# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 455
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9082 "2016-09-26T20:41:31Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Next time I’m incoherent on the floor from hypoglycemia, I’ll try to remember that. > > Dumbass. If you’re black and incoherent they’ll [punch you in the face and you’ll die in the hospital](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/09/24/black_man_in_baltimore_calls_police_ends_up_dying_in_hospital.html). ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9083 "2016-09-26T20:42:20Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Instead of making excuses for all this crap, the black community would be much better served by placing an emphasis on compliance rather than making the police the bad guys when law-breakers and resisters get shot. I am sure that the man you want for the job is [Charles Kinsey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9084 "2016-09-26T20:43:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Police shoot about 1000 people every year. How many of those do you think follow this pattern? Good luck getting police cooperation on THAT investigation. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9085 "2016-09-26T20:46:45Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > …Instead of making excuses for all this crap, the black community would be much better served by placing an emphasis on compliance rather than making the police the bad guys when law-breakers and resisters get shot. I ask again: > [@](#): > > …What our brown Americans are telling us is that the rules are different when you’re brown. Do you deny that? Do you even doubt that?.. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9086 "2016-09-26T20:49:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I ask again: Well, he _did_ post those instructions in #9067 to the black community only. I guess the rules are less strict for other ethnicities. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9087 "2016-09-26T20:50:01Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Bullshit. He left his car running in the middle of the street and way over the center line. He was reported by 911 callers to be on the side of the road and acting strangely. When Officer Shelby arrived, she looked for occupants in the back seat and secured the car. Crutcher began to approach her from the side of the road. She asked if it was his car. He answered incoherently and began moving toward her with his hand in his pocket. She asked him to take his hands out of his pockets. She got into her car and asked for backup. While in the car he began approaching her from the passenger side of the car, once again putting his hands in his pockets. In accordance with her training she assessed him as being high on PCP. Being alone and faced with a much larger man who kept behaving bizarrely and refusing to follow her lawful commands, she drew her weapon. Crutcher then began walking slowly toward his vehicle with his hands in the air, defying her commands and those of the officers who were arriving and coming up behind her to render assistance. Upon arriving at the driver’s door he turn and reached for what appeared to me to be the door handle. At that moment both a taser and Officer Shelby’s gun were fired. > > I agree that he should not have been shot, but then I haven’t been trained by having watched videos as to how quickly a person can reach into a car, grab a gun from inside, and and start firing. So maybe he should have been. But there’s no question it was his attempt to open the door that got him tased and shot. It had nothing to do with his ethnicity (and how come in some of these shootings the cop is a black guy and we still hear this shit?). It had nothing to do with taking him down “hard”. We still hear this shit because we never see a black cop shooting white dudes like this and we never see white cops de-escalating with black suspects. I don’t think we can tell a cop that if they take a chance and de-escalate with an armed white dude, they must also take a chance with black dudes if the cop is justified to shoot in both situations. But the fact remains that there is an apparent discrepancy between how cops react to black suspects and how they react to white suspects. Its not overt racism, I don’t think the more thoughtful people think that most of it is. But the same subtle almost subconscious racism that is still affecting the black community today is affecting how police react to them. I don’t know how you fix it short of much having the police force reflect the racial mixture of the people they most frequently police. > [@](#): > > He was a guy behaving unpredictably and uncooperatively and apparently under the influence of a powerful drug. The cops held off and yelled at him repeatedly to stop what he was doing and fired only when in their view and according to their training a potentially deadly threat developed. I bet they were supposed to fire those tasers a lot earlier. > [@](#): > > I asked upthread as to exactly how the situation could possibly have been de-escalated and got crickets in response. Perhaps you’d care to take a crack at it. Fire half a dozen tasers into him before he reached the car. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9088 "2016-09-26T20:51:57Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > “he’s on something” > > “he’s going for my gun” > > “he’s got a gun” > > “he was very threatening” > > “he was not complying with my orders” > > “exculpatory statement I make every time I’m actually the one doing something wrong” > > :rolleyes: I missed it. What was the helicopter dude doing wrong? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: I wonder if all the people who are complaining about this will STFU when it turns out that this guy was on PCP or if they will find some other reason to turn Terence Crutcher’s death into a conspiracy, ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9089 "2016-09-26T20:52:17Z")
> [@](#): > > …the black community would be much better served by placing an emphasis on compliance… They do. Its called “The Talk”, given by parents to their children. If you don’t even know what that is, have a nice cuppa silence. You have nothing of value to add, and ignorance is already abundant. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9090 "2016-09-26T20:52:49Z")
How about if you fire a taser and a handgun at the same time, the taser really hasn’t been given enough time to work, has it? Maybe the police should get their shit together would handling deadly weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9091 "2016-09-26T20:54:40Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I missed it. What was the helicopter dude doing wrong? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: > > I wonder if all the people who are complaining about this will STFU when it turns out that this guy was on PCP or if they will find some other reason to turn Terence Crutcher’s death into a conspiracy, No, because being on PCP is not a crime punished by a death sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9092 "2016-09-26T20:55:09Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Your post is mostly the same bullshit you’ve been pedaling for pages and pages now, but I’ll tackle your question: the cops could have not done any of the things they did. They could have not tased him, not shot him, not decided he was a threat to begin with. They could have sought information rather than compliance. They could have acted like they cared about Mr. Crutcher, for just a few minutes, more than they cared about getting home on time. They care about getting home alive. > [@](#): > > They could have acted like the public servants they are supposed to be. That’s some of things the cops could have done to de-escalate things. Cops are not obligated to put themselves at risk to deescalate. The taser shot was pretty well justified IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9093 "2016-09-26T20:58:38Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Try it. Remember, you gotta walk _around_ the door you just opened to reach inside, retrieve the weapon, and bring it to bear. Before someone can pull a trigger. So, try it. Take one for the team **SA**! I don’t think this is a likely scenario but: The officers didn’t know what Terence had in his pocket. If he could open the car door, it could provide some cover while he retrieved the weapon and started firing. Generally speaking, tasers were made for situations like this and they should have used it a lot sooner. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9094 "2016-09-26T21:02:21Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Part of Turkey is Europe. And when I saw the security image, he looked more Caucasian than Hispanic (note that the Caucasus mountains are closer to Turkey than they are to any other part of Europe). > > So, yes, hispanics, brown as they are, are not _black_. Arab-like and Persian folks may have dark-ish skin, but they are _not black_. Even **Samoans** and Chinese are treated better than African-Americans. You sure Samoans are treated better than blacks? I think their incarceration rate is slightly higher than blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9095 "2016-09-26T21:07:51Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Cite this please. Third time I’ve asked. > > Correction, he is tased first then shot by Shelby, which is why Shelby was charged with manslaughter. > > Well, apparently a few things still need to be cleared up. I thought she was being charged with manslaughter because Terence Crutcher wasn’t actually a threat at the time he was killed. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9096 "2016-09-26T21:11:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The point is that none of the people in the news lately for being shot would have been killed had they merely complied with the police’s lawful orders. And in some cases, there is a growing sense that they would not have been killed if they were white. > [@](#): > > (The tragic and unusual case of Philando Castille excepted.) > > Instead of making excuses for all this crap, the black community would be much better served by placing an emphasis on compliance rather than making the police the bad guys when law-breakers and resisters get shot. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9097 "2016-09-26T21:16:48Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > I am sure that the man you want for the job is [Charles Kinsey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey). That’s just fucking absurd. There is no excuse for that and frankly there is no excuse for handcuffing him instead of getting him in an ambulance ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9098 "2016-09-26T21:18:53Z")
**DA** , you appear to be coming down strongly on every side of the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9099 "2016-09-26T21:18:56Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > No, because being on PCP is not a crime punished by a death sentence. Then why do you give a shit whether or not he was on PCP? If being on PCP is irrelevant to the conversation then why even contest it? ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9100 "2016-09-26T21:19:33Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > **They care about getting home alive.** > > Cops are not obligated to put themselves at risk to deescalate. > > The taser shot was pretty well justified IMHO. Emphasis added. If that if all they care about, then they need to find a new job. I have friends who are police officers. They care not only for themselves, but also about the community they serve. Yes, they want to get home, but they also want others to make it home, whenever possible. They are good cops. Not all cops are good cops. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/9101 "2016-09-26T21:23:55Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s just fucking absurd. There is no excuse for that and frankly there is no excuse for handcuffing him instead of getting him in an ambulance ASAP. He was black, unarmed and alive. The only logical assumption they could possibly make was that he was dangerously high on the PCP. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=454) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=456)