Re this story and video the police appear to just start firing at a mentally ill man who is standing stock still and being fully compliant. They made up a CYA story about his attacking them after he was shot, but a home surveillance camera video from the neighbor showed they were lying.
Assuming they weren’t looking to gun down crazy people randomly what probably happened in his situation? I’ve never held a gun on anyone or been threatened at gunpoint. Supposedly modern police weapons are almost impossible to fire non-intentionally Why would the officer fire his weapon at this seemingly complaint person?
Is it a reflexes accident, panic … what? What’s the usual explanation in these scenarios.
Incompetent cops who, if found to have shot the guy for no good reason, ought to be sent to prison (general pop) for life. But the Blue Wall will protect these assholes and they’ll walk, with some bullshit story about how they were sure the victim was about to go all Rambo on their pathetic asses.
“We are aware of video taken by citizens of this incident.”
The only reason the DA is pursuing it this far.
I fucking hate Texas cops. Can you tell? Bad experience, long story, rant over.
My apologies to all the real, hard-working LEOs out there who think this shit is bogus too.
Yes but why. That guy was at least 10 feet away and making no movements.
I believe something like half of people shot (and/or killed) by police are mentally ill. It should be a national issue but it isn’t. The question is how many of those mentally ill people are engaging in life threatening behavior to the officers vs. just unable to follow/understand the officer’s commands? How much of it is just the cops being scared of someone who is mentally ill and as a result has trouble communicating or following social rules or verbal commands, despite them not engaging in serious overt threatening behavior?
If not for the video evidence the lies of these cops would’ve been taken at face value. Even with it, they will probably get a minor punishment (being fired, maybe a year in jail).
I don’t understand the need for “weapons experts”.
Basically they took the Indy Jones approach. Instead of talking to the mentally ill, they just shot like Indy does the sword wielding guy in the Raiders.
If you lived in Nevada, you’d understand that cops don’t need a reason to shoot and kill people or even to inflict pain on them; it’s just something that cops do. Now that we have cameras everywhere, tho, more of them are getting caught out than ever before.
I don’t think (IMO) they were out to intentionally murder him, but in the end he got shot for (seemingly) being compliant. I guess I’m asking why this sort of this happens in tense situations? If I understand the way Glocks and related police guns work you have to really be pulling on that trigger to get off a shot. The guy being approached was making no aggressive moves.
From a policeman’s point of view that shot someone in a tense situation like this what are the usual reasons they give for shooting a compliant person who is being held at gunpoint? I want to get at the mechanism that causes something like this to happen.
Ditto. Are they really generally better elsewhere though?
The video sickens me. The culture of corruption among some of these guys is incredibly disturbing. It’s like they’ve discussed these scenarios and responses beforehand and they’re going to cover each other ‘for the greater good’ forever after.
I don’t know how one could say they didn’t try and murder him when video shows he wasn’t moving and they shoot at him four (4) times.
Let me state first that I can’t watch the video. I’m assuming its flash and I can’t see it on this device. Sometime later I’ll get on a computer and try to remember to watch it. So I am only speaking in broad generalities right now without seeing all the information.
So in reading the OP and other comments I expected to read about a completely compliant person. Instead in the article it says he was holding a knife. Holding a knife and not dropping it on command is not being compliant. Someone close to an officer holding a knife is dangerous and potentially deadly. 10 feet is close. The closest I’ve ever come to shooting someone was a guy holding a knife by his side. He was about a half second from being shot. Luckily for both of us he dropped it immediately. I would have been completely justified in shooting him. When I get to see the video I’ll be better able to form an opinion but I just wanted to point out that holding a knife and not dropping it is far from being compliant.
I’d agree, but from the article, it sounds like bystanders are claiming the cops only told him to freeze, not to drop the weapon, and he did freeze. It’s surveillance video so there’s no audio of the incident.
His mother calls the police. Says her son has a knife and is schizophrenic and is in chair in the middle of the street.
The video action sequence is not more than 15 seconds.
He’s in the middle of the street in a cul-de-sac sitting in an office style chair with rollers. The officers get out of their car and approach him weapons drawn. At about 30 feet or so away he starts pushing himself with his legs in the chair backwards and away from them. They (apparently) tell him to stand up and freeze. He gets out of the chair does this standing stock still arms at sides. He is immobile. They continue to approach. At about 20 feet away one officer opens fire and he goes down. The end.
Post shooting video sequence (how long after is undetermined in story) - Officer picks something out of street from vicinity where he was shot. Possibly the knife though this is undetermined. Officers claim in report he was approaching them with knife, arms upraised in threatening manner. This is apparently a bald lie.
I’ll check out the video, that sounds really bad. I was just pointing out that no one had mentioned the knife and it was the first thing that jumped out at me when reading the article. It’s a game changer. And it is possible that they could have lied in the police reporting order to paint themselves in the best possible light and still be justified in the shooting. But the lying itself is illegal and they should be fired for that alone. I’m assuming that the guy with the knife isn’t in any shape to give reliable testimony.
To paraphrase one of the Gawker comments: It’s worth pointing out that you are never ever going to see a headline like, “Well-trained Officers Successfully Defuse Situation of Mentally Ill Suspect Brandishing BB Gun; All Ends Well” although it happens all the time.
Well its clear from the video that he didn’t step towards the officers. But the video of course doesn’t show what was said or any more subtle actions since it was from so far away. It looks like the patrol car may have been in a position to capture close up video and sound. If so that will eventually come out too.
The bottom line seems to be that, too often, cops go into these situations knowing that shooting the person would be technically justified even if it’s unnecessary and the situation can be resolved another way (even if that way takes longer). So people who are ill and potentially dangerous but not a threat get shot and killed. The police need to be able to evaluate these situations better so shooting someone becomes a last response only used when someone is actively threatening them, not when someone could possibly become a threat to them.
We had an incident here that folks were pretty up in arms about. A hispanic woman started waiving a knife and scissors around in a Costco (she was one of the demo folks). Clearly she was having a mental breakdown. I don’t think there was any question about that. She started for an officer. They commander her to stop. A tazer was deployed, but misfired. She kept coming at the officer with a raised knife. She was shot and killed.
All around, it was sad.
We do have a team of specialized deputies and officers who are trained to respond to mental health calls… who are trained in de-escalation, etc… It is really intense training, and several deputies and officers are “asked” to stop the training if their fellow trainees and teachers see they don’t have the right temperment for it. The big issue is getting these guys to the right calls. But I do consider our jurisdiction lucky that we have this kind of training at all.
I really don’t see how this was a tense situation.
“He’s complying to my orders! OMG!”
Their LIES on the report as to what happened show us that these two particular officers of the law are just play sociopaths who kill without cause. Trying to analyze ‘why’ isn’t a job for weapons experts. It’s a job for a head shrink. And they can only tell us why they are bat shit crazy.
I seriously doubt that these particular cops were thrill-killers who murdered this guy for fun and high-fives. The much more likely explanation is that they’re ordinary assholes like you and me and killed this guy for no reason by mistake, and then realized what happened and tried to cover it up, because if you murdered someone by mistake wouldn’t you try to cover it up?
Now, what exactly was the mistake? Likely explanation is that they heard the word “knife” and “crazy dude” from the dispatcher and were amped up in full Rambo mode, and couldn’t tell the difference between a crazy dude charging them with a knife and a crazy dude sitting in a chair and then standing up when they told him to stand up.
Like, they tell him to stand up, but when he stands up their brainstem tells them that standing up is threatening. He was sitting down, now he’s standing up, his next move is to charge us. Nevermind that they’re the ones that told him to stand up. And when you shoot the first time, well, there are gunshots all around, gunshots mean danger, so you keep shooting until you don’t hear gunshots anymore.
Now why these easily-spooked highly-strung guys were given guns and badges and told to round up crazy dudes is a good question. The answer is that cops are ordinary people like you or me, except they have guns and badges and a little bit of training. I mean, we try to weed out the guys who are gonna panic and empty their guns the first time they get nervous, but sometimes they’re going to slip through the selection process.