Bad Police Thread - where calling the police is a gamble

(CNN)An Illinois police officer was shot and killed in Lake County on Tuesday, authorities said, and search is on for three suspects.

Law enforcement on foot and in helicopters are combing the area, said Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Christopher Covelli.

The shooting happened about 10 minutes before 8 a.m. local time, according to the sergeant. The slain officer worked for Fox Lake Police, a community of about 60,000 people within Lake County.

The officer radioed that he was pursuing three suspects on foot, according to Cavelli.

The officer described them as two white men and one black man, he told CNN. Radio communication dropped off and backup officers were sent. They found the officer with a gunshot wound. He was a 32-year veteran of the police force, CNN learned from a law enforcement source.

 

The problem is it has played out over and over and over throughout the years and the cops are almost always cleared. Thankfully camera phones aren't allowing that to fly as much these days.

 

Read his next sentence. You missed the sarcasm.

 

(not serious)

 

I'm not sure what I think is worse, the fact that the news station paid $100 for the video or that the person charged $100 for the video

 

at this point he has to be kicking himself. he could have got double that!

 

Lol what????

 

Atlanta-area police officer shot after responding to wrong home

Authorities say an Atlanta-area police officer was shot and critically injured Monday night after officers responding to a call about a suspicious person showed up at the wrong house.

DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander said the officer was shot in the thigh after he and two colleagues entered a home through the back door and identified themselves. Alexander said the officer, whom he did not identify, had lost a lot of blood and was in surgery at a local hospital.

It was not immediately clear who fired the shots. It was not known if the homeowner also had a firearm.

"A lot is yet to be determined here," Alexander said. "But we did respond to the wrong residence tonight."

The chief added that the homeowner was also shot in the leg and that the homeowner's dog was killed. The homeowner's girlfriend was also there at the time of the shooting and called 911.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been called in to examine the incident, which happened in a neighborhood approximately five miles southeast of downtown Atlanta.

Alexander said that the officers had not been given a street address, but went to a home matching the description given by a 911 caller who made the initial report. When the officers went around the back of the house, they found the back door and screen door were unlocked, leading them to believe that someone had broken in.

Derek Perez told The Associated Press that he reported the suspicious person. He said he was walking his dog when he saw a man knock on a neighbor's door and then just stand in the yard. He said he then heard a loud noise, a dog barking and didn't see the man anymore. There had been break-ins in the neighborhood recently, so he called 911, he said.

Just as he was about to go into his house, he heard the gunshots, but they didn't come from the house where he had reported the suspicious person.

Police were still investigating whether there was a burglary at the home where the suspicious person was spotted.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out the homeowner," Alexander said. "And our thoughts and prayers go out to the officer who suffered a severe, critical injury here tonight ... We just hope both of them recover well."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/01/atlanta-area-police-officer-shot-circumstances-unclear/

 

and to follow up:

Police: Friendly fire likely wounded officer in wrong-house encounter

(CNN)A police officer who was shot in the hip while responding to the wrong Atlanta-area home appears to have been shot by one of his colleagues, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.

The incident also left the homeowner wounded, from a gunshot wound, and the homeowner's dog dead, according to police.

"Early investigation indicates that the injured officer was likely shot (accidentally) by one of the other officers on the scene," the GBI report says. "The preliminary GBI investigation indicates that the responding officers likely entered a residence unrelated to the initial 911 call although it matched the given dispatched description."

Though DeKalb County police initially said officers were responding to a 911 call about a suspicious person Monday evening, the GBI said Tuesday that the 911 call reported a "possible burglary in progress."

But the caller didn't give an address for the house where the suspicious person was seen, county public safety director Cedric Alexander said. Instead, the caller described it as a tan-and-brick one-story home, the GBI said.

Three officers went to a house that matched that description near the same intersection, Alexander said. According to the GBI, the officers attempted to contact the home's occupants, to no avail.

They then went to the back of a home where they thought a burglary might be occurring, Alexander said. This was at about 7:35 p.m., roughly a half-hour before sunset.

"Once there at the rear of the residence, they noticed that the screen door was unlocked, and the back door was unlocked," he said.

Alexander said the officers did identify themselves.

"Shortly after that, within a matter of moments, gunfire took place," he said. "During this gunfire, a dog was shot and killed inside a residence."

The GBI's statement provided additional details: "Upon entry to the residence, the officers encountered a dog. Two officers fired their weapons striking and killing the animal in the kitchen. A male in the home, later determined to be the homeowner, exited a room off the kitchen and was also shot by the responding officers."

The homeowner, who suffered a leg wound, was treated and released at Atlanta Medical Center. The officer underwent surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital and is now in serious but stable condition, the GBI said.

"He lost a lot of blood," Alexander said.

Alexander could not confirm whether one or multiple officers fired shots and said the incident remains under investigation.

"But we did respond to the wrong resident here tonight. And then these other circumstances unfolded."

The case was turned over to the GBI to ensure an independent probe.

"When the investigation is complete it will be turned over to the district attorney for any action the district attorney deems appropriate," the GBI said.

All three of the officers who were at the scene will be placed on administrative leave, Alexander said.

The incident occurred in an in-transition neighborhood about 3 miles south of the bars, restaurants and boutique shops of East Atlanta Village. The area is largely populated with apartment complexes, townhomes and one- and two-story single-family residences.

Residents have long complained of steady crime in the area, and they're accustomed to seeing police, whether they're out patrolling or responding to criminal activity.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/01/us/georgia-wrong-house-shooting/

 

cops go to the wrong house, shoot the homeowner, his dog, and themselves.

do I win the thread?

 

That's amazing. Fire everyone involved.

 

What a clusterfuck. I'm imagining a detective trying to explain this to his boss, like the ending of Burn After Reading.

 

I don't know what you've said verbatim in this thread and I'm not going to go back and look, so I'm making a broad generality based off a 51 page thread you started and have been very, very active in.

To me, it seems like you're cherry picking your Supreme Court cases and laws for whatever argument fits you best. On one hand you're saying it's perfectly legal to flip off a police officer so there should not be these kinds of police acts. On the other hand, you take issue with a lot of police acts as being not reasonable or being unjustified, but ignore the many Supreme Court that give cops broad discretion. You say something should have been handled differently and say that was not reasonable, but the majority of these incidents, with a few exceptions, were reasonable by law.

We can argue all day about whether it was the right decision to make, but by and large the discretion laws protect the act that actually was made. We can also argue about whether the law is right or not, but I don't think it's fair to use one side of it for your argument, but ignore the other laws that work against your argument.

I'm only talking about what the actual law is, not the reasonableness of the acts, the level of competency of the cop/cops in general, etc. Only that if the law says flipping off a police officer is legal, you can't ignore the law that says this police act was also legal, even if you disagree with the act fitting into that legality.

 

There is a huge difference between police actions and actions of the public. When police put on the uniform, they are acting are empowered to act against criminals. When they start taking those actions against people that haven't broken the law, they aren't doing the job we asked of them. Additionally, police are agents of the state and the state is us. While acting within the confines of the law is the minimum requirement of the job, that doesn't mean we as citizens can't decide that that's the best our police can do. If enough of us don't like what our police are doing - even if it's legal - we can change the rules and ask them to do their job differently. The police are only allowed to do as much as we as a society let them do.

 

I don't disagree with what you're saying and legislation and the courts can change what is a reasonable act, my point is that based on the laws as they stand right now, police have a lot of discretion. Every situation is going to be different from the last, and we can argue all day about right or wrong, but a lot of police action is "reasonable" under the current laws based on their perception, even if others would not believe so, so using the legality of one act and saying it was OK, such as flicking off a cop, but ignoring/downplaying the legality of police action is kind of having your cake and eating it too.

I think the bolded part of your post is where our disconnect is. It's not always about whether a citizen's actions were legal or against the law, it's sometimes whether the police believed someone's actions were against the law and whether the police believed their actions were reasonable under the circumstances. Cops have a wide berth, even if they are mistaken.

 

Cops know it isn't against the law to flip them the bird. And the point of my post is that the legality of an action is the entire point of a police officer's existence. We expect citizens to break the law - that's why we even have police. The police themselves will tell you that ignorance of the law is no excuse. If they do not know the laws, then they cannot effectively enforce them.

The bare minimum expectation of police is that they know and follow the law. That doesn't mean that that is the only expectation we are allowed to have of them.

 

be interested to see that. Even with a knife, the guy is standing there with a knife in the air? He didn't come at them, or lunge, or anything, just stand there, and they shoot him? fuck all that.

Which cop actually shoots? it's hard to tell. they are saying both cops shot?

 

well 2/3 I think. He had a knife, refused to drop it, and when they shot him he was just standing there.

 

LOL that the Police went nuclear over the news channel releasing the video but now they want to use another video to clear their guys.

 

LOL that the Police went nuclear over the news channel releasing the video but now they want to use another video to clear their guys.

 

What's the LOL here? If there is, in fact, a video that clears the police, then they have a right to be pissed that the other video has been shown all over the country and resulted in their deputies receiving threats. If the police in the video did no wrong (I AM NOT ARGUING THAT THIS IS THE CASE) and received these threats, that's pretty fucked up. But, that's the twitter news world that we live in where everyone has to be the first to release/report, not the most accurate.

Again, I am not arguing that the police in the video did no wrong.

 

They went off on the news channel before they even knew the other video existed. They were upset that any video of the event was released at all. I find it funny that now that they have a video that helps their side, now they want everyone to see it. They literally tried to censor the media in their county by bullying them.

 

Right, but even if they didnt know the 2nd video existed when this was released, they would have known the "full story" that the guy had a knife not visible in the released video. Again not arguing that that story line is true, but if it is, then the police have a right to be pissed that a wrongfully incriminating video was released that resulted in threats towards their deputies.

 

I'd like to know what you, or anyone, thinks another video could possibly show, given what we see on the first video, that would warrant shooting that guy?

We can see what the guy is doing in the first video. It's a long distance away, but we can clearly see a guy standing with his hands up. IMO the only thing that could warrant them shooting the guy at that point is if he's twirling a knife in his left hand in a way that makes the cops think he's about to throw it at them. He does not move towards them, or lunge, or move his body at all, he's literally just standing there, and they open fire.

 

Did you even read my post that I am not arguing that the police did no wrong IN ALL FUCKING CAPS?

 

yes. I'm saying I can't imagine, based on the first video, that the second video would show anything that would warrant shooting the guy. Can you imagine such a thing?

 

Then come out and say that. Defend your cops actions and explain what's going on in the video. Don't say "Don't post that video!!!" The news channel can do what the fuck they want. A news channel should not be pressured into censorship by the local police.

Don't get upset over a video being posted of a man's death bc it makes your cops look bad and then turn around and be ok with releasing a video of the same man's death that makes your cops look better. The truth is, they didn't care that the news showed a man's death. They cared that it made their cops look bad.

 

How about he's twirling a knife in his left hand in a way that makes the cops think he's about to throw it at them

 

I agree with the first point that they should have explained their side when the original video was released. But at the same time, would anyone have believed them? Without secondary video evidence, I have my doubts that the majority of people who post in this thread would believe the police's statements. "But you can see clearly in the video his hand is empty!!1!" Not that that makes the original backlash at the news channel any better.

I just didnt see what was soo comical, but its clear we have different opinions.

 

I found their hypocrisy to be funny.

Video makes their guys look bad - "DON'T YOU SHOW THAT MAN'S DEATH! HOW DARE YOU! PUBLIC, BOMBARD THE NEWS WITH CALLS TO EXPRESS YOUR ANGER!!!"

Video might make their guys look better - "HEY EVERYONE, CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO! WE CLEAN!"

 

yea, I think that's the only thing I can imagine too. I'd say the odds of him doing that, based on the first video are slim and none though. I'll hold out final judgement until the 2nd video comes out, but I'm not hopeful that I'll change my position.

 

A little more funny than gasp-worthy, but some plain clothes cops were looking for a criminal in a fraud case in New York. They think they see the guy and immediately run at him, while he smiles at them, thinking it's old friends or something, and they slam him to the ground.

Problem was, it's former tennis player James Blake on his way to the US open

Need to slam a guy to the ground in a credit card fraud case, I suppose.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/10/us/tennis-james-blake-tackled-by-nypd/index.html

 

stop and frisk, tackle and frisk it all flies in NYC

 

Should probably reword the bolded. News channels can not and should not do whatever the fuck they want, and that's lead to numerous errors in reporting and stories all over the place.

 

In this situation, the wording was correct. If they have a video, the can release it if they so desire. The local police can not censor them by threatening and bullying them.

 

It just came across like you were giving them free reign to do whatever they wanted. If you're only talking about releasing the tape they had then ok.

 

at the thought of this happening if this wasn't a "celebrity." A normal person would be told to kick rocks and the cops were doing their job.

http://espn.go.com/tennis/story/_/id/13623034/new-york-police-department-commissioner-william-bratton-apologizes-james-blake

Police commish intends to apologize to James Blake for mistaken arrest.

 

how are they supposed to know it was James Blake and not some thief? They gotta find out, and the best way to do that is to physically assault him. If it's the guy they arrest him, if it's not him, they let him go, no fuss no muss.