Police shootings - Alton Sterling

[jessemoore97 1,287]

First off you stated the excuse of the anxiety related to the Dallas shooting. Second, you Illuded to the excuse of it must have been a ricochet, related to the union excuse that the officer was trying to save the victim from the DD adult. There is more evidence in the case at this point to at least create an arrest. that has not happened. That is the point. you keep brining up the the Baltimore case, I have never brought that up and it is separate.

 

The Dallas and Baton Rouge officer slayings aren't an excuse its context that I can understand and relate to, you can't and that's fine. The context or excuse as you call it may be brought up during the investigation I imagine, it doesn't mean that it's effective in explaining what happened. That's not for me to decide or how applicable it may or may not be.

 

The ricochet excuse isn't an excuse at all. Reading the statements of the guy who was shot, he equated the pain of getting hit to being similar to a bug bite. I haven't been shot before and while its probably .223 round shot into him, I wouldn't think it would feel like a bug bite. Therefore I speculated that he may have caught a ricochet after the bullet fragmented off the ground or whatever, decelerated, and struck him causing much less pain than my imagining of taking a full round. That's all. I started thinking that after I first read his quote about it that night it happened and before anything else came out with this.

 

The reason I keep bringing up Baltimore in this context is because vocal proponents of arresting the officer immediately are doing the process and investigation a disfavor. Rushing the investigation and charging immediately and improperly due to political or community pressure doesn't help the case. So you want him charged immediately and then the case falls apart going to trial, how does that help? Remember he can't be tried again for the same crime, so wouldn't you want a complete and thorough investigation to improve the chances of a conviction?

[jessemoore97 1,287]

And herein lies America's obsession with guns. Are these guys blind? They have a clearly mentally young man surrounded and he's playing with toy truck. Who the hell relays to the cops he is loading a gun?

 

I personally think the racism angle is overblown and the issue with police shootings is an issue with trigger happy police. There are a lot of dead white guys who have been on the wrong end of incompetent cops as well. The fact they couldn't deal with this situation without firing a gun is thoroughly depressing.

 

Obsession with the guns goes both ways. Whoever called in saying this man had one was obviously wrong. It's the case nowadays everyone thinks that everyone is packing heat. I mean we get calls all the time for people alleging that there are guns involved in many disturbance/fight calls for service, and it's simply not accurate 99% of the time. Every time a firecracker goes off, its inevitable someone, somewhere who heard it will call the PD reporting shots fired. Even on the Fourth of July. Our local baseball class A club has fireworks after every weekend home game, and every time there is a crazy lady that calls 911 swearing to God that we are being invaded.

[Kelly Gruene 26]

Obsession with the guns goes both ways. Whoever called in saying this man had one was obviously wrong. It's the case nowadays everyone thinks that everyone is packing heat. I mean we get calls all the time for people alleging that there are guns involved in many disturbance/fight calls for service, and it's simply not accurate 99% of the time. Every time a firecracker goes off, its inevitable someone, somewhere who heard it will call the PD reporting shots fired. Even on the Fourth of July. Our local baseball class A club has fireworks after every weekend home game, and every time there is a crazy lady that calls 911 swearing to God that we are being invaded.

 

Speaking of obsession, last weekend I had a frightening experience.

This story sounds crazy but I assure you it is true.

I was taking my 90 year-old mother to see Ghostbusters. As we drove into the theater parking lot I noticed two police cars Unusual, I thought. My mother uses a walker so I had to walk her into the lobby of the Movie Tavern, then I left her there while I went to park the car. After I parked the car and started walking toward the theater entrance I heard a distinctive noise. I looked in the direction of the sound. There I saw a theater employee standing at one of the emergency theater exit doors holding the door open for police. The sound I heard turned out to be a policeman who had just cocked his shotgun. He did a "SWAT-style" entrance in through the emergency exit door. Right after that a second policeman ran up the stairs to the exit door, service revolver drawn, and he also did one of those quick-look-twice entries into the emergency exit door. Two more police cars entered the parking lot. Meanwhile all these other theater patrons, immersed in their I-phones who hadn't heard the sound I had heard continued going in the front entry into the lobby to go buy tickets. I asked the theater guy who was holding the door if there was something we should be aware of. He said I should maybe wait a few minutes before going in. Well, I just didn't think this was a good situation. I strolled into the lobby and grabbed my mother. I told her we have to leave. RIGHT NOW. We went back into the parking lot. Now there were 5 police cars in the lot. Theater patrons were still going into the lobby seemingly unaware of or maybe used to the site of 5 police cars at the entry to the theater. As we walked toward my car I saw another policeman enter with service revolver drawn. Then, scariest of all, a policeman with an assault rifle entered the emergency exit door. "Pick up the pace Mom" I said to my 90 year-old, walker-dependent mother. We got out to the car and drove away.

Later that day someone who was inside the theater posted on Facebook that a "creepy guy" had been standing behind her during a movie and he had a bag. Police threw her out of her chair and grabbed the guy. She posted that he had an assault rifle and ammo in the bag.

Turns out it was just a drunk guy with a bag containing gym shoes.

 

Obsession with guns?

Someone watching a movie in the dark theater noticing someone doing something unusual and having the courage to report it?

Police acting appropriately or over-reacting?

Movie Tavern having good policies of letting essentially a SWAT operation take place through an emergency exit door while letting patrons continue entering the front lobby?

No one got shot or bombed.

I thought this experience had so many of the elements that police face every day, and yet here I was in the middle of it.

A good outcome, but I still have questions about the theater management.

[Soko 128]

Obsession with the guns goes both ways. Whoever called in saying this man had one was obviously wrong. It's the case nowadays everyone thinks that everyone is packing heat. I mean we get calls all the time for people alleging that there are guns involved in many disturbance/fight calls for service, and it's simply not accurate 99% of the time. Every time a firecracker goes off, its inevitable someone, somewhere who heard it will call the PD reporting shots fired. Even on the Fourth of July. Our local baseball class A club has fireworks after every weekend home game, and every time there is a crazy lady that calls 911 swearing to God that we are being invaded.

 

But how can the cops not clearly see for themselves the guy was mentally disturbed and playing with a toy? His carer is on the ground telling them calmly what was going on and then some idiot shoots him? Seriously, this is beyond a joke. Why is shooting someone such an knee jerk reaction for so many cops?

 

http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/episodes/hold-your-fire

[jessemoore97 1,287]

But how can the cops not clearly see for themselves the guy was mentally disturbed and playing with a toy? His carer is on the ground telling them calmly what was going on and then some idiot shoots him? Seriously, this is beyond a joke. Why is shooting someone such an knee jerk reaction for so many cops?

 

http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/episodes/hold-your-fire

 

I can unequivocally say that shooting someone is not a knee jerk reaction by officers. Everyday officers all across the nation draw their service weapon, yet the way people make it sound is that the streets are filling with dead bodies. They aren't, and it goes the same as saying officers are indiscriminately going around and killing black men. It's a complete falsehood. KG just shared a story he witnessed himself, and no one died from an officers bullet. This is the case 99% of the time where no one died or were shot.

 

For that situation, I wasn't there and don't know everything that happened. That is why I keep saying let the investigation play out.

[Jim2Dokes 3]

The Dallas and Baton Rouge officer slayings aren't an excuse its context that I can understand and relate to, you can't and that's fine. The context or excuse as you call it may be brought up during the investigation I imagine, it doesn't mean that it's effective in explaining what happened. That's not for me to decide or how applicable it may or may not be.

 

The ricochet excuse isn't an excuse at all. Reading the statements of the guy who was shot, he equated the pain of getting hit to being similar to a bug bite. I haven't been shot before and while its probably .223 round shot into him, I wouldn't think it would feel like a bug bite. Therefore I speculated that he may have caught a ricochet after the bullet fragmented off the ground or whatever, decelerated, and struck him causing much less pain than my imagining of taking a full round. That's all. I started thinking that after I first read his quote about it that night it happened and before anything else came out with this.

 

The reason I keep bringing up Baltimore in this context is because vocal proponents of arresting the officer immediately are doing the process and investigation a disfavor. Rushing the investigation and charging immediately and improperly due to political or community pressure doesn't help the case. So you want him charged immediately and then the case falls apart going to trial, how does that help? Remember he can't be tried again for the same crime, so wouldn't you want a complete and thorough investigation to improve the chances of a conviction?

 

I kind of see what you are saying in the Baltimore case. But, I feel like it could easily be swayed the other way. Time to "investigate" gives time to get story straight, gives time for counsel with government lawyers, gives time to settle with victim and essentially pay him off (already working on that). Not to mention the biggest concern, don't most convictions come from a confession? Why is he not arrested and placed in a room with detectives telling his story? Nope, see this is why people are pissed. Instead the guy gets to hide behind his union, army of lawyers and sit at home after trying to kill someone.

 

To Kelly's story, I agree most the time police do handle situations and I wish we heard more hero stories as opposed to villain stories we get instead. also wished we didn't have to have a swat team go into a theatre for a suspicious man. I doubt that would have happened in 1999, its the same reason I hate taking my shoes off at the airport. One a hole had to ruin it for everyone, not people have to inspect their surroundings before enjoying a movie.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Jim2Dokes

[jessemoore97 1,287]

I kind of see what you are saying in the Baltimore case. But, I feel like it could easily be swayed the other way. Time to "investigate" gives time to get story straight, gives time for counsel with government lawyers, gives time to settle with victim and essentially pay him off (already working on that). Not to mention the biggest concern, don't most convictions come from a confession? Why is he not arrested and placed in a room with detectives telling his story? Nope, see this is why people are pissed. Instead the guy gets to hide behind his union, army of lawyers and sit at home after trying to kill someone.

 

To Kelly's story, I agree most the time police do handle situations and I wish we heard more hero stories as opposed to villain stories we get instead. also wished we didn't have to have a swat team go into a theatre for a suspicious man. I doubt that would have happened in 1999, its the same reason I hate taking my shoes off at the airport. One a hole had to ruin it for everyone, not people have to inspect their surroundings before enjoying a movie.

 

The process can be different for each agency. I can only speak for how we do it around here in a OIS. Our state Criminal Investigation Division works the cases, not our agency or other nearby ones, but the state of Iowa. They complete the investigation and forward the results to the county prosecutor who then looks over the case and determines whether or not the facts support the shoot or not, then announces their decision and any follow up if it is needed.

 

If you keep up on any type of use of force cases, municipalities don't have to wait for that process to be completed if they want to settle with a individual. There are many places that just go ahead and pay out before the findings are complete or they even pay out when the officers are cleared of any wrong doing or foul play. This is to avoid the possibility of a prolonged legal battle in which risk management systems/policies take over for local governments. This doesn't help matters of public opinion either and often creates a false perception that the government is admitting fault but just can't hold the officers accountable. Thus it feeds the conspiracy and corruption theories about law enforcement in general.

 

I'll be the first to admit there are bad officers out there, one is too many, but they are a tiny fraction of the overall profession. I've gone through the process before when another officer lost his job due to a UOF issue my partner and I witnessed. It went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court and the city successfully defended it's termination of this officer. The justices weighed our testimony above everything else in that case specifically citing in their judgement how rare they felt officers would testify against one of their own in that type of circumstance. I personally don't think it's that big of a deal, I told the truth when I got called into IA about it, I wasn't going to lie for someone else. I was taught early on and have seen it first hand, you lie you die. Again 99% of LEO'S are doing it right, but like everything it's the 1% AH who give everyone else a bad name. Guys like me in the majority don't want the bad apples around because they hurt us too in the eyes of the public.

[jbrown_9999 1,023]

But how can the cops not clearly see for themselves the guy was mentally disturbed and playing with a toy? His carer is on the ground telling them calmly what was going on and then some idiot shoots him? Seriously, this is beyond a joke. Why is shooting someone such an knee jerk reaction for so many cops?

 

http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/episodes/hold-your-fire

 

No idea on what exactly happened, just wanted to point out that if the officer who fired the shots was 50 yards away, behind some type of cover, with an ear piece in one ear, he may not have been able to hear the person on the ground especially since that person was speaking calmly. I assume that is a contributing factor to how things played out.

[Soko 128]

No idea on what exactly happened, just wanted to point out that if the officer who fired the shots was 50 yards away, behind some type of cover, with an ear piece in one ear, he may not have been able to hear the person on the ground especially since that person was speaking calmly. I assume that is a contributing factor to how things played out.

 

Shooting someone should be the very last resort. This guy should never have been shot, likewise many of the unnecessary deaths are due to trigger happy cops. There needs to be a rethink into how cops are trained nationally to deal with situations like this. Supreme court rulings have protected and seemingly emboldened cops to shoot first, ask questions later and that is just wrong imo.