moksha wrote:How could that officer have been acquited? His behavior seemed more reminiscent of Charles Manson on a high than a sober officer of the court. What a horrendous miscarriage of justice.
Two things, Moksha. First, with a couple of exceptions, jurors want to trust law enforcement and tend to believe officers.
Second, the question presented to the jury is whether the officer, at the time he pulled the trigger, had a reasonable belief he was in imminent danger of serious injury or death. All it takes is some kind of movement that could be interpreted as going for a gun, and the officer can testify that he was in fear of his life.
To win, the prosecution has to call the officer a liar. See thing one.
Last edited by Guest on Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Res Ipsa wrote:Second, the question presented to the jury is whether the officer, at the time he pulled the trigger, had a reasonable belief he was in imminent danger of serious injury or death.
The only question in my mind would have been the sentence for the officer.
Now that he has been acquited, let's hope the officer will cool his jets in future when he draws his gun and not set an identical tragedy in motion. The public will be in imminent danger of serious injury or death otherwise when such worse case tactics are employed.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Res Ipsa wrote:The officer was fired, so his jets are cool.
When I next visit the US, I shall breathe just a little more easily as a result.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Chap wrote:I don't think that disobedience to a police officer is (yet) a capital crime in many advanced countries. Depends on the police officer, I suppose.
Yes, our justice system doesn't make sense and is going back to the 1940s in Germany.
Chap wrote: When I next visit the US, I shall breathe just a little more easily as a result.
the sheriff: - i've never ever seen this weird type of suicide... forty two bullet wounds...
..
Choyo Chagas is Chairman of the Big Four, the ruler of the planet from "The Bull's Hour" ( Russian: Час Быка), a social science fiction novel written by Soviet author and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov in 1968. Six months after its publication Soviet authorities banned the book and attempted to remove it from libraries and bookshops.
I watched the video a couple days ago and my first reaction was, "wow, that's F-d up." Made me feel sick. There has to be more to the story here (and there usually is). First of all, I believe the deceased was toying around with a BB/pellet gun in his room prior to the incident. This was then reported to the police which is why the police showed up in the first place. Very possible that the person reporting the incident didn't know what kind of gun it was, etc etc. I couldn't find more about the reporting of it. Anyway, a potential gun report will certainly amplify the stress levels of the police officers arriving on scene. The man was also very intoxicated and when you add those two things (possible gun + alcohol) its not hard to imagine how this might go down. The cops also didn't know who else was in the room behind him. I kept wondering why doesn't one of the cops just walk down the hallway and cuff the dude while he is on the floor, but after reading more about it, it appears they didn't want to go down towards the room because someone else could have been in there (possible with a gun).
So when you get past the raw emotions of it, I can see how something like this happens (not that I agree with it). Per the Police Department in question, although he was fired (that might be standard in this kind of thing) they supported the officer and stated that he followed his training. I am paraphrasing here, but they basically said this officer did what he was trained to do and if there is problem with it, then the training needs to be addressed, not his actions. If that is the case, then by all means, review the training because the actions of the officer seem to exacerbate the stress of the event rather than calm it down. Screaming at the top of your lungs to a crying drunk guy and threatening him with death every step of the way can't be the best way to diffuse this situation.
If I put myself in this cop's shoes, its easy to say I would have acted differently. I honestly think I would have; however, I don't have other people's lives hanging in the balance on a day to day basis. I don't know what that is like. When the stress and adrenaline and imperative to protect yourself and fellow officers kick in, I don't know what that does to a person. Then the guy's hand dips down behind him, where you can't see it. Is he pulling up his shorts, or reaching for a hidden gun because the guy is nut job? You know nothing about this guy. So you have a split second to react. Do you err on the side of safety for you and the other officers, or this drunk stranger on the floor you know nothing about?
What a crappy job.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”
Black Moclips wrote: ... review the training because the actions of the officer seem to exacerbate the stress of the event rather than calm it down. Screaming at the top of your lungs to a crying drunk guy and threatening him with death every step of the way can't be the best way to diffuse this situation.
I think that is the point. Unfortunately he did shout, scream, and threaten to shoot the guy repeatedly. If that was what his training was intended to make him do, that training was seriously out of order.
But if, as I hope, his training had other aims than those, firing him was the right thing to do.
Not that my opinion matters, but I feel that if this officer had acted in a more professional way, the life of a human being who had committed no very serious offence and who was unarmed and terrified might not have had to end in that hotel corridor.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
I did a little more reading on this. According to newspaper accounts, part of his defense was that he acted in accordance with his training. If the training was flawed, he argued, he shouldn’t be punished for it. I don’t know what evidence he used to show how he was trained, but it suggests to me that there’s more going on than a bad apple.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
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