100%
Police have been killing innocent people since they were invented. The frequency is the only question.
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this… this is the erosion of our society.
how? how in a civilized society is this ‘justified’?
the bar for cops justified in shooting (murdering) someone is WAY TO LOW.
can someone explain or quantify what it takes? are there markers or actions that must be met? i doubt it’s public. probably similar to movie ratings… a closed room of ‘peers’ who say it’s PG vs R based on how many times the ‘F’ bomb is dropped…
an unarmed kid ‘resisting’ arrest to a trained policeman resulting in DEADLY force??? don’t they have tasers and/or mace??
this DA is a menace to society for protecting the blue as opposed to enforcing consequences for these actions.
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Some USA police forces need to get the Barney Fife treatment.
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The problem here, I think, is the police are often, just WAY TOO CALLOUS to problems, and assume every person they see is a potential offender.
I can sort of see a cop, used to see drug runners try to swallow evidence, can mistake the victim here doing something illicit, and take the “better be safe than sorry” approach to drag him out of the car, and justify the shooting when the victim flail blindly, and mistake that as attempting to fight him for his wepaon.
But that is a fundamental MINDSET fail for the police, as the vast majority of the citizens they encounter are the peaceful lawabiding citizens. The victim here seems to be pretty peaceful and cooperative, at least to us laymen, unless you’ve been PTSD’ed (not making fun of PTSD sufferers or trying to make light of the situation) into assuming EVERYONE is out to hurt you, and you automatically make the worst case scenario assumptions.
I do NOT pretend to know what it’s like to walk in the police of sheriff’s deputy shoes. I’ve never done a cadet ride-along or participated in any sort of law enforcement action. (I once walked alongside some SS agents on a diiplomatic protection detail, but that’s another story) So I can’t claim to know what that deputy / policeman was thinking, but I have a pretty good imagination.
Yes, this is over-reaction on top of over-reaction, to put a bitt of euphemism on it. And it is VERY reminiscent of the Sandra Bland story back in 2015. TL;DR: Sandra Bland was pulled over for failing to signal lane change on a Texas highway. She lit a cigarette, the trooper told her to put it out, she refused, and he ended up arresting her, and she was found dead of suicide a few days later in jail. Except this one happened in seconds. That one happened over a few minutes. BOTH had problems with police, to put it politely.
IIRC, only 10% of British police are armed. Most just wear anti-stab vests. You use what you have to work with. But then, the Brits don’t have our 2nd amendment.
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A week or two of desk duty should be sufficient punishment, no?
i’ll admit, we have no way of knowing exact numbers - neither currently nor in the past - because the police and the justice system don’t want us to know.
still, i push back against the narrative that now is particularly special or abhorrent because it white washes our long history of sanctioned police violence.
i feel that kind of thinking might lead people to believe if only we got back to the way things were, everything will be fine. and that’s clearly not the case
policing is another example of american failed exceptionalism, and it needs to be completely torn down and redone
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To US cops literally anything can be justification for a shooting. E.g. they “felt fear” - because they always feel fear when interacting with the public. But yeah, they’ll escalate a situation and then use that very escalation as the justification, and that’s seen by the system as a good justification.
There’s nothing quite like the cops/prosecutors declaring absolutely egregious wrongdoing like this to be “justified” to really demonstrate just how rotten and utterly broken law enforcement is. One can make all sorts of accusations and investigations, but ultimately they prove it all by themselves.
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THAT’S WHAT THEY SIGNED UP FOR!!!
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Also, when they say they “feel fear” what they really mean is they feel “fear.”
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Here’s a great investigative journalism series about our own serious problems in NZ with police killings.
It’s not as bad as American police, but more or less the same issues:
Poor training, cops escalating situations and putting themselves in situations that “justify” lethal force, investigations that never find the cops were unjustified in killing someone, and systemic racism leading to Māori men being more likely to get shot.
Spoiler: The statistic from gatto’s screenshot isn’t trending down.
And the police union here wants to arm our cops, 'Merica-style. On the plus side, the police brass are against it on principal, and our politicians are mostly saying “Yeah, Nah, that’s not the kind of policing Kiwis want, and you kill too many people as it is. Sort your shit out.”
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A lot of cops have this fantasy
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“Oh, you wanted us to do DE-escalation training? Jeez, our bad. Must have misunderstood.”
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Oh, look. Even more wrongdoing.
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Anyone – including “good apples” – who joined the force during the existence of cell phone, security, and body cams knew exactly the types of situations they could run into and exactly what would be expected of them. At this point and learning how things continue to go down in these horror stories, I expect the “good apples” to be the ones who don’t take direct part in the violence but are nonetheless complicit due to their inaction and hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil stance. Did I say, good apples?
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The word “civilians” in this statistic is already a sign the mindset about police is completely wrong in the US. Police are civilians, too. Using military rhetoric around them only makes the problem worse.
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We used to have a list around here somewhere of things that scare cops sufficiently to lead them to shoot someone.
More seriously, yes there are criteria used to assess whether police use of a firearm was justified. The problem is that they are a) far too focused on how the officer feels and on securing the safety of the officer; b) interpreted by people far too willing to give credence to what police officers tell them and c) interpreted by people living in a society already primed to accept the use of lethal force as normal rather than as a horrendous anomaly and failure.
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And now my enjoyment of Wellington Paranormal is greatly diminished. I mean, of course it’s copaganda for affectionately portraying the cops as lovable bumblers, but I told myself that it probably was not nearly as bad there as it is here 
Glad that at least the higher ups and politicians are not just going along with it all. Or applauding it
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