“Cop’s word should always be trusted!”
“What about all these times when we proved that the cop lied?”
“Why do you hate all cops?”
Far too common a reaction from the right.
Sure, but that’s not here, it wasn’t these cops, and that wasn’t this case.
Nobody doubts there have been cases of that in the past and/or elsewhere, but I’m not sure exactly how that’s pertinent, except maybe as a reminder that it has happened elsewhere.
And that is exactly what is necessary. A reminder that it has happened elsewhere.
If we had never heard of police corruption, if all encounters lacked controversy, then when a cop says something, then we would believe it.
However, when cops are caught lying all the time, it does bring down the respect of the profession altogether.
And it is true that a cop in Chicago that lies will make a cop in Texas’s job harder. The solution to that is not to ask people to not use their senses and logic to realize that if one cop lies, then other cops might lie to, but rather, to ask the cops to stop fucking lying.
It’s happened again. In Fort Worth this time instead of Dallas. Another white policeman, another unarmed black person inside their house. Shot dead by (unexpected) police outside.
Summary: Someone noticed neighbor’s door ajar at night, calls non-emergency number to ask for welfare check. Police respond with no lights or sirens, park distance away and enter the yard on foot with no announcement. Woman (homeowner) notices lights and men outside. When she pulls back the curtain to investigate, policeman shoots her through the window, killing her.
Sigh…
Jesus, this is just appalling. Based on nothing more than a front door left ajar, how on earth can they think it’s appropriate to start prowling around the house in darkness without announcing their presence loudly as police? And then to get trigger happy at anyone they see in the window? Wouldn’t the possibility occur to them that an anxious homeowner might be suspicious that they are intruders with ill intent?
What the hell does it take to get the message across to these trigger-happy fuckwits? The murder conviction and 10 years for Guyger clearly wasn’t enough. Life without parole for the cop who did this, to encourage the next one to engage a couple of brain cells?
Maybe they didn’t try because they were trying to help her cover up. I find the idea that police would be unable to get a warrant to search the home of a person who had just committed murder and claimed that it was all a mistake to be hilariously unrealistic. Has that situation literally ever actually happened, that a judge said “while this person did clearly commit homicide and claims to have no connection with the victim, there is no probable cause to search her appartment for signs that she was connected to the victim personally, professionally, or through illegal activities”? I am going to limit that to an ordinary person as perpetrator, if the suspect was a cop, politician, extremely rich, or extremely well connected then I don’t doubt that it has happend.
Also, like with good 'ol Amber, the police don’t actually arrest the shooter, seize everything he’s carrying, and immediately interrogate him to keep the public safe and get information before he has a chance to concoct a story the way they would if the homeowner had shot the suspicious prowler in this case. Instead he gets a paid vacation and is left to roam free with plenty of time to invent a story based on details that ‘accidentally’ leak to him and get rid of anything incriminating that was on his body. But again we should trust the police entirely whatever they say about the case both here and in neighboring Dallas because otherwise we’re horribly anti-police.
According to several posters, 10 years is a sufficient, possibly even excessive sentence, and it’s entirely wrong for you to engage armchair judging to criticize the prison sentence. If you think that a murderous cop who kills someone in their own home deserves more than a slap on the wrist, you clearly believe in ‘eye for an eye’ justice, and are probably also some kind of ‘cop-hater’.
Remember the whole reason they were there in the first place is because a concerned neighbor called them.
It might very well be their procedure to at least walk around the house to see if they can see anything/anyone (like a resident lying on the floor - “I’ve fallen & I can’t get up.”) or, upon seeing an open door to set up a perimeter before announcing themselves. I haven’t heard where in the yard he was/how far he was from cover he was when he noticed someone but do agree that shooting someone after giving them less than two seconds to comply when they may not have even known you were there (or knew it was the police shouting at them) is quite possibly not in their protocol.
I can tell you if I was in my house & playing video games & heard that, I’d think they were yelling at someone else & not me. I’d probably look out the window to see what was going on & not comply within two seconds myself.
As your own link clearly states, “He said he did not hear anyone giving loud police commands, despite Guyger’s testimony that she did.” I’m not really sure what you think ‘contradicting’ and ‘corroborating’ mean, but when a witness states “I did not hear anyone giving loud police commands” but the defended says they did, that is a case of the witness contradicting her account, and is most definitely not a case of corroborating her account. This isn’t exactly complicated.
The officer involved in the Fort Worth shooting has resigned and may face criminal charges. The mayor has called the shooting unjustified.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/14/us/fort-worth-police-shooting-atatiana-jefferson/index.html
The Fort Worth PD has also sent a case to the FBI to investigate whether Jefferson’s civil rights were violated.
He’s being charged with murder.
The neighbor did not tell the police he had seen an intruder, he just reported lights on late at night and the front door ajar, and asked for a wellness check.
If the police policy under these circumstances is not to first announce their presence loudly, then what on earth are they thinking? This is a state with strong “castle doctrine” laws and high levels of private gun ownership. Let alone just peering out of the window to see what’s going on, there’s surely a strong expectation that the homeowner could appear at a window or door heavily armed and (quite justifiably) prepared to engage the unidentified intruder prowling around his yard. Given the manner of the encounter they have set up, the police would have no reasonable basis to shoot an armed person pointing a weapon at them from inside the house under these circumstances, let alone an unarmed person peering out the window.
This is just a guess, but they’re thinking “dope house in the middle of a cook” and not “good people who’ve just been burglarized”. Bad neighborhood, doors open on a 45 degree night, activity inside: the police were thinking, ‘if we sneak up on them, we might get a house full of burglars to arrest, or much more likely, a press conference with a lot of money, drugs, and guns stacked up on a table’.
So when police see someone with a pistol inside the house, thinking there’s a crime going on, they’re thinking criminal, not potential homeowner. None of which is to excuse the officers, merely to explain what I think they were thinking as they crept up on the house.
Ok, if that turns out to be their story, and that’s the way they all agreed to approach the house, I think it’s not just life without parole for the shooter, it should be felony murder charges for the other officers present too. Something needs to happen to give the next trigger-happy fuckwit cop pause. It seems at the moment the castle doctrine rights apply only to white neighborhoods, whereas black people even in their own homes are assumed to be “a threat”.
Ten years isn’t a slap on the wrist, it’s a decade of life behind bars. I don’t think many crimes should merit more than that. Certainly not a simple unpremeditated murder, even by police.
But I do agree that just sentencing the guy who held the gun isn’t adequate. The whole department is clearly messed up. IMHO, they should all be fired and disarmed, and new cops hired. Given that isn’t going to happen, I’d be happy to see the others who went on that call charged with being accessories to murder.
And for God’s sakes, we need to train cops to stabilize the situation and make peace, not to shoot first and let God sort them out.
The body cam up to the shooting doesn’t show any pistol inside the house; that was added later. And any pistol that might exist inside the house is a threat only to an intruder, i.e., the lurking, whispering, suspiciously-acting, armed thugs who call themselves cops.
From what I have seen, this is absolutely a cold-blooded murder. Sneak up on an unsuspecting home occupant and shoot them point-blank through the window without warning and without provocation.
Compared to this cop, Amber Guyger was an angel.
Except that it’s probably only 5 years behind bars, then parole. Or about 10% of the remaining life expectancy of the man she deliberately chose to kill, rather than take the easily available option to withdraw to safety.
They kill white people too. All of the time. CBS Texas - Breaking Local News, First Alert Weather & I-Team Investigations
It’s not a white/black thing. It may be a rich/poor thing. It is definitely an American law enforcement training thing, that emphasizes overwhelming, at times lethal force, to any perceived threat to officer safety.
Another reason to believe they were thinking drugs instead of burglars, is that announcing their presence gets the burglars----if any are still there—hopefully out of the house, away from any innocents therein. Dope house? Announcing their presence vs ‘approaching tactically’ just gives the criminals more time to destroy evidence. Which isn’t important for me—destroyed drugs aren’t usable drugs—but it seems to be so for them.
I had thought I saw a shot that showed the guest holding a pistol. I may have been wrong, and really, it doesn’t matter if she was or wasn’t. I think the homeowner/lawful resident has every right to be armed in this situation, and for the pistol to be at hand.
I agree with you that it sounds like murder. The police in this country aren’t supposed to have the same rules of engagement as a direct action raid team. Those guy can kill sentries with weapons; the police here are supposed to make arrests when crimes are committed. Not kill people just because they’re armed.
That said, FW PD has killed people in the past, on the victim’s own property, because the officer felt threatened, and the cops walked. Nobody cared except civil libertarians, and no one important listens to them anyway. I’m glad things are changing. Contra Riemann’s point above, I’m not sure this officer is charged, nevermind for murder, if his victim wasn’t black. Yay for protest power.