General Police Abuse Thread

[Kamakazie Sith]

Nope. Even if you were minding your own business, doing nothing, and walking down the sidewalk only to get brained by one of the sacred Blue Shields of the [white] People, dragged to the ground and pistol whipped into a vegetative state, you are never allowed under any circumstances to defend yourself from police assault, provoked and justified or not. They however can kill who they want and when they want, and will escape any sort of punishment the vast majority of the time. All they have to do is say they felt their lives were in danger* and they're in the clear most of the time.

*Which is darkly funny, as not even soldiers on a foot patrol in an active urban combat zone get to make that excuse. Because it's accepted that they knew their job was dangerous when they volunteered, and have been trained and equipped to deal with it. All of which add up to me having zero sympathy when a cop gets ambushed or outshot. They don't like the situation? Too bad, they brought it on themselves.

They did. Are police judge and jury now. Isn't it upon the checks and balance of the system to fix these situations? I'd say that is actually the fault of your elected representatives, judges, and your fellow citizen.

Demolish the Blue Wall one corpse at a time.

Does this mean we get to kill all violent criminals and not just the violent corrupt cops?

[Terralthra]

Your assertions regarding the officers having given medical attention to Castile are contrary to the paramedics' description that when they arrived on scene 10 minutes later, no one had so much as checked Castile for a pulse.

If you are actually interested in truth you should be reviewing all evidence is its entirety. To me it's clear that you aren't judging from you're failure to do so and your distortion of events.

Your response to my "theatrics" around yet another black man being executed consequence-free by the police are telling. You're angry at me for pointing it out, instead angry at the legalized murder of an innocent man. He said "don't pull it out". If "it" is the gun, then Castile saying (multiple times) "I'm not" should have been sufficient to assure a calm officer not to fire. The fact that it wasn't and that apparently the smell of marijuana (fucking lol) was enough to convince Yanez that Castile didn't care about Yanez's life is evidence enough.

You're mistaken. I'm not angry at you for pointing out injustice. I'm angry at you for lying about what happened. I can deal with sarcasm and even exaggeration but lies. I just can't. I wouldn't bother convincing me that you weren't lying either. You may not have reviewed all the dash cam footage but you most certainly did review the footage that led up to the shooting so you know damn well the conversation was not; Get ID > Goes to get ID > Gets shot

There is plenty to be angry at Yanez for without distorting the facts.

"If it is the gun". It clearly is the gun for the reason I laid out. I'll do it again since you seem to struggle with this. Castile starts the subject on the gun AFTER Yanez asks for ID. Yanez immediately says don't reach for it, then Castile says he is not reaching for it. Clearly both of them understood what "it" is. Now, I don't think you're a moron but you are certainly behaving like one pretending like you don't understand how a conversation works.

If it is "clearly the gun", and Yanez understands that Castile is referring to the gun, then there is no reason to shoot him. That's what you don't seem to get. If Yanez says "Don't pull [the gun] out" and Castile says "I'm not", and Yanez knows Castile is referring to the gun then you're left with "Yanez thinks Castile is lying for no apparent reason, so he shot him" or "Yanez panicked, so he shot him". Which do you think it is? It's clear to me that in the 7 seconds between mentioning his being armed and being shot, Castile was reaching into his pocket for his requested driver's license. Yanez said "don't reach for [the gun]", Castile replied "I'm not", and Yanez shot him anyway. Thus, Castile was shot for getting his ID, which Yanez seems to have forgotten he requested.

"Don't pull it out"
"I'm not"
"Okedoke"

That's the version of that dialogue that occurs with a non-panicked officer. Alternatively, after saying "give me your ID", then changing the subject, Yanez could've said something unambiguous like "put your hands on the wheel please". Yanez's testimony and report clearly indicate he was in immediate fear for his own safety, such that he saw preemptively killing someone as "reasonable", based on his "broad nose" (racist dogwhistle) and the smell of marijuana.

Sure, Yanez could have been more specific but Castile could have also stopped moving or returned his hands to the wheel after being told a second time. Also remember, it was not Yanez that changed the subject. It was Castile.

Castile was not told to stop moving or to return his hands to the wheel. He was told not to pull out the gun, and he wasn't. That should be case fucking closed, but apparently cops can shoot people for obeying orders?

This is what I mean by theatrics. Yanez reason for shooting Castile had nothing to do with his nose. Castile nose was the reason he set out on the traffic stop but was not mentioned once when Yanez talked about his reason for shooting Castile. His reasoning for the shooting was mostly based around the gun. The defense attorney later added the whole marijuana hysteria for the trial but that wasn't in Yanez statement right after the fact. The bit about the marijuana is bullshit though but frankly defense attorney's routinely engage in bullshit and police aren't the only ones that benefit. It's kind of amusing to me when some pretend like this is a new thing just because a cop is on trial.

If you don't want Castile's nose to be brought up, then you have to simply say that Yanez was perjuring himself in court, and you're ok with that. Yanez said his reason for being tense and on-edge is his suspicion that Castile was the suspect for the robbery, which was ostensibly based on "his nose". I have my own hypothesis on what his actual suspicion was based on. I think you can guess my hypothesis. If the theatrics are absurd, the place to place that blame is on Yanez, not me.

Also, the reasoning for the stop was absolutely ridiculous. Two days ago he investigated a robbery and thought the nose looked familiar? Are you fucking kidding me. That's horseshit. Unfortunately, the language in MN laws isn't enough to put him behind bars. Does he deserve to be there? Yes. Does he deserve to be there with the language of MN laws? No.

Like most states, Minnesota laws protect police misconduct at the expense of innocent lives.

If you don't understand why "I just shot your boyfriend, now get on your knees so I can handcuff you 'for safety'" is unacceptable, I don't even know what to say. The only person in the entire situation whose handcuffing would improve the situation was the obviously frightened officer.

Ah. More theatrics. Tell me, Terralthra. How in the world did you get "I don't understand why handcuffing someone is unacceptable right after a horrible incident" from "cuffing individuals involved in an incident like this is fairly standard UNFORTUNATELY but I don't get why you think SHE'S AN ACCOMPLICE."

See, I was addressing your theatrics because it is clear that she was not an accomplice. She was handcuffed as per policy. Is it harsh. Absolutely. Is it outdated. Maybe but there is a history behind that and it involves incidents of police failing to control the situation which results in people getting hurt when they didn't need to be. Handcuffing mostly prevents this. However, back to what you said that it was done because they thought she was an accomplice. No. Absolutely not.

Of course she isn't an accomplice, because there was no fucking crime to which she could be an accomplice. Castile was shot for being armed while black, not a whit of criminal behavior. Calling her an accomplice was an extension of the previous facetious comment about Castile's crime being "be present while a police officer is scared".

[Napoleon the Clown]

How could he have not been shot? Why is he assumed guilty of reaching for a gun? Why would he, if planning to shoot a cop, announce he has a fucking gun?

Yeah, Yanez displayed his inexperience here but Castile was still ignoring Yanez instructions. It's important to know that failure to follow an officers instructions will result in force being used against you. That force is limited by the threat that you present. Being armed with a firearm raises your threat level significantly. During plain clothes training for police you're told very specifically that when uniforms show up you do exactly what they say. You don't argue. You don't try and show them your badge. You following their instructions to the letter.

Conflicting instructions were given. Showing ID requires reaching into the back pocket, for most people. Castile was in a no-win situation here, because I do not doubt that if he hadn't produced ID he'd have been arrested (probably unlawfully) for failing to produce ID.

Why is it that the deceased are guilty unless proven innocent?

Because the burden of proof is on the state and that standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense can present their own evidence to contradict the prosecution but they could also be completely silent.

Got it, lose all rights upon death. Unless there had been video from inside the car showing Castile with utter clarity there's no way to prove he wasn't reaching for a gun. He is therefor automatically guilty of reaching for a gun because a cop panicked upon hearing that he was practicing his Second Amendment right.

Should people with guns just assume that announcing having a firearm is likely to get them shot, so they'd best not even announce it?

Like I have covered several times in this thread. He wasn't shot because he had a gun or because he announced it. He was shot because he had a gun and allegedly failed to follow instructions. So, people should follow instructions in the order they are received. So, in this case if you're ask to go for your ID but then are told to stop reaching for it. You stop reaching for whatever is you're reaching for.

The cop went into a blind panic upon being informed of the firearm. Sounds to me like good motivation to not announce you have a gun, unless you decide to treat the cop as if he were a mugger.

Should they ask the cop "Would you like me to step out of the vehicle, hands raised, so you can retrieve my ID and firearm?"

This is exactly what many CCW classes teach.

It might be good for the NRA and gun companies to inform current and perspective gun owners about this. If this is the behavior police expect, it should be widely announced. I'd need to look up Minnesota CCW laws, but perhaps include these instructions in obtaining a CCW.

What can they do to not be shot to death? Do your Second Amendment rights evaporate when around cops? Or only if you're one of the "scary" minorities? How could Castile have retrieved ID without reaching where the cop couldn't see clearly?

See above. Do you think your second amendment rights give you the right to ignore instructions from a police officer on a traffic stop with said object of rights?

When you're told to stop reaching. He should have stopped and asked how the officer would like him to proceed.

And be told "Don't get smart with me! Show me your fucking license!" And then he'd be arrested on suspicion of possession and probably get his teeth beaten out of his face.

Has teleporting ID been invented and I just missed it?

Are you just ranting or do you actually want me to treat you as a serious participate in this discussion?

I am engaging in sarcasm, because there's literally no way to produce ID without reaching for it.

The cop assumed he was reaching for a gun. At absolute minimum, the cop in this case should be relegated to desk duty, because obviously he's too paranoid to be trusted with a firearm in a possibly tense situation. I recall the cop that got fired for not murdering a man with an unloaded gun, for ascertaining that the guy had no real intention of shooting anyone.

Yanez said he saw the gun. Whether that is true or not is unknown. At minimum he should be fired because he came up with a poor reason to stop someone. Unfortunately, current laws don't allow for prosecution when an officer fails to follow training or kills someone after an improper stop. I don't like the idea of pretext stops for this reason.

He said he saw the gun, but memory alone is so far from infallible it's not even funny. Poor lighting and paranoia can make the imagination run wild. Castile's shirt may have rode up some as he was attempting to retrieve ID, which caused the gun to show even without Castile's hand approaching the gun itself.

When a cop is let off the hook for shooting someone and cannot prove that that person was an active threat, then that's the same fucking result as the dead person being declared guilty of whatever crime. Only worse, because you don't automatically get executed for pointing a gun at someone.

The state won't execute you for pointing a gun at someone but that is absolutely justification for anyone to use deadly force against you. I think your problem is ultimately with self defense laws and court precedence behind them rather than cops. It's not like cops are the only people that have shot and killed unarmed people and gotten away with it or been acquitted in court.

Classy source for the citation, bro.

Looking into it, he was charged by all three of them. Snopes link

Not as cut-and-dry as the white supremacist site you linked to makes it sound. Three people charging is certainly cause for alarm, so I can understand why he may panic.

I'm lucky enough to be a skinny, short white guy. I am among the least threatening people a cop can interact with, so the odds of being the victim of lethal force are pretty low for me. I still wouldn't trust a cop as far as I can throw their cruiser because if the cop just so happens to be a shitty cop and decides to fuck me over, there is probably no recourse because cops so very often get off with armed robbery (fun fact: you can't make them pay your attorney's fees if you sue to get your shit back-assuming it didn't "get lost") and outright murder. It is readily apparent that there are bad cops and that they usually get away with being bad cops. So long as that is the case, no cop can be trusted. You simply cannot know if they're a power-hungry dick that's pretending to be normal until you've been lulled into a false sense of security.

Agreed. You shouldn't trust the police. Really, though. You shouldn't trust anyone is behavior of people within that career field is to be that indicator.

Cop killers rarely get off without prison time. Hell, threatening a cop will nab you more prison time than the cop is likely to get for killing you just because (and then lying and saying he thought you were going for a gun). How would you feel if someone were to hold a cop at gun-point and upon being successfully arrested with no lethal force employed successfully said the cop was unlawfully threatening him and he feared for his life? Or if someone killed a cop and got away with it by arguing the cop was attempting to use unlawful, lethal force and nobody could prove otherwise?

I'm not happy about the current state of things or the outcome of this case so don't assume that. I'm explaining why a jury would have had reasonable doubt in this situation because it seems people are confused as to why. It's actually very simple but also illustrates why we need specific laws that deal with police abuse.

It's not confusing at all as to why. The word of cops is taken as gospel by default, and the "justice" system isn't exactly charitable toward racial minorities as a rule. As far as laws about when dealing with police abuse... You agree that those laws must be written in a way so as to hold police to a higher standard than civilians, and the laws be constructed so as to best protect civilians?

At this point, it's entirely understandable why there are those who feel like killing cops is a reasonable course of action. That's not to say I agree with them, or condone their actions in any way. But I fully understand why they might feel that way. After so goddamn many stories of people who posed no discernible threat being killed by the police and the police not suffering any real consequences, it seems like they're a bunch of government-sanctioned assassins.

Yeah, the narrative produced by the media certainly does paint that picture. Of course, we never hear any stories about how rare it is for a police officer in the US to use a firearm but you seem to be one of the people that are happy to declare that US police are trigger happy. On average there are 44 million police/citizen contacts per year. There are between 1000 and 1200 fatal shootings by police per year. Even if all those were like this incident that would only be .002% of all police encounters.

You're absolutely right regarding accountability though. That is absolutely reflected in the data.

Minorities, blacks especially, are more often subjected to force. Especially lethal force. They're more often "randomly" stopped by the police. It's a fucked situation. You seem to agree on that matter.

Horses apparently have steadier nerves than the police are expected to have, and claiming a horse is afraid of its own shadow is only a mild exaggeration. I would think that a public servant, whose job is "protect and serve" would be held to a higher standard. But I guess that's not the case.

Well, a gun is not a shadow but overall I agree that Yanez didn't have much nerve. Frankly, the stop shouldn't have happened in the first place but he should also be experienced or educated enough to understand that dangerous criminals don't tell you that they have a gun. Yanez should have taken more control of the situation if he felt uncomfortable instead of repeating the same instruction.

A shadow can be mistaken for a gun, though...

I'm glad we agree that Yanez didn't handle the situation properly.

[Simon_Jester]

How could he have not been shot? Why is he assumed guilty of reaching for a gun? Why would he, if planning to shoot a cop, announce he has a fucking gun? Why is it that the deceased are guilty unless proven innocent?

Point of order: Finding the defendant in a murder trial to be 'not guilty' by reason of 'reasonable doubt of his guilt' is not the same as proving that the victim was guilty of some crime.

The question is not "is Castile some kind of evil scary criminal?" The question is, "is there reasonable doubt that the officer committed murder for no goddamn reason anyone can identify?"

Your argument appears to be that Yanez was beyond a reasonable doubt committing a cold-blooded killing, and shouting out exculpatory words into the recorder so that he'd have an alibi after the fact. If that is not your argument, I have no idea what your argument is.

Should people with guns just assume that announcing having a firearm is likely to get them shot, so they'd best not even announce it? Should they ask the cop "Would you like me to step out of the vehicle, hands raised, so you can retrieve my ID and firearm?" What can they do to not be shot to death? Do your Second Amendment rights evaporate when around cops? Or only if you're one of the "scary" minorities? How could Castile have retrieved ID without reaching where the cop couldn't see clearly? Has teleporting ID been invented and I just missed it? The cop assumed he was reaching for a gun.

Once upon a time I was pulled over by a campus police officer. He asked for my vehicle registration. I affirmed that I would get it and reached for the glove compartment. I opened the glove compartment.

Abruptly, he told me to stop. I stopped.

We exchanged further words, and it became clear that he'd seen a glint of metal in my glove compartment (a tire pressure gauge, as it happened), and wanted to know what it was before I reached any further. Life went on, I got away with a warning for speeding.

Now, I'm not pretending I was in a situation where I was anywhere near death there. White guy on college campus, et cetera.

...

But all this amped-up sarcasm on your part is acting as a smokescreen for an important observation:

If you are moving in an attempt to comply with a police officer's instructions, and the police officer says 'stop,' just fucking stop. Seriously, this is a reasonable rule to use even when talking about random people. If someone asks me to do something, and I begin doing so, and they say 'stop!"... I stop. Before I ask why, before I get into an argument, I stop. There might be a handful of exceptions to that rule, but it's a pretty good rule. Very rarely is it a good idea to carry out an action against the wishes of the person who requested that action in the first place. Even more rarely is it a good idea to do that when the person in question is an authority figure.

Castile did not stop. Does this make him some sort of evil person? Obviously not. Does this make him somehow 'guilty' of any offense that any sane person would criticize anyone for? Obviously not.

But I bet there's a parallel universe very close to this one where Castile stopped reaching into his pocket, and in this parallel universe, he is alive and well. If Castile's life matters in the scheme of things, well... we can wish he'd stopped reaching into his pocket the first time Yanez said "stop."

We can also wish Yanez had taken up a career less likely to cause his hair trigger panic reactions, such as flower arranging. We can wish Yanez had been otherwise occupied and had not encountered Castile. We can wish Yavuz were not a goddamn idiot who stopped Castile for a stupid reason. We can even wish Yanez had never been born.

But I, for one, ALSO wish Castile had just stopped reaching into his pocket.

At absolute minimum, the cop in this case should be relegated to desk duty, because obviously he's too paranoid to be trusted with a firearm in a possibly tense situation. I recall the cop that got fired for not murdering a man with an unloaded gun, for ascertaining that the guy had no real intention of shooting anyone.

When a cop is let off the hook for shooting someone and cannot prove that that person was an active threat, then that's the same fucking result as the dead person being declared guilty of whatever crime.

No, it's not.

If John Doe kills Joe Smith, and is declared 'not guilty by reason of self defense,' that is NOT equivalent to Joe Smith being convicted of assaulting John Doe. Because all that is established is that there is reasonable doubt. It is within the realm of realistic, plausible, reasonable possibility that John Doe was in fear of his life.

This does not make Joe Smith a killer, or a man who commits assault and battery. There may be situations where Joe Smith does something totally innocent and still, entirely by accident, causes John Doe to fear for his life... and then John Doe kills Joe Smith, and potentially gets away with it by pleading self-defense.

The equivalency you are drawing here is completely false from a legal point of view.

It doesn't even work in civil cases where the burden of proof is lighter. If you sue me, claiming I am liable for damages, and I prove that I am not liable, that doesn't mean I get to turn around and somehow sue you for being liable. Or that anyone else does, either. Maybe someone else is liable, maybe no one is liable. In and of itself, a "not guilty" verdict that exonerates me does NOTHING to prove anyone else guilty of a crime.

And with how often cops aren't so much as indicted, much less convicted, even when blatantly guilty of a criminal act there's no real motivation to not be a corrupt, abusive fuck. Cop killers rarely get off without prison time. Hell, threatening a cop will nab you more prison time than the cop is likely to get for killing you just because (and then lying and saying he thought you were going for a gun). How would you feel if someone were to hold a cop at gun-point and upon being successfully arrested with no lethal force employed successfully said the cop was unlawfully threatening him and he feared for his life? Or if someone killed a cop and got away with it by arguing the cop was attempting to use unlawful, lethal force and nobody could prove otherwise?

You're making a very interesting game-theory argument at the start of this post.

You're arguing that since police are seldom punished for crimes, they have no incentive not to commit crimes. This is a very good point. Why would police be honest, if it were safe for them to be corrupt?

Let me turn that around and ask you a similar question. Would police be able to do their jobs at all, if it were safe for people to threaten them with violence?

Criminals have extra incentives to attack and kill police officers, because police officers are a major threat to criminals' ability to operate. If there is no counterbalancing incentive NOT to do so, what happens?

At this point, it's entirely understandable why there are those who feel like killing cops is a reasonable course of action. That's not to say I agree with them, or condone their actions in any way. But I fully understand why they might feel that way. After so goddamn many stories of people who posed no discernible threat being killed by the police and the police not suffering any real consequences, it seems like they're a bunch of government-sanctioned assassins.

Let me ask you two questions, which I think I have a right to hear an answer to.

1) In a population of three hundred million citizens and somewhere in the neighborhood of one million police officers, exactly how few individual instances of bad cops would there have to be, before you would feel safe? Please state a number you think would be reasonable, such as "no more than one per year" or "no more than two per day."

2) Would you feel safe if a dozen cases of corrupt cops were reported every week?

[Kamakazie Sith]

If it is "clearly the gun", and Yanez understands that Castile is referring to the gun, then there is no reason to shoot him. That's what you don't seem to get. If Yanez says "Don't pull [the gun] out" and Castile says "I'm not", and Yanez knows Castile is referring to the gun then you're left with "Yanez thinks Castile is lying for no apparent reason, so he shot him" or "Yanez panicked, so he shot him". Which do you think it is? It's clear to me that in the 7 seconds between mentioning his being armed and being shot, Castile was reaching into his pocket for his requested driver's license.

Saying and doing are two different things. The fact that Yanez repeated his instruction could be interpreted to me that Castile was saying but not doing.

Yanez said "don't reach for [the gun]", Castile replied "I'm not", and Yanez shot him anyway. Thus, Castile was shot for getting his ID, which Yanez seems to have forgotten he requested.

Incorrect. Yanez said "don't reach for", Yanez then says "Don't pull it out", Castile replies "I'm not", then Yanez repeats this instruction as he is reaching in the car and pulling his gun then he shoots Castile.

Castile was not told to stop moving or to return his hands to the wheel. He was told not to pull out the gun, and he wasn't. That should be case fucking closed, but apparently cops can shoot people for obeying orders?

According to you he wasn't. Yanez thought he was because according to his testimony he saw Castile move his hand towards his right thigh area and the center console. Though again I agree Yanez should have been very specific but that apparently wasn't enough to convince a jury that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you don't want Castile's nose to be brought up, then you have to simply say that Yanez was perjuring himself in court, and you're ok with that. Yanez said his reason for being tense and on-edge is his suspicion that Castile was the suspect for the robbery, which was ostensibly based on "his nose". I have my own hypothesis on what his actual suspicion was based on. I think you can guess my hypothesis. If the theatrics are absurd, the place to place that blame is on Yanez, not me.

Yes, but that was not his reason for shooting him like you claimed. His reason for shooting Castile was because he thought his hand was trying to grab a gun. I put the blame on the person creating the theatrics. That is you. You are borderline dishonest.

Like most states, Minnesota laws protect police misconduct at the expense of innocent lives.

I don't know if the language specific protects the police but it is certainly inadequate enough that they are protected via that.

Of course she isn't an accomplice, because there was no fucking crime to which she could be an accomplice. Castile was shot for being armed while black, not a whit of criminal behavior. Calling her an accomplice was an extension of the previous facetious comment about Castile's crime being "be present while a police officer is scared".

No, he was shot because Yanez is a nervous officer that was obviously inadequately trained and interpreted Castile failure to follow his instructions as a hostile act. Racism could factor into it but you're just taking liberties with that.

[Gandalf]

Should they ask the cop "Would you like me to step out of the vehicle, hands raised, so you can retrieve my ID and firearm?"

This is exactly what many CCW classes teach.

It might be good for the NRA and gun companies to inform current and perspective gun owners about this. If this is the behavior police expect, it should be widely announced. I'd need to look up Minnesota CCW laws, but perhaps include these instructions in obtaining a CCW.

In a country where carrying weaponry is considered one of the most important rights, why is "how to handle a cop" a class people have to take? Isn't it on the police to know how to deal with armed citizens in a case like this?

[Raw Shark]

"Put the gun on the other side of the dashboard as soon as you see blue lights," is one of the first things my uncle on my Dad's side taught me as a kid. Though, he also taught me, "Don't ever get a tattoo anywhere a judge can see," and how to recite the alphabet backwards, which saved my ass once when I was nineteen. Pretty smart guy other than the 'shiner/liver failure thing, my uncle. And I taught my niece the same.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Saying and doing are two different things. The fact that Yanez repeated his instruction could be interpreted to me that Castile was saying but not doing.

Here is my sense on this. The officer gave contradictory instructions. He wanted ID, Castille did the responsible thing and politely informed the officer that he had a gun. "Don't reach for it then" is fine as an instruction, but Castille still had to get his ID as per the officer's instructions (I think this is a bit people have not been communicating adequately, largely because I don't think anyone here is being dispassionate right now).

If the officer is reasonable and not panicking (which is the definition of the reasonable person--or reasonable officer--standard of law) then he should conclude that Castille was being responsible about informing him of a gun (rather than threatening him), and was complying with instructions. If the officer was not certain, he should have clarified that he wanted Castille to put his hands on the wheel or exit the vehicle with his hands up so that said officer could remove the weapon and obtain ID in safety. He failed to do this. At every single step of this stop, Yanez failed to do anything that a reasonable officer should do. He failed to do anything that I am absolutely confident that you would do under identical conditions.

He was grossly negligent, and as a result someone is dead. That is manslaughter in most jurisdictions that I am aware.

According to you he wasn't. Yanez thought he was because according to his testimony he saw Castile move his hand towards his right thigh area and the center console. Though again I agree Yanez should have been very specific but that apparently wasn't enough to convince a jury that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Point of information: center console or right pocket is also where most people keep their ID, which is what Yanez instructed Castile to obtain. Could Castile have clarified that he was going for his ID? Sure! But thinking clearly in the situation he was in is not his job. It literally was Yanez's job.

As for the racism: I think ultimately, that is the root cause. Yanez could not tell black people apart, and as a result was psychologically primed to think that Castile was a threat. Thus comes the panic, thus comes the negligence.

[Thanas]

I don't get how somebody can be justifiably shot by police by reaching into something when the person's demeanor was nonthreatening.

It just does not compute with me how police can be that aggressive and stupid and not go to jail for this shit.

[mr friendly guy]

"Put the gun on the other side of the dashboard as soon as you see blue lights," is one of the first things my uncle on my Dad's side taught me as a kid. Though, he also taught me, "Don't ever get a tattoo anywhere a judge can see," and how to recite the alphabet backwards, which saved my ass once when I was nineteen. Pretty smart guy other than the 'shiner/liver failure thing, my uncle. And I taught my niece the same.

What's to stop the police claiming he thought you had a second gun and shooting you?

Edit - the average American gun owning household owns 8.1 guns, so having a second gun on you is statistically plausible.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/ ... un-ow.aspx

[Thanas]

[Raw Shark]

What's to stop the police claiming he thought you had a second gun and shooting you?

Well, as has been said by the actual cop, there is a certain amount of judgment involved. I personally disarm myself and inform the officer of anything on my person, and then let him or her remove it. Who's got two thumbs and no bullet scars? This guy.

[Raw Shark]

Ghetto Edit:

Yanez is an idiot who has no right to wear a badge. I'm not letting him off the hook here.

[Thanas]

Yanez should spent the rest of his life in jail, but this is America so he gets the fuck off with a golden parachute.

I am not kidding. They are paying him as part of a seperation agreement. link.

[JLTucker]

@KS: I think all of the "innocent" cops should be gunned down while theyre protesting their treatment at the hands of the populace the pussy bitches are scared of. The fact that they have the audacity to shoot someone in front of kids is proof enough that we should fear for our safety. Maybe we should smoke blunts while we shoot them in the back. Maybe plant a gun on them. Maybe put them in a chokehold while they scream that they can't breathe. No cop is innocent: they're all a part of the Blue Wall Society and have the group think mentality of terrorists.

[Raw Shark]

Okay, that's going a little far, but Yanez is a jackass.

[JLTucker]

Okay, that's going a little far, but Yanez is a jackass.

Of course it's going far... for civilians. But not cops.

[Raw Shark]

Okay, that's going a little far, but Yanez is a jackass.

Of course it's going far... for civilians. But not cops.

Yes, well... I think the same rules should apply. Fuck the Blue Wall. Right in the ear.

[Vendetta]

I don't get how somebody can be justifiably shot by police by reaching into something when the person's demeanor was nonthreatening.

It just does not compute with me how police can be that aggressive and stupid and not go to jail for this shit.

That's because you live in a country where the relationship between the police and public isn't predominantly hostile.

US police seem to be trained to be abjectly terrified of the people they interact with, and so are hypersensitive to anything that might be percieved as an aggressive action. Statistically, having black skin is likely to be percieved as an aggressive action by US police.

[Terralthra]

I don't get how somebody can be justifiably shot by police by reaching into something when the person's demeanor was nonthreatening.

It just does not compute with me how police can be that aggressive and stupid and not go to jail for this shit.

That's because you live in a country where the relationship between the police and public isn't predominantly hostile.

US police seem to be trained to be abjectly terrified of the people they interact with, and so are hypersensitive to anything that might be percieved as an aggressive action. Statistically, having black skin is likely to be percieved as an aggressive action by US police.

The US police force was formed to police runaway slaves. It isn't surprising that the institution is still racist.

[Alyrium Denryle]

@KS: I think all of the "innocent" cops should be gunned down while theyre protesting their treatment at the hands of the populace the pussy bitches are scared of. The fact that they have the audacity to shoot someone in front of kids is proof enough that we should fear for our safety. Maybe we should smoke blunts while we shoot them in the back. Maybe plant a gun on them. Maybe put them in a chokehold while they scream that they can't breathe. No cop is innocent: they're all a part of the Blue Wall Society and have the group think mentality of terrorists.

Hi! This is your mod speaking. WTF is this? No, seriously, WTF is this? I mean, Holy Generalization Fallacy, Batman! Not only that, it is just toxic BS and flamewar bait, which I will not permit in this thread. You will either construct a cogent argument on this that is *somewhat* civil, or action will be taken proportionate to the magnitude of your recalcitrance.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I don't get how somebody can be justifiably shot by police by reaching into something when the person's demeanor was nonthreatening.

It just does not compute with me how police can be that aggressive and stupid and not go to jail for this shit.

That's because you live in a country where the relationship between the police and public isn't predominantly hostile.

US police seem to be trained to be abjectly terrified of the people they interact with, and so are hypersensitive to anything that might be percieved as an aggressive action. Statistically, having black skin is likely to be percieved as an aggressive action by US police.

The US police force was formed to police runaway slaves. It isn't surprising that the institution is still racist.

That is not actually true. The first police in the US were based on the old english common law system of an elected official (sheriff) deputizing (often by force) the local population. In the South, yes, that meant runaway slave patrols. In the northern states, it didn't. Most of the earliest police forces (in our modern sense of the term) in the US were in the northern slavery-free states (with the exception being Richmond, VA), and they were organized as whole-scale imports of the British civil service model.

[Napoleon the Clown]

How could he have not been shot? Why is he assumed guilty of reaching for a gun? Why would he, if planning to shoot a cop, announce he has a fucking gun? Why is it that the deceased are guilty unless proven innocent?

Point of order: Finding the defendant in a murder trial to be 'not guilty' by reason of 'reasonable doubt of his guilt' is not the same as proving that the victim was guilty of some crime.

The question is not "is Castile some kind of evil scary criminal?" The question is, "is there reasonable doubt that the officer committed murder for no goddamn reason anyone can identify?"

Your argument appears to be that Yanez was beyond a reasonable doubt committing a cold-blooded killing, and shouting out exculpatory words into the recorder so that he'd have an alibi after the fact. If that is not your argument, I have no idea what your argument is.

When acting in the capacity of an officer of the law, the bar should be several orders of magnitude higher so as to prevent these situations. A reasonable person would not conclude that a dude announcing he has a gun and CCW is making a threat. A reasonable cop should be held to a much higher standard yet.

Should people with guns just assume that announcing having a firearm is likely to get them shot, so they'd best not even announce it? Should they ask the cop "Would you like me to step out of the vehicle, hands raised, so you can retrieve my ID and firearm?" What can they do to not be shot to death? Do your Second Amendment rights evaporate when around cops? Or only if you're one of the "scary" minorities? How could Castile have retrieved ID without reaching where the cop couldn't see clearly? Has teleporting ID been invented and I just missed it? The cop assumed he was reaching for a gun.

Once upon a time I was pulled over by a campus police officer. He asked for my vehicle registration. I affirmed that I would get it and reached for the glove compartment. I opened the glove compartment.

Abruptly, he told me to stop. I stopped.

We exchanged further words, and it became clear that he'd seen a glint of metal in my glove compartment (a tire pressure gauge, as it happened), and wanted to know what it was before I reached any further. Life went on, I got away with a warning for speeding.

Now, I'm not pretending I was in a situation where I was anywhere near death there. White guy on college campus, et cetera.

...

But all this amped-up sarcasm on your part is acting as a smokescreen for an important observation:

If you are moving in an attempt to comply with a police officer's instructions, and the police officer says 'stop,' just fucking stop. Seriously, this is a reasonable rule to use even when talking about random people. If someone asks me to do something, and I begin doing so, and they say 'stop!"... I stop. Before I ask why, before I get into an argument, I stop. There might be a handful of exceptions to that rule, but it's a pretty good rule. Very rarely is it a good idea to carry out an action against the wishes of the person who requested that action in the first place. Even more rarely is it a good idea to do that when the person in question is an authority figure.

Castile did not stop. Does this make him some sort of evil person? Obviously not. Does this make him somehow 'guilty' of any offense that any sane person would criticize anyone for? Obviously not.

But I bet there's a parallel universe very close to this one where Castile stopped reaching into his pocket, and in this parallel universe, he is alive and well. If Castile's life matters in the scheme of things, well... we can wish he'd stopped reaching into his pocket the first time Yanez said "stop."

We can also wish Yanez had taken up a career less likely to cause his hair trigger panic reactions, such as flower arranging. We can wish Yanez had been otherwise occupied and had not encountered Castile. We can wish Yavuz were not a goddamn idiot who stopped Castile for a stupid reason. We can even wish Yanez had never been born.

But I, for one, ALSO wish Castile had just stopped reaching into his pocket.

And if he had stopped he wouldn't have been able to retrieve his ID, and Yanez probably would have flipped his shit over that too. A racist, panicky motherfucker like Yanez would flip out no matter what Castile had done because black=matches description of a bank robber.

At absolute minimum, the cop in this case should be relegated to desk duty, because obviously he's too paranoid to be trusted with a firearm in a possibly tense situation. I recall the cop that got fired for not murdering a man with an unloaded gun, for ascertaining that the guy had no real intention of shooting anyone.

When a cop is let off the hook for shooting someone and cannot prove that that person was an active threat, then that's the same fucking result as the dead person being declared guilty of whatever crime.

No, it's not.

If John Doe kills Joe Smith, and is declared 'not guilty by reason of self defense,' that is NOT equivalent to Joe Smith being convicted of assaulting John Doe. Because all that is established is that there is reasonable doubt. It is within the realm of realistic, plausible, reasonable possibility that John Doe was in fear of his life.

This does not make Joe Smith a killer, or a man who commits assault and battery. There may be situations where Joe Smith does something totally innocent and still, entirely by accident, causes John Doe to fear for his life... and then John Doe kills Joe Smith, and potentially gets away with it by pleading self-defense.

The equivalency you are drawing here is completely false from a legal point of view.

It doesn't even work in civil cases where the burden of proof is lighter. If you sue me, claiming I am liable for damages, and I prove that I am not liable, that doesn't mean I get to turn around and somehow sue you for being liable. Or that anyone else does, either. Maybe someone else is liable, maybe no one is liable. In and of itself, a "not guilty" verdict that exonerates me does NOTHING to prove anyone else guilty of a crime.

This goes back to police acting as enforcers of the law. They need to be held to a higher standard, for the safety of the people they claim to be protecting. If a cop arrests you without a reason, that's a criminal act. Why isn't it a criminal act to kill you wrongfully? "Suspect matches description of suspect in X crime" and then the person who was arrested in no way matches the description would be a wrongful arrest. "This guy is pulling a gun" and the guy isn't pulling a gun, same deal.

And with how often cops aren't so much as indicted, much less convicted, even when blatantly guilty of a criminal act there's no real motivation to not be a corrupt, abusive fuck. Cop killers rarely get off without prison time. Hell, threatening a cop will nab you more prison time than the cop is likely to get for killing you just because (and then lying and saying he thought you were going for a gun). How would you feel if someone were to hold a cop at gun-point and upon being successfully arrested with no lethal force employed successfully said the cop was unlawfully threatening him and he feared for his life? Or if someone killed a cop and got away with it by arguing the cop was attempting to use unlawful, lethal force and nobody could prove otherwise?

You're making a very interesting game-theory argument at the start of this post.

You're arguing that since police are seldom punished for crimes, they have no incentive not to commit crimes. This is a very good point. Why would police be honest, if it were safe for them to be corrupt?

Let me turn that around and ask you a similar question. Would police be able to do their jobs at all, if it were safe for people to threaten them with violence?

Criminals have extra incentives to attack and kill police officers, because police officers are a major threat to criminals' ability to operate. If there is no counterbalancing incentive NOT to do so, what happens?

As it stands, the bar for a cop's use of force being considered justified is "the cop said he felt it was justified" and that's that. We are having regular reports of cops using lethal force and it turning out the person they killed wasn't a real threat. If there's a gun actually being leveled at them, if the person is charging them... Then a case can be made. "I thought he was pulling a gun" is not sufficient. Police are almost never held accountable in this country. They cannot be trusted. They can throw a fucking flashbang into a child's crib and not be convicted. Police have a substantially higher rate of being domestic abusers than the national average. Cops that do get fired (but not convicted!) can just go get a job as a cop at another station oftentimes. Unless we pass laws specifically condoning cop-slaying, it will never give criminals the leeway cops get by default. That's a dishonest argument, and a stupid one. Soldiers in a war zone have a higher bar for lethal force than police that are supposedly protecting us. Something is kind of really fucked up here, and it isn't that soldiers have rules of engagement.

At this point, it's entirely understandable why there are those who feel like killing cops is a reasonable course of action. That's not to say I agree with them, or condone their actions in any way. But I fully understand why they might feel that way. After so goddamn many stories of people who posed no discernible threat being killed by the police and the police not suffering any real consequences, it seems like they're a bunch of government-sanctioned assassins.

Let me ask you two questions, which I think I have a right to hear an answer to.

1) In a population of three hundred million citizens and somewhere in the neighborhood of one million police officers, exactly how few individual instances of bad cops would there have to be, before you would feel safe? Please state a number you think would be reasonable, such as "no more than one per year" or "no more than two per day."

2) Would you feel safe if a dozen cases of corrupt cops were reported every week?

1) It's not just number of cases of police abuse, it's that they constantly get away with it. I don't expect a random cop to even pay attention to me because like I said: Skinny, short white guy. I'm about as non-threatening as a person can get. I'm not afraid of the police, I simply do not trust them to behave in an ethical manner.

2) I would feel better if the shitty cops actually faced punishment, but they do not. I would feel they are trustworthy if the so-called "good cops" worked to root out corruption and rot from within, rather than circling the wagons. Any cop that helps cover up corruption is a bad cop. Any cop who turns a blind eye to abuse is a bad cop.

It seems there are damn few "good cops" by the "work to root out corruption" metric. Hell, even if we define good cop as "doesn't turn a blind eye to bad behavior" it seems there's a shortage of good cops.

It's really quite simple: Police are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want with near-impunity. They are held to a lower standard than the average person yet entrusted with a greater amount of power. If they actually faced real consequences for abusing their authority (fired with no severance pay and they lose their retirement entirely, actually face the same or more prison time as a civilian for the same crime) the rate of corruption would decrease. If independent bodies were utilized for allegations of corruption or abuse, corruption and abuse would drop. I'm not going to peg an arbitrary number when I can instead give some suggestions on ways to reduce the problem.

[JLTucker]

@KS: I think all of the "innocent" cops should be gunned down while theyre protesting their treatment at the hands of the populace the pussy bitches are scared of. The fact that they have the audacity to shoot someone in front of kids is proof enough that we should fear for our safety. Maybe we should smoke blunts while we shoot them in the back. Maybe plant a gun on them. Maybe put them in a chokehold while they scream that they can't breathe. No cop is innocent: they're all a part of the Blue Wall Society and have the group think mentality of terrorists.

Hi! This is your mod speaking. WTF is this? No, seriously, WTF is this? I mean, Holy Generalization Fallacy, Batman! Not only that, it is just toxic BS and flamewar bait, which I will not permit in this thread. You will either construct a cogent argument on this that is *somewhat* civil, or action will be taken proportionate to the magnitude of your recalcitrance.

This is satire that mentions various murders at the hands of police, including details from this case AND the choke-hold performed on Eric Garner. I figured someone of your caliber would have figure that out. I guess not.

Edit: I thought THIS would have been enough :

Okay, that's going a little far, but Yanez is a jackass.

Of course it's going far... for civilians. But not cops.

[mr friendly guy]

What's to stop the police claiming he thought you had a second gun and shooting you?

Well, as has been said by the actual cop, there is a certain amount of judgment involved. I personally disarm myself and inform the officer of anything on my person, and then let him or her remove it. Who's got two thumbs and no bullet scars? This guy.

Oh I agree there is a certain judgement involved. I just don't trust cops like Yanez. Seriously, Castille said I have a gun. Who tells a cop they have a gun then pulls it out? That fact alone should have rang alarm bells in the mind of anyone hearing this.

With your gun on the dashboard scenario, you are also indicating to the cop you have a weapon, but he could also apply Yanez logic and think you're still pulling out a weapon despite letting them know.