Radish posted:

Well "he looked older" -totally not racist reasoning given by a lawyer in employment by a government for why a 12 year old is dangerous to an adult cop.

Radish posted:

Like even IF this was a 25 year old man walking down the street with a real, loaded gun, how can you possibly argue that rolling up and executing him is legal??? It's actually saying that cops can murder literally anyone as long as they say "I felt threatened" regardless of what actually happened like in that season 1 Southpark episode.

Cole posted:

the shoot wasn't justified and charges should be filed, but Tamir Rice was 5'7" and 195 pounds. That's well bigger than your average 12 year old whether you are white or black, so saying he looked older is pretty legitimate. It still doesn't excuse what happened.

MattD1zzl3 posted:

As a clevelander: "Suck it, Debate and discussion, your tears make me immortal"

Zas posted:

if he looked older that just means he was executed for practicing his 2nd amendment rights, the nra will be all over this one

quote:

Prosecutor in Rice case now saying:

"He appeared to be much older than he really was...5"7, 170 lbs, size 12 shoes, XL men's jacket."

Zas posted:

his weight and apparent age is entirely immaterial as to whether he deserved to be the victim of a police drive by, meaning the prosecuter had no reason to bring it up, hope this helps

Cole posted:

No, I think Tamir Rice is dead for no reason and the cop should be charged.

However, if you honestly think harping on "HE SAID HE LOOKED OLDER WHAT A MORON!!!" when the victim was the almost the size of a fully grown American male, regardless of race, you are not doing much to help the case against the officer, because someone who is 5'7" and 195 pounds definitely looks older than 12 years old.

The point is there are many, MANY reasons why this shooting was unjustified, but everyone is focused on the one that holds the least amount of credibility. Tamir Rice looked older than 12 years old based on his size, and you are just grasping at straws to think otherwise.

And if someone was looking to file charges, harping on Tamir Rice not possibly looking older than 12 years old would not hold up in court.

Cole posted:

Saying that someone who is 5'7" and 195 pounds looks older than 12 years old is dog whistle racism?

How big are the 12 year olds around where you live?

Cole posted:

i can understand it.

what YOU can't understand is that he could possibly look older based on his height and weight, which is the one of the only factual things the cop said in his statement, and trying to refute it isn't going to help discredit the person who pulled the trigger.

I don't think it's wrong of me to want people to focus on things that are actually wrong in this case. Saying he looked older is not wrong. Everything else is. So it isn't wrong to want people to focus on the "everything else."

Cole posted:

I don't know. Why not ask the people who were talking a lot about it before I ever got here?

Pathos posted:

I didn't even connect the dots that Georgia is an open carry state. That additional fact makes this entire thing even more disgusting. I really wonder how many extrajudicial killings this country needs before something actually changes. I'm guessing the answer is "depressingly high".

Cole posted:

Because harping on the one justifiable part of the cop's statement doesn't help anything, and I would rather people help the cause rather than hurt the cause.

Cole posted:

And I said that because, as I've stated multiple times, it is silly to give any focus to the one part of the officer's statement that can be considered justifiable, which some people have been doing, rather than all of the other stupid poo poo he did.

Cole posted:

His size isn't justification for the shoot, but thinking he looks older than 12 based on his size is justifiable. If I saw Tamir Rice from a distance at the mall or at the grocery store and thought he was older than 12, that would be a justifiable thought.

joeburz posted:

he could be 30 and 300 lbs and not change the fact that in an open carry state a cop killed someone from a car before it even fully stopped accelerating

Cole posted:

I never said it did, so thanks for the irrelevant comment?

Raerlynn posted:

Actually I see what Cole is saying here.

Disconnect for a moment, that the prosecutor is trying to make that claim to make the lack of prosecution easier for society at large to swallow.

Objectively speaking, yes, Rice looks like he could be older than 12. That's not an excuse, it's not a justification, it's a judgment made on his physical appearance.

Cole has already said this was a bad shoot. What's he's saying is, of all the bullshit smoke that is being blown in defense of the officer, this one here is the most credible. Not that it is justified, not that it explains anything, just that objectively out of everything presented, this was the most accurate. Which doesn't say much for the accuracy of the prosecution, but there you go.

Cole makes the valid point that the focus of outrage shouldn't be arguing over his size. It's stupid and subjective. Instead focus on the parts that are objectively, universally, terrible. Like the officer's immediate decision to shoot without giving opportunity to comply, the fact that it's an open carry state, the way they treated the sister, the fact that their report is a complete contradiction to the video, that the prosecutor waited a full year plus to bury this case, or the procedural games he played to intentionally sink the case against the officer.

Focus on all THAT poo poo, not that the shitbag DA made a bullshit defense that is based on a subjective call.

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.

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.

They rolled up, show 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.

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.

MattD1zzl3 posted:

I agree its strange to pull right up to a known armed threat, which is why i think thats not what happened.

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.

Waco Panty Raid posted:

1. What state's threshold isn't met by sticking a handgun in the waistband, especially when wearing winter clothing? I'm pretty sure Ohio's is (I certainly wouldn't recommend doing it without a permit; I also wouldn't recommend it with a permit but that's getting into a tangent).

Waco Panty Raid posted:

2. The bottom line is that appealing to open carry in this situation is ridiculous. No open carry law I'm aware of would condone pointing a gun at people or making incredibly ill advised motions towards the waistband where the gun is located.

Waco Panty Raid posted:

Who said his method of carry was evidence of intent to murder? I'm saying that open carry has nothing to do with Tamir Rice because it doesn't make him pointing a gun (or a close facsimile of one) at people or his motions towards his waistband somehow OK.

Elendil004 posted:

Is there really a big difference between standing around in a public place pointing a gun off camera at who knows what, and pointing it at "someone"?

There IS a pretty big difference between open carry of a gun in an open holster/slung/low ready and having it up and waving it around.

Waco Panty Raid posted:

Yes he did? That blob they blurred out was a person he was walking next to, right?

Waco Panty Raid posted:

Hell even in the frames where a person wasn't visible he still wouldn't be covered by open carry. What open carry system permit you to have a raised pistol in hand?

Waco Panty Raid posted:

Did Tamir have a IWB holster? Would you recommend carrying a gun in the waistband without one? But this is exactly the kind of digression I didn't want to get into.

You need a permit for concealed carry in Ohio (unless you want to try your hand at the old affirmative defense, I think that's still on the books, but you're still getting arrested and going to trial at that point). Carrying a gun in your waistband is at the very least skating close to the edge (and that is with the shirt tucked behind the gun, Tamir was wearing loose clothing).

Elendil004 posted:

Yeah but you said, "He didn't point the gun at anyone."

Elendil004 posted:

Yeah but you said, "He didn't point the gun at anyone."

Elendil004 posted:

Hahaha what the gently caress are you even talking about? The only thing I'm rebutting is your claim that he "never pointed the gun at anyone" and even then only to say "well he pointed the gun at stuff, in public, that's still pretty bad right?" But you can keep having a masturbatory fantasy where I am some cop-defending madman cackling at this kids death.

Waco Panty Raid posted:

Really? Then what was it?

Waco Panty Raid posted:

What does this have to do with everything Tamir Rice did was okeedokee under open carry?

Elendil004 posted:

He's even in a shooting stance in the first shot. Also note a clear other person in the second shot. Is that one of the cops because for someone who watched the video so much you're pretty adamant that it only shows three people...

To compare, something like this would probably be OK under open carry laws, the top shot, not so much.

Elendil004 posted:

I want to say that I think the entire thing from the lovely dispatch to the grand jury is indicative of the systemic problems in American policing. Maybe we should focus on that instead of pedantry.

Waco Panty Raid posted:

If "fat gross white idiot people" pulled the same poo poo Tamir did you wouldn't hear me crying about their right to open carry. Which was my point from the beginning, what Tamir Rice did has little if anything to do with open carry being legal in Ohio.

Discendo Vox posted:

That's not what a grand jury indictment finds. The grand jury finds for indictment, not guilt. Not all cases that pass the grand jury are supposed to end in a finding of guilt.

Discendo Vox posted:

The grand jury isn't a means of determining guilt. That's not what the grand jury is for.

Discendo Vox posted:

The thing you want to attack is prosecutorial discretion, which is not the same thing as a grand jury. As Dead Reckoning said, complaining that the grand jury found insufficient means to indict is like complaining that a car's brakes don't make it go faster.

Discendo Vox posted:

Discendo Vox posted:

Then please indicate that that's what you're doing- you jumped into a discussion of a different claim to make an unrelated point, which just further confuses the discourse.

Jarmak posted:

Could you please point out an instance of me making that argument?

Or hell, anyone?

Jarmak posted:

It doesn't work like that, a defense attorney has an ethical duty to defend his client regardless of guilt, a DA has an ethical duty to not pursue charges against people they think are innocent.

Jarmak posted:

edit:also there's a poo poo ton of daylight between "not murder" and "they did the right thing"

Jarmak posted:

The idea that this is a binary thing that goes from "Good job" to "murder" is insane

And that's not even getting into situations where someone has the legal right to use force but its not the optimal choice.

Slanderer posted:

This makes perfect sense if you have no idea what murder means in a legal context anywhere

quote:

Under the common law (law originating from custom and court decisions rather than statutes), murder was an intentional killing that was:
unlawful (in other words, not legally justified), and
committed with "malice aforethought."
Malice aforethought doesn't mean that a killer has to have acted out of spite or hate. It exists if a defendant intends to kill someone without legal justification or excuse. In addition, in most states, malice aforethought isn't limited to intentional killings. It can also exist if the killer:
intentionally inflicts serious bodily harm that causes the victim's death, or
behaves in a way that shows extreme, reckless disregard for life and results in the victim's death.
In today’s society, murder is defined by statute, rather than common law. And, though contemporary statutes emanate from common law, one has to look to these statutes for important distinctions. Like the difference between first and second degree murder.

Slanderer posted:

Hmm yes you're right, I'm sure those lovely cops believed that they weren't legally justified when they pulled the trigger, you willfully dense piece of poo poo

Slanderer posted:

Did I say they were justified? No, moron. Were they justified? Of course not, you dumb poo poo.

Did they think they were? Of course they did