By that “logic”, cops should shoot everyone they pull over. You just never know if they driver is going to be talking on the phone and slam into a school bus full of kids, or is on the way to shoot up his office, or there’s 200 pounds of ANFO in his trunk with a timer, or vials of anthrax. Better be safe - kill them all, let God sort them out.
The officer here should know the difference between a taser and a gun. Ask yourself this question: if you made the same mistake, would you be prosecuted?
That’s misstating the case law just a bit. The Supreme Court cases like Castle Rock v Gonzales say there is no constitutional duty to protect. The argument was that the duty to protect is part of due process and the 14th amendment. That was rejected by SCOTUS. That doesn’t mean police don’t have to do anything to help or protect citizens. It just means its not a constitutional right to be protected. That doesn’t mean the duties of the police can’t be covered by state statute or local policy and procedure.
I certainly have some issues with the way @aceplace57 analyzed this, but I’m really not following you here. Have you seen the video above? He was out of the car, they tried to cuff him and he started resisting, he jumped back into the car and was attempting to drive away to flee the police.
That’s one thing lay people don’t seem to grip. Cops live or due by their departments SOP. An officer can do everything legal but if something he/she did violated department policy they can be fired.
I believe that when he resisted and got back into the car had they let him go with a “we’ll get him next time” mentality and he mowed down a bunch of old ladies or kids, there most certainly would have been a massive outcry. Especially if video of the officers letting him go surfaced.
The public wants it’s cake and eat it too. They want to be safe from criminals but then question the manner in which that safety is provided. They don’t like the answer “it was time to not be nice.”
Wait, how does it make any sense at all to incapacitate someone driving a car? What’s the outcome you’re trying for, there? A car whose driver has been incapacitated is just as dangerous, if not more so, than one whose driver is still in control.
He had got back into the car, but it was still stationary with the door wide open. I’m no expert, but common sense tells me that would be a reasonable time to taze him.
Let’s address the one issue - yes “we” want to be safe. But here was ALREADY a procedure in place to address such situations. The taser. I have read that proper procedure is to wear the taser on one side, and the gun on the other, so such “mistakes” aren’t made. But yet somehow the officer “confused” the two. We’ll never know what was in her head, but such errors shouldn’t just be written off as “oh well, you the public wanted this”. I don’t!
If cops can’t control the situation, the solution should not be to shoot first and cover up later.
If I, a civilian, made the same mistake, would you arrest me? Would I be prosecuted? Why do cops get a pass?
Taze, yes! Execute, no!
Did you interpret @aceplace57’s comment (to which you were replying) as advocating lethal force in that situation? He agreed that she made a mistake, so I don’t see how you could interpret it that way. I thought he was more arguing that the police are faced with treading a very fine line in that situation between protecting the public from a guy about to drive off at high speed and the use of excessive force to stop him, and that this mitigates how we should view the terrible mistake she made.
Partially. He calls it a mistake, which means he believes the officer only meant to taze, but then he says the suspect should be stopped lest he kill a bus load of kids. How much force does he think should be used to stop the suspect? What if the taze didn’t faze him and he started to drive off? Think fast - Kids’ lives are at stake!
At least this guy won’t be ramming school buses any time soon. Mission accomplished.
Tazing would have stunned Wright and given cops time to drag him out of the car. Pepper spray was another possible option.
Did they ever say if Potter had mostly admin duties? I got the impression she hadn’t been hands on in awhile. That’s not an excuse. She didn’t react like a 25 year veteran cop.
Potter shouldn’t have let Wright get back in the car.
I was making a general statement in response to a previous post, not a specific statement regarding this case.
And nobody tried to cover up anything on this case. The officer admitted her error immediately.
Few believe she should get off scott free. But if ever there was a time to temper justice with some mercy this is it.
[fighting valiantly against the urge to post a video of the great Jack Nicholson courtroom scene from “A Few Good Men.”]
Yeah, I get ripped off by the media all the time and have yet to receive a single residual check!
Nobody believes that she did this deliberately, and I don’t think punishment solely for retribution is ever justified. So to me mercy is not the primary consideration here.
I think severe penalties are warranted for homicidal negligence because trigger-happy police are a serious problem in this country, and the prospect of actually being held to account will certainly have a feedback effect on police training, police procedures and police attitudes. When the state grants police the power and authority they have, if someone is dead through egregious negligence “this was a terrible mistake, please forgive us and we’ll try to do better” just doesn’t cut it.
The police aren’t the marines. There is no equivalency. Cops don’t get to do whatever they want and claim they’re doing it for us and we shouldn’t even dare to question.* There is no wall! They aren’t the last line of defense.
And who are these trigger happy cops defending us from? Ourselves! Cops think it’s “us v them” and everyone that isn’t a cop is “them”. They can’t tell in a traffic stop whether I am a John Dillinger or a John Denver, so they default to the first. “Always come home at the end of the shift”, even if you have to shoot an unarmed man to do it. Better safe than dead.
They have shown they make no distinction between a hardened criminal ready to shoot it out and a mentally disturbed person. They’ll just shoot them both, and claim “you can’t handle the truth!” No thanks.
*Well, reality has shown they actually do, but they shouldn’t.
Outcome in an hour, according to local news.
Edit mine:
First you say she didn’t do it deliberately, then you call her trigger happy.
Which is it?
Put this case into comparison perspective:
Had she not given the Taser warning and just shot him with the explanation that she reasonably believed he was going to drive over her and her partners the chances of her getting off would be much greater than they are now.
Would that make you happy?
The gotcha you want to see there really does not exist. “Trigger happy” means too ready to grab your gun to “resolve” a conflict. It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to see how a trigger-happy police culture could result in someone inadvertently grabbing their gun under pressure. It also doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that the knowledge of severe penalties for negligently shooting someone would make it less likely to happen. Otherwise, why do we ever punish negligent acts?
At the moment, the risk-reward for a cop appears to be - if in doubt, shoot. If I’m uncertain if a threat exists, I could lose my own life from a false negative, there will be no penalty for a false positive. That risk-reward profile needs to change.
Except that’s not actually happening. 800K cops making millions of public contacts every day, billions every year. Yet an overwhelming majority of officers retire without ever firing their weapon in the line of duty.
On January 4, 2022 I will have exactly 40 years on the job between 2 distinguished careers, both within a major metropolitan area. Of the thousands of Deputies, Officers, and Troopers I have come to know, only a handful have ever shot anyone.
“Trial outcome” reached: