No he wasn’t. At most, he was putting his hand to his waistband where the gun was.
The cops do not allege he was “drawing his firearm”.
You can see for yourself in the extended video he was sitting by himself for some time. There is no way that they could not have seen that as they drove up. I do not understand why we cannot be permitted to believe the taped evidence.
Certainly there may be occasions when the cops would be perfectly justified in such a preemptory appoach. The significant thing is that this was not one of them. The kid may well have been threatening or scaring people at the time when the call was made, but he was essentially doing nothing when the police actually arrived, and there was nothing to prevent the cops on the spot acting with less haste and more circumspection.
The whole incident echoes what was said in the paper cited above: the cops appear to have been “emotionally captured” by events - that is, they had a scenario in their minds (the dangerous active threat), were unwilling to take a moment to consider contrary evidence, and went off “half-cocked”: they engineered a showdown at close range in which their options for response were minimal (what the author called “time compression”).
Such a barnstorming approach may be justified if the kid was in the middle of attacking someone and life and limb were at stake. It is not justified when the kid was sitting by himself in an apparently deserted gazebo.
Police state he was drawing the replica firearm. It appears to me from watching the video that he was drawing replica firearm. Clearly we disagree on this and you can make your own judgment. The fact that they kicked away the replica after shooting him is consistent with him drawing it.
I would say even using your interpretation that he was putting his hand to his waistband - given that police saw him place the replica firearm there and he put his hand to his waistband where the replica firearm was located was sufficient threat to justify the shooting at that point in time.
Is there a different version of the video available? I saw one version, approximately 1:30 in length. He is seen in the gazebo but I’m not clear if there is enough surrounding video to support that he was alone for some extended amount of time. Police say they saw him take the replica firearm from the table and put it in his waistband. That wasn’t shown on the video so either it wasn’t captured, was on a different part of a video I haven’t seen, or the police are lying.
I don’t know if their approach was following protocol or if there were other circumstances that lead them to that choice. I’m expecting the investigation to determine that.
I admit, I had not read that version of the story. The original report had the police stating that he “reached towards his waistband”, not that he had actually pulled out the gun.
To be perfectly honest, the video I saw was too grainy for me to see anything of the sort - he could have pulled it or not, I could not tell. If you have a clear version in which you can clearly see him pull out the gun, I would love to have a look.
… which is of course exactly the problem - that the police forced a confrontation in which any twitch or movement on the part of the suspect in effect required a fatal response - according to you, even moving his hand to his waist qualified.
You can see he was never sitting with anyone. He was sitting alone for some time. He sits down at around 4:57 and the cops arrive at around 7:30.
Elsewhere in other threads, people have made known the fact that the police does have the right to not protect people. I think that is morally wrong
I feel the police should have a standard where they must think about protecting the public first and foremost, and themselves second. Whatever it takes to achieve that should be part of our understanding of how the police are run, and if they need better and more training, and higher pay, then so be it.
I see a situation like the one with the 12 year old shot to death to be perfectly reasonable for the police to be forced to put themselves in harms way in order to save a life. Like the OP says, drive the cars up further, announce yourselves, and hope the other person will stand down. If a weapon is pointed at them, don’t just open fire, find cover first. The police should be made to protect the public, most of us already think that’s their job already, and in doing so they must be willing to incur some risk to themselves. If that helps weed out the wannabe tough guys, the bullies, and the nuts, then so be it. If a job requires you to know the law and carry a weapon, I think the standards should be higher, not lower.
I think everyone is looking at the same video with the same poor quality. Police say he pulled it out. After shooting they kick away the replica firearm which is consistent with him pulling it out. I believe he was pulling it out.
After watching the longer version - At 1:43 I see him pointing the replica firearm at the person that was walking by. It appears he’s pointing the replica firearm at something else at 4:37. There are people walking in the top left of the fram at 5:36. He appears to have put the replica firearm in his waistband at 7:26. Police kick the replica firearm away at 8:09.
Police say the observed Rice place the firearm in his waistband and get up from the table. There was someone there earlier in the video but was no longer present in the sequence from when Rice sits to where he is shot. I assume police were in the parking lot observing Rice before they drove up on him. I’m most interested in the decision to make that approach. Once Rice drew the replica on the cops, he was done. That part isn’t remarkable.
Not necessarily - it could easily have fallen out of his waistband when he fell down after being shot. It wasn’t in a holster.
The person in the Gazebo before the kid was the person alleged to have made the call to the police. He left the scene before the police arrived. The police could not have been observing the kid for long, as the call was made and they show up only a very short time thereafter.
The caller’s discription of what the kid was up to was pretty accurate - the kid was walking around “scaring” people with his replica gun. The signifcant thing was that he was no longer doing that when the police arrived - he was sitting doing nothing in the gazebo. He wasn’t an imminent threat to anyone, though the police would be right to give him all kinds of shit for pointing his replica gun at people.
Again, it is not an established fact that he “pulled” the gun. Neither of us can actually see that happening - the tape is too poor in quality.
However, even assuming that he had, the real fault in this case was the cops moving in like that. There was no visible need for it.
Yes, the replica could have simply fallen out after Rice was shot. That would also be consistent with the video.
Police say he was drawing it. I believe this based on what I saw from the video, and the fact that it is consistent with the behavior observed, as well as the statements made. Unless there is other video not yet available, this will be the operating narrative from the police. What do you think? Do you believe he was reaching towards his waistband? If yes, then it’s either to draw it against the police, or to drop it as to surrender. I can’t think of any other options there.
I’m one of the ones who pointed this out, and I disagree. It is simply not possible for the government to provide each individual with their own personal bodyguard. It is everyone’s responsibility to protect themselves and others in whatever way they can. I would hold police responsibility to protect here is no more or less than another adult. They have other jobs to do, such as apprehending criminals, gathering evidence and filing reports.
This case especially worries me when I think of kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder who don’t always follow directions well, especially in unusual (to them) or stressful situations. My son takes things very literally, and balls up his hands into fists at his side when overwhelmed which I imagine police yelling at him would be. I hope that wouldn’t be seen as threatening by someone who didn’t know him.
Most of the “weapons” my kids have I think look closer to a Han Solo blaster than a real gun. But even the caller said they thought it was a fake and it apparently did no good. For all I know the cops could pull into the park behind my house because my kids have their Nerf Triad Blaster. I just hope they don’t ask my son to “Drop it!” because he would probably ask “Drop what? I have several things I can drop right now.” Or he would be freaked out, ball up his fist at his side which the cops would see as reaching for something, and he would get shot.
Interesting, but not quite what I was getting at–but what I was getting at may not be the right point anyway. My question really hinged on whether police should ever shoot someone because of a gun that has not been drawn–whether protocol should dictate that a gun presents a credible threat only when it’s in the suspects hands. In this case, if the boy drew the fake gun, the question is moot.
However, in a situation where someone gets shot, and where the shooter could be on the hook for involuntary manslaughter or worse, I’m not sure how much weight we should give either to the shooter’s testimony or the shooter’s partner’s testimony. I mean, it carries a little bit of weight, but if the shooting was not justified, those two people have extremely strong motives for describing it in a less than honest fashion.
Perhaps a hijack, but I was Googling around trying to find out how commonly the police shoot on a perceived threat of a gun but turn out wrong. Can’t find much specific to that, but I found this (pdf).
It is a study to see if blacks are more likely to be perceived as having weapons (in a controlled situation) than whites. Sure enough, they are more likely to (wrongly) see a gun with a black face associated with it. What I found interesting is that the effect occurs in blacks as well as whites -
And unfortunately, it is not apparently caused by conscious racism, and is not apparently susceptible to good intentions -
Which would suggest that changing the police force to reflect the communitiy, as is supposed to happen in Ferguson, may not change the number of mistaken shootings of black people.
I think you misinterpreted. I don’t think its realistic to provide each American their own bodyguard and I would never suggest such a thing. But when the police are called out, I think their first priority should be to minimize the loss of life and let whatever happens get judged in a court of law. Right now, they seem more interested in staying alive and protecting themselves than to get justice. They need to be told that the job requires them to put the latter as the top priority
In Michael Brown’s case, Wilson should have held his shot until he saw Brown with a weapon. I think police should be trained to shoot not at the center of mass, but shoot to disable. Shoot him in the leg or arm, but don’t aim for his torso or head, and shoot only enough to put a guy down. Brown was shot 6 times, and twice in the head. Police procedure should be to withdraw if you get him in the head once and the other guy doesn’t have a gun, and take a wait and see attitude once a couple of bullets have hit the interloper.
In another famous case, Amadou Diallo was shot at 41 times, with 19 hitting him. Standard police procedure should be to shoot a couple of times, then wait and see if the suspect is down. There is no cause to shoot a guy 41 times, with half of that hitting him. You’d think after like 20 shots the cops would stop to see if this guy’s dead enough, but they put 20 more bullets into the air towards him. That should never be police procedure.
I think more people would be saved if police are not so trigger happy. Sometimes, yes, a suspect would take that hesitation and pull out an actual weapon, but I think that would be more rare and cause less death than giving cops the clearance to start firing as soon as they feel they are in danger
In the interests of finding common ground, I wonder if we can agree on the following:
This is a disturbing finding, and
If we can find a way to eliminate–or at least reduce–this bias, without introducing other significant risks, we should put some effort toward doing so.
Does anyone disagree with these statements?
They seem pretty milquetoast and unobjectionable to me, but y’all have surprised me in the past :). If there are no objections, then maybe there’s a fruitful discussion to be had about what measures might reduce this bias.
I agree that police should be part of the community, and have a duty to protect citizens and avoid collateral damage when responding to calls. We’re on the same page here.
But “shoot to disable” is a bad idea. Really bad. The ONLY time you should shoot someone is when they are threatening the lives of yourself or others. In such a circumstance, pulling off a trick shot (hitting someone’s kneecap, for instance, or shooting the gun from someone’s hands) is simply not a reasonable expectation. This is the realm of movie magic. The best way to stop a deadly threat is to aim for the largest target (center mass) and keep firing until the threat stops.
Counterintuitively, your suggestion would result in many more deadly shootings than we already have. The way it is now, the perception on both sides of the law is that guns = death. That’s the way it should be, as it corresponds to reality. If you start getting people to believe that guns work like in the movies, where most firefights end with a non-disabling shoulder wound and a white flag, drawing a gun will be as common as making a fist. “I swear I only wanted to graze his arm to teach him a lesson about resisting an officer! I didn’t mean to blow half his face off and paralyze the innocent grandmother behind him!”
The goal here should be to only shoot at a positively identified deadly threat, law enforcement officer or otherwise. Carrying a weapon is not a threat. Walking towards somebody is not a deadly threat. Reaching for your pocket is not a deadly threat. The goal is NOT to encourage more shooting by teaching people to shoot someone in the arm if they reach for their pockets because you couldn’t be sure if they were going to pull a gun on you, and hey, if you’re wrong it’s just a flesh wound, right?
I used to think this was true, based primarily on posters on the SDMB saying basically what you’re saying. But then a couple of months ago some posters from countries in Europe started citing the numbers of police shootings in their countries as well as the number of fatalities and the guidelines for shooting. Upshot was that in their countries, police were trained to shoot as a last resort–and to shoot to disable, not to kill–and that they had extraordinarily low rates of fatal police shootings in their countries.
I’m not sure how to search for those posts; maybe someone else remembers them. As far as I could tell, they persuasively refuted the sort of argument that you’re making.
It’s perfectly possible to shoot to disable. It is not as effective a means to stop a threat. Police use the most effective means to stop threats. Arguing that police should shoot to disable is arguing that police should be less effective at stopping threats - less effective than normal non-police folks. It’s a valid position to take if that’s the argument.
No police department in the country takes this approach, nor any stateor jurisdiction in the country. Given that an effective means of self defense is rooted in an enumerated consitutional right I doubt this will change. I hope it does not.
No. There’s extraordinarily clear evidence that police use the most effective means to stop perceived threats, and that they’re sometimes wrong. The question I want to know is, how often are they wrong, and what measures can we take to avoid homicide-by-police in cases of mistaken threat assessment?
If shooting to disable resulted in ten more dead cops every year but 100 fewer dead innocent civilians every year, would it be worth considering? How would the numbers need to work in order to make it a viable policy?
Perceived threats - yes. Semantics but sure that’s fair. Police use the most effective means to stop actual threats and perceived threats, taken collectivley as Threats for the sake of discussion.