Posted on 02/03/2016 10:16:01 AM PST by Jack Black
Many years ago I was a passenger in a car driven by my brother. He cut off a car leaving a gas station, the car followed us about 1/2 a mile to our destination. The occupant got out, ran up ripped open the drivers door and pulled my brother (a smallish 16 year old at the time) out of the car bodily. Turned out the fellow driving was a LEO (Harbor Master) in an unmarked car. He was also not in uniform. Shortly there after a marked police car showed up, with uniformed police officers.
The police wrote my brother a ticket for failure to yield to a police officer or some such. The ticket was thrown out by the DA when my brothers lawyer pointed out that in Michigan one is only required to stop for either an officer in a marked vehicle, or an officer in an unmarked vehicle in uniform. Mere flashing lights and guy in blue jeans is not sufficient (or was not at the time) to indicate to a driver that they were required to stop.
Now, look again at the video of the police ambush in Burns. In both the first stop, and the subsequent roadblock ambush. In the first stop the two vehicles pulling him over appear to be completely black with no markings. They have no lightbar, only a couple flashing lights behind the grill. We don't clearly see the people in the vehicles. Were they in recognizable uniforms of the local police or State Patrol? Or were they dressed all in "ninja black" perhaps with POLICE stenciled on the backs of their uniforms?
In the second stop you have three trucks blocking the road, none appear in the least bit to be law enforcement vehicles.
You know you are supposed to stop for vehicles marked like THIS:
And obey the lawful commands of people dressed like THIS:
First, lets look at the vehicles used in the initial stop: 
They have no visible police markings, do not have lightbars, and do not look like and typical unmarked police vehicles (such as the ubiquitous plain white Ford Crown Victoria). The only indicator of them having an official function are the one red and one blue flashing lights hidden in the grill.
Now lets go to the roadblock used to facilitate the ambush. there are No visible police logos in this picture, at the second stop:
I do not see any flat brimmed police hats.
Also, not the absence of road flares, safety signs, warning cones or any other device warning motorists to slow down. Any tow truck driver in the state would do a better job of marking a road closure than these guys did.
In summary it is not at all clear to me from looking at these pictures that the drivers of the target vehicles had an obligation to stop at either juncture.
Should LaVon's family choose to bring suit for his death I think they will have a good case based on the flagrant failure of the supposed law enforcement officers to properly identify themselves.
According to the survivors there were no commands given via PA at the first stop either.
If I were stopped on a rural highway in the middle of nowhere by two black SUV's with no markings, non-uniformed drivers, and given no identification or verbal commands I would probably drive away too.
The behavior of the US law enforcement in this respect is reminiscent of something you would see in a Latin American country, where police act as free-lance strong arm units, operate shadowy death squads, and use poorly marked roadblocks for nefarious purposes.
This is not in the tradition of American law enforcement.
This was not a pursuit following a crime (such as a bank robbery or something) where in emergency un-marked or civilian vehicles might be pressed into service. This was a highly planned operation that included air-support. Given that one can only assume that the choice of using all unmarked vehicles and non-uniformed officers was intentional.
Why? My surmise is that they hoped to engender exactly the response they got, to escalate what should have been a simple traffic stop into a "felon fleeing arrest". It certainly has many indicators of a pre-planned setup with malicious intent on the part of the agencies directing it.
The news said he usually wore a 9 mil on his shoulder. I was not there.
The pictures showed a holstered wheelgun low, on his right pants side.
I guess I'll believe "the news", instead of my lying eyes...
I like to see YOU keeping your arms up after you’ve been peppered with several shots, NINE (9) of them, huh???
Go to bed?
I hadn't heard that Shawna interview - fair enough.
It doesn't match with Victoria's latest but as I said none of us really knows what happened yet. Time will tell.
You are right I was just trying to point out the ridiculous
argument of suicide by cop. How you are supposed to obey lawful orders.
The right side gun was back at the refuge.
If the police simply wanted to kill everyone there then everyone there would have been dead. Finicum died because he didn't want to go to jail, and yet by his actions he put himself on a course where he was headed to jail. If he had simply done what the other vehicle did, and what everyone else in his vehicle did, he'd be alive, but in jail. Your fantasies about the police seeking to murder all of them are your own sick fantasies, and have no basis in what occurred.
My fantasies told me there were 9 holes in him. So the guy that did the autopsy was able to download my fantasies and come up with 9. It is amazing.Lets see the car and see if OSP didn’t give it their best shot at killing the occupants. The back window did not break at point blank range until the women were safe. As soon as they were safe the back window went out easily. I call that divine intervention. No, even if the OSP tried harder they would not have been able to kill the people if the Lord was protecting them.
Ambush of a straight, white, conservative man!
If we accept that, it begs the questions: What does the Lord have against Finicum that we wouldn't steer a few lousy bullets around him?
Why do bad things happen to good people? Maybe the Lord wanted a witness against his killers at the judgement bar.
You can inquire of the Lord.
You mean the one with CNN where she concurs with Shawna Cox about the shot, correct?
CNN: Sharp insisted she heard a shot and said that's why she didn't exit the vehicle immediately. For 3 minutes and 47 seconds, the FBI video shows the white truck idling in the road.
So, why did you leave that part out of your exchange with Ray76 about the CNN interview?
Well, except that they were shooting at Finicum's truck at the first stop, as both Victoria Sharp and Shawna Cox have said.
You never answered my question on the other thread about what YOU would have done if you had been driving the truck, and been shot at, Gunslingr:
To: Gunslingr3; Jack Black; MurrietaMadmanHe should have conducted himself like the others if he wanted to go to jail with the others. Instead he fledBoth women witnesses said that someone fired on the truck at the first stop.
WOuld you have fled, Gunslingr - or would you have stayed to palaver?
Why is that, I wonder?
Did LaVon have a legal obligation to stop for the police?
Vanity ^ | 2/3/2015 | Jack Black
I would have done what the people in the other car did.
“We are going to the Sheriff... well, just go ahead and shoot me.”
Obliged.
The one with all the unmarked vehicles?
Come to think of it, the second "deadly force" roadblock was comprised of unmarked vehicles, also.
Do you often stop for threatening unmarked vehicles, gunslingr?
Like I said, I would have done what the people at the first stop in the other car did.
Fleeing and alluding is dangerous, I wouldn't recommend it.
Do you often stop for threatening unmarked vehicles
About as often as I seize federal buildings.
Maybe you think Finicum was stupid enough to not realize he was dealing with LEO. I have no reason to make that jump with you.
When he was pulled over he saw two options, go to jail, or flee.
After he crashed while fleeing he saw two options, go to jail, or die.
"...just go ahead and shoot me." - Finicum
This was a failed law enforcement operation.
It was incompetently planned and incompetently executed.
The standard for this operation to be called a success is that no shots are fired and no one is shot.
The law enforcement personnel involved in this operation did not meet that standard.
They failed.
Accepting the incompetence of the law enforcement personnel in this operation is not showing loyalty to law enforcement.
It is showing loyalty to incompetence.
What are you talking about? I'm the one that provided the link to that interview.
Hearing a shot and saying you were being shot at are two different things, and her most recent statement is that she heard a shot.
Also from the CNN interview:
"Shawna Cox told her to get down, Sharp said. "'They might shoot when he starts driving,'" she says Cox told her."
Some claim that LaVoy fled the initial stop because thay were being fired on. If so, why would Shawna worry more about it when they were fleeing?
We don't know exactly what happened but the idea of a bunch of blood-crazed LEOs out to shoot everyone up sort of collapses under the fact that everyone who acted semi-responsibly came out unharmed.
Nice hair-split, there.
The guys with the unmarked vehicles fired a shot at the Finicum vehicle. Your sophistry won't change that fact.
If so, why would Shawna worry more about it when they were fleeing?
Because it had already happened at least once?
If it looks like it's going to rain, and I feel a raindrop, I'm on the lookout for more rain. That's the way it works in the world that most people live in.
Apparently, in your odd little world, a shot fired doesn't mean more shots will be fired. ???!!???
I don't even know how to respond to that particular illogic.
When he was pulled over he saw three options, go to jail, get shot where he was (along with the women) [since someone was shooting at his truck], or flee.
The rest of your post is smoke.
There is no requirement for the peasantry to stop for unmarked vehicles.
In fact, law enforcement usually recommends that you proceed to the nearest police station.
Which Finicum was apparently trying to do, bygoing to see the Sheriff.
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