Posted on 12/16/2013 9:14:42 PM PST by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) Family members claim LAPD officers did not need to open fire on Brian Beaird, a disabled veteran who was killed in Downtown LA Friday after leading police on a high-speed pursuit.
Police Chief Charlie Beck spoke about the investigation Monday and insisted events that night may have appeared more threatening from an officers perspective.
I reserve judgment. You know, Ive been doing this a long time and you have to know whats in the minds of the officers, you have to know what they know, Beck said. You have to remember that whatever youre seeing is not the point of view of the officers; its very different to see something from 1,200 feet, from a helicopter, rather than 15 feet away in the dust and the noise.
Beaird, allegedly drunk, led police on an hour-long pursuit before crashing his silver Corvette into another vehicle and a fire hydrant. The collision occurred near the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Los Angeles Street.
He reportedly tried to exit his car and was shot by officers.
A law enforcement source told CBS2/KCAL9 reporter Dave Lopez that when Beaird got out of the car an officer shot him with a bean bag without alerting the other officers. The other officers allegedly heard that and mistook it as a gunshot coming from Beaird, prompting them to open fire. Right now that kind of stuff is speculation. Now, speculation isnt always wrong, but Im not going to confirm any of that, and were going to work through this, Beck said.
Does it happen very often that a bean bag is fired and that triggers that, Lopez said to Beck.
Im speaking very generally here: We have absolute protocols to prevent that. Before an officer discharges a bean bag the protocol is for them to loudly state, Bean bag ready. Bean bag ready, so that everybody knows that the detonation they hear is not a gunshot, Beck said.
The big question is whether the first officer yelled bean bag before firing.
Were pretty angry. It didnt seem that there was justification for what happened, said Beairds brother John in a phone interview.
He said his brother called during the pursuit and said he couldnt understand why the police were after him.
Beck says there will be a full investigation: These things take some amount of time and we work through them very thoroughly.
In the meantime, the officers involved in the shooting have been reassigned to desk duty.
Where does it say he was drunk? Did I miss that part, or did you make it up?
If either of the two he hit had died, they would have made CERTAIN we heard about it, as they would have if they found a weapon on his corpse.
The instant he got out of the car he was disarmed. Granted, they might reasonably suspect he had a weapon, but his actions were not to attack them, but to turn away.
Then they shot him in the back.
Multiple times, by multiple assailants in a feeding frenzy of testosterone, steroids and adrenaline.
Not the department’s highest point, but arguable higher than shooting a couple hundred rounds at two newspaper delivery ladies in a truck that didn’t even vaguely match the suspect’s truck’s description and barely managing to injure one.
More range time does help...
Nicely played!
Maybe you should review your posts on this thread, rather deserately trying to bolster your statist POV.
WHERE did he not run a red light? That changes everything!
Foot pursuit? My hairy purple @$$.
Every other time I have seen police stop a car, one cop car is in front of the stopped vehicle, one is in back. Here the would need one down each street at the intersection, and they would catch him as he ran to them. Even in my podunk town they do this from their training. There is no need for any pursuit with that simple tactic.
Instead, all of the cop cars stop behind the Corvette, effectively blocking any other car from getting in front of him.
This is really convenient for the shooters, because there are no cops in front of the Corvette driver who would be in the field of fire when they shoot him.
This may be pre-planned, premeditated murder. I wonder how many tape recordings of the police radios during the chase are going to have to disappear so that never comes to light?
Instead of a failure to hear that one of the cops was shooting a bean bag round, what if there never was a bean bag round?
“The lights turning red or green have zip to do with the shooting which followed the pursuit.”
I don’t believe I wrote otherwise. A question was asked and even though it wasn’t asked of me, I responded to it.
Looked like the guy was not going anywhere very fast, or was in any shape to be a grave threat to one of the heroic ossifers going home that night.
Target practice, heck yeah, why not, he can't shoot back?
And the officers who opened fire on a pair of little Asian women delivering newspapers from a truck when they mistook her for a wanted former LAPD officer have been fired and put on trial for attempted murder, right?
Spare me if I have the slightest belief that any investigation will ever seriously be conducted. You and I do something like that, we’re in jail that night. Officers do it, and they MIGHT get some unpaid leave. Maybe.
My point was, the color of the lights have zip to do with these officers shooting to death the suspect, who it appears was completely unarmed.
They’re going to have a tough time rationalizing or justifying this shoot if the suspect was unarmed and it appears he was.
Disputing the news chopper video will be all but impossible.
The city will again be sued for millions....Distrust of the police/government will become even more widespread.
In the interest of fairness, he did ask me to put up and prove my contention that the two the deceased T-boned ran a red light, and after re-reviewing the available evidence, I can’t.
I can point to how to prove it, both from the known timing of the yellow light in his direction, and from dozens of police dash cams, but I can’t prove it at this point.
In any event, the status of the light is irrelevant to whether it’s A-OK to shoot an unarmed and possibly injured suspect who is hobbling away in the back.
Some of us say heck yeah shoot howdy!
Beck is an illegal alien sympathizer and must think everyone is a fool.
The news chopper was using a very high powered telescopic/telephoto lens, which brought the shooting scene up much closer, than 1200' altitude of the chopper, as Mr. Beck seemed to be suggesting.
Is it possible that he was shot before he got out of the car?
Were there any people near him when he was shot? By that I mean near enough that he might have been a threat to them.
Thanks for any answers.
A union employee is always considered absolutely innocent until he starts taking down others with him, and then he may resign with full benefits at that time.
Look, there's no defending the guy - not only did he endanger thousands of people with his driving, he even tried to get his car going where the only way to go was through officers ahead and behind him. Had the officers opened fire at that point, my only problem would be the whitewash investigation that followed. Because that is someone armed with a deadly weapon with intent to harm others.
Once he got out of the car, his hands clearly visible, it became a completely different matter. If a clean investigation was conducted, I'm sure it would be revealed that other officers opened fire when they heard the shot from the supposed bean bag round. And those who fired should be punished for their actions, just like you or I would be in a similar situation.
Laws only work if they apply to everyone equally.
Somebody in the media says they saw a bean bag bounce off his left leg as he went around the car.
Now the media has found a friend of the suspect who says he was a paranoid schizophrenic who would naturally run from the police. If that’s the case he shouldn’t have been driving.
Perhaps the taste in your mouth wouldn't be so awful if you used better judgement and stopped licking the nearest jackboot?
A car is a 3500lb lethal weapon. If a driver does not stop after a lawful order by a police officer any and all actions including lethal force need to be directed at the driver immediately and without reserve. Treat that man or woman as if they were waving a gun around threatening to shoot everyone.
Hi speed chases that end in fatalities of innocent bystanders would disappear.
Hitler, for all his faults, certainly got the criminals off the streets, and into government where they could kill wholesale instead of retail.
Not what I want in the USA, but then again, we are heading into the new and improved USSA, where hope and change means we hope the government doesn’t change from just executing those who “deserve it” to executing those who merely disagree with the executioners.
Better stop licking them boots. You might catch something....
so, the police are now judge, jury and executioner? I'd say you better re-think what the rights of individuals are and what the responsibilities of the police are....
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