Police screw up, shoot unarmed WHITE kid this time

[Dominus Atheos]

HuffPo

An attorney representing the family of a Georgia teen who was fatally shot by police at his home says the boy only had a Nintendo Wii controller in his hand.

Christopher Roupe, 17, died Feb. 14 when one of two Euharlee police officers who came to his home to serve a probation violation warrant for his father shot him in the chest.

The female officer told investigators that the teen answered the door with what appeared to be a gun pointed at her, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Sherry Lang told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The officer fired one shot, striking Roupe,” Lang told the paper. “The officer immediately called for medical assistance. Roupe was transported to the hospital in Cartersville where he was pronounced dead.”

Cole Law, an attorney representing the family, told WSB that the story "just doesn't add up.” He says eyewitnesses claim the boy had a Wii controller in his hand and was preparing to watch a movie.

"As the eyewitnesses on the scene clearly state, he had a Wii controller in his hand. He heard a knock at the door. He asked who it was. There was no response, so he opened the door, and immediately upon opening the door, he was shot in the chest," Law told WSB.

Roupe was in the ROTC at Woodland High School and hoped to join the U.S. Marine Corps, the station reported. His friends remember him as a good kid.

The officer who fired the shot has been placed on administrative leave. Neighbors told WSB that they saw her right after shots rang out.

"She came out of this house. She put her head in her hands and she was sobbing," neighbor Ken Yates told the station. “This is tragic."

At least since this was a white person, there is a greater likelihood that the trigger-happy cop will be taken off the force.

Not actually criminally charged mind you, it would have to be a RICH white person for that.

[Grumman]

I feel like American cops need remedial training. The first class can be "People sometimes hold things in their own homes. Don't shoot them."

[Jub]

See, normally I would be outraged by this, but as much as I'd like to be the simple fact is that it isn't as much the officers fault that these things happen as one might think. The proliferation of weapons in the US means that police trying to arrest somebody have to be on high alert, that leads to them knocking and not identifying themselves an that leads to things like this where reaction time beats target identification. The fact that police are shooting at anything that looks like a threat is a symptom of the risks (or perceived risks) they face.

Plus, these sorts of stories make people less likely to comply with the police, thus leading to more situations where this shit happens.

I'd love to see this stuff stop, but I don't even know where you would start in a place like the US where you can't disarm people and you can't back the police off too much or you risk things getting out of hand.

[Agent Fisher]

Too many details missing to judge. What time of day (or night) was it? Did he have the Wiimote in one of those gun holders for games like duck hunt or something and what color was it, white or black? How was he holding it when he opened the door? Was there enough light to see what it was? Also what was the Probation Violation for?

Far too many questions still right now to pass judgement on wether the officer needs to face charges.

[Simon_Jester]

Question that got my interest:

What is the incidence rate of mistaken police shootings? How would it impact police work and police ability to keep up manpower if they started removing (or at least transferring away from street duty) most or all policemen who mistakenly shoot someone?

[Lagmonster]

This feels a lot less like the arrogance of police and more like a tragically bad split-second decision, give the neighbour's statement that the woman who shot him came out of the house, head in hands, crying. That's not the reaction of a dickbag who winds up claiming self-defence. That's the reaction of someone who suddenly realizes they have done something incredibly wrong.

[Thanas]

Yeah. THe question I would ask is if there was past history or if their entry was incompetent.

[Zwinmar]

I blame incompetent training methods (most likely due to lack of funds). One of things I was taught was to always properly identify your target. Cops have too much responsibility to act stupid and, in many cases, not given the training they need.

anecdotally: I've seen the local cops where I live is operation and they are nothing more than bad amateurs and that bothers me quite a bit.

[Zaune]

So... do cops still have to shout, "Freeze! Drop the weapon!" or worrds to that effect before opening fire, or has that been done away with?

[TheFeniX]

See, normally I would be outraged by this, but as much as I'd like to be the simple fact is that it isn't as much the officers fault that these things happen as one might think. The proliferation of weapons in the US means that police trying to arrest somebody have to be on high alert, that leads to them knocking and not identifying themselves an that leads to things like this where reaction time beats target identification. The fact that police are shooting at anything that looks like a threat is a symptom of the risks (or perceived risks) they face.

It's all the fault of guns, rather than training methods that force confrontations requiring split-second decisions and police not bothering to identify themselves.

I'm sure you'd be in complete agreement if I turned that around and said "with all the proliferation of guns in this country, I have to pack heat to protect myself. So what if the guy coming up to me is probably asking for directions, he has at what this specific instant in time what might look like a gun. So I shot him, not my fault!" No?

The whole fucking point of self-defense is to give yourself enough time to make rational choices in your defense. And that isn't always an option. However, having detailed information about a probation violator and being able to chose how to go about dealing with him gives you pretty much all the time in the world. I doubt there was anything malicious about this shooting. It's more likely the cops were just being lazy, not paying attention when the door opened, saw what might have been a gun, and reaction kicked in.

So... do cops still have to shout, "Freeze! Drop the weapon!" or worrds to that effect before opening fire, or has that been done away with?

That's a Hollywood thing. Cops have never had to yell that before opening fire, especially if someone has (what might be) a firearm pointed at them. At least not that I've ever heard of.

[Tribble]

What you have in America is essentially an arms race. You can look forward to the day when average citizens will be openly carrying machine guns as a matter of course.

[Jub]

It's all the fault of guns, rather than training methods that force confrontations requiring split-second decisions and police not bothering to identify themselves.

I'm sure you'd be in complete agreement if I turned that around and said "with all the proliferation of guns in this country, I have to pack heat to protect myself. So what if the guy coming up to me is probably asking for directions, he has at what this specific instant in time what might look like a gun. So I shot him, not my fault!" No?

The whole fucking point of self-defense is to give yourself enough time to make rational choices in your defense. And that isn't always an option. However, having detailed information about a probation violator and being able to chose how to go about dealing with him gives you pretty much all the time in the world. I doubt there was anything malicious about this shooting. It's more likely the cops were just being lazy, not paying attention when the door opened, saw what might have been a gun, and reaction kicked in.

I never said that was the entire problem now did I. The fact is that the way police are trained these days is partially due to how much more dangerous armed criminals make their job. There are surely other factors in this incident, but until we get more details how can we even start to look into them?

Plus, it's not like a beat cop has that much say in which call he/she responds/gets assigned to. Nor do we know that they didn't do their research and planning properly in this case. Without more info we can't know what they did or didn't do or what they did or didn't plan for.

[TheFeniX]

What you have in America is essentially an arms race. You can look forward to the day when average citizens will be openly carrying machine guns as a matter of course.

If by average citizen, you mean Law Enforcement Officers. I love how people bought the Conservative pushed "raging violence in America, we needs more guns!" hook, line, and sinker even if you're on the opposite end of the "debate."

Besides, the kinds of people affected by violent crime on a daily basis are too poor to afford to live in your scenario where everyone owns $20,000 machine guns.

I never said that was the entire problem now did I. The fact is that the way police are trained these days is partially due to how much more dangerous armed criminals make their job. There are surely other factors in this incident, but until we get more details how can we even start to look into them?

Or a perceived increase in danger. The over emphasis on use of force is a problem noted by actual law enforcement officers and it's implementation over the years has made policework more dangerous to the average cititzen and the police officer.

Just as seeing something that might be a gun and shooting first is bad for the citizen, issuing no-knock warrants and forcing split-second decisions because someone might be armed also forces that citizen to make split second reactions. They might grab and gun and shoot an officer. Or more realistically, they'll think criminals are breaking into their home to kill them, and get up to run away, and die for their efforts. Or they'll just continue sleeping and at least die without knowing what happened.

Back up the idea of the arms race because the only people I hear crowing about it are dickhead conservatives with a voter base to pander to (gotta keep people scared of the violent black man ready to rape all your white women) and people who actually bought the stupidity. Crime rates are more tied to economics, police work is fairly safe with some upticks in murders (usually from very bad people who are repeat felons) and it reads like a disgusting way to blame guns for issues in police procedure.

And what with the ATF allowing hundreds of illegal guns to fall into the hands of criminals leading to a pile of bodies, there's so much faith here for them cleaning things up.

[Jub]

Or a perceived increase in danger.

I actually said as much in my first post on the issue.

The fact that police are shooting at anything that looks like a threat is a symptom of the risks (or perceived risks) they face.

I pretty much agree with the rest of what you said, the ATF needs to do a better job with the illegal weapons end of things and police departments need to learn that not every traffic stop is a raid on some drug cartels main base of operations. That all said, that responsibility is on the department's end of things; individual officers should shoulder less of the blame for these events because they are constantly told over and over again what danger they're in. If you told me my job was dangerous and that I was at a high risk of being injured by violent crime and then gave me weapons training, I might be one of these officers that get into some situation and take a shot they should have.

[TheFeniX]

I pretty much agree with the rest of what you said, the ATF needs to do a better job with the illegal weapons end of things and police departments need to learn that not every traffic stop is a raid on some drug cartels main base of operations. That all said, that responsibility is on the department's end of things; individual officers should shoulder less of the blame for these events because they are constantly told over and over again what danger they're in. If you told me my job was dangerous and that I was at a high risk of being injured by violent crime and then gave me weapons training, I might be one of these officers that get into some situation and take a shot they should have.

By this same token, FAUX news and other conservative idiots keep crowing about how the black (or whatever minority) man is 5 seconds away from killing all the white men and raping all the white women and that America is a hella-violent place (it isn't, at least not in the places with money, shoving a majority of violent crime into poor urban sprawls) and that you need to be on guard every second of every day, also please stock-pile more guns.

If this had been the case of a repo-man trying to get keys for the deadbeat dad's car and reacting to the situation the same way because he had a concealed handgun, would you be making the same argument? Doubtful, you'd call that guy a moron who doesn't deserve a gun or (more importantly) freedom and should be locked away for a very long time.

And we'd be in complete agreement.

The whole "escalation" angle is dumb for both the private citizen and criminals. The biggest "upgrade" criminals got was when more started carrying automatic (note: not full auto) pistols instead of the cheap revolvers. And this is mainly because of the line of cheap automatics that hit the streets decades ago. While arguably more effective at murdering, there's no evidence to prove this. Criminals aren't out rocking machine guns and neither are private citizens. And violent crime has been decreasing (although not as much as I'd like) for decades. There was a rather large uptick in officer's shot in.... shit can't remember the years (I think it was 2 back in mid-2000s) but AFAIK they couldn't come up with any reasoning behind them. They seemed completely random.

However, law enforcement sure nailed "escalation" down enough to have their picture in the Dictionary next to the word.

[Simon_Jester]

What you have in America is essentially an arms race. You can look forward to the day when average citizens will be openly carrying machine guns as a matter of course.

No. Gun ownership wobbles up and down but has not been consistently rising or falling in recent years. There is no arms race as we normally understand the terms. There is overzealous police work, but that's always happened. If it's happening more often now it's probably more to do with the political and social pressures (lots of risky drug busts against potentially dangerous, violent criminals, so they get jittery). Not so much with the gun ownership statistics.

[Jub]

By this same token, FAUX news and other conservative idiots keep crowing about how the black (or whatever minority) man is 5 seconds away from killing all the white men and raping all the white women and that America is a hella-violent place (it isn't, at least not in the places with money, shoving a majority of violent crime into poor urban sprawls) and that you need to be on guard every second of every day, also please stock-pile more guns.

If this had been the case of a repo-man trying to get keys for the deadbeat dad's car and reacting to the situation the same way because he had a concealed handgun, would you be making the same argument? Doubtful, you'd call that guy a moron who doesn't deserve a gun or (more importantly) freedom and should be locked away for a very long time.

And we'd be in complete agreement.

The whole "escalation" angle is dumb for both the private citizen and criminals. The biggest "upgrade" criminals got was when more started carrying automatic (note: not full auto) pistols instead of the cheap revolvers. And this is mainly because of the line of cheap automatics that hit the streets decades ago. While arguably more effective at murdering, there's no evidence to prove this. Criminals aren't out rocking machine guns and neither are private citizens. And violent crime has been decreasing (although not as much as I'd like) for decades. There was a rather large uptick in officer's shot in.... shit can't remember the years (I think it was 2 back in mid-2000s) but AFAIK they couldn't come up with any reasoning behind them. They seemed completely random.

However, law enforcement sure nailed "escalation" down enough to have their picture in the Dictionary next to the word.

You make a good point comparing a repoman to a police officer, and honestly the repoman might have the more dangerous job. So I don't know, some if it has to do with training standards, some has to do with admission standards, and some has to do with the officer themselves. I'm just not sure who should get the blame in each case.

[Tribble]

Out of curiosity, would the right to bear arms include flamethrowers? Although I guess technically speaking they are not a firearm, more like a flame throwing device. Are there restrictions on building or buying one?

[Lord Revan]

I'll admit I'm not an American so my knowledge of US law is limited, but I suspect flamethrowers and RPGs would go under the same ban that fully automatic weapons go.

[Borgholio]

Flamethrowers are fully banned unless they're used for pyrotechnic demonstrations, and they have to be individually approved by the ATF. Not too hard to build one for yourself, just don't get caught.

[Simon_Jester]

Huh. I didn't know there were federal restrictions now.

[Borgholio]

Huh. I didn't know there were federal restrictions now.

You know, you're right. There are none. I could have sworn there were...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamethrow ... _ownership

Guess it's only some states that require licensing.

[TheFeniX]

You make a good point comparing a repoman to a police officer, and honestly the repoman might have the more dangerous job. So I don't know, some if it has to do with training standards, some has to do with admission standards, and some has to do with the officer themselves. I'm just not sure who should get the blame in each case.

The blame has to rest with the person who pulled the trigger, especially when the person is expected to understand the ramifications of their actions and also understand that they need to be more careful because they are the aggressor (for lack of a better term) when it comes to interactions with the public.

Basically, a cop should know that gun-like things exist and make sure to give him/herself the needed extra time and safety net to make a reasoned decision or be willing to risk injury or death to make that decision. A teenage boy answering his own front door should not have to worry that his wii-mote could be mistaken for a gun.

[Meest]

I don't get the not responding to the "who is it?" if that's what happened. If it's too dangerous to tell them you are serving a warrant or identify yourself, call the equivalent SWAT team. If someone is going to ambush you at the door and they haven't shot first I don't get why it isn't protocol to diffuse the situation as much as possible first by telling them to drop it or assume a passive position.

[Borgholio]

I always thought the Police were required to identify themselves before carrying out any sort of legal capacity. "City Police, please open the door." "Freeze, Police!". Etc...