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.
On January 25 2012 05:18 iNcontroL wrote: excessive? Police are supposed to shoot to kill.. it isn't like he reloaded and unloaded on the guy again. If a cop EVER shoots it's not to stop or slow down someone or something.. it's to kill him.
that makes me really glad I'm not american. No wonder american citizens get shot and killed by police for being "armed" with things like wallets and mobile phones.
Being OK with police consistently using lethal force is one of the first steps to a police state.
I suppose we could have a nearly completely impotent police force, and let killers run rampant on all our islands full of teens. But it's cute how you think that wielding a large metal melee weapon capable of bashing your skull in isn't considered "armed".
you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The police who arrived at Utøya were armed - but just like thousands of other islands in Norway, there wasn't a police presence there 24/7. You have armed police in the states, and yet you're still unable to prevent massacres when they first happen - it's obvious that arming your police isn't actually fixing or deterring anything.
And I never said that the person in the video in the OP wasn't armed - I'm saying that conditioning your police to always shoot to kill will obviously result in many unjustified deaths.
for what has to be the billionith time, police officers are not trained to shoot to kill. The gun is the last resort of force and like any other level of force it is used to neutralize a threat not to kill. While it is likely that you will die in the process of being neutralized its not the officer's intention.
Its lovely that norway has a significantly lower rate of illegal firearms than the US, but treating these US officers as though they were doing anything but protecting themselves and falling back on training is ridiculous.
If the police officer and any potential suspect both follow protocol- meaning you listen to the officers and the officers follow their training there should be no "unjustifiable" deaths from firearm discharge.
If police didn't respond to lethal force (a hammer being swung at you is deadly force) with lethal force there would be a lot more dead cops and a lot fewer people volunteering to be officers. What this objective fact has to do with a police state is simply beyond my comprehension.
I was originally responding to Incontrol's post, which is pretty explicit about how US police officers are supposedly always trained to shoot to kill.
When you let your fantasy run rampant, escalating a threat waaay beyond reason, you get police officers killing people for no good reason. The officer could've fired twice and let his dog incapacitate the prep. Maybe the dog would've gotten killed, if the guy had a concealed weapon, but no matter how you cut it a person's life is worth more than a dog's.
If you think there are no "unjustifiable deaths" in situations like this, you're living in a fantasy world. But whatever.. let your overseers take away your liberties. Have fun with that.
stop being so high and mighty as a human, those dogs serve along side our officers proudly and deserve a little bit more fucking respect than "oh they're dogs, let them die so that a random human threatening another will live." Give me a break, human life isn't the most important thing in the universe..
is this a troll?
I've been a vegetarian since I was 16 (I'm 31) because of animal rights issues, and I still think that the life of a dog is less valuable than the life of a human, even if that human is armed and acting criminally. The dogs are there because they're viewed as tools - either to instill fear and respect, chase down perpetrators, or with the case of schutzhund trained dogs, to pin and disarm. The dog isn't there because it's serving "proudly" on its own accord. It's been put there because it has an utilitarian purpose. Saying that sending a dog into the line of fire is wrong is an arbitrary place to draw a line.
Does this look like a dog that is not trained to put itself in harms way to you?
you don't fuck around with a malinois
If you want to look at K9 as tools i'll list you reasons why they won't just throw dogs lives away.
1. Training- These dogs are born and raised to be K9, Police, federal or whoever is using them has invested time and money into these dogs, why would they risk them?
2. Partners with humans since birth although i don't know if K9 handlers and dogs are brought up together since the dogs birth. But either way K9 units and handlers are trained together for months if not years. Losing that partner to a human would be devastating emotionally almost like losing a friend. There are several stories of when 9/11 happened a lot of dogs died searching for humans and their handlers feel like they lost a family member.
By losing their other half officers might not perform as well they use to or it could take months to recover.
Don't get me wrong if i had to trade a dogs life for a humans i would but we don't know if using the dog would of directly caused the suspect to be detained.
What could of happened is the suspect slams the dog in the head while its charging and then the officers open fire. Now there is a dead dog and a dead human.
On January 25 2012 05:18 iNcontroL wrote: excessive? Police are supposed to shoot to kill.. it isn't like he reloaded and unloaded on the guy again. If a cop EVER shoots it's not to stop or slow down someone or something.. it's to kill him.
that makes me really glad I'm not american. No wonder american citizens get shot and killed by police for being "armed" with things like wallets and mobile phones.
Being OK with police consistently using lethal force is one of the first steps to a police state.
I suppose we could have a nearly completely impotent police force, and let killers run rampant on all our islands full of teens. But it's cute how you think that wielding a large metal melee weapon capable of bashing your skull in isn't considered "armed".
you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The police who arrived at Utøya were armed - but just like thousands of other islands in Norway, there wasn't a police presence there 24/7. You have armed police in the states, and yet you're still unable to prevent massacres when they first happen - it's obvious that arming your police isn't actually fixing or deterring anything.
And I never said that the person in the video in the OP wasn't armed - I'm saying that conditioning your police to always shoot to kill will obviously result in many unjustified deaths.
for what has to be the billionith time, police officers are not trained to shoot to kill. The gun is the last resort of force and like any other level of force it is used to neutralize a threat not to kill. While it is likely that you will die in the process of being neutralized its not the officer's intention.
Its lovely that norway has a significantly lower rate of illegal firearms than the US, but treating these US officers as though they were doing anything but protecting themselves and falling back on training is ridiculous.
If the police officer and any potential suspect both follow protocol- meaning you listen to the officers and the officers follow their training there should be no "unjustifiable" deaths from firearm discharge.
If police didn't respond to lethal force (a hammer being swung at you is deadly force) with lethal force there would be a lot more dead cops and a lot fewer people volunteering to be officers. What this objective fact has to do with a police state is simply beyond my comprehension.
I was originally responding to Incontrol's post, which is pretty explicit about how US police officers are supposedly always trained to shoot to kill.
When you let your fantasy run rampant, escalating a threat waaay beyond reason, you get police officers killing people for no good reason. The officer could've fired twice and let his dog incapacitate the prep. Maybe the dog would've gotten killed, if the guy had a concealed weapon, but no matter how you cut it a person's life is worth more than a dog's.
If you think there are no "unjustifiable deaths" in situations like this, you're living in a fantasy world. But whatever.. let your overseers take away your liberties. Have fun with that.
stop being so high and mighty as a human, those dogs serve along side our officers proudly and deserve a little bit more fucking respect than "oh they're dogs, let them die so that a random human threatening another will live." Give me a break, human life isn't the most important thing in the universe..
is this a troll?
I've been a vegetarian since I was 16 (I'm 31) because of animal rights issues, and I still think that the life of a dog is less valuable than the life of a human, even if that human is armed and acting criminally. The dogs are there because they're viewed as tools - either to instill fear and respect, chase down perpetrators, or with the case of schutzhund trained dogs, to pin and disarm. The dog isn't there because it's serving "proudly" on its own accord. It's been put there because it has an utilitarian purpose. Saying that sending a dog into the line of fire is wrong is an arbitrary place to draw a line.
Does this look like a dog that is not trained to put itself in harms way to you?
I don't see the why you could possibly say the officer shouldn't have killed him and only wounded him. Shoot to kill or don't bother shooting.
The suspect was clearly armed and dangerous. He was given several chances to be stand down, but instead he clearly intended to use the weapon and paid for it with his life.
On January 25 2012 05:18 iNcontroL wrote: excessive? Police are supposed to shoot to kill.. it isn't like he reloaded and unloaded on the guy again. If a cop EVER shoots it's not to stop or slow down someone or something.. it's to kill him.
that makes me really glad I'm not american. No wonder american citizens get shot and killed by police for being "armed" with things like wallets and mobile phones.
Being OK with police consistently using lethal force is one of the first steps to a police state.
I suppose we could have a nearly completely impotent police force, and let killers run rampant on all our islands full of teens. But it's cute how you think that wielding a large metal melee weapon capable of bashing your skull in isn't considered "armed".
you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The police who arrived at Utøya were armed - but just like thousands of other islands in Norway, there wasn't a police presence there 24/7. You have armed police in the states, and yet you're still unable to prevent massacres when they first happen - it's obvious that arming your police isn't actually fixing or deterring anything.
And I never said that the person in the video in the OP wasn't armed - I'm saying that conditioning your police to always shoot to kill will obviously result in many unjustified deaths.
for what has to be the billionith time, police officers are not trained to shoot to kill. The gun is the last resort of force and like any other level of force it is used to neutralize a threat not to kill. While it is likely that you will die in the process of being neutralized its not the officer's intention.
Its lovely that norway has a significantly lower rate of illegal firearms than the US, but treating these US officers as though they were doing anything but protecting themselves and falling back on training is ridiculous.
If the police officer and any potential suspect both follow protocol- meaning you listen to the officers and the officers follow their training there should be no "unjustifiable" deaths from firearm discharge.
If police didn't respond to lethal force (a hammer being swung at you is deadly force) with lethal force there would be a lot more dead cops and a lot fewer people volunteering to be officers. What this objective fact has to do with a police state is simply beyond my comprehension.
I was originally responding to Incontrol's post, which is pretty explicit about how US police officers are supposedly always trained to shoot to kill.
When you let your fantasy run rampant, escalating a threat waaay beyond reason, you get police officers killing people for no good reason. The officer could've fired twice and let his dog incapacitate the prep. Maybe the dog would've gotten killed, if the guy had a concealed weapon, but no matter how you cut it a person's life is worth more than a dog's.
If you think there are no "unjustifiable deaths" in situations like this, you're living in a fantasy world. But whatever.. let your overseers take away your liberties. Have fun with that.
stop being so high and mighty as a human, those dogs serve along side our officers proudly and deserve a little bit more fucking respect than "oh they're dogs, let them die so that a random human threatening another will live." Give me a break, human life isn't the most important thing in the universe..
is this a troll?
I've been a vegetarian since I was 16 (I'm 31) because of animal rights issues, and I still think that the life of a dog is less valuable than the life of a human, even if that human is armed and acting criminally. The dogs are there because they're viewed as tools - either to instill fear and respect, chase down perpetrators, or with the case of schutzhund trained dogs, to pin and disarm. The dog isn't there because it's serving "proudly" on its own accord. It's been put there because it has an utilitarian purpose. Saying that sending a dog into the line of fire is wrong is an arbitrary place to draw a line.
Does this look like a dog that is not trained to put itself in harms way to you?
If you want to look at K9 as tools i'll list you reasons why they won't just throw dogs lives away.
1. Training- These dogs are born and raised to be K9, Police, federal or whoever is using them has invested time and money into these dogs, why would they risk them?
2. Partners with humans since birth although i don't know if K9 handlers and dogs are brought up together since the dogs birth. But either way K9 units and handlers are trained together for months if not years. Losing that partner to a human would be devastating emotionally almost like losing a friend. There are several stories of when 9/11 happened a lot of dogs died searching for humans and their handlers feel like they lost a family member.
By losing their other half officers might not perform as well they use to or it could take months to recover.
Don't get me wrong if i had to trade a dogs life for a humans i would but we don't know if using the dog would of directly caused the suspect to be detained.
What could of happened is the suspect slams the dog in the head while its charging and then the officers open fire. Now there is a dead dog and a dead human.
1) that's entirely a calculated risk. New dogs are always being bred and trained anyway. Dogs are tools to be used. Granted, I don't know what kind of training that dog had, but it certainly didn't look like a detection dog.
2) the emotional cost isn't even relevant. Police units have psychologists to deal with this kind of trauma. That's probably more support than the relatives of the man shot in that video ever received - but their loss was certainly greater than the hypothetical loss of a K9. I don't even think it is likely that the dog would have been harmed in that situation. If they let the dog go the instant the perp threated the other officer, the perp would probably have been blindsided by the dog, because his attention was elsewhere. Then they could've moved in and disarmed him.
Whatever - it's all hypothetical at this point. We'll never come to any kind of agreement. I'm gonna go watch EG get trashed in the NASTL instead...
On January 25 2012 05:18 iNcontroL wrote: excessive? Police are supposed to shoot to kill.. it isn't like he reloaded and unloaded on the guy again. If a cop EVER shoots it's not to stop or slow down someone or something.. it's to kill him.
that makes me really glad I'm not american. No wonder american citizens get shot and killed by police for being "armed" with things like wallets and mobile phones.
Being OK with police consistently using lethal force is one of the first steps to a police state.
I suppose we could have a nearly completely impotent police force, and let killers run rampant on all our islands full of teens. But it's cute how you think that wielding a large metal melee weapon capable of bashing your skull in isn't considered "armed".
you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The police who arrived at Utøya were armed - but just like thousands of other islands in Norway, there wasn't a police presence there 24/7. You have armed police in the states, and yet you're still unable to prevent massacres when they first happen - it's obvious that arming your police isn't actually fixing or deterring anything.
And I never said that the person in the video in the OP wasn't armed - I'm saying that conditioning your police to always shoot to kill will obviously result in many unjustified deaths.
for what has to be the billionith time, police officers are not trained to shoot to kill. The gun is the last resort of force and like any other level of force it is used to neutralize a threat not to kill. While it is likely that you will die in the process of being neutralized its not the officer's intention.
Its lovely that norway has a significantly lower rate of illegal firearms than the US, but treating these US officers as though they were doing anything but protecting themselves and falling back on training is ridiculous.
If the police officer and any potential suspect both follow protocol- meaning you listen to the officers and the officers follow their training there should be no "unjustifiable" deaths from firearm discharge.
If police didn't respond to lethal force (a hammer being swung at you is deadly force) with lethal force there would be a lot more dead cops and a lot fewer people volunteering to be officers. What this objective fact has to do with a police state is simply beyond my comprehension.
I was originally responding to Incontrol's post, which is pretty explicit about how US police officers are supposedly always trained to shoot to kill.
When you let your fantasy run rampant, escalating a threat waaay beyond reason, you get police officers killing people for no good reason. The officer could've fired twice and let his dog incapacitate the prep. Maybe the dog would've gotten killed, if the guy had a concealed weapon, but no matter how you cut it a person's life is worth more than a dog's.
If you think there are no "unjustifiable deaths" in situations like this, you're living in a fantasy world. But whatever.. let your overseers take away your liberties. Have fun with that.
stop being so high and mighty as a human, those dogs serve along side our officers proudly and deserve a little bit more fucking respect than "oh they're dogs, let them die so that a random human threatening another will live." Give me a break, human life isn't the most important thing in the universe..
is this a troll?
I've been a vegetarian since I was 16 (I'm 31) because of animal rights issues, and I still think that the life of a dog is less valuable than the life of a human, even if that human is armed and acting criminally. The dogs are there because they're viewed as tools - either to instill fear and respect, chase down perpetrators, or with the case of schutzhund trained dogs, to pin and disarm. The dog isn't there because it's serving "proudly" on its own accord. It's been put there because it has an utilitarian purpose. Saying that sending a dog into the line of fire is wrong is an arbitrary place to draw a line.
Does this look like a dog that is not trained to put itself in harms way to you?
how is it ironic? I'm saying that a dog's life is less valuable than that of a person, and sending a dog into harms way is perfectly reasonable. As far as I can see, I'm being logically consistent.
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...
I'm gonna go throw up now...
I felt sick as well and for some reason I keep rewatching it hoping that the officer will land a good shot but he is hesitant as ever D:
On January 25 2012 05:43 Roggay wrote: Wow im shocked, not way shit like that would happen in switzerland, cops are not allowed to murder people in my country, and when an accident happens and someone get killed, they get a lot of shit for it. And yea, it was a murder, nothing less. Nothing justify shooting a guy point blank 10times in the body.
In Switzerland you don't have cops getting killed on a regular basis.
How would you implement your rules for police officers, given what the law says, and that in your video, everything the attacker did up until raising his weapon was perfectly legal. Do people have a right to do things that are legal, until a police officer tells them otherwise?
Not quite, it's not "legal" to disobey an officer, as it is their right to ask for your information and such. It's not legal to shout "fuck you" in his face, and it's definitely not legal to even REACH for a weapon. Had this officer been closer, and had he not waited for so long, he would still be alive. The attacker should have been dropped the second he grabbed his weapon, just like the guy in this thread.
I watched the video and came to a few conclusions of my own, but after reading some of the moderation I figured I needed to get a more knowledgeable perspective so I shot an E-mail out to a good friend of mine whose brother has been a British police officer for 20 years, 10 years of that time spent in a fire arms unit. This is a small E-mail chain so what came out was pretty informal but, I think, interesting.
This police officers first response was:
"why did the guys in the black uniforms murder that guy?"
After some consideration he continued:
"five officers and a dog versus one scrote with a crowbar, they shouldn't have even pepper gassed him."
He also seemed pretty sure that all the officers concerned would be suspended pending an investigation then fired then probably charged with manslaughter.
Now I feel that my initial response was correct. Within American institutions of law and order as they currently stand I think the first 5 shots were justifiable. However I think it's pretty clear that American institutions that enforce law and order are pretty broken. The rate of imprisonment and the racism apparent in statistics on sentencing and imprisonment testify to this, as does the OP's video.
I believe that any humane and disinterested viewer of this video's reaction should be that no shot was discharged in a manner which a police force can possibly justify. I italicize police because the police and the army are not the same thing. The police have to consider a number of factors which the army does not, the fact that they are paid to serve and protect the public, even if that protection is from themselves. The fact that they represent an institution which will be present in an area as long as that area has a state and their actions have repercussions that will affect other memebers of that institution; fellow police officers, for generations and not stop when the fighting stops. Not least that is the fact that 10 bullets fired in a crowded urban area that you are policing represent a significant danger to innocent bystanders who you are also paid to protect.
This is, as my friends brother so eloquently put it, is "a scrote with a crowbar" vs. 5 armed police officers and a dog. If those police officers can't apprehend said scrote without putting 10 bullets in him they are either very poorly trained or very bad at their jobs. Reading some of the material that the moderator kindly linked I'd say it was probably very poor training that fired those first 5 bullets. However the second five, after the second long gap, were fired into the body of a man lying on the floor with 5 bullets in him, even by the standards described this seems to me to be a criminal offence committed by a man who is very poor at his job. If you are willing to accept those last 5 bullets as justified then you really need to examine what you think the difference between a soldier and a police officer is.
I'd also like to say that I think the moderation of this thread is suspect. Up until the last two sentences I think it does a reasonable job of trying to keep the debate above basic stupidity. The last two links are to posts in the thread itself, from two people who take one side of the debate.
The first is authoritative but, as you might guess, I'm unsure what illumination a marine weapon instructor can bring to bear on a policing issue. At least any more than a member of a special forces team could illuminate the difficulties of being a bouncer. While force is involved in all the jobs mentioned the structure, situation, goals and simple day to day job of all these profession are... or at least should be, quite different.
The second link is to a lazy video post of another incident with a police officer where the police officer gets shot. Is this going to change my opinion as the moderator suggests? If I lived in fairy cake land where people dine daily on rainbows and kitten tears then maybe. Unfortunately I live in a developed western state with drugs, knives and guns, murder, rape and theft, a state where sometimes policemen are murdered by criminals.
If you want a working police force paroling your streets and not an occupying army then you have to accept that sometimes good hardworking police get killed by bad citizens and that this is a price paid because the alternatives are so much worse.
On January 28 2012 19:21 Dapper_Cad wrote: I watched the video and came to a few conclusions of my own, but after reading some of the moderation I figured I needed to get a more knowledgeable perspective so I shot an E-mail out to a good friend of mine whose brother has been a British police officer for 20 years, 10 years of that time spent in a fire arms unit. This is a small E-mail chain so what came out was pretty informal but, I think, interesting.
This police officers first response was:
"why did the guys in the black uniforms murder that guy?"
After some consideration he continued:
"five officers and a dog versus one scrote with a crowbar, they shouldn't have even pepper gassed him."
He also seemed pretty sure that all the officers concerned would be suspended pending an investigation then fired then probably charged with manslaughter.
Now I feel that my initial response was correct. Within American institutions of law and order as they currently stand I think the first 5 shots were justifiable. However I think it's pretty clear that American institutions that enforce law and order are pretty broken. The rate of imprisonment and the racism apparent in statistics on sentencing and imprisonment testify to this, as does the OP's video.
I believe that any humane and disinterested viewer of this video's reaction should be that no shot was discharged in a manner which a police force can possibly justify. I italicize police because the police and the army are not the same thing. The police have to consider a number of factors which the army does not, the fact that they are paid to serve and protect the public, even if that protection is from themselves. The fact that they represent an institution which will be present in an area as long as that area has a state and their actions have repercussions that will affect other memebers of that institution; fellow police officers, for generations and not stop when the fighting stops. Not least that is the fact that 10 bullets fired in a crowded urban area that you are policing represent a significant danger to innocent bystanders who you are also paid to protect.
This is, as my friends brother so eloquently put it, is "a scrote with a crowbar" vs. 5 armed police officers and a dog. If those police officers can't apprehend said scrote without putting 10 bullets in him they are either very poorly trained or very bad at their jobs. Reading some of the material that the moderator kindly linked I'd say it was probably very poor training that fired those first 5 bullets. However the second five, after the second long gap, were fired into the body of a man lying on the floor with 5 bullets in him, even by the standards described this seems to me to be a criminal offence committed by a man who is very poor at his job. If you are willing to accept those last 5 bullets as justified then you really need to examine what you think the difference between a soldier and a police officer is.
I'd also like to say that I think the moderation of this thread is suspect. Up until the last two sentences I think it does a reasonable job of trying to keep the debate above basic stupidity. The last two links are to posts in the thread itself, from two people who take one side of the debate.
The first is authoritative but, as you might guess, I'm unsure what illumination a marine weapon instructor can bring to bear on a policing issue. At least any more than a member of a special forces team could illuminate the difficulties of being a bouncer. While force is involved in all the jobs mentioned the structure, situation, goals and simple day to day job of all these profession are... or at least should be, quite different.
The second link is to a lazy video post of another incident with a police officer where the police officer gets shot. Is this going to change my opinion as the moderator suggests? If I lived in fairy cake land where people dine daily on rainbows and kitten tears then maybe. Unfortunately I live in a developed western state with drugs, knives and guns, murder, rape and theft, a state where sometimes policemen are murdered by criminals.
If you want a working police force paroling your streets and not an occupying army then you have to accept that sometimes good hardworking police get killed by bad citizens and that this is a price paid because the alternatives are so much worse.
Worlds are different, your friend in the UK could have severely different experiences compared to American counterparts. Saying that 5 on 1 doesn't justify neutralizing a target AFTER he has been tazed unsuccessfully is quite silly. Taking a swing at him with a crow bar how do you expect them to neutralize him in a parking lot? you shoot him in the leg? what if it misses and ricochets and hits another person. I live in Los Angeles and have frequented Monterrey Park quite often since I was young and although it isn't a bad area, there are several bad spots so I am not surprised that these officers are a bit high strung. That being said this is nothing unusual. Police take precaution, their lives>suspects despite what most people believe. Why is that? well if you try to neutralize an obvious threat 5 on 1 and one person takes some sort of damage whether it be a cut or complete paralysis it isn't worth it. It is better to neutralize said threat after it becomes apparent that they do not care that they are surrounded by police.
Hope the above poster doesn't get warned for posting something critical of a police state. Rational arguments have no place in this thread. Apparently posting a picture of a police officer showing no restraint is disrespectful, but posting a video of someone getting shot is jingotastic.
We had a good laugh about this at work though. I was discussing what kind of effect this sort of policing would have in Newcastle on a Friday night. The general conclusion was that you would run out of body bags in an hour.
You cant compare any euro country with the Us. Weapon proliferation and different history of usage means police act differently.
For example if a bank robber in the uk is armed and have been shooting the police will have mp5s and drop him as soon as he makes a move. But in the US weapons are more common so all criminals could have them thus the rules of engagements are to shoot to kill if criminals act in a hostile way for everyone.
Put bobbys and swedish police in the us and youll have a lot more incidents like the one above. Apples and oranges and fucking do what the police tells you to do.
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)
It's not very often that someone posts something that can so drastically change my opinion. I can definitely see the officer's side now.
no. my opinion is still in line with the victim's side.
even though this is clearly the thing they want to prevent, i don't think it's accurate to use the opposite extreme where the cop didn't try disarming him at all. in that case it would have been better for the cop to fire at him when he started running towards him like that.
but that doesn't excuse the use of 10 rounds. first off, the officer holding the taser made the mistake of looking down and getting too close. and for the officer's mistake, the guy with the hammer died for it. yes, it was stupid for him to raise the hammer. yes, he should have been shot for something like that. but had the officer been more aware and not put himself in danger, the shooting could have been avoided entirely.
the thing that REALLY bothers me is how everyone just stood around after it happened. instead of helping the guy after they shot him, an officer just stood over him. i'm sure they called an ambulance, but they could have at least tried to help keep the guy alive after putting 10 rounds in him.
edit: the other thing i'd like to see changed is the way these police officers are investigated after killing someone. i think i speak for a lot of americans when i say that we're tired of seeing officers questionably kill or hurt people, only to see them get a paid vacation from work for a week while some closely affiliated department writes up a statement saying the people shot "were out of control" and an "imminent public danger". half the time it's pretty clear they didn't even open an investigation to begin with. there's a sense the police don't have to stick to the same law code the rest of us do. if an officer uses excessive lethal force, he should be charged for it like everyone else. NOT given a paid holiday and a slap on the wrist like they do now.
The kid deserved it plain and simple, the cops are doing their job and he is putting their life in danger willingly. There is absolutely no excuse to rush a police officer with a deadly weapon. They had every right to kill him to stop the immediate threat.
It's a shame really that we live in a world where someone can't make the proper decision not to rush armed men with weapons. And it's sad that he is no longer with us, such unneccesary violence.
I would also like to point out to people who are saying they should have just used the dog, did you see how close he was to the partner? By the time the dog would have had any effect on a human in motion his parter could have potentially had a crowbar in the side of his head and been a vegetable. In a split second situation like that it is never the right choice to leave anything to chance. It's also impossible to make a well thought out decision.
How can this situation be classified as excessive? Dangerous person with a deadly weapon takes/implies an agressive action, wich could possibly injure or kill one of the officers. Reaction: Shoot the agressor to stop the threat. first burst goes of and the agressor still stands. Is the situation resolved? No, he might still be a threat(hidden weapon etc.). They learn in training to continue firering. 2nd Burst goes off. Agressor drops to the ground and nobody is shooting anymore. The whole thing took less than 3 Seconds. In this case I think that the police handled it correctly.
On January 28 2012 19:21 Dapper_Cad wrote: I watched the video and came to a few conclusions of my own, but after reading some of the moderation I figured I needed to get a more knowledgeable perspective so I shot an E-mail out to a good friend of mine whose brother has been a British police officer for 20 years, 10 years of that time spent in a fire arms unit. This is a small E-mail chain so what came out was pretty informal but, I think, interesting.
This police officers first response was:
"why did the guys in the black uniforms murder that guy?"
After some consideration he continued:
"five officers and a dog versus one scrote with a crowbar, they shouldn't have even pepper gassed him."
He also seemed pretty sure that all the officers concerned would be suspended pending an investigation then fired then probably charged with manslaughter.
Now I feel that my initial response was correct. Within American institutions of law and order as they currently stand I think the first 5 shots were justifiable. However I think it's pretty clear that American institutions that enforce law and order are pretty broken. The rate of imprisonment and the racism apparent in statistics on sentencing and imprisonment testify to this, as does the OP's video.
I believe that any humane and disinterested viewer of this video's reaction should be that no shot was discharged in a manner which a police force can possibly justify. I italicize police because the police and the army are not the same thing. The police have to consider a number of factors which the army does not, the fact that they are paid to serve and protect the public, even if that protection is from themselves. The fact that they represent an institution which will be present in an area as long as that area has a state and their actions have repercussions that will affect other memebers of that institution; fellow police officers, for generations and not stop when the fighting stops. Not least that is the fact that 10 bullets fired in a crowded urban area that you are policing represent a significant danger to innocent bystanders who you are also paid to protect.
This is, as my friends brother so eloquently put it, is "a scrote with a crowbar" vs. 5 armed police officers and a dog. If those police officers can't apprehend said scrote without putting 10 bullets in him they are either very poorly trained or very bad at their jobs. Reading some of the material that the moderator kindly linked I'd say it was probably very poor training that fired those first 5 bullets. However the second five, after the second long gap, were fired into the body of a man lying on the floor with 5 bullets in him, even by the standards described this seems to me to be a criminal offence committed by a man who is very poor at his job. If you are willing to accept those last 5 bullets as justified then you really need to examine what you think the difference between a soldier and a police officer is.
I'd also like to say that I think the moderation of this thread is suspect. Up until the last two sentences I think it does a reasonable job of trying to keep the debate above basic stupidity. The last two links are to posts in the thread itself, from two people who take one side of the debate.
The first is authoritative but, as you might guess, I'm unsure what illumination a marine weapon instructor can bring to bear on a policing issue. At least any more than a member of a special forces team could illuminate the difficulties of being a bouncer. While force is involved in all the jobs mentioned the structure, situation, goals and simple day to day job of all these profession are... or at least should be, quite different.
The second link is to a lazy video post of another incident with a police officer where the police officer gets shot. Is this going to change my opinion as the moderator suggests? If I lived in fairy cake land where people dine daily on rainbows and kitten tears then maybe. Unfortunately I live in a developed western state with drugs, knives and guns, murder, rape and theft, a state where sometimes policemen are murdered by criminals.
If you want a working police force paroling your streets and not an occupying army then you have to accept that sometimes good hardworking police get killed by bad citizens and that this is a price paid because the alternatives are so much worse.
You kind of wasted your time asking him for his opinion.
It's a completely different environment over there. Most cops in that country don't even carry firearms, and a firearm is a very rare thing in society in general.
We literally have about 75 times as many guns in the US as they do in the UK, almost 15x as many per capita, and they're distributed all throughout the population.
The rules of engagement for police officers are absolutely justified in this environment. It's the most dangerous environment in the civilized world for a police officer, our officers have a life expectancy more than 20 years lower than the general population.
In situations like this, if you hesitate and try to do everything you can to avoid taking a life, you die. You get into this situation hundreds of times throughout your career. If you hesitate every time, it's going to catch up to you, and you are guaranteed to be murdered.
So our rules are different than theirs. If you have a weapon and you make an aggressive move toward a police officer, they will shoot and kill you. In this environment, it's completely justified.
From there it becomes an argument over gun control. Would everything be better if we had a firearms situation like they have in the UK? Unquestionably. But our political and economic system pretty much prohibits it, there's little if anything we can ever do about it.
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)
Never before has a single youtube video altered how i see a pretty big issue like this. That poor guy was so friendly and polite while also trying to remain respectfull. But not much use when you pull a person like that over. I fully understand now why police officers in the states have their hand on their gun whenever they approach a vehicle they've pulled over. They can't possibly know what's waiting for them and im sure 9999/10000 everything is fine and nothing happens. But i myself as an untrained person would not for a second take that 1/10000 of a chance that i would wound up like the poor guy in the video.
Goddamn the video didn't even show him get shot and it's still the most tragic and shocking video i have ever seen. You're right, it made me feel like complete shit.
This is one of those point where i can agree with shooting the guy and killing him. They tazed him first... he didn't drop on the ground nor did he droped the weapon They warned him... he continued moving towards them with the crowbar ready He could have had another hidden weapon, the chances of it are quite low but he could have had it, and a crowbar can be lethal if wielded correctly+ Show Spoiler +
Even outside HalfLife
He is the criminal, there is no point of risking your own life to save the life of a criminal, some ppl might say the risk wasn't to high and it was not but even to those people i say... what if he would have killed his partner, than that means the cop failed to protect and innocent from a criminal. And lastly, the fact that he shoot 3 shoots after he was falling, seems ok to me, you can't really analyze the situation after you shoot ( aka, i shoot him in x y and z he should not posse a threat anymore ), what if he was simply trying to jump down to avoid shoots while pulling his pistol ? They police are and should be allowed to shoot at a threat until the threat is no more ( in many cases that means killing the guy, sadly ), that is if the threat is big enough to be justifiable to shoot at it in the first place, in this case i strongly believe it was.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.blacknecks.com/Huvud_Xa.jpg)
