I caught a bit of a Phoenix Police Department spokesman at a news conference while I was walking through a room with the TV on.
“I can’t have heard that right.” It gnawed at me, the more I thought about it.
Background: We’ve had recently, tragically, a police officer shot dead by an undocumented/illegal immigrant. He was killed later by police. To assuage the local hispanic community, who are always making noise about local law enforcement’s role in immigration enforcement, the police spokesman said something very much like.
Sanchez was not killed because of immigration status. We’re the police, they’re the suspect, we kill them, that’s it.
What. The. Fuck.
I cannot find any local outrage, or link to a transcript, or any verification of what I thought I heard, but it is not comforting to know that the police are now handing out the death penalty for suspicious activity.
Yes, yes, he mispoke, but it’s telling of the PPD’s attitude towards use of force.
And to be totally fair, the ‘suspect’ was killed attempting a carjacking at gunpoint.
He was more than a suspect when he was killed, he was a dangerous felon threating a citizen. But still, a spokesman should be more careful with his words.
If you had something approaching evidence that “what you think you possibly heard” was actually said in the way you think you heard it, I might see this as a justified pitting. If you can ever dig up any evidence, let us know.
I just did a Google search on “Phoenix police suspect shooting” which brought up a story on Erik Jovani Martinez, who shot a police officer in the face (killing the cop), fled, commandeered a car, and then pointed the gun at the head of the hostage/motorist/carjacking victim when the car was surrounded by police, who then shot him. Is that the case you’re talking about? If so, it sounds like a justifiable shooting (on the part of the police, of course).
Welcome to Amerikkka, dude. At least the pigs are a big fat target. Join your revolutionary brothers and sisters and get back at the system by ripping off payphones and giving out free dope.
Hopefully if you ever find yourself being carjacked a nearby officer will show a similar lack of restraint. Find a new complaint, “cops smoke bad guy in the middle of a violent crime”. The proper words to the police department are “Thank You”.
Looks like PPD has given us another bedtime story to tell our children. They love happy endings.
Let’s check the anti-outrage here - the OP wasn’t perhaps as clear as he might have been, but I see the concern not being that this particular person was killed by the cops in the course of a violent felony, but that a police spokesman would be so gauche as to imply that the police engage in vigilanteism - killing people without the benefit of the protections of the law - as a matter of course.
From the OP:
Martin Hyde’s point that the OP may well have misheard the statement is on point. Absent any cites that the OP heard the spokesman correctly I find it easier to believe that the OP misheard than that a police spokesperson would say something so FUBARed.
IOW, criticize the OP for what he was trying to say, if you must criticize it - don’t misinterpret his complaint to be a blanket attack on the police, or even the use of deadly force. Such interpretations give me the impression that the person making them is so blindered by their prejudices that they’re unable to rationally process information on this topic. (Kinda like me with regards to allegations of teacher abuse.)
Dewy Finn, Drachillix:
My pique is with the seemingly thoughtless words of the police spokesman, not with the actions of the police. But thanks for the pile on, I’m sure our brothers in blue enjoy the knee-jerk support. This is not a ‘I hate cops’ thread. It’s a ‘Damn, has the authoritarian shift to the right extended so far that a police spokesman would actually say this?!’ thread.
Q.E.D. :
Regardless of verb tense, in America, the cops aren’t supposed to kill ‘suspects’. Only if they see a crime in progress, that threatens lives, should deadly force be used. (Or to stop a kidnapping, sexual assault, or arson in progress) I was awake in the CCW course.
Martin Hyde:
I’m sure I never will. Would you repeat that, if you were the PPD? If anyone has friends in the local media, It was friday, Sept 21 in the late morning, on channel 3 KPHO. I’ve looked through their website, and the Phoenix Police Department website without results.
OtakuLoki:
I’m pretty sure I heard what I heard, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s not the most fucked up thing to have happened in our Local Law enforcement. Our Sherrif is in a league of his own.
I’ve never run across any free dope, it’s always been expensive. Maybe I should hike the backwoods more.
I’ve always been curious, does Hoffman have any insights more complex than those found in the Anarchists Cookbook? Like what to do after the system is torn down, the phones don’t work, the lights are out, and the sewers back up?
The Sonoran Lizard King, I’m sure you are pretty sure. And you may be right - it’s far from the worst gaffe I’ve read or heard from law enforcement. I’m just expressing my doubts - and I’m well aware that I’ve been bitten by Occam’s Razor before.
I just would like to believe that if the spokesperson did say that, at least the local ACLU would be expressing some ‘more in sorrow than anger’ finger waving. The police setting themselves up as judge, jury and executioner in the normal course of affairs is one of those issues that I believe constant vigilance is all about. Attitudes are important, and influence and inform actions. So, if the attitude of the PD is really, “they’re suspects, we kill them” even though this sounds like a completely justified shooting, it’s still very worrysome.
Ah yes, I’m sure that Rush Limbaugh and G.W. are somehow to blame for this officer’s statement.
I just can’t read any underlying meaning about the police’s disrespect for the citizenry in that statement. If the police really and truly felt that they could just kill ‘suspects,’ then all sorts of shit would have already gone down at this point. This just sounds like a response to a specific incident that used (poorly) general terms when it shouldn’t have.
I’m sorry, but entries for the Knee-Jerk Of The Year award are no longer being accepted. We thank you for entering, though, and wish you better luck next time.
Oh come now! When the OP takes issue with the words used by one police officer (whose actions he does not fault) and sees them as an indication of a nation-wide culture shift to the right, I ask you who is being knee-jerk?
-Eonwe, very much a liberal democrat, who maybe is over-tired of hearing every problem anywhere being blamed on the ‘right’/republicans.
Dude, those invisible ninjas are the hardest, but I got them all, finally, with a 1920s style ray gun, with IR sights. (aftermarket, of course.)
And, FWIW, I recently changed my party affiliation to Republican to support Ron Paul in the primary. (It should make things interesting, at least.) So, this wasn’t an automatic liberal vs cops thing.
