Posted on 03/25/2014 10:48:34 AM PDT by CedarDave
Mayor Richard Berry called it “horrific” and “unsettling.”
Several city councilors – on both sides of the aisle – said they were disturbed by what they saw.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a former district judge and the governor also weighed in.
Each called for a thorough, independent investigation into the Albuquerque Police Department’s shooting of a mentally ill homeless man, James M. Boyd, who was caught illegally camping in the Sandia foothills last week.
Video released by APD on Friday showed officers firing at the man, who was armed with two knives but appeared to be turning away from officers when shots rang out.
Debate over the shooting didn’t end at the New Mexico line, either, as the video attracted national attention. Viewers from across the nation commented on the video, which was picked up by the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News and other news organizations.
“I’ve seen the portion of video that the public has seen,” Berry said in an interview on Monday. “It’s horrific. It’s unsettling.”
Berry said the U.S. Department of Justice ought to look at the shooting and his administration has already offered to send over the information.
Federal investigators announced in November 2012 that they are examining whether APD has a pattern or practice of violating people’s civil rights, specifically through the use of force. Justice Department officials will be in Albuquerque on Wednesday to meet with community activists, who requested the meeting after the Boyd shooting.
“I think this is a circumstance they need to take a look at and make a determination on their side,” Berry said.
Justice Department officials have told the city to finish its investigation and forward its results.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
We had one of those in Tacoma, WA, where the mentally disturbed panhandler had pissed off the officer. But when the nutjob turned and walked away, the officer followed him and shot him while not being threatened. This according to several eye witnesses quoted in the initial reporting.
Not surprisingly, all subsequent reporting has not mentioned the eyewitness accounts of the guy walking away in a non-threatening manner. I fully expect it will be called a righteous shoot, even though witnesses couldn’t believe what they were seeing: a purposeful execution for no reason.
Eyewitness account posted on one of the articles:
“Folks we watched this while waiting in the turn lane. From what I viewed the slow moving but irritated homeless man was absolutely murdered. I could have restrained him with one arm. To be watching something that seemed sorta funny be turned into a shooting......I am not comfortable as a tax paying and law abiding citizen in Tacoma anymore. maybe time to relocate our business as this type of event is now all to common in Tacoma.”
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/man-wounded-after-being-shot-police/nYZQr/
1. Justifying how this was a “good shoot”
2. (And to justify that) the homeless guy was worthy of being shot
3. Because he had knives in his hand vs. a half-dozen men with rifles trained on him, a K-9 set loose and flash-bangs being lobbed onto him.
I bet that far more people show up who DON'T support your list than those who DO!
The original article has been pulled by the local newspaper. A relevant part of that article was copy / pasted by a homeless advocate, so it wouldn’t go down the Memory Hole:
“The man seemed to be running in slow motion — possibly drunkenly — as he attempted to flee, Graham said. That’s when the officer fired four shots, several of which appeared to hit the man, she added.”
But at least one witness gave a different account.“It looked suspect to me,” said Teresa Graham, who watched the shooting unfold while stopped at a nearby traffic light. “I just don’t know why she had to shoot him like that — four times, when he’s trying to run away.” - See more at: http://thedailyworld.com/sections/newswire/northwest/panhandler-shot-injured-after-charging-tacoma-police-officer.html#sthash.2hYxIvbm.dpuf
Graham, 44, an East Side resident, said she’d been driving her 16-year-old daughter to Home Depot when the shooting happened. The two were stopped at a red light in Graham’s black SUV — about three traffic lanes away — when the cop stopped to confront the panhandler.Graham had her window down, but couldn’t hear what the officer was saying to the man.“I don’t know why they were talking,” she said. “Then all of a sudden, (the officer) yelled something and she tried Tasing him, but missed. When the guy started to run away, (the officer) immediately threw the Taser down, pulled her gun out and shot.”The man seemed to be running in slow motion — possibly drunkenly — as he attempted to flee, Graham said. That’s when the officer fired four shots, several of which appeared to hit the man, she added.“I didn’t see anything in his hands,” Graham added. “I didn’t see him do anything physical or threatening. I’ve just never seen anything like that before in my life — a person just getting shot like that. It was just heartbreaking.” - See more at: http://thedailyworld.com/sections/newswire/northwest/panhandler-shot-injured-after-charging-tacoma-police-officer.html#sthash.2hYxIvbm.dpuf
Numerically, yes, I agree.
But I’ll bet that there will be more than one or two cops or former cops who show up to declare it a “good shoot” because “A cop’s most important job is to go home at the end of the day” or something similar.
When cops justify and excuse this sort of thing on public boards, they just keep digging a deeper and deeper PR hole for themselves. They never seem to understand that a) there are people in uniform who simply should never have been allowed out of the house in the morning with so much as a sharp stick, and b) that the cops don’t have many political friends left. The left never much liked cops.
When law-abiding conservatives like me start viewing cops as a problem rather than any solution, and a fiscal drain instead of a resource, it’s all over for them. More and more conservatives are waking up and realizing that cops aren’t good people - they’re government employees, a praetorian guard for politicians and the insiders connected to government.
That’s three eyewitnesses saying approximately that it was a bad shoot. And you have to dig for that. The local paper has scrubbed the original article off of their website.
If your most important job is to go home safe at the end of the day, become an insurance salesman.
THIS JUST INTO OUR NEWSROOM: COPS MAY BE IN TROUBLE BUT JAMES M. BOYD IS STILL DEAD!
The motto of cops today is “Anything I have to do to go home at the end of the day” - including killing people, dogs, old people, women delivering newspapers before dawn, you name it.
Exactly.
Cops are always whining and crying about how “dangerous” their jobs are.
Well, there’s a bunch of jobs that are far more dangerous than being a cop. Logger, commercial fisherman, farmer, rancher, garbage collector, etc.
We don’t give any of those people state-sponsored funerals (unless they served in the military), do we? None of those people get fat pensions they can start collecting on in their 50’s. Nope, they get maimed and killed, and their families have to go on with life without them.
This is the homeless guy from Hawthorne, Calif. who heart-wrenchingly called out for help from his police dad as the cops beat him to death.
The cops were fired but LEGALLY CLEARED of that homicide, btw...
My belief is that this latest killing happened BECAUSE of the widespread awareness that the cops got off in Hawthorne.
Immediately after the shooting, the body was transported to the local hospital where a colonoscopy was performed to check for illegal drugs. The family is being billed for the procedure.
Well Dave, you have now modified your original bet from "holster sniffers" to cops or former cops who would support your modified wording that this was a good shoot because the most important job is to go home at the end of the day. Even at that, I doubt that even one cop or former cop shows to support your modified bet. We shall see.
Arming physical cowards with guns and badges, is what is causing this.
The cops and former cops are the people who provide support the holster-sniffers. Once you have a couple of cops on board with the tactics, well then, hey, it’s A-OK and the holster-sniffers are off to the races.
These are tactics that would have been utterly beyond rational thought 20 years ago, where 20+ years ago, other cops would have been asking “Are you (*&*& insane? WTF?”
Today, we see cops close ranks against even the most egregious conduct and lawless behavior.
The APD is likely going to spend a truckload of the taxpayer’s money investigating this, paying off kin and so forth, and the likelihood that the bad actors will be dismissed is astonishingly low. If non-cops had pulled a stunt like this, the actors involved wouldn’t be allowed out of detention without a quarter-mil bond, never mind a mandated, taxpayer-funded leave.
It’s long past time that the taxpayers put public employees on notice that their behavior has financial consequences to the employee themselves - ie, if the cops do something really stupid, then the cops personally pay for all the costs of dealing with the stupidity.
I know you’re trying to be darkly humorous, but I have to say that it just raised my BP yet further.
For those who don’t know what NostraDanUS is talking about, here’s another absurd misconduct case involving cops in New Mexico:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/justice/new-mexico-search-lawsuit/index.html
The most important thing is, the officers got home safely that night...
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