Posted on 08/16/2014 11:19:26 AM PDT by yldstrk
After police in Kenosha, Wis., shot my 21-year-old son to death outside his house ten years ago — and then immediately cleared themselves of all wrongdoing — an African-American man approached me and said: “If they can shoot a white boy like a dog, imagine what we’ve been going through.”
I could imagine it all too easily, just as the rest of the country has been seeing it all too clearly in the terrible images coming from Ferguson, Mo., in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown. On Friday, after a week of angry protests, the police in Ferguson finally identified the officer implicated in Brown's shooting, although the circumstances still remain unclear.
I have known the name of the policeman who killed my son, Michael, for ten years. And he is still working on the force in Kenosha.
The article, which in fairness is not really about the original incident raises a lot of questions.
and you know, I understand that cops find themselves in some jacked up situations, or situations that may appear to them to be that way.
But there are just too many stories about defenseless, innocent people who have done nothing wrong, or even people who may have done something wrong but at not posing a threat at that time, and they are just being killed with impunity by cops.
Just one example: the old man in the nursing home who wouldn’t take his meds. Yeah, maybe he was even a strong old man, maybe he was even out of control, but it’s very hard for me to imagine that the only way to subdue him was to kill him.
And when you think about some of the truly bizarre behavior that’s been discussed, such as examples in New Mexico, where people are taken to hospitals and given enemas, etc. to see if they have drugs up their woohas, it really makes you wonder.
And on top of all this, think of the b*tch of a DA in Texas who was driving blind drunk, but she still has her job as a LEO.
No, something has gotten very very out of whack in this country, and face it, it was never a Utopia.
If George Zimmerman - a private citizen - had followed your rules of engagement, he would have left the scene in a bodybag thanks to poor, unarmed Trayvon Martin.
This photo?
Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes NLF/VC Captain Bay Lop. The VC was captured after he and his men had killed one of General Loan's senior officers and his entire family during the Tet Offensive in 1968.
Sometimes a .38 will have to do when you don't have anything...slower.
The photographer later apologized to Gen. Loan for the trouble this picture caused him and his family.
As far as I can tell he was handcuffed, back or front, I don't know...so I doubt he was swinging...
My issue is the cop putting the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger not once, but twice...
A head shot is almost always fatal...
He could have just as easily shot him in the leg, torso, to get him to comply...
I also go back to the fact there were three cops there, unless this kid was strong beyond normal, three cops should be able to get him on the ground and subdue him...without putting a gun to his head...
You missed my.. ‘They are human.’
I don’t like it any more than you do when an incident as you have posted happens.
You may feel entitled to spew venom but it doesn’t mean others are then supposed to just wither away and cringe.
That’s a little too ‘activist’ for me.
Have a nice day.. if you can.
You really need to give a link, because the posted article clearly states that the cop who shot this guy’s son is still on the force. It discusses another cop who committed suicide, but that’s essentially an aside.
So, we don’t know where you got your info, but nevertheless it is hard to see how you can put a gun to a handcuffed person’s head and pull the trigger TWICE and call that self-defense or justified.
Cops aren’t allowed to kill people just because they’ve p*ssed them off. If they can’t handle those rules of engagement they need to find another line of work.
I’m sure there are mercenary armies all over Africa who’d love to have their services.
For one he wasn't a VC who may have just killed the family members of the guy who shot him in the head.
It does matter that all the facts come out. There was a lot going on as evidenced by the claims of the father, which can be found here:
http://michaelbell.info/SummaryBriefPage1.html
It’s one side of the story. It would be good to get the other side, too.
Strausbaugh killed himself in October 2010, about seven months after the civil suit was settled. The officer had told his wife he was stressed in the aftermath of the Bell shooting, according to a medical examiner’s report.
You happy?
However, someone who shakes off a taser can also shake off a bullet wound to the leg or torso - unless that wound was to the heart or the profunda femoris, which would be equally as fatal as a headshot.
People on PCP, for example, famously ignore severe injuries to comtinue their belligerence.
The article, which in fairness is not really about the original incident raises a lot of questions.
and you know, I understand that cops find themselves in some jacked up situations, or situations that may appear to them to be that way.
***
See my post #68, and read more about what was going on during the stop. It’s one sided, but it’s the best I can find for now.
As opposed to what? Do we need to look at crime stats?
No. I advocate not calling a cop “trigger happy” because he shot a man fighting with 3 cops, who had already been tasered 4 times, after his partner yelled-”He has my gun!”.
+1.
There are PLENTY of times cops do the wrong thing. In Florida a few weeks back, two BROWARD COUNTY (Democrat ruled....Democrat all the way) sheriff deputies SLAMMED a guy’s face into the ground. He was NO THREAT at all....but what the cops DID NOT KNOW was that they were CAUGHT ON CAMERA.
http://www.local10.com/news/video-shows-man-struck-slammed-to-ground-by-bso-deputies/25748794
The media covered it for ONE DAY and has since IGNORED it.
But when a perp who gets shot who has assaulted a cop, strong armed robbed a store, and is apparently threatening a police officer, SUDDENLY the media cares.
It is BS.
If the cop was operating under the belief that the guy had possession of his partner's gun then it required he be "de-animated" as quickly as possible. There's not any time to finesse things under those circumstances.
This is an entirely different set of circumstances than described in my post #63 above, but I do have sympathy for a young guy who was just a combative drunk, and too resilient for his own good.
I have no sympathy for the VC.
I know, If I was the cop I would probably have shot too. But as a private citizen, I may have had to go to trial and prove my reason as did Zimmerman. Maybe justice would prevail.
A black citizen is about 100 times more likely to be shot to death by another black citizen than by a police officer.
And boy, how nice of Michael Bell Senior to play the race card - that really makes him more sympathetic and his argument more reasonable.
That’s the point.
Agreed. It was a tragic mistake.
"So you mean to tell me three cops who are trained to deal with people who are intoxicated needed to shot a handcuffed person in the head? Not once but twice pulled the trigger after a misfire...?
He believed he had grabbed the other officers gun. Perps can shoot at cops while in handcuffs
Sounds trigger happy to me, but that's just my opinion, the jury who awarded them 1.75 million must have seen something sideways here...
OJ was not guilty according to a jury. Gov. Perry was just indicted by a grand jury.
Don't want to get shot, don't fight with cops. Its pretty simple.
The only reason why he was forced to go through the farce of a criminal trial is because leftist media scumbags - combined with a race-baiting district attorney - made a dead thug into an innocent martyr.
There does not have to be a trial every time a drunk thug gets himself shot.
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