Black Lives Matter ... White Lives, too

[Proteus_MST]

Just saw the sickening video in this article:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...-daniel-shaver

I for my part can only call this a plain execution.
The officer who shot went out of court free of any charges ... the only negative consequence is, that he lost his job.

What's wrong with the US law enforcement system?


#5999

[Broken_Erika]

I'm sure that there are those who'll say that he was a hero and that it was wrong to fire him.
After all; All Suspects are Guilty. PERIOD. Otherwise, they wouldn't be suspects, would they.

[Berzerker]

I'd call it stupidity - the victim was pointing a (pellet) rifle out the window to shoot birds with his drinking buddies (nice) and somebody reported it so swat showed up. The cop tells the victim to crawl on his knees toward him, his pants fall down and he reaches down for his pants and gets blown away.

[Proteus_MST]

Yes,stupidity from the victim was, of course, involved (maybe connected to him being drunk)

But there had been so many ways to solve it without shooting him.
Especially as there were several officers (6), not just the one who shot (= Brailsford).

They could have handcuffed him while he wwas lying down (instead of letting him crawl over).

As Shaver reached for the waistband, they could have waited a few seconds more what happens (it is IMHO significant that only Pilip Brailsford fired and noone of the 5 other policemen who had their guns pointed at Shaver)

And even if firing, Braidford could have just fired a single shot and not, what he did, fire a full burst of 5 shots from his AT-15 into Shaver (or just used his personal Glock and not his AR-15)
That's not just: "Shoot first, ask questions later"
but rather: "Shoot first and kill the suspect, so you don't have to ask him questions later"

Seems like Bralsford even had a "nice" inscription etched into his AR-15: "You're ****ed" (which was part of the reasons why he was fired a few months after the execution ... not because of the execution itself).
Warning...graphic images in the following link (aside from the gun it also contains autopsy photos):
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2...eleased-today/

Sounds to me like one of these gun nuts which see the gun as replacement for their Penis ... and someone who should have never become a policeman (IMHO it is unfortunate that Bilsford most likely will still be able to privately own guns ... or even be hired by a security firm (or maybe even by police in another district?))


#6000

[giblets]

Pigs.

[ZEE]

I never heard of a beat cop carrying around an assault rifle. Then again I didn't read the article.

[Proteus_MST]

I never heard of a beat cop carrying around an assault rifle. Then again I didn't read the article.

2nd article says that it was "his personal AR-15".
Sounds to me like it was his privately owned weapon and they allowed him to use it at work.
Which would explain why he etched "You're ****ed" into his weapon (don't think he would have done so if the weapon belonged to the police station), but leaves the question if this is common practice in the USA that police stations let their policemen use their privately owned weapons at work
(after all I am living in a contry where policemen can not legally own more firepower at home than they use at work (at most a rifle+pistol, if they are licensed hunters, or small calibre weapons, if they are members of a shooting club, so here it is out of question that a policeman brings his own weapons for work (on the other hand AFAIK german policemen are allowed to upgrade to better bulletproof vests at their own expenses))

[BlackCat]

Something seems to have gone horribly wrong in a South Carolina court :

A white former South Carolina police officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a federal judge on Thursday for the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist, an unusually severe sentence for a police shooting.

The judge had earlier ruled that Michael Slager, who shot and killed Walter Scott after a traffic stop in 2015, committed second-degree murder, paving the way for the sentence. Slager had already pleaded guilty to the use of excessive force on Scott in May, but it fell to US district judge David Norton to determine if the shooting qualified as murder or manslaughter. The murder designation meant that Norton was working from sentencing guidelines recommending Slager spend 19 to 24 years in prison, and he sentenced the former officer to 20 years.

[Broken_Erika]

Something seems to have gone horribly wrong in a South Carolina court :

A sad day in Amercia when a Police officer is held accountable for shooting an unarmed colored person. The Judge must be operating under the influence of Hillary and Liberalism. I'm sure the truth lies in the deleted e-mails between Hillary and Mr.Banghazi! And the fact that some people are against police brutality is proof that Obama's water fluoridation and Diabolical Microwave Mind-control scheme has ensnared trillions of hard working Amercians!

[Berzerker]

yeah, that was murder

[Kidlicious]

How come when a cop murders someone people ask what is wrong with cops, but when a muslim..
.

[Kidlicious]

I'd call it stupidity - the victim was pointing a (pellet) rifle out the window to shoot birds with his drinking buddies (nice) and somebody reported it so swat showed up. The cop tells the victim to crawl on his knees toward him, his pants fall down and he reaches down for his pants and gets blown away.

Yeah, he was drunk and reached for his shorts. Stupid move. That's why he was acquitted. Never do anything stupid when police have their guns drawn.

Not murder. Don't falsely accuse people of murder. You yourself said that he reached for his shorts.

[-Jrabbit]

It's still murder IMHO. Certainly an excessive use of force. Absolutely no need to shoot to kill with a burst of 5 bullets. Dude is helpless on the ground, obeying the cop's orders to crawl, literally begging not to be shot. How about one shot to his hand, or his arm, his leg, his shoulder -- plenty of ways to *not kill* a cooperative, prone suspect.

[Proteus_MST]

How come when a cop murders someone people ask what is wrong with cops, but when a muslim..
.

Muslims, when murdering people, usually get killed r, if they stay alive, get put to trial and have to face either execution or get ut behin bars for life.
They don't, like cops in all too many cases, get acquitted from all charges and live on as free people (maybe even keeping their job as policemen)

[Kidlicious]

Muslims, when murdering people, usually get killed r, if they stay alive, get put to trial and have to face either execution or get ut behin bars for life.
They don't, like cops in all too many cases, get acquitted from all charges and live on as free people (maybe even keeping their job as policemen)

How does this even answer my question? Of course terrorists get punished, so do police, when they are actually guilty of a crime, such as murder. You're talking about a POLICE SHOOTING, not a murder. If a cop went into a night club and murdered a bunch of people he would be treated the same as any other terrorist.

[Proteus_MST]

How does this even answer my question? Of course terrorists get punished, so do police, when they are actually guilty of a crime, such as murder. You're talking about a POLICE SHOOTING, not a murder. If a cop went into a night club and murdered a bunch of people he would be treated the same as any other terrorist.

Unless he was in uniform at he time when he murdered those people and can sucessfully convince the judges that he felt threatened by those people, in which case he will remain a free man.

Fact is that the rate of policemen killing people is extremly high in the USA compared to othr western nations:

...
Police officers in the US shot and killed nearly 1,000 people in 2016, according to the Washington Post’s database — far more than other developed countries like the UK, Australia, Japan, and Germany, where police officers might go an entire year without killing more than a dozen people or even anyone at all.

For example, an analysis by the Guardian found that “US police kill more in days than other countries do in years.” Between 1992 and 2011, Australian police shot and killed 94 people. In 2015, US police shot and killed 97 people just in March. These differences are not explained by population, since the US is about 14 times as populous as Australia but, based on the Guardian’s count, has hundreds of times the fatal police shootings.
...

Part of the difference surely can be attributed to the 2nd amendment:

...
The research bears this out: More guns lead to more gun violence. Reviews of the evidence, compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, have consistently found that when controlling for variables such as socioeconomic factors and other crime, places with more guns have more gun deaths. One review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence — a strong indicator that restricting access to guns can save lives.

For police in particular, one study found that every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership correlated with 10 additional officers killed at the state level over a 15-year period.
...

But part of this may also be attributed with the fact that US-Policemen have an easier time to get away with killings or other crimes without having to face consequences. .
For the one because often it is their colleagues are the ones who examine the killings:

...
Police are very rarely prosecuted for shootings — and not just because the law allows them wide latitude to use force on the job. Sometimes the investigations fall onto the same police department the officer is from, which creates major conflicts of interest. Other times the only available evidence comes from eyewitnesses, who may not be as trustworthy in the public eye as a police officer.
...

For the other thing, because it seems like it is enough if the officer can believable claim he felt threatened (no matter whether the threat was real or not), in order to justify killed people:

...
The key to both of the legal standards — defense of life and fleeing a violent felony — is that it doesn’t matter whether there is an actual threat when force is used. Instead, what matters is the officer’s “objectively reasonable” belief that there is a threat.

That standard comes from the other Supreme Court case that guides use-of-force decisions: Graham v. Connor. This was a civil lawsuit brought by a man who’d survived his encounter with police officers, but who’d been treated roughly, had his face shoved into the hood of a car, and broken his foot — all while he was suffering a diabetic attack.
...

Source of quotes: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...-daniel-shaver

I am quite sure that most other western nations also would judge whether the degreee of force use was necessary or not.

Example in the Shaver-case:
In a german court, even if Brailford were able to convince the judges that he sincerely believed that Shaver wuld draw a weapon, his defense would fall apart as soon s he would have to explain to the judges, why he fired a full burst of 5 shots into the man (and not a single shot into the arm/shoulder ... or just like the other poliemen would have waited if Shaver really drew a weapon)

The "finaler Rettungsschuss" (= deliberate use of deadly force b policemen) is only allowed in germany if the lives of police men or bystanders is objectively threatened ... in case of Shaver that would have been only the case if Shaver actually had drawn a pistol ... not because one of the policemen believed that he could possibly draw a weapon.

I am also sure that german judges would also take into account the whole situation:
Especially the fact that there were 6 policemen pointing their guns at Shaver ... and the fact that, even if he had drawn a weapon, there would have been enough time to shoot Shaver between the time he drew his weapon and the time where he actually would have been able to bring the weapon forward, aim at a policeman and pull the trigger