If you feel the need to post a reaction to the news, post a comment on the youtube video. Don't bring it here. This thread is for a discussion on the topic, and your post better have substance to it. Low content posts will be met with moderator action.
Here is a good post by someone with experience in escalation of force training. Read that too. This post might change your opinion of in the incident.
They don't have common sense then, cause that guy didn't have a gun only a short range weapon and there is no more threat after he got shoved away far enough to not be able to harm anyone anymore after the first 5 shots. Drugs or no drugs, a junkie is not a terminator, he wasn't gonna suddenly jump 3 meters through the air and hit them after taking 5 close range shots. If he has a gun, he has to reach for it, then he gets shot. If he does ANY conscious reaction after 5 bullets to his body, he gets shot. No problem. Yes, this is me examining the situation from my home after watching the video several times, they didn't have the luxury to do that, hindsight is 20/20, blah blah blah. It doesn't change the fact that what they did is incompetent.
Again, it is understandable why he would do it (a twitch adrenaline and emotion filled reaction to keep shooting until the suspect falls down and the lack of experience in this sort of situation) and I'm not saying a cop should be punished or anything, it still doesn't change the fact that a person might not have lost their life if a cop was more competent. Yes, a person was probably a low life junkie with a little to no worth to society, but that's a completely irrelevant point.
It could have been a generally good person who lost their job that day, got left by their wife before founding out that their best friend died in a tragic car accident, felt sorry for themselves, got drunk and high, decided to channel all that rage by smashing some store windows and then didn't realise that making an aggressive gesture towards armed police officers is not a good idea. And his life could have been saved.
There are enough situations where I wouldn't ever argue for cop's decision to protect his life, this is one of those rare cases where the circumstances (no long range gun, far enough distance to cops/civilians, already took 5 shots, which as far as I understand is supposed to be lethal most of the time, NO further aggressive or ANY reaction for that matter after said 5 shots) show that shooting the 2nd burst was a twitch response overreaction. However they are trained, there's also a thing called common sense and the ability to re-evaluate a situation.
Your entire post is speculation. And if you're going to speculate, why side with the violent criminal and not the police officer?
You don't know that he doesn't have a concealed weapon, especially with those baggy clothes. If you hesitate, he can pull it out and end a life. It's perfectly rational to assume if he would take a swing at them with a deadly weapon, he wouldn't hesitate to do it again with that weapon or any other.
You have a lot of "if's" in that italicized paragraph of yours. Even if all of those things happened to him (extremely unlikely, he looks like an average L.A. gangbanger) it still doesn't justify breaking the law (vandalizing) and then resisting arrest and attacking the officers. It doesn't matter what caused him to act that way, the point is he acted that way. There are consequences for your actions, not your motives.
Maybe his life could have been saved, but why should we care? He obviously didn't.
He was shot 5 times. In what universe could he instantly take out a concealed gun and do anything with it. He managed to react to the guy moving close on his partner before starting the swinging motion, seems like his reaction time to shoot is just fine. They LITERALLY didn't even allow him to lose the momentum from the initial burst. He wasn't standing like some people claim, there literally wasn't a physically possible opportunity for him to go from getting shoved away by the force of the shots and collapsing. The 2nd burst was that fast.
That italicised paragraph is obviously a ridiculous and an extremely unlikely scenario. It doesn't matter what happened here or who the guy was, that paragraph is supposed to illustrate that it could have been someone else who does have value to society and ending a life when it could have been saved if cop was more competent is what should matter. You're not saying cops would/should have acted in a different way just based on how old the suspect was or what kind of clothes he was wearing, are you?
Again, we're not talking in general about what cops should and shouldn't do here, there's a specific situation which we have the opportunity to somewhat analyze because it happened to get filmed. I understand that people are different, some of the cops might have gotten killed before shooting because they value human life more and would have tried to restrain the suspect in a different way. Some would have shot once to have him shrug off the shot and still manage to swing the weapon. Some would have went into a psychotic episode and unloaded onto the corpse with tears in their eyes they were really afraid of dying in that moment. The point is that from the things we've seen, the cop made an adrenaline influenced twitch decision to shoot more times than it was necessary to neutralize the threat. Should he be punished for it? No.
But again, saying that this is how every confrontation of this type should go down is ridiculous.
Some of the people here are acting as if when a situation escalates to the point where a cop shoots the first bullet there's no way going back and the suspect HAS to die and there should be no consequences to what happens next. Making sure that the target cannot do any additional harm =/= target has to die. At least that's what my common sense tells me.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
The suspect was able to pose a threat because of the poor positioning of the officers, they created a life threatening situation out of a guy walking.
welcome again to page 30, 40, 55 and i believe 62 where we cover standard operation procedure in regards to distance and how we approach a subject to arrest him.
I am too tired to post the entire thing again, suffice it to say the i have covered it 4 friggin times in this thread, could you kindly read it before you continue to post wrong information?
What exactly are they supposed to do? Stand at 25m away and shout? They start at 5-10m and then move in closer if the target seems to be compliant. One officers covers, other officer moves to arrest. When the officer with the tazer was moving in, the suspect had the conduit bender pointed towards the ground and seemed fairly unresponsive (read as, drugged out of his mind).
To the other poster who said "where was the reevaluation" it happened after he had fired his salvo, exactly as he was trained to do. If you want i can draw you a picture, since it seems communicating with words does not work. Yes the first cop was slightly faster, no that doesn't mean the second cop is able to stop his own reaction. That being bring gun on target, fire, reevaluate. The amount of shots considered standard varies from country to country (again as we have discussed quite often in this thread), but it seems as if 5 shots were the amount those two were trained for.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
I can never agree with a police officer in the heat of the moment sentencing a man to death for the act shown in the video. If you look closely he was just threatening to hit him, he didn't actually swing the weapon itself. If this was in Sweden we would never hear the end of it and it would be on national news, in politics and all over the country for years to come, in America this just seems to be another incident. I will never understand a culture where killing people is so accepted under certain circumstances as in the American.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Yea a fucking crowbar. Do you understand how much damage you can deal to a person with a crowbar? It wasn't a pillow. A single swing from a crowbar can seriously maim someone. The hell is wrong with you?
I've never ever heard of a police force that shoots people for the intent of slowing them down. I've got to be honest, that sounds pretty weird to me. There are stun guns for that sort of thing. They used nonlethal force, and when it didn't work, and the man attacked him, they reacted accordingly.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
Yea, they should just reload the game and do that.
Seriously, what the hell? The guy was about to strike him with a crowbar. If he hadn't shot, the other officer would probably have been seriously injured.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
Yes it is because, if dead guys don't have the legal rights to take people to court. Shoot to kill is always the best, no lawsuits because crippled people costs money for a long time. Dead people costs a funeral fee.
They don't have common sense then, cause that guy didn't have a gun only a short range weapon and there is no more threat after he got shoved away far enough to not be able to harm anyone anymore after the first 5 shots. Drugs or no drugs, a junkie is not a terminator, he wasn't gonna suddenly jump 3 meters through the air and hit them after taking 5 close range shots. If he has a gun, he has to reach for it, then he gets shot. If he does ANY conscious reaction after 5 bullets to his body, he gets shot. No problem. Yes, this is me examining the situation from my home after watching the video several times, they didn't have the luxury to do that, hindsight is 20/20, blah blah blah. It doesn't change the fact that what they did is incompetent.
Again, it is understandable why he would do it (a twitch adrenaline and emotion filled reaction to keep shooting until the suspect falls down and the lack of experience in this sort of situation) and I'm not saying a cop should be punished or anything, it still doesn't change the fact that a person might not have lost their life if a cop was more competent. Yes, a person was probably a low life junkie with a little to no worth to society, but that's a completely irrelevant point.
It could have been a generally good person who lost their job that day, got left by their wife before founding out that their best friend died in a tragic car accident, felt sorry for themselves, got drunk and high, decided to channel all that rage by smashing some store windows and then didn't realise that making an aggressive gesture towards armed police officers is not a good idea. And his life could have been saved.
There are enough situations where I wouldn't ever argue for cop's decision to protect his life, this is one of those rare cases where the circumstances (no long range gun, far enough distance to cops/civilians, already took 5 shots, which as far as I understand is supposed to be lethal most of the time, NO further aggressive or ANY reaction for that matter after said 5 shots) show that shooting the 2nd burst was a twitch response overreaction. However they are trained, there's also a thing called common sense and the ability to re-evaluate a situation.
Your entire post is speculation. And if you're going to speculate, why side with the violent criminal and not the police officer?
You don't know that he doesn't have a concealed weapon, especially with those baggy clothes. If you hesitate, he can pull it out and end a life. It's perfectly rational to assume if he would take a swing at them with a deadly weapon, he wouldn't hesitate to do it again with that weapon or any other.
You have a lot of "if's" in that italicized paragraph of yours. Even if all of those things happened to him (extremely unlikely, he looks like an average L.A. gangbanger) it still doesn't justify breaking the law (vandalizing) and then resisting arrest and attacking the officers. It doesn't matter what caused him to act that way, the point is he acted that way. There are consequences for your actions, not your motives.
Maybe his life could have been saved, but why should we care? He obviously didn't.
He was shot 5 times. In what universe could he instantly take out a concealed gun and do anything with it. They LITERALLY didn't even allow him to lose the momentum from the initial burst. He wasn't standing like some people claim, there literally wasn't a physically possible opportunity for him to go from getting shoved away by the force of the shots and collapsing. The 2nd burst was that fast.
That italicised paragraph is obviously a ridiculous and an extremely unlikely scenario. It doesn't matter what happened here or who the guy was, that paragraph is supposed to illustrate that it could have been someone else who does have value to society and ending a life when it could have been saved if cop was more competent is what should matter. You're not saying cops would/should have acted in a different way just based on how old the suspect was or what kind of clothes he was wearing, are you?
Again, we're not talking in general about what cops should and shouldn't do here, there's a specific situation which we have the opportunity to somewhat analyze because it happened to get filmed. I understand that people are different, some of the cops might have gotten killed before shooting because they value human life more and would have tried to restrain the suspect in a different way. Some would have shot once to have him shrug off the shot and still manage to swing the weapon. Some would have went into a psychotic episode and unloaded onto the corpse with tears in their eyes they were really afraid of dying in that moment. The point is that from the things we've seen, the cop made an adrenaline influenced twitch decision to shoot more times than it was necessary to neutralize the threat.
Some of the people here are acting as if when a situation escalates to the point where a cop shoots the first bullet there's no way going back and the suspect HAS to die and there should be no consequences to what happens next. Making sure that the target cannot do any additional harm =/= target has to die. At least that's what my common sense tells me.
*sigh* Again? Those cops shot exactly as they are trained to. Yes that amount might be too much (it might also not be, depending on range, armor, etc. etc. etc.). They did not make an adrenaline fueled decision. They fell back on their training in an adrenaline fueled situation.
I am not going to argue about the worth to society debate you are answering, frankly it has nothing to do with the area i feel is worth discussing. He might have been a noble price winner for all i care, in that specific situation he was a criminal attacking a cop with a lethal weapon within effective range of his weapon.
There can be only one reaction to such a situation if we want to have an effective police force, and that is fire! Fire until the threat is neutralized. Maybe they should be trained to fire bursts of 3 shots (as i was, during my own training) before reevaluating, but it really doesn't make much of a difference.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
No, I think you're the one who needs a new set of eyes. Multiple cops with fully loaded guns? I see only one cop with a gun ready- the other is fumbling around with his taser. And contrary to your ignorant belief, winding up to swing a crowbar against someone IS a lethal threat. And especially at such close range, even with if they had shot him in the arms or legs, it wouldn't have neccessarily stopped him from swinging, which again, is LETHAL. If you don't believe me, feel free to have a friend swing a crowbar (or in this case, a conduit bender) against your head or arms and see how it feels.
When was the last time you saw a person initiating an action, and even with a minor deterrence of force, the power of the action is severely decreased, and sometimes even nullified?
Now fast forward to a guy swinging a crowbar getting hit in any part of his extremities. Shot in the leg, he can't plant and swing the crowbar. Shot in the arm, he drops the bar. Shot anywhere, he loses momentum and probably goes down. Even if he was able to muster up a second effort after being shot once or twice, that would give the fumbling officer ample time to escape away. Mind you, there was also a dog that could have been used, but wasn't.
Sorry, the video quality for me is really bad since my internet sucks, it looked at first like there were multiple cops.
Wow these posts continue to amaze me! Maybe all of the citizens should be required to take police training and serve as officers for a period of time so that they can: 1) Know actual protocol before spouting some of the nonsense that is in this thread. 2) Understand the incident from a first-hand perspective.
I'm just kidding about the required citizen training, at least I think I am anyway....
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
Sounds simple to you does it? From your office chair? Contrary to popular belief, your average police officer is not a crackshot with a pistol, and legs and arms can move fairly quickly in a situation like that.
So he shoots at the guys legs. What happens if he misses? The bullet ricochets off the ground, possibly hurting innocents, and his partner gets a conduit bender to the head.
Not to mention the perp's behavior screams PCP, which means no, one shot wouldn't take him down, especially if it was only to his leg.
I also love how you think the weapon isn't deadly. For one, it's not a crowbar, it's a conduit bender. Second, we've had numerous people here in the threat who have worked with that particular tool tell us that you could easily kill someone with it if you swung it hard enough.
But yea, we're the ones who need a new set of eyes.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
this seems to crop up every 4 pages at the very least. So far we had about 20 different people from law enforcement or at least trained to shoot testify that to our knowledge no person anywhere on the world is trained to shoot anywhere except center mass.
I could repeat myself another time and go into the reasons, but suffice it to say that the chance of missing and either hitting a bystander or loosing your partner is simply too high.
edit: In regards to your second post, Fallout 3 called and wants their aim system back. In the real world you cannot hit a moving arm reliably never mind a hand. The only part of the body which remains fairly stable during movement is the torso, everything else moves around fairly rapidly if somewhat predictably. Trying to intercept such movement with a split second vector (as in a bullet) is far beyond the capabilities of almost any marksmen. Thats why shooting competitions were such a big deal earlier you know.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Yea a fucking crowbar. Do you understand how much damage you can deal to a person with a crowbar? It wasn't a pillow. A single swing from a crowbar can seriously maim someone. The hell is wrong with you?
I've never ever heard of a police force that shoots people for the intent of slowing them down. I've got to be honest, that sounds pretty weird to me. There are stun guns for that sort of thing. They used nonlethal force, and when it didn't work, and the man attacked him, they reacted accordingly.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
Yea, they should just reload the game and do that.
Seriously, what the hell? The guy was about to strike him with a crowbar. If he hadn't shot, the other officer would probably have been seriously injured.
Did you SEE the wind up the guy had with the crowbar?
Like, he literally was winding up for almost 2-3 seconds.
Okay, I read EVERY friggin' page till now and I have to say some things:
First off, not all people from the West are hatin' on those Cops, at least I and some other dude's aren't.
Secondly, In my opinion what those Cops did was the right thing. I don't swing a WEAPON, it's a Weapon when it's used like how it's shown in the video and expect to NOT get shot when I already got warned to lay that Weapon down.
And to the people still screaming "omfg, a shot to the leg would have been better!" - l2understandreality please.
The Video about Deputy Dinkheller really is tragic and will be stuck in my mind for very long and it also strengthens my beliefe that what those Officers did was correct.
Sending the Dog in to get killed (Reminder: It's seen as a fellow Officer, not some animal you can simply sacrifice) would be pure bs.
It's really sad to see how many people are trolling in this thread and I'm really sorry for all the people who try to bring at least some education to those people to no avail.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
Sounds simple to you does it? From your office chair? Contrary to popular belief, your average police officer is not a crackshot with a pistol, and legs and arms can move fairly quickly in a situation like that.
So he shoots at the guys legs. What happens if he misses? The bullet ricochets off the ground, possibly hurting innocents, and his partner gets a conduit bender to the head.
Not to mention the perp's behavior screams PCP, which means no, one shot wouldn't take him down, especially if it was only to his leg.
I also love how you think the weapon isn't deadly. For one, it's not a crowbar, it's a conduit bender. Second, we've had numerous people here in the threat who have worked with that particular tool tell us that you could easily kill someone with it if you swung it hard enough.
But yea, we're the ones who need a new set of eyes.
Now we're assuming he was on PCP, so I'm going to assume that the police could have shot him in the leg, arm, or hell shoot for the chest if you want, but not that amount of times.
Yes, the weapon is deadly, I get that. No shit.
The average police officer isn't a crackshot. Can you guys please, please watch this video again and see the slow ass fucking wind up the perp has to swing his crowbar.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Just because you have a gun in your hand doesn't mean that a guy about to crack you on the head with a conduit bender is any less lethal. This isn't call of duty and the cops weren't just about to drop a juggernaut care package. The guy was about to perform an action that would have killed someone, and after the tazer failed to affect him at all, they defended themselves.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
You do realize leg shots are extremely dangerous and possibly fatal due to blood loss? If you're shooting someone, you have to assume it will be fatal, and thus consider it lethal force.
On January 25 2012 15:27 Curu wrote: Dunno if it's been posted already but this immediately came to mind:
Justified IMO. If you blatantly disregard multiple warnings and make any indication you are going for a weapon you deserve to be shot.
(Warning the video will make you feel like shit afterwards)
This video made me so sad. I don't normally post a lot, I like to read other peoples ideas...but especially after seeing this, I have to say that these officers have to make so many hard decisions so quickly. Their training just kicks in and I'm sure that they aren't out there to just kill civilians. You don't think they regret the lives they take?
Do we expect them to be attacked before they can protect themselves...
On January 26 2012 03:39 Forsy wrote: He was shot 10 times, NOT 9, NOT 5, NOT 3 and 6.
He was shot 5 times at first, to take him down.
Then he was shot another 5 times - for what? Perhaps to nail the corpse to the ground and prevent his movement? Ridiculous.
The first five shots didn't even drop him, he was still standing and still within a few feet of the officers while wielding a deadly weapon. They continued firing until the suspect was on the ground, at which point they stopped. Also, the guy was still alive long enough for them to call an ambulance, for it to arrive, transport him to a hospital, where he eventually died. So people need to drop the whole "one bullet is more than enough to resolve the situation" (I realize you didn't say this Forsy)
Also, people need to stop saying the officer should have shot the weapon out of his hand, they need to stop saying they should have shot him in the leg, or that the officer should have Matrix-style dodged any attacks while tickling him until he surrendered. All of these things are equally ridiculous. Police are trained to shoot into the chest, anything else increases the chance of hitting innocent civilians with stray ricochets.
I said it a million times already, but.. The 2nd series of shots were shot so fast that it was basically impossible for the suspect to fall down, watch the footage again. Gravity/pain takes a second to kick in, you know. Instead of BACKING OFF from a guy who only had a melee weapon and waiting for him to collapse, the 2nd cop MOVED IN CLOSER to basically finish him off. It's also the same cop who almost got whacked so it looks very much like a twitch revenge reaction.
There were no further aggressive actions. If he managed to stand up and lift up his weapon again, sure, shooting another series of shots to put him down would be an understandable twitch reaction. However, suspect was not even close to being able to hit them from that range, he got shoved like 3 meters away by the 1st burst and was about to collapse. The point is that 2nd burst was basically a panic/pissed off "you almost hit me asshole" revenge mode kind of thing from the cop who could have gotten hit and was completely unnecessary.
Police were presented with a hostile suspect attacking them with a deadly weapon, and they followed their training and SOP of firing at the suspect until the threat of danger is eliminated. They fired until the suspect hit the ground and not a moment more.
In the real world you don't shoot a warning shot, you don't shoot him once and then back off and wait to see what happens. I know it might be that way in the movies, or in video games or whatever, but guess what, in the real world when you suspect someone is using drugs that makes them shrug off pain, and you've been trained over and over that shooting someone doesn't instantly remove them as a threat to your life, (training that is there due to officers that have died making that mistake in the past) you shoot until they are no longer a threat.(I'm quite tired, sorry for that ugly sentence)
Also there is no obvious 'revenge reaction' so please stop using it to subtly suggestion they enjoyed killing him, or whatever you're trying to accomplish.
They don't have common sense then, cause that guy didn't have a gun only a short range weapon and there is no more threat after he got shoved away far enough to not be able to harm anyone anymore after the first 5 shots. Drugs or no drugs, a junkie is not a terminator, he wasn't gonna suddenly jump 3 meters through the air and hit them after taking 5 close range shots. If he has a gun, he has to reach for it, then he gets shot. If he does ANY conscious reaction after 5 bullets to his body, he gets shot. No problem. Yes, this is me examining the situation from my home after watching the video several times, they didn't have the luxury to do that, hindsight is 20/20, blah blah blah. It doesn't change the fact that what they did is incompetent.
Again, it is understandable why he would do it (a twitch adrenaline and emotion filled reaction to keep shooting until the suspect falls down and the lack of experience in this sort of situation) and I'm not saying a cop should be punished or anything, it still doesn't change the fact that a person might not have lost their life if a cop was more competent. Yes, a person was probably a low life junkie with a little to no worth to society, but that's a completely irrelevant point.
It could have been a generally good person who lost their job that day, got left by their wife before founding out that their best friend died in a tragic car accident, felt sorry for themselves, got drunk and high, decided to channel all that rage by smashing some store windows and then didn't realise that making an aggressive gesture towards armed police officers is not a good idea. And his life could have been saved.
There are enough situations where I wouldn't ever argue for cop's decision to protect his life, this is one of those rare cases where the circumstances (no long range gun, far enough distance to cops/civilians, already took 5 shots, which as far as I understand is supposed to be lethal most of the time, NO further aggressive or ANY reaction for that matter after said 5 shots) show that shooting the 2nd burst was a twitch response overreaction. However they are trained, there's also a thing called common sense and the ability to re-evaluate a situation.
His back is towards them after the initial rounds. For all they know he could have on a bulletproof vest underneath all of his clothing and is just knocked back from the force of the blows. If he has a pistol on him all it takes is one shot getting off and one of the cops or a bystander is may be dead. As long as he is on his feet the threat is not neutralized. I know the Politically correct thing is cops are trained to shoot to neutralize the suspect, but in reality the odds of surviving five shots to the chest at short range is slim at best, so saying shooting to kill is really not all that inaccurate.
On January 26 2012 08:03 Flonomenalz wrote: Wow this thread is ridiculous.
All I have to say is if you think the cop couldn't have shot him in the leg, arm, or even just let the dog on him to subdue him/scare him, you need a new set of eyes. Yes, cops are supposed to do their job, but the guy had no firearm, he had a fucking crowbar. A crowbar.
Gotta love the hardasses saying "Lol derp shoot to kill". Sure, when the criminal is actually posing a lethal threat. Winding up to swing a crowbar against multiple cops with fully loaded guns and a dog is not a lethal threat. Awful decision, but what's done is done, a guy is dead for trying to swing a crowbar.
Yea a fucking crowbar. Do you understand how much damage you can deal to a person with a crowbar? It wasn't a pillow. A single swing from a crowbar can seriously maim someone. The hell is wrong with you?
I've never ever heard of a police force that shoots people for the intent of slowing them down. I've got to be honest, that sounds pretty weird to me. There are stun guns for that sort of thing. They used nonlethal force, and when it didn't work, and the man attacked him, they reacted accordingly.
Oh yeah, because Cop #1 can't use his legs and move away when he sees the guy winding up to swing the crowbar, while Cop #2 shoots the guy in the leg, he goes down, problem solved.
That's way too much trouble though, it's much easier to shoot him 20 times.
Yea, they should just reload the game and do that.
Seriously, what the hell? The guy was about to strike him with a crowbar. If he hadn't shot, the other officer would probably have been seriously injured.
Did you SEE the wind up the guy had with the crowbar?
Like, he literally was winding up for almost 2-3 seconds.
It's a friggin conduit bender. That is more comparable to a light sledge than a crowbar. The entire shooting happened within 2 seconds. I'm not going to go back and rewatch something i have seen and analyzed 15 times by now, but you might want to. Between him turning around and raising his weapon (in the same movement) until the shooting is over about 3s pass.
EPT
