Not at all. Before trials, people are “presumed innocent,” not actually innocent. And while actually putting the dead guy on trial would be ridiculous, that doesn’t mean lesser levels of investigation couldn’t ensue. I would presume the person is talking about those situations where it’s immediately apparent that the cop’s assessment was incorrect.
It would basically be a reason to train cops to better identify threats, instead of just defaulting to the idea that someone was a threat. It would incentivize using less confrontational techniques in situations where possible. It would push actual defense, making sure cops are safe, rather than offensive defense, where they are safe because they shoot when there’s a 5% chance that it’s a threat.
Personally, I’m not sure a full firing is warranted, but I definitely like the idea of a punishment, even if the death was an accident. We need to incentivize fewer killings.
Soooooo. Crazy guy with guns acting crazy. Shooting said guns all the freaking time. Over the span a fucking year. Neighbors and family members calling the cops telling them that he is fucking crazy. Cops do as little as humanly possible.
Crazy guy ends up shooting up a school, killing 5 before killing himself.
As you probably have guessed, Kevin Janson Neal was a white guy.
So a civilian who accidentally kills a police officer-out of a genuine and reasonable fear for his life- should not be locked up? Self defense, no worries?
I mean, everyone has that right to defend themselves, even civilians who feel a stranger is about to attack- and it turns out the stranger has a badge?
“He raised his arm and I saw metal gleaming in his hand, so I… What ? Oh, yes, he claimed to be a cop, but you know how it is. We are constantly warned about crooks that pose as cops. I was afraid, so I took him down as I’ve been taught by responsible gun-owners. Twenty shots to the center of the mass. Yes, your honor, I’m as innocent as they make them, he should have never been there on a neighborhood like that…”
“You shot him because he had a bulge in his pocket ?
“Yes, I was terrified.”
“It wasn’t a gun, he was just happy to see you.”
" I KNOW !”
Sure, if you can convince a jury that your fear was reasonable.
“Yeah, I was stealing a car, and some stranger ran up to me yelling ‘Police! Freeze!’ and he was wearing a blue uniform. How was I supposed to know he was a cop?”
How about I’m walking late at night, in a sketchy neighborhood and some guy is walking briskly toward me. He doesn’t say he’s police but he reaches toward me. I shot him. I’m a woman, it’s a bad neighborhood, and hey, I’m armed. Turns out he was a plainclothes cop.
Reasonable fear for my life?
When a cop shoots someone, even if that someone is unarmed, it’s ruled justified and never sees a court room. All that training, authority, equipment, etc, and they are held to a lower standard than civilians.
Are you perhaps channeling questions from another universe? None of what you wrote in your hypothetical quote pertains to what was said, so what’s going on here?
You are entitled to use lethal force when in a situation where a reasonable person would fear death or serious bodily injury, so you would need to convince the jury of that. It’s possible, but rather few police shootings match the circumstances as you describe.
No, it is the same standard. Of course, police are more likely to be in situations where it is legally and morally necessary to shoot someone - citizen’s arrest is much less common that arrests by police.
I will assume you don’t really mean the part about how cops never see a courtroom, so no cites are necessary.
You are stupid and/or trolling. That’s what’s going on.
Don’t you have any other prepubescent bon mots in your repertoire? This one’s getting stale…although it is slightly amusing if I imagine it said by Dudley Manlove’s “Eros” in Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I didnt mean to imply “never” and I certainly didnt say “never.” I should have said rarely. Once it is internally called “justified” it rarely then goes to a criminal court. Perhaps you disagree about that?
Can you imagine a scenario as I outlined above being shrugged off and called justified *without *going to court? Investigated by the police and then “no charges filed” because I am a woman and I may be reasonably said to be fearful of strange men in bad neighborhoods?
Police who shoot someone who is unarmed *rarely *face trial for the shooting. It is investigated internally, but it does not then get tried in court.
My argument has always been that it’s not reasonable to fear that a cop who is doing their job is not an imminent threat, and it’s not reasonable to consider them as one. As Shodan points out, cops are extremely recognisable in uniform, and will also announce themselves as police, so saying you didn’t realise they were police is almost always nonsense.
A cop who’s not wearing uniform and who doesn’t say they are a cop, but nonetheless acts in a threatening way to someone is a different matter. I’m not sure if there’s any circumstamces where a cop could be doing their job and act that way towards someone who’s not already committing a crime, but if they do it may well be reasonable to act in self defence.
Then apply the same standard to civilians, if they claim to be the victim of a crime not the criminal, and unless their claim is seriously implausible, treat them as innocent until proven guilty.
I’m inclined to think that it’s at least partly not the case that black people are treated badly so much as white people are treated too well… Equality should not lead to more people getting away with shit like this.
What would be the point of trying an officer who has been cleared by investigation? They tried that with Darren Wilson. What was achieved in that case?
In general, to be tried criminally one must be indicted by a grand jury. I assume you don’t mean that should be bypassed every time a cop shoots someone. Are you saying that the investigation should be replaced by a grand jury investigation? I don’t see what that achieves.
I can’t imagine it would be shrugged off. It would be investigated, and if no probable cause exists, then no charges would be filed.
There are somewhere around 400K and 3 million defensive gun uses in the US every year. They certainly aren’t all brought before a grand jury, although they are investigated.
I think part of the problem is that examples of the scenario you suggest, where someone shoots a cop who does not identify himself but threatens a citizen, where the citizen is then indicted, are going to be rare. Do you have any examples of it happening?