Whether or not OVD had 100 mule loads under his belt is immaterial to whether the shoot that day was good. R&C had no knowledge at the time whether OVD was either a drug runner or just someone who had a couple beers at work and tried to outrun the BP because he had an outstanding traffic ticket.
All that matters is what happened between when OVD took off for the border and when Ramos shot him. Did the BPA have justified cause to shoot and kill him (and they testified they were shooting to kill)? Was OVD an immediate threat to the BPA or to the public that necessitated taking him down?
That is the question. Now, if you believe the “black shiny object” story, than you have reason to believe the shoot was good, if you don’t (like the jury and just about anybody who read the transcripts), then it was a bad shoot and they BPA need to be disciplined.
Whether or not that means going to jail or just losing their BP jobs, I don’t know. But you just can’t allow LEO’s to excuse any shooting, no matter how questionable, by allowing them to claim “He had a black shiny object in his hand”.
Next time it could be you or son or daughter coming home from a party a little tipsy, who speeds away from a cop because you are not thinking clearly.
This is about allowing police state tactics against citizens, guilty or innocent.
And those of you who publicly/privately justify it because he was an illegal or a Mexican (as has been stated on these threads many times), you need to take a good look at your yourself.
OVD at the time had not been convicted of any crimes. We still live in a society that believes in innocent until proved guilty. One you allow any LEO to become judge and jury dispensing justice and the end of their gun, we are half way to being a totalitarian state.
You might think this time it is okay because it was only a drug mule, an illegal, a Mexican. Who will it be next time? Either we protect our civil liberties for everyone, even the most despised in society, or they can’t be protected for anyone.
So, the instant an illegal foreign national invader steps over our border, he's invested with all the protections of the U.S. Constitution, eh? Is this what they call a "path to citizenship"?
You’re right, but the point could be clarified and expanded.
First, Up until 1985, it was legal in many states for LE to use deadly force against fleeing felons. That year, SCOTUS decided the Tennessee v. Garner case, and said “no, you can’t shoot at a fleeing felon for that reason alone”. (Garner was a burglary suspect.) So EVEN IF Ramos and Compeon KNEW that that suspect had a million bucks worth of weed in his truck, it’s illegal, everywhere in the US, to shoot at the dude for that reason alone. Their lawyers knew this, so they didn’t even argue it at trial, but this point has been raised repeatedly in the media and on the errornet to cloud the issue. Frankly, the Garner decision may be good public policy, or bad, or good law, or bad, but if people have a problem with Garner, it would be more interesting, and productive, to argue that point, not pretend that the decision was never rendered.
One quibble: one does not need to show that there was an “immediate” threat to justify the use of deadly force, only that the forced used was objectively reasonable given the totality of the circumstances. I’m not gonna comment on the jury’s findings of fact regarding the shiny black object. I don’t find the story absurd on its face as you imply, but they heard the testimony, we didn’t.
Seems to me that if people want to have more old-school policing used in this country, they should just come out and say so, rather than gripe about the outcome of one trial.