Posted on 11/29/2014 9:50:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind
He says that as though it would be a good thing.
Reality WILL kick your ass if you ignore it for too long. Reality hates being ignored.
CC
I think so, too. If Wilson had had a partner riding with him, things might have turned out very different. I wonder if even the "gentle giant" would have thought twice about taking on TWO cops.
Police officers should be trained in martial arts
Hands down, Brown is in the ground.
” But rather than wait for that backup to arrive, he reversed his car and pulled within a few feet of Brown and Johnson, thus giving Brown the opportunity to attack him. The more prudent course would have been to keep the two men under observation from the relative safety of the police car until other officers arrived, then initiate a stop. Had Brown and Johnson attempted to run away, the officers could have set up a containment perimeter and found them through a systematic search. And even if Brown and Johnson eluded the search, how many people living on Canfield Drive are 6-3 and 300 lbs.?”
Sorry Skippy, Wilson’s job was to do exactly what he did, not cower in his car waiting for help. Cops have to question suspects, which is what Wilson did.
Pardon me for butting in. “Dunphy” in the piece isn’t so much second guessing, as offering a debrief, something that is done, or should be done, after every encounter like this by those involved. The purpose is to ask “what did we do right, and what could we do better next time.”
That said, Dunphy touched on something I’ve wondered about. After pouring through the record, it’s clear that Wilson heard the initial call about a “stealing”, or petty theft, a misdemeanor at the liquor store. And like any good cop, knowing he was in the area, we went to look for the suspects when he had finished his call with the sick baby. What’s not clear is that the units at the liquor store ever put out information that it was a robbery, a felony.
Wilson’s initial contact, after he realized that Brown matched the description of the “stealing” suspect was consistent with trying to delay a misdemeanor suspect pending arrival of a backup unit. “what’s wrong with the sidewalk” etc., trying to distract and de-escalate until the second unit got there that he had called for. The problem with that was that Brown knew he had just committed a felony strong-arm robbery, even if Wilson did not. You can’t divert your partners for every single misdemeanor stop, but you sure as heck want to try to wait for backup before trying make a felony stop. It isn’t always possible, but it’s what you hope to be able to do.
And after the fact: the media believed uncritically the story Dorian Johnson told “Hands up”, even after it emerged that Johnson was an accomplice in the Robbery. Next time, police commanders and media relations officers need to be cognizant of that tendency, and be ready to counter with facts and information that challenge the media narrative.
Asking the question isn’t the same as making excuses for Brown’s criminal behavior, either at the store, or on Canfield. He, and he alone bears responsibility for his own death. But we can learn: the Mike Browns of the world are still among us, and we must try to take what lessons we can from this episode to “do better” next time.
“Black cops in black neighborhoods, and then it wouldnt matter, so far as the rabble rousers go. Even though it would be black vs establishment, it would still be black on black, and thats not an important issue”
I’m pretty sure it’s been done before. L.A. Rampart division.
Ever seen the movie “Training Day”? Maybe a little exaggerated. But not much.
Unless you happen to be 4 New York cops for example last month, attacked with an axe. (Just the first example that comes to mind)
Here’s another: The 6 foot 6 270lb naked guy who came out to the street, threw down the sword he’d chopped up his girlfriend with and charged a girl cop who was present with several other cops, which other cops she proceeded to hit with rounds from her terrified spray and pray.
Cops USED to be cops even if there didn’t happen to be more than one of them present.
I’m assuming tasers are the his answer.
The question is, do you really want to trust your life to something that depends on batteries?
What a worm is this Jeffrey Toobin! Any prosecutor who does what Toobin advocates should be disbarred and sent to the can.
Must be a grandma thing, my grandma said it too.
CC
She wasn’t from Syracuse, per chance? :)
No, Kentucky. Grandmama wisdom is universal. =^)
CC
This is the money quote. Brown was responsible for his own death period. Here is an insightful comment attached to the article:
There is a cultural difference here, and I don't mean Black vs White. Jack, you are an LAPD officer. Each division in your department fields many 2-man units each shift, backed up by dozens of other officers from the division, helicopters overhead, SWAT, etc. Ferguson is a 52-man department, which means that it probably fields 4 one-man units per shift. And that is it. Most contacts (as the one in question) involves a single officer with a second officer enroute to back him up.
I worked for some 30 years in a small department (about twice the size of Ferguson) on LAPD's eastern border. We always had single-man units, and each officer had to fend for himself until his back-up arrived. I grant you this was not optimal, but it was what my city could afford and we lived with it.
Had some humongous perp attacked me while in my unit, I hope that I would have had the presence of mind to shoot him before he wrested control of my service pistol from me. This was a case of pure weapon retention/officer survival, and any attempt to finesse Wilson's tactics is pure Monday morning quarterbacking.
Jack, your previous comments regarding the police bureaucracy have been very insightful and thought provoking. However, I'm not sure you fully appreciate the psychology of a small department officer encountering an existential threat such as the one Officer Wilson did.
“I think so, too. If Wilson had had a partner riding with him, things might have turned out very different. I wonder if even the “gentle giant” would have thought twice about taking on TWO cops.”
And you’re willing to pay the extra $90,000.00 a year in taxes to cover that cost?
True that !
AKA blue-sky bullshit.
here - here’s a ‘clue’ from someone who knows what he’s talking about - from a comment on the article:
“Had some humongous perp attacked me while in my unit, I hope that I would have had the presence of mind to shoot him before he wrested control of my service pistol from me. This was a case of pure weapon retention/officer survival, and any attempt to finesse Wilson’s tactics is pure Monday morning quarterbacking.”
Maybe there’s a reason you experienced “FReeper after FReeper attack me for saying so.” (that Wilson didn’t need to shoot ‘the kid’ (the 6’4” 300 lb bull charging down on him
Maybe you need to Get a ‘clue’ =
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