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On June 17 2017 13:24 OuchyDathurts wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 13:17 KwarK wrote:On June 17 2017 13:10 Aquanim wrote:A cursory read of that article indicates to me that they threw the flashbang before they knew what was blocking the door at all. Which is quite probably not a good idea, but saying that they knew it was a crib/playpen/whatever before throwing the grenade seems inaccurate and misleading (unless the article itself is imprecise). In hindsight, Terrell said at the time, officers would've conducted the raid differently had they known there was a child inside the home, but there was no sign of children during the alleged drug purchase that prompted the raid. Many homes don't have babies in them. Of course, a significant number do as well. They said that they didn't mean to throw the grenade into the crib which doesn't really mean much. Best case scenario in terms of their defence is that they were just blindly throwing grenades and hoping for the best and had no idea where they were throwing them. It was a residential home, maybe don't throw grenades around in it. Also they found no guns or drugs in the raid. If I recall there were children's toys scattered all around, as places with children tend to have. That should be a pretty big red flag that kids are around so maybe we shouldn't be playing fast and loose with the explosives. Also I seem to recall something about them not footing the medical bills for completely fucking the kid up for life. Sorry we blew your kids face in half, good luck with the bills.
Quite possibly that's true. I only have that article to base statements on and it doesn't have an abundance of detail.
edit for clarity: I'm not saying I approve of the actions taken by these cops. That being said, it is important to be clear about what actually happened.
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On June 17 2017 13:07 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 12:55 Sermokala wrote:On June 17 2017 12:44 KwarK wrote:On June 17 2017 12:01 Sermokala wrote:On June 17 2017 11:51 KwarK wrote:On June 17 2017 11:45 Sermokala wrote:
Telling women that don't worry about people getting raped we got the rapist in prision now is just telling them that someone else is going to get raped so that you can punish the guy who raped them. Any other approach tells women that if they don't want to be raped then they should voluntarily abdicate their rights within society. It strips their rights away by telling them that the protection of the law is contingent upon them not acting in the same ways a man would. That's the problem with victim blaming. It places the duty of self censorship of action upon the potential victim rather than the perpetrator and it should be called out whenever and wherever it surfaces its ugly head. Furthermore the lesson "don't walk home alone if you don't want to be raped" is essentially "let some other girl be the one who gets raped tonight". The responsibility for committing an action has to be placed on the individual who chose to commit that action. Basic personal responsibility shit. You pull a trigger, you get held to account. And a prosecutor throwing the case doesn't count as being held to account, before you repeat your argument that he was. Stop being shitty we both know you're better then this kwark. An ultimatium for your position is beneath you. Having a posision of "lets concentrate on the rape in society more then the rapists. Isn't telling women to abdicate their rights. I'm not victim blaming I'm discovering why they were made a victim and trying to find a way to not make more victims. Don't try anything to not get raped just accept that its going to happen and go about your life normally to prepare yourself for getting raped because we don't care about actually stooping you from getting raped because it might infringe on your rights to prevent your rape from happening. What are you talking about? I 110% believe everything I've said. If you think you know me well enough to know better what I mean than I do you're an idiot. What ultimatum do you think I've made? I don't think I've made one. There is nothing for a rape victim to try to avoid being raped because rape victims don't make people rape them. This ought not to be controversial. There is nothing you can say or do to make someone else rape you. The reason rapes happen is because rapists choose to commit rapes. Therefore the entire idea of the victim "trying something to not get raped" is morally abhorrent. The idea that rape victims shouldn't "go about their life normally" is morally abhorrent. If you genuinely believe what you are arguing right now you are being morally abhorrent. Whenever you start with "victims need to do X to avoid getting raped" you are telling them to censor their own actions and limit their own freedoms because you are not willing or able to stand up for them against sexual violence. It's absolutely despicable. You are demanding that victims live in prisons of their own construction because you refuse to hold the predators to account. The question of "what causes a rape" is perfectly simple, a rape is caused by a rapist chooses to rape someone. That's the entire story, start to finish. You fix it by removing the rapists from society, preventing citizens from becoming rapists through education and creating a strong system of deterrence. Similarly the question of "what causes a police officer to shoot an innocent citizen who was doing something perfectly reasonable" is pretty simple. The police officer chose to pull out his gun and pull the trigger. Nobody made him do it. Holding classes on how the citizen population might best limit their own freedoms in order to avoid victimization by the police is morally abhorrent, and made more so by your cheerleading of the corrupt prosecution and his betrayal of the principals of justice. You said that any other approach other than just blaming the rapist was telling women that they needed to abdicate their civil rights. Thats an ultimatum and an obtuse strawman. You can't believe that I want women to not have rights because I believe that stopping rapes is more important then punishing rapists. That would make you an idiot and I don't believe you are an idiot. Rape victims don't make people rape them they are raped because they are prayed apon by sexual predators. Going after the conditions that cause someone to get raped isn't blaming someone for getting raped is discovering why they were prayed apon and stopping that from happening to someone else. It has nothing to do with the person thats getting raped and has everything to do with the next person that might get raped and making sure that they don't. Holding someone countable means judging if what they did is worth punishment or not and in this case he wasn't and I believe he had a reasonable fear for his life. If people don't think people should be able to defend themselves because they have a fear for their life they should go after the stand your ground law or self defense law not the police officers or killers themselves. punishing every cop who kills someone isn't justice and isn't holding them accountable. I didn't cheer lead the prosecution I just surmised what the prosecution was motivated to do and what I thought they might have done. If you want them not to be motivated to do it then go after their motivation to do it not them for trying to make the broken system the best they can make it work. If its corruption to best serve the people then I don't know what corruption even is. Educating people doesn't take away peoples freedoms they can decide to follow the advice or not. Just like they can decide to rape or not. You're being extremely obtuse and I'm starting to doubt it's not on purpose. Nobody is asserting that cops shouldn't be able to use self-defense, we're asserting that they abuse it in a lot of cases, in a way that indicates that the problem is certainly systemic rather than coincidental, and that this one of those cases. You taking that and pretending to think it means we want to punish every cop who kills someone is hard to consider as anything else but dishonesty. Your last sentence should either be about "educating people" and "decide to risk being raped" or about "educating cops" and "decide to rape". You're on the side of the former, we're on the side of the latter; can't switch in the middle of the analogy I'm afraid.
People are asserting that cops shouldn't be allowed to be afraid for their lives and defend themselves. Kwark said that in an 1 out of 100 case that the cops should eat the bullet instead of shooting in the 100 cases. Tell me a case in this thread ever where most people said that the cops was justified and didn't abuse their ability to defend themselves. Any time the media gets a hole of a story they spin it and disinformation follows them.
I have no idea what you mean by the end of your post sorry. I'm going to bed now sorry.
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On June 17 2017 13:30 Sermokala wrote:...
Tell me a case in this thread ever where most people said that the cops was justified and didn't abuse their ability to defend themselves. Any time the media gets a hole of a story they spin it and disinformation follows them.
...
The cases where a cop was justified in shooting somebody don't get this kind of publicity because there's nothing to talk about (unless the person shot was interesting). Everything worked as intended, the end.
They don't make a big splash in the media and in this thread because most or all people believe the cop was justified, so there's nothing to actually talk about.
Just because those cases don't get talked about doesn't mean that every cop shooting ever is spun by the media into something like this - it's just that the ones where the cop wasn't justified are the only ones you hear about.
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On June 17 2017 13:30 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 13:07 Nebuchad wrote:On June 17 2017 12:55 Sermokala wrote:On June 17 2017 12:44 KwarK wrote:On June 17 2017 12:01 Sermokala wrote:On June 17 2017 11:51 KwarK wrote:On June 17 2017 11:45 Sermokala wrote:
Telling women that don't worry about people getting raped we got the rapist in prision now is just telling them that someone else is going to get raped so that you can punish the guy who raped them. Any other approach tells women that if they don't want to be raped then they should voluntarily abdicate their rights within society. It strips their rights away by telling them that the protection of the law is contingent upon them not acting in the same ways a man would. That's the problem with victim blaming. It places the duty of self censorship of action upon the potential victim rather than the perpetrator and it should be called out whenever and wherever it surfaces its ugly head. Furthermore the lesson "don't walk home alone if you don't want to be raped" is essentially "let some other girl be the one who gets raped tonight". The responsibility for committing an action has to be placed on the individual who chose to commit that action. Basic personal responsibility shit. You pull a trigger, you get held to account. And a prosecutor throwing the case doesn't count as being held to account, before you repeat your argument that he was. Stop being shitty we both know you're better then this kwark. An ultimatium for your position is beneath you. Having a posision of "lets concentrate on the rape in society more then the rapists. Isn't telling women to abdicate their rights. I'm not victim blaming I'm discovering why they were made a victim and trying to find a way to not make more victims. Don't try anything to not get raped just accept that its going to happen and go about your life normally to prepare yourself for getting raped because we don't care about actually stooping you from getting raped because it might infringe on your rights to prevent your rape from happening. What are you talking about? I 110% believe everything I've said. If you think you know me well enough to know better what I mean than I do you're an idiot. What ultimatum do you think I've made? I don't think I've made one. There is nothing for a rape victim to try to avoid being raped because rape victims don't make people rape them. This ought not to be controversial. There is nothing you can say or do to make someone else rape you. The reason rapes happen is because rapists choose to commit rapes. Therefore the entire idea of the victim "trying something to not get raped" is morally abhorrent. The idea that rape victims shouldn't "go about their life normally" is morally abhorrent. If you genuinely believe what you are arguing right now you are being morally abhorrent. Whenever you start with "victims need to do X to avoid getting raped" you are telling them to censor their own actions and limit their own freedoms because you are not willing or able to stand up for them against sexual violence. It's absolutely despicable. You are demanding that victims live in prisons of their own construction because you refuse to hold the predators to account. The question of "what causes a rape" is perfectly simple, a rape is caused by a rapist chooses to rape someone. That's the entire story, start to finish. You fix it by removing the rapists from society, preventing citizens from becoming rapists through education and creating a strong system of deterrence. Similarly the question of "what causes a police officer to shoot an innocent citizen who was doing something perfectly reasonable" is pretty simple. The police officer chose to pull out his gun and pull the trigger. Nobody made him do it. Holding classes on how the citizen population might best limit their own freedoms in order to avoid victimization by the police is morally abhorrent, and made more so by your cheerleading of the corrupt prosecution and his betrayal of the principals of justice. You said that any other approach other than just blaming the rapist was telling women that they needed to abdicate their civil rights. Thats an ultimatum and an obtuse strawman. You can't believe that I want women to not have rights because I believe that stopping rapes is more important then punishing rapists. That would make you an idiot and I don't believe you are an idiot. Rape victims don't make people rape them they are raped because they are prayed apon by sexual predators. Going after the conditions that cause someone to get raped isn't blaming someone for getting raped is discovering why they were prayed apon and stopping that from happening to someone else. It has nothing to do with the person thats getting raped and has everything to do with the next person that might get raped and making sure that they don't. Holding someone countable means judging if what they did is worth punishment or not and in this case he wasn't and I believe he had a reasonable fear for his life. If people don't think people should be able to defend themselves because they have a fear for their life they should go after the stand your ground law or self defense law not the police officers or killers themselves. punishing every cop who kills someone isn't justice and isn't holding them accountable. I didn't cheer lead the prosecution I just surmised what the prosecution was motivated to do and what I thought they might have done. If you want them not to be motivated to do it then go after their motivation to do it not them for trying to make the broken system the best they can make it work. If its corruption to best serve the people then I don't know what corruption even is. Educating people doesn't take away peoples freedoms they can decide to follow the advice or not. Just like they can decide to rape or not. You're being extremely obtuse and I'm starting to doubt it's not on purpose. Nobody is asserting that cops shouldn't be able to use self-defense, we're asserting that they abuse it in a lot of cases, in a way that indicates that the problem is certainly systemic rather than coincidental, and that this one of those cases. You taking that and pretending to think it means we want to punish every cop who kills someone is hard to consider as anything else but dishonesty. Your last sentence should either be about "educating people" and "decide to risk being raped" or about "educating cops" and "decide to rape". You're on the side of the former, we're on the side of the latter; can't switch in the middle of the analogy I'm afraid. People are asserting that cops shouldn't be allowed to be afraid for their lives and defend themselves. Kwark said that in an 1 out of 100 case that the cops should eat the bullet instead of shooting in the 100 cases. Tell me a case in this thread ever where most people said that the cops was justified and didn't abuse their ability to defend themselves. Any time the media gets a hole of a story they spin it and disinformation follows them. I have no idea what you mean by the end of your post sorry. I'm going to bed now sorry.
The cases where it's clear that the cops are justified don't make the thread, cause they are not controversial. Kind of like the cases where the guy pulls his wallet and the cop doesn't shoot him cause it's a wallet, they don't really make the news.
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United States24779 Posts
Nebuchad it's not always clear, yet you treat the case in question like there's nothing controversial about it (or rather no cause for controversy). What about my scenario above? You can go either way with it. Obviously it's contrived, but extreme examples illustrate limitations on assumptions.
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United States44125 Posts
On June 17 2017 13:25 micronesia wrote:Is my scenario above inconvenient? I feel like this was a bit misleading.
The emphasis on the word stun didn't do much to help the baby's face when the pillow caught fire. If you're attempting to imply that I overstated the danger of their actions, well, this very case would be the example you would cite to show otherwise. In any other case saying "stun grenades are super dangerous and shouldn't just be tossed around blindly, you could set fire to a baby with one of those" might seem hyperbolic. But given they literally did set fire to a baby with one it probably isn't hyperbolic in this instance.
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United States24779 Posts
On June 17 2017 13:48 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 13:25 micronesia wrote:Is my scenario above inconvenient? I feel like this was a bit misleading. The emphasis on the word stun didn't do much to help the baby's face when the pillow caught fire. If you're attempting to imply that I overstated the danger of their actions, well, this very case would be the example you would cite to show otherwise. In any other case saying "stun grenades are super dangerous and shouldn't just be tossed around blindly, you could set fire to a baby with one of those" might seem hyperbolic. But given they literally did set fire to a baby with one it probably isn't hyperbolic in this instance.
You did overstate the danger, which painted the people you were criticizing in an even worse light than justified by the event in question. It's obviously no big deal since you cited a source with the clarifying information, but you seem to be arguing you weren't misleading which I can't follow. If you had just used the word stun the first time I wouldn't have picked up on anything.
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On June 17 2017 13:44 micronesia wrote:
Nebuchad it's not always clear, yet you treat the case in question like there's nothing controversial about it (or rather no cause for controversy). What about my scenario above? You can go either way with it. Obviously it's contrived, but extreme examples illustrate limitations on assumptions.
I agree with you, that's what I'm doing, I think the facts speak for themselves. I also agree with you that if you change the scenario to make it so that it contains controversial elements, you can make it controversial. However, since the scenario wasn't changed, it's not really that relevant. I think that's why people aren't really engaging with your thought experiment.
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Technically speaking a stun grenade is a form of grenade. I don't believe SWAT teams have frag grenades, I hope to god they don't. Then again I don't think they should have 95% of the stuff they do have so it wouldn't shock me if they did. Regardless, any type of grenade shouldn't be used in a residential setting unless absolutely necessary, which wasn't the case here. They also shouldn't be allowed to execute no-knock warrants....ever.
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United States24779 Posts
@Nebuchad
So a thought experiment that demonstrates what is and is not acceptable is not relevant to making a determination as to whether or not actions in a similar scenario were or were not acceptable? I don't agree. I'm not saying I am a master of creating and applying thought experiments, but I think an explanation from those firmly in the camp of "what the cop did in real life was completely illegal and immoral and should be punished severely, without question" would be useful in eventually getting to some type of progress in this seemingly unending and ineffective argument between those of you who do and don't have that position.
On June 17 2017 13:53 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Technically speaking a stun grenade is a form of grenade. I don't believe SWAT teams have frag grenades, I hope to god they don't. Then again I don't think they should have 95% of the stuff they do have so it wouldn't shock me if they did. Regardless, any type of grenade shouldn't be used in a residential setting unless absolutely necessary, which wasn't the case here. They also shouldn't be allowed to execute no-knock warrants....ever.
I agree it is technically correct, but I don't think that changes anything. You can be technically correct but horribly misleading to further a personal agenda.
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On June 17 2017 13:55 micronesia wrote:
@Nebuchad
So a thought experiment that demonstrates what is and is not acceptable is not relevant to making a determination as to whether or not actions in a similar scenario were or were not acceptable? I don't agree. I'm not saying I am a master of creating and applying thought experiments, but I think an explanation from those firmly in the camp of "what the cop did in real life was completely illegal and immoral and should be punished severely, without question" would be useful in eventually getting to some type of progress in this seemingly unending and ineffective argument between those of you who do and don't have that position.
Your thought experiment is essentially "What if those weird unlikely things happened so that both 1) the cop had a decent case and 2) we could prove it?" Well then he would have a decent case. But those weird unlikely things didn't happen, and so he doesn't.
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United States24779 Posts
Did the (hypothetical) cop really have a decent case? He shot an unarmed man who did nothing wrong. He should be willing to take the bullet in that 1% case where it's actually a gun being pulled out. Guilty of manslaughter. The facts speak for themselves.
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On June 17 2017 14:02 micronesia wrote:
Did the (hypothetical) cop really have a decent case? He shot an unarmed man who did nothing wrong. He should be willing to take the bullet in that 1% case where it's actually a gun being pulled out. Guilty of manslaughter. The facts speak for themselves.
But it's not going to be 1% a gun, cause there's this weird unlikely light effect that makes it look exactly like a gun. The large majority of the time it's going to be a gun, otherwise the light effect wouldn't be unlikely.
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United States44125 Posts
If the officer sees a gun being drawn with implied intent to use it then they can fire in self defence. If they see it and can prove they saw it but it wasn't actually happening due to a mirage or a wizard or whatever then still counts as self defence. Nothing especially controversial there in my opinion. They have to prove that a wizard conjured a gun illusion but if they can prove that then we're good.
If the officer sees something being reached for during a traffic stop they should assume wallet until they have information to the contrary and, if in doubt, should seek a way to confirm which it is, perhaps by communicating with the person. But the assumption should be that it'll be a wallet because 99% of the time it will be and killing 99 innocent dudes to get the jump on the 1 guilty dude is bad policing. We pay them to risk their lives in that 1% of situations.
That should cover all conceivable hypotheticals.
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United States24779 Posts
On June 17 2017 14:04 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 14:02 micronesia wrote:
Did the (hypothetical) cop really have a decent case? He shot an unarmed man who did nothing wrong. He should be willing to take the bullet in that 1% case where it's actually a gun being pulled out. Guilty of manslaughter. The facts speak for themselves. But it's not going to be 1% a gun, cause there's this weird unlikely light effect that makes it look exactly like a gun. The large majority of the time it's going to be a gun, otherwise the light effect wouldn't be unlikely.
I agree with that analysis. But what is the result? Given the evidence, acquit the cop?
edit: it looks like Kwark says yes, because they can prove what they saw was a gun. Of course now you have a problem that there's another case where there was a less strong optical illusion, and it kind of looked like a gun being drawn and pointed. The point I want to make is there is absolutely no way to come up with hard and fast rules for determining if what the cop did was legally excusable or not (if he actually thinks he was in danger, there is going to be at least some controversy and the fact can't simply speak for themselves), and to discuss a real case from this perspective is going to make it almost impossible to convince someone who currently is on the other side of the fence that the evidence leans much more heavily towards guilt and some type of conviction.
As an aside, Kwark, cops really need to get paid more given your explanation of their responsibilities (note I have no problem with wanting to create a society where cops shooting innocent people is extremely rare)
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So how often dó police officers get shot at during mundane things like traffic stops? Because most of these cases the officer freaks out and empties his gun due to some random gesture the victim made (like finding his wallet) that he interpreted as 'threatening'
If there is a legitimate problem with their safety there should be a different procedure for stops like making people step out of the car first before getting close so there is no way of misinterpreting gestures or hidden guns. If mundane tasks give a cop a feeling his life is threatened then either the cop is very incompetent and not fit for duty or the procedure for doing the task is just faulty because a cop should always be in control of a normal situation. It's really fucking retarded that it's allowed to kill someone sitting in a carseat because he's so 'threatening'.
If there isn't even a legitimate police safety problem then well the situation is even worse
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United States24779 Posts
On June 17 2017 14:18 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
So how often dó police officers get shot at during mundane things like traffic stops? Because most of these cases the officer freaks out and empties his gun due to some random gesture the victim made (like finding his wallet) that he interpreted as 'threatening'
If there is a legitimate problem with their safety there should be a different procedure for stops like making people step out of the car first before getting close so there is no way of misinterpreting gestures or hidden guns. If mundane tasks give a cop a feeling his life is threatened then either the cop is very incompetent and not fit for duty or the procedure for doing the task is just faulty because a cop should always be in control of a normal situation. It's really fucking retarded that it's allowed to kill someone sitting in a carseat because he's so 'threatening'.
If there isn't even a legitimate police safety problem then well the situation is even worse
I think any change to procedure that will further inconvenience drivers who get pulled over is going to be untenable. Some of police training is designed to prevent cops from getting shot during traffic stops, but unless the driver keeps his hands visible the whole time (strongly recommended), the cop takes on some risk. Now Kwark would argue that the officer accepted that risk and must be willing to get shot to avoid accidentally shooting an unarmed person. The side effect is that this incentivizes criminals to try to shoot and run because they know their chances of success are higher than in the times when cops were too trigger happy (this is an assertion and I don't have evidence to back it up).
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On June 17 2017 14:08 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 14:04 Nebuchad wrote:On June 17 2017 14:02 micronesia wrote:
Did the (hypothetical) cop really have a decent case? He shot an unarmed man who did nothing wrong. He should be willing to take the bullet in that 1% case where it's actually a gun being pulled out. Guilty of manslaughter. The facts speak for themselves. But it's not going to be 1% a gun, cause there's this weird unlikely light effect that makes it look exactly like a gun. The large majority of the time it's going to be a gun, otherwise the light effect wouldn't be unlikely. The point I want to make is there is absolutely no way to come up with hard and fast rules for determining if what the cop did was legally excusable or not (if he actually thinks he was in danger, there is going to be at least some controversy and the fact can't simply speak for themselves), and to discuss a real case from this perspective is going to make it almost impossible to convince someone who currently is on the other side of the fence that the evidence leans much more heavily towards guilt and some type of conviction. As an aside, Kwark, cops really need to get paid more given your explanation of their responsibilities (note I have no problem with wanting to create a society where cops shooting innocent people is extremely rare)
You need to look at the facts to determine whether there's a reasonable way in which the cop can feel threatened. If you start ignoring the facts, there is literally no way a cop can do a wrongful shooting ever, and that kills the whole point of having a discussion.
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United States24779 Posts
On June 17 2017 14:27 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 14:08 micronesia wrote:On June 17 2017 14:04 Nebuchad wrote:On June 17 2017 14:02 micronesia wrote:
Did the (hypothetical) cop really have a decent case? He shot an unarmed man who did nothing wrong. He should be willing to take the bullet in that 1% case where it's actually a gun being pulled out. Guilty of manslaughter. The facts speak for themselves. But it's not going to be 1% a gun, cause there's this weird unlikely light effect that makes it look exactly like a gun. The large majority of the time it's going to be a gun, otherwise the light effect wouldn't be unlikely. The point I want to make is there is absolutely no way to come up with hard and fast rules for determining if what the cop did was legally excusable or not (if he actually thinks he was in danger, there is going to be at least some controversy and the fact can't simply speak for themselves), and to discuss a real case from this perspective is going to make it almost impossible to convince someone who currently is on the other side of the fence that the evidence leans much more heavily towards guilt and some type of conviction. As an aside, Kwark, cops really need to get paid more given your explanation of their responsibilities (note I have no problem with wanting to create a society where cops shooting innocent people is extremely rare) You need to look at the facts to determine whether there's a reasonable way in which the cop can feel threatened. If you start ignoring the facts, there is literally no way a cop can do a wrongful shooting ever, and that kills the whole point of having a discussion.
Did you interpret me saying "the facts can't simply speak for themselves" to mean "ignore the facts"? That is not what I meant. Indeed, the facts are the most important part of evaluating what happened and determining what outcome is most appropriate for the officer who shot the unarmed person.
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On June 17 2017 14:29 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2017 14:27 Nebuchad wrote:On June 17 2017 14:08 micronesia wrote:On June 17 2017 14:04 Nebuchad wrote:On June 17 2017 14:02 micronesia wrote:
Did the (hypothetical) cop really have a decent case? He shot an unarmed man who did nothing wrong. He should be willing to take the bullet in that 1% case where it's actually a gun being pulled out. Guilty of manslaughter. The facts speak for themselves. But it's not going to be 1% a gun, cause there's this weird unlikely light effect that makes it look exactly like a gun. The large majority of the time it's going to be a gun, otherwise the light effect wouldn't be unlikely. The point I want to make is there is absolutely no way to come up with hard and fast rules for determining if what the cop did was legally excusable or not (if he actually thinks he was in danger, there is going to be at least some controversy and the fact can't simply speak for themselves), and to discuss a real case from this perspective is going to make it almost impossible to convince someone who currently is on the other side of the fence that the evidence leans much more heavily towards guilt and some type of conviction. As an aside, Kwark, cops really need to get paid more given your explanation of their responsibilities (note I have no problem with wanting to create a society where cops shooting innocent people is extremely rare) You need to look at the facts to determine whether there's a reasonable way in which the cop can feel threatened. If you start ignoring the facts, there is literally no way a cop can do a wrongful shooting ever, and that kills the whole point of having a discussion. Did you interpret me saying "the facts can't simply speak for themselves" to mean "ignore the facts"? That is not what I meant. Indeed, the facts are the most important part of evaluating what happened and determining what outcome is most appropriate for the officer who shot the unarmed person.
Okay so I disagree with your assessment that "if he actually thinks he was in danger, there is going to be at least some controversy". I think you have to ignore the facts at least to some extent to make that assessment.
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EPT
