Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/22/st-louis-cop-accused-of-plant.html
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Now that this bad apple is off the force, it’ll all be okay.
Right?
right?
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Thank God he didn’t plant the gun earlier, or he could’ve been murdered in cold blood by the guy he murdered in cold blood!
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As creepy as the lie of planting the gun is, I think it’s equally creepy to presume that one should shoot someone simply upon the basis of them having a gun. That’s a seriously hypocritical position for any US cop to try justifying.
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Some people should not be cops.
Only after municipal services are decreased due to the budget constraints of paying off civil judgements will citizens finally understand that when their law enforcement officers that do whatever the hell they wish, it results in their parks being trashier or their downtowns being a bit shabbier, or their police department having fewer actual cops on the street.
It’s not the carrots of justice and equal protection under the law that will improve the police recruitment and hiring practices, but the stick of punitive damages.
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Hypocritical perhaps, but nearly perfectly pragmatic.
The post-facto discovery that someone had a gun on them makes their murder by police pretty much a non-event, at least insofar as the cop experiencing any negative consequences.
I’m confident that was the basis of the cop’s action in this case.
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Honestly, I think this isn’t “people” … it’s a lack of training. “Red mist” is well-understood - he thrill of the hunt is as old as the hunt - and officers should be trained to recognise when they’re in its thrall.
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And guess who’s going to blame incompetent government bureaucrats and the Teachers’ Union?
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That is my point, the apparent pragmatism is based upon a false premise.
Sure, they might not experience any negative consequences by the law enforcement community. But that’s a rather small minority.
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Related: ‘Missouri Governor’s Veto of Stand Your Ground’ Law No Match for Pro-NRA Legislature
So, naturally, the police are going to be that much more paranoid and likely to kill scary (aka, non-white) citizens. Along with the citzens feeling justified in carrying (and using) a gun everywhere to protect themselves from all the citizens who carry (and use) guns everywhere.
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If one skittle in a bag is a racist, murderous cop . . .
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Glad he got caught, but angry over the fact that he’ll probably get off the hook. I can’t remember the last time a cop was actually convicted for murdering a civilian.
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“I’m going to kill this motherfucker.” That’s what St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was recorded saying to his partner Brian Bianchi while they were chasing drug suspect Anthony Lamar Smith in his car. Stockley kept his word. Once they stopped Bianchi, Officer Stockley shot him five times, killing him.
The officer, Jason Stockley, shot and killed his partner Brian Bianchi… wait. What?
Edit: they fixed the typo.
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Given that he seems to only have been caught out because he was incredibly, incredibly incompetent at framing his victim (getting out the gun in view of a camera, getting his own DNA on the gun, not sticking the gun in the victim’s hand to get his prints/DNA on it), you have to wonder how often this happens and no one bothers to investigate enough to figure it out. Or, worse, this kind of sloppy frame-job has usually been good enough to get cops off because that’s how little anyone in the system cared.
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That cop also used his own personal AK-47 to do it. So that’s nuts.
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Obviously having an extra ‘criminal’ firearm stashed away in your car also means that a) having a cover for a situation such as that was premeditated and b) that another crime/offence was committed beforehand; that is seizing a gun and not reporting it.
So, let’s just hope he gets the punishment he deserves, 20 years in super-max would be nice.
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Nobody should be what cops have become in the last 30 years.
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He was carrying a spare gun in his duffel bag ready to plant. He had put gun was in the bag before he chose his victim. He took the bag with him when he went to search the car.
I accept there may be a need to actively weed out people who join the police just to go big-game hunting. But I don’t really feel the guilty party here is the training budget.
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I am a naive American citizen.
My nephew’s wife used to work as a dispatcher in a police department of a medium-sized city.
She told me a month ago that all the police there had “throw down” guns to put down near the body of a person they killed.
Of course saying “all police” is a generalization and shouldn’t be taken as the literal truth. But generally speaking, it seems that our nation is truly in trouble…
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