Posted on 07/13/2010 3:47:06 AM PDT by marktwain
Edited on 07/13/2010 4:51:40 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
LAS VEGAS -- Las Vegas Metro police on Monday identified the three officers who shot and killed an armed man outside a Costco store in Summerlin.
They are Officer William Mosher, 38, a five-year veteran of the department, Officer Joshua Stark, 28, who has been with the department since September 2008, and Officer Thomas Mendiola, 23, who joined the department in March 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox5vegas.com ...
“Ah, but you’re neglecting to observe that by going the speed limit the officer can also pull someone over for “impeding the flow of traffic.”
Pull over and ticket, or just pull over?
All should be charged with murder, first degree, and the Costco lying employee needs to be charged with accesory at least.
And I will add the Costco employee needs to be charged with accessory for supplying a false story.
Meanwhile it remains the case that there's never been an independent scientific demonstration of the even the Tueller drill's most basic premises - No statistical justification for 21 feet as opposed to 25 or 17 or anything else. No representative sampling of fitness in the general population to tell if it takes the "average" knife guy 1 second or 3 seconds or 10 seconds to move. No controlled or replicable measurement of human reaction times, save simply running the drill with cops while already taking its underlying claims for granted. In short it's nothing more than anecdotal guesswork.
That observation is no matter of my anonymity or expertise (of which I choose not to volunteer or advertise though I am thoroughly confident that it well exceeds the typical GED-toting cop with a few hours at the academy and a "criminal justice" certification from ITT Tech). It's a simple and undisputed fact about the Tueller drill: it is NOT scientific. So treat it and use it as the rule of thumb that it is and that it was originally written by Officer Tueller to be. But don't try to pass it off as something it is not just so you can duck behind it to justify violent and reckless behavior that costs other human lives.
I wouldn’t say that.
From my experience, cops in large urban cesspools (and when you get off The Strip, Vegas is a very unattractive place), don’t like citizens with CCW’s.
In rural and suburban areas, cops I’ve known are either OK with CCW’s or are rather supportive of them.
In places where the issuance of CCW’s has been a cash cow for the department in past years (eg, cities in SoCal, the northeast, etc) for their connected “friends” and “important people,” they hate shall-issue CCW’s because it takes away the ability of the chief or sheriff to say “Suuuuuure.... I’ll give a CCW.... I’m in need of funds for my re-election tho....” this has been an issue in some California counties in the 90’s.
We don't know that he did. All accounts seem to agree that he reported a man damaging property in the store and that the man was armed. Neither of those is necessarily inaccurate. Nothing in that justified an overreaction by the police officers.
If you're looking to let the cops off the hook then why not also charge the victim for not acting fast enough to keep from getting shot?
And armed man damaging store property. So what in that justified the police overreaction? Or are you honestly trying to convice us that the only parties in all this more innocent than the dead guy are the men who shot him?
Um, it's called "moving with the flow of traffic". And cops know where the 55 mph limit is too low and traffic flows at 5-8 mph over. They can always go there to meet their quota er, keep their "activity" up.
It is a great way to undermine respect for the law and peace officers er, "Law Enforcement" officers.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my problem with your post is that it seems to reveal a disturbingly casual attitude toward the life of an innocent person. It seems to imply that it would be better for you to kill an admittedly innocent person because they had something in their hand (or you thought they did) than for you to even risk determining if there was an actual threat to you. I think most of us expect that a police officer would accept a little risk before killing an innocent person. That is part of the job, and if you don't like it or can't accept it, find another line of work.
That is not to say we should expect the police to accept unreasonable risks to their safety, but to say they should accept no risk is not realistic.
The reality is far different, and it attests to the arrogance that is pervasive in the policing profession. The qualifications for a typical entry level cop job in the United States are on par with McDonalds, i.e. a GED...only police departments also have something McDonalds typically does not - preferential hiring to less-qualified candidates through affirmative action. Even the more "educated" cops out there seldom possess more than an associates degree from a community college or one of those online schools that advertises on late night television. A small handful of cops will eventually work their way through law school so they can have a little extra work on the side when they retire at 45 with full pension, but even then its not Harvard Law. It's night school at the local third, fourth, or fifth tier law school that mostly specializes in churning out people who file asbestos lawsuits and also advertise on late night television.
>And armed man damaging store property. So what in that justified the police overreaction? Or are you honestly trying to convice us that the only parties in all this more innocent than the dead guy are the men who shot him?
Of course it's that way! Police are the authority and, as the authority, they are always in the right.
Anyone or anything that states or acts contrary to the police are evil bad-guys and should be shot!
[/sarc]
Are your black boots cutting off the circulation to your head? Before calling someone a liar you should at least ask for clarification.
It was the same study that found the majority of cops admitted to lying to cover up the “improper conduct” of fellow officers.
Agree with your risk point completely. Supposedly, that’s a prime factor in “justifying” the scandalous pensions they’ve managed to squeeze out of the politicians.
It all depends on the state and jurisdiction. The point is that there are so many vague, discretionary, and even contradictory traffic laws on the books that a cop can pretty much find a reason to pull over anyone he wants whenever he wants. And if that offense is not ticketable in itself, he can then use the stop as an opportunity to go fishing for something else that is.
“my problem with your post is that it seems to reveal a disturbingly casual attitude toward the life of an innocent person.”
At the time, I had no idea the man was innocent. I knew that he was wanted for questioning in a murder.
“It seems to imply that it would be better for you to kill an admittedly innocent(found out after much investigation) person because they had something in their hand (or you thought they did) than for you to even risk determining if there was an actual threat to you.”
From the, “I’d rather have dead cops than dead criminals division of FR.”
“I think most of us expect that a police officer would accept a little risk before killing an innocent person.”
Since you read my post, you know that at the time of the stop I had no reason to believe that the person was innocent.
“That is part of the job, and if you don’t like it or can’t accept it, find another line of work.”
I did.
“That is not to say we should expect the police to accept unreasonable risks to their safety”
Bullsqueeze that is exactly what you are saying. You prefer dead cops to dead criminals, just like all of the Losertarians that have chimed in on this thread.
It seems to imply that it would be better for you to kill an admittedly innocent person because they had something in their hand (or you thought they did) than for you to even risk determining if there was an actual threat to you.
You nailed it. Officer Safety Uber Alles.
Who's to say that a cop's life is more valuable than another civilian, especially when the danger to that cop is only perceived on the flimsiest of speculative evidence? Is a cop's life worth more than a small and innocent child who gets hit by a stray bullet when he goes reckless and trigger happy on a hunch of a perceived threat? I would argue that, all else being equal, it is not. And yet that sort of thing happens far too frequently to just ignore, almost always being justified in the name of "officer safety."
Cops in general don’t take kindly to ciitzens carrying weapons.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not where I come from. Here its expected.
_______________
Same here. I know most of the cops here and some of them are friends. Hell, we discuss guns and ammo over dinner.
From the, “I’d rather have dead cops than dead criminals division of FR.”
Except he wasn't a criminal. You simply thought he was based on your own bad and incorrect information. And yes, if we have to choose between the two I'd rather the completely innocent guy get to live than the cop who places him in harm's way based on bad information and a near-paranoid concern for "officer safety" through no fault of his own.
I’m wondering the same thing.
There will either be a camera malfunction or the tape will be erased axedentally. Or it will mysteriously disappear. Bet on it.
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