Split Thread Akron police shoot unarmed man 60 times

[sarge]

No, you were not present, therefore you have no idea what information was available to the cops to allow them to make a decision on whether they might take a bullet. "After the fact" is irrelevant to the decisions made at the time.

You are attempting to shift your position from “since you were not there, you can’t know if the cops were in danger” to ‘since you were not there, you can’t know if it was reasonable for the cops to believe they were in danger”.

I can of course know without having been there that the cops were not in danger.

I assume you have now abandoned that position and wish now to discuss whether or not I can know if it was reasonable for the cops to have believed themselves to be in danger?

That might depend on what caused the person to run....

It might. Is that your new position?

 

[Cain]

As I said before, in civilised nations cops don’t shoot people for simply running away.

If they were to shoot him for running away, he would've been gunned down sooner. Instead they initially fired TASER guns. They shot him for stopping and suspiciously reaching.

How? He had no weapon. How much longer is this ridiculous “his hand went towards his waistline” excuse going to work? Yeah I know, probably a long time as DAs always find it plausible.

He was believed to have a weapon that he fired earlier. You don't think it's a reasonable assumption that he could have still been armed? Is the way Walker stopped and turned around reasonable? He consistently escalated throughout.

Yeah I know, probably a long time as DAs always find it plausible.

As long as people are armed, especially with handguns, the police will be more likely to shoot.

Do you think cops have sniper-like proficiency? They don’t. Under stress shots go everywhere, endangering any public who just may be hanging around. The difference here, once he was hit, the 8 cops emptied their weapons into a helpless, unthreatening body.

Police officers certainly need to be mindful of their background, but that wasn't much of an issue after midnight in a park. About five or ten years ago, there was an incident in Manhattan where a guy murdered a former co-worker. Police confronted the armed suspect on the street, reacted impulsively, and a bunch of New Yorkers have probably been limping ever since.

As for the high volume of shots, behavior is contagious, especially in a stressful, uncertain, dangerous situation.

Look if this is how you want police to behave, just say so. You know what the shooting death rates of US cops are. If those rates are fine, just say so. But don’t get annoyed when other nations judge the US.

I would not judge these cops so much as a system of firearm availability and gun culture. That's the main variable. But it's easier to blame individuals rather than "the system." What circumstances, for example, may have led to Walker making such colossally stupid decisions?

 

[Bikewer]

There are a number of well-studied psychological and physiological things that occur during the “stress of combat”.
Among these are a species of “target fixation” and also a decrease in hearing acuity.

So officers may be so intent on the “threat” that they are largely unaware of others firing, or in some cases, of orders to stop.
Add to that the adrenaline rush of chasing the suspect… And the knowledge that he was presumably armed as he had fired at the officers….
You can empty a modern semi-auto pistol in a couple of seconds.

 

[Lplus]

You are attempting to shift your position from “since you were not there, you can’t know if the cops were in danger” to ‘since you were not there, you can’t know if it was reasonable for the cops to believe they were in danger”.

I can of course know without having been there that the cops were not in danger.

I assume you have now abandoned that position and wish now to discuss whether or not I can know if it was reasonable for the cops to have believed themselves to be in danger?



It might. Is that your new position?

As far as I'm concerned they are the same - you were not there and are using hindsight to criticise the cops.

 

[JoeMorgue]

TBH, just reading the posts from our US members in this thread, it sounds like the whole tale happened in a war-torn province of Afghanistan, where US troops are constantly battling armed warlords in house-to-house running battles.

As someone who was in the war-torn province of Afghanistan in the not too quiet year of 2006 I can that had we acted like American copsagainst sworn actual enemies of the US who were, without question, trying to kill us we would have been court martialed for human rights violations.

 

[sarge]

As far as I'm concerned they are the same - you were not there and are using hindsight to criticise the cops.

You believe that it is impossible for persons not present to determine from the evidence whether or not the cops acted appropriately?

Let’s keep this focused on my actual position: We now know that the cops were not in danger from the person they shot when they shot him. That is not only something we can know….we actually know it. Your initial position was that we could not know such a thing because we were not present at the shooting.

Your position then became “because we were not present, we can’t know if the cops reasonably believed that they were in sufficient danger to shoot the victim”. That position is also patently false, although had you said “with what we are being told right now, it seems reasonable for a cop to have assumed they were in danger” I couldn’t disagree.

And now you consider the two positions to be equal? You really believe that it is not possible for a person to determine that a cop acted illegally by shooting someone unless that person was present at the shooting?

 

[sarge]

As someone who was in the war-torn province of Afghanistan in the not too quiet year of 2006 I can that had we acted like American copsagainst sworn actual enemies of the US who were, without question, trying to kill us we would have been court martialed for human rights violations.

I have about 5 years total combat time. We always investigated one-on-one shootings.

 

[JoeMorgue]

As far as I'm concerned they are the same - you were not there and are using hindsight to criticise the cops.

*********. You can't counter murder with some bland truism like that.

This whole idea that being a cop is some outside the realm of understanding position that justifies murder on a "Well you can't prove they WEREN'T a threat" whim is evil.

 

[casebro]

Sounds to me like eight cases of 'desecrating a body'. [/thread]

 

[ponderingturtle]

And if he has the brains not to go home ?

What was he even wanted for in the first place that justifies lethal force?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Maybe, but I am not sure this is a case of cops kiling a innocent civilian.

After all there really is no such thing, better a hundred dead "innocent" people than on cop with a stubbed toe.

 

[pgwenthold]

How? He had no weapon. How much longer is this ridiculous “his hand went towards his waistline” excuse going to work? Yeah I know, probably a long time as DAs always find it plausible.

Am I the only one who thinks of that old South Park episode, where Jimbo says that they can't just shoot animals for fun, and only in self-defense. Therefore, before you shoot one, you have to yell, "Look out, Ned, he's coming right for us!"?

That's the behavior of police. As long as you claim, "He's reaching for a gun!" you are free to shoot all you want.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I see the ideas of Local Control of the police department does not exist inyour universe.

Doesn't exist in much of the US either, police unions have way to much pull for them to be reigned in by mere politicians. You think the gangs that make up the LA county Sherriff are subject to local control?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Not justified, but legally excusable, which is all US cops are looking for.

Exactly I mean he was a black guy who owned a gun despite the second amendment being only for whites, what more do you need to know, that is enough to prove he was a threat clearly and they didn't need any kind of threatening behavior of crap like that to justify his execution.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Refusing to follow a cops orders is almost never justification for killing, unless the order is ‘stop doing________, which presents mortal danger to me or other people”. Running from cop by itself is never justification for deadly force.

Only if you hold the police to unreasonable standards like behaving in accordance with the constitution.

 

[wareyin]

What was he even wanted for in the first place that justifies lethal force?

Unspecified traffic and equipment violations.

So, yeah, totally a criminal who deserves to be chased because you fear for the lives of everyone around...oh, wait, didn't they say it was the middle of the night and nobody was around?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Police officers certainly need to be mindful of their background,

Stop lying, they very clearly do not, as was found when that cop shot a kid because he was shooting at a non threatening dog. Nothing wrong with that behavior as the courts found.

https://apnews.com/article/74d84382fb6c77268e0032c7dc63a462

You need to be more honnest when you talk about what police are legally required to do or free to ignore, and kids behind what they are shooting at is a free to ignore situation.

Or am I being Cained here?

 

[ponderingturtle]

I have about 5 years total combat time. We always investigated one-on-one shootings.

What about 8 on one shootings?

 

[wareyin]

What about 8 on one shootings?

If the shooters have time to get their story straight before anyone else shows up, why do you even need to investigate? They feared for their lives, it's all the justification needed!

 

[sarge]

If the shooters have time to get their story straight before anyone else shows up, why do you even need to investigate? They feared for their lives, it's all the justification needed!

So far, this is the only concrete thing I find fault with. The Chief claimed the shooters never had an opportunity to coordinate their versions of events. That is completely false. They not only had the opportunity to do so, they certainly did coordinate their stories.

That doesn’t mean they (the shooters) are lying, but it does mean this department, like virtually every other US police department, is willing to lie to protect their employees.

The US has allowed cops to become their own society, separate from and above the laws that govern the rest of us.