Could go either way...
You have some control over which way...
Posted on 12/13/2017 4:42:22 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
The jurors who acquitted Philip Brailsford of second-degree murder last week were told to judge him based on "how a reasonable officer would act, versus a regular person with no police training," as The Arizona Republic put it. That distinction was crucial, because a "regular person" would never get away with shooting an unarmed man who was crawling on the floor, sobbing and begging for his life.
Like other recent cases in which jurors failed to hold police officers accountable for the unnecessary use of deadly force, Brailsford's acquittal shows that cops benefit from a double standard. Unlike ordinary citizens, they can kill with impunity as long as they say they were afraid, whether or not their fear was justified.
Daniel Shaver got drunk and did something stupid. But he did not deserve or need to die for it.
On January 18, 2016, Shaver, who was 26 and lived in Granbury, Texas, was staying at a La Quinta Inn in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, while working on a job for his father-in-law's pest control company. After inviting two other hotel guests to his room for a drink, he showed them an air rifle he used for work, at one point sticking it out a window to demonstrate the scope's range.
Alarmed by the rifle's silhouette, a couple who had been using the hotel's hot tub informed the staff. That's how Brailsford and five other Mesa officers ended up confronting Shaver in a fifth-floor hallway.
The bodycam video of the encounter, which was not publicly released until after the verdict, shows that Shaver, who according to the autopsy had a blood alcohol concentration more than three times the legal threshold for driving under the influence, was confused by the strange and contradictory orders that Sgt. Charles Langley barked at him. Instead of simply handcuffing Shaver as he lay face down with his hands behind his head, under the guns of three officers, Langley inexplicably told the terrified and intoxicated man to crawl toward him.
While crawling, eyes on the floor, Shaver paused and reached toward his waistband, apparently to pull up the athletic shorts that had slipped down as he moved. That is when Brailsford fired five rounds from his AR-15 rifle.
"He could have easily and quickly drawn a weapon down on us and fired without aiming," Brailsford said later. Yet neither of the other two officers who had guns drawn on Shaver perceived the threat that Brailsford did.
One of those officers testified that he would not fire based purely on the "draw stroke" Brailsford thought he saw. He would also consider the context, such as whether a suspect is belligerent and threatening or, like Shaver, compliant, apologetic and tearful.
Brailsford said he was trained to ignore context. "We're not trained necessarily to pay attention to what a suspect is saying," he testified. "We're supposed to watch their actions and what they do with their hands."
The jury apparently accepted the counterintuitive argument that police, because of their special training, are apt to be less careful with guns than the average citizen would be. A similar dispensation seemed to be at work last June, when Minnesota jurors acquitted former St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez of manslaughter after he panicked during a traffic stop and shot a driver who was reaching for his license.
Even more astonishing was the failure of South Carolina jurors to reach a verdict in the trial of former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager, who shot an unarmed motorist in the back as he ran away. Last May, five months after that mistrial, Slager signed a federal plea agreement in which he admitted the shooting was not justified.
All three of these officers said they were afraid, but that is not enough to justify the use of deadly force. When juries fail to ask whether police have good reason to fear the people they kill, regular people have good reason to fear police.
The key words in my post being “law abiding citizens”. For example, I have never even ever talked to a drug dealer in my life, let alone have a drug dealer point a gun at me, but like almost everyone else, I have had some interaction with the police. That is why the police need to exercise great caution. With great power comes great responsibility.
Did anybody ever say what the victim was reaching for? He was so determined to reach behind his back he must have had something.
Yes, he was reaching to pull up his shorts, which anyone with half a brain could have seen. When the first shots are fired his (empty) hand is already in plain view. This poor guy was scared out of his mind, drunk, and absolutely no threat to those officers. Five cops were there. Why did only one shoot? Because the others had common sense.
Yup...extreme foolishness on both sides,dead guy *and* cops.The dead guy didn't intend to get killed and the cops didn't intend to kill anybody.
Lesson for young guys: Don't get drunk and start waving guns around.Not even toy guns.Also,listen *very* carefully to a cop who has a rifle pointed at you.
Lesson for cops: think carefully when deciding how to handle certain situations.That one could have handled much better...and that's true even if nobody had died.
Could go either way...
You have some control over which way...
This cop is a punk who set up his little game of “Simon Says” until he got his chance to pump 5 rounds from his AR-15 into the guy.
Scared Cops Are Scary
Any one that does not feel fear is a fool!
Very true.But there are certain situations where too much caution can get a cop killed.I recall one youtube video of a cop wearing a camera while responding to a "domestic".The cop was talking very calmly to the guy trying to defuse things.At one point the cop said to him,very calmly,"look,I just have to check you for weapons".The guy then put his hand in his pocket and shot the cop in the head...twice.
Turns out the killer had major convictions so being caught with a gun would have meant prison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQcmAi6OV1I
I read 51. And I still stand by it.
Read what I posted. The cops aren’t the whole problem. The problem is the SOP. The problem are the people who stand behind the cops.
Cops THEN become a problem because they have been trained (And in many cases, bred) to regard us as the enemy.
So no, I don’t call 911. Ever. Are you kidding me ? No way.
Never ever do I even think of calling cops. I have to do it during a car accident or whatever but that’s begrudgingly. I call 911 for fire and ambulance - that’s all.
So see post #52.
Yes - I think that's about the only thing everyone could agree to. Some time ago I stopped giving cops the benefit of the doubt. I know they have to put up with a lot, but the way they handled this is an example of why, if the situation is questionable, I am no longer automatically inclined to give credence to the cop's story.
Check out his tagline. I've never in my 58 years seen a sheepdog go belly up at the mere site of wolves.
Power mad cop playing God. There’s simply no reason whatsoever that this murdered man could not have been handcuffed by his partner. So, an innocent man is dead and a killer cop got away with murder.
This cop is a punk who set up his little game of “Simon Says” until he got his chance to pump 5 rounds from his AR-15 into the guy.
From what I've read, the shooter was NOT the one shouting commands. It was a sergeant.
In the video, he even screams out confusing instructions to his own men. He screams his head off at the cop securing the female.
The cop threatened to shoot him if he made a wrong move over and over again…
Agree that the cop/shooter is all you say, however, the person shouting out the orders was the sergeant on scene.
My sincere apologies for bothering all of you.
Please feel free to act in whatever manner you deem when faced with one of these situations.
I will do what I think is necessary to survive and fight when the odds are not so overwhelming. But I have survived, and the ones trying to get me are not around.
As for the cop, I really do not know his mental state, all I know is that police I know of who had to kill in the line of duty were never really at peace with themselves afterward. So if my statement about him is wrong, I again apologize.
Cops are civilians.
Portillo said she and a male co-worker met Shaver about an hour before he was shot in the hallway of the hotel. The three of them were all there on business and were staying in separate rooms, but Shaver invited them up to his room for a drink. Once inside, the two men started admiring one of the pellet rifles Shaver had with him.
Portillo said she warned the guys as they passed the rifle back and forth and pointed it out the window of the fifth-floor hotel room, checking out the scopes.
"I was like, 'Hey, you guys, don't be so close to the window. People may get the wrong idea,'" said Portillo.
Shortly after, the Mesa police officers were called to the hotel.
I can’t find the link but I seem to recall that the testimony at trial of the one of the people in the hotel hot tub who called the police, is that they actually didn’t see a “gun” pointed out of the hotel window but only saw the silhouette of a man standing at the window who appeared to be holding a gun.
But the fact remains that Shaver was unarmed when he was killed, shot 5 times while begging for his life.
You may not want to watch the video but you may want to read this:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/11/opinions/daniel-shaver-shooting-opinion-gagliano/index.html
To me is seems obvious that better training is required for police so that they can respond better in situations where normal people wouldn't be ready to draw a firearm, much less start shooting.
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