It’s more dangerous to arrest someone who has skin in the game.
You’re right, there were two incidents. Guess what? [No Charges Against Officers Who Mistook Surfer for Rogue Cop Dorner in Manhunt
SWAT was designed for hostage situations, active shooters, barricaded suspects, etc. but the ACLU says they are only used for those situations in 7% of SWAT raids. The other 93% are things that were historically not considered threatening enough to warrant a SWAT raid.
Real crime has been declining.
http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/figure_3.jpg
So now cops have all these military weapons but not enough real crime to use them on. So they end up inflicting PTSD on the families of suspected criminals (not even convicted, just suspected) while doing drug raids because there aren’t enough real criminals to justify their violent paramilitary weapons and tactics.
I can’t find them but I’ve read stories of the children of suspected criminals developing PTSD because the cops violently kicked down the door at 3am looking for marijuana (and many times not finding it).
On the bright side, it seems that the North Miami police are open to hiring those with disabilities, given that they put a blind man on the SWAT team.
Yeah the cop really screwed up, since the victim is alive and can tell what really happened.
I wonder if anyone asked that scumbag sheriff who spoke at the RNC if this situation was justified also.
This whole story has been really depressing. My son is autistic. He’s currently doing well under treatment and I never expect his life to take this turn, but I can so easily imagine this situation. People who work with autistic and mentally ill individuals ought to be getting medals and parades, not shot at for trying to do their jobs. Actually, in this case, he was really going above and beyond, and trying to save his patient.
This is true. There have been recent cases in the Bay Area where people call in for help, thinking they’re going to get help talking someone out of suicide, or help restraining someone and getting them medical attention. Instead the person ends up dead. Dealing with the mentally ill population should absolutely be part of police training, especially since so many homeless people have some history of mental illness.
Agreed. Bad enough that it happened at all. Now they’re just making it worse. I know we can’t have IQ tests for police officers. Can we at least have some common sense requirements?
I think they did cuff the autistic guy. At least I’ve seen pictures that seemed to show both in cuffs. I would imagine what changed is that the autistic guy became more compliant when the guns went off.
About the only positive thing in this mess was your post. It shouldn’t make me laugh, but it did.
And deaf, apparently, so a twofer
See, people just assume the worst about the police. Have you ever considered that in some of those other cases where the police shot a black guy that they might have been trying to shoot a white guy?
The autistic man’s sister reported in a FB post that he was handcuffed and left in the back of a police car for four hours, and he’s now in the hospital because of the emotional trauma from the whole experience.
“We were called on a possible attempted suicide, and we helped by shooting him.”
Yeah, so much wrong with this story. And poor Mr. Kinsey, he seemed more afraid for his patient than concerned for his own safety.
Also, plays a mean pinball.
The police were summoned by a 911 call in which the caller mistook the toy for a gun.
Yes. But if the officer shot the guy holding the truck, I’d be inclined to accept his explanation that he thought it was a gun.
“I thought this guy was threatening me or others with his gun, so I shot … one of the others.” This combined with the report that the officer replied, “I don’t know,” when asked by the victim why he shot him, gives further lie to the explanation.
“I wasn’t aiming for you!”
“Shit!”
“I’m so sorry!”
Any of those in response would have been consistent with the accidental hit. “I don’t know,” suggests that he did it, on purpose, and can’t articulate why he did it.
You know you’ve screwed up pretty badly when “Oops, I just shot somebody by accident” would have been a step up from what you actually did.
Does your acceptance of that explanation take into account that Mr. Kinsey had shouted at least once that Arnaldo had a toy truck and not a gun? (You have watched the video, aye?)
Maybe we should start thinking about disarming the police??!
If he has he misunderstood it, based on his confirmation bias.
Please note the subjunctive mood I used in my observation.
Not even malice explains something has utterly fucked up as this was. Taking a wild ass stab at it, I think the officer panicked. Against all reason, he saw the good guy as a threat, and fired three shots (last I heard, three). So he shot to kill? Presumably, but missed.
And then to put the toxic icing on the cyanide cake, he handcuffs the injured! good guy! The man has no weapon, no threat displayed, even engaging in reasoned conversation. “Why did you shoot me?”, a perfectly sensible question, even if it might have been his last.
Doesn’t make sense, even as an act of malice. Act of pure evil, would have shot them both! At least some chance of saying the toy truck looked like a gun, and the perp was staring at his shoes in a threatening and aggressive manner!
Anyway, just a guess, I think he panicked. In fear, he saw things that simply weren’t there.
Noted. Now, let me ask you: does your acceptance of that explanation take into account that Mr. Kinsey had shouted at least once that Arnaldo had a toy truck and not a gun? And did you watch the video?
I don’t know. I think it’s possible that Aledda just got too excited and started shooting (get your mind out of the gutter). Some people just get keyed up to a certain point and then they snap. I’ve seen it happen; when you’re in charge of a situation like this you have to watch your own people and make sure none of them are getting “twitchy”. In a case like that, Aledda honestly may not have known why he was shooting.
Aledda has been identified as having four years as a police officer. But does anyone know if this was his first “hostage” situation?
Let me emphasize I’m not saying this to excuse Aleddo. If he shot somebody without thinking, it’s just as wrong as if he shot somebody with malice aforethought.