Author Topic: Firearms in the home  (Read 727665 times)

Shane

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2700 on: June 25, 2017, 02:52:26 PM »
A friend who was a police officer for 25 years told me things changed a little bit for the better in his department after they became the target of a federal investigation into the use of excessive force.

Apparently, one evening, several police officers brutally beat a young black "suspect" who was already in handcuffs and lying on the ground. What none of the officers knew at the time of the beating was that their "suspect" was actually an undercover police officer, working for the same department in vice. Oops!

My friend was there and said he watched other officers punching and kicking the "suspect" while he was lying handcuffed on the ground. He said it was difficult, but that he ended up having to actually testify against some of his fellow officers in federal court. Apparently, a couple of the officers ended up getting fired, and I think one actually went to jail for awhile as a result of the investigation.

My friend said that what happened that night wasn't at all unusual. According to him, it was pretty common for officers to take out some of their aggression by "roughing suspects up a little bit." The only thing that was out of the ordinary, that time, was that their suspect ended up being another cop.

I like my friend and think he's generally a good guy, but he admitted to me that if it hadn't been for the federal investigation of the incident, nobody, including himself, would've ever reported their fellow officers' beating of an unarmed suspect lying handcuffed on the ground.

Sorry, but there are no facts of any case which justify police officers punching and kicking unarmed suspects who are already lying on the ground handcuffed. Officers who do those things should be arrested, prosecuted and sent to prison where they belong.

Kris

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2701 on: June 25, 2017, 03:57:51 PM »
A friend who was a police officer for 25 years told me things changed a little bit for the better in his department after they became the target of a federal investigation into the use of excessive force.

Apparently, one evening, several police officers brutally beat a young black "suspect" who was already in handcuffs and lying on the ground. What none of the officers knew at the time of the beating was that their "suspect" was actually an undercover police officer, working for the same department in vice. Oops!

My friend was there and said he watched other officers punching and kicking the "suspect" while he was lying handcuffed on the ground. He said it was difficult, but that he ended up having to actually testify against some of his fellow officers in federal court. Apparently, a couple of the officers ended up getting fired, and I think one actually went to jail for awhile as a result of the investigation.

My friend said that what happened that night wasn't at all unusual. According to him, it was pretty common for officers to take out some of their aggression by "roughing suspects up a little bit." The only thing that was out of the ordinary, that time, was that their suspect ended up being another cop.

I like my friend and think he's generally a good guy, but he admitted to me that if it hadn't been for the federal investigation of the incident, nobody, including himself, would've ever reported their fellow officers' beating of an unarmed suspect lying handcuffed on the ground.

Sorry, but there are no facts of any case which justify police officers punching and kicking unarmed suspects who are already lying on the ground handcuffed. Officers who do those things should be arrested, prosecuted and sent to prison where they belong.

I appreciate your friend's candor to you (even as I deplore the culture that makes cowards out of officers in situations like this).

People who have a tendency to say "not all cops" and who get angry at what they see as a culture of hating on police officers would do well to realize that the public in general would probably be much more likely to believe and defend the integrity of the majority if they actually ever saw police officers standing up and calling out the ones who do commit these heinous acts.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2017, 04:00:31 PM by Kris »

JLee

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2702 on: June 25, 2017, 11:27:40 PM »

If you want to become a police officer and spend a few minutes in every split second situation thinking through possible systemic reasons why someone might be doing something that looks suspicious but actually isn't, be my guest (as long as you have some sort of time freezing device). Keep in mind even if you're right 99.9% of the time, you only have to be wrong once to either be dead, or kill someone who doesn't deserve it. 


A few officers a clearly choosing to err way on the side of I'd rather kill someone than risk it.  That's the problem.   That's not an accident or tragedy in many cases, that's a crime.

If Castle planned to shoot the officer, he wouldn't have told him he had a gun.  The other officer didn't shoot, just officer fife.  7 times.

Are you familiar with John Crawford?  He's the guy killed by police in walmart while holding a bb gun.  Not pointing a bb gun, holding one.  There's video with sound.  The command is drop the weapon, bang.  The guy has no time to react (he's on his cell phone the whole time).  The cop that shot this guy has killed 2 people.  The police force he represents has 2 fatal police shootings in it's entire history.  Grand jury decided not to proceed.  I suspect the DA's presentation might have something to do with that.

Regarding doctors, sometimes they do get convicted - http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-doctor-prescription-drugs-murder-overdose-verdict-20151030-story.html

I'm not familiar with Crawford, and I'm not trying to say there are no cops who should ever be prosecuted. I'm just saying I can see non malicious reasons for stuff like this to happen. Is the guy a shitty cop, yeah apparently he's not really up to the task. As far as I know he's been fired, and I doubt any other police department is going to hire him again. Did he kill the guy for being black or some other malicious reason? That's a much harder thing to prove, and being 70% sure isn't good enough to convict someone and send them to prison. Without footage showing exactly what went on in the vehicle, it's going to be nearly impossible to prove, which is why bodycams are such a necessary thing. In crazy intense situations like that peoples' memories can get all sorts of screwy, it's just natural.

I don't think the officer was in any way malicious.  He made a terrible judgement call and killed someone.  The guy was not a threat and yet the officer perceived him as one.  That's manslaughter.

The situation was - He pulls a guy over for a broken tail light.  The guy tells him he has a weapon and the officer shoots him because he reached for something.  Rationale person here, why does the driver tell the copy he has a gun if he plans on using it?  Why does this driver have any rationale for shooting the cop?  Assuming this guy was driving his own car, the officer already knows who he is (likely a non-threat).

To me, 70% sure would be beyond a reasonable doubt.


And yes, cops should definitely be trained better on how to deal with gun owners, and on less than lethal methods of restraining someone. I read something awhile back about how police training is more focused on firearm training than it is on de-escalating situations and reading people, if true that's a huge problem. With that being said, sending this individual to prison isn't going to fix that system, it's going to make other cops second guess themselves, and be afraid to approach dangerous looking people in case they might make a mistake. Unfortunately cops don't get the luxury of avoiding sketchy people like the rest of us do.

Sending this cop to prison would absolutely help reform this system.  If officers knew a completely stupid judgement calls that kills innocent people could result in jail time, I guarantee the training changes would happen. 

If this cop was approaching a known felon and this happened, I would be defending the cop.  This guy was a legal gun owner who the cop mistakenly identified as a threat.

40 years ago we said drunk drivers who killed people didn't mean to do it and didn't deserve jail.  Now we send them to jail.

Sorry dude but 30% is a pretty damned reasonable amount of doubt. 

Here's another example of our country's fine upstanding policemen at work. Sorry, but I find it hard to believe most police officers are good people. If they were, why would these incidents keep happening? Even if a majority of police officers aren't actually assaulting people like this, they must be tolerating it and helping to cover up criminal activity by their fellow officers.

If an officer runs up to a suspect who is lying handcuffed on the ground and kicks him in the head, gee, maybe that's a crime. I dunno? To the police department's credit, it looks like they fired the two officers seen assaulting the young suspect in the video. In addition to getting fired, those officers also need to be arrested, charged and prosecuted just like any other person who did something like that would be.

You see what you want to see.

https://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/376183006-Officer-attends-graduation-of-girl-he-rescued-in-2011/
https://www.policeone.com/community-policing/videos/374292519-White-cop-black-barber-team-up-to-bridge-community-gap/
https://www.policeone.com/community-policing/articles/370642006-911-lemonade-emergency-Officers-visit-young-aspiring-cops-stand/
https://www.policeone.com/community-policing/articles/373717006-Peelian-principles-of-policing-Seeking-the-publics-approval/
https://www.policeone.com/community-policing/articles/347532006-How-to-tackle-implicit-bias-with-immersive-community-policing/
https://www.policeone.com/community-policing/articles/355532006-Texas-police-save-the-day-after-no-one-shows-up-to-boys-birthday-party/
https://www.policeone.com/quiet-warrior/articles/376017006-Trooper-saves-fawn-after-mother-dies/

ooeei

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2703 on: June 26, 2017, 06:39:26 AM »
If they thought he was a felony robbery suspect, shouldn't they approach the stop differently?  The shooting officer walks up to the car like any other traffic stop, hears there's a gun and then freaks when the guy makes  wrong move.

I think the felony suspicion would explain Barney Fife's quick shooting when the guy moves.  The problem I have with that is, better tactics (not walking up the car) could have avoided an innocent man being shot.  Gross incompetence on the part of the officer meant an innocent man ended up dead. 

Fair enough, that's why I didn't put much stock in that claim, not really sure where I read it. 

Quote
If the guy reached when told not too, I agree not the best move on his part.  On the other hand, he's not the one with all the training.  The officer could have controlled the situation and/or not over reacted by killing him.

Part of that training you're talking about is that you realize how quickly you can get shot, and how slow your reactions are in comparison. I read an AMA on Reddit by a reporter at the trial, here's an interesting excerpt:

Quote
I think it was the defense expert witness, Emanuel Kapelsohn who was the use of force witness. Highly respected and educated, he was persuasive in his re-enactments and time measurements of how long it would have taken for Castile to have pulled and shot, .28 seconds versus the reaction time of Yanez, .50 of a second. He also described reenacting the gun in the exact shorts pocket and how the back top of the receiver would have shown since it was not a deep pocket. So in jurors minds, conceivably Yanez could have seen the gun, despite prosecution contrary opinion to jurors.

Quote
If this was a "sketchy" situation, they should have approached it differently.  If this was  a routine situation, the cop completely over reacted.  Either way, I believe him to be guilty of manslaughter.  In that case, he should be punished.

The police know they are largely immune from prosecution.  They have become reckless with their tactics and innocent citizen are dying as a result.  Sending police to jail for this kind of incident would be a stop towards changing that culture.

I think better training is the solution, not fear of prosecution.  And body cams.

Kris

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2704 on: June 26, 2017, 02:56:11 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

JLee

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2705 on: June 26, 2017, 03:01:02 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

By "today" you mean last year?

Kris

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2706 on: June 26, 2017, 03:10:22 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

By "today" you mean last year?

LOL -- looks like it. Funny how social media does love to recycle news stories. But in this case, I'm glad, as I hadn't heard about this before. Which seems fairly amazing.

JLee

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2707 on: June 26, 2017, 03:27:22 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

By "today" you mean last year?

LOL -- looks like it. Funny how social media does love to recycle news stories. But in this case, I'm glad, as I hadn't heard about this before. Which seems fairly amazing.

To make it crystal clear, I absolutely agree that there are significant problems in law enforcement that need to be addressed.  That said, I do wonder how accurate the picture is that most people have, given situations like this (recycled story from last year presented as "OMG OUTRAGE LOOK WHAT HAPPENED AGAIN"). :)

Midwest

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2708 on: June 26, 2017, 03:37:04 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

By "today" you mean last year?

LOL -- looks like it. Funny how social media does love to recycle news stories. But in this case, I'm glad, as I hadn't heard about this before. Which seems fairly amazing.

To make it crystal clear, I absolutely agree that there are significant problems in law enforcement that need to be addressed.  That said, I do wonder how accurate the picture is that most people have, given situations like this (recycled story from last year presented as "OMG OUTRAGE LOOK WHAT HAPPENED AGAIN"). :)

I think the majority of police and interactions are great.  Unfortunately, there are bad actors and/or incompetent people in any organization.

Kris

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2709 on: June 26, 2017, 04:22:59 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

By "today" you mean last year?

LOL -- looks like it. Funny how social media does love to recycle news stories. But in this case, I'm glad, as I hadn't heard about this before. Which seems fairly amazing.

To make it crystal clear, I absolutely agree that there are significant problems in law enforcement that need to be addressed.  That said, I do wonder how accurate the picture is that most people have, given situations like this (recycled story from last year presented as "OMG OUTRAGE LOOK WHAT HAPPENED AGAIN"). :)

To make it crystal clear, I think it's worth being angry about a pretty damn outrageous recycled story from last year that I only just saw a year later because it was recycled. This thing happened. It got so little coverage that it took the ACLU posting it again on social media for me -- someone who follows local, national, and international news more closely than most -- to even find out about it.

Yes, I agree the media distorts things because of our society's love for outrage porn. But I'm not so sure this counts as that.

JLee

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2710 on: June 26, 2017, 07:06:14 PM »
Interesting story out of Connecticut today.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/police-accidentally-record-themselves-conspiring-fabricate-criminal-charges-against

(Insert obligatory 'not all cops' here.)

By "today" you mean last year?

LOL -- looks like it. Funny how social media does love to recycle news stories. But in this case, I'm glad, as I hadn't heard about this before. Which seems fairly amazing.

To make it crystal clear, I absolutely agree that there are significant problems in law enforcement that need to be addressed.  That said, I do wonder how accurate the picture is that most people have, given situations like this (recycled story from last year presented as "OMG OUTRAGE LOOK WHAT HAPPENED AGAIN"). :)

To make it crystal clear, I think it's worth being angry about a pretty damn outrageous recycled story from last year that I only just saw a year later because it was recycled. This thing happened. It got so little coverage that it took the ACLU posting it again on social media for me -- someone who follows local, national, and international news more closely than most -- to even find out about it.

Yes, I agree the media distorts things because of our society's love for outrage porn. But I'm not so sure this counts as that.

....I never said it didn't happen. wtf.

golden1

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2711 on: July 01, 2017, 11:38:01 AM »

Kris

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2712 on: July 01, 2017, 03:04:27 PM »
Any comments on the recent NRA ad?

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6

This is precisely why the NRA will never get one penny of my money. This is absolute filth.

scottish

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2713 on: July 01, 2017, 05:58:47 PM »
I really really hope you guys don't self-destruct as a result of all this extreme left-right polarization.

golden1

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2714 on: July 01, 2017, 08:50:33 PM »
It’s a done deal.  We are one major terrorist incident away from martial law and an armed rebellion.  Wheee.  But that’s okay, gun sales will be through the roof!

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2715 on: July 02, 2017, 12:37:14 PM »
Any comments on the recent NRA ad?

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6

This is precisely why the NRA will never get one penny of my money. This is absolute filth.
I didn't like that ad much myself, but it's not a call to violence.  It's pointing out how the opponents of the NRA are the ones prone to violence.

When was the last time you saw a riot at a gun show? :)

Mac_MacGyver

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2716 on: July 02, 2017, 06:02:41 PM »
Any comments on the recent NRA ad?

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6

This is precisely why the NRA will never get one penny of my money. This is absolute filth.
I didn't like that ad much myself, but it's not a call to violence.  It's pointing out how the opponents of the NRA are the ones prone to violence.

When was the last time you saw a riot at a gun show? :)

Yep, nothing wrong with it and the people that tend to advocate violence are leftist. Ends justify the means, right comrades, Commisar Stalin agrees.


[MOD NOTE:  Forum Rule #1.  Keep the sweeping generalizations somewhere else.]
« Last Edit: July 03, 2017, 09:45:51 AM by FrugalToque »

Kris

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2717 on: July 02, 2017, 06:21:49 PM »
Any comments on the recent NRA ad?

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6

This is precisely why the NRA will never get one penny of my money. This is absolute filth.
I didn't like that ad much myself, but it's not a call to violence.  It's pointing out how the opponents of the NRA are the ones prone to violence.

When was the last time you saw a riot at a gun show? :)

Your location, as indicated in your profile, is relevant.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2718 on: July 02, 2017, 08:37:27 PM »
Any comments on the recent NRA ad?

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6

This is precisely why the NRA will never get one penny of my money. This is absolute filth.
I didn't like that ad much myself, but it's not a call to violence.  It's pointing out how the opponents of the NRA are the ones prone to violence.

When was the last time you saw a riot at a gun show? :)

Your location, as indicated in your profile, is relevant.
You might be the first to notice that :)  Rather than simply quip, would you mind elaborating on that statement?

scottish

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Re: Firearms in the home
« Reply #2719 on: July 03, 2017, 06:48:43 AM »
I wish everyone could just stay frosty.     It's pretty hard to change someone's beliefs on an internet forum.    I like the way this thread has mostly gone as it explained much of the 'gun culture' in the states.