Tamir Rice shooting

[Flagg]

"Everyone wants to do [INSERT_NAME] shit until it's time to do [INSERT_NAME] shit."

What's next? We start feeling sorry for those kids who went out on a boat without life jackets or a EPIRB into an oncoming storm and got killed in FL last year?

Only those of us who possess empathy.

[Purple]

The issue really is that police officers in america are not held to the proper standard. The police are a special kind of service just like firefighters, disaster rescue workers, soldiers etc. You expect a soldier to be willing to die to protect civilians. You expect a firefighter to be willing to die when saving people from a burning building. You expect a rescue worker to be willing to die whilst rescuing people. But for some reason you do not expect police officers to be willing to die rather than engage in preemptive self defense. At least that's how I see it.

[TheFeniX]

Why would the police do that?

That was my point.

Yea sorry, my post was supposed to agree with yours and my quoted section above supportive sarcasm rather than trying to refute your post. I was opening with this long rant about the NES zapper color change back in the 80s and decided to cut it. So, it reads different.

The issue really is that police officers in america are not held to the proper standard. The police are a special kind of service just like firefighters, disaster rescue workers, soldiers etc. You expect a soldier to be willing to die to protect civilians. You expect a firefighter to be willing to die when saving people from a burning building. You expect a rescue worker to be willing to die whilst rescuing people. But for some reason you do not expect police officers to be willing to die rather than engage in preemptive self defense. At least that's how I see it.

I don't expect firefighters to be willing to die to save innocents and I don't believe any employer requires them to. Same with disaster rescuers, etc If a building isn't safe enough to enter, no firefighter is required to. A lot of them WILL, and I'll consider that heroic, but that isn't the point of their job. It is to fight fires, save who they can, and get home at the end of their shift.

Police officers are acting as if every situation they are called to could dial up to 11 at any second and they have to be careful when dealing with any civilian but they constantly put themselves into situations where they rely on split-second decision making. And they are also forcing suspects into the same decision making process. Rolling up on an "armed" suspect the way the Rice shooters did was nearly suicidal.

An analogy is hard to make because when Firefighters dive in with bad information and do not take the time to survey the situation: they are usually the ones who end up dead. And they are usually blamed for their incompetence. For police, it's others who get killed when they misread a situation. In the event they get killed they'll try to crush you. While racism was likely a huge factor, the white defendant STILL had to go before a grand jury. They refused to indict (which is pretty crazy they didn't... go Texas? I guess...?), the cops almost certainly wanted blood.

And even if they don't believe they have enough evidence they'll still press charges because it's a pretty good bet you're fucked.

DeGuerin, a well-known defense attorney who has been practicing for half a century, said “he could not immediately remember another example of a Texas grand jury declining to indict a defendant in the death of a law enforcement officer.” That sort of outcome is rare not just in Texas but throughout the country, since people who shoot cops invading their homes usually do not get the same benefit of the doubt as cops do when the roles are reversed. (Just ask Cory Maye.) This double standard is reflected in the reaction from the local district attorney:

Julie Renken, the district attorney for Burleson County, said in a statement Thursday she thought the sheriff’s office acted correctly during events that “occurred in a matter of seconds amongst chaos.”

“I believe the evidence also shows that an announcement was made,” Renken said. “However, there is not enough evidence that Mr. Magee knew that day that Peace Officers were entering his home.”

So, why wouldn't they act the way they do? You can't fight back. Well, you can, but it's a good bet you'll get stomped.

[Flagg]

Why would the police do that?

That was my point.

Yea sorry, my post was supposed to agree with yours and my quoted section above supportive sarcasm rather than trying to refute your post. I was opening with this long rant about the NES zapper color change back in the 80s and decided to cut it. So, it reads different.

Makes sense. You're not one of the dense people on the board so I figured I'd worded it badly myself.

[MKSheppard]

Bodymore cops shoot 13 year old. He survives.

[Elheru Aran]

Can I ask what exactly your point was in posting that here without commentary rather than the Police Abuse thread?

[Flagg]

Can I ask what exactly your point was in posting that here without commentary rather than the Police Abuse thread?

Starts with a "T" and rhymes with "rolling"?

[MKSheppard]

Can I ask what exactly your point was in posting that here without commentary rather than the Police Abuse thread?

Considering the circumstances were pretty similar to the Tamir Rice incident; why make a second thread to clutter up N&P about it?

[Flagg]

Can I ask what exactly your point was in posting that here without commentary rather than the Police Abuse thread?

Considering the circumstances were pretty similar to the Tamir Rice incident; why make a second thread to clutter up N&P about it?

He said post it in the general police abuse thread, not create a new one.

[Adam Reynolds]

The issue really is that police officers in america are not held to the proper standard. The police are a special kind of service just like firefighters, disaster rescue workers, soldiers etc. You expect a soldier to be willing to die to protect civilians. You expect a firefighter to be willing to die when saving people from a burning building. You expect a rescue worker to be willing to die whilst rescuing people. But for some reason you do not expect police officers to be willing to die rather than engage in preemptive self defense. At least that's how I see it.

None of those organizations actually believe this. They all in fact universally argue for the opposite, that it does no good to help someone else if it puts you at risk. While there are cases like 9/11 in which this happens, it is not at all the standard or a goal for anyone.

While there is a certain bit of that machismo attitude in the people that work in those professions, much of that is boasting more than it is an actual belief. You will find that most emergency services workers and soldiers actually act in self preservation most of the time, trying to carry out their jobs in the safest possible manner.

There is also an element of tribalism with all of those groups. Firefighters and soldiers often take a greater risk to save each other than they would to save a random stranger.

For a specific example, rescue simmers are even counterintuitively taught to use the body of a victim as a shield to protect themselves from drowning if they are about to hit an obstruction. It is rather difficult to save someone if you are injured yourself.

[Simon_Jester]

It is neither practical nor realistic to expect law enforcement officers to agree to be used as target practice backstops by people who want to kill them.

It is not particularly practical to expect law enforcement to wait until someone is actively shooting at them before deciding that the person is a lethal threat.

It is practical to train law enforcement on what is and is not a threat, and on how to resolve situations without deadly violence... but that won't always prevent accidents.

[TheFeniX]

It is practical to train law enforcement on what is and is not a threat, and on how to resolve situations without deadly violence... but that won't always prevent accidents.

I have to nitpick this: what happened to Rice was not an accident and treating as it is such absolves the police of too much responsibility.

[Simon_Jester]

It was an accident in the same sense that a traffic accident caused by reckless driving was an accident. Not a specifically desired outcome, but a horrible consequence that could have been avoided by more responsibility on the police's part.

[TheFeniX]

It was an accident in the same sense that a traffic accident caused by reckless driving was an accident. Not a specifically desired outcome, but a horrible consequence that could have been avoided by more responsibility on the police's part.

I can't agree here: the intent of your analogy was NOT to wreck, it happened even though circumstance said it was likely to happen: drive poorly > wreck. An avoidable accident, but still an accident.

The officers intended to apprehend Rice. He reacted in a "threatening" manner with what they thought was a deadly weapon. They acted based on bad information, but within department policy. It's not an accident but a failure of policy at best.

Shooting someone with your gun when you thought you were holding a taser and having too tight a grip on your gun and unintentionally shooting it are accidents. I seriously doubt the cops thought shooting someone didn't have a good chance of killing them. I could use the same claim to say "I was shooting to stop, so I killed him on accident."

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. I suppose.

I think of it more as "they thought they were shooting a gunman who was about to kill them, and did not intend to shoot an innocent unarmed person." I guess that's not an accident in the same sense of the word as a traffic accident, though it's still a case of "something goes wrong, actions occur which do not match the wishes of the responsible party, due to a combination of (deadly) carelessness and (tragic) misfortune."

[TheFeniX]

I think of it more as "they thought they were shooting a gunman who was about to kill them, and did not intend to shoot an innocent unarmed person." I guess that's not an accident in the same sense of the word as a traffic accident, though it's still a case of "something goes wrong, actions occur which do not match the wishes of the responsible party, due to a combination of (deadly) carelessness and (tragic) misfortune."

I grant there's a grey area. But at what point does negligence beat out accident? If I see a coworker enter a confined space and drop, my training tells me "don't go in there." If I decide to and drop immediately to due something like H2S inhalation is that an accident? Sure, yea. I didn't plan to inhale H2S, but I definitely setup a situation where there was more than a passing possibility I could die. As opposed to reckless driving where some asshole cuts 3 lanes and clips another car because "I got this. Done it 100 times." And if driving in Houston has taught me anything: a lot of drivers think they are better than they are and live by lady luck.

My problem with the Rice shooters as I've stated before is that, if Rice was actually armed with a handgun and would open fire on them, their actions were nearly suicidal.

So what? What was their plan? Stupid is what their plan was unless someone could explain to me why it wasn't. And stupid plans, at least in my field means "Dumb plan? You're liable asshole." We save the term accident when consequences were actually unforeseen even with proper planning.

This is my main problem with U.S. Police the more I work in safety. We have reports of an "armed" individual walking around a park "menacingly" (I think I heard that term from the report, but could be mistaken). So, to resolve the problem we YOLO that shit? No SWAT team? No Rifles/Shotguns? I'm going to answer pistol with pistol? Another guy might have 12 (ZOMG TWELVE) pot plants and we send in a midnight no-knock raid because he's some kind of kingpin? In Texas, where people have many guns? Not "ah" gun, but many guns? Enough to necessitate a gun rack?

I've lived in this country for 30+ years and current LEO methodology looks INSANE from the outside. I wouldn't last 5 minutes as a cop because there's no way I'm risking death against a likely armed Texas home-owner over 12 pot plants nor charging headlong in a car at an "armed" suspect because Bob didn't pack his shotgun. Please tell me I'm being melodrama-culas here: would you fly up in a car (provided you aren't planning to run him over) on a guy armed with a gun and stop as close as those cops did? If you did and got wasted as a result, whose fault would it really be? Yes, the guy who shot you. But you didn't exactly make it hard for him.

At some point "accident" gives way because you've stacked the deck so hard against yourself, you should have seen this shit coming. If our policy on confined spaces was "sniff a bit, let me know" then our policy would be insane and "accident" would mean "safety supervisor is now making license plates." For cops it's "well, it was an unfortunate accident. Obviously, the mistake is on the 12-year-old kid who should have known better even though kids in that age group are lousy about not knowing any better. I hope some of the taxpayer money the family got, which likely will NOT come out of our coffers, will help teach kids that they can't be stupid because we will kill them."

[Thanas]

Bravo, Fenix. Very well articulated.