I don’t know how the police spin this (below the fold):
It looks to me like a bored kid walking around with a toy gun, the cops raced up, and before the passenger was even out of the car they shot him. Holy hell.
This post is in: Gun nuts, Post-racial America, Shitty Cops
I don’t know how the police spin this (below the fold):
It looks to me like a bored kid walking around with a toy gun, the cops raced up, and before the passenger was even out of the car they shot him. Holy hell.
Comments are closed.
Jebediah, RBG
is it possible to put that below the fold? it autoplayed for me, and I need to brace myself before I watch a child get murdered.
ETA: and yes, just how the fuck can they spin this? Maybe, in the spirit of the Ferguson PD, they just point a lot of weapons at anyone who complains.
Anya
Did the NY Times write an article about the murdered child telling us how he’s no angel?
Jebediah, RBG
@Anya:
Since he was only twelve, I am going to bet it will be an article about terrible, terrible parenting.
Trentrunner
In the cop’s defense, the kid was living while black.
jnfr
@Jebediah, RBG:
Already stories about his abusive father.
Anya
@Jebediah, RBG: My twitter timeline is full of people talking about how his dad was charged with domestic voilence or something. I have a bad habit of following a lot of morons to know what the other side is thinking but today I muted all of them. Terrible human beings.
infinitefreetime
What the FUCKING FUCK.
trollhattan
God. My child is twelve. Damn. She’s complaining about having to set the dinner table. It. I’m sure that boy would like another chance to do a chore for his folks.
Jebediah, RBG
@Anya:
Yeah, good to check on the dummies but sometimes it really is too much. The hatefulness directed at Michael Brown and Ferguson protestors is shocking me, and I was already expecting it to be pretty ugly. I am trying to convince myself it is just a very loud-mouthed minority of assholes…
Xboxershorts
They’ll just smear his parents instead.
Jebediah, RBG
@jnfr:
Of fucking course. Can’t possibly the fault of maniacally violent cops blasting a child. Has to be a black person’s fault, somehow.
PaulW
The early reports was that the kid was refusing to answer to commands to drop the gun. How the hell can that mesh with the cop shooting him within two seconds?!
Jebediah, RBG
@PaulW:
and that isn’t even taking into account the confusion a TWELVE year old might have, having orders barked at him..
Mike in NC
Just another day to celebrate American Exceptionalism!
infinitefreetime
My piece on the events of the last couple of days: http://infinitefreetime.com/2014/11/25/and-none-could-say-they-were-surprised-on-ferguson/
pseudonymous in nc
He was reported in as a “black male, around 20”. You start to see a pattern there, don’t you?
It might be worth doing one of those split-screens with “what he looks like” and “how a white cop sees him”.
PhoenixRising
Yeah, it’s worse than it looks.
The child was playing in his own schoolyard. He attended the K-8 school that shares this so-called ‘community center and park’.
This happened in the precinct where my grandfather was patrol, then detective, then union steward. I just…he jumped out of a moving car and fired. My grandfather dealt with a very high violent assault rate (think West Side Story, but the gang kids found it easy to get guns in the Eisenhower era) and he never drew his service weapon in 20 years on patrol.
Except that one time in 1944, but he was a rookie and his training officer played a prank on him late one night and dined out on the story for the rest of his career: “Did I tell you about the time King drew down on a gorilla? Yeah, we were walking the zoo one night…”
Hal
@PaulW:
I was listening to coverage on NPR on my way to work today. Apparently the rookie cop was yelling out the window as he drove up. The other officer wasn’t even out the door before this kid was shot.
Shaun Appleby
Ringing 911 seems a public safety hazard under the circumstances; fear begets malfeasance and enables inappropriate deadly force. Who puts a stop to this?
Childe Roland
It’s been pretty sickening seeing the condemnation of a child such as this. I assumed it would be from a small minority of the crazy folks that we all kow. But it has been a much louder group of people I have seen popping up on the fb feeds.
There are so many kids who play with guns in our society. There is no way this happens to a white child.
And think of all the gun nuts that carry rifles in open and the police, either barely say anything or spend a long time trying to get them to put down their arms.
The cops (rightly so), never shoot first and ask questions later with those people.
And why is there so much shooting, rather than even tasering or at least shooting to maim/injury the suspect. The police just have to kill people…
Very sad….
kc
Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.
Rob
“I was listening to coverage on NPR on my way to work today. Apparently the rookie cop was yelling out the window as he drove up. The other officer wasn’t even out the door before this kid was shot.”
WHAT?
M. Bouffant
In our zero-tolerance combined w/ Cheney’s 1% chance pants-pissing/hair-trigger world, that the
demonkid had a gun or something that looked like one (while being non-white) is the only prevailing factoid anyone will need to excuse & exonerate.Petorado
@PaulW: The speed with which this kid goes from being a completely bored pre-teen to a mortally wounded child is stunning. The cop made the decision to shoot within a second of exiting the vehicle. He was a threat to no one at the time, just being a solitary kid hanging out at a shelter outside a community center on a depressingly grey Cleveland day.
Childe Roland
@Childe Roland:
Like this…..
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/27/1294972/-I-ve-Got-A-Gun-And-There-s-Nothing-You-Can-Do-About-It
There is no way that this is a black man and he lives or at least is taken into custody
Howard Beale IV
Seems to me we need to create a citizen panopticon on every building and whenever we see LE we need to focus weapons on them for precisely these scenarios-they shoot, you shoot back.
Citizen Scientist
@infinitefreetime: Spot on, mate.
beltane
OBL was not completely wrong when he said that Americans were soft and easily manipulated. 9/11 caused us to invade, occupy, and terrorize our own country. The Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis can rest assured that they are not alone-we commit war crimes against our own children.
Who was it that said “A nation of sheep will be led by wolves”?
Mike J
@Childe Roland:
I remember when they sold tasers as a less lethal alternative to shooting people. Problem is they never use tasers in place of a gun. They use tasers in place of talking.
Mnemosyne
I’m sorry, I can’t watch. I believe all of you, but I can’t do it.
It’s pretty amazing the difference between how this is being reported here and how it’s being reported overseas. The BBC and other outlets are reporting it as Child shot on playground by cop and, understandably, people are completely fucking horrified and asking how this could happen.
Here? Just another day of being black in America, nothing to see, he probably deserved it.
(Though it sounds like his department is basically saying, Asshole, you’re on your own. They probably saw this tape first. At an absolute minimum, he’s getting thrown out on his ass as soon as the union is finished negotiating with the department.)
mai naem mobile
And explain to me again why the NRA is against making these guns obviously look like toy guns? Why? Its not like this affects real gun sales.
heckblazer
What the fucking fuck? If that was a 20 year old with a record and a real gun I’d still say that was an egregiously bad shoot. That was practically a cop drive-by shooting.
ellennellee
@Jebediah, RBG:
oh yeah; father has history of domestic abuse.
like that has anything to do with this.
beltane
@mai naem mobile: Because the more police shootings, the more unrest, the more unrest, the more guns people buy, the more guns people buy, the happier the NRA is.
beltane
@Mnemosyne: I can’t watch either. Over the summer I made the mistake of watching the video of those little boys getting blown up on the beach in Gaza and I just can’t watch anymore.
Valdivia
@mai naem mobile:
thank you for saying this. make it look like the toy it is, why is that so hard?
wasn’t there a state that banned these? was it ny?
PhoenixRising
@Mike J:
Yeah, that’s the problem.
Officer Wilson could have easily ramped that whole situation down with any level of conflict-management training. This kid, Tim Scandahoovian or whatever it is, literally didn’t know what to do when the call came in, ‘Black male with a gun’.
He killed a 6th grader, and I hope that he suffers every day for the rest of his life. That is the kind of mistake that drives a man to drink himself to cirrhosis. But we’ve set up our cops to make these mistakes over and over, because they do not know how to talk to citizens–only how to take control in dangerous situations.
Heliopause
We frequently complain, rightly, about sociopathic/incompetent/whatever cops who do stuff like this. At what point do the bureaucrats and politicians who hire these people face any culpability? Ever? My bright idea tonight is that the next time a cop shoots a kid for no good reason we prosecute the shithead who hired him. Maybe standards would magically go up.
Andrew
@Valdivia:
Think it was national. One of the things it affected was early NES Light Zappers (a gun kind of controller) were slate gray, while later ones are a bright orange and the rules on toy guns not looking like real ones was the reason why.
Original
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/NES-zapper.jpg/250px-NES-zapper.jpg
Later:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Nintendo_Zapper_orange.jpg
beltane
@Valdivia: Then you also have the gun manufacturers who design real guns to look like toys, painting them hot pink to appeal to little girls. Sick, sick, sick.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Sigh, I’m going to get roasted, but . . .
This video tells us absolutely nothing about whether the shooting was excusable or not. The first seven minutes of it are completely irrelevant to that question. We know that it’s just a bored kid playing with a toy gun not only because we’re coming in after the fact but also because we watched those seven minutes. The cops in question didn’t see those. They don’t know that he’s been wandering around aimlessly, clearly just wasting time and being a threat to no one.
All they know is that someone called 911 to say that a kid was pulling a gun and scaring him. The colossal fuckup is on the part of the dispatcher, who didn’t pass along the caveats. So they pull up to someone that they think has been threatening people with a gun. We have no idea what gets said but we do see that the police claim that Tamir Rice put his hand in his waistband, after they’ve been told that he has a gun, is correct. The video isn’t clear enough to really be able to describe his motions in much detail beyond that.
So the critical information about what was said and exactly what happened is missing.
There’s no way this shooting was justified, which is why I used the word “excusable” in my first paragraph. And I stand by my opinion that if we have neighborhoods in which there are persistent shootings of real guns and it’s easy for kids to obtain and walk around with realistic looking toy guns, this sort of thing is inevitable. You will never be able to produce a police force that will stand there and allow someone to draw what they reasonably think is a real gun on them. If you think you will, you don’t understand human nature.
The city ought to be on the hook for a huge civil settlement based upon the dispatcher fucking up so badly but it’s not clear to me that the cop himself behaved in a criminal way. Maybe he did but if so, the evidence for that is not present in this video.
ellennellee
@Childe Roland:
yeah, this happened this summer; my brother was there with his niece for soccer practice, actually, not baseball.
damn, i wish i could recall how it was all resolved; will try to find out in the morning, but seems like the owner of the field was very upset and of course the parents were freaked, and rearrangements had to be made.
meanwhile, tho, it’s a very very very conservative area, lots of nut jobs like the gun toter, including many of the parents. so interesting to see them freak out when their kids are potentially threatened.
will get back to you tomorrow.
gwangung
Oh, the NRA will encourage gun makers to color ’em pink or bright green to sell to kids…..
ellennellee
@Mike J:
extremely good point.
Howard Beale IV
I just got done bitchslapping Sully in an email.
PhoenixRising
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
That’s only part the critical info that’s missing from the video, though.
I can’t get a bead on what size this child was from this video, and that’s critical.
Did the 911 caller reasonably think that this was a young adult with a gun? Did the officer jump out of the car and shoot the suspect (black male with a gun), reasonably? Or did he see only ‘black’ and ‘gun’, and those things outweighed ‘child’ — when that should have been obvious?
We don’t believe what we see. We see what we believe. And the child is dead.
Lightfoot
@Jebediah, RBG: It’s not a minority, they just pretend to be unprejudiced. We wouldn’t be looking at a Republican controlled Congress otherwise. I live between two worlds, Metropolis and BFE, the gulf is wide and deep.
I never would have made it as a child now-a-days. Unbelievable progress.
mai naem mobile
I googled images.of airsofts and i am sorry but a little orange tip in the front is.not enough. I don’t know.why they pulled up right to the kid. Don’t you want a little space between you and person who you think is shooting the area up?
Howard Beale IV
Obligatory live kitteh linky
ellennellee
@Shaun Appleby:
shades of crawford’s murder in OH at the walmart.
same type of thing, except that OH caller was deliberately exaggerating, whereas this case appears to have been more circumspect, but the dispatcher did not have enough sense to convey the rather crucially distinguishing info.
why is the discussion not more focused on how the police have GOT to change??Why is there no talk about how this excessive militarization establishes us as a police stet? why are we not making more of a point about how all these guns and weapons expose all these men as fraidy cats who don’t seem to be able to function without them, who don’t feel like a man without their penis replacements?
seems like if we in the gun control camp pointed the fact that having a gun for anything but game hunting just exposes your fears, things might shift a bit.
Petorado
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Actually I think the first seven minutes are completely relevant to the situation. Is the kid running around acting like a menace? Is he “brandishing” a weapon. Are the people around him fleeing in fear? Or is he just a bored kid figuring out what to do next for fun. The cops never take the time to figure that out. Do the cops drive by the shelter to assess the situation, or do they instead come out with guns blazing? There was no one in the direct vicinity of the kid who was in danger, even if he had a real gun, to warrant a summary execution.
Valdivia
@Andrew:
thanks for that info. From the picture of the gun he had it looked super real to me. Wish it was glowing green or something like that instead.
@beltane:
yes I have seen those. sick is the right word.
wasabi gasp
When I first heard of this shooting, I was willing to give the officers some latitude.
I saw the kid – and likely his parents – as complete idiots. The kid, with extreme foolishness, put his life in a great deal of imminent danger. (I still feel this way and I also make very little to no concession for his age.)
But I was stunned when viewing the video. Not because the cops shot the kid – at least not directly – but because of the way the cops pulled right up to the kid to handle the situation. They were approaching a situation that they apparently had reason to believe was potentially dangerous. But as they approached, they could surely see that nobody was in any imminent danger at that very moment, that is, not UNTIL they, the cops, pulled right up and placed themselves in it, instantly justifying deadly force.
These cops were as idiotic as the kid. Even more so, you know, because, well…they’re fucking cops, not kids.
I don’t know if this is standard operating procedure or not, but if it is, it’s fucked. It also seems like it straddles the fence of conspiracy to murder.
Mike Jones
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Sorry, 100% wrong. If you think the kid is a gun, why the FUCK do you pull the car up within 10 feet and jump out? Why not stop 20-30 feet away and talk to the kid over the PA? It’s a 12 YEAR OLD KID. He’s probably terrified of the cops pulling up next to him out of nowhere and may or may not have heard or understood what the cop was yelling at him from the running car. And if he panics and grabs for the toy gun to throw it away? After having left themselves no time to react and no margin for error, of course the cop who’s been yelling is going to think he’s pulling the gun and starts shooting.
The real mistakes were made before the guns were drawn, but there’s no way you can say this was anything other than a major screwup by the police involved, from the dispatcher all the way down to — and especially — the shooter.
Valdivia
@gwangung:
oops. must take my green comment back then. I hate hate the nra.
mouse tolliver
The thing that stood out when I read about this story is the caller identified him as “a guy with a gun.” The cops called it in as “black male, maybe 20.”
He was 12.
Rommie
Damn, that’s over the top for Grand Theft Auto. Just drive though the grass, stop under 5 yards away from someone supposedly with a weapon out, and drop them right out of the door. So what if dude was yelling commands out the window, practically anyone is going to be frozen in WTF fear. BOTH cops have a world of explaining to do.
gwangung
If you’re startled, I think it’s a natural reaction to grab at something you own…for support, to make sure you don’t lose it, etc.
Wouldn’t be a surprise if that happened here.
And, yes, poor strategy, poor training to drive up to within 10 feet and start barking orders.
Steve from Antioch
Yeah, I don’t get it. It looks like there was nobody else around and it was a wide open area. The better approach would be to park a distance away, get good cover and put a rifle on subject while engaging him over the PA.
When I first heard of this incident, I imagined a completely different scenario. I thought the subject was on an active playground, with lots of kids running around which would force a split second decision to protect people nearby.
Piss poor training. As to whether that is enough for the officer to incur any liability, I’ll leave that for the legal experts.
rikyrah
of course they will have an excuse.
he’s Black.
all the excuse they need.
Comrade Luke
I think the title of the post is accurate. They just pulled up and shot him. Drove right through the grass part of the park, and shot him before the driver had even left the vehicle. It takes some serious mental gymnastics to say this isn’t an overreaction.
But hey, black kid. So, whatever.
pseudonymous in nc
@ellennellee:
And the guy waving a knife on the street who was shot in about five seconds after the cops arrive. Stop the car, make sure the suspect is black, bang-bang-bang, job done, back to the station for frozen margaritas.
ellennellee
@PhoenixRising:
fwiw, my sense from watching it once (unbidden, i might add), was that the kid’s height did not reach the top of the car. fwiw.
only sorta related, but i’m so struck with how all these cops are so damn trigger happy, and that they actually panic. their fear just swamps them and they overreact, totally without thinking. that excitable factor; wilson showed that, for sure, with an extra seasoned edge of entitled FU punks.
when i was very pregnant about 40 years ago, i was driving my VW beetle to lamaze class one day, took a left turn at a T intersection, and passed by a couple of cop cars parked there. did not think a thing of them. because, y’know, stick shift and all, you don’t rev up real fast in a bug.
well, dang if one of those cops cranked up the bubble gum light and pulled me over. for speeding! kid you not. not even a block from the turn.
i asked him how he could believe i was speeding after just taking a left turn from a dead stop, and of course he could not prove it, but he was clearly this young rookie trying to impress his boss back in the other car. i could not get over how exercised he was to bag this very preggers woman for some kind of police trophy.
he did not appreciate my question, so ticketed me. as he handed it to me, he added that i had no business driving in my ‘condition’.
i double kid you not!
that was pretty rude, but i was more stunned at how excitable he was, like – well, a 12 year old. but not like tamir, who yeah, just looked bored.
y’know, these guys do not evolve. at all.
LtShinysides
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Kid is dead either way, but your balanced response is noted. Thanks. There is a pretty much 50/50 chance that kid deserved to die.
I am trying to teach my kid never to engage with the police in any fashion. Eyes down, speak when spoken to, and just get out of the exchange in any manner possible as safely as possible. Never know when you might tweak that redneck gene just enough to cause mayhem.
KG
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): as I’ve been saying for days about the Wilson case, I am shocked that the cops pulled up right next to the kid. Every time I’ve seen cop approach a situation they park 30 feet away and walk up so they can better assess the situation.
ellennellee
@pseudonymous in nc:
wow, yeah; had forgotten about that one.
sheez louise.
y’know, tho, i swear, to me it’s actually worse than being about race. don’t get me wrong, race is definitely involved here, but it’s almost like it’s a backdrop, the scenery to the action, which is all about this damn police state.
honestly, the police state needs the blacks as much as they need the cops; they need the cops to protect the property, but they need the blacks to excuse their brutality, to allow them to exercise their control.
they essentially use blacks for target practice, just so the rest of us can see without doubt, we better stay in line.
Tommy
@kc: Yeah I read about it. Not seen it. That is a straight out execution. I don’t know any other way to put it.
cmm
Several thoughts:
1) In all these kinds of shootings, I always see people saying why don’t police shoot to wound. They aren’t taught to; in fact they are taught NOT to. It’s in our SOP, we don’t shoot to wound, and we don’t fire warning shots. These are because officers used to do both of those, and innocent bystanders were hit. The caveat is, you are ONLY supposed to shoot if you are in mortal jeopardy or protecting someone who is. At that point, aim for center mass. It is pretty darn hard to hit someone who is moving at all, especially when you train with stationary targets or targets that move in a predictable manner. Trying to aim for peripheral body parts when you are amped uup and reverting to lowest levels of training is a recipe for disaster.
2) Like most officers, I embrace the mantra, “Go home the way you came in” to work. That is, be safe, don’t become a statistic. There is a LOT of emphasis on this in the academy and in annual training and even in roll call. And it is important. For every video we see now of shootings by police that look hinky (or ARE hinky) police have seen 10 videos from dashcams of officers being ambushed, of routine calls gone suddenly haywire. Everyone knows Michael Brown’s name but do you know the names of the officers who were ambushed in Las Vegas, or the guy who was shot in a drive by while sitting at a traffic light in his patrol car, or the 4 Washington officers gunned down in the coffee shot, or the PA troopers ambushed as they left their barracks? We do. It’s important, but I think the heavy emphasis on it also makes officers programmed not to wait if they think there’s a danger. I’m talking more about the kind of situation in this video than Darren Wilson. That situation never should have escalated at all.
3) Yes, the tactics of pulling straight up to the kid, who you have been told is armed, are totally stupid and crazy. The kid wasn’t running amuck or threatening to shoot anyone. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. You could make a slow approach and talk to him and see what’s going on.
4) I think another thing that is behind some of these situations (like this one) is the heavy emphasis on active shooter training — the kind of situation where someone is shooting up a school or a workplace. Unlike a lot of situations that mainly happen in bigger departments and urban areas, an active shooter situation can break out anywhere, so even the smallest departments do some training on it. And that training is very specific since Columbine — whoever gets there first, go in, find the shooter, and put him out of commission. We are told to be prepared to run past dead and injured and end the situation first and foremost. It’s a reaction to the fact that at Columbine and earlier, officers were taught to wait til the SWAT teams arrived, and at Columbine supposedly the shooters were still killing people while the officers were waiting for the go ahead outside. Again, I think the heavy emphasis (and it’s needed, what with all the goddam active shooter situations that come up over and over again) on that one type of scenario makes any situation that looks like it *could* be an active shooter (like a kid on a playground with a gun) become one in the officers’ minds.
5) There are some officers who are just sociopaths out there. It’s also damn hard to get rid of them if an administration likes them, or is desperate to retain warm bodies because they have a low pay and morale problem and a revolving door of officers leaving. That also leads many departments to give a chance to people who should never be police officers at all. However, most of the people I work with are really good, honorable and decent people who are genuinely trying to help others. The panopticon type comments and all the “kill all the cops” stuff is really disturbing. I understand it, but it’s terrifying.
6) I’m gonna do my level best not to die in the line of duty. I will shoot someone if I have to to protect my life or someone else’s. But I’m more afraid of killing an innocent by accident. If I ever get shot, it will probably be because I waited a fraction of a second too long to make sure that the person really really really had a gun and was about to use it on me or someone else, and it’s not a cell phone or their wallet or something. And it’s chilling to think that if that did happened, there are people here, in a space I like a lot, who would see that story in the news and think, “Good! Fuck the police!”
I think Ferguson was despicable on many many levels. I think some of the other shootings and police killings in the news over the past months are the result of stupidity and yes, sometimes racism. I think we do have a big problem with militarization. I think there is an even bigger problem of racial disparities in this country in police treatment and protection of different races and subcultures, of what behavior is considered criminal and what is considered seriously criminal and treated as such, and it needs to be addressed. I take my obligations to society and my neighbors very seriously and so do the vast majority of the people I work with.
Kathleen
@Childe Roland: Yes. I’m thinking of people who can carry guns into Kroger stores here in Ohio. No biggie. But a kid playing by himself is a threat.
Also, too, I find the reporting of his father’s criminal record interesting. Almost as if to say, well the father is a criminal so the kid is probably one, too.
I’m really shaking right now. I heard my son in law say such hateful things tonight while watching Michael Brown’s parents on CNN. He finally revealed himself for what he is and it’s left me pretty shaken. But my problems are nothing compared to what these parents are going through.
Tommy
@LtShinysides: I was taught as a white dude, 45, “yes officer” eyes down. Do as told no matter what. Just try to get away. I think that is actually good advice my dad gave me when I started to protest stuff.
beltane
@ellennellee: Racism is what allows white America to tolerate living in a police state. It’s crazy and terrifying. The idea that citizens, even children, must abide by very precise rules of conduct in order to avoid being killed is quite disturbing. A society awash in guns can never be truly free because the question of who lives (for now) and who dies will always be determined by the emotional state of those bearing weapons.
SligoRover1973
AmeriKKKa, F**k Yeah!
beltane
@Kathleen: I don’t have wingnut friends on FB, but based on past experience I’m assuming they are arguing that since the father had a criminal record, it was a good thing the kid was killed before he grew up to have a criminal record, thus giving a genocidal nature to their usual police worship.
Andrew
Any Policeman who sees a child with what looks like a gun assumes it’s real and then shoots before thinking maybe just maybe it’s a fucking Toy is just too fucking stupid to own a gun let alone be a fucking cop!!!
ellennellee
sorry to ramble on here, but this has all been swimming in my head for the past few weeks – well, really since trayvon, and beyond, but ….
the thing that’s been nagging me, and i have not been able to put my finger on it till now (so grateful for your tolerance of this mind farting, but …
this behavior, this police behavior, the attitude, the intolerance of attitude, the out of orbit reactionary responses to whatever, mostly being black, but remember the occupy woman who did not acquiesce fast enough, or the numbers of disabled and elderly and so on, the homeless – all the marginalized in society, which is rapidly coming to include most of us….
what i’m recognizing here is the bullying nature of these characters, these pretenders to ‘peace’ officers. and as such sanctioned bullies, they most resemble prison guards.
that’s it; prison guards. straight out of central casting, from every prison film you’ve ever seen, from birdman to shawshank.
our police force has brome our prison guards.
yup; the police state is about complete.
appreciate y’all’s patience.
cmm
The really scary thing is that just about every police department requires some sort of psych eval as part of the hiring process. Yes, some people can beat the tests, and standards are sometimes bent when a department really really wants to hire someone, though that can really bite back liability-wise. Even a department desperate for warm bodies disqualifies many, many, MANY more than it hires.
And we still have a huge problem.
Anyone else who wants to carry a gun for any reason has a much lower standard to beat than that. Don’t be a convicted felon, and if you are one, just don’t buy your gun from a place that actually checks on that. That’s pretty much it.
Ltshinysides
@Tommy: I am a white 43 year old with no real history of civil disobedience. I tell my son to be careful because we are dealing, these days at least, with a bunch of over-armed peckerwoods with a license to kill. Is that a fair assessment over all? No, it is not. However, recent events have made me a realist in these matters. I am a white dude in Los angeles. I can only imagine the African-American experience with the same justice system, and the only way I can show solidarity with them is to treat all law enforcement with the same level of suspicision.
beltane
@ellennellee: First they came for the black people, but pretty much everyone who is not a very wealthy white person has reason to fear encounters with the police. This is why Americans do not protest the way Europeans do-the police have been authorized to use live ammunition at the slightest pretext.
cmm
Oh, I knew I forgot one thing on my numbered list….not only are there way too many toy guns made to look real, but there are real guns that look like toys. Like these: https://publicintelligence.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/toygun2.png. That is very similar to a flyer on a bulletin board at work. There are guns in cutesy pink and pastel colors, and even with Hello Kitty on them. It’s f-d up.
ItAintEazy
@mai naem mobile: Not defending the NRA and affiliated gunhuggers in the very least, but to be fair, real criminals may modify their real guns to make them look like toy guns and fool people with them.
Tommy
@beltane: He is is a loon. But show me where hs is a right wing loon? I hate guns. Hate, hate, hate them. But don’t care if they know how to use the. Clearly this man does not.
KG
@cmm: I appreciate what you’re saying, what I wonder about is if there’s any sort of threat assessment training. I understand the active shooter scenario, but shouldn’t there be a slight pause to figure out if there is actually a threat to the public? This case, the Wilson case, and the shooting in Walmart all suggest that there is no attempt to assess the situation beyond “he has a gun, shoot him”
beltane
@ItAintEazy: Criminals usually want their guns to look real so their victims feel threatened. However, Americans have now become such a deeply fearful people that even pointing a bread stick in someone’s general direction could be grounds for justifiable homicide.
cmm
I think one of the things that infuriates me the most about the situation in Ferguson, both the department’s reaction all along, and the DA presser the other night, is how completely callous everyone has been to the family. They don’t even have the decency to pay lip service to the notion that a family has been ripped to shreds and parents’ hearts broken. I don’t watch tv news but I listened the live announcement on the radio and seeing the photos of Michael Brown’s mother’s reactions just ripped my heart out.
beltane
@Tommy: I think you were replying to a different comment. I was only saying that our safetly is dependent on the emotional state of potentially unbalanced people.
Tommy
@KG: They killed him for am item they were selling in their store.
wasabi gasp
@cmm: I don’t have anything to argue or ask of what you’ve brought to this thread, but I do think it’s pretty cool that you took the time to bring it.
beltane
@cmm: That is what is new and disturbing. The very fabric of civil society is being torn apart from within. I don’t want to go Godwin, but the cold, sneering attitude of the authorities makes it difficult not to. What have we become?
Mnemosyne
@cmm:
I was listening to BBC World Service this afternoon and that was one of the things that a campaigner for better policing in Great Britain was emphasizing — he was also horrified at how callously everyone in authority was acting towards the Brown family and said that the only way to even begin to heal the relationship between the town and the police would be for the police to at least acknowledge that a life was lost.
Goblue72
@cmm: Fuck the police. I have dealt with major metro police departments – and the occasional suburban – professionally my entire career as part of my job – and every police department – and every patrolmen’s union – I have ever dealt with are over militarized, hidebound, reactionary, defensively immune to criticism institutions with deeply embedded institutionalized racism and a serious problem with ignoring civil liberties & far too quick to the illegitimate use of violence.
And those are major metros north of the Mason-Dixon. Can’t even imagine what it’s like in Huckleberry Hound land.
Spare me the apologia. The thin blue line can kiss my ass.
ItAintEazy
@rikyrah: And he was reaching for his proverbial waistband. Hell, at this point I might as well not wear any pants because they might end up making me a free mark for those who say they’re trying to protect me.
JenJen
@cmm: Thank you for this. I learned something tonight just by clicking on this thread, and I’m grateful you took the time to put your thoughts down and share your real-world experiences.
I especially wasn’t aware that police aren’t trained to shoot to wound.
MattR
@cmm: The problem I have is largely with #2. I appreciate the desire not to be killed on duty and that any situation can become deadly. But that is one of the risks of the job. It is fine to make some efforts to mitigate it, but at this point it seems like most cops are so concerned with “going home they way they came in” that they don’t care what damage they do to others in order to achieve that goal. Their attitude seems to be that if others are shot and killed and don’t get to go home, that is just collateral damage that they can’t be concerned about as long as they themselves make it home safely.
It is the reason why I have so much more respect for firefighers than police. They know they are going into a dangerous situation every time they respond to a call, but their focus is on saving the lives of others even when it puts their lives at risk and not on doing everything possible to limit the danger to themselves.
KG
@Tommy: yeah, I know. Again, no apparent attempt to assess the threat. That is just mind boggling to me
buster
Odd, isn’t it? The SAME people who insist that all Americans must be armed to the teeth in order to fight the government in the next revolution are exactly the SAME people who insist that the police are always right and one must always submit to whatever demands they have. Or does that only apply to people of color?
greennotGreen
@ellennellee: Unfortunately, a valid observation.
I would also like to point out the dispatcher’s incompetence. I don’t know if dispatchers ever get into trouble for doing a lousy job relaying information, but maybe they should.
Years ago I was newly divorced and had just moved in alone into a duplex. I was working in the kitchen late at night when I saw a light in the backyard. It was a flashlight shone on a very naked penis. I immediately called the police and told the dispatcher that the man had exposed himself and that I was scared because I was alone. When the police arrived, they were pretty relaxed about the situation, said it was probably some guy who wandered in from the alley. ” With no pants on?!?” I exclaimed. Oh. The dispatcher had failed to relay that particular bit of information. Then they got a lot more interested in finding the guy.
Point is, the cops at the scene should evaluate the situation for themselves. In this case and in the case of John Crawford, they didn’t take the time to do it, and an innocent young man and an innocent child are dead as a result.
ellennellee
@cmm:
wow, thx so much for this thoughtful and comprehensive inside perspective. so helpful, and may i thank you for being so thoughtful about your work. please know i genuinely appreciate your service to your community, wherever that might be.
this sentiment is most sincere, so please don’t misinterpret what i am about to say, as i think it’s most valuable to have this dialogue, not just you and me, but all of us.
i was stuck by your second graf, (2). as it happens, i was aware of most of the incidents you listed of cops being essentially ambushed. i know that has happened, and it is just terrifying. i cannot imagine facing that potential every day. (tho, in truth, i do see crazy people, and know a couple of folks who were assaulted by psychotic patients, one killed. much lower odds than yours, tho.)
that said, i just wanted to note what i perceive as a significant discrepancy between the numbers of the reported police ambushes and the numbers of incidents of excessive force. from where i sit, the latter far outstrips the former, tho i have never seen any numbers on it.
people are not ambushing police for no reason. not saying the reason is any good, as such behavior is abhorrent on its face. but that discrepancy in the numbers of bad incidents goes a long way toward explaining the public sentiment. as i said elsewhere here, the general tenor of police behavior across these incidents – the panicked trigger happy shootings, the pissed off offended beatings (how DARE you not do as i tell you), the obscene abuse of power and force, the trumped up charges, the travesties of justice, … need i go on? the sentiment is like our police have become like prison guards, totally out of control southern backwoods chain gang prison guards.
i genuinely feel for your concerns as you go into work each day and face these sentiments, and you honestly sound like the kind of peace officer we need lots more of (can you clone?? seriously). but your profession is just majorly broken. and when it’s this bad, the major impetus for change has to come from the inside; folks like you have to be the ones to insist on the change that has to happen; you cannot be content to just do your job and go home.
speaking of which, another big diff between threatened officers and threatened blacks: you can leave your uniform and badge at the precinct; black folk are black folk all the damn time, man.
also too? you’re carrying a gun. the whole time you’re on duty.
thanks again for you insights; truly valuable and thoughtful, and again, sincerely appreciate your service. keep up the good work.
mainmati
Wow, it took two really big adult police people to murder a small 12 year old boy. How proud they must be. To Protect and Serve.
greennotGreen
Oops. My comment is awaiting moderation because I used a correct term for a part of the male anatomy. Here’s the comment with the word Bowdlerized.
@ellennellee: Unfortunately, a valid observation.
I would also like to point out the dispatcher’s incompetence. I don’t know if dispatchers ever get into trouble for doing a lousy job relaying information, but maybe they should.
Years ago I was newly divorced and had just moved in alone into a duplex. I was working in the kitchen late at night when I saw a light in the backyard. It was a flashlight shone on a very naked p____s. I immediately called the police and told the dispatcher that the man had exposed himself and that I was scared because I was alone. When the police arrived, they were pretty relaxed about the situation, said it was probably some guy who wandered in from the alley. ” With no pants on?!?” I exclaimed. Oh. The dispatcher had failed to relay that particular bit of information. Then they got a lot more interested in finding the guy.
Point is, the cops at the scene should evaluate the situation for themselves. In the case of Tamir Rice and in the case of John Crawford, they didn’t take the time to do it, and an innocent young man and an innocent child are dead as a result.
MattR
@ellennellee:
I was about to expand on my previous comment to make a similar point. It seems like the police create significantly more dangerous situations by escalating things through their actions than there are situations that are inherently dangerous to the police (ie. an ambush). It is like a perverted version of Blackston’s formulation – better 1000 citizens get attacked by police than a single policeman be attacked be a citizen.
lurker dean
@ellennellee: hadn’t thought of it that way, but as soon as you said it a light went off. prison guards indeed.
Steve from Antioch
@cmm:
Thank you for your thoughtful post.
ellennellee
@beltane:
all the more reason for concern that occupy was so ravaged by the police state (read corporate thugs) while the open carry tea baggers never drew the first raised eyebrow.
i recall being in memphis when king was shot. went downtown just a few weeks later for my college cotillion dance (oh yeah; the south in the 60s), at the peabody hotel (where the firm was filmed) that was then a rat hole like the rest of downtown.
and it was crawling with tanks. us military tanks.
so not kidding. almost 50 years ago.
this pattern has now a long and very deep history.
cmm
Okay don’t go ballistic on me (ha) but IF that kid in the video did have a real gun and IF he was pointing it at officers (not just going to his waistband) then this would be a valid shooting TACTICALLY. It never would be to his family, and it would haunt any officer with an ounce of humanity.( Hell, I had to draw down on (not shoot at, thank god) a 14 year old in a stolen car who DID turn out to have a loaded, also stolen gun on the floor between his feet. No one got shot but I was a wreck afterwards. Still am, a bit. It’s one of the things that has solidified my decision to get out as soon as feasible.)
The real problem in this situation is what was said above, threat assessment. There was no reason that I can see to rush right up to the kid to a range where if he did have a real gun and tried to use it, that the officers would be in immediate deadly danger. Pull up further back, use the car for cover, and friggin TALK to the kid. I think the survival mentality means that officers over r ehearse their reaction in a shootout situation, and train themselves to see a shootout situation when it isn’t one. We are also taught that there is nothing wrong with dropping back from a confrontation, waiting for more backup etc. The problem is that that gets overridden in the mind because usually in those training sessions, we also watch the videos of officers getting killed or badly hurt because they let their guard down or waited too long. That, plus the heavy emphasis on stopping active shooters QUICKLY, I think gets engraved a little deeper on the brain than the parts about assessing and waiting.
On the other hand, I think more people should be able to have a go round with the shooting simulators we go through. They are horrific and all based on real situations — panicked civilians running around corners at you screaming, barricaded suspect shooting your partner dead as you approach a door, and the worst one, a courtroom scenario where your attention is drawn by two people scuffling on a bench in the audience area, and you watch that thinking that’s where the threat is, when a guy walks in the rear door with a shotgun and very realistically blows the head off the officer standing in the back of the room. I’ve had nightmares about that one. Point is, in many of the situations, it is easy to watch videos and second guess the officers either shooting or not shooting, but you are not viewing the situation with an adrenaline rush, tunnel vision, and a ton of distractions.
Oh, and, what the fuck ever, goblue, you sound like a Fox commentator except you are ranting about a different group of “those people”.
ellennellee
@lurker dean:
cool. hm; i think. not a pleasant connection. but yeah; it’s been nagging at me for the longest, and somehow the light bulb just clicked on. prison guards.
sure as hell not andy griffith anymore.
more like barney fife with a glok.
wasabi gasp
@Goblue72:
This thing here:
It’s a little bit black and white…if you catch my drift.
ellennellee
@cmm:
cmm, i am really appreciating your input here; it is wicked valuable.
i just wish i could stay up even another second. but it’s 3 hrs past bedtime here.
real quick tho, your descriptions, and the whole friggin’ mess, you know – why is there no more push from the police unions to get more gun control?
those simulations you describe? would they be so necessary if we had gun control that resembled more, oh i dunno, what finally had to happened in the wild west over a century ago?
i mean, how the hell did that 14 yo kid get that gun? how did any of these kids get ahold of them? they’re THERE. and they should not be.
we really have to start pushing against this, as i don’t want my cops being petrified of idiot civilians with firearms; carrying is what we pay you guys for, after all.
plus, as i think i mentioned here somewhere, when will the gun reformists start emphasizing just how much the gun nuts’ need for guns exposes how afraid they are, and how they fail to feel like a man without them.
just a thought. thx again for your thoughtful input. this stuff has to change, but good gawd, we’re so far gone now, do you think it’s possible?
ellennellee
@MattR:
great points.
man, this situation is so out of hand!
Steve from Antioch
@cmm:
Another thing is that the driver cop just decided to roll up without talking to the passenger cop. All of a sudden passenger is 10 feet away from someone who’s reaching for his waistband. What does passenger cop he do in that situation?
Just speculation on my part.
WaynersT
yet somehow this never happen to the open carry kings
beltane
@WaynersT: They play for the same team.
wyliecoat
About a year go, the police went looking for my 17-year-old, who was pacing the streets with a pair of scissors he had just threatened his dad with in an anxiety-fueled rage. They found him and asked him to drop the scissors, which he did. And then they escorted him back and took him to the hospital in a psych hold. He ended up going to a wilderness program and then a therapeutic boarding school.
Today he is sitting next to me working on his project for art class, registered for community college after graduating from high school in December, and applying to 4 year colleges with a 35 score in ACT.
I am so, so thankful the officers did not shoot him on sight that day, and I am so grateful he used the little remaining sense he had to drop those scissors when they asked him to. I am so glad he was brown and not black.
And I am so so sad about this child and all the others who weren’t as lucky as my son. Breaks my heart. What can I do to bring about change? Any ideas?
Violet
@cmm: I think a key think is what you said in your comment in the previous thread:
You live in the neighborhood in which you serve. If more police lived in the area they worked, they might have a different view of their neighbors. Wasn’t there a move toward “neighborhood policing” at some point? What happened to that?
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
To a degree I agree with you.
We need police. All societies do. We don’t need the death penalty. We especially don’t need the death penalty without a reasonable trial. Vigilantly justice isn’t justice at all. And that’s what we have in many places and are bringing to most everywhere else. The vigilantes have badges and get paid by what is supposed to be our government but that’s still what they are. And even more you might consider that what we have seen developing is actually lynching.
So I’m going to ask our commenting officer @cmm: a couple of questions.
1. What do we do about this situation? How do we change it? Taking you at face value you think these lynchings are wrong, how do we make them far, far less likely?
2. How do you think we feel, possibly being on the other end of the barrel? Yes I am far, far less likely than any black male to be shot by police, but how do I know which one of you to trust and which one will likely put a bullet in me? And how do you answer that question if posed by a black man?
Citizen Scientist
@cmm: Thanks for your thoughts, and thanks for being a credit to your profession.
Ruckus
@wasabi gasp:
He didn’t say kill the police.
He said fuck them. In the heat of a discussion about something very stressful we sometimes use words that can have some strong meanings. My comment about somewhat agreeing with GoBlue are that an awful lot of police departments are out of control and how many have we heard of even trying to move forward? Given our wonderful media I’d bet that even if there were one or a few trying to cut the violence/racism/militarism/whacked threat assessment training, we wouldn’t hear about it. But being upset about it? Saying Fuck the Police? They’ve had decades to get better and they haven’t and I’d bet aren’t about to any time soon.
And I know there are good police. If for no other reason than if there aren’t then we are doomed as a society and I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. At least not today. Maybe tomorrow.
Suzanne
@cmm: Thanks for sharing that with us. The Tamir Rice video is absolutely horrifying and tragic. But I know you and all officers deal with situations that are not so clear-cut, and I’m sure that knowing how to proceed safely is often difficult.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on what you think law enforcement can do to restore the African-American community’s trust in them.
This video is so awful. What a horrible loss. I think of all the stupid shit I did at 12….
wasabi gasp
@Ruckus:
Have a go at that.
pseudonymous in nc
@cmm:
One aspect of that eval, though, is to make sure there’s a willingness to pull the trigger if the circumstance demands it. You’re being entrusted with the state’s monopoly on violence in service of the law.
(Not meant as a dig: I very much appreciate what you do and your willingness to comment here.)
Ferguson has underlined a lot of things: the insidiousness of not-quite-community-policing, where officers are recruited from municipalities that are geographically close to a community but culturally very much not part of it, and approach it as an occupation; likewise, the willingness to dump slightly-used military hardware (and slightly-used military members) on police forces. And now we also see, just this year, multiple cases in which the local PD followed ts training and eliminated The Threat in seconds on arrival at the scene.
Hobbes
@cmm: “There are guns in cutesy pink and pastel colors, and even with Hello Kitty on them.”
Sanrio does not allow Hello Kitty to be licensed for weapons. If you’ve seen pictures of guns with Kitty on them its photoshopped or someone has custom painted it.
gwangung
Um, do you think that would stop modern right wing gun sellers? Intellectual property rights mean nothing to them.
Lavocat
I just do not understand why all these black people keep jumping in front of police officers discharging their weapons? Perhaps we can only find the answer by defaming the dead and forswearing any justice. Yeah, that’ll do nicely. Next!
wasabi gasp
@wasabi gasp: I didn’t mean to impress that was a quote from Ruckus.
I’m sorry for that, Ruckus.
Cmm
Im home with 2 pups in the bed; made it thru another one. Thanks for listening and for being willing to discuss with me. I have more thoughts but no more energy at the moment. Perhaps I could attempt to answer some of these questions/responses on an open thread at some point over the weekend? Not sure what the etiquette for that is. But seriously, thanks for listening. The thoughts I’ve shared here, I don’t have too many outlets for. I’m grateful to you all. You too, Goblue. Sleep well y’all.
eemom
Perhaps if we’re very lucky, burnspbESQ might show up and explain how none of it matters, because the cops wouldn’t be convicted anyway.
Ruckus
@wasabi gasp:
Not the same at all. No color of authority, just skin. No badges, not all have/carry guns, do you trust black people to harass, beat and kill because of the color of the uniform?
Not the same at all.
ETA Didn’t see your second comment so if this is taken out of context please enlighten.
trollhattan
@wyliecoat:
Your experience is one to shake any parent to the core.
I don’t have an answer. I do think that the law enforcement officer mission in the States has migrated to an unhealthy place and since they represent we, the people, it needs to be brought back to a model that reflects community, not Parris Island..
I don’t know how to accomplish that, but do think it’s long past time.
Ruckus
@eemom:
Do you think burnsy understands that progress can be made outside of a courtroom? I’m not sure he does.
wasabi gasp
@Ruckus: You are right. there are many differences – power being the most obvious. But a blanket of animosity over the whole isn’t gonna help much a progress towards change.
And now I feel somewhat awkward and out of my element.
Minta & The Brook Trout – Falcon
Redshift
@cmm: One thing that strikes me about both of your long posts is the tremendous emphasis on the terrible things that could happen. I understand this is how training works — you want people who face those situations to react correctly without having to think much. But it sounds like this produces a serious problem in assessments of how likely these terrible situations are, similar to the oft-mentioned case of cops who come to believe that everyone is rotten because they are required to deal with a lot of rotten people. You say:
But there aren’t ten police ambushes for every hinky police shooting, and seeing ten times as many nasty dashcam videos doesn’t change that fact.
So the question is, how do you train people to respond effectively when there may need to be shooting, without distorting their judgment in favor of shooting, in favor of their own safety over the safety of the community.
Are there also simulations where shooting isn’t the right answer, or may not be? If the visceral training is “shooting simulators” and the threat assessment or conflict reduction training is all on an intellectual level, then that’s a problem, because you need that response to kick in automatically, too.
The point about post-Columbine “active shooter” training is strongly reminiscent of the adage that every army is always training to fight the last war. It’s well past time to begin “fighting” a new “war.”
patrick II
@wasabi gasp:
Yes. If they would have stopped the car 30 or 40 feet away, and watched and then talked to the kid, instead of driving right up next to him it might have turned out differently. Being that close cut down reaction time for everyone, and put themselves and that kid in danger.
I thought the same thing of Darren Wilson in his confrontation with Michael Brown. If, as he now says, he realized they might be wanted for robbery, why did he pull up next to Brown with the window down and grab Brown’s arm? I would think you stop the car 30 feet away, get out of the car with your hand on your gun (as a kind of warning) and go through the standard procedure of asking or i.d., if none is produced and they are good suspects, ask them to get down on the ground, etc. == but from a distance.
The close quarters and heightened danger is the fault of the cops in both these instances. Confront and bully seems to be the new cop procedure, with guns and fixed courts to back them up.
remima
@Cmm: I am truly glad that you made it through your workday without being injured or killed. That is also my goal each day, and I am grateful each day I achieve it.
However I wonder how realistic your fear actually is? Policing is not, statistically, in the top 10 (or more) most dangerous occupations, at least from the stats I’ve looked at. Is it really reasonable for the public to give so much killing power to one relatively safe group of workers? Why is it ok for the vast majority of citizens/workers to lose their jobs over minor mistakes, while one small group of workers can make mistakes that kill or maim or unfairly imprison their “customers” (i.e. regular non-cop people) and keep their jobs and benefits? Especially when keeping their jobs is just icing on the cake of not having to account for their (criminal for non-cops) mistakes in a court of law?
I grew up believing that the police were there to help me and everyone, and that belief has been with me for decades. But over the last few years I have gradually lost the respect and deference I used to have for the police. I’m sorry that you and your fellow “good officer” friends feel like you are being perceived unfairly, but I also think that there are a lot of other workers who have it much worse than you guys, and that the self-pity that seems to be the public face of the police profession nowadays is particularly stomach-churning in the wake of the blood that has been spilled lately.
Just my two cents for the little they are worth.
Mnemosyne
@Redshift:
Good point. I’ve been saying for a while that I think a huge part of the problem here is training — cops are currently trained to “control” the situation and expect people to immediately obey their orders, and when people don’t follow that model for whatever reason, they get shot.
Seriously, the case I linked to above should give every decent cop nightmares. A citizen is running towards you who needs your help because he’s just been in a car accident, and you shoot him dead. I don’t see how that was anything but a complete failure of training. Saying, Well, we were trained to kill people running towards us — how were we supposed to know he was an injured car accident victim? is kind of the point here.
Death Panel Truck
@cmm:
Well, as was said, over and over again, on The Wire: “It’s all part of the game.”
Innit?
wmd
This shooting should result in both officers losing their jobs and possibly going to prison.
And it could happen. Recall the video from South Carolina (?) of a highway patrol officer shooting a 20 something black male at a gas station when the man went to his car to get his drivers license. That young man didn’t die; the cop lost his job.
balconesfault
@cmm: do you know the names of the officers who were ambushed in Las Vegas (by a white couple), or the guy who was shot in a drive by while sitting at a traffic light in his patrol car, or the 4 Washington officers gunned down in the coffee shot (by a 37 year old black), or the PA troopers ambushed as they left their barracks (by a white guy)
So why is it they keep shooting young black males again?
Draylon Hogg
Word up JC. A fine Thursday to you old chap.
Ruckus
@wasabi gasp:
The thing is that a lot of people have that blanket of animosity. And yes that is a form of bigotry. There is quite a difference however. A black person is born that way, no different than a white person or any other person of color is. We are that physical characteristic of color we are born with. A police officer is a job. And yes it is possible to be a dangerous job, but it seems to be more dangerous to be a civilian near police than it is to be one. Not in every situation, absolutely. But can you tell me which is going to be a good or bad situation if there is a police officer around you? Especially if you are black? And yet even I feel like I have no idea if that armed person in that car will find something about me that is disturbing enough to shoot me. I ride a motorcycle, I have a beard. Do either of those characteristics make you fear for your safety? They do some cops. Now what if I was black?
The point is that laying that fear on the color of someone’s skin is racism, it has no foundation other than irrational fear and/or hatred. Being alarmed that someone you know is armed and under the color of law may decide that you are a threat and shoot you for their irrational fears is not irrational in this day and age, in this country.
jc
What I see in that video is a bored kid who is wandering around, playing with what looks a lot like a gun. And if I was walking past that park and saw some kid with his arm extended and pointing that “gun” in my direction, I’d think about calling 9-1-1.
I grew up with guns, but when I was 12 I was never so dumb that I’d hang out in a park and point a gun at random passers by. But having said that, those cops totally over-reacted.
Karmus
@cmm: Hat tip to you.
Another Holocene Human
I’m aghast at these 20-something cops but then I remember they’re being hired and trained by people hired in the 1980s. Reactionary overload.
low-tech cyclist
@efgoldman: Exactly. Ohio is an open-carry state, but apparently that’s whites-only.
Kathleen
@beltane: Yes. Or the corollary is that since father was criminal and they are young and blah they will automatically grow up to be criminal so good riddance early. Or something. Still shaking.
debbie
Expecting a 12-year-old to understand the actual consequences of his actions is insane. Have these people never heard anything about the frontal cortex?
Elizabelle
@cmm:
I wish we would do an open thread with you answering questions about law enforcement/life and decision making as a cop.
And happy thanksgiving to you and all here.
Bjacques
Cmm, thanks for the insights on your job.
Like a lot of people here, i’m worried about your #2 point. My RW FB friends harp on that too. It sounds a lot like “us or them”. That’s not policing—that’s warfare. The way enough police *and police departments* have behaved lately makes it hard to care which one of you makes it home at night. Policing should be “us *and* them”, and the death of either should be treated as a failure of policing and investigated accordingly. How about also training with videos showing a potentially fatal encounter being resolved safely?
Now it’s up to the town to own up to the chain of failures that led to a kid’s death, unlike in Ferguson. The apparent leaking of his father’s rap sheet (which could also be a warning to the parents) is not a positive sign.
Keith G
In answer to Cole’s opening question, there is no way to successfully spin this.
There was a young person playing with a gun, or what looked to be a gun, in the park. That call should have been made. In this day, folks have an understandable reason to be uptight about such an observation. What I don’t understand is why the cops showed up as if they were in the beach assault scene in the movie Apocalypse Now.
It seems to me that better policing would mandate that the officers observed from a distance to determine what actually is going on and what the mindset of the individual involved actually is. If this had been a person with a real gun (let’s say a person in emotional turmoil what happened to get his hands on a weapon) wouldn’t common sense indicate an approach that did not trigger a flight or fight response.
Not only is no excuse for the actual shooting, there is no excuse for the actions of the police as they approached the scene.
It seems to me the taking of a human life without an excuse equals criminal behavior.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Lots of good points in this thread. Thanks.
One thing I have noticed, also too, is that there’s too few options that are taken between yelling and violence. Wilson went from yelling to shooting, as did the cop who killed the 12 year old.
There needs to be something like a net that can be fired/thrown over people to disable those who are perceived to be a potential risk but who aren’t actively shooting at others. E.g. fishing nets used in Vietnam to stop motorcycle racers. “Net guns” exist for capturing animals – why aren’t they used to disable people?
As digby has pointed out many times, Tazers have many issues. People are tortured and killed by them. Nets, it seems to me, are a much better tool for situations similar to the ones we’ve been talking about recently. Except in rare cases, people aren’t going to be injured or killed by them. They’re not going to be threats to others while they’re under a net.
Police must get out of the mindset that the only choices are instant obedience or violence. They need more tools, and they need better training, and society needs to change the rules so that cop shootings are viewed as failures to be eliminated rather than the “cost of doing business”.
Here’s hoping that the weight of the tragedies will finally cause real changes.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
ms_canadada
@beltane: or a banana…http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Man-arrested-for-pointing-banana-at-deputies-5918064.php
Booger
So lemme get this straight…a toy gun will get you killed no questions asked, a real gun is sacred. I’m confused.
Dave
@cmm: Here is my problem with this. I worked as a security guard at our regional trauma hospital for a year. The hospital also had a police force and so I was exposed to many of the training videos and the constant repetition of hyper-vigilance because anyone can attack you at any time (an actually logical statement) is toxic. It has to many officers acting as if they are living in a violent dystopia. As a guard I was exposed first and more often to angry, potentially violent, and often drug/pre-existing behavioral health issues. And yet we survived day after day. I diffused more situations as a ten dollar an hour rent a cop than the officers ever did because I didn’t assume instant authority and obeisance and I disliked it when the police force got involved because they would often escalate the situation because they had the power to and didn’t like being challenged and often weren’t very understanding why people under extreme stress may not be the best actors.
Also living in a state of hypervigilance death is around any corner at anytime is psychologically toxic to people. I did four overseas tours with varying degrees of threat and violence and it wears you down you lose empathy and judgement and while I never crossed the line I came entirely to close a single lb of trigger pressure is all it would have takem. Some of them where we were in daily fights and were inflicting and taking casualties. And I see the too many officers with the attitude that they are living that life and they simply aren’t. I still have the mantra that complacency kills in my head but I wonder if maybe police training needs to almost encourage a form of complacency. Though the question is it possible to get a large body of people to switch from a more laid back approach to an immediate tactical mindset when an actual Columbine/Newton style active shooting is occurring which while not super common to happen all to often in this country.
ellennellee
another comparison occurred to me.
in addition to feeling like the police are behaving like stereotypical prison guards, it also occurs to me the system is behaving like the catholic church in circling the wagons to protect the pedophile priests.
wonder if cmm can chime in on how much the common denominator of limited personnel and funds, as well as the cost to train, might be contributing to the resistance to toss out the bad apples.
prompted by the story about the drunk cop in looserana who rolled his car, and remains on the force.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Booger: The “explanation” I’ve heard (e.g. the guy with the AR-15 at an Obama rally) was that he wasn’t pointing it anyone. Once someone points a weapon at someone, or is perceived to be actively starting to point it at someone, that’s (supposedly) when the lead can start flying.
Of course, the perception can and often is wrong, or used as an excuse after the fact to justify firing 41 shots at someone and killing them on their doorstep.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Dave
@ellennellee: I suspect it’s more in group/out group in action. I deployed with a CPT who had been an officer in Oklahoma. Greats guy little high strung takes his values very seriously (also weird in that he was definitely the Oklahoma white guy conservative but we agreed on the root cause of so many problems its like we spoke the exact same language until it came what to do about it very strange but also good reminder not to caricature people based on beliefs). And he left the force because he couldn’t tolerate the ass covering of any officer no matter how wrong they were in a situation (also the racism he hated that). Never any culpability for bad actions. And I think that’s a problem in a huge number of departments nationwide. So actually just like the Catholic Church.
Chris
@Mike J:
This… is why the British disarmed the majority of their police force, leaving firearms for truly exceptional circumstances. Their cops can still be assholes, but they can’t as easily kill people.
Of course, the British can afford to do that because they’ve also more or less disarmed their entire population. A disarmed society is a polite society, as it turns out. Since there is absolutely zero chance of that ever happening here, I can’t really say that our cops should go the British route – even if they’re never deployed against teabaggers, gangs and the like benefit from our gun laws too.
But damn, it’d be nice if our entire gun culture could be treated the same way. Both the cop and the citizen sides of it.
Geeno
The thing is – that looks like the strategy they came up with on the way there. Roar up, yell, and if he doesn’t drop it immediately, then drop him. This wasn’t a mistake. This is what they planned to do. There was not only no effort at checking the situation, checking the situation was never part of the plan.
Chris
@Dave:
Kind of a common problem for most of the institutions our right wing loves and worships. Police departments, churches (at least conservative ones)… big business, the Defense Department… The MO is the same in all cases; circle the wagons, cover for all the people misbehaving in the institution, and bitch long and loud about how unappreciated these people are, how hard their job is, how nobody wants to see things from their perspective, and how they just can’t catch a break from the biased liberal media and those wild left-wing protesters who’re blowing this out of all proportion because they secretly hate the institution itself.
Our society is run by the people who’ve managed to make themselves unaccountable to anyone, and our conservatives are determined to ensure that that never changes.
blueskies
@cmm:
On the other other hand, I’d say it’s exactly this sort of training you describe that results in the problems we have.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@cmm
I was wondering if that is the deal with the Fergison PD. A black majority town in a Red state obsessed with cutting spending can’t exactly be a desirable policing job
blueskies
@wmd:
The cop should’ve at least been charged with something.
At least.
blueskies
@Dave:
Exactly.
Dave, your post brings it all together on so many levels.
Thank you.
Buddy H
@gwangung:
Um, do you think that would stop modern right wing gun sellers? Intellectual property rights mean nothing to them.
Very true. So many trucks decorated with Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) urinating. (Bill Watterson hates those) Same trucks usually feature anti-obama bumperstickers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ruckus:
Yes, it’s only sexual assault he was calling for so clearly COMPLETELY different.
Every occur to you sunshine that the “fuck the cops” mentality is part of the problem here, since both Missouri and Ohio are run by the drown the governments in the bathtub crowd? Or let me put it another way “I am sure those cops are worth every penny those city PDs are paying them”
john fremont
@ellennellee: Don’t forget , that George Zimmerman’s history of a fight with an off duty officer and a restraining order from his first marriage should not in any way influence our perception of how he approached Trayvon Martin that night. Yet, this kid’s father’s issues with domestic violence somehow justifies deadly force from a cop.
Chris
@ellennellee:
It seems to be a general fact of life that left wing protesters (violent or nonviolent) are considered fair game and target practice, while right wing protesters are just assumed to me OK.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Oh come on, Fuck the police is sexual? I’d buy the kill the police side of the argument way before I’d buy any sexual content. Fuck this, fuck that is not meant sexually. Even fuck you is hardly ever sexual. I’ll buy it’s a verbal assault intended to create anger, which it does.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
On to the rest of your comment.
So what’s your take? Police are all OK, nothing to see here, let’s move on? They need more money but can continue their direction?
And I stated that I agreed with GoBlue to a degree, that the police are, as a group out of control and need to change. That s/he is angry about it is a problem? You aren’t angry about it? I’m angry about it. I also stated above that we absolutely need police in any society. But we need them to work with the society, even if it is to bend it back to sanity about guns, not to just run rough shod over the citizens. Even if it is only a small percentage of them that do and I’d dispute that strongly, what is being done to fix that? Anything?
Read everything I’ve written here then come back at me. Taking things out of context makes your argument useless.
Dave
@Chris: Very true and I understand the instinct but it’s toxic I was talking to a friend of mine and she didn’t get why bad actors with authority matter so much more to me than individual bad actors. It’s not that the private actors don’t concern me but and it may be cliche but power must come with even greater responsibility or really bad shit happens. It’s also very interesting to look at the individuals abandoned by a given organization and how they either acted so egregiously dumbly that they had to be or how they were never really fully in the fold.
low-tech cyclist
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Exactly. And besides, the difference between a gun being out, but not being pointed at anyone, and a gun being pointed at someone and the trigger pulled, is a split second anyway. So even assuming perfect, unbiased perception (which is an absurd thing to have to assume), that’s a ridiculously untenable place to draw the line between OK carrying and bad carrying.
Which is why the only sensible policy is “no open carry.” That way if you see someone in public with a gun, you call the cops on him, and the cops come and arrest the guy and tconfiscate his gun.
Villago Delenda Est
@PaulW: The command was issued by a member of the Psi Corps.
Villago Delenda Est
@john fremont: The kid is blah. George Zimmerman is not.
End of rationale.
This all boils down to naked racism.
Peter
@cmm: This may be rough for you to hear, but I would rather a dozen cops get shot in the line of duty than a single unarmed person be killed by police officers doing their duty. That possibility is what you signed up for.
Ruckus
@Peter:
I got the rather but I’d like to pick C.
No cops get shot in the line of duty but neither do any unarmed civilians get shot, just because. As well they don’t get tazed while handcuffed on the floor, they don’t get sodomized with broom sticks, beaten for being homeless……. or black…….
Annamal
@Cmm: Thanks for your contribution.
I keep being struck by the difference between the approach that US police take to offenders and New Zealand’s Armed Offender’s Squad.
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/314938/men-black
The AOS are the only regularly armed police unit here and only tend to get called in to high stress situations but they are very reluctant to shoot (not perfect by any means, just very definitely not trigger happy).
Another Holocene Human
@Dave: You have really hit the nail on the head. It’s the constant paranoia, it’s psychologically unhealthy and associated with this victim complex that gives that person psychological license to unleash any sort of violence on others because of their fear.
Active shooters stuff like that there should be info on the dispatch call on the way in. There are some problems with dispatch communications. Lot of emphasis with computerization on dispatching faster but they LOSE INFORMATION which is how that cop got killed in florida recently, the dispatcher was connected into the neighbor’s address with no info attached about the actual location of the incident where this guy was waiting to shoot a cop.
Cops are being trained this way and reinforcing it amongst themselves creating this toxic culture where they brag about murdering “citizens”. “Clean kill” etc. “Citizens” is their nice term, often it’s thugs, criminals, animals. They’re like a case study in mass abnormal psychology.
Police have a reputation of fucking up any situation. When I was dealing with low income clients I almost NEVER called police for just that reason. I was afraid of the consequences should somebody get booked in jail because the cop was confrontational and took offense. (Occasionally it was useful to use threat of calling police to get rid of a scammer or other nuisance.) The one time I did need police because a large amorphous gang of kids was threatening to start a beat-down on these two other children who were seeking shelter in front of a security camera, it took 22 minutes for the police to arrive and thankfully most of the kids had gotten bored and dispersed.
Peter
@Ruckus: I’d like that too, but since the conversation is always framed by law enforcement and their water-carriers in terms of cops having to do what they have to do to keep themselves from getting killed, I want it to be clear: if killing unarmed black men is what you have to do to stay safe, I’d rather you risk getting shot.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: In context, “fuck the [blank]” means “throw [it] away, we don’t need it”. A call to violence would be “fuck up” or just “kill”. There were rap songs back in the day that talked about killing cops, if anyone wants to parse popular culture for signs of moral decadence or whatever the motivation is.
Fuck the police is like saying take the police and shove ’em. It means they’re useless, contemptible, I have lost all respect for them and they should be taken out with the garbage. “To the devil with…”, “to hell with …” have similar meanings. I was about to write “send … to Hell” but then I realized that can mean to kill someone.
Another Holocene Human
@john fremont: G-Zim sexually molested his cousin. I guess that makes him the perfect spokesmodel for white supremacy.
AxelFoley
@wasabi gasp:
How about fuck you? Have a go at that. Black people aren’t out killing cops.
AxelFoley
@remima:
Well said.
Ruckus
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s what it means to you. It is such a universal term that there really is more than one meaning. It is a catch all phrase for when we are angry. It is a sexual term to some, although I can’t recall ever having heard it used in any way that would be any kind of consensual sex that I’d want to be involved in, it means to kill to some but once again I don’t recall anyone saying fuck you, or fuck this when they really could just say die motherfucker, before they shoot you.
I took GoBlue’s comment to mean he’d had more than his share of bad cops, was angry and didn’t want that anymore. If he had wanted cops to die then why didn’t he just say so? Others here have done that. And rightly been called out on it. My reply to Peter was sort of tongue in cheek about a best case rather than, someone has to die, better this group than that one, even though I understand where he is coming from.
So I’m going to ask again. When do we get angry enough to at least try to effect a change in our policing practices? Because being polite and going along hasn’t done shit to change anything. That doesn’t mean kill cops, in my mind MLK had it right, non violence is the answer, nothing else has ever worked. But people had to have had enough to find the resolve to endure what is a very hard thing to pull off, in the face of violence and guns and arrest and possible ending of your life. When do we get there? When do those good cops find the wherewithal to join in with that? Or do we just give the fuck up?
Dave C
Every police officer even remotely involved in this “incident” needs to be fired, sued and (hopefully) arrested. Jesus fucking Christ.
sm*t cl*de
@Chris:
“Disarmed”? I don’t think they were ever armed in the first place.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): So you’re of the opinion that cops are human time bombs or animals without agency who can only relentlessly attack and/or kill once set into motion by external stimuli, as opposed to human beings hired to do police work, to serve and protect the community that pays them.
Villago Delenda Est
@AxelFoley:
Mainly because SYG protections only apply to the melanin deprived. All others must defer to law enforcement, even if it results in their deaths.
wasabi gasp
@AxelFoley:
Hi, Axel. Hope you’re having a good thanksgiving. Tell everyone I said hi. Also, tell them you have potential. When they gaze at you in disbelief, tell them wasabi said so. Let’s get on with your special gift.
I really think you hit it out of the park with this. Not only is it a thoughtful splash of vinegar, but it’s accurate. You zeroed in on the one and only dastardly wasabi, yet left all the good and innocent wasabis unharmed, free to continue to dance and sing and litter the world with Tito Puente youtubes. Super duper, buddy, really super duper.
(If everyone still doesn’t believe, that is the comment you want to hold up and wave.)
Sadly, the next bit takes such a precipitous downturn that I wonder if it was all just dumb luck. It’s a stinker. Rotten from the moment it was laid.
I’ll just leave that for a soft winter breeze.
I had a good day. I think my favorite was the stuffing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUFCJvtvMaE
Citizen Alan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think it is apparent to most literate people that saying “Fuck ______” generally does not express a desire to literally have sex with whatever “______” is.
Citizen Alan
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The great weight of evidence seems to show that Ferguson PD neither serves nor protects that community but rather preys upon it like a Mafia protection racket.
Matt
This sort of thing is the logical result of a culture that’s spent 40 years selling the “good cop, mean streets” mythology from every outlet. Add in the all-encompassing excuse of the War on (Some People Who Use Some) Drugs and the concurrent right-wing effort to destroy any kind of public employee retirement system, and what you’ve got is forces that are a stinking mashup of burned-out jockos with a grudge, die-hard racists who want to prove they’re hard (see Zimmerman) and outright goddamn fascists who are ITCHING to kick the fuck outta anybody who crosses their path.
How are we going to fix this? Not a fucking clue. Even when an individual department has an undeniable Nguyễn Ngọc Loan moment that makes it *clear* that they’re sociopaths with badges, local governments will spin the “bad apples” story like crazy. The problem isn’t local – it’s not a “Ferguson PD is overrun by the KKK” problem, it’s more like “every PD in STL is overrun by the KKK”, if not worse.
Plantsmantx
@Jebediah, RBG: You’re right. It’s already happened. Not in the NYT, as far as I know, but it’s already happened.
Barry
@Ruckus: “Do you think burnsy understands that progress can be made outside of a courtroom? I’m not sure he does.”
This makes the assumption that he wants progress.
Barry
@Death Panel Truck: “For every video we see now of shootings by police that look hinky (or ARE hinky) police have seen 10 videos from dashcams of officers being ambushed, of routine calls gone suddenly haywire. Everyone knows Michael Brown’s name but do you know the names of the officers who were ambushed in Las Vegas, or the guy who was shot in a drive by while sitting at a traffic light in his patrol car, or the 4 Washington officers gunned down in the coffee shot, or the PA troopers ambushed as they left their barracks? We do.”
As has been pointed out, the ratio of *unjustified* police shootings to lethal attacks on police has got to be waaaaayyyy over 10:1. And at least two the four incidents you mention were done by white right-wingers. If the police reacted like they do to blacks, there’d be a lot of ‘open carry’ white right-wingers killed, and I’ve heard of precisely zero.
Barry
@low-tech cyclist: “Exactly. Ohio is an open-carry state, but apparently that’s whites-only.”
Repeating – there have been hundreds of *white* open-carry events, but precisely zero white open-carriers killed, and I think zero even injured.
Barry
@Keith G: “It seems to me that better policing would mandate that the officers observed from a distance to determine what actually is going on and what the mindset of the individual involved actually is.”
Police self-preservation mandated that, as well.
If the guy had been somebody with hostile intent and a gun, those police officers basically cruised into point-blank range and could easily have been killed.
Barry
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: “The “explanation” I’ve heard (e.g. the guy with the AR-15 at an Obama rally) was that he wasn’t pointing it anyone. Once someone points a weapon at someone, or is perceived to be actively starting to point it at someone, that’s (supposedly) when the lead can start flying.”
Note that ‘shiny metallic object’ or ‘he reached for something’ seems to be quite OK with a black suspect.
mclaren
“The police officer followed the law.” — prosecutor
“This shooting was within department policy.” — the police
“I felt I was in imminent danger and and had to defend myself.” — the cop
“They were only following orders.” — The American public