Eight officers, more than 100 rounds of ammunition, no one firing back at them so they didn’t need to engage in defensive maneuvers…and all they did was shatter the windshield and land 2 bullets in a non-lethal location.
Why do we think that even trained gun owners will be able to protect us in an emergency?
Edited to add: fistbump to @davide405. Great minds think alike!
I guess the guy running out of the apartment covered in blood was also an a bad guy they shot him too. Don’t they have tasers or is the safety on the gun just more handy. As usual it will get dismissed as the cops just doing their job. If people knew how much the city has payed out in wrongful death cases, wrongful conviction and just plan negligence the citizens taxes wouldn’t be so high. Also it appears the screening process for police officers must be pretty low, and once they get on they are not looked at further no matter what they do. After all I’m the poo poo and we’re always right. Works even better when the other side is dead. LOL
Man, this just makes me unbelievably sad.
Your rhetorical question implies an agenda I do not share.
We can derail a perfectly good outrage-at-out-of-control-cops thread and subvert it to the purpose of all-guns-are-bad, but I don’t want to give assent to that process by failing to note my disagreement with the conclusion your rhetorical question suggests.
I respect your opinion, but I don’t think this is the place to debate it.
That depends on what their and their fellow citizens idea of what a cop is supposed to be.
In a society that generally applauds cops using violence against criminals, you attract the wrong people, sure.
But Hollywood and US TV is generally okay with glorifying violence by police and the like and even private citizens, as long as it’s only directed against bad guys and not against dogs.
Do that long enough and people forget that it is easy to write a story with a bad guy (probably easier than to write a story with an ambiguous guy), but hard to make sure in practice.
Convince people that cops are there to advise you on how to prevent break ins, look for missing kids, help direct traffic when there is an accident or even provide a safe room (even it’s close to a cell) for a drunk person who cannot be sent home, you get people who think they can make a meaningful contribution to society. And those you can train to use a deadly weapon only in dire circumstances.
Always good for a laugh, read the policeone.com comments on this incident.
As usual, no one is to blame.
Lawyers tell their clients to never admit to any wrongdoing, which Officer Bully, his pals, and his union would never do, anyway. But I seem to recall a study some years ago that found that patients who received an apology from their doctor/hospital after a mistake was made would actually be less inclined to sue, or would sue for less money.
I don’t expect lawyers, cops, or prosecutors to ever learn that lesson, though.
Very well said 
As I read it, you’ve proposed moving the police force back in the direction of the fire department and paramedics, and away from their current para-military condition. And you rightly (IMO) note the role of the entertainment industry in glorifying the ultra-violence.
Kudos to you for posing a solution instead of just ranting about the problem.
This is why you should not give the Police guns. And every little step that the British Police take in arming themselves sends shivers down my spine.
Most telling comment: “it’s just fog-of-war”. When that’s how your cops see things, any collateral damage is acceptable as long as the perp gets busted.
Well, if the cops had been armed only with batons (as British Police are) then Mr Winkler would still be alive. He might have been battered in the confusion but not shot and killed.
L.A. isn’t a real place, so on some level I suppose it makes sense that the police there are equally phony shams.
Someone should tell the cops that they’re not at war.
I’m not sure. He might have been mistaken for a Brazilian electrician or something like that.
There are police forces in other countries where every officer is armed with a gun like in the US (e.g. Germany). Unsurprisingly US police forces kill vastly more people than armed police forces in western Europe. It’s not a gun problem but an attitude problem.
German police shot 8 people to death and injured 20 in 2012. Exactly 36 shots were fired at humans - in the whole of Germany, a country of more than 80 million people.
Sixteen people were fatally shot by New York City police in 2012, 14 were shot and injured by police. In 2012 331 shots were fired. NYC has a population of 8.4 million - a tenth of Germany.
The US is a country that glorifies violence. The belief that violence is a viable solution to most forms of conflict is commonplace in US society (in foreign politics and domestic -> War on Terror, War on Drugs, death penalty etc.). Or as the saying goes “You live by the sword, you die by the sword”. I’m glad for living in a society where life is not as cheap as in the US.
It is unfortunate that this kind of tragedy happens entirely too often in this country. Seriously, is there anyone who feels safe when the police are around? Seems they are likely to assault you, shoot you, and then get away with it entirely too often.
I’m not even sure tragedy is the right word. I can think of at least five such events where cops killed people either by “mistake” or on purpose despite that other measures might of been applied. In only one of those incidents was anyone charged.
Yes it’s a plastic banana full of grapes. Just look at it.
Anyone else ever notice how, when the media reports of police wrong doing, it’s often prefaced with a bit about how the reporter supports police or will include an old trope about bad apples or some such?
Ever wonder why?
Fear.
This exactly the type of situation that tazers were invented for. Or, you know, shooting for the legs.
It’s incredibly hard to make a friend or foe determination in that situation, so why would we err on the side of lethal force?
They shot the guy with heavy knife wounds too? Seriously?
