his wrists, why can't his hands be in fists?
Further I think you're thinking of a switch like this, and it doesn't have to be this kind of switch:
quote:
You said, "The suicide vest wasn’t noticed until they were pulling people off him." Where in the video do you think you're able to tell that they noticed a suicide vest? It's not in the first 20 seconds, and you say yourself that the people piled on top obscured the view.
And I supported my point by indicating that there were people in the way so that they couldn’t see the belt. That is visible in the video, just as I said. I don’t think you can tell exactly when they notice and never claimed that it could be seen.
You can't say you never claimed the vest could be seen because you said exactly that in Message 367: "The suicide vest wasn’t noticed until they were pulling people off him." Unless I'm parsing this wrong, this says that they saw the vest after pulling off the passersby.
quote:
The video also doesn't show any shots being fired, and if you start watching at time 30 seconds you'll see a video taken from a bus that shows the policemen at some distance from the suspect, who, if you watch carefully, is still moving. Some part of him bobs up above the divider fencing just as the camera is panning away.
I don’t see how that helps your point
That information was in support of the point that there is much that we do not know. What we have is fragmentary video from different cameras with different perspectives that might not even be arranged in the correct time order, and we have the words of police spokespeople.
Given the information that the suspect was killed with multiple body shots (which should not yet be accepted as gospel, but it's from https://www.mirror.co.uk/...ge-terrorist-bled-death-21026112), it's possible he was first shot in the chest and/or body at close range, then the police retreated because they saw what looked like a suicide belt (not a vest since they were willing to take body shots), then when he continued moving (as shown in the video on the bus) they took more body shots from greater range.
I earlier argued that the bomb squad should have been called to help deal with the suspect, and some reports say that bomb squad vehicles were observed at the site (e.g., A total of three dead after “terror” incident at London Bridge – South London News).
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 400 by PaulK, posted 12-07-2019 2:45 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 416 by PaulK, posted 12-09-2019 1:26 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 417 of 670 (868261)
12-09-2019 2:18 PM
Reply to: Message 404 by Tangle
12-07-2019 9:57 AM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Tangle writes:
Percy writes:
This one is, on the surface, a tough one.
It really isn't.
I meant that this is a tough one, on the surface, to question the propriety of the police shooting.
It's the obvious execution style of the killing that makes this incident worth taking on.
Again, you're equating the police's action in this incident with taking someone to a field and shooting them in the back of the head.
Yeah, pretty much.
The guy was deliberately shot dead because he was a terrorist that had already killed two people and was attempting to kill more.
When the suspect was killed the police only knew that he had attacked people with knives. They didn't know if anyone had been killed, or that the suspect had served time in prison for terrorist related activities.
The police were following a thought-through policy and their training for dealing with a suicide bomber.
And I'm questioning that policy. All policies, no matter how well thought through, evolve and change over time in reaction to how well they work in reality and to changing circumstances and improved insights.
If they acted outside the law, we'll hear about it. But I'm betting anything we won't.
I never got into the legality of the killing of the suspect. I'm simply saying that the currently available information leads me to think it was possibly wrong and unnecessary.
And, btw, I'm speaking as someone anti-gun and anti-capital punishment.
So am I. I have already commented a couple times on how the stubbornness and determination of gun nuts pushing for gun rights has, in my opinion, pushed people's views to the right such that they're more likely to consider a given shooting as right and proper.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 404 by Tangle, posted 12-07-2019 9:57 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 418 by Tangle, posted 12-09-2019 3:21 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 421 of 670 (868322)
12-10-2019 5:13 PM
Reply to: Message 418 by Tangle
12-09-2019 3:21 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Tangle writes:
Percy writes:
Yeah, pretty much.
Thats's a real problem. The situations are not in anyway comparable,...
In the sense of being executions they pretty much are.
When the suspect was killed the police only knew that he had attacked people with knives. They didn't know if anyone had been killed, or that the suspect had served time in prison for terrorist related activities.
Let's be honest neither of us know what they knew.
Assuming you're referring to what you just quoted me saying then it's kind of obvious, but we can go over it anyway.
Since the police did not know the identify of the attacker at that time, they could not possibly know that the suspect had served time in prison for terrorist activities.
And since one victim died about fifteen minutes after the suspect was killed, and the other victim only a few minutes before the suspect was killed, it seems very unlikely that the police on the bridge with the guns could have known that the suspect had killed anyone.
But, we do know that they are armed police, that they have been called to an emergency terrorist incident and it's not the first time.
It wasn't declared a terrorist incident until after it was all over.
And I'm questioning that policy. All policies, no matter how well thought through, evolve and change over time in reaction to how well they work in reality and to changing circumstances and improved insights.
Yup, but the policies in place at the time are the ones used.
No argument there.
And so far I'm not hearing anything better.
Yes you are, right now, from me. Don't use deadly force against defenseless people lying on the ground.
I never got into the legality of the killing of the suspect. I'm simply saying that the currently available information leads me to think it was possibly wrong and unnecessary.
You have no feasible way of assessing that.
This seems like a strange thing to say. Why would anyone be unable to form an opinion based on currently available information?
It was a terrorist incident in progress,...
Again, not judged to be a terrorist incident at that time.
...they acted to policy and training.
That's my point. Policy and training is wrong. There should be an arrested suspect, not a dead one.
If they didn't they're in trouble, that's the way it works.
Well, yes, of course. I naturally agree that police should follow current policy and procedures according to their training. Time to change the policy and procedures.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 418 by Tangle, posted 12-09-2019 3:21 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 423 by Tangle, posted 12-10-2019 5:58 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 422 of 670 (868324)
12-10-2019 5:22 PM
Reply to: Message 405 by ringo
12-07-2019 10:42 AM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
ringo writes:
To be clear, my stance is pretty simple: Where there is a clear and present danger, shoot to kill. A man with a suicide vest is a clear and present danger, period.
Did the police think he was wearing a suicide vest at the time they killed him? That they shot into his chest and abdomen argues no: https://www.mirror.co.uk/...ge-terrorist-bled-death-21026112
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 405 by ringo, posted 12-07-2019 10:42 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 426 by ringo, posted 12-11-2019 2:07 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 424 of 670 (868354)
12-11-2019 7:18 AM


The Jersey City Police Shooting
The headline is pretty informative: Jersey City Shooting: 6 Dead Including Police Detective, 2 Suspects, 3 Civilians - CBS New York
Because it is so early in the news cycle I believe the details provided so far are likely inaccurate and incomplete and will be amended and augmented, but the information available now says that two men wanted for questioning about a homicide were spotted by police officers at a cemetery in Jersey City. The men saw the officers and opened fire on them, injuring one of them, a Detective Michael Kelly. The suspects then fled about a mile to a local grocery in a residential neighborhood, pursued by police.
Police called for backup, which came in droves and included SWAT teams, armored vehicles, canine units, the bomb squad, aviation units and tactical squads, then engaged in an hours long gun battle with the suspects with hundreds of rounds fired. Nearby schools went into lockdown while civilians either huddled in safe places or fled the area.
When it was all over one police officer was dead (a Detective Seals), three were injured (the aforementioned Kelly, and also Ray Sanchez and Mariella Fernandez), three civilians inside the grocery were dead, and the two gunmen were dead. Police believe the civilians were killed by the suspects, but the article did not say why they think so.
I believe it was a serious mistake to engage in a gun battle in a residential neighborhood, or almost anywhere there are people for that matter, unless lives are at stake (in other words, immediate intervention required or people will die). While it's not impossible a negotiator was brought in, none is mentioned in any of the three articles I have read. I don't see how the police could be confident the civilians were killed by the suspects and think it much more likely they were killed by police bullets. Hundreds of rounds were fired into the grocery.
Police believe the stolen U-Haul used by the suspects "may contain an incendiary device," and it's being inspected by the bomb squad. The presence of a suspected "incendiary device" also argues against gunfire.
Did the grocery have a landline that police called, or did police find out who was working inside the grocery at the time and call their cell phone, or, since police knew the identities of the suspects did they know their cell phone numbers or request them from cell phone companies or contact friends who may have known their cell phone numbers? Was any attempt at all made to contact the suspects?
To me this sounds like yet another massive screwup on the part of police who are just as gun happy as the criminals they pursue.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 425 by Percy, posted 12-11-2019 9:17 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 425 of 670 (868360)
12-11-2019 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 424 by Percy
12-11-2019 7:18 AM


Re: The Jersey City Police Shooting
The Washington Post article makes possible a few corrections: https://www.washingtonpost.com/...12/11/jersey-city-shootout.
The police officer killed was actually the one shot at the cemetary, Detective Joseph Seals. No one named Kelly was shot. Michael Kelly is the name of the Police Chief of Jersey City.
The grocery was a kosher market that police suspect was targeted after reviewing security footage from the store, but have not yet described what the video shows. This information is from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulup.
The gunmen's movement was "rapid and continuous for four hours within that area," said Police Chief Kelly.
The final tally is now two police officers wounded, one police officer dead, three civilian dead, and two suspects dead.
As all articles say, it is a sad day in Jersey city, but to my mind they should be mourning only one death, not six.

AbE: More details from the New York Times article: Suspect in Jersey City Linked to Black Hebrew Israelite Group - The New York Times
The suspects were a man and a woman.
One of the suspects had posted anti-Semetic and anti-police posts online.
After killing Detective Kelly at the cemetary, the suspects drove to the kosher grocery and entered with guns firing.
A live pipe bomb was found inside the suspects' van.
Much more information in the article, enough that I'm going to suspend judgment on the appropriateness of the police response for now.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : AbE.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 424 by Percy, posted 12-11-2019 7:18 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 427 of 670 (868384)
12-11-2019 2:09 PM
Reply to: Message 407 by Hyroglyphx
12-07-2019 1:33 PM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Hyroglyphx writes:
Each case has to be judged on its own merits and circumstances without the luxury of hindsight. I recently watched a video of a deputy who was completely out of control...What I would not agree with is that it is representative of why all police should be stripped of their weapons.
My objection is based upon the imperfection of human beings in that they can be careless, angry, mentally ill, depressed, poorly trained, temperamentally unsuited, etc., so it seems completely representative of why I think most police should not be armed, and especially while we have our current policies about the appropriate use of deadly force.
An execution is a person who is constrained, does not pose any kind of threat at the moment, and is deliberately being killed for a punitive reason.
That's pretty close to the way the police killed the suspect. If the initial shots were fired at the time most people are claiming (immediately after the last passersby is pulled off) he was constrained and he posed no threat since he had been disarmed. Maybe it was punitive for attacking people with knives, maybe not.
But you might want to look up execution in a good dictionary. For example, when Joey the hitman snuck up behind someone on a New York City street at night and shot him in the back of the head for his first hit, that was an execution.
You have to remember they ran up to the civilians and the subject and didn't kill anyone... until the moment they saw the hoax bomb.
I've asked a number of times now for when in the videos people can tell that police are noticing what most are calling a suicide vest rather than a hoax bomb, but no one has been able to do so.
In any case, that the suspect was perceived as wearing such a device is unlikely since, as Tangle has helpfully informed us, guidelines call for shooting someone wearing a suicide vest in the brainstem, but in this case police shot the suspect in the chest and abdomen. Would they do so if they thought he was wearing an explosive device? I don't think so.
They observed a threat.
That hasn't been established. Did they actually observe the threat of a suicide vest or hoax bomb? Where's the evidence for this? I'm not claiming it's untrue but that there are many possibilities, and that people seem inappropriately locked in to one of the more heroic narratives but for which there is no publicly available evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 407 by Hyroglyphx, posted 12-07-2019 1:33 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 428 of 670 (868386)
12-11-2019 2:19 PM
Reply to: Message 413 by Tangle
12-09-2019 11:44 AM


Re: Unarmed Police Does Work
Tangle writes:
Percy writes:
Police arrest dangerous murderous people all the time. It's why many murderers are in prisons instead in cemeteries. Why not this one?
Because it's policy and training to use lethal force in a terrorist situation where it is known that the perpetrator is trying to do as much damage as possible with no regard to his own life.
Most of that is post facto information.
That's the way the evidence falls - after studying many suicide bomber incidents in Israel and on home territory shooting them dead was found to cause the least loss of life.
It hasn't been established that the police thought he was wearing a suicide vest at the time he was killed, and that he was shot in the chest and abdomen argues against it.
I have no idea where the terrorist was shot but there will be an inquest and an internal review, and maybe we'll find out.
Might be a good idea to wait until then before reaching conclusions.
But I doubt it because nobody here cares. You won't find many, if any, here trying to second-guess the police shooting that terrorist.
Oh, I've already said that. The narrative's already been established and it's a good one. Only the most stark of evidence could dismantle it.
If he was shot in the chest, the learning point would be about why not the head, not why not the leg or arm or whatever.
Well, we can agree that this represents a learning point, and about accepting the possibility of non-lethal targets. For those police who have guns I'm in favor of including policies, procedures and training for their non-lethal use.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 413 by Tangle, posted 12-09-2019 11:44 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 429 by DrJones*, posted 12-11-2019 2:27 PM Percy has replied
 Message 430 by Tangle, posted 12-11-2019 2:50 PM Percy has replied

  
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