The majority of the Bundy affair is in no way comparable to a point-blank encounter between one/two officers and one armed civilian. It would not have been prudent for local police to engage in a large-scale gun battle with scores of heavily armed people, as that’s not what they’re trained for and it would likely result in heavy casualties on both sides.
Ask Lavoy Finnicum what happened when a situation arose that was comparable.
Don’t argue this with Smapti. There’s an entire ridiculously long thread in the Pit where he basically says that every police shooting is justified and not a one of them has ever done anything wrong.
It isn’t going to go anywhere, so let’s not continue that discussion here, outside of the Pit.
Even a black lives matter protest leader realized the reality when he went through police use of force training and changes his tune to match the OP. Activist critical of police undergoes use of force scenarios | FOX 10 News - YouTube
Utter bullshit. Maybe if only one of those happened, it might just be an unfortuante event. But it keeps happening, in much greater numbers to black people. Just looking at Garner: Selling loosies and resisting arrest is not a good reason to suffocate a guy. Those cops’ lives weren’t at risk when he swatted a hand. Choke holds aren’t a good example of de-escalation. But let’s keep blaming the dead people, and plastering Facebook and the cable news with their misdemeaners and irrelevant info about their family life to make white people feel better about their murders.
So when Garner resisted arrest, the officers should have done what? Let him go? Said “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize not getting arrested was so important to you, see you next week”? They used an unarmed submission technique which wouldn’t have killed anyone who wasn’t morbidly obese and severely ill.
Their misdemeanors and family life are irrelevant.
Also, none of them were “murdered”.
What evidence do you have that Castile did anything to threaten the officer?
A police officer’s number one job is self preservation. Any first responder is trained to first ensure their own safety before worrying about anyone else. A police officer is under no obligation to allow himself to be killed because a suspect decides to fight with him. Sure he may win a disproportionate number of fights but even if he can win 90% of the time that means he’ll be dead by the time he arrests his 10th resisting suspect. He has an obligation to himself, his family, his department, and to the public first of all to survive and second to not allow a criminal to win. So he must take every advantage he can in order to ensure his survival. He can’t know when a criminal starts resisting where it will end. Does he have a gun? a knife? some other weapon? The officer has no way of knowing and someone who resists is more likely to be hiding something deadly since the resistor for whatever reason thinks he can win.
There are options in between choke hold and the ridiculous scenario you present. They weren’t breaking up an armed robbery or hostage situation for pete’s sake.
You are assuming that non-blacks are equally likely to challenge police as blacks are. Why in the world would you assume that?
Please do explain how you would deal with a person who is aggressively resisting arrest if “unarmed use of physical force” is too extreme by which to effect the arrest.
Most of this is false; the video doesn’t clearly show Rice reaching for a weapon, and the officers lied in their interviews after the shooting. The officers also had plenty of time to not drive within yards of someone they thought might be armed, and time to verbally engage the child before they rushed out of their car and shot him.
I wasn’t being serious with the flaking comment…but yeah just comply…
The elephant in the room in all of this is that Americans are over policed for a variety reasons like to generate revenue and to advance the careers of politicians and police executives. Which leads to the other elephant in the room the war on drugs. Come to think of it, there is another elephant in the room, our complete lack of sensible gun control. But, this stuff goes way beyond the regular beat cop. Until these issues get addressed, I fear for the future.
To go back to the statistic frequently quoted in recent days, per Washington Post, blacks are killed by police at 2.5 times the rate of whites (gender disparity really isn’t at issue). But per relatively recent FBI statistics blacks were arrested at 2.6 times the white rate. The frequency of force used in arrests of blacks is higher per arrest per today’s NYT article, 46 per 1,000 arrests for blacks v 36 per 1,000 for whites. However again FBI data say that the disproportion of arrests is greater for some serious crimes presumably more likely to result in force used in arrests: blacks 6.3 times as likely to be arrested for murder, 8.1 times as likely for robbery. It’s not clear that it’s meaningful to compare the raw figure of force per arrest without considering what the arrests are for.
There is clearly a racial disparity in crime in the US. It’s not as clear how disproportionate police use of force is for people of different colors in the same situations, statistically, though there have obviously been police shootings of black suspects caught on video which appear unjustified.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-shootings-by-police-surpass-2015s-rate/2016/07/07/81b708f2-3d42-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/study-supports-suspicion-that-police-use-of-force-is-more-likely-for-blacks.html
Ahem. Beginning at 8:25 Rice can clearly be seen to respond to the approaching vehicle by getting up, walking towards it, and reaching for his waist.
“The officers’ statement was factually inaccurate” != “the officers lied”. Memory is a funny thing.
Verbally engage him without approaching him, you say?
AIUI, the chain of events was something like this:
the cop asked for Castile’s license.
Castile declared he had a CCW license and was carrying a weapon, while simultaneously reaching for his license.
The officer, alarmed by Castile’s declaration of armament, then told Castile not to reach for his license at that time.
Castile, perhaps confused by the conflicting commands, continued to reach/dig for his wallet.
Castile’s declaration of armament, together with his disappearing hand, and his apparent refusal to obey the officer’s most recent command (to not reach for his wallet at that time), was interpreted by the officer to present an immediate threat to his own life, prompting him to shoot.
It seems clear to me that Castile never intended to issue any kind of overt or subtle threat, but the sum of his innocent actions was interpreted by the officer to be a threat.
I don’t believe this was murder, i.e. an intent to kill with malice aforethought. I believe the officer genuinely feared for his life when he pulled the trigger, but I don’t believe that fear was reasonable. Justice, IMHO, would include a conviction for manslaughter and a sentence of a couple of years in prison.
I think it’s probably a good thing to teach and reinforce to cops NOT to expect to be respected by the population, and not to be offended and butthurt if you’re not.
That sort of Eric Cartman-esque “RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH” attitude on the part of many cops does nobody any good, and merely primes them for unfortunate incidents. Hell, I’m a middle-class white guy and I’ve been lectured by cops about some truly stupid shit having to do with speeding while the cop was behind me. It wasn’t a lecture about “How fucking stupid are you, driving for nearly 2 miles above the speed limit with a cop behind you?” That would have been… you know, valid. Instead, it was a long diatribe about how I’d disrespected him and disrespected the law by extension. :rolleyes: He didn’t really have much to say when I told him that after he didn’t pull me over after the first 20 seconds or so, I figured for the remaining 2-3 minutes that he wasn’t going to pull me over at all. (I was going 35 in a 30, FWIW).
That same cop would probably have lost his shit and cuffed me or something had I mouthed off to him.
He shouldn’t have had that attitude in the first place- give me the ticket, give me a warning, but don’t make it about disrespect.
The second thing I’d concentrate on if I was a police chief would be to lessen the paranoia that so many cops have. I kind of think that a lot of them go into every situation as if someone’s going to whip out a gun or weapon, and when that’s combined with the respect issues above, it sets the stage for a lot of bad stuff to happen. It makes them jumpy and paranoid when there’s no need to be, and some cops take this too far, and shoot people without provocation.
I think finally, that the sort of “hard” image and reputation that a lot of young black men try to portray is coming back to bite them, as apparently the cops buy into it as well, and are that much more paranoid when they are dealing with them, or even regular black men not trying to portray an image.
Oh, perhaps more verbal communication. Garner said “Don’t touch me” and gave a light swat of the hand and he was immediately pulled down from behind with a prohibited chokehold and ridden like a fucking horse with four cops swarming him. All for suspicion of selling loosies. Not even witnessed by them. Not dealing drugs to kids. Not in the midst of robbing a liquor store. Not suspicion of raping a college co-ed. Not threatening the life of the president.
Something’s wrong with this picture. And this is just one example.
The “something wrong” is that there are people who think it’s appropriate to swat away a police officer’s hand and tell them “don’t touch me” while they are being arrested for committing a crime.
Don’t want the police to jump on your back? Don’t break the law and don’t disrespect the office when you get caught.
The account of events states Castile was putting his hands up, which is traditionally what a person does to indicate they mean no harm and do not wish to be shot.
In the case of Rice, your position is that he should have been shot because he put his hands down. In Castile’s case, he should have been shot because he put his hands up. So, to review; if a black man (or child) lowers his hands it is justifiable to shoot them, but if they raise their hands, it is justifiable to shoot them.
I am quite certain that had Castile frozen, you would have blamed him for not obeying the officer’s initial command to put his hands up. Or you would have blamed him for not getting his license. It’s quite obvious that there is no action Castile could have taken for which you would not find the shooting was justifiable. Having been given conflicting commands - he was ordered both to get his license and to not move - the officer was justified in killing Castile irrespective of what he did, since Castile could not, logically, follow both orders.
Why, exactly, did Castile have to be shot? There is no evidence he did anything overtly threatening.