“I think it’s reasonable to think that the officers perceived an immediate threat either to themselves or continued threat to that individual.” – Sgt. Jason Ramos of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s department quoted in Police Shoot Man For Recording Them With Phone, They Feared For Their Lives [via truthfight.com]
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Ummmmm….. no. What was he recording?
Maybe it was on a really menacing looking selfie-stick.
“I think it’s reasonable to think that the officers perceived an immediate threat either to themselves or continued threat to that individual.”
This is my surprised face, that being held accountable for their actions constitutes justification of lethal force in the eyes of some cops.
Mandatory video recording of all LE encounters *now*…
yeah this is pretty disgusting. so many statist these days, they really think “if we did it, then it was ok”. its people like this guy that paved the way for people like the nazi’s to take power.
So many libertarians don’t understand the real world implications of anarcho-capitalism. You know what real world anarcho-capitalism devolves into? Feudalism.
while not entirely false, your opinion serves no purpose in the discussion about holding LEOs accountable. What IS your point, and how does it help prevent police brutality?
When people throw around ignorant labels like “statist” as if they were insults, they need to be called out on it. I’m not in a hurry to go back to pre-nation-state social models.
In this case, we need to get rid of the concept of “qualified immunity” and make the cops PERSONALLY liable for bad acts on their parts. The city paying a $2,000,000 settlement does not discourage future stupidity. A cop going to jail and the union paying out the same $2,000,000 will.
The problem is not with the concept of the nation-state. The problem is with the concept that certain animals are more equal than others.
Unlikely as it may be, I 100% agree with you on this Serge
I agree with Serge. Personal liability for bad shoots. Unfortunately that is unlikely to happen in the Sacramento system. “Cops are highly trained” / “at least the police where trying to do the right thing” / “if highly trained cops make mistakes then civilians will be even worse” mentalities are deeply ingrained within the California / Sacramento / lefty statist mindset.
LOL — Serge is dissing those who oppose statism while he’s arguing against it: “qualified immunity” is part of the essence of statism. All statism is is the “divine right of kings” concept bestowed on any government. It’s used in a more limited sense in more scholarly circles, where it’s just government control of everything, including owning all major industries.
Larry Niven illustrates it without mentioning it in his Smoke Ring novels, where if you speak for The State there’s no argument, as the state is both source and final arbiter of all sovereignty. Liberals are invoking it when they say that the Constitution “grants” rights.
“Statism or anarchy” is a false dichotomy. You can be a libertarian (or a myriad of other non-statist political philosophies) without being an anarchist. All anarchists are libertarians (except anarcho-communists, which is just a contradiction in terms) but that doesn’t make the reverse true.
In fact, it sounds like it’s you that doesn’t understand the meaning of statism. You appear to be conflating it with “wanting a state to exist.” It actually means “wanting endless, incremental expansion of the powers of the state, to the inevitable conclusion of absolute power.” Which is why anyone supporting the United States federal government’s repeated violations of the Constitution (i.e. the document which grants them their only two powers, plus the amendments which describe things they can’t do even if they would otherwise be able to with those powers) is a statist. A Republican who wants to decrease government spending but also thinks the so-called PATRIOT Act was a good thing is a statist. A Democrat who wants the illegal PRISM mass domestic spying to continue is a statist. A libertarian (or a Libertarian) who is okay with illegal wars being waged because the Executive Branch and DoD called them “police actions” is a statist (and also a hypocrite).
Statist means a political system, or advocate of such a system, whereby the government exercises substantial, even a preponderance of, control over the social and economic spheres of a nation. We can agree that the term is what it is in terms of what it describes. Fair enough.
Know this, however, when I use it, it is meant as an insult of someone who believes in that ideology. I think the word is as ugly as the idea it represents. It sure as Hell isn’t a compliment.
Aaaaaaaand I go and agree with Serge for one fucking second
“So many libertarians don’t understand the real world implications of anarcho-capitalism. You know what real world anarcho-capitalism devolves into? Feudalism.”
Yes, he’s right about the result of anarcho-capitalism. One of our Founding Fathers noted that only a government made up of angels could be trusted, but the flip side is also true: only an anarchy made up of angels can be trusted (but not even then, given that angels can fall).
Anarcho-capitalism could only work if everyone were highly intelligent and had the prime motivation of making sure that everyone’s rights were respected at all times. And that’s about as likely as an eclipse of the moon and of the sun at the same moment.
I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with Serge here.
@Roymond
Authoritarianism != Nation State
You can be pro state authority without being pro authoritarianism. Just like you can be pro fire and not a pyromaniac.
Please remember that words mean things.
Words do mean something. “Statist” implies that one approves of the State having power over or being involved with X.
When you say that you are “pro-State-authority” but not an authoritarian then the onus is on you to further describe and define what you are actually for and/or against. A “Statist” would generally want police to be empowered, they want the State to be involved in healthcare, marriage, business, etc.
You assume that An-Cap or some other “non-State” government would devolve into feudalism but you don’t know that for certain. And it’s impossible to predict how things would shake out now because everything is viewed through the lens of the State being extant so when we talk about it not being extant all we can envision is some other-world nightmare. We fail to forget what really forges a society and culture. What I can say is government doesn’t define it, although it wants to. The State wants to be God.
There are many people who would opt for the no-state solution and see how things go. Maybe it turns out to be better, maybe it turns out worse, but how will we ever know unless we experiment? Unless empires crumble we’ll never be able to further the experiments that point to the boundaries of liberty. If it wasn’t for feudalism and divine right of kings and all the other nonsense we’ve gone through then how would we know that we like this nation-state thing better?
The problem is we don’t live in a nation-state, we live in an empire. We’re supposed to be a confederation of 50 nation-states that can all do as they want. That’s a good thing. That’s how we know to stay away from places like California, New York, New Jersey, etc. But then Statists come in and want the emperor to declare that the nation states be made moot and everything must be uniform. Can’t have it both ways.
I can tell you exactly how a “no state” solution ends up. Badly. Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of history will tell you the same thing. Humans are inherently tribal. If you take away the structure of a nation state which sets limits to that tribalism, you inevitably wind up with feudalism or straight up despotism. We have seen this time and time again over six millennia of human history. Human nature hasn’t changed. People arguing for a no state solution are just as retarded as people arguing for communism. They live with the deluded belief that previous examples of both didn’t fail because their ideology is inherently not a fit for humans but because it wasn’t ideologically pure enough.
“Please remember that words mean things.”
Agree. And despite all the fancy words around here, a “statist” is by default an authoritarian. A statist believes the state is to be served, rather than to serve. A statist believes the state has absolute call on people and resources to support/serve the state. A statist cannot tolerate individual liberty because a notion of individual liberty is antithesis. Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer !
Punisher for the win!
It’s simply not possible to be pro-state and yet non-Statist simultaneously. One is either for the concept of the State having power over individuals, or one is not. One cannot be “just a little bit” Statist, like one cannot be a little bit pregnant.
Wrong, Kenneth — your position is like saying that having a fire extinguisher in your kitchen makes you pro-fire.
To make the difference clear, I’ll put it in simple terms: statism is the position that having a state isn’t just a wonderful thing, it’s the source of all good for people; it isn’t just thinking there should be a state. One can admit that having a state is a necessary evil (e.g. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin) without thinking much good about it at all.
That’s what the U.S. Constitution was all about: it assumes that a state is inherently evil, but also that it’s a human necessity — and thus it should be limited in power, shackled about with restrictions and allowed to do nothing not specifically authorized.
You replied to @Kenneth, but I don’t know why. He is pretty much saying what you state. That aside, your explanation should be the end of discussion, but probably will not (see, I am continuing the discussion). Defining terms is important to any political arguement, and we all know what happens when statists define the terms of discussion.
So just to be clear, this is a binary situation: you’re either a statist or an anarchist. I’m not seeing any middle ground from you guys on this.
Yes, serge, words mean things — you don’t get to redefine them for your own purposes. Statism is not a belief that there should be government, it’s the position that all authority stems from government, all rights are bestowed by government, and that the agents of government can do no wrong.
The irony is that you oppose statism, except you’ve changed the meaning of the word so you can whine about others using it.
The kid was filming a SWAT team raid his neighbor’s house while lurking in the shadows.
Under the circumstances and given the number of people at the scene it is unlikely that a cop decided to shoot an unarmed kid just because he/she was pissed about being recorded.
That, I think, summarizes what Sgt Ramos meant.
This is the wrong page to be debating statism.
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise
It is legal in the entire United States to record the police in the performance of their public duties
I believe the Attorney General sent a letter to every police department in the United States stating this very fact
It’s hard to believe the police would interpret a cell phone as a firearm
Cops need to be reminded that they are PUBLIC servants and when they are carrying out their official duties, they have no right to privacy. Full. Fucking. Stop.
Everything they do must be exposed to the harsh, unforgiving light of the public discourse so that the people they’re supposed to be serving can determine if they’re scum sucking pieces of shit that deserve to be drawn and quartered.
In Massachusetts and Illinois the laws are such that the police could use wiretap laws to potentially arrest you. There was successful litigation against the Boston PD regarding a citizen that was arrested for recording police, but the laws are still on the books.
In theory, those laws should be void in instances where the encounter occurs in a public space (thereby lacking a reasonable expectation of privacy). So, unless you’re recording somewhere you wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to, you should be protected.
Where I’m sure they’re trying to trip people up is through mutual consent (some states require all parties of a recording to consent to said recording, but this should only apply when in a private setting).
But I’m no lawyer, and it’s easy to twist the plain written language of a law.
the Attorney General sent a letter to every police department in the United States
WHAT “Attorney General”? Some Obumer twit or a real one.
Not the first time the existence or non-existence of any object had led to “feared for their lives.”
Since there is no list of things cops won’t mistake for a weapon the next common denominator seems to be the presence of the cops.
Perhaps a doughnut and cup of coffee.
[insert police state joke here]
Now that’s some bull Sh!t right there. Is this a case of ‘snitches get stitches’?
One of the reasons my phone is in a white Otter Box case. Can not be confused with a UBR readily or used as an excuse and justification.
Should not have been shot in his own garage while recording, but these are the times we live in.
“The times we live in” include a cellphone owned by almost everyone,k with no exaggeration. The police are well aware of this.
If the police honestly thought they were being threatened, cover should have been their first thought, at the very least assuming the prone position before “returning” fire.
This will not turn out well for the county.
I disagree. There will be a lawsuit and the COUNTY will pay to make it just ‘go away’ as they have so many times before. In the end, it will not turn out so well… for the TAXPAYERS, who, as always, will take the screwing over and do nothing. What else can a sheeple do?
I think he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘reasonable’.
Why am I not shocked that this kind of BS always goes down in alt-left dominated hellholes like commiefornia?
The sports analogy is known as the “Home field advantage”…
I actually considered adding a *snicker* to that, but the needle of my 1930’s vintage ‘Irony Meter’ hit the stop peg so hard it wrapped six times around it…
It doesn’t. It happens all over the place. The Left you’re so afraid of is actually on your side in opposing arbitrary police authority (civil forfeiture, disparate outcomes for cops in indictment/prosecution, etc.) and militarization of police departments. Funny, I wanted to respond to an earlier comment of your that I actually agreed with. Good to know that I only had to go a bit further down the page for you to turn my stomach again. You seem to go out of your way to alienate people who want the same thing that you do, at least on this subject.
Yeah… they aren’t anti-abuse of authority. They are pro-criminal so long as those criminals are the right color. I don’t care what they say, I look at what they do. At no point has the left actually come out and admitted that they are often spinning complete bullshit narratives “hands up, don’t shoot” anyone? Every time the alt-left goes on a rampage over a nothingburger, it makes it harder to call out REAL issues with the police system THEY PUT IN PLACE TO BEGIN WITH.
Didn’t an Ohio Sheriff’s deputy just shoot a media photographer as recently as Monday? As I recall the story, the photographer was on scene for another purpose, when the deputy conducted a routine traffic stop nearby. The deputy allegedly mistook the camera equipment for a threat and shot the photographer.
Ohio isn’t the most hard core red state out there (they went for Bush twice, Obama twice, and for Trump), I’ll admit, but they aren’t exactly California caliber statists.
Anywhere there is a doofus with a badge and a gun, which is everywhere, this kind of B.S. can happen.
Now there is some real nonsense right there, Serge. This “kind of stuff” goes down all over the country, and it has nothing to do with an “alt left” dominated government. Indeed, these kinds of incidents have little if anything to do with the local or state government at all–these are not cases with orders to shoot coming from THE TOP. The fact is that cops are human, and in the stress of an incident when the adrenaline is pounding, make mistakes, sometimes deadly ones.
I seem to recall that all the recent criminal court cases involving police shooting fatalities occurred in states Other Than California. (Minnesota and South Carolina jump immediately to mind.)
And not one of you jackwads know a damn thing about “qualified immunity,” what it means or where it comes from. Rather than representing “statism” (whatever that is and it seems no one can agree on a definition or what it means in real world terms, or the fact that the term would appear to apply to any government anywhere, which renders it essentially meaningless), it represents “anti-statism.” The RULE of all governments is ABSOLUTE immunity EXCEPT in such circumstances as the government allows itself to be sued. Qualified immunity is one of those circumstances, and is an implicit recognition that state agents and employees can and do act negligently. What qualified immunity allows is for the cops to be sued when they screw up, with limitations, the scope of which limitations are far too complex to discuss in a forum such as this.
So why don’t you guys go back to doing what you do best–deciding on the limited facts available whether you believe this was a good shoot. And maybe criticizing that idiot public relations officer who opined that the victim was just too close to the action, which implies that all bystanders have only themselves to blame if an officer shoots them. Now THAT is some real shit right there!
“I think it’s reasonable to think that the officers perceived an immediate threat either to themselves or continued threat to that individual.”
Wait, what? He was a threat to himself so we shot him before he could harm himself?
And check out the photos of the house in the linked article. Looks like some SPD need some more range time.
Reminding you of the movie “Idiocracy” is it? I see it everpresent, on a daily basis. But then, I’m not a blind sheep, and nether are most on this comment board. I can’t say the same for most other comment sections, tho…
FAIL. Maybe you should listen to the video. The victim lived next door to a guy who, for whatever reason, opened up on the house across the street with an AK47, firing over 100 rounds and killing a dog. (Yes,. the story says it was a “machine gun, but I have no faith in that statement.) The bad guy surrendered shortly after the police SWAT unit arrived. So don’t go blaming the police for what the bad guy did.
Clearly the officers reasonably believed the camera was going to capture their souls.
Impossible, cops sold their souls when they took the job.
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He was either holding a:
– long-gun
– hand-gun
– camera; or,
– something else.
If a long-gun he would have been a threat – even at a great distance. Is that what the police perceived? I doubt it. A hand-gun? At a great distance a hand-gun would be hard to distinguish from a camera. The police were presumably armored with vests. Their jeopardy from the possible “shooter” was low relative to his jeopardy of being shot for innocent behavior. At 7 yards a cop can distinguish between a hand-gun vs. a cell-phone; at 70 yards, he can’t. Is he free-to-shoot when he CAN’T see what his target is holding? Does the rule about target recognition not apply when you can’t see clearly?
Are the police exempt from such the “reasonable-man” standard of analysis? If we should tolerate such an exemption then we have no choice but to run-away as soon as we see a cop walking or driving by. If cops can claim that a civilian made any threatening gesture (lighting a cigarette, scratching an itch) and thereby claim immunity, then they are “licensed-to-kill”.
This. It’s crazy that this kind of stuff happens. What Pwrserge said is also true. My family came from Poland, and I can’t count how many times in the 70’s and 80’s the ZOMO (our soviet police) would kill because of their immunity. I’m strongly for the camera on every cop. Its as much for them as us-if they are in the right.
As my Dutch friend, who now lives in the USA, says, “They are all Gestapo, it doesn’t matter which country you are in.”
Most LE in the USA don’t volunteer to join the death squads.
Unfortunately, most LE agencies in the USA do have death squads now.
This wasn’t the usual cop-watcher, openly taking video of nonviolent everyday police activities, it was an ordinary bystander who thought a police death squad deployment was a spectator sport. What did he think a death squad would to to him for being outdoors while they were working, invite him over for tea and crumpets?
I hope the video he was shooting gets released. Betting $5 it’s flat out embarrasing to them.
Illegal full auto? But I thought they were in a gun free paradise.
Look at that smug look on his face.
He can’t help it..he’s a COP…better and above you and me…better obey his “commands”, legal or not (just ask the Nurse, in the recent news, who got roughed up & arrested for not following an illegal command). I had a good friend who’s 16 year old daughter was dating a cop’s son. Even he, the young son, had an attitude. And when you met his dad, no need to ask if he was a cop…his cocky attitude announced it for you. Then there is the neighbor who lives a few properties over, next to our farm. He was a Sheriff’s deputy, but got drunk one night and got into a bar room brawl. Darn if they didn’t fire him. Funny how his “attitude” evaporated once he became a regular citizen.
Roll the tape. I’d like to see what this so called threat looked like. And at what distance it was taken from.
I see the liberals are invading the site.
I didn’t realized Antifa was part of this site. Scum!
Read the whole article, Swat team was dealing with some idiot with a machine gun and this guy is from the “edge of the garage” extending out his arm with a cell phone. Sounds like he looked like he was taking a shooting stance from cover. Now I know that most people have no idea that acting in such a way can appear threading, and cops need to be a hell of a lot less trigger happy. But you have to think about what you look like to the other person.
I might buy that argument if a phone looked like a gun, a gun gave off light like a phone or if… Well, anything about such a statement was believable.
Sometimes cops are just plain stupid. This is one of those times.
Sorry, someone without a badge did this and they’d be clapped in irons and hauled away while the police made statements to the effect that they were dumb and endangering public safety by opening fire without properly identifying a weapon/threat. That person would deserve such treatment. The cops, in this case, do too.
“Some idiot with a machine gun”
Anybody else want to bet me real money that the man they came to arrest for unlawful discharge was in actual possession of a full auto?
I think the odds are strongly against it having actually happened. Maybe some idiot did a mag dump with a semi auto, but a full auto seems highly unlikely.
It was a “SWAT team” says a lot. I doubt they were in blue or black, but probably in military garb, complete with a military mindset. Probably arrived in an armored vehicle, complete with gun turret on top. The problem is, they are not on a real battlefield…they are in a domestic, civilian setting (regardless of how violent it got or what kind of weapons (auto, etc), they were facing). (Recall the guy with the golf club standing in his hallway? Officer that killed him got award.) Military training and mindset is much different, or at least it should be, than law enforcement. One of the dangers of the militarization of our police forces…shoot first at any reprieved threat. Our police are becoming more and more like the para-miliatary police forces the Communist states had…and we are supposed to be subservient to them.
You give a good description of statism: that the state is all, and its representatives are not required to conform to reality, but only to their perceptions — so shooting someone with a golf club is honored because it sort of kind of in a way after a fashion might have looked a bit like a rifle.
Or a bit like a cane? And the septuagenarian looked a bit like a gangbanger? Because they are similar. They’re both bipedal, after all,…
https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/7467156-SC-deputy-wont-face-charges-in-shooting-of-man-reaching-for-cane/
Incidents like this, or the nurse getting arrested for refusing to break the law or the reporter shot for setting up his tripod/camera really make one wonder about the intelligence level of the cops involved which leads to more questions about hiring policies.
I try to be even handed with the cops and I know that the zillion stories of them doing the right thing don’t generally make the news, but with stories like this I can understand why many people don’t like the cops or outright fear them.
strych9,
I think police misconduct/abuse/brutality is a lot LESS related to intelligence and a LOT more related to just plain old belligerence and their “us versus them” mentality.
I suppose, in some cases, there could also be something akin to “battle fatigue”. Not sure what to do about that.
“I think police misconduct/abuse/brutality is a lot LESS related to intelligence and a LOT more related to just plain old belligerence and their “us versus them” mentality.”
Like when ‘Officer Friendly’ looses his shit when told he can’t draw blood at a hospital without a warrant?
What makes you think he needed a warrant? Now I agree that this cop handled things very very badly, but it seems that what pissed him off was that he believed he did not need a warrant or probable cause because the victim from whom he sought to obtain a sample was a commercial trucker–and those truckers, I’ve read, have already consented to this search because a condition of their license is that they have no more than .01% BAC when driving–so SOP is to sample every commercial driver any time there is an accident.
Seem to have read a report that the guy under care in the hospital was also a cop. The police are slowly taking action against the out of control detective/vampire.
I think it’s the training, especially the Farce Science Institute’s notion that the only way for cops to protect themselves is to eliminate every potential threat before it has a chance to become a real threat.
After a few force on force sessions, where the instructors tell you “see, you waited to see if I was a threat and gave me time to kill you, don’t ever hesitate like that on the streets”, and you’ve got a recipe for stuff like this incident.
Hooray for “Split Second Decisions”.
And the paramilitary death squads such as the one responsible for this shooting get far more of this training than ordinary LEOs.
“I think it’s reasonable to think that the officers perceived an immediate threat either to themselves or continued threat to that individual.”
Such pu$$ies in law enforcement.
“On top of shooting him and arresting him, Sanchez’s home was also searched. But Sgt. Ramos acknowledged Sanchez committed no crime and is not facing any charges.”
Of course. A$$holes
So people can assume if they see a cop, the cop will shoot them.
Got it.
NO > = pigs !
I trust you will never need anything from law enforcement in the future?
You are your own first responder. To assert that LE is anything but a deterrent and a clean-up service is not based in fact.
In my 71 years of life, I’ve NEVER actually “needed” anything from cops. I’ve gotten plenty of crap from them that I didn’t “need” or want, of course. I certainly wouldn’t call them unless I simply had no other choice… and even then I’d really have to think about it. I had to shoot a man to save my life one night, 33 years ago. I didn’t call the cops then and nobody died. Isn’t that amazing…
As strych9 hinted above, there is also the recent incident where a sheriff deputy shot photographer Andy Grimm in New Carlisle, Ohio setting up a tripod and camera in a parking lot, in a small town, where everyone literally knows everyone, and the deputy and Mr. Grimm knew each other on a first-name basis.
According to one source, Mr. Grimm “is very worried that the deputy might lose his job over the incident.”
I hope the deputy does lose his job over the incident and that no one ever employs him in law enforcement ever again.
This sort of thing has to stop.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4852920/News-organization-says-employee-shot-traffic-stop.html
But but but he SCEERED me😢 Cop should get a very long prison sentence…
The threat wasn’t to thier lives – it was to thier livleyhood.
There was a Supreme Court decision in I believe the late 80’s (I’m too lazy to look it up) that reversed a long held traditional judgement in Police use of Deadly Force. Prior to this decision the standard was would a “reasonable person” think that the use of deadly force was justified. The new decision changed to standard to, “did the police officer think his life was in danger”. Since that ruling Police use of deadly force has risen and any thought of holding the officer responsible for shooting someone innocent of any crime and unarmed has fundamentally disappeared. Police just need to voice the magic incantation “I was in fear for my life” and nearly all prosecutors and judges feel they have to accept that despite any physical or visual evidence to the contrary.
Nope, that’s not the standard. Yes, the co will voice the “I was afeered” line, but it is not a magic wand that guarantees immunity. Instead, a jury has to be persuaded that he was in “reasonable fear for his life,” such that the officer’s credibility is directly in issue. It is also important that the officer had a legal right (e.g. a warrant being executed at the correct address that allowed his presence on private property) for that qualified immunity to amount to a hill of beans. Here’s an example: a joint task force goes out in the middle of the night to execute a search warrant on a single wide mobile home in a rural area based on probable cause to believe that the residents of the mobile were dealing heroin. (Which was true.) The scouting of the location was minimal to attempt to avoid detection. The problem was that there was a double wide mobile located 20 yards away, occupied by the resident ranch manager and is family. The police surrounded that mobile too–though it was NOT a premises listed on the warrant, and for which there was no probable cause. Hearing a ruckus outside (which he’d heard before, since the neighbor was dealing drugs) the manager gets up to peer out his door, trusty shotgun in hand. An officer spots him through a window–armed–and shots him through that window. Police then enter, arrest the manager and handcuff him, hold his family (including young children) at gun point while they (illegally) search the house (unsuccessfully because there were no drugs or dealers living there), and to make matters worse, prevent paramedics summoned to the scene from treating his gun shot for half an hour. Eventually, they haul him to a local hospital, and after his wound was doctored, haul him off to jail charged with assault on a police officer (because he was legally armed with a shotgun in his own home). Again, it took several months before the charges were dropped.
This is a true story. And yes, it cost the various public entities from where the officers had come a nice solid chunk of change. And it didn’t take a big long law suit for the case to settle either, because once defense counsel got the case, they knew they were up the creek…
This case has similar features. The police shot a bystander at an address other than the one where the bad guy had holed up, and apparently after they bad guy had already surrendered. To make matters worse, they then searched the victim’s house without probable cause or a warrant. Bad optics.
Future headline:
“Police shoot six year old girl twirling her pigtails. Police spokesman says they had a reasonable fear of their lives.
“Film never.”
Perfectly justified shooting, if the standard is ‘I feared for my pension’.
These bad cops need to be fired. Not allowed to retire with pension, but fired outright. Would be helpful to do the same to their superiors and trainers too.
Yes, the inevitable union lawsuits will cost a lot. But so does an endless cycle of taxpayer funded blood-money covering the actions of bad/corrupt/psycho public servants.
Unbelievably unreasonable behavior by the police. This is what happens when the police become an army and the population is expected to be unarmed. A cellphone and a gun are not even held in the same way, especially while recording. I hope the family sues the hell out of the police and some trigger happy cops get fired. This from a 22-year retired police lieutenant.
Failure to hold people to account for their actions encourages crime. We desperately need to apply this truism to cops.
And then they searched his house illegally.
The police need to be personally and financially responsible for their actions. Just like I am.
If that means cops need malpractice insurance, so be it.
The amount of coverage you think you need is really up to you, officer. How much of a trigger-happy, scaredy-cat fuckwit do you plan on being?
“And then they searched his house illegally.”
Looking for something(ANYTHING) to help justify the dead body they left out front, no doubt…
No dead body, just a leg wound. But they did pump three or four rounds through the garage–and a car–suggesting that they were not firing their handguns by their ARs.
Cops should be fired and sent to the slammer. In general population.
But I thought we were supposed to blindly, unquestioningly support the police no matter what?
Who are you people? Where are all the “thin blue line” OFWGs that normally post on here?
Their ranks get real thin when the police act as insane as this. So far, only Pseudo and binder have dared to post. And nobody knows if they are fat, old OR white. They’re never given so much as a hint, and they’ve both been posting here for years now.
I know it is required that POTG (at least at TTAG) rage about cops irresponsibly shooting civilians (and history is definitely not on the side of cops), but I want to pose a question, or two.
Given that police are approaching a known location where an automatic weapon was reportedly fired; given that approaching such a potentially hostile and deadly event could unfold when the person with the machine gun (presuming it actually was a machine gun) is confronted; given that the cops do not know how many people are involved, and maybe not even their exact location; given the cops see a person in the dark of a garage, with a human arm (or arms) extended in the direction of the cops; given the lighting does not enhance visibility into the garage; given a cellphone is very difficult to distinguish from across a street; do we rationally expect police to be shot/shot at first? What do we do about someone we think has a deadly weapon pointed at us? Do POTG just wait to be shot at?
What do we honestly expect any “reasonable person” to do under the circumstance.
We reasonably expect that they will identify their target BEFORE firing, the same as every other person/carrier in the country is REQUIRED BY LAW to do!
Understand now?
Or is your position that all agents of the state should just fire at any sound/object/thing that they feel like?
“Or is your position that all agents of the state should just fire at any sound/object/thing that they feel like?”
Please don’t be absurd. Leftists, Demoncrats and Liberals are sufficient for that task.
I have no “position”, only a question about whether in a known threat location/situation, we expect cops (and armed citizens) to take the first hit under the circumstances I described. I haven’t thought that out, myself. I always picture a scenario where it is absolutely clear that an aggressor has a weapon deployed, cocked, and pointed in my direction. That I will always know. So, if we expect cops to take the first hit, can we relieve ourselves of the same responsibility to wait until it is absolutely clear that the hand pointed at you by a potential attacker is not a cellphone? Must POTG take the first hit?
I find it ironic that you would advocate for looser rules of engagement for cops than some of our combat troops have had in the past 20 years.
“I find it ironic that you would advocate for looser rules of engagement for cops than some of our combat troops have had in the past 20 years.”
Superficial reading leads to superficial understand, which renders superficial responses.
If asking a question about a scenario constitutes support for and idea or an action, it would be good for you to avoid reading materials likely to trigger superficial responses.
To make it short, do we expect police and POTG to take the first hit? Is there any room for a reasonable mistake (in the report, the police actions of arresting and searching is clearly unreasonable).? If police and POTG are required to take the first hit, then say so. If a “reasonable”, though mistaken, decision to shoot is not tolerable for police or POTG, then say so. But….”reasonable” can be turned against you quite quickly.
I would argue that the two are differen situations. Police have greater authority and should thus be held to a higher standard. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand that police positively identify a weapon or threat before employing preemptive lethal force. I can’t see how a police officer can swear out an affidavit regarding the “reasonableness” of shooting a civilian who is dozens of yards away without them clearly being able to identify an imminent threat.
From where I’m sitting, a police officer should be civilly and criminally liable for any actions they take as part of their official duties. It’s the only way to discourage recklessness and flat out ineptitude.
“Police have greater authority and should thus be held to a higher standard.”
I must conclude you expect police to suffer the first hit in order to be absolutely sure the “threat” is actually a threat in a tense situation. No problem with that. Just wanted some opinions. Thank you.
How ’bout POTG in situations such as I described?
I guess technically speaking, recording a police officer is a threat to the police officer cause when they eventually do something illegal you can “threaten” their job by suing them.
Still, I think the whole “I feared for my life” excuse is getting a little out of hand here.
What no BLM???
No riots…the city is on burning down?
No CNN blasting this on air every 10 minutes??
No reverend no-body shouting on the streets with a bull horn??
Ohhh a white guy got shot —move along
We have too many wussy cops. We need cops with some balls not scared of kittens.
We all realize this story is from 2015, right?
This was lame but it happened in 2015.
I am surprised that the cops did not shoot each other due to body cameras or shoot cameramen from news stations since lethal force would be justified against the press and the police for recording based on the logic of this cop’s quote.
But it’s OK for a unmarked motorcycle cop to stand on the side of the road and point something that looks like a gun at passing cars? Raleigh, NC… What could go wrong?
This is what happens to a disarmed populace when cops feel safe gunning down independent citizen journalists without fear of returned fire.
Dirty cops probably would be afraid of being recorded committing felonies but that does not justify shooting the person recording them
Was the person recording shot due to one of the cops being an undercover cop.
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