|
White Woman Points BB Gun at Cops, Shouts 'Shoot Me,' Is Fine
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 21:00 |
|
|
Oh good. Bullshit quibbling at the very fringe of news in this thread when big news comes out. Again. On the off chance this helps- Cole (and Raerlynn) are trying to express to most of the thread at large that when you have a situation where there are a wide variety of compelling facts in your favor, getting bogged down on "evidence of systemic racism" is more focused on signaling the purity of your outrage to your side and preaching towards your own choir. On the other hand, Loehmann's past employment records, videotape, and Judge Aldrine's finding of probable cause provide ample opportunity to convert those who are reflexively skeptical of claims about of police misconduct and their ability to skate in even the worst situations. The rest of the thread is trying to express that the prosecutor's statements are part in parcel with the larger issues of race in the justice system and the idea, put forward by the disgrace of a prosecutor, that Tamir Rice forfeits his childhood by being tall and heavy for his age-and thus seen as menacing rather than cherubic-is the same sort of racist bullshit that leads to the discrepancies in school discipline and the rates of who is tried as juvenile and who is tried as an adult. I'm skeptical that Cole (and those in society who tend to agree with him on issues) will find any mention of the prosecutor's blatant signaling on this topic acceptable, no matter how it is couched. Most people in general, not any specific posters, dislike when an easy opportunity to show moderation and balance is taken away from them. If left as "An officer committed an egregiously bad shoot on camera, should never have been in the situation in the first place, and somehow skated when an impartial judge said the evidence should have led to charges. Clearly, we need to examine the system that allowed this to occur", the media, tough-on-crime Democrats and Kill-You're-Parents conservatives can all bask together in the righteous outrage they'll generate by condemning this egregious act. All three of those groups lose their cover to be outraged by the situation though, if it becomes "An extremely bad shoot by an officer that he was allowed to avoid punishment for because the prosecutor did all that he could to ensure a "no bill" was returned, including relying on old racial biases and hatreds in order to manipulate the GJ and provide public cover for his actions to a majority-white population". If that's how this is framed, someone disagreeing with the shoot will have to grapple with a justice system that is set up to gently caress over minorities whether they enter as victim or suspect. For my part, I think we've seen already where the first framing leads. It's about reforming the 911 system-because Loehmann would have merely beaten and imprisoned Tamir rather than executed him if he knew the gun was fake- and about changing hiring practices so that those who are flunked out of one department for being incompetent and unfit can't be rehired by another with a blank slate. That's woefully inadequate, given that we've just seen another example of the resurgence of the antebellum South in a free state during the 21st century.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:20
|
|
|
Well, you see, Blacks are more dangerous when they pass puberty. Somehow him being older matters in the grand jury.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:24
|
|
|
Mr. Wookums posted:Yes, if you have enough money to front the entity of the bail. If they use a bondsman they forfeit that 10% (bondsman gets the money back) and I assume their contracts stipulate that you loose the 10% even if charges are dropped. So people with 150k handy have no impact to their life, a person without it will loose 15k or their livelyhood if there are trumped up charges (which seems to only happen to people without 150k.) Less court costs and some jurisdictions can take up to I think 3%. Why they can I have no idea. As said that's if you pony up to the court, bondsman keep it. Also no idea how they are allowed to keep 10% since that could be a 10-20k fee for a month long 'loan'. In some of the shittier parts of Miami the bondsman have an office inside the jail (bailed out heroin addict roommate a few times). No collusion there! I'm sure if a defense attorney wanted to set up an office there they'd give him a restroom stall. Inside the jail.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:35
|
|
|
Tiler Kiwi posted:yeah, everything I've heard about police training in the US emphasis the danger involved and how trying to be a "good cop" is putting your life in danger. quote:The 10 Deadliest Jobs: Though, to be fair, loggers probably have a higher KDR vis-a-vis trees. On the other hand, trees are not 12-year-old children. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:36
|
|
|
PhilippAchtel posted:Though, to be fair, loggers probably have a higher KDR vis-a-vis trees. On the other hand, trees are not 12-year-old children. While I think the dangers of policing are overhyped, what makes it different than everything else on that list (with the possible exception of 7, if that includes cabbies) is that the most publicly-visible danger of being an officer is from someone actively trying to do you harm. Logging, fishing, aircraft, construction, industrial-those dangers are all contextual, from the weather or equipment or shoddy safety standards. While it's true that the leading cause of officer casualties is traffic-related injury, public perception is still that their biggest risk is a bad-guy-with-a-gun. That makes it distinct from the overall list of dangerous occupations and makes conflating the two... questionable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:51
|
|
|
Geoff Peterson posted:Oh good. Bullshit quibbling at the very fringe of news in this thread when big news comes out. Again. For my part, I have no wish to signal the purity of my outrage or preaching to my own choir or whatever, although I admit I am outraged. Not at anyone in this thread. The fact of the matter is that his age and perceived age is important, as you allude to, because we, as a nation, are much more comfortable with cops gunning down black teenagers than black preteens. That's just a straight up fact. If the prosecution can successfully frame Tamir Rice as a teen instead of a preteen, they will face much less heat, and in doing so they are using tactics that are undeniably racist to essentially escape justice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:52
|
|
|
e: ^^ it's a great thing, that because a twelve year old looked like a teen, and because black teens are so often tried as adults, that the leap to "rice had it coming" came so easily to the "prosecution"PhilippAchtel posted:Though, to be fair, loggers probably have a higher KDR vis-a-vis trees. On the other hand, trees are not 12-year-old children. yeah, i think trees generally have respected legal protections Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 29, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2015 23:55
|
|
|
Geoff Peterson posted:While I think the dangers of policing are overhyped, what makes it different than everything else on that list (with the possible exception of 7, if that includes cabbies) is that the most publicly-visible danger of being an officer is from someone actively trying to do you harm. Logging, fishing, aircraft, construction, industrial-those dangers are all contextual, from the weather or equipment or shoddy safety standards. While it's true that the leading cause of officer casualties is traffic-related injury, public perception is still that their biggest risk is a bad-guy-with-a-gun. That makes it distinct from the overall list of dangerous occupations and makes conflating the two... questionable. I'm glad you noted these factoids so I didn't have to, but all the same it's a bit cheeky to just brush them aside. I'll just restate them without comment: 1) Being a police officer is not a particularly dangerous job. 2) Most police officers die and are injured in accidents unrelated to criminal activity. 3) Taxi drivers are more likely to die due to violence than police officers.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:00
|
|
|
Zas posted:Much of the most egregious aspects of the case has been discussed in depth already, however, the tactics the prosecution used are current fresh news, and are therefore new and relevant pieces of information both to this case and to the problems of systemic racism at large. To not talk about them is asinine. That's where I'm coming from, personally. I'm with you, I'm just attempting to rephrase an opposing view (which is held by many in the public, if not Cole and Raerlynn themselves) in a way that makes more sense than "it's stupid" to be upset about comments regarding his size. I'm not particularly concerned in the purity of my outrage, but that's the underlying sentiment for any complaints about "out-outraging", SJWs and Tumblrinas. Some people don't see a reason to mention or focus on the systemic racial issue unless you're trying to prove that you are the most righteous of those who are angered and perceive doing so as tilting at windmills. The prosecutor's goal was to strip the societal protections that we give children away from Tamir. It's tough to find racists without a hood or stormfront account who actively hate individual children. But Tamir, at his size, was practically a teenager. And we all know teenagers are practically adults, so really, he should have known better than to be waving around a toy gun in a public space. Allowing that to go unchallenged is allowing the Prosecutor to transform Tamir Rice into Michael and Trayvon. They've already robbed him of his life, do we really need to sit idly by as they rob him of his innocence too? e: PhilippAchtel posted:I'm glad you noted these factoids so I didn't have to, but all the same it's a bit cheeky to just brush them aside. I'll just restate them without comment: I agree with you on each of the first 2 (and said so!) and haven't seen data regarding the third, but am easily able to believe it. My only comment is that most people find Law Enforcement to be dangerous in a way that Fishing and Forestry are not. It is tempting to engage with that argument on the most basic level, but comparing fatality rates to other industries is missing the point of the objections, though if it helps correct those who are misinformed by FOP propaganda it's still doing some good. Geoff Peterson fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Dec 29, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:14
|
|
|
CommanderApaul posted:The issue is that the legal standard for charging an officer with a crime while they're carrying out their duties is whether their actions are reasonable given what they knew at the time the alleged crime occurred. The dispatcher was told that there was a black male at the park repeated pulling out a gun and pointing it at people, but that he was probably a juvenile and it was probably fake. The information dispatched to the officers was "black male at the park repeatedly pulling a gun from his waistband and pointing it at people." The Grand Jury decided that given that information, the officers were justified in shooting the kid when he reached for his waistband because they were responding to what was relayed to them as a borderline active shooter. The age and size and all that stuff doesn't really enter into it because it has nothing to do with the legal standard that the prosecution has to meet to justify charges. The prosecutor is flapping his gums about it because he needs to find some way to justify the Grand Jury not issuing an indictment to the media and the public, otherwise the city is going to explode. And he's doing a very, very bad job of it, because giving a straight clinical legal explanation of why the charges weren't warranted isn't going to help either. This still doesn't make sense though. If the officers believed he had a real gun and was pointing it at people, why would they needlessly endanger both themselves and the suspect by pulling up within a few feet and surprising him? They created a situation where the slightest twitch by Rice "justifies" the shooting rather than approaching with caution so they could use the minimum of force necessary to defuse the situation. I can understand not bringing murder charges, but how in the world is creating a situation that so obviously could result in someone getting shot not at the very least negligent homicide even if we get into a clinical explanation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:18
|
|
|
Yeah and I found it insightful, sorry if it made it seem like I was disagreeing with you specifically
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:18
|
|
|
AreWeDrunkYet posted:This still doesn't make sense though. If the officers believed he had a real gun and was pointing it at people, why would they needlessly endanger both themselves and the suspect by pulling up within a few feet and surprising him? They created a situation where the slightest twitch by Rice "justifies" the shooting rather than approaching with caution so they could use the minimum of force necessary to defuse the situation. I can understand not bringing murder charges, but how in the world is creating a situation that so obviously could result in someone getting shot not at the very least negligent homicide even if we get into a clinical explanation. That's the saddest part of this whole encounter: They roll up on the kid, driving on the grass, pull up LESS THAN FIVE FEET from him, shoot him, THEN EXIT THE CAR AND RUN AROUND TO THE OTHER SIDE OF IT. If they were actually afraid for their lives, they would've come up to the street side and carefully approached the subject. No, they rolled up like they were going to order lunch at a drive through and shot him, THEN fled out of the vehicle for their safety while the suspect was laying on the ground less than 3 feet from them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:25
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:That's the saddest part of this whole encounter: They roll up on the kid, driving on the grass, pull up LESS THAN FIVE FEET from him, shoot him, THEN EXIT THE CAR AND RUN AROUND TO THE OTHER SIDE OF IT. I know this is nitpicking, but he wasn't a suspect. He wasn't suspected of committing a crime. He was just a 12 year old child. They rolled up, shot a 12 year old child, and THEN fled out of the vehicle for their safety while the 12 year old child was bleeding to death on the ground. They then handcuffed his sister while the 12 year old child bled to death on the ground. A 12 year old child. Not a suspect. 
FlapYoJacks fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Dec 29, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:34
|
|
|
ratbert90 posted:I know this is nitpicking, but he wasn't a suspect. He wasn't suspected of committing a crime. He was just a 12 year old child. Agreed. For being afraid for their lives, they sure were willing to get as close as possible to the possible threat.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 00:37
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:That's the saddest part of this whole encounter: They roll up on the kid, driving on the grass, pull up LESS THAN FIVE FEET from him, shoot him, THEN EXIT THE CAR AND RUN AROUND TO THE OTHER SIDE OF IT. Have you actually read any accounts or seen any videos? (i presume so). They did not regard the man (they were not told anything about age, he's pretty much as big as a smaller grown man) as a threat so they "rolled up on" the kid to speak with him and see if he was this gun waving guy they heard about on the radio. He reached to grab the airsoft pistol from his waistband, possibly to drop it on the ground, possibly to show it to the officers and say "Hey, this isnt a real gun, see, possibly to point it at them because he disliked policing in cleveland and was a moron (a shocking percentage of the cleveland population is). The officers now have the guy they heard is waving a gun around NEAR A KIDS PLAY AREA they can see grabing his gun and they totally reasonably blew him away. Nothing about his age or the fakeness of his gun made it unreasonable for the police to think that this is a dangerous criminal and a threat to their lives. You cant be seriously arguing "Let them point the gun at you first and see what happens, perhaps they wont fire" or "Just let that guy with the baseball bat keep charging at you, maybe he'll drop it" because #handsupdontshoot or something.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:23
|
|
|
Why wouldn't they consider a man who had been allegedly waving a gun around to be a threat?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Have you actually read any accounts or seen any videos? (i presume so). They did not regard the man (they were not told anything about age, he's pretty much as big as a smaller grown man) as a threat so they "rolled up on" the kid to speak with him and see if he was this gun waving guy they heard about on the radio. He reached to grab the airsoft pistol from his waistband, possibly to drop it on the ground, possibly to show it to the officers and say "Hey, this isnt a real gun, see, possibly to point it at them because he disliked policing in cleveland and was a moron (a shocking percentage of the cleveland population is). The officers now have the guy they heard is waving a gun around NEAR A KIDS PLAY AREA they can see grabing his gun and they totally reasonably blew him away. Nothing about his age or the fakeness of his gun made it unreasonable for the police to think that this is a dangerous criminal and a threat to their lives. You cant be seriously arguing "Let them point the gun at you first and see what happens, perhaps they wont fire" or "Just let that guy with the baseball bat keep charging at you, maybe he'll drop it" because #handsupdontshoot or something. Except for all the times they have done that. For feeling threatened and in danger of their lives, they sure did drive awful close to that shooter. Get loving help.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:31
|
|
|
Cops are trained to be terrified at all times, not surprised they can see a threat from anything When you're a hammer etc etc etc
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:34
|
|
|
If they thought he was actively shooting at other people in the park it might make sense that they would drive up extremely close to him and intervene as quickly as possible. Not sure why they thought that was the case however, or why they thought someone actively killing people in a park didn't just shoot at their car as they drove up. Seems sort of like they made a pretty major mistake approaching that close and then cowardly panicked and now someone else is dead because of their ineptitude.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:37
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Have you actually read any accounts or seen any videos? (i presume so). They did not regard the man (they were not told anything about age, he's pretty much as big as a smaller grown man) as a threat so they "rolled up on" the kid to speak with him and see if he was this gun waving guy they heard about on the radio. He reached to grab the airsoft pistol from his waistband, possibly to drop it on the ground, possibly to show it to the officers and say "Hey, this isnt a real gun, see, possibly to point it at them because he disliked policing in cleveland and was a moron (a shocking percentage of the cleveland population is). The officers now have the guy they heard is waving a gun around NEAR A KIDS PLAY AREA they can see grabing his gun and they totally reasonably blew him away. Nothing about his age or the fakeness of his gun made it unreasonable for the police to think that this is a dangerous criminal and a threat to their lives. You cant be seriously arguing "Let them point the gun at you first and see what happens, perhaps they wont fire" or "Just let that guy with the baseball bat keep charging at you, maybe he'll drop it" because #handsupdontshoot or something. So you're blaming the dispatch for this, correct?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:38
|
|
|
Zas posted:So you're blaming the dispatch for this, correct? MattD1zzl3 posted:As a clevelander: "Suck it, Debate and discussion, your tears make me immortal".
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:
Perhaps they dont automatically regard any black male as a threat until they produce a gun and felt comfortable approching. You might pull right up to someone in the area and say "Hey, can i ask you a few questions". Maybe its a 12 year old with a real gun in his waist and they can take it off of him without harming anyone? I agree its strange to pull right up to a known armed threat, which is why i think thats not what happened.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:46
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:I agree its strange to pull right up to a known armed threat, which is why i think thats not what happened. Just stop. What you think happened and what recorded video shows happened differ entirely. Go troll somewhere else.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:48
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Perhaps they dont automatically regard any black male as a threat until they produce a gun and felt comfortable approching. You might pull right up to someone in the area and say "Hey, can i ask you a few questions". Maybe its a 12 year old with a real gun in his waist and they can take it off of him without harming anyone? I agree its strange to pull right up to a known armed threat, which is why i think thats not what happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSCftESyKyU Here, watch this video of the police killing a twelve year old boy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:52
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Have you actually read any accounts or seen any videos? (i presume so). They did not regard the man (they were not told anything about age, he's pretty much as big as a smaller grown man) as a threat so they "rolled up on" the kid to speak with him and see if he was this gun waving guy they heard about on the radio. He reached to grab the airsoft pistol from his waistband, possibly to drop it on the ground, possibly to show it to the officers and say "Hey, this isnt a real gun, see, possibly to point it at them because he disliked policing in cleveland and was a moron (a shocking percentage of the cleveland population is). The officers now have the guy they heard is waving a gun around NEAR A KIDS PLAY AREA they can see grabing his gun and they totally reasonably blew him away. Nothing about his age or the fakeness of his gun made it unreasonable for the police to think that this is a dangerous criminal and a threat to their lives. You cant be seriously arguing "Let them point the gun at you first and see what happens, perhaps they wont fire" or "Just let that guy with the baseball bat keep charging at you, maybe he'll drop it" because #handsupdontshoot or something. Also, asking in earnest here even if you're trolling or sjw tears or whatever, why do you think there were dramatic inconsistencies between the account of the officers in their favor, vs. the video, if you believe the video exonerates the officers? Why would they feel the need to embellish to the extent they did?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:54
|
|
|
There's no way they didn't save the announcement until the weather turned to poo poo. Freezing pissing rain means the city won't burn.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:55
|
|
|
From the USPOL thread, just in case you weren't angry enough alreadyRhesus Pieces posted:I don't know where you got that ide-
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 01:56
|
|
|
Its a shame that everyone feels the need to retreat to their own little subreddits here in D&D, i'm happy to do this here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:01
|
|
|
Booourns posted:From the USPOL thread, just in case you weren't angry enough already jesus.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:03
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Its a shame that everyone feels the need to retreat to their own little subreddits here in D&D, i'm happy to do this here. Nah, we just have nothing to discuss with a guy frolicking in the death of an innocent teenager. But hey.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:03
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Its a shame that everyone feels the need to retreat to their own little subreddits here in D&D, i'm happy to do this here. If you want to see a real hugbox check what happens when someone tries to dissent in GiP.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:05
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:22
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:Nah, we just have nothing to discuss with a guy frolicking in the death of an innocent 12-year-old. But hey. Not even qualified to be lumped into the generalization that might imply he's (somehow, spuriously) more aware or responsible for his actions. 12 goddamn years old. A 7th grader.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:25
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:Perhaps they dont automatically regard any black male as a threat until they produce a gun and felt comfortable approching. You might pull right up to someone in the area and say "Hey, can i ask you a few questions". Maybe its a 12 year old with a real gun in his waist and they can take it off of him without harming anyone? I agree its strange to pull right up to a known armed threat, which is why i think thats not what happened. It's a shame there isn't video footage of this exact incident that settles just how wrong you are. Oh wait: The Kingfish posted:Thats exactly what happened. The cops drive up onto the grass in order to get as close as possible. There is. Watch the video before you run your mouth. It's not too much to ask is it?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:51
|
|
|
MattD1zzl3 posted:You cant be seriously arguing "Let them point the gun at you first and see what happens, perhaps they wont fire" It's an open-carry state. Do you think police should shoot everyone they see with a gun?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:57
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:I'm curious why you included the fact that bail is explicitly mentioned in the constitution, but decided not to explain that the mention is this: "Excessive bail shall not be required ..." It seems like the second part of the fact might be key to understanding the significance of the first, in the context of a lawsuit about excessive bail. Here I bolded the part of my post where I specifically answered what you're curious about!: Jarmak posted:That article is really bad and it's not clear what exactly they're challenging. Bail bondsman for example, aren't legal in all states, but if they're challenging the concept of bail in general I don't understand what they could possibly be basing it on. Not only is the concept of bail explicitly mentioned in the constitution, it's settled law that you don't have a right to receive it at all.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 02:58
|
|
|
Why are court fees legal when someone ends up being innocent? Like, if I wanted to fight a $100 ticket and win, I can still be charged a $100 court fee for challenging it. How is it constitutional, or even morally right, for me to be forced to pay a penalty without absolutely no oversight?
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 03:17
|
|
|
Stereotype posted:Why are court fees legal when someone ends up being innocent? Like, if I wanted to fight a $100 ticket and win, I can still be charged a $100 court fee for challenging it. How is it constitutional, or even morally right, for me to be forced to pay a penalty without absolutely no oversight? Filing fees exist to deter frivolous filings, and so on with all court fees. Judicial economy is a recognized interest. It's a little more nuanced than that, but not terribly so. Filing fees even differ between federal district courts. Edit: Filing fees are distinct from attorneys' fees, also called costs, where you pay the legal fees of an adverse party. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Dec 29, 2015 |
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 03:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 21:00 |
|
|
Another part of the police shooting issues right now is that taser usage is on the decline because of a lot of well publicized bad uses of the taser. From my understanding (my old department got them prior to my starting there), it was originally marketed as an alternative to deadly force for some situations (guy with a knife/baseball bat/undrawn gun, etc), and that the usage of the taser would only occur, by policy, as part of a two man unit with a 2nd officer immediately ready to use deadly force if the taser didn't take effect. This was with the big and bulky M26 taser that wasn't carried on the belt, but was carried in a box in the cruiser with a seal on it, and was pretty much never used. It was also marketed as completely harmless, and part of our training was to get shocked with it to be authorized to carry it. To this day I would still rather be tased that pepper sprayed, and I took the ride 3 times, including getting shot with an actual cartridge as part of instructor training. Shortly after I started, the X26 taser got developed, and it was a massively miniaturized model that was easily carried on the belt. The ease of access, along with the marketing material from Taser, and the fact that everyone who carried one had been shocked with it for a "it's not that bad" type of response, and it wound up in practice getting dropped down the use of force continuum from just below deadly force, to pretty much the very bottom, and the "reduced officer injuries" statistic from being able to push-stun a suspect with the taser until they complied instead of having to go hands on to wrestle them into handcuffs pretty much excused the fact that the police were literally electroshocking people into submission. Then the death started, either from sudden cardiac/respiratory arrest or from suspects falling down and getting head injuries (in training, you stand on a mat with leads taped to you and have spotters to lower you to the ground. Doesn't exist when your suspect is in a parking garage with a knife and whacks his head on the parking stop on the way down). For my department, one of our officers tased a combative high school kid who was in the middle of a rowdy crowd rather than going hands on with him in the middle of a rowdy crowd, and the kid went into respiratory arrest while he was sitting up talking to the ambulance crew that were removing the barbs from his chest. They couldn't get him back, and the resulting lawsuit stripped us of our tasers as part of the settlement with the family. Finally, Taser Int'l came out with guidance that suspects should no longer be shot in the chest with the taser due to the risk of sudden cardiac or respiratory arrest. One of the key pieces of marketing that got departments to issue the taser was that there was pretty much no additional training necessary, and that the muscle memory developed from sidearm training would translate to the taser, specifically the "aim center mass" part. Now, Taser was saying that you should essentially be aiming for the belly button or shooting the suspect in the back, neither of which are really effective in the environment that the taser was designed to be used in. If you aim lower than center mass, you run a pretty big risk of the lower barb missing completely (it's 8 degrees off the upper barb), and having someone loop behind a suspect is kindof impractical from the standpoint of if it doesn't work, now you have an officer as your backstop if you have to use deadly force. Things like this are happening in departments across the country, and when the answer "why didn't they tase him" is either the department didn't buy enough to outfit every officer (they're more expensive than the sidearms are for most departments), or the department has stopped issuing them altogether.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2015 03:25
|
|
