I have two general responses to your recent lines of conversation:
(1) with respect to the idea that what the police are doing is legal, that’s a bit of a gray area, in general. The laws don’t say “here are 5 ways to restrain a suspect that are legal, this one is legal as long as it only lasts for 45 seconds, here are 5 maneuvers that are illegal”, or anything as precise as that. Rather, (as far as I know) they talk about things like “reasonable force”, etc. Therefore it’s impossible to just describe an incident and immediately have everyone agree with no doubt that the use of force either was or was not legal. Instead we have to trust our criminal justice system. BUT, that comes with the huge caveat that since cops are part of the criminal justice system, there’s strong (and in my opinion justifiable) suspicion that it does not come to just and equitable conclusions when it comes to cops.
(2) there’s a middle ground between “cops only apply savage beatings to criminals” and “cops just randomly pick innocent people and give them savage beatings”, which is “cops only apply savage beatings to people they SUSPECT are criminals”. And even if they’re often right (after all, both the guy in Ferguson and the guy in New York with the choke hold (sorry, I’m blanking on both of their names… Michael Brown?) had in fact committed crimes of some level of severity shortly before their deaths) they’re presumably not always right, and more importantly, they aren’t judge, jury and executioner. If they suspect someone of a crime it is their job to arrest that person, kind of by definition. But that person is not yet a convicted criminal, and might never be, and is therefore not in some karmic or moral fashion deserving of mistreatment, as you seem to be implying.
Criminals. And persons of African descent. And, it seems, those who have trouble respecting the police. No one should even look an officer in the eye, it would be like making eye contact with a Bengal tiger or something. It seems as though no one gets a pummeling but that they deserve it.
OK, pepper spraying someone who’s not a threat to you is unacceptable, and I’m glad he’s been disciplined. There was another case mentioned where a cop shot someone in self defence, but that’s not an attack of any sort, unprovoked or otherwise.
Cases of restraint leading to death or shootings in self defence are nothing to do with unprovoked, savage beatings. The closest we’ve had to that in this thread recently is the pepper spraying, and it would be a hell of a stretch to call that either savage or a beating.
And Michael Brown wasn’t killed because he stole some cigars, he was killed because he was threatening the life of the man who killed him. Eric Garner wasn’t killed because he was selling illegal cigarettes, he was killed as a consequence of resisting the police.
If the police are going around executing people for petty crimes, or for their skin colour, or whatever, I’d be horrified - but that’s not happening.
A subset of the “self defense” police killings have been shown to be manufactured situations. A gun is dropped, evidence rearranged, etc, and even the “good cops” play along. After a few of these come to light, people become suspicious of all self defense claims.
Neither is stepping off a tall building, but amazingly enough, you’re likely to die from that, too. You’re assuming intent to kill where there was none.
Your argument is circular. You’re only likely to die from it because of the bad policy and practices.
Either a given individual is both objectively and subjectively a threat of death or serious bodily injury, or he’s not. If he is, deadly self-defense can be warranted. If he isn’t, it’s not. Whether he is resisting arrest is not dispositive of that question, however much the authoritarians among us want it to be.
A big part of the problem is that we take declarations of subjective fear at face value when they come from police, and refuse to overrule them with objective judgments. If the guy in Ferguson who had the police officer point a gun at him during a peaceful protest had killed that police officer in self-defense, not one of the members of the authoritarian community would have declared it justified self-defense, even though pointing a gun in someone’s face is exponentially more threatening than thrashing around on the ground while in hand and leg cuffs.
The bad news? This monstrous police officer’s actions and callousness led to the woman’s death. I think her ass should have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, at the very least.
No, it’s not. The police aren’t executing anybody, for any reason or for none. By using such a ridiculous level of hyperbole, you destroy any argument you might have against police practices.
I’d like to state for the record (are you reading, Bo) that this cop’s behaviour was reprehensible. Hopefully as body cams are introduced, the cops that do this will be caught, or at least prevented from doing it because they know they will be caught.
Restraining someone who’s resisting arrest is not the same as self defence, except that both can justify the use of force.
“Objective judgement” is a contradiction in terms, which is probably why we don’t make them. The question that matters is whether a reasonable person would have felt fear at that point. Certainly in Ferguson, when someone was reaching into his car and trying to grab his gun, a reasonable person would have been in fear for his life. And it’s certainly possible that, if the same person was running back towards you despite having been shot (I think) twice, he’d also be in fear.
If a cop is pointing his gun at you in the course of his duty, you don’t have a right to defend yourself. I’m amazed that something so obvious needs to be mentioned. As for the guy thrashing around, the restraint is to prevent it reaching the point where he’s a threat - something the cops are allowed to do and you are not.
Also, enough of the bullshit about “peaceful protest”. It was a series of riots and loots, nothing legitimate or peaceful about it.
That’s true, but irrelevant to the point. Obviously, accidentally killing someone while restraining them is not the same as self-defense. But the discussion was about whether recklessly or knowingly doing so was somehow justified by the threat posed by the person. That is a self-defense analysis.
That’s 100% false as a matter of law. Self-defense law looks at both the subjective judgment of the individual, and whether a reasonable person would have been in fear in those circumstances. The latter is known as “objective” judgment.
This is true or false depending on what you mean by “course of his duty.” It is not the case, as you seem to believe, that one categorically cannot assert self-defense if they kill an on-duty officer.
I saw a particularly intelligent post in another thread:
How does this apply to “encounters between law-enforcement and civilians”? We have ample demonstration that some cops do not properly assess and avoid personal danger. A very clear example is the Tamir Rice killing.:
Why couldn’t the cops have kept their guns holstered and made at least a token effort to hail the victim from several tens of yards away? The victim’s “weapon” was holstered and most insane psychopaths are not quick-draw sure-shots.
If one assumes that the cops in the Rice killing were thinking rationally, we must conclude they gave little weight to the victim’s survival.