My general response in any incident where a police officer shoots someone is to wait for further information. However, unless some info comes out dramatically contradicting this report, it looks pretty bad.
The cop told the guy to stand up, the guy said, “Alright, I’m getting up” and also informs him he’s in the military AND that he’s getting up several times.
When he starts to get up the cop shoots him three times.
All of this was captured on video tape.
If it went down the way they said it did in the story this police officer is going to jail.
Unreal.
Some of the text was blocked out in the link. Not that it’s relevant, but why were they being chased?
Also not relevant (sorry), but it gets my adrenalin going when I watch those high-speed chases on TV. I’m always surprised after they’re over, that officers (usually) manage to stay cool.
Three shots. Damn. And he was just a passenger.
You can watch the video in question here.
Egad! I saw the title and I thought: Not Airman Doors, USAF!?!
Glad to see our Airman is ok and that the airman made it alive.
What is it with the LAPD anyways? I’m starting to think Los Angeles should start phasing this incredibly incompetent and routinely corrupt organization out and replacing its duties with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Unreal? Naw, too real and commoner than you’d think.
Back in '81 I lived in Edmonton, Alberta. We had a buddy, Kenny. One evening he came up to our place and asked if we wanted to hang out. We were just getting dinner together so we said to come by later. He decided to head over to his mom’s instead because she was about to move and had promised him an old TV.
When he got there it turned out that she was staying a few more days and didn’t want to give up the TV yet. They got into a bit of an arguement. Kenny’s sister locked herself in the bathroom and said she was going to kill herself if they didn’t stop fighting. It was just a bit of thirteen year old dramatics. By this point everyone was yelling and a neighbour called the cops. Still a simple family fight, at this point.
The police arrived, bringing with them the kind of attitude you sometimes find in very young city cops. Too young, in fact. One had about ten months and the other about six. No way they should have been out together.
By then, sis was out of the bathroom and things were settling down. One of the cops found it necessary to make a crack about “Damn Indians, fighting again”. Well, Kenny’s brother took exception, and a swing at the cop. The other cop flattened Kenny to the ground; Kenny on his back and the cop on top.
Then the cop started to get up - just far enough to pull out his gun. Shot Kenny right through the chest. Unarmed, thoroughly subdued Kenny.
The ambulance came, took away the cop that had been punched (broken finger) and left Kenny, still alive, on his mother’s floor. I don’t remember how long it took for another one to show up, but of course it was too late. By then Kenny was dead.
There was every kind of stink about it, of course. We all went down and protested in front of the police station, with placards and everything. My mom and dad saw it on the news at home in BC. The cops both got landed on with both feet and so did the force. Two rookies out alone, and all…
Didn’t help though. Kenny was still dead.
Nineteen years old.
Tjhis looks pretty damn bad, but why is it relevant that the victim is in the military?
It’s not relevant legally. Some might think (possibly with some logical justification) that it’s relevant in the overall context of the interaction in that a member of military would be expected to obey an order, and was not likely to be trying to do anything threatening while under arrest, and thus there would be even less reason for the officer’s actions.
Just makes it worse that the guy goes to Iraq, survives it all, to come home and get shot by this asshat cop. I mean, that’s what I’m guessing anyhow.
This idiot cop needs jail, and lots of it.
Dimwit.
Is just ironic someone in the military gets shot by a police officer back home after serving in a combat area is the primary reason I posted that “Cops shoot airman.”
Also on a secondary level because the fact that he was an airman was repeated several times in the article and I didn’t really pay attention to his name, so it was an easy to use descriptor for the thread title.
As for why it’s a big deal to the news, probably because the military is so prominent in our culture right now, and our soldiers are so prominent that one coming back from Iraq and getting shot in an apparently unjust manner by the police makes for good news.
ISTM the mention of the man’s military status was part & parcel of describing which police force he was assigned to. The link in the OP refers to him as an Air Force policeman.
Small nitpick, the cop is a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy, just next door to LA County.
(Old joke)
I heard that they’re changing their motto from “To protect and to serve” to “We’ll treat you like a King.”
Dude, this had nothing to do with the LAPD.
Yeah, not sure where I got that from. Perhaps sublconsciously I just automatically assumed anything this stupid happening in California had to be because of the LAPD.
[good-natured ribbing]
You think all them California counties look alike, don’t you? Racist!
[/gnr]
Nah, I like San Diego too much to violate it by saying it’s the same as Los Angeles ;).
Ha! As a California expat, I can confidently state that all of us are capable of doing something that stupid.
Saw the video on the news this morning. There is absolutely no question on the sequence of events. Someone says, three times, “Get up”. It can be heard very clearly. Now, if that someone wasn’t the officer, why didn’t he reply, and say something like “No, don’t get up!” And when the airman finally says (again, very clearly), “OK, I’m getting up”, why didn’t the cop then say, “No, don’t get up!” ???
The best spin an attorney for the officer could put on this (and I don’t believe it myself), is that the officer was so pumped up with adrenalin from the chase that we was temporarily insane. He was not thinking clearly and did not consciously register the “get up” exchange. And that’s if he wasn’t the one talking. Frankly, I don’t believe it for a second.
I think the cop was deliberately taunting the airman and just dying for an excuse to shoot him. I think he needs to be arrested for attempted murder and go to jail for a very, very long time.