Scared of imminent death, for any good reason, can kill anybody who is threatening them. Doesn’t just apply to cops, applies to anybody.
What do you have against the right to self defence? Odd that no one will answer that question, despite their constant attacks on cops who exercise that right.
I’m walking down the street, let’s say it’s dusk. Someone is walking 20 feet in front of me. I holler at them, then shoot them as they turn. My excuse is that their hands were by their waist, so I was in fear of my life.
I’m one of those annoying people who stand in the median at intersections collecting money for a charity. I approach a car window of somebody who indicates they’d like to continue. As they reach for their wallet or in their purse, I shoot them. My excuse us that because I couldn’t see exactly what they were reaching for, it could have been a gun. I feared for my life.
How do you envision these defenses panning out for me?
You have a right to be clubbed or shot, regardless of whether you are armed or not, a threat or not, innocent or not. All that is required, is that the cop be so unfit for duty as to be terrified of you for no reason at all, or has an axe to grind. You can be in your own house, not be a suspect, and be shot. You can be the one who called the cops, be unarmed, and be shot.
Anyone at any time an be killed and all too often, the cop is cleared.
Did you have any reason to think they had a gun? Such as, for example, had the police been called to report that they were waving a gun around and you had been sent to investigate, or had they told you they were armed, then ignored your legitimate instructions not to reach for the weapon?
Those things will help determine whether or not the fear was reasonable. You’ve given nothing in your examples to suggest that it was reasonable (or for that matter, imminent), so without those things I would expect the defence to go badly. A full investigation might show otherwise, but if your hypothetical is that there was no good reason, they won’t find anything.
Doesn’t matter; I was scared.
That just about captures it.
American cops kill lots of people that are no threat. And get away with it.
Sometime ago I was walking home on a dark road. A lone woman came from the opposite direction and when she saw me, she moved almost into a ditch. Now I’m not a big guy and have never harassed a woman ( I hope so, not on purpose at least ), but she was clearly scared. So I said nothing and didn’t look at her, the only thing that showed me even acknowledging her was that I also moved away from the center. I passed her and never looked back.
Apparently you say she had all rights to shoot at the very moment she saw me. After all it would’ve been idiotic to wait for me to actually attack her because then it would’ve been too late.
You are both wrong, and appear to have some sort of weird word-blindness for “reasonable” and “imminent”.
The standard is not, never has been, and never will be, “I was scared”. That’s something people here are claiming either is the standard applied, or the standard I want applied, and that is - based on the amount of times you’ve been shown to be wrong - an outright lie, not a simple mistake.
To use lethal force in self defence, you need to be in imminent fear of death or serious injury, and that fear needs to be resonable. That’s the standard that has been met in all cases where a cop has either not been charged, or been tried and found not guilty, after claiming self defence.
So what?
Being a threat is not the standard, and whether they are actually a threat is only relevant in that it proves that the fear was reasonable. That doesn’t work both ways, someone not actually being a threat doesn’t mean it’s not reasonable to kill them.
This standard applies to any shooting whether by a cop or any other individual. With the obvious caveat that you don’t get to shoot a cop who’s doing their job, as they are by definition not a threat.
Hey, you’d fit in real well in US law enforcement.
How in my example she was not “in imminent fear of death or serious injury” ? She was alone on a dark road with A STRANGER COMING TOWARDS HER! I think it’s pretty reasonable to be worried. Heck, if instead of her that would’ve been a big, muscular guy I might’ve shot HIM !
Just like in my example ?
So, you don’t know what “imminent” or “reasonable” mean. You should probably stop commenting on posts that use those words until you look them up.
Specifically, look up cases where people have been convicted despite claiming self defence. That will show you the circumstances under which the claiim is not valid.
Haven’t you argued in the past that even asking people to present an affirmative defense regarding self-defense is unjust, and that it should be the state’s responsibility to positively rule out the possibility of self-defense before moving forward with a prosecution? Given that, are you really confident that all the people who put up an affirmative claim of self-defense and were found guilty anyway are people you would consider justly convicted?
You haven’t explained the reasonable and imminent fear of their life that cops who kill people riding in their car with family, already in handcuffs, eleven years old, scratching their ass, or walking away with their back turned possibly could have.
Oh wait you can’t. There is a double standard that a badge is a license to kill anyone you want with minimal risk of any reprecussion.
No, because I don’t need to. It’s the job of those accusing them to show that they actually commited a crime, and were not acting in self defence. Also, there is no double standard. This standard applies to anyone who kills in self defence, and I’ve argued just as strongly for it in cases where there were no cops involved.
Not necessarily morally, but certainly legally justified, although I’d hope any fair jury would nullify in such a case. However, looking at them will show what is considered resonable fear, it’s just that the burden of proof will be different.
Steophan,
are YOU a cop…?
shivers
One thing that is overlooked is the way the police seem to instigate untenable situations. This is highlit by the Mesa hotel incident. Officers feel threatened or endangered because they often appear to create the problem in the first place.
Zimmerman could have avoided his deadly encounter, but he bulled his way into it. Sometimes the police look like they are acting in a similar way. It is a difficult question: if I deliberately or wantonly piss you off, you act angry, and I shoot you because I feel threatened, where is the self-defense argument? If there was a realistic alternative to pissing you off, or a way to de-escalate the situation, I think it would be grossly negligent, at a minimum, for me to press forward to a violent conclusion.
It seems odd that you could notice this and still not grasp the implication that 250,000 or so cops arrested black(s) every month without being killed making it not reasonable to assume every cop who encounters a black person is in immediate mortal peril.