While there's no denying being a law enforcement officer is much more dangerous than most jobs, it still doesn't rank in the top ten most dangerous jobs in our country. In fact, most officers killed on duty are killed in routine traffic accidents. You've got a significantly greater chance of making it home to your wife and kids as a police officer in our country than if you work construction or on a farm.
The officers were never told anything about the possibility that the gun was a toy and the orange cap was removed. I'm all for bringing attention to use of unnecessary force (see petey23's post), but I think the context of what happened with Tamir Rice can't be ignored.
To add to my previous post, my biggest issue with the whole situation is the fact the officer was hired by the Cleveland PD in the first place considering his previous history. Same goes for the dispatcher who had also been fired from her last job in addition to having a felony conviction on her record.
I get all of this but NoleNBlue knows it was a toy. Calling it a gun now is a little disingenuous. It is weird to me not knowing about police procedures that they'd pull up 2 feet away from someone who they believed had a loaded gun. Also we are discussing this know why can't we use the information we know? Why pretend we don't know the facts? It would be like arguing the MIcheal Brown case with the assumption the cop was wrong.
It's assumed to be a gun until it's proven not to be. Unfortunately for the young man, it wasn't proven to be a gun until he attempted to pull it on an officer and was killed. His actions dictated the outcome.
What's a routine traffic accident? I'm not even going to mention that last sentence, which is borderline retarded.
What's your take on pulling up so close? You would usually want to approach from a distance, right? It just seems like the passenger was put in a position where hehad no choice BUT to shoot. Kid or not, someone pulls an unknown weapon on you from two feet away, you cannot take any chance.
I addressed this in the old thread but it could've been done differently, but it wasn't. That fact doesn't change the fact that the young man attempted to pull a weapon on an officer, which led to his death.
It was a shit sandwich. While the driver didn't technically do anything wrong, his action influenced the outcome. It bees like that sometimes, which is why the Monday morning QB burden of proof doesn't apply in court.
Non-pursuit accidents. Please explain to me why that last sentence is "borderline retarded." Sincerely. I'd like to know. I'm just trying to understand the whole 'not sure if they're coming home' argument when you have a greater chance of dying at work in several other occupations. Pardon my ignorance if that's what you deem it.
Construction deaths are caused by accident, not by a belt sander calling in a fake 911 call so he can ambush the responding construction worker. The fact that I even need to qualify it is disheartening to me.
We are on a message board discussing something after the fact. You calling it a gun on here right now makes about as much sense as me calling Michael Brown an innocent victim.
I don't either so I can't speak to that. If we're having a discussion regarding whether the officer's actions were legally justified, we have to use the information that was available to him at the time since that was what he used to make his decision. If the dispatcher had told him the person who reported Rice suspected the gun was a toy and/or the orange cap was still on the gun, my opinion would be much different. Again, I'm not chalking this up to "well shit happens." The dispatcher absolutely should have told the officer that it was possibly a toy (though I'm not sure what level of accountability she has legally) and the Cleveland PD, at best, made questionable decisions hiring both the dispatcher and the officer give their previous work history.
Agree. One of Houston's most race baiting community organizers got to walk in your shoes NoleNBlue, albeit a simulator, and here's what he discovered..... http://www.khou.com/story/news/loca...the-missouri-city-police-department/22901953/ Cliffs: admits how hard it is in the moment, takes into account the neighborhood the incident is occurring, urges his "brothers and sisters" to comply with the police.
I have no idea how much going to the academy costs (NoleNBlue) but why not do something like double the length of the police academy. As I understand now it's only 4-6 months and the biggest complaint from everyone is lack of training. Wouldn't all be in favor of that? Simply prepare people better for the situations they'll face.
I am not talking about who they should hire but who should become a cop. They know what they're getting themselves into. There are far more good cops that do their jobs correctly to excuse the few assholes because they got too stressed.
There is nothing for you to bite on. I am just saying we know the facts why act like we don't. We are not talking about what the cops knew or didn't. I am just saying calling it a gun when you now know it was a toy (to me) is disengenious.
http://theantimedia.org/indiana-police-cover-gay-cops-lovers-death/ http://mydeathspace.com/article/201...geon,_and_his_lover_has_now_committed_suicide http://www.indystar.com/story/news/...-officer-found-dead-home-identified/28000123/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001576064210&fref=ts ^photos are pretty neat. and lol @ referring to the cop as "dad." Spoiler
If the discussion involves reasoning for the officer's actions, then yeah, it's a gun. That's what he understood it to be at the time of the call, just as the dispatcher reported to their unit.
Fifteen officers were killed in this country by ambush attacks last year. That's 15 too many. But people die in many others lines of work (such as industrial accidents that other people are at fault and responsible for) and no one uses the inherent danger of their work environment to excuse the mistakes made. That dangerous work environment seems to be a justification for police not making correct decisions sometimes and that's absurd. As much as y'all may want to interpret my posts to be, I am truly not anti-police. Our society would be far more fucked without law enforcement. I'm merely for full accountability. Police are generally held to lower standards for justifying self defense than civilians are and that doesn't make any sense to me. If you choose to do that for a living and you're trained to do so, if anything, your standard should be higher than the average citizen. That simply is not the case these days. In comparison, American military infantry are more heavily trained for what they'll be facing and actually face notably worse consequences when they do make mistakes. For some reason, our domestic police forces trend the opposite way.
Speaking of fake calls have you(or anyone itt) heard of someone falsely reporting to dispatch that someone is carrying a weapon and threatened them or someone else? Seems like an easy way to get someone who flipped you the bird in traffic into some deep shit in a hurry and a terrible spot to put police in
Another driving factor is that police tend to see it as a 'them vs us' sort of thing. Law enforcement vs. civilians. But that's an incredibly flawed way to view it because LEOs are civilians. They aren't military. But constantly viewing themselves as such tends to create a schism between law enforcement and the people they're tasked with protecting and serving and that's not good for anyone involved. It creates this whole partisan view of police in our country. Some people are anti-police and are blindly loyal to hating them and some people are pro-police and blindly loyal to supporting them. It just shouldn't be that way. People should be for making the job as safe for police as we can but also for holding them entirely accountable for their actions. Especially the people tasked with carrying around lethal weapons every day. There should be no impunity for anyone.
There was a teen arrested and sentenced recently for something like 15 cases of swatting women who were playing a video game http://www.businessinsider.com/liza...atting-female-league-of-legends-gamers-2015-5
If we are talking about what the cops thought back then I agree. But that's not exactly what is going on. If that's actually what the cops believed then it was beyond stupid for them to pull up right on an asshole who they thought had a loaded gun. What I am talking about is NoleNBlue saying a kid waving a gun around when he knows damn well it was a toy. Would it make sense for me to call Michael Brown an innocent victim knowing what I know now?
Yes, it was a toy. Seems like a weird thing to get annoyed about, man. I'm new to this whole internet debate thing, or at least haven't done this in years really, but the cop thing has struck a nerve with me. Are you being completely serious in here or are you trolling some? That is not a joke and I am not being sarcastic. I am asking truthfully.
The facts are it was a kid playing with a fake gun by himself in a mostly empty park. Blame dispatch, the driver, the shooter, I don't care. The kid went from playing by himself to dead within 2 seconds of the cops showing up. Saying a kid brought death on himself by playing with a fake gun by himself in a park is ludicrous. The cops errored on several levels and it led to a kid playing by himself ending up dead. I realize you're a cop and you'll attempt to spin any situation to the cops being innocent but you've gone too damn far. We as civilians, especially kids, shouldn't have to constantly worry about how an overzealous cop will perceive our actions if they pop up out of nowhere. In fact, it should be the cop's responsibility to access to situation before even thinking about using deadly force. These cps failed to do that. Rolling up and blasting like its the wild west and asking questions later doesn't cut it. That's not acceptable. I'm not saying all the blame should be placed on one single cop but saying a kid brought death on himself by playing with a fake gun by himself in a mostly empty park is simply ridiculous. The cops are 100% responsible for not properly accessing the situation. Real gun, fake gun, it doesn't matter. There's zero reason to roll up and blast within 2 seconds in an empty park. If it's a fake gun they should ID themselves from a distance and tell the person to put it down. If it's a real gun, they should try to end it peacefully from a distance. Don't excuse their poor actions by saying a young kid was responsible for his own death by playing by himself in a park. I know you're a homer for cops, but damn man.
Ok, say it was a real gun. They still shouldn't be rolling up and blasting like that. It's not like they were SWAT going into a building with hostages. It was a person alone in a park. They should have attempted to end it peacefully. Even if it were a real gun, the person didn't deserve to die for having a gun in the park by himself. I'm normally pro cop but that video disgusts me.
I've already questioned the way the driver approached the whole situation. What is not questionable, is shooting someone who pulls a gun(as it was understood by them at that time) on you. You shoot them. That's it. There is no grey area in there. Again, should he have even been put in that situation where he was two feet from someone with a weapon/possible weapon? I think everyone agrees that there was a different way to approach.
The cops created that situation. That can't be ignored. They are the ones that rolled up like a bat out of hell. The kid had no warning and no time to react before he was shot. The cops created the situation that led to them being in perceived danger. Don't put that on the kid. He was playing by himself in a mostly empty park.
Both of my uncles are (small town) police officers. Not a lot happens back home so there aren't many juicy things to talk about. That being said....I fucking hate seeing people commenting on the PD's Facebook page with all their negative bullshit. Like a month ago they got some new equipment for the dispatchers or something along those lines and uploaded a couple pictures. Then suddenly you have a bunch of local hillbillies herping and derping in the comments because they "saw an officer using his phone while driving." Police officers aren't perfect but jesus christ shit like that annoys me.
I've been pro-cop in this thread so I have no idea what you think I might be trolling about. Was it saying that those who can't handle the pressure shouldn't become cops? If so, I am talking about cops like the South Carolina cop who shot a guy who was reaching for his wallet after the cop told him to get his wallet. Anyway in the situation being discussed here. I think the cop who was driving holds most of the blame. He pulled up way too close and didn't give his partner the opportunity to find out if the kid was a threat. If the kid would have been up to no good with a real gun one or two of the cops could be dead. I can understand the cops who shot the kid reasoning. But, knowing what I know now it's hard for me to pretend I don't an excuse th.e killing of a kid.
And he pulled a weapon out. He may have been pulling it out to say, "it's not real! It's fake!", but that's not something you can risk. Sounds fucked up and insanely unfortunate, but that's what happened. The whole thing is a mess.
My sister is a dispatcher and so is crazy ex-girlfriend.......but I don't wanna talk about it because it hurts too damn much.
Does everyone who keeps bringing up the toy gun aspect stick up for people who get the armed robbery charges with toy guns?
Textbook Monday morning QBing, man. I think knowing what we all know now, the cop who shot him would've handled it differently. Unfortunately, he didn't know then what we know now.
This is disingenuous though. He didn't "pull a gun" at all. He had one out and displayed the whole time. And while the video is very low quality and it's difficult to tell, it doesn't seem like he pointed it at the officers either. He had it in his hand by his side as they pulled up and two seconds later he was shot and killed. Unless I'm wrong in that assessment (which, admittedly, I could be) the boy made no aggressive actions to give the impression he was attacking or any more dangerous than he had been for the minutes prior in which multiple people walked by him and no one was shot or injured. The only thing you could expect the kid to do differently in that two second span is to drop the weapon but expecting anyone, much less a 12 year old kid, to comprehend a dire situation that quickly and do that in two seconds or else their being shot is justifiable is absolutely ridiculous.
Good news for canefin and his type out of Omaha this week http://www.cbsnews.com/news/thousands-honor-slain-omaha-police-officer-who-was-new-mom-at-funeral/
He didn't pull anything out. He had both hands in front of his stomach when they rolled up. He may have had the gun in his hand, but his hands were in plain view when they showed up. See the 1:04 mark: Take it being a fake gun out of the situation. Real or fake, they never should have rolled up like that. They left themselves no chance to assess the situation. They should have approached from a distance, assessed the situation, and tried to end the situation peacefully. There were no other people near the suspect and no reason to immediately take him out. This isn't the SEALs going in to take out a terrorist. The cops should always try to end the situation peacefully and only use force if they have to. In this situation, they created the need to use force. That's on them, not the kid.
Not at all but in your example a crime is being committed. Unless it's a crime to have a toy gun at a park I fail to see how they are the same thing. Moreover I am not arguing that the cops should have known it was a toy. I am saying now that we know it was a toy why can't we say the cops fucked up? Originally I thought the cop who shot Brown was wrong. When more facts came out I changed my opinion. Why can't that happen in this case?