Another unarmed black man shot

LTC8K6 said:
Well, "unarmed" does not necessarily mean that the shooting was not legal. Undoubtedly some of the unarmed shootings were legal.
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Most of them because if they were illegal the prosecutor would have charged them. That is why people were so outraged that Peter Liang got charged with manslaughter and fired for simply negligently shooting a black man. Fortunately he did avoid prison time because that would be far to much for a simple negligent homicide.
 
From the article in the OP.

One of two witnesses who reported the car blocking traffic on 36th St. N told a 911 dispatcher a man had fled from the car, telling her it was going to explode.

"He took off running," the woman said. "He just left it. I think he's smoking something."
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If they had reason to believe he had an explosive in the car, then the overall response and the shooting becomes more understandable. The shooting still appears to be premature because the tazer wasn't given the chance to work. Having his hands up at times doesn't actually negate other actions. If he was told to get away form the vehicle and he instead put his hands on the SUV, then he really wasn't following commands.

I'm not saying this was justified, but that there are other factors that could very well mitigate criticisms. It could also just be another massive cock-up.

Eagerly I await the accusations of excuse making and racism.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Most of them because if they were illegal the prosecutor would have charged them. That is why people were so outraged that Peter Liang got charged with manslaughter and fired for simply negligently shooting a black man. Fortunately he did avoid prison time because that would be far to much for a simple negligent homicide.
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Illegal does not necessarily mean that there is enough evidence to go to trial.

Lots of people get away with doing illegal things because the prosecutor does not believe the case is winnable in court.

IIRC, a prosecutor in the USA is not even supposed to go to court unless the case is believed to be winnable.

I think we have lately seen several unwinnable high profile cases brought to juries or judges by prosecutors, with predictable results.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Illegal does not necessarily mean that there is enough evidence to go to trial.

Lots of people get away with doing illegal things because the prosecutor does not believe the case is winnable in court.

IIRC, a prosecutor in the USA is not even supposed to go to court unless the case is believed to be winnable.

I think we have lately seen several unwinnable high profile cases brought to juries or judges by prosecutors, with predictable results.
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That and prosecutors know better than to charge cops, they need them to make them look good in future elections and charging cops for every wrongful death is not the way to do that.
 
tyr_13 said:
From the article in the OP.



If they had reason to believe he had an explosive in the car, then the overall response and the shooting becomes more understandable. The shooting still appears to be premature because the tazer wasn't given the chance to work. Having his hands up at times doesn't actually negate other actions. If he was told to get away form the vehicle and he instead put his hands on the SUV, then he really wasn't following commands.

I'm not saying this was justified, but that there are other factors that could very well mitigate criticisms. It could also just be another massive cock-up.

Eagerly I await the accusations of excuse making and racism.
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It still makes no sense that sounds like a report of a car fire, but clearly the best thing to do is also shoot people who have car fires I guess. Easier to put our the fire with out panicked owners running around.
 
ponderingturtle said:
It still makes no sense that sounds like a report of a car fire, but clearly the best thing to do is also shoot people who have car fires I guess. Easier to put our the fire with out panicked owners running around.
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The car was not on fire.
 
ponderingturtle said:
It still makes no sense that sounds like a report of a car fire, but clearly the best thing to do is also shoot people who have car fires I guess. Easier to put our the fire with out panicked owners running around.
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Do we know what dispatch told the officers? I haven't read that anywhere.

Often the police get "primed" by the initial description of what's going on from the caller and from dispatch, even though it may be totally wrong.

If dispatch said something about explosives in the car, that could account for the large response, and it could even partially account for the shooting, regarding reaching back into the vehicle for something.

Not saying it does, mind you.
 
tyr_13 said:
The car was not on fire.
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That is what the report sounded like and so that is what they cops must have been thinking. Smoke coming out and talking about an explosion, that sounds like a typical response to a car fire.

The cops have to trust the report implicitly that is what gets them off when they simply shoot people when the show up with out evaluating the situation after all.

Really they waited to long to kill this guy.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Do we know what dispatch told the officers? I haven't read that anywhere.

Often the police get "primed" by the initial description of what's going on from the caller and from dispatch, even though it may be totally wrong.

If dispatch said something about explosives in the car, that could account for the large response, and it could even partially account for the shooting, regarding reaching back into the vehicle for something.

Not saying it does, mind you.
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Ah heroic cops often shoot people reaching into their cars, sometimes they even get charged for it like decorated cop Sean Groubert. He ordered the guy to show him his licience and he reached into his car, not following orders and reaching into a car is great reasons to shoot someone. Shame he made a plea deal he would likely have been exonerated in court.
 
ponderingturtle said:
That is what the report sounded like and so that is what they cops must have been thinking. Smoke coming out and talking about an explosion, that sounds like a typical response to a car fire.

The cops have to trust the report implicitly that is what gets them off when they simply shoot people when the show up with out evaluating the situation after all.

Really they waited to long to kill this guy.
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What smoke?

And why wouldn't he leave the 'car fire'?
 
It's interesting to see the numbers on the spread of unarmed people getting shot by the police. Are there really no journalists who are interested/able to publicize the ones that don't go viral? I mean, I understand all the news sites that want to jump on cases like this because it'll get all the eyeballs, but I'm not even aware of anywhere I can go to see/see discussions of white people or really anyone besides black people getting shot. I can think of a few cases that have made the news where white guys with mental problems have been shot after their families called for help, but even then I don't know of anyone who's agitating for justice there, even though it looks like it needs it. Even facebook/youtube comments on stuff like that usually just blame the families for being so stupid as to call the cops.

I mean, we absolutely do need attention on the cops on all this stuff that looks like panic-shooting black guys, but they're doing a lot of other awful stuff to the other races too; is this really all just USA police-deification where the only ones willing to stick their neck out and kick up a fuss about their terrible treatment are black people?

I read that an average of five officers a year face any kind of charges after fatally shooting people on duty, with less than one conviction a year - while there are something like 1000 fatal on-duty police shootings. I don't have any trouble believing the great majority of those shootings were justified, but 0.1% unjustified seems like it's probably a stretch. I mean, we get clear video of a couple of 'what the hell were they thinking' shootings every year already - are we supposed to believe nothing this stupid happens when nobody is filming?

ETA: Good point about it being bad juju for a prosecutor to bring a case they don't have a reasonable chance to win - but there's got to be some sort of steam release here, like police forces admitting that the numbers point to a certain amount of injustice going on here but that the system is simply not able to address it; that the nature of the justice system is that some of the guilty will not face charges. Which IMO is in fact a good thing - but what's gone wrong here is it feels like it's only the cops and the rich who really get this leniency applied to them, where everyone else gets stomped on as hard as possible by the justice system.
 
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ponderingturtle said:
Ah heroic cops often shoot people reaching into their cars, sometimes they even get charged for it like decorated cop Sean Groubert. He ordered the guy to show him his licience and he reached into his car, not following orders and reaching into a car is great reasons to shoot someone. Shame he made a plea deal he would likely have been exonerated in court.
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The decoration had nothing to do with the shooting in question. Why mention it?

Now you are complaining when an officer does get fired and charged?
 
LTC8K6 said:
The decoration had nothing to do with the shooting in question. Why mention it?

Now you are complaining when an officer does get fired and charged?
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It is really remarkable that they were able to do that despite all the barriers to charging cops with the crimes the commit.
 
Lithrael said:
It's interesting to see the numbers on the spread of unarmed people getting shot by the police. Are there really no journalists who are interested/able to publicize the ones that don't go viral? I mean, I understand all the news sites that want to jump on cases like this because it'll get all the eyeballs, but I'm not even aware of anywhere I can go to see/see discussions of white people or really anyone besides black people getting shot. I can think of a few cases that have made the news where white guys with mental problems have been shot after their families called for help, but even then I don't know of anyone who's agitating for justice there, even though it looks like it needs it. Even facebook/youtube comments on stuff like that usually just blame the families for being so stupid as to call the cops.

I mean, we absolutely do need attention on the cops on all this stuff that looks like panic-shooting black guys, but they're doing a lot of other awful stuff to the other races too; is this really all just USA police-deification where the only ones willing to stick their neck out and kick up a fuss about their terrible treatment are black people?

I read that an average of five officers a year face any kind of charges after fatally shooting people on duty, with less than one conviction a year - while there are something like 1000 fatal on-duty police shootings. I don't have any trouble believing the great majority of those shootings were justified, but 0.1% unjustified seems like it's probably a stretch. I mean, we get clear video of a couple of 'what the hell were they thinking' shootings every year already - are we supposed to believe nothing this stupid happens when nobody is filming?
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I would guess that the biggest part of the disparity is just demographics.
The big city departments are better funded, and thus more likely to have body cams/helicopter cameras. Also highly populated areas will have more bystanders to record police interactions.
And because of there are lots of white cops in the departments that patrol minority neighborhoods, the disparity should be expected to some extent.
 
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