Deaf Mute shot by Dumb cop

[HansMustermann]

He wasn't, really. What he summarized in one sentence is pretty much the gist of the right of self defense for normal people. The legal system goes more detailed and specific, because they have to, but the gist is just about that one.

 

[PhantomWolf]

He wasn't, really. What he summarized in one sentence is pretty much the gist of the right of self defense for normal people. The legal system goes more detailed and specific, because they have to, but the gist is just about that one.

"Unmistakable mortal danger" is a higher standard than "A reasonable person believes that they are in imminent danger of serious injury or death"

And "has no alternative" is also a higher standard.

 

[DarthFishy]

Deaf is fine, mute not so much, if I understand correctly.

This is correct but to add on to this the deaf community resents the assumption that if one is deaf one is necessarily also mute. It's really about the idea that being deaf means you have no voice (literally and figuratively).

 

[HansMustermann]

"Unmistakable mortal danger" is a higher standard than "A reasonable person believes that they are in imminent danger of serious injury or death"

Nope. It's merely stating the legal principle of proportional response, in relation to a self-defense homicide. Yes, you have a right of self-defense, but exactly how high you can escalate the response depends on the threat. Having the right doesn't mean that you have the right to indiscriminately apply any response to any threat. If the response was killing the guy, then the threat must have been very very high to start with.

In fact, here's a quirk of the legal system: escalating too much is actually a good way to give the other guy the right to self defense. If someone tries to punch you, then normally they can't invoke self defense under the first principle, since they're the aggressor. But if you pull a gun and wave it in their face, then they might just get to invoke self defense themselves for whatever follows past that point.

And "has no alternative" is also a higher standard.

Nope. It's really saying the same as the legal requirement to only use as much force as necessary to remove the threat.

Killing someone is the maximum force that can possibly still qualify as self-defense. Anything above that (e.g., also going after their family and their little dog) no longer qualifies.

IF there is any other level of force that gets the job done, you are at least theoretically required to use that one. Leaving the homicide as literally only allowed when you have no other (reasonable) alternative.

 

[cullennz]

Nope. It's merely stating the legal principle of proportional response, in relation to a self-defense homicide. Yes, you have a right of self-defense, but exactly how high you can escalate the response depends on the threat. Having the right doesn't mean that you have the right to indiscriminately apply any response to any threat. If the response was killing the guy, then the threat must have been very very high to start with.

In fact, here's a quirk of the legal system: escalating too much is actually a good way to give the other guy the right to self defense. If someone tries to punch you, then normally they can't invoke self defense under the first principle, since they're the aggressor. But if you pull a gun and wave it in their face, then they might just get to invoke self defense themselves for whatever follows past that point.



Nope. It's really saying the same as the legal requirement to only use as much force as necessary to remove the threat.

Killing someone is the maximum force that can possibly still qualify as self-defense. Anything above that (e.g., also going after their family and their little dog) no longer qualifies.

IF there is any other level of force that gets the job done, you are at least theoretically required to use that one. Living the homicide as literally only allowed when you have no other (reasonable) alternative.

This

 

[ponderingturtle]

How about attacked with a deadly weapon, or does it only count if the police officer dies?

According to the FBI figures there are ~10,000 attacks on officers with deadly weapons each year, 2,000 of those with guns. That's nearly 30 attacks on officers a day, over 5 of them with firearms! That is not rare.

Yet they are not even the most at risk public servant. Sanitation Engineers are at much greater risks, yet no one cares about the risks to them and thinks they are heroes for doing such a dangerous job of cleaning up the streets.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In reality, this is the most dangerous time for a cop. If the driver gets out of the car and starts to approach the officer, 9 times out of 10 they plan to do bad things, it is a MASSIVE red flag. A second massive red flag is failing to obey orders. If they then make an action that can be interpreted as going for a weapon, there is a high likelihood they'll get themselves shot.

This is the thing about Monday Morning Quarterbacking, we know a lot more than the cop in the situation did at the time it occurred. For instance, we know the driver was deaf. I very much doubt that the cop did.

From his position he had a driver that first tries to flee, then when forced to stop gets out of the vehicle and acts in a massively aggressive manner approaching him and failing to obey direct orders.

Do you think that any of this might just have put the cops in a position where they were in the head space of "This guy is about to attack"?

From the POV of the driver, this guy did absolutely everything wrong on how to deal with getting stopped by a cop.

1) He failed to stop when signaled
2) He got out of the car
3) He approached the Officers
4) He failed to obey instructions
5) He acted aggressively

Yes, we know that some of those things he did because he was deaf, but at the time of the shooting the Officer did not know that, he just had to go on what he did know, and that was a guy that was flashing every single red flag that the next move was to pull a weapon and attack.

It seems that we expect out cops to be psychic.

They should just know that the gun a person is carrying is a fake or unloaded
They should just know if someone is deaf or mentally impaired
They should just know that the guy running out of the garage with a handgun is the home owner and not the armed intruder they were called for!

Well newsflash, cops aren't omniscient, they can't act based on hindsight before an action. Their actions should be judged on what they actually knew at the time, rather than what we find out after the fact.

And often they kill someone who is deaf or shoot at some tard with a toy truck. They totally are justified chasing down 10 year olds with shotguns for no reason as well, and if he had any kind of toy they would have been justified in killing the bastard.

 

[ponderingturtle]

This is true. What we should do is make sure all cops are told that deaf people exist.

And if they don't do what the cops say it is their own fault apparently that they get killed.

 

[ponderingturtle]

1 in 82 are pretty low odds. For instance your chance of being involved in a violent burglary in the US is 1 in 467, yet there are a lot of people on this board that will tell you that they have a gun in case of that occurring. Your chance of being attacked in a violent crime in 2014 was 1 in 273.

Which is why shooting first when someone is knocking on your door at night is the right course of action. Sure you kill a few people who are seeking help for car accidents and the like but no one cares about them.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Knowing that deaf people exist is a rather different thing from knowing that the person currently acting aggressively and not following instructions is deaf.

That is like why this guy totally had his paralization coming for walking in his neghborhood and not obeying the orders of the cop.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-dropped-alabama-cop-who-partially-paralyzed-indian-grandfather-n573806

What was wrong was that the cop ever got charged.

 

[ponderingturtle]

8 of the 39 officers shot and killed in 2015 were shot at traffic stops, and a further one was struck and killed by a drunk driver while conducting one.

The stats show that the top three dangerous jobs for cops are...

1st - Dealing with Domestic Violence instances
2nd - Traffic Stops
3rd - Warrant serving and arrests.

And of course driving should really be #1, with all the car accidents that kill them. But that would ruin your point so you ignore that.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No, actually. Taxi drivers have a much higher murder rate than cops. So you'd be okay with arming them and letting them shoot anybody they don't like?
http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/ind...th_the_number_1_murder_rate_taxi_drivers.html

Nobody is drafted to be a cop. The job entails a certain amount of risk. That's what they sign up for. When we entrust a cop with the full power of the state, even of life and death, we expect him to exercise it responsibly. That means, at a minimum, not killing somebody unless there's no alternative; not on a hunch, not because he's scared.

Which is why they need to be able beat and kill anyone who disobeys them.

 

[HansMustermann]

Bulldust. Prove that the chance of death by an assailant with a knife is the same for an unarmed Taxi driver working alone vs a trained Police Officer who is wearing body armour, carrying a gun, and has a partner backing him up.

Well, what you have just successfully argued, and I dare say even supported with numbers, is that an officer is not nearly in as much danger during an assault as a cab driver is. As individual incidents go, any individual situation escalating into an assault is far more likely to leave a cabbie dead, than it is to even cause significant injury to a cop.

So they are not equal at all. Risk assessment isn't just about probabilities, but basically probability times the cost of the outcome.

In that aspect, cabbies are both more at risk generally, AND facing a higher risk if it looks like any particular situation is about to escalate into an assault.

Which brings us back to the same question: then why not let cabbies too shoot anyone who approaches looking agitated and stuff?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yet they are not even the most at risk public servant. Sanitation Engineers are at much greater risks, yet no one cares about the risks to them and thinks they are heroes for doing such a dangerous job of cleaning up the streets.

Sanitation Engineers have a higher assault and murder rate than police? Please provide this evidence.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Which is why shooting first when someone is knocking on your door at night is the right course of action. Sure you kill a few people who are seeking help for car accidents and the like but no one cares about them.

Seems to be the way the US does it......

 

[PhantomWolf]

That is like why this guy totally had his paralization coming for walking in his neghborhood and not obeying the orders of the cop.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-dropped-alabama-cop-who-partially-paralyzed-indian-grandfather-n573806

What was wrong was that the cop ever got charged.

What has this got to do with not being able to tell a person is deaf the instant you look at them?

 

[PhantomWolf]

And of course driving should really be #1, with all the car accidents that kill them. But that would ruin your point so you ignore that.

Do cops shoot people because some cops die in car accidents? If not, then your point is totally irrelevant. Try and actually use your intelligence here. The issue is about Cops shooting people they take to be dangerous, thus the question is, do they have a reason for this based on the number of attacks they face on the job? This has nothing to do with accidents, just deliberates.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Well, what you have just successfully argued, and I dare say even supported with numbers, is that an officer is not nearly in as much danger during an assault as a cab driver is. As individual incidents go, any individual situation escalating into an assault is far more likely to leave a cabbie dead, than it is to even cause significant injury to a cop.

The danger level is not measured by the end result of the event. Cops face more situations where they run the risk of being injured and killed, that is why we provide them with the gear and training to survive those situations. If we gave Cabbies vest and guns and training, that would likely make it more survivable for them too, but rather for cabbies we try and create ways for them to avoid being attacked such as driver cages and cameras and cashless payment systems. We can't do that for Police because a large part of their job in running into the line of fire for us so that we don't have to.

So they are not equal at all. Risk assessment isn't just about probabilities, but basically probability times the cost of the outcome.

In that aspect, cabbies are both more at risk generally, AND facing a higher risk if it looks like any particular situation is about to escalate into an assault.

Most deaths of cabbies come from robberies, not assaults, the best way to reduce their deaths is to remove the circumstances that lead to robbery

Which brings us back to the same question: then why not let cabbies too shoot anyone who approaches looking agitated and stuff?

Strawman since we don't let police just shoot anyone that "approaches looking agitated and stuff"

 

[marplots]

Knowing that deaf people exist is a rather different thing from knowing that the person currently acting aggressively and not following instructions is deaf.

Please, though, for the enlightenment of everyone, feel free to explain how a person is supposed to determine the difference between an aggressive individual who is refusing to follow orders because they are bloody minded and don't want too with the one that doesn't obey because they have malicious intent towards the person giving the orders and finally the ones that simply can't hear the orders being given?

I reject the idea that being deaf makes you act aggressively and with malicious intent. I also reject the idea that being deaf makes you appear to be acting aggressively and with malicious intent.

However, I accept the idea that police officers are thinking beings capable of evaluating a situation to my satisfaction - that is, I am not asking them to do anything extraordinary by requesting moderation. And I think the dearth of dead deaf people backs me up. If the vast majority of practicing police can manage it, that establishes a standard of behavior we should encourage.

 

[HansMustermann]

@PhantomWolf
Assault is not the same thing as (attempted) battery. Attempting battery IS one sub-class of assault, but not the only one, and even that counts as assault only if the victim was aware of the attempt. Any action intended to scare the victim, unless specifically legally allowed (e.g., a cop pointing a gun at a suspect, or any situation where you'd be legally allowed to use that gun in self defense, for example under the castle doctrine), is assault.

Pointing a gun at someone IS legally assault -- again, outside situations that are specifically allowed -- even if it's to rob them. It may not be aggravated assault, if you don't actually take a shot or otherwise make it clear that you intended more than intimidation, but it's assault.

Why this may not be clear is that most legal systems merge some lesser charges into the more important charge, if they're really a part of the bigger charge. So if you're charged with murder, you'll not be charged separately with the assault and battery that were how the murder happened.

But that doesn't mean there was no assault. Every time someone pulled a gun on a cabbie, that IS an assault. Even if it was to intimidate them into handing over the cash, and got merged into a robery or murder at the trial, it IS an act of assault.

So it seems to me like my point still stands.