I’m not going to impute motives. I have my beliefs but those are open to argument. The best you can do is minimize risk. NOTHING you do will guarantee you’ll go to sleep, alive and safe, in your own bed at the end of the day. All you can do is be prudent and responsible - you have less control over your fate than you think.
That said, being prudent and responsible means, among other things, demanding and paying for a higher standard of training.
I’ve let my CCP expire, but back when I carried routinely I was pulled over while speeding twice. Both times I had my license/registration/insurance/carry permit ready to hand over when he approached. Both times I told the cop I was carrying, the gun was holstered and located in my center console, and asked what would make him the most comfortable.
Both cops asked if I’d allow them to hang on to my weapon until our interaction was complete. Both times I complied. Both times the cop made small talk about my gun, a S&W .357 magnum. One of the cops complimented on how clean the gun was, but pointed out a spot that “everyone misses when cleaning” and told me how to get to the area.
Both times I got off with a warning, which really surprised me. Both times I was as white as you can be (Caucasian with some vitiligo).
While I’m generally appalled by this shooting, there are several factors that I’m sure weighed in the officer’s favor at trial:
The camera doesn’t show us what Castile was doing with his hands in the seconds before he was shot. He was probably reaching for his wallet, which is probably difficult for the officer to distinguish from reaching for a gun.
The officer previously said he thought Castile resembled a suspect in an armed robbery from a few days before (although I think his explanation is skating on thin ice). Any encounter where the police believes the person they’re talking to might be an armed robber is going to be more tense, and fraught with danger for the suspect, than your typical traffic stop.
Castile was apparently high, which isn’t a reason to shoot someone in and of itself, but probably contributed to him not being as responsive to police commands as he could have been, and other odd behavior that the officer apparently perceived as a threat.
With all due respect, what in the world does wishing to sleep peacefully in your home have to do with being shot to death while pulled over in a car?
As you say, you’re white, hence you didn’t arouse “undue suspicion”.
This dude was shot dead in his car for notifying the cop he had a firearm. Nice work.
What “odd behavior” was that? You can CLEARLY hear on the video him informing the officer of his firearm after being asked for his license and registration MOMENTS before he was shot…repeatedly. The behavior of the officer AFTER the fact is what cements it for me. He KNEW he’d fucked up. And acted accordingly.
FoieGrasIsEvil, there have been some likewise-appalling shootings of white people by police as well in recent years. You even linked to one earlier in this thread (Samantha Ramsey).
No fucking shit. My point is, exactly, that they’re murdering us indiscriminately. But black people are easier targets to explain to an investigative board. And as I stated, the Kentucky State police initially wouldn’t cooperate in the investigation, because it was one of their own. Then the state paid out 3.5 fucking million dollars to the family to settle.
This is a pattern of behavior. Beware.
It’s a reference, if I was too obscure, to the fact that no matter what you do, Bad Shit can Happen. If you do your best, and act as intelligently as you can, you can reduce the chances that Bad Shit might Happen to you, but you you’ve got no guarantee. Not even with officers of the law.
Philando did a pretty good job, and still Bad Shit Happened, in the form of Officer Yanez.
Even demanding and paying for better training will not prevent Bad Shit from Happening. But it will reduce the frequency.
Nope. You sound like a breathless, hyperventilating lunatic.
In your wild-eyed rage it may have escaped your notice that Yanez was charged with manslaughter, and the case was heard before a jury composed of members of the public. In other words, he was prosecuted, contrary to your claims.
I think most/all of the participants in this thread agree that Yanez committed manslaughter and are rather baffled by the jury’s verdict (likewise for Officer Shelby in Tulsa, OK); pretty sure you’re the only one claiming murder, a charge which generally requires malice aforethought. It may be that Yanez was racist and that factored into him panicking unreasonably when things got a little confusing - but are you actually claiming that Yanez walked up to that car thinking “I’m gonna kill me a darkie”?
I’m not saying police murders don’t happen; you need only look to the case of Walter Scott, who was shot repeatedly in the back as he ran unarmed from the scene of a traffic stop. The hung jury in that case was equally baffling; instead of a retrial, the murder charge against Michael Slager has been dropped in a deal that required him to plead guilty to a federal civil rights charge.
This seems to come up a lot in self defense cases, and as always the law isn’t set up to deal with grave and inconceivable mistakes. Should a cop be wary of someone reaching into their pocket because it might be a move for a weapon? Sure. But you don’t get to shoot until you’re damn sure it actually is a weapon, and it’s actually pointed at you. “Oops, it was actually his wallet in his pocket, who could have imagine that being in there!” is a bogus fucking defense. Being this wrong about what’s being removed from a pocket is criminal.
This comes up a lot too – the shooter is often in a very different state of mind from the victim, often based on incomplete or incorrect information from a 3rd party (e.g., dispatch). In this case, the “armed robbery suspect” ended up being a guy with his girlfriend and a 4 year old. Why the officer remained on high alert even after seeing the kid in the back seat is beyond me. Unless people regularly commit armed robbery with toddlers in the car…
He was high? Or he had marijuana in his system? There’s a pretty big difference and AFAIK there’s no way to test if someone is actually high.
As for being non-responsive, there wasn’t any time for him to comply. “Don’t reach for it.” “I’m not.” Blam blam blam. He barely had time to process what was being said to him, yet alone make an informed decision and act on it.
Lastly, the cop’s ridiculous statements on the stand about the effects of marijuana should have convicted him alone, just for general idiocy.
:rolleyes:
Again, no evidence that they were actually smoking with the kid in the car. Guy is an asshat.
I disagree with this. It depends on context.
If the cop tells the guy to put his hands in the air or to not move or something like that, and the guy instead reaches into his pocket, then IMHO it’s reasonable to assume the guy is violating his command for a hostile reason. If he waits until he sees the weapon being pointed at him it would be too late, and that’s not a reasonable position to put cops in.
But in this case the cop told him to produce his license and registration, and what the guy did is completely consistent with him obeying the cop’s commands. In this circumstance it doesn’t seem at all reasonable for the cop to just assume he was pulling out a gun.
Again, I largely agree with your sentiments about the shooting. I’m surprised the jury acquitted. But the portion I quoted above, particularly the part about waiting until “it’s actually pointed at you” is wrong, plain and simple. There’s a shitload of cases to back me up too. Cops, CFP holders, residents, etc, as a general rule don’t have to wait until the weapon is actually pointed at them to open fire, and prosecutors and juries all across this country have by-and-large supported that notion for decades. You may wish it were otherwise, but it is not.
Breathless rage? Wild eyed? Jesus wept. In your eyes, if you’ve watched the video and I have to assume you have, how is what the officer did not murder? Just because he was full of adrenaline and fear and misread the situation doesn’t absolve hid behavior. Watch the video again and pay close attention to the aftermath. It’s like he didn’t do anything. Please be advised I am former military and I have a strong bias towards the military and the law officers whom serve. This is just so far removed from what law enforcement is supposed to be that it makes me ill.
Resembled, as in, was black?
Perception is an issue here. I am persuaded, from what I’ve actually seen personally, as well as incidents like this, that some police officers perceive black men as more threatening than they are, and science backs me up on this.
In a situation where we allow the police carte blanche to shoot if they perceive a threat, we have a problem when their perception is distorted from reality. Rigorous de-escalation training, an aggressive campaign to root out racism, and harsh, consistent penalties for misjudgement would be a start at reversing this issue.
Before anyone complains about my suggesting “harsh, consistent penalties for misjudgement” apply to police in the line of duty, reflect that we are currently (some of us in this thread) effectively advocating “harsh, consistent penalties for misjudgement” apply to black men simply for going about their business.
Fuck dude, we’ve elected “harsh, consistent penalties” for all of us. But you’re not wrong, black people remain a target. The difference in color is the assumption by the officer that “something’s wrong/criminal behavior” with black people and not so much whites.
You can nitpick about “pointed at you”, but if simply possessing a gun isn’t a deadly threat, which (as someone who regularly carries, I’d assume you agree with), then there needs to be some other threatening quantifier.
Of course, if the decision of juries is the bar we’re using, then no, the gun doesn’t need to be pointed at you, but then it doesn’t even need to exist either, so whoopty shit. A wallet is a deadly threat if we’re going to let juries decide the rules of engagement. But juries don’t set the ROE, law enforcement agencies do, and they require more than simply possession of a weapon before instructing their officers to use deadly force.
I have to take issue with this claim.
Yanez clearly committed some sort of crime, to my eyes, but his reaction afterwards really has nothing to do with it. It was the first time he’d ever shot anyone, and people will act bizarre in such situations, ways that you’d never think a person would act. Castile’s girlfriend’s reaction, as others have pointed out, was almost surreally calm; that’s not an indication she was some sort of ice cold witch or had schemed to have all this happen, it’s just an example of someone acting in shock.
“S/he acted in a way not consistent with the way I think they should have” is a terrible way to judge guilt or innocence. Innocent people have gone to prison because of this sort of stupidity.
What Yanez did was wrong because of what happened BEFORE he pulled the trigger - which is to say, nothing at all that merited deadly force. And of course Castile’s race was a factor. If Philando Castile was white, he’d very likely be alive today.
A cop in this country can kill anyone at any time for any reason, and get away with it.
Upon rewatching and reconsidering, I tend to agree with you. It’s still a fuck factor of race though. I keep reminding myself of how it’s 2017 and it doesn’t seem to matter.
This is absolutely true.
It may have been, but we (including you) cannot tell from just the video. We can’t see what Yanez saw.
Yanez had already asked for, and received, Castile’s license and registration. He was holding them after Yanez informed him about the firearm.
So put yourself in Yanez’s place for a moment. You already have the driver’s license & registration. Then he says he has a gun. You say “don’t reach for it”, “don’t reach for it”, “don’t pull it out”. Clearly Yanez was reaching for something, even when being warned not to. Warned three times, in fact.
Because we can’t see Castile’s hands in the video, we cannot draw any conclusions as to whether Yanez acted properly.
So go ahead and keep insisting you have absolute knowledge about this incident. We both know that you do not.
mmm