The Police Murder of Daniel Shaver

If you have the stomach for it, I want you to watch one of the most outrageous and infuriating videos I’ve ever seen. It shows the police shooting of Daniel Shaver in Mesa, Arizona. He was crawling on his hands and knees, crying, and begging police not to shoot him. An officer shot him anyway:

The Washington Post’s account is decent, but you have to watch the video truly grasp the strangeness of the requests:

In fact, the Post actually sugarcoats the encounter. At one point an officer tells him “do not put your hands down for any reason,” even saying, “If you think you’re going to fall, you better fall on your face.” Then he says, “Crawl towards me.” How he can crawl without putting his hands down, I don’t know. As the sobbing man crawls, he reaches back towards his pants (perhaps to pull them up) and is immediately shot dead. He had no weapon. He had done nothing wrong. And now he’s dead.

Essentially, what the police told an innocent, law-abiding, intoxicated American was this: Follow my highly-specific, very strange instructions or die. There was no need to make him crawl. The police were in command of the situation. At no point is there a visible weapon. I have seen soldiers deal with al Qaeda terrorists with more professionalism and poise. When a man is prone, his hands are visible, and your gun is trained upon him, he is in your power. At trial, the officer testified that he though the suspect was reaching for his gun, and that if he had a chance to do things over, he’d make the same decision again. In other words, he presented the classic defense. He was afraid, so he fired.

You will have had a hand in it. Idiot.

Wrong moron. I never defended him nor did I say he was innocent. Unfortunately you are incapable of understanding comments. The only thing I argued against were the claims his commands were incomprehensible and impossible to execute. I still contend that those claims are false. Furthermore, I clearly stated he has no business in law enforcement. In addition I stated that I was shocked, or perhaps I used the word surprised, that he was found not guilty, but that they had. I never said I agreed or disagreed with his form of communication, other than it was clear instructions, as the girl followed them without any problem. I don't know if he was following some kind of protocol from above in the communication technique he employed. So is he solely to blame or does the blame lay with his training? That I don't know, but I think the team needs better training, and that training should include how they follow the techniques they are taught, if these were not the techniques that were taught.

Just a clue, I am not in the least bit intimidated by you, and I certainly am not impressed by you. I will always state my opinion, regardless of how many people disagree with my opinion. It is my right and I will exercise it. When I think I communicated more out of emotion, than with intellect I will admit I am wrong due to the fact my response really stemmed from emotion rather than from a considered intellectual process. In this case I was not speaking from an emotional response because I didn't offer up an opinion on anything definitive except for the claims that his commands were confusing and incapable of being followed. I found those claims to be false, and I still do. Did I personally think they were appropriate? No. Did I think I would have found him innocent had I sat on the jury? Probably not, but it depends if something else was brought up in the trial that we have not been told, that might make me reconsider.

Let it go & move along now.

In other words, never communicate with me again and I will extend the same courtesy to you. You can have the last word if you must, however, I will ignore it.

The “you’re not a cop putting his life on the line and so you can’t pass judgment” argument is pure BS! Our society continually has professionals “judged” by non-professionals. As a physician, my medical license and livelihood can be taken away by a malpractice jury composed of non-physicians who have never diagnosed or treated a patient in their lifetimes. Why should cops - who have the ultimate authority to end someone’s life - in this case for not being able to comply with (even defenders’ admissions) contradictory orders in a bizarre game of Simon Says You’re Dead - be held to a lesser standard. Hope the fine taxpayers of Mesa AZ enjoy their mileage rate going up after what will no doubt be a several million dollar settlement.

Belated thanks - I did try to count the cop cars but ran out of fingers, toes and abacus beads ... actually I counted 52!

These guys had three hostages from a bank robbery, dumped a couple, maybe one shot and used the last one as a human shield (by the guy who walked away) who died (the last hostage) of bullet wounds - the chase was an hour plus but jeez it did look like a hollywood/Blues Brothers take.

This was in Stockton, CA which I never knew had a seaport some 70 miles east from the Pacific - lots of “migrants” and a high crime area - again thanks - learned some things yesterday between PC lockups. Sigh.

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