I’d like to take a tally to see where we all stand with these two controversial topics.
I want to know who thinks which cases the cops were justified in shooting. Before you answer the poll, you should know I’ve made it public.
Thanks.
Could you include what you think are fair, representative links to both cases?
I voted “Brown justified / Rice NOT justified” but would have chosen “Brown I-don’t-know / Rice NOT justified” if that were an option. With no video, and evidence mishandled, it would be ignorant to assume honesty of cops and D.A.
I agree. The Brown shooting could possibly be justified depending upon whose version of the story is the truth.
I have a hard time saying the same thing about the Rice shooting after seeing the video. Perhaps the story the cops tell is true but they could have easily pulled to a stop 10 yards away and ordered Rice to get on the ground with his hands up instead of pulling right next to him and placing themselves seriously in harms way in a manner I would call irresponsible.
I didn’t vote.
I went with Brown yes/ Rice no (cops should have stopped 60 ft. away). However, since I don’t want to put myself through watching the video of a kid being killed, my opinion is largely worthless in the Rice case.
I said not justified for both. I don’t believe Brown posed a reasonable threat to Wilson, and it’s ludicrous to think Wilson believed his life was endangered by the unarmed person who had tried to deescalate conflict by running away. Tack on what the witnesses claimed they saw and there’s absolutely no way I can conclude this shooting was justified. Wilson should have been indicted and tried.
I won’t even bother explaining why I think Tamir Rice’s shooting was unjustified.
:dubious:
I can close to saying both were justified but --------- capping a smaller young-looking kid? I think I would have to wait until he fired at least once (which he couldn’t) before taking him out.
Score card? No, I don’t think you can put a notch on your gun for a 12 year old.
This.
I put justified for both of them.
For the Brown case, unquestionably so. The grand jury has even spoken. I don’t believe there was any better way to handle the Brown case, given that medical evidence pretty much rules out some peaceful hands-in-the-air scenario that some witnesses described. The bullets hit at an angle that indicates the torso tipped forward towards the office, and you don’t do that when your hands are up. Furthermore, violence had already been done against the police officer.
In the Rice case, justified with a caveat. This could have maybe been handled better by the cops to prevent the shooting… but cops have to make snap judgments based on the facts they have at the time, and in this case, I can’t help but think it was a reasonable call. Maybe there were procedure to not get so close and maybe there was some miscommunication about whether the gun was believed to be real… to my knowledge, this hasn’t all been sorted out by a court of law yet.
Really, the rioters only got one thing right. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” This I agree with. It’s not “Charge the officer, don’t shoot.” It’s not “Go for your waistband, don’t shoot.” It’s HANDS UP. As in up. Above your head. I wouldn’t even recommend asking how high. Just do it. Police put their lives in danger on every call, so do everyone a favor and make sure they know you’re not a threat.
Not justified for both.
In the Brown case, I think the prosecutor didn’t want to charge them, then did a half-assed job in presenting his case to the grand jury, including the very unusual step of presenting evidence that hurts his own case. If Brown was going to harm his killer, he would have done so in the earlier scuffle, not when he was 20 feet away. If he had had a gun, he would have used it then, not later. The entry angle of the wounds is irrelevant, the trajectories could be due to Brown falling as the bullet struck him. Eleven shots seems to be a bit of an overkill, a shot or two to the abdomen would have definitely stopped him- why not see what happens then rather than emptying your gun?
In the Rice case, most definitely unjustified. They stupidly pulled up right next to him and in less than 2 seconds fired. What could they have said and what could Rice have responded in that time? So he reached for his waistband. Big deal. You’ve got your gun trained on him- wait to see if he actually produces a gun before firing.
On a 0-100 scale, I give Brown about a 75-25 unjustified, while for Rice I give it 100-0.
They could have said “freeze” and Rice could have frozen.
Regards,
Shodan
Did they? From wheels stop to bullet in body was about two seconds. What did they say? If it was “freeze”, would he have understood what was meant? A twelve year old boy is supposed to obey perfectly in two seconds or be shot? Are we trying to use Darwinian methods to create a nation of sheep for the cops to lord over?
There’s no option for how I feel. I can’t say whether or not I think the Brown shooting was justified because at this point I don’t know who’s eyewitness statements and evidence to believe.
As for Tamir Rice. Given the circumstances of what happened and given the cops knowledge of the situation as they pulled up, I’m going to lean on just barely justified. Rice was clearly aiming what clearly looked like a real weapon in public multiple times, including at least once as at an actual person. In that neighborhood (which I’m very familiar with), it’s SOP for cops to roll up extremely close to suspects to help prevent bolting. Add on the fact that the dispatcher neglected to inform them that it was possibly a fake gun (which I’m not going to hold against the cops on the scene), you have a recipe for a disaster that could have been easily prevented by:
- Not walking around pointing what you clearly intend to be perceived as a real gun at people and
- Clear communication between dispatch and patrol.
Yes, but by extension, the police have two seconds to make their own decision, which (based on their information at the time) could have been life or death.
As I said before, it sounds like they may not have been following the proper approach protocol. As the evidence comes out, we’ll see how the rulings on issues like that go. Maybe we can learn from this to improve how cops do this in the future, but even saying that isn’t the same as assuming that the cops are unjustified.
I don’t know… I don’t want to get too far into this one. These are my early impressions, but it’s a mistake to rush to judgment either way. Truth doesn’t fit a 24-hr news cycle.
The cops didn’t even claim they said freeze, so that’s a moot issue.
Hasn’t it been reported that the cops told the kid to drop his weapon? If this happened (in the split seconds before he was shot), the kid was probably confused if wasn’t actually holding anything. So what does he do? He goes for the toy so that he’d have something to throw down. In the heat of the moment, a kid will make decisions like this. So will many adults, for that matter.
It only takes one bullet to kill. Your suggestion is going to cause a lot more deaths than it prevents.
Brown shooting justified. Rice shooting may have been justified at that moment but cops should have never put themselves in that position to have to make that quick decision so the fault lies squarely with the police.