11 Officers shot, 4 dead

[Timsup2nothin]

You can't really readily discern warning shots from shots aimed at your head. Especially from people like us who are just interpreting news reports.

By all indications if this guy had had some heads to aim at, there'd be dead people to show for it.

 

[Bugfatty300]

By all indications if this guy had had some heads to aim at, there'd be dead people to show for it.

Agai, there are multiple reasons why shots fail to hit there marks. The real or perceived threats of bodily harm from these shots exists either way.

Do people who rifle bullets cracking over their heads not feel in immediate danger regardless of whether one lands or not?

 

[civvver]

It's reasonable on the psychological perspective. On the statistical perspective, I think it's just overblown. I'll still stick to it, but that's just because I'm a coward

Is it bad to quote something from page 3 this late in the game?

At first I thought man you are crazy, but honestly I wouldn't drive myself through mexico because of the stories about crooked federalies (spelling) there, and there are a lot of european countries I used to think were fine that I'm not too keen on seeing any more. Like even greece I'm not so sure I want to visit right now, it's too close to turkey (which is even more obviously out).

 

[Commodore]

"okay, so that was illegal

Let me stop you right there. You say this was an illegal action? Prove it. Cite the exact law or laws, with a direct quotes (not your paraphrasing), that the police violated by killing him the way they did.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Let me stop you right there. You say this was an illegal action? Prove it. Cite the exact law or laws, with a direct quotes (not your paraphrasing), that the police violated by killing him the way they did.

Don't play stupid, because I know that you aren't. YOU already provided the law in question. If there was no immediate threat to life then lethal force was not justified. BugFatty and I may disagree on whether there was a genuine threat or not, but at least he has the integrity not to demand that I provide citations for things that he has already agreed to just because he doesn't like the flow of the conversation.

Meanwhile "do people with rifle bullets cracking over their heads" in a location that they have safely occupied for two hours or more have the right to say they suddenly are under such immediate threat that they should be allowed to use deadly force?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's illuminating that I haven't yet come across any 2nd amendment champions defending the right to take up arms against an oppressive government. I guess that's perhaps a fantastic demonstration of how specious such an argument is.

The relative value of "farmer with gun" vs "soldier in military" in the late 1700's was different from now. They were much closer. That amendment was made in the wake of perceived unfairness by a ruler overseas, to allow people to put down similar oppression in the future. A random guy with a rifle was pretty dangerous to armed soldiers in 1790. I doubt the constitution had artillery, bombers, and battleships in mind as things a citizen could arm himself to defeat.

If the US were to organize a militia of 1 million dudes with guns to oppose the army/navy/marines, what outcome would you anticipate? I don't anticipate good results for the militia. How long would ranks hold when being shelled from out-of-sight? Seconds?

Bearing arms against the government in the sense that the constitution set up is not viable. People don't have the means, training, desire, or anything else needed to go out and pick up an AC 130 then operate it against an oppressive government. The notion is ridiculous to the point of being laughable...and what would one do against one of those with a rifle? Might as well shake a stick or throw bricks at it for all the good it would do.

So at this point small arms are logically for self-defense against criminals, which back in the 1700's was accepted without thought also, and still is when not abused today.

As an institution police don't have decent oversight/incentive against unethical behavior, and until that changes you're going to get brutality and retaliation. IMO this case is relatively straightforward; a military-trained guy had already shot people, was still shooting at people, and could conceivably have done something drastic to inflict further casualties before being gunned down.

The use of the robot is troubling though. A few in this thread have expressed concern that police aren't the only ones that could use them in theory, and that notion scares me long-term. It's fortunate most shooting-spree type crazies are not creative/efficient, but the idea of committing those kinds of acts remotely is sobering.

 

[Commodore]

Don't play stupid, because I know that you aren't. YOU already provided the law in question. If there was no immediate threat to life then lethal force was not justified. BugFatty and I may disagree on whether there was a genuine threat or not, but at least he has the integrity not to demand that I provide citations for things that he has already agreed to just because he doesn't like the flow of the conversation.

Translation: "I cannot provide any evidence to support my claim that this action was illegal, so I'm going to act indignant at the request to avoid admitting I was talking out of my metaphorical butt."

Cite the law, man. The exact statute. Otherwise your claim that this action was illegal becomes highly dubious at best. You can't just throw around words like "illegal" and "unwarranted" without having something to back it up.

It's illuminating that I haven't yet come across any 2nd amendment champions defending the right to take up arms against an oppressive government. I guess that's perhaps a fantastic demonstration of how specious such an argument is.

Maybe because this wasn't some noble revolutionary fighting against and oppressive government. This was a racist nutjob who, by his own admission, just wanted to kill some white people in uniform.

 

[Algeroth]

A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

In officer-involved shootings in these 10 cities, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both of these results undercut the idea that the police wield lethal force with racial bias.

But this line of analysis included only encounters in which a shooting took place. A more fundamental question still remained: In the tense moments when a shooting may occur, are police officers more likely to fire if the suspect is black?

To answer this question, Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The police department there allowed the researchers to look at reports not only for shootings but also for arrests when lethal force might have been justified. Mr. Fryer defined this group to include suspects the police charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer, or evading or resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with Tasers.

And in the arena of “shoot” or “don’t shoot,” Mr. Fryer found that, in tense situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot suspects if the suspect were black. This estimate was not very precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But, in a variety of models that controlled for different factors and used different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

Source

 

[tetley]

The lack of advocacy in favor of taking up arms against an oppressive government is a demonstration of the lack of First Amendment in the country, nothing more.

 

[El_Machinae]

Uh, what are you talking about? What's the "BLM case" and who's "they"?

Bureau of Land Management
It was a big todo a couple years ago.
I was blanking on Bundy's name until I looked up the wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff

@El Mach...I suppose how long to let them seize territory depends on the territory they are seizing, to some extent. But ultimately I favor what was done in the rancher case. Isolate them and wait until hunger or boredom leads to their surrender or suicide. That has pretty much been the standard for a long time, and only in recent years has the "heroic breech" by a heavily armed paramilitary unit been accepted as routine.

Yeah, it's certainly not easy. I mean, the guy is right in the middle of the city. This is a case where the hostility has been confirmed. It's true he was contained, but it's not like the containment could be dropped. It's not like the situation could be safe.

People seem to think that he'd have been riddled with bullets if he'd tried to surrender. And there's an overlap in this, in the Venn sense, with the idea that police actually acted improperly in killing him. I'm not sure if one is biasing the other, but I'm really skeptical of both positions. Police consistently accept peaceful surrender; suicide by cop also happens too. It's true you never know if a peaceful surrender is going to be a bait-and-switch by the criminal trying to kill himself, and that will lead to some false positives. But I'm just not buying the idea that a negotiator will let a hail of bullets ruin his negotiation.

 

[Lexicus]

Ha I totally misinterpreted that.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ha I totally misinterpreted that.

Me too. Constantly, on the gun rights boards I peruse.

 

[tetley]

. But I'm just not buying the idea that a negotiator will let a hail of bullets ruin his negotiation.

You do realize that none of this would have happened were it not for the Baton Rouge video of cops shooting a black guy, on the ground, surrendering, hands spread out, right?

 

[Lexicus]

Police consistently accept peaceful surrender;

I would imagine they do so much less consistently in cases where the suspect has killed or injured officers though.

 

[El_Machinae]

You do realize that none of this would have happened were it not for the Baton Rouge video of cops shooting a black guy, on the ground, surrendering, hands spread out, right?

... I guess ...

The causes are multi-factorial. But I'd also say inflammatory rhetoric had a lot to do with it too. And short-sighted thinking on his part. The step from A to B, when B is mass-murder, is going to be confusing.

I would imagine they do so much less consistently in cases where the suspect has killed or injured officers though.

It's a reasonable hypothesis, for sure. But that's something that really just needs data to form an opinion. I'd not be surprised if there was a bump in statistical likelihood, but certainly surprised if there was a big statistical risk factor (excepting, of course, that a person who shoots cops is actually more likely to be 'suiciding by cops', which would sway the basal statistics).

 

[tetley]

... I guess ...

The causes are multi-factorial. But I'd also say inflammatory rhetoric had a lot to do with it too. And short-sighted thinking on his part.

Like the rhetoric of the protesters' #1 chant is raising their hands up, don't shoot? That's what this has been all about this whole time.

I don't think this was short-sighted on his part. He thought this through to the very end, and decided way ahead of time that surrender was not an option. You just wanted the guy to surrender. Similar to how negotiators just want to end the standoff--they really don't care what happens after that. Except for the minor detail that if you kill people trying to surrender, people will just stop surrendering anymore. Thus ruining future negotiations. Now THAT'S short-sighted.

 

[innonimatu]

Can you all at least stop acting like this guy was just some innocent victim the government brutally executed? This was a cut-and-dry case and the police did the right thing.

The issue here is that the libyan government and the syrian government (just to use two recent cases for comparison) always claimed that their security forces were killing armed rebels who had attacked them. Or if you want to go further back, so did the serbians in Kosovo - and those truthfully, later investigations seem to show.

Part of the criticism against all these governments was that they were violating our ("western") notion of right to a fair trial by treating these rebels as a military enemy (to be killed however possible if that was expedient) instead of as armed civilians targeted by police actions. Isn't the standard for dealing with armed civilians in police actions to contain and when possible and apprehend them to stand trial? Not to have the police kill them on the spot by whatever means available - that's the military standard, for war, and not in all circumstances. But I'm not sure, it may be that in the US the police is now allowed to kill just because they judge they should do so? That would explain who so many americans say the police should not be trusted nor even talked with - you've been having a serious trust problem brewing there.

You can argue that if a police sniper had shot and killed this guy we wouldn't be having this discussion. Probably true. it is the novelty of the means used (which sets a dangerous example, one I fear people will come to regret) that draws attention to the action. But the action itself, killing instead of seeking an arrest, does not look good at all on the police. It is not a cut-and-dry case, there should be a valid reason to resort to killing instead of waiting out and perhaps making an arrest. The police's one report seem to support there was no need for haste, he's described as being holed up. And it would have been useful to question him, no way to do it now.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ah, I missed the gist of what you meant. A fear that the cops will abuse a black prisoner is a good reason to avoid arrest or to help a loved one avoid arrest. I thought you meant that he'd not have become a mass-murderer except for that incident.

You just wanted the guy to surrender.

Not sure how to answer that one. In general, I don't mind lethal takedowns of hostile threats. But yeah, I guess I do prefer that people get convinced to surrender rather than being assassinated. I'm not sold on the idea of this being an assassination. That said, you seem to be implying that the guy preferred death-by-cop to surrender; or at least that it's reasonable to suspect it.

 

[Zkribbler]

Cite the law, man. The exact statute. Otherwise your claim that this action was illegal becomes highly dubious at best. You can't just throw around words like "illegal" and "unwarranted" without having something to back it up.

Is this what you're looking for?

A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead...however...Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force.
— Justice Byron White, Tennessee v. Garner

 

[Zelig]

Can you all at least stop acting like this guy was just some innocent victim the government brutally executed? This was a cut-and-dry case and the police did the right thing.

Yes, based on this thread, it does seem pretty cut-and-dry.

The police chief said Micah could have rushed them at any moment.

So could anyone who isn't already locked up.