Is attempting to run down a person who’s on foot not nefarious? Interesting.
I’m happy to countenance differences of opinion from someone who actually has the facts straight. The problem is, you’re misrepresenting them to such an extent that i have trouble believing you actually read the report.
You say you’ve read the report. Please point out to me the evidence of the officer “[h]urling his body in front of the van.” The report makes very clear that the van swerved towards him.
If he had indeed hurled himself in front of the van and started shooting, i’d agree with you. If you look at my early posts to this thread, you will see that the position i took was pretty much the same as the one you’re taking now. The difference is, i have now read the report and seen that, contrary to my initial assumptions, the officer did not have a “horrific over-reaction.”
No, the driver escalated it when he drove towards the officer at 25 mph in a confined parking lot.
I still strongly believe that a security guard at a retail establishment or restaurant should never give chase to suspects outside of the premises fuch such a minor crime. It’s extremely dangerous, as evidenced by this case. If the cop didn’t make such a stupid decision, none of this would have ever happened. That is the crux of it right there.
You honestly don’t understand the difference between “security guard” and “police officer,” do you? It’s obvious you don’t show the latter the respect they deserve (absent reasons otherwise, of course), but you really don’t know the difference.
Apologies for the double post…
In case anyone is unaware, there is a concurrent thread in GD about whether off-duty police officers have special rights. The consensus (admittedly based on anecdotes rather than cites, though no one has provided cites to the contrary) is that cops are cops all the time. Cecil, in a column, has said off-duty police officers have the “right – nay, the duty” to make arrests when witnessing the commission of a crime. I’m sure evidence to the contrary would be appreciated in the thread.
From my post #357
This shooting is not over unpaid pancakes, it is about attempted murder by the driver of the van. Do you need some more straw for your man?
Asualt with a deadly weapon (the Jeep) is not non-violent. Duh.
So in your words just trying to run the officer over isn’t enough to justify deadly force.
They had to run his ass over before he would be justified in using his weapon? :dubious: :rolleyes:
Yeah right. Go take a reading comprehension course, re read the report with an open mind and come back.
So are you saying a restaurants policy should be “If you can make it out the door, the meal’s on us?”
I’m not here to fight for nyctea by any means, but of course no one is saying it still shouldn’t be criminal. I assume you agree there is a limit to the reasonable amount of force that can be used to bring petty thieves to justice. We don’t shoot them, for example, but that doesn’t mean we think the meal’s on us if they can escape alive.
That said, what’s at question is how much force is appropriate, and nobody has been able to show that the cop did anything particularly aggressive in following after the check-jumpers.
Well sure, all the cop did was give chase. If he had pulled out his gun and started shooting while the kids were running away, he should have been charged. That wasn’t the case here. I was chased by cops and security a couple of times as a teen myself, over equally petty BS. But I never jumped in a car and gunned it at the pursuing cop.
Well add Ensign Edison’s name to the list of people that have not read the report.
:rolleyes:
Add Rick to the list of people who do not read my posts. Shall I repeat myself more slowly?
nobody
has been able to show
that the cop did anything particularly aggressive
in following after the check-jumpers.
How would you like your enormous syrupy stack of fuck you, with strawberries or without?
Add Larry Borgia to the list of people who don’t read the posts they’re arguing with too.
Dude, I was basically agreeing with you.
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were saying “No, because”, not “Yes and”. Right. The cop didn’t do anything out of line. There was a tragic alignment of circumstances, that’s all. What the cop did, essentially, was go outside. He didn’t run out there guns-ablazing. I promise you he didn’t think “I’m gonna shoot me an accessory to pancake theft”. He was acting to preserve his life, and the evidence suggests that he had every reason to believe his life was in danger.
That said, it’s not absurd to suggest that if pancake theft resulted in death because of giving chase, perhaps officers should not give chase so readily. We don’t apprehend every criminal at the scene of the crime. However, it doesn’t seem to be a common occurance, does it? Probably almost every time a cop leaves a restaurant to follow a pancake thief, nobody ends up dead because of it. If someone can show otherwise (it doesn’t even have to be pancakes; I will accept surf-n-turf), I’ll agree that the policy on chasing check-jumpers might need a redesign. Until then…
My bad.
I read
and thought you were going back to the shot over unpaid pancake strawman. :smack:
My only excuse is I have had only one cup of coffee this morning.
I’ll take my stack of hot seteaming fuck you with strawberries, and syrup thanks. 
Heh, no worries, I’ve been there. Extra strawberries coming right up, and I promise not to shoot you if you don’t leave a tip. 
(Imagine THAT thread. Woo boy.)
Attempted Murder is not a petty crime.
Apparently the law provides that lethal force is appropriate in protecting oneself from a murder attempt. Check-jumping isn’t the cop’s motivation; it was the motivation of the individual attempting murder.
Ensign Edison:
Just so you know, I found your posting to be the easiest one to use the quotes; mainly because you had succinct points. I just felt like expanding on them a tad.
Thanks PunditLisa, this sums up my thoughts.
Reading the report, the tyres squealed as he came round the top end of the carpark - methinks this is a pretty good indication that the driver may not be in a good mind to stop, and that the officer should be getting ready to move out of the way. Also, he should be experienced enough to have a planned escape route when standing / moving in front of a moving car - and from the top end of the lot to where he (the cop) was standing there is certainly plenty of time to see that maybe, just maybe the car wouldn’t stop. I don’t buy the arguement that the officer was still going to stand in the middle of the lot and allow the driver to go to one side - this seems unneccessarily (sp?) confrontational. Did he fear for his life? PROBABLY. Was the sitaution of his own making…again, (to me anyway) PROBABLY
Also, once again, it is very inappropriate to have an officer of the law doing guard duty in uniform with weapon when hired by a private organisation - be it legal or not. What is next? I can hire a marine, to guard my house in full battle fatigues with weapon? This is not much more than a descent into vigilantism. It is a good idea to hire police officers, and have them work as private guards, mainly for the training and skills they already have, just don’t allow them to work in full uniform, and when working as such they shouldn’t have anymore rights than any “normal” guard
Did you also read the part where he was jammed up against the trunk of a parked car, trying to get away? I don’t see how anyone can, with an honest reading of that report, think that the officer wasn’t trying to get out of the way of the vehicle after he realized it wasn’t going to stop.
You don’t buy that he was going to do his job? The man’s JOB is to be confrontational when it’s necessary. Both his full-time job and the one in this case.
Yeah, the Jeep moving at or over 25 mph didn’t have anything to do with it.
By all indications, they have those rights all the time, whether they are working as a policeman, as a security guard or if they’re hanging out at the bar or on the beach.