Autopsy report declares police shooting of Tamir Rice, 12, to be homicide

So they should keep the kids at home and explain to them how dangerous the police are instead?

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Yes, there is absolutely no middle ground between locking your kids in a vault and giving them toys that look like deadly weapons. You got me.

And yes, kids should be taught that police are pretty much to be treated like strange ownerless dogs in an alleyway. Maybe they are friendly, but if they want to bite you they will so it’s best to stay the hell away and not to do anything that encourages them.

The only difference is animal control tends to actually do their job, unlike police oversight.

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I thought I would add this, seems relevant:

[quote]2. Garmback is assigned as Loehmann’s field training officer

Eight months after hiring Loehmann, Cleveland Police partnered him with a training officer accused of police brutality. The city paid out $100,000 in March to settle a lawsuit in which Garmback, 46, was accused of tackling, choking and beating a woman while on duty in 2010.

In 2011, Cleveland Police awarded Garmback the Medal of Heroism for shooting a man during a confrontation with robbery suspects.

On the day Tamir was killed, Garmback was assigned to coach Loehmann and serve as a police role model as part of the rookie officer’s probationary introduction to police work.

Police spokesmen would not say what qualified Garmback to be a field training officer. They provided a vague police policy that did not answer the question.[/quote]

Here is the full article:

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If we won’t hold our police officers to a higher standard of decorum, behavior and stress management than the average citizen, we have no justification to give them any authority at all.

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[quote=“Aaron_Harmon, post:31, topic:48156”]
How do you know that? Do not take whether or not it make a splash in the headlines for evidence. Perhaps when a white guy is shot in similar circumstance, it does not make the papers. A white cop shooting a black guy is a ready-made headline. A white cop shooting a white guy is less so.
[/quote] [Emphasis Added]

You, sir, have not met the gun lobby. Cop shooting some white guy for open-carry without so much as a how-do-you-do? That is ABSOLUTELY a ready-made headline. Obviously I can’t say this 100% certainty. But I’m about 96% sure that would have hit the headlines if it happened.

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Are you asking what I think you are? Because to me it sounds like what you’re asking is: “why are adults more responsible than and better able to consider consequences than children?”

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Nope.

I’m pointing out the responsibility for enforcing the law falls squarely on the law enforcement officers.

Some people in this thread want to say the law officers who killed this kid did the right thing, because Tamir looked like an adult.

Other people want to blame the parents.

To me, those are deflections and distractions from the real concern, the behavior of the police.

Ohio is a state where open carry and concealed carry are both legal. Thus, I find it very troubling when the police roll up displaying (and tragically, using,) deadly force when from the description someone could very well have been exercising their 2nd amendment rights as condoned by their state. There were no reports of shots fired - indeed, the 911 caller stated it could have been a toy.

To me, this police over-reaction is just as appalling as when police threaten deadly force against people who are exercising their 1st amendment rights.

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Thanks for clearing it up. I actually agree with your point, I just misinterpreted your meaning. This is a tense discussion, as we’re all aware, and I’ve been trying to stay out of the conversation mostly. Simply because I don’t think I have much of a right to speak up about this issue. I very much dislike playing detective with these kinds of news stories. I much prefer to form an opinion after the fury dies down somewhat and all the evidence that’s going to be released is, rather than ranting about the injustice of it all before the case goes to court. I’m not downplaying the issues here, I just don’t want to polarize myself while emotions are running high.

Also, I know I’ll end up getting angry and saying stupid crap. It happens too often for me not to notice. So I’ve been mostly quiet until I think I can say something that I can back up.

Anyway, I mistook your statement, and I’m glad I didn’t go off the wall.

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Actually, parents are responsible for everything a minor under their legal supervision does, inside or outside of the home. Certainly they’re financially liable, and increasingly criminally liable as well.

I take what you meant to say was that no parent is perfect, and is omniscient about everything their 12 year old does? I like to think that I had some very good parents, but I still managed to pull the wool over their eyes periodically.

Let’s see what the science says!

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Ohio being a state where open and concealed carry are legal is irrelevant in this case. Carrying in your waistband, exposed is not “concealed”, and, even if considered “open” carry, brandishing a weapon (waving it around etc… as reported by the caller) is illegal. Per the information from the caller, and the pre-cop involved murder video, he would not have been legally exercising second amendment rights. He would have been illegally brandishing a firearm. Heck, a quick google search shows that even brandishing a “replica” firearm (which an airsoft gun qualifies as) is a criminal act (misdemeanor)[see pg. 375 of the attached .pdf]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CFgQFjAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.atf.gov%2Ffiles%2Fpublications%2Fdownload%2Fp%2Fatf-p-5300-5-31st-editiion%2FStates%2Fatf-p-5300-5-ohio-2010.pdf&ei=0t2LVP2LEIWqNtjagrAF&usg=AFQjCNG8p0578NroaKuT7kUqRtljiPAltQ&bvm=bv.81828268,d.eXY&cad=rja

Also, interesting note, furnishing a “replica” gun to a minor is a crime as well…

Again though, all of this is kind of a moot point in that it appears that the officers actively created a situation where, if it had been a real gun, they put themselves and Tamir in unnecessary danger. As others have noted, pulling up to a reasonable distance, and attempting to communicate could possibly have prevented this whole tragedy.

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Yes, yes you can.

I couldn’t believe how much airsoft guns look like real guns myself. Indistinguishable from a foot away.

Good call on debunking the common “autopsy report declares homicide” media bait. To my understanding the autopsy report only has a handful of options for that classification: natural, accident, homicide, suicide, undetermined. Nevertheless, The Autopsy Declaration is always a critical component of the “white cop vs. black kid” narrative.

This is where we disagree. I think it’s entirely relevant that the crime and punishment for brandishing is different from other gun crimes like failure to have the appropriate license or attempted murder. My expectation is that the police collect the requisite evidence needed to charge someone for the appropriate infraction.

It seems we agree on the issue that the responding unit totally mishandled the situation.

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The easiest way to neutralize a threat to yourself is to run, drive, or even walk away from that threat. That gives time to think instead of react.

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Yes, exactly.

Common misconception. The subject of parental liability varies from state to state and generally speaking parents must direct the actions of the infant to be responsible. The law recognizes what you say, parents aren’t the be-all end-all of of what their kids do.

Good Grief… WTF is wrong w/people like you??? YES - A cop should wait to assess the situation for more than 2 f’n secs before shooting a weapon! You think that is unreasonable?? STFU you fascist POS.

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Gun visible is open-carry. That’s like saying in a holster is concealed-carry. OH is also a concealed carry state with permits. And adults walking around with a gun does not automatically mean that they will shoot the first thing that moves. Here in the US, where I live, we don’t normally accord the death penalty for what someone might do with a dangerous object.

He doesn’t have to be a horrible person to be guilty of murder or manslaughter. I leave questions of good and evil to the philosophers.

Police are often dispatched by more dispassionate professionals, not the 911 caller. It is as you say, they should have assessed the situation. The failure to assess is indicative of a willingness to engage in violent behavior absent good judgement. That is what should be legally deterred here.

Video and photographic evidence. It’s a pretty wide shot of the scene. If there were legitimately concerned bystanders not in the picture, they had sufficient berth to move farther away. Contrary to popular belief, an untrained shooter actually has exponentially more trouble actually hitting anything as distance increases. A moving target is even worse. Life is not a video game. That’s why cops (who maybe understand handguns from training) know that being a good shot is hard and that remaining at a distance gives them (the people who are trained to use handguns) an advantage.

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I guess that depends on how long you look at it.

In this case, two seconds. Sound legit? Not to me.

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