Posted on 01/23/2015 6:52:14 AM PST by Citizen Zed
It began with a swap: one boy’s cellphone for another’s replica of a Colt pistol.
One of the boys went to play in a nearby park, striking poses with the lifelike, airsoft-style gun, which fired plastic pellets. He threw a snowball, settled down at a picnic table and flopped his head onto his arms in a perfect assertion of preteen ennui, a grainy security video shows.
Then, with the gun tucked away, he walked to the edge of the gazebo. He might have been wandering aimlessly, or he might have been attracted by the sight of a squad car barreling across the lawn.
Seconds later, the boy lay dying from a police officer’s bullet. “Shots fired, male down,” one of the officers in the car called across his radio. “Black male, maybe 20, black revolver, black handgun by him. Send E.M.S. this way, and a roadblock.”
But the boy, Tamir Rice, was only 12. Now, with the county sheriff’s office reviewing the shooting, interviews and recently released video and police records show how a series of miscommunications, tactical errors and institutional failures by the Cleveland police cascaded into one irreversible mistake.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
I’d bet that the age “determination” by the officer was an ingrained CYA in any shoot: when calling in a shooting by an officer, identify the target with an adult age wherever possible.
The radio is recorded, and people listen. Calling the age like that leaves the impression that this is what the officer really thought the target’s age was, regardless of what actually happened. It allows him to testify later that “I thought he was an adult; see, I even said it on the radio”.
Who trained the police to respond that way?
Cops didn’t always respond in this manner. Shoot first, placate public second.
People with guns or replica guns have been around for a long time and incidents involving them have been resovled in manners other than a direct military style assault.
This tragedy is further proof of the militarizing of our “ protect and serve” local police forces.
Is it too late to avoid large scale confrontational situations with an occupying hostile force?
If someone has what could plausibly be mistaken for a gun a cop is authorized to shoot him on sight. This has been done to people with CCWs when officers have seen bulges in their clothing, to children with toy guns, to people with visible cell phones, or just people with their hands in their pockets. For an apparently increasing number of policemen, shooting someone is one of the benefits promised or inferred in their training. All are instructed to follow any shooting that might be questioned by the statement, “I felt threatened.” The words exonerate the officer in all circumstances. He may be in trouble if he forgets the verbal formula.
All I’ve got to say to the pathetic pieces of trash who think inner city cops are too aggressive.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3249735/posts
These scumbags killed at least 4 people (that we know of), torturing 2 of them first. Unfortunately they were taken alive. Ideally police would have taken them to a busy intersection, forced them to their knees and put a bullet in both of their heads.
And even toy-guns are not toys in a crime-ridden urban environment.
This whole incident was caught on security cameras. From the time the squad car stopped to the time the boy is laying shot on the ground is approximately two seconds. How does anyone, even the best trained police officer, assess the situation and try and resolve it in two seconds? You can't. No attempt was made to find a non-lethal solution. If was entirely a case of shoot first and ask questions later.
There are thousands and thousands of cops out there who go out every day and do a solid, competent job. A job that is not an easy one, as I'll be the first to admit. And there is a tiny minority who shouldn't be cops to begin with. Who panic and resort to lethal force when such force isn't warranted. Why should we assume that every single police shooting is appropriate and why is it considered attacking police in general to criticize the actions of this small minority of incompetent cops? Who all to often get away with killing someone when they didn't have to?
Unfortunately that tiny minority does the murders and are defended resolutely by the entire system, the unions, the judges, the chiefs. The message is that this is acceptable, even commendable procedure. It goes right along with the random SWATs and the killings that occur at wrong addresses and politically selected addresses and SWATs induced by neighborly grudges and pranks. Too many officers of the law see these as opportunities to emulate military heroes and slaughter the Enemy.
No one ever bothers to read before commenting. Comments would be so much more meaningful if they did.
The ROE for the LEO seem to have changed greatly since I was a kid playing with a red rider. The hiring practices, unions and political correctness have screwed it up beyond repair. That cop should have gone to trial and judged by his peers......something that rarely happens in a police system that investigates itself. I suspect the grand jury was part of the blue line.
So did the police over-react? Perhaps. But mygosh, what if it had been a real gun and a real serial killer had offed a few people? You'd have total chaos.
The eeaching moment should've been that you don't point guns, real or toy, at strangers. Because you don't know what kind of gun they'll point back.
The other lesson should be that there needs to be more community policing in Cleveland. The police wouldn't be racing up to situations from somewhere where they had no knowledge of how things were unfolding in that area.
Have you saw the videos of this? They drove through the grass in the middle of a park at speed hopped out and shot him. There is no way this can be defended.
This was from about a month ago - it got caught between the Ferguson and New York case workups. Unfortunately what I know of this one being in the Cleveland area is that it appears (and no one in the public has seen all the evidence, but it appears) that the officer drove up, exited his vehicle and plugged the kid within about 30 seconds of arriving on scene.
Unless new evidence comes out that hasn’t been presented to the public yet, I believe this is a truly bad shoot.
I dont know about the shoot, but I know about how it will be used regardless of the circumstances.
expect the Inner Urban Yout Jihad to take full advantage OF it!
Anyone who points a gun at me whom I fear might fire it, automatically becomes an adult!...These cops have to make that decision right now, not a minute or two later....ask the two assasinated cops in N.Y.
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