Police shooting of unarmed teen leads to protests and Riot

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

As for this, officers in the states are not trained to incapacitate when shooting. If they fire their gun they are risking lethal force on the person. Trained to shoot at the target until the threat is removed. I don't know if it's that necessarily wrong, I do agree it should be extremely rare for an officer to fire their gun, but when they do I do think they should be 'planning' (poor word choice) on it being lethal force. Not making judgment on this particular incident whether it was reasonable or warranted.

So regularly, police in the US find that unarmed petty criminals are deserving of lethal force? That is the crux of my entire argument--why is it so common for officers in the US to use deadly force? If it's so rare in other countries, why is it so common here?

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

How do you actually picture this going down?

You say yourself that the autopsies suggest the shot in the top of his head was the one that killed him (I have no idea if that's true) but the guy has been shot five times by then and then he's charging from several meters away like The Rhino from the old Spidey cartoons?

Conversely, if Brown was surrendering with his hands in the air or running away, how did he get shot on the top of the head?

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

So regularly, police in the US find that unarmed petty criminals are deserving of lethal force? That is the crux of my entire argument--why is it so common for officers in the US to use deadly force? If it's so rare in other countries, why is it so common here?

From the numbers I've seen, US cops use lethal force in less than 1% of their encounters with the public. But because there are SO MANY encounters, the numbers are way higher than one would expect.

We can argue back and forth over the various reasons for this, but we'd need to start whipping out economists, psychologists and sociologists.

Part of me wonders what "respect for authority" has to do with it all. Not to mention "community based policing". If you don't see the cops as bad guys set on taking all your liberties away and instead know the officers who are in 'your' area and can trust them to be fair and treat you fairly...incidents between cops and public are going to go much better.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

So regularly, police in the US find that unarmed petty criminals are deserving of lethal force? That is the crux of my entire argument--why is it so common for officers in the US to use deadly force? If it's so rare in other countries, why is it so common here?

The US has a multitude of problems, social classes, violent crimes and homicides are higher as are police killings. I think there is a lot of room to make your argument and I think it's a very fair one. I don't disagree in a broad sense.

But we're also talking about a singular event where we don't have enough information to say that the officer was or was not justified in shooting a large teenager. I'm not pro-gun, if anything I'm anti, but I am high on self-defense. If, and that's a key word, the officer was afraid for his life while being charged by a much bigger man who had already tried to grab his weapon, I would not be against him defending himself anyway possible. Again, if that was the case but we haven't even really heard from the officer what his story is. And you're right, he could just be a trigger happy police officer. I don't dispute that's a possibility either.

[nik-]

I think what she's getting at is that it's not a singular event.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by nik-

I think what she's getting at is that it's not a singular event.

It's a fair argument to look at the states as a whole and how their police force has handled themselves. I get the argument, I don't really disagree.

It's also unfair to push blame onto this officer because other police may be trigger-happy before analyzing it on a singular basis. There still exists the possibility that in this case, this single incident, that the officer was justified. We wont really know until it gets to trial.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by nik-

I think what she's getting at is that it's not a singular event.

Regardless, only facts from this situation should be used.

[Itse]

I also tend to think that incidents like these should absolutely be used to take time to evaluate things properly.

While various studies and estimates can be found, there are no proper stats for deaths by police collected, at least not publicly, in the US. Considering how many stats in general is kept by the police force in pretty much any country, and considering how important the matter is, I get the feeling that this is not an accident. It seems like somewhere a decision has been made that this is not a topic open for discussion.

Of course, if the US police is not especially trigger happy, what better way to prove it than actual per capita stats?

Btw, earlier in this thread I made a rough calculation that deaths by police could easily be something like 50 time as common in the US as they are in Finland, while at the same time deaths of police officers are something like 20 times as common. Which to me says that you can absolutely not pin the problem all on the police, being a cop in the US is genuinely a lot more dangerous. Which of course indicates that even though this cop might indeed have been trigger happy, you might also argue that he was simply reacting in a way which he was taught to react. (Whether that lesson is directly a part of their training or behavior learned on the job is another very good question.)

Of course that doesn't absolve him legally or morally (and that's assuming he did something wrong, which he might not have done), but I don't think you should scapegoat him unnecessarily either.

Still, the per capita homicide rate in general is "only" something like 3 times that of Finland (which has pretty average numbers as far as Europe goes). So my rough counts suggest at least to me that there's a very good reason to suspect that there might a really serious problem with the US police.

Of course, proper studies would need to be made, which I think is kind of the point of this whole thing.

This is some really serious stuff, much more serious than stuff like international terrorism which is a rather marginal threat on the grand scale of things, and at the very least I think everyone should agree that the accusation that the US police might be unnecessarily trigger happy is so severe that you can't just shrug it off with "well it's a tough job, what you gonna do".

EDIT: Or, you know, you might just choose to not go there, like ever. Which is actually what I've noticed an increasing number of Europeans I'm in contact with have been saying. Small minorities obviously still, but I think it's somewhat telling that the supposed "beacon of freedom and democracy" is viewed by many on the outside as a dangerous pseudo police-state.

Kind of like going to Brazil. Lovely country, but if you end up in trouble, remember that it's the chance you took when you went there, and never go to the police. (And then again I also know people who consider visiting Afghanistan a normal thing to do, so you know. Different people have different tolerances for risk.)

[WhiteTiger]

An interesting video showing that not even video is always a reliable witness.

Not particularly graphic multi-angle struggle.

Spoiler!

[terminator]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

An interesting video showing that not even video is always a reliable witness.

Not particularly graphic multi-angle struggle.

Spoiler!

I don't get it? The video proved nothing. The cop in that video IMO was acting completely appropriatly; I did'nt see any punches flying (from the cop), knees to the supsect, it was a clean arrest despite the struggle.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

An interesting video showing that not even video is always a reliable witness.

Not particularly graphic multi-angle struggle.

Spoiler!

Well, the cop didn't shoot the guy running away, didn't beat him excessively. He restrained him with knees. I don't even think he punched him. That's how I would expect a cop to act after getting punched or trying to subdue someone who is resisting arrest...not you know, shooting them.

[driveway]

Police in Ohio killed an unarmed black man on August 4th in a Walmart without warning.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/2...attorney-says/

If we're going to have that idiot dog-attack thread, would anyone object to a "Police killing people" thread?

[Coys1882]

Good news out of Denver. This will help give transparency and help make the most difficult job in the world a bit easier to do.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...ults-wednesday

Originally Posted by driveway

Police in Ohio killed an unarmed black man on August 4th in a Walmart without warning.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/2...attorney-says/

If we're going to have that idiot dog-attack thread, would anyone object to a "Police killing people" thread?

Sure. Have a bunch of ignorant, ill informed, biased people present sensational one sided news clips.

What could be wrong with that?

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by terminator

I don't get it? The video proved nothing. The cop in that video IMO was acting completely appropriately; I didn't see any punches flying (from the cop), knees to the suspect, it was a clean arrest despite the struggle.

It was intended to show that even a video isn't always a good witness. You look at the first video, and it looks like (or, given how reactionary some folks are) the cop jumps on the suspect for no reason whatsoever. After all, we have video! The cops on top! Must be his fault. But the second video shows the reason the fight started in the first place.

The post was meant to show that saying "Well this witness is correct!" is a difficult thing, as you may not even get the full/right story with a video.

FWIW, I think that the cop in the video did an amazing job. But if all you saw was the dash cam video, I can imagine the uproar about cops attacking innocent people.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by Bent Wookie

Sure. Have a bunch of ignorant, ill informed, biased people present sensational one sided news clips.

What could be wrong with that?

You've posted in five non-law-enforcement related threads since 2012, and you're going to accuse other people of being biased?

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Bent Wookie

Sure. Have a bunch of ignorant, ill informed, biased people present sensational one sided news clips.

What could be wrong with that?

Well that could obviously happen but some of the stories coming out are showing the cops are the ignorant, ill informed, and biased group.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by driveway

If we're going to have that idiot dog-attack thread, would anyone object to a "Police killing people" thread?

Well, the dog attack one is local only, is it not?

I guess we could have a local "police killing people" thread. But that's only happened 5 times in the last 4 years, wouldn't be a very active thread.

Could probably just use the "ongoing US Mass Shooting" thread. That's become the "US people use guns on other people" thread as opposed to a 'mass shooting' incident thread.

Could probably even be squeezed into the "ongoing police brutality" thread.

[terminator]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Well, the dog attack one is local only, is it not?

I guess we could have a local "police killing people" thread. But that's only happened 5 times in the last 4 years, wouldn't be a very active thread.

Could probably just use the "ongoing US Mass Shooting" thread. That's become the "US people use guns on other people" thread as opposed to a 'mass shooting' incident thread.

Could probably even be squeezed into the "ongoing police brutality" thread.

or a new thread: Police murders in the USofA, AKA Land of the Free.

Originally Posted by terminator

or a new thread: Police murders in the USofA, AKA Land of the Free.

Case in point.