Yes, we’re on the same page. The video showed that his claim was BS. I guess we differ on what should be called an accident. A gun can accidentally discharge when it’s dropped (and gun makers work hard to make sure that’s improbable).
But when a gun goes off when it’s been loaded, safety off, pointed at a person, finger on the trigger, then it isn’t an accident, it’s negligence, at best. Intent would be a matter for the jury.
And how would this have played out without the security video? The point Rob is making, I believe, is that Pace started out with the assumption that the white racist with the happy trigger finger and a history of firearm convictions was telling the truth and the kid was lying. He was “shocked” when he saw the video.
If you don’t see the problem, I probably can’t help you.
Wasn’t the cop called in to investigate a reported home invasion? At a house that had been robbed previously, no less?
The cop was doing his job and taking a statement from someone that was reporting a crime. There is no indication that Detective Pace ever met the true victim of the crime. He was a taking a report, assumed the homeowner was telling him the truth, saw the video, and realized the guy was full of shit. Why would he automatically assume that the guy was lying to him?
That’s what so few here just don’t seem to understand. Detective Pace was responding to a report of a home invasion, a very serious crime. He took a statement from a person claiming to be a victim of this crime. It’s his job at that point to investigate the claim. Why would he assume this person was lying? It doesn’t matter what that guy’s history was, unless he routinely made fake calls to the police. It’s only reasonable to start with the assumption that the person reporting the crime is making a legitimate claim. As soon as he saw the video he realized the guy was full of shit.
Now a corrupt, racist cop would have ripped up the original statement after seeing the video and told the guy to make a new statement. But this guy didn’t do that. He arrested the person making the false claim. Look at what’s going on in Dallas right now. The Texas Rangers told a Dallas police officer who killed someone for absolutely no reason to go home and take a few days to consult with her lawyers before making her official statement. That’s some bullshit right there.
Also, anybody have any evidence that Pace is white? Has he been accused of being racist before? Did he attempt to arrest the actual victim in this case? According to one article it was a completely different detective that spoke to the actual victim. From what the articles have said Pace merely went to the homeowner’s home to take a statement and subsequently arrested the homeowner. Are you all saying that when Pace showed up at the scene and took the initial statement he should have immediately arrested the homeowner because he was white and was making a complaint against a black man?
Pace did his fucking job! He responded to a report of a crime, he investigated the crime, and found that the reporter was the actual criminal. Not one article that anyone has pointed to has said anything differently.
Just get it through your heads, Pace took a statement in the investigation of a crime from a person claiming to be a victim. He saw the evidence, and arrested the correct person.
I get that you all hate police. I get that. But this was the proper outcome. It would be completely wrong for a police officer to respond to a person’s home after the claim of a home invasion and just turn away and do nothing. He arrested the correct person. How many times does this have to be pointed out? And so far as we can tell the true victim of this crime was not harmed by the police. For fuck’s sake, this was the absolute best outcome one could ask for. The racist piece of shit may be going to prison for the rest of his entire life because the police did their job. No activists had to go there and protest and force a proper investigation. The police looked at the evidence, saw through the racist assholes story, arrested him, charged him, and testified against him.
Look at the Detroit Free Press article. Pace took statements from Ziegler and Brennan, and believed Ziegler until he saw the video.
He spoke to two people. One said “I asked for directions and this guy came out with a gun and shot at me”. The other said “this guy tried to break into my house so I came out with my gun and accidentally fired it”. Presumably he examined the house and found no sign of an attempt at forced entry yet his assumption is it was an attempted home invasion. I personally would be more suspicious of the man who fired a shot “by accident”
Really?! So the cops interviewed Bubba with his “I tripped” story, then they found a clean cut school kid with a tear running down his cheek having asked for directions at another house, Pace compares the two stories and chooses to believe the white guy that the clean cut school kid asking for directions and crying because he was almost killed for it was really a hardened criminal home invader?! AND YOU DON’T SEE A PROBLEM THERE???
Actually, he spoke to the man who fired the shot and his wife then drove around the neighborhood and spoke to the victim who was crying. Then he spoke to another person who had earlier given the boy directions who corroborated the boy’s story about seeking directions to school.
He did all this before watching the video and still thought it was a home invasion.
Well now, that does make the story sound a bit different. Nonetheless, my two points stand: without the video this kid is rotting in jail, and why should we be in a time and place where the police doing their job, arresting a guilty white man and not arresting or killing an innocent unarmed black young man is newsworthy? This just sucks.
Actually, no. Another detective spoke to the boy and the other neighbor, not Pace. Unless you have evidence of a timeline that shows differently.
You don’t know that the police wouldn’t have done more of an investigation before making any arrests. Pace could have looked at the door, spoken to other witnesses, etc., before making any decision on an arrest. And then it would have been up to the prosecutor to press charges. But it never got to that point. Based on the testimony reported in the different articles on this Pace only ever talked to the crazy white man before making his decision that the crazy white man should be arrested.
Show me that Pace questioned and arrested the boy before he went after Ziegler. Can anybody prove that? I bet not. Everybody is making the claim that Pace had decided that the boy was guilty. He never decided that. He was accepting the man’s story about what happened until the evidence showed that wasn’t true.
There is a difference between saying that he believed that Ziegler thought a home invasion had been attempted and saying that he believed that the boy in question had actually made that attempt. We don’t know what kind of specific claims Ziegler made and whether he gave an adequate description. We do know another completely different detective found the boy, questioned him, saw he was shook up, and spoke to a neighbor who backed up the boy’s claims. That may have been enough for Pace to follow up with more intensive questions to determine if there was any merit to Ziegler’s claims. Without the video Pace could have determined that there was no reason to pursue charges against anyone. We don’t know. What we do know is the boy wasn’t harmed, he apparently wasn’t arrested, and the proper person was arrested and is going to prison.
What are you talking about? All we know about this dude is that he’s a literal shirtless white guy in Florida who shot at a black kid for having the audacity to ring his doorbell; that makes him fit those two aforementioned stereotypes to a “T”. Unless you or most other gun owners have also done those things, nobody is calling you or anybody else anything.
Nope, we can’t know alternative histories. That much is true. And it is a delightful irony that this guy was hosed by his own security video. But history, recent and otherwise, gives precious little reason to expect that the original story would have been questioned terribly deeply absent that. This episode worked out correctly, and I actually agree with you that in the end the police did their job. But to assume that this would have happened without the irrefutable video evidence is stretching credulity.
Minor point: this is a shirtless redneck in Michigan. Which I guess in some ways could be considered North Florida.
having read through so much of this thread and wanting to now gouge out my own eyes with a spoon for some of the stupid being bandied strewn about…I will say this.
A WHITE ADULT POINTED A LOADED WEAPON AT A BLACK CHILD AND PULLED THE TRIGGER.
Now the additional information and details of any situation can lead to different conclusions. But that baseline is where it should all begin and should immediately make you say “Are you fucking kidding me”. And if it does not make you think that straight away…then YOU are part of the problem.
But to assume that Pace is racist based off the fact that he interviewed someone claiming to have been the victim of a crime, then arrested that person, is also stretching credulity.
I think that it is important to note that in many cases, cops of any race are more predisposed to believe white men over black boys. THAT is how deep unconscious, institutional racism is in this country.
