What security???
The police should be subject to, and should obey the very same laws they enforce. That includes laws against threats, violence, and coercion. This ain’t some third world country or Mexico (yet)
Surveillance video of the shooting has been released. IMHO it is very damning of the officer’s conduct. I was initially supportive of the officers’ actions until I saw the video.
Anyway, make up your own minds.
I haven’t seen it but can you describe what’s in the video that changes your perception of what happened?
Explosive article over at Vox by Matthew Yglasias. Well not really, except where gunnuts are involved.
Number of Americans killed by cops, latest available year: 400, and I’ve read elsewhere that this is an underestimate.
Number in Germany: 8
Britain: 0
Japan: 0
Now Britain and Germany both have their tensions with minorities. But the cops there don’t have to deal with a massively armed citizenry, or part of that citizenry anyway. (Lots of normal Americans don’t own a firearm just like people in other countries). So it’s not surprising that US cops are trigger happy and British cops are not. Another reason British cops don’t kill civilians is that most of them are not armed: only some are.
Anyway 400+ deaths by cops per year is one of the prices we pay for a robust 2nd Amendment. These deaths fall disproportionately on US minorities, like the 12 year old mentioned above. Some might call that kid a 2nd Amendment hero: I opine that he’s a victim.
Was it the speed at which the police fired that changed your mind? The boy did attempt to draw what appeared to be a very real handgun when the police approached which he had been brandishing just moments before.
Wait, what did the kid do wrong?
Ohio is an open-carry state. As evidenced by other incidents in Ohio where the cops were oh so polite with someone walking the streets with a gun in his hand just to visibly exercise his rights, the kid had the right to have a real gun unholstered. So the kid was taking the gun out of his holster.
ISTM that, had that been a real gun, what he was doing was legal as church on Sunday, aside from possibly being below the legal age to carry a gun, if Ohio has a minimum age for that. Which is hardly a capital offense.
So apparently they shot the kid for doing something perfectly legal in that state.
Am I missing something here? Or are Ohio open-carry laws whites-only?
“Best to kill em all and let the courts work it out later.”
It’s a little more nuanced than that, right? They were responding to a complaint about someone scaring the crap out of everyone waving a gun around, and (if their account is accurate), they ordered him to show his hands and instead he went for the gun.
I’m gonna need a cite for the part of Ohio law that declares it perfectly legal to pull a gun on a police officer.
Or on anyone else, for that matter. I think the fact that it was the police doing the shooting here is pretty irrelevant.
OK, but just like when that guy was killed by the cops in that Wal-Mart, the cops have no business assuming the truth of a complaint.
They investigate the complaint. They can’t just take the word of someone over the phone that a situation is dangerous. Such a claim means they need to be ready in case it is, but they still have to come in with their eyes open and make their own judgment.
Otherwise, the cops become a lethal weapon available to be wielded by the random 911 caller.
I mean, I watched all seven minutes of that video. There’s a fair amount of that park in view, and there are only two instances where anyone else even appears in it. Most of the time, the place is deserted. Including right before the cops pull up.
If they’d cruised on by, parked their car on the street, and watched for a minute, they’d have seen what we saw in the video: a bored kid playing with something in an essentially deserted park.
Instead, they blaze in, screech to a stop right next to him on the grass, and in seconds, shoot him dead.
The cops put themselves in the zone of split-second decisions by coming at the kid like a SWAT team with no need for doing so.
I’m gonna need a cite for the part of Ohio law that says it’s illegal to have an unholstered gun in the presence of a police officer. ETA: Because if it’s legal to have a holstered gun, and it’s legal to have an unholstered gun, then you’d need a very specific law about when it’s illegal to take the gun from one legal state to another.
Okay, that’s a fair debate, but it’s different than your original point, which seemed to be that the kid was doing something that to all appearances was perfectly legal. Pulling a gun on a cop who ordered you to show your hands is not. Now, whether or not the cops created the situation, one that could have been avoided, is a fair but different point.
You need to watch the video before commenting on the incident. The interaction you describe could not have happened. The kid was dead before the car door was all the way open. He had no time to make any moves whatsoever.
ETA: By the way, his behavior prior to the cops showing up was unwise. I couldn’t see any other people, so I couldn’t say that he was brandishing. If he was pointing it at people, that was not okay.
Open carry means holstered. Unholstered is brandishing unless responding to a threat. If someone is walking the streets with a gun in hand, that is not “open carry”. Did you think it was?
The kid in the video had the replica firearm in a shooting position moments before, and if it were a real firearm, was brandishing it.
So let’s see, what did the kid do wrong?
[ul]
[li]Unsupervised use of an airsoft pistol by a child[/li][li]Waving around the pistol in a threatening manner[/li][li]Reaching for the replica pistol in his waistband when the police arrive[/li][/ul]
And in jest - be black? Because police are racist of course.
I’ve posted this one before…police respond to a home in Hartford VT. The (black) owner is passed out naked on his own toilet so they pepper spray him and haul him out of his home.
http://vtdigger.org/2012/09/25/records-and-telling-details-about-police-beating-finally-released/
With the recent article in Slate* on the Ferguson narrative, this jumps out at me in the VT article:
The officers described Burwell in statements as “muscular” and “very large.” In the video clips from the police car dashcam, Burwell who stands up briefly, staggering in apparent shock, is no taller than the officers, and is more slightly built.
Well yeah, because at least one of the instances of open carry where the cops were polite to the carrier involved the carrying of rifles, which can’t exactly be holstered.
And when what they see with their own eyes is a gun being pulled on them, are they wrong in judging that they’re in danger?
Open carry of a rifle typically means slung - though I don’t think there is a singular definition. In any case, your characterization of what the kid was doing as ‘open carry’ is in error. What he was shown doing would be considered brandishing if it were a real firearm. Not sure if that applies to replicas. That’s the part you are missing.
Denver Police seize tablet, delete video of brutal arrest. But it had backed up to “the cloud”.
Later the cops threatened him with arrest if he didn’t let them erase the recording.