Posted on 10/10/2015 10:56:02 PM PDT by Mariner
OLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A white Cleveland police officer was justified in fatally shooting a black 12-year-old boy holding a pellet gun moments after pulling up beside him, according to two outside reviews conducted at the request of the prosecutor investigating the death.
A retired FBI agent and a Denver prosecutor both found the rookie patrolman who shot Tamir Rice exercised a reasonable use of force because he had reason to perceive the boy - described in a 911 call as man waving and pointing a gun - as a serious threat.
The reports were released Saturday night by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, which asked for the outside reviews as it presents evidence to a grand jury that will determine whether Timothy Loehmann will be charged in Tamir's death last November.
"We are not reaching any conclusions from these reports," Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said in a statement. "The gathering of evidence continues, and the grand jury will evaluate it all."
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
In a video I just watched he walks up to a couple of people walking past him on the sidewalk and points the gun directly at them.
I guess you had to be there...
1200fps .177 pellet is about 90% the killing power of a .22LR. 1280fps on a .22LR but not the grains for the mass.
If the pellet gun was C02 powered it was a deadly weapon. The one I had was 22 caliber and could penetrate the wall of a house.
Why does “white” and “black” have to be in the very first paragraph? If the colors were reversed they probably wouldn’t even mention it. They so wanted this to be about race but it isn’t and never was. It was always about an idiot waving a gun around that rightfully got shot by cops.... Because that’s their job. The AP sucks!
I hate that cops automatically shoot to kill now.
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Yeah, they should shoot the gun out of the bad guys hand, just like in the movies huh?
How could this court rule this verdict. Don’t they know the boy was “black?” That, in itself, means he is totally innocent.
Don’t they know that black lives matter?
Yeah.... I saw the video. I don’t know if I’d throw the cop in jail, but he would NEVER be a cop again.
Insane.
When does the #BLM protest/riot/looting start?
No, the video does not.
My son does airsoft combat all the time. They are almost identical to the real deal. No orange ring and you really can't tell them apart.
And yes, it scares the heck out of me sometimes. We go out of our way to ensure that they use these in a controlled environment or desert areas with friends.
They have school parties where 50 or 60 of them will show up to play afternoon through the night. They sleep outside, make bonfires and have pizza delivered at nearby friends homes.
One kid lost a rifle when he dropped it and ran from a rattlesnake in a bush he was hiding behind.
However no casualties, thank goodness. Everyone seems to follow the safety rules very closely.
a pellet rifle is not a toy gun and has no orange markings
it’ll put your eye out
it’ll discourage cats and deer from entering your yard
I saw the video also. Cannot figure out why they drove right up to the kid. The responding officer was too close to make any other decision except to shoot.
driving a taxi is about as dangerous as being a cop.
Fishing among a dozen other occupations is more dangerous.
“12yr old with a pellet gun. I guess you had to be there...”
These days many cops are trained in simulators where one moment someone looks harmless but suddenly pulls a gun and the cop has to shoot before being shot. That may prime cops to shoot at the first sign of a threat. The other issue with this specific case is the cops driving up within a few feet of the suspect which immediately puts them “in the hole” and at much greater risk. If they had stopped 50-100 feet from the kid they would have had more time to assess the situation and have some cover.
It may have 90% of the muzzle velocity, but it has nowhere near 90% of the killing power.
.177 caliber, 8 grain pellet @ 1000 fps = 17.8 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
.22 caliber, 14 grain pellet @ 1000 fps = 31.1 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
.22 caliber, 32 grain pellet @ 1000 fps = 71.1 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
.22 LR CCI Stinger (hyper-velocity, 32 grain bullet) - 191 ft-lbs of muzzle energy).
.22 LR CCI Minimag (high-velocity, 40 grain bullet) - 135 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
.22 LR Standard Velocity (40 grain bullet) - 102 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.
.22 Short (29 grain bullet) - 75 ft-lbs of muzzle energy (nominally in a gun chambered solely in .22 short)
A large .22 pellet starts to get close to a .22 short in muzzle energy. A .177 pellet has <25%% of the energy of a .22 short. Energy on the target is another matter because of the inferior ballistics of the pellet vs the bullet.
Of course all of this means nothing when an officer sees a large person waving around what appears to be a real weapon. Acting out your thug fantasy in public can get you killed.
“1200fps .177 pellet is about 90% the killing power of a .22LR. 1280fps on a .22LR but not the grains for the mass.”
Typically Pellet pistols of that type are CO2 powered and fire ~8 grain pellets at 350-500 FPS. An 8 grain pellet at 500 fps has ~ 4.5 ft pounds of energy. A 40 gr 22 LR at 1080 fps (standard velocity) has 104 Ft Lbs of energy. The pellet gun as ~ 4% of the energy of the 22 LR.
Even if the 8 gr pellet is fired at 1280 fps (no pellet pistol I know of comes close to that), the energy would only be 29 ft Lbs.
It was not that. It was a very cheap spring powered 6mm Airsoft gun, but one that had had the orange muzzle cap removed, obviously to make it look more real.
As I said, it does appear that the cops shoot very quickly. But, again, i'd consider this a training issue, certainly nothing criminal about it.
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