cops don't need guns
- Thread starter TopSecretBoiler
- Start date
Hunkgolden was right, if only that Black man had listened to the police and not committed crimes, he wouldn't have been shot.
You know what sarcasm aside here is the part that is most f'd up and the part we see time and again. They shot the guy. They wrongfully shot the guy. They KNOW they wrongfully shot the guy. Yet they still handcuff him. They still treat him not like a person, but a thing to be feared. No empathy, no real treatment of his wound.
And folks wonder why perhaps some of our citizenry don't trust the police.
You know what sarcasm aside here is the part that is most f'd up and the part we see time and again. They shot the guy. They wrongfully shot the guy. They KNOW they wrongfully shot the guy. Yet they still handcuff him. They still treat him not like a person, but a thing to be feared. No empathy, no real treatment of his wound.
And folks wonder why perhaps some of our citizenry don't trust the police.
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Not just that, they had TWO cops with guns trained on him and the one that shot him had an AR-15. WHY!? God damn enforcer mentality.
I see two different issues - the "enforcer" "do what I say" mentality, and whether or not cops need guns. I agree with you that the enforcer mentality is a problem with some of these cops. I disagree that in a country where there are 300 million legally owned firearms, the police don't "need" guns. What they need is to be better trained on use of deadly force in my opinion.
studies have shown that people use the maximum force available to them in panic situations. It's completely unreasonable to give these regular joe beat cops AR-15s as giving it to them is tacit approval to use it imo.
I see a racial problem. At least in this case. The person with actually something in their hands is the non-black autistic guy. The person actually in noncompliance with the non-black autistic guy. The person not talking to police in a calm manner explaining the situation is the non-black autistic guy.
The person shot is the black guy. This isn't a training issue. Do you really need to be trained to not shoot the guy in this circumstance? Ignore the whole don't need guns silliness. Obviously they do, and yes they need better training, but they also need better screening.
Oh hell, I wasn't speaking to this case specifically. You know how I feel about those. I think some cops (and people) are always going to be more scared of the black guy and act accordingly.
I think they do need to be trained better. What are the keys to look for in employment of deadly force? From an FP/LE perspective, we train to three specific things: intent, capability, and opportunity. You must establish some form of all three in order to be justified in use of force. Its through that light that I try to view a lot of these shootings. I mean, we arm 18 year old Sailors with weapons and they deal with the public a great deal (albeit in a secure environment). They probably stand about 8 hours of armed watch on a weekly basis. Police should be trained (if they aren't) to a similar standard considering they stand armed "watch" for 40+ hours a week. Whatever they're doing isn't working, IMO.
Example: St Paul -
The victim had the capability to cause great bodily harm because he possessed a weapon. He clearly stated that he had a weapon and that he was going for his ID, which to me indicated a lack of intent. He had not yet established opportunity because he did not possess the weapon directly and was in no position to actually employ it against the shooter. Thus, deadly force (obviously) should not have been used.
Example: Baton Rouge -
The victim had a weapon capable of causing great bodily harm. He had demonstrated intent to resist, but at this point I don't believe he had demonstrated intent to cause harm to the officers. The opportunity is debatable, because nothing would've stopped him from discharging his firearm in his pocket. I don't think they had justification at first look, but I'm more open to listening to the police story in that case.
In this specific case in Miami, no there was no reason or justification for employment of deadly force regardless of the color of the man's skin, so they were wholly wrong. Race is definitely something I would consider as a possible cause for this guy just chucking any training he'd ever had right out the window.
I don't get this at all. A guy on his back with his hands up, an autistic person...no gun in sight...and the cops need to fire 3 shots...for what? I don't know that is racial (especially since we don't know who the officer was firing at) as much as it is just stupid. It seems like the police are going into every situation expecting to use their weapons.
My point is that we have multiple, divergent issues here on the police side of the equation...SOME of it is training, SOME of it is screening. This wasn't a training issue IMO, this was a screening issue. Screening is where you can try and get rid of the folks who are racist, or prone to act irrationally in a tense/crisis situation (i.e. ignore their training), etc. Training won't do much for those folks.
So far it would seem that some of the recent voices on this board with fierce views on the Police misconduct subject seem conspicuously silent on this latest instance.
Do we need to wait for the conviction/acquittal resolution to be able to logically ask WTF when a guy lying on the ground with his hands up gets shot? And when three total shots are fired at two people on the ground with zero weapons?
Do we need to wait for the conviction/acquittal resolution to be able to logically ask WTF when a guy lying on the ground with his hands up gets shot? And when three total shots are fired at two people on the ground with zero weapons?
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Which are we more likely to see/hear first:
The first police public figure will step up and say there is a legitimate misconduct/conflict de-escalation /training issue in our police culture that requires investigation and action.
OR...
Sheriff Clarke and his media pals will dig up some dirt to attempt to smear Charles Kinsey (iE: parking tickets, history of a misdemeanor drug arrest in 90's, etc.)
The first police public figure will step up and say there is a legitimate misconduct/conflict de-escalation /training issue in our police culture that requires investigation and action.
OR...
Sheriff Clarke and his media pals will dig up some dirt to attempt to smear Charles Kinsey (iE: parking tickets, history of a misdemeanor drug arrest in 90's, etc.)
Des will be around to tell us about our rush to justice and Hunk will be around to tell us that he was jaywalking and thus clearly a criminal.
Not to mention that it sounds like the city is already talking about settling with the shooting victim...probably at multiples of anything a 9/11 victim received...odds bodkins!
Also, to tell us we're all losers and ask why we're discussing things with anonymous people so much.
BGB is close to determining that both Kinsey and the cop that shot him are moslem.
To me this is right up there with the SC(I think) parking lot in the gas station issue. Just real poor judgement that should at least have an attempted murder charge IMO.
That said, as far as these instances, right, I do not rush to judge. Why? Well, when I see/hear a video/audio clip that has been edited or only shows certain parts of incident I am skeptical. In the Martin case CNN edited 911 call and we all know the 'hands up do not shoot' in Ferguson was false.
The ABC national news just reported that the policeman intended to shoot the autistic man because he thought he was hiding a weapon and wouldn't show his hands, if I heard that correctly. He instead accidentally shot the black man that was attending to the autistic patient.
That kind of sheds a whole different light on the situation and the intent of the cop, as well as this discussion.
That kind of sheds a whole different light on the situation and the intent of the cop, as well as this discussion.
only if you believe that to be true, instead of an after the fact explanation. His original response to why he shot the man was "I don't know."
That's a perfectly reasonable response if he was aiming for the autistic guy. I'm adding *tic* just in case.
Perhaps the police officer is related to Claudine Longet.
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rski.phtml
Guess we can add shooting precision/accuracy to the list of additional training
