Posted on 07/12/2019 2:03:46 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A US police officer who was fired after shooting dead an unarmed man was temporarily rehired so he could apply for a pension, local media report.
Philip Brailsford, 28, killed 26-year-old Daniel Shaver in the hallway of an Arizona hotel in early 2016.
He was fired and charged with murder - but was acquitted at trial in 2017.
Records show that he was briefly rehired last year so he could apply for a lifetime pension worth more than $2,500 (£2,000) a month.
The move meant he could be medically retired - rather than fired - which made him eligible for the pension.
"He was eligible for retirement benefits, so he applied for them," local official Chris Brady told ABC News. He added that Mr Brailsford had submitted a claim of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in connection with the shooting.
~SNIP~ Bodycam footage of the incident, released after Mr Brailsford was acquitted, showed Mr Shaver on his knees asking officers not to shoot him.
But he was shot five times with a semi-automatic rifle as he crawled towards the officers while sobbing.
Lawyers argued that Mr Brailsford had responded appropriately, according to his training, when Mr Shaver reached towards his waistband - because he believed there was a concealed firearm there.
No weapon was found on the body, but Mr Bailsford said he believed Mr Shaver was reaching for one.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
We live in a society of rules until they are inconvenient. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the term “rule of law” used to indicate what should be done but not necessarily right.
Reputations can be misleading. So if you are not there to get a close up look, then you only have people’s opinions.
I carried a weapon for the military for half my life so I understand training and expectations. And I will repeat what I said in a post on this thread, if you don’t like the result of the training which is your law, and your expectations, then get them changed. In the meantime, the officer accomplished what he was expected to do. We’re back to the gun killed the person, so get rid of the gun.
rwood
If the law says it is not murder, and the laws are made up of the people, then does your opinion hold any more weight than those of the jury who determined the case and had access to the whole file. You call it murder, I pointed out there were other things involved. I’m not defending anything, I wasn’t there. I merely stated facts from the information I could find. There are many sides to each situation.
rwood
If the law says it is not murder, and the laws are made up of the people, then does your opinion hold any more weight than those of the jury who determined the case and had access to the whole file. You call it murder, I pointed out there were other things involved. I’m not defending anything, I wasn’t there. I merely stated facts from the information I could find. There are many sides to each situation.
rwood
“In the meantime, the officer accomplished what he was expected to do.”
Didn’t that get discussed at the War Crimes trials? And no, no one “expected” him to open fire on a blabbering drunk guy crawling on his knees, crying with fear.
We expected better than that from our military in Afghanistan. At least, we did when I was there.
I was there also, and we were expected to accomplish goals. In each sortie, we had expected pieces of the mission to complete and ways to do it. I can remember clearing rooms in buildings using ways that would never be acceptable in the civilian world.
A perfect example is the extermination of Bin Laden. He was shot in the head, unarmed, holding one of his wives, in his house. The scenario is almost carbon copy. So why is one considered murder and the other justifiable? And if there’s nothing more than that, then how was the action of the cop, or the military team, determined sound?
I am not defending anyone, I wasn’t in Mesa. But using the info I can find, he was sent to investigate a gun being pointed out a window, in a hotel, he cornered the guy, and the guy reached into his waist after being told to keep his hands clear. That’s all we have besides the film. If that’s the case, then can you explain how a jury found him not guilty if it is so obvious? We don’t know everything.
rwood
“The scenario is almost carbon copy. So why is one considered murder and the other justifiable?”
Really? REALLY? Bin Laden versus a REPORT of someone with a rifle, who clearly does NOT have a rifle as he is crawling on his knees. Someone who killed thousands versus someone who hadn’t harmed ANYONE.
Carbon copy? In what world?!
“he cornered the guy, and the guy reached into his waist after being told to keep his hands clear”
A team of armed men with bulletproof vests had the guy in a hallway. The guy was crawling and his shorts were coming off as he tried to comply with conflicting commands. So they opened fire?
“If that’s the case, then can you explain how a jury found him not guilty if it is so obvious?”
Because cops are held to a different standard. Always. As government agents, they have limited immunity which often seems to hit 99% unlimited. The legal standard of proof for a cop is very different from a normal citizen.
In a SWAT raid in Tucson, the highly trained SWAT team fired so many rounds, so wildly, that bullets went through FIVE houses. They then refused to allow a medic to approach the body for over an hour IIRC. Unknown if he could have been saved. They could also have simply arrested him as he came off shift at the mines, although that wouldn’t have been as satisfying. They also had no evidence of wrong doing. The widow received millions and the cops had no punishment.
Why did the guy die? When people forced his front door without announcing themselves (well, they said police but there was no way the dead man could have heard them from the rear of the house), he responded by heading to the front door with a gun in his hands.
I’d have done the same thing. I’d have been killed too. When will cops be held accountable for grossly bad judgment? Judgment that would get any non-cop a prison term?
“Someone who killed thousands versus someone who hadn’t harmed ANYONE.”
Then I have to assume your problem is not with the killing, it is with the reason it was done. Both Bin Laden and this guy were killed inside their home, unarmed, and not trying to resist. The only difference is that the guy in Mesa did not do what he was told and made a move the police considered threatening. Bin Laden did his as an act of war. This country has done that too. Don’t like it, get laws changed. It’s your representation. Vote different and/or get others to vote with you.
“When will cops be held accountable for grossly bad judgment?”
Problem here is that according to a jury, it wasn’t. And the reason is not that it was based upon judgement, but upon expectations and the training to make that a reality. Change the training and the expectation, and you create a different expectation. But until then, the team did as they were trained and expected to do. But you can’t blame the people for doing what they are told to do. Blame the people that made the laws that created that expectation. Change the laws because you can’t put them in jail. And if the team does not conform to the training and expectation, then put them in jail. Prior to that, it’s legal and the people living in the area determined that with their vote and not saying it was wrong with the jury that called the case.
But I might warn you, if you take the capability of the police to protect themselves in so many times they need it, you won’t have anyone but thugs in the police force. And then any expectation is cancelled.
rwood
“Problem here is that according to a jury, it wasn’t.”
Wrong. THAT is the point. Juries are given instructions that differ for cops. The government chooses to hold cops to a LOWER legal standard.
I dislike David French’s TDS, but this article was spot on:
“Unlike any prior cases that could clearly establish the law for this case, at the time Vickers fired at the dog, SDC was not the intended target of an arrest or investigatory stop. Nor was he the intended target of Vickers’s shot; rather, he was accidentally hit when Vickers fired at the dog. The Supreme Court’s decision in Brower indicates that a Fourth Amendment violation depends upon intentional action on the part of the officer....
...The brief dissent was spot-on. After noting that not even qualified immunity protects the “plainly incompetent,” the dissenting judge said, “Because no competent officer would fire his weapon in the direction of a nonthreatening pet while that pet was surrounded by children, qualified immunity should not protect Officer Vickers.” This seems plainly true.
But I’d go farther. As I’ve argued before, it’s time to rethink qualified immunity entirely....”
If I shot a dog - even a threatening one, which this one was not - that was 18 inches from a kid and I hit the kid instead, would I be liable? Darn tootin! Is a cop? Nope. Because he didn’t make a considered decision to deliberate shoot and injure a child.
I carry concealed. If I ever shoot an unarmed man crawling on his knees, I’ll go to jail. No doubt. Deservedly so. I don’t have “qualified immunity”. I am required to use good judgment. Cops are not. That is the legal standard the juries are given.
“The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Corbitt v. Vickers, handed down last week, constitutes one of the most grotesque and indefensible applications of the qualified immunity I’ve ever seen. The case involves a claim of excessive force against Michael Vickers, a deputy sheriff in Coffee County, Georgia, who shot a ten-year-old child lying on the ground, while repeatedly attempting to shoot a pet dog that wasn’t posing any threat.”
Also here: https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/officer-cleared-after-accidental-shooting/
I’m tired of cops being free to do darn near anything under protection from the government.
You keep falling back on to the point that cops are held to a different standard. I might ask why, but there is no answer to that other than they are allowed to by politicians that either create the laws or restrict the people in their decision of voting for or against a law. And with that I fall back onto the point that there are different opinions of law and how it is to be enforced.
One of the major reasons we expanded between the 1500’s to today is difference of opinion on society and it’s basis. If enough people got together and disagreed with the way a town was being run, they moved and created their own town and ran it like they wanted. Or they eliminated the source of the problem by getting rid of the person or people that were not running it the way the majority thought it should be. Then maybe the people voted out, or run out, would go somewhere and build their own town.
You’re blaming the police force for doing what they are expected and trained to do. Why aren’t you blaming the people for allowing it? History displays many examples of this: Stalin or Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, Amine, Hiro....the list is endless of “rulers” that gained power because the people there didn’t stop them or agreed with them. There are many examples of this country mostly related to race and religious belief with counterparts in many countries. A few from the Italian Mafia were people like Capone, Costello, Torrio, Giancana, and many more. In other countries: Vory v Zakone in Russia, the Triads all the way to today’s Yakuza and Bakuto in China, in Latin America to include Mexico, the cartels. And terrorist groups like al quida, hezbulla, taliban, isle, many more.
But the one thing consistent with them all is that they are not stopped by the people that are there. They are doing what the people want or will put off in trade for other things. And the only thing different from it is that the religious aspect of the groups comes into play. There is none of that with laws enforcement in the US.
So you’re blaming the wrong people. Don’t blame those that do what they are expected to do by the people that tell them what to do that are voted in to do so. Blame the people that vote them in. And if enough people under that control agree that those people should be taken out of power, then it will change. Otherwise, those that accomplish the expected are only doing their job.
rwood
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