8 ms·

Black therapist was shot by Florida police while helping a person with autism

72 points by zerr 10y ago

Cenk 10y ago
Why would you shoot an unarmed person lying on the ground in the middle of the road with their arms raised? It almost as if the police in America feel like no situation can be resolved without someone getting shot.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I read somewhere that if you don't "behave" when stopped on the highway, there is a good probability to get shot when being asked for the documents.
  - talmand 10y ago
    I really doubt that. If true, the land would be littered with the bodies of people who did something stupid in front of police officers. Considering the number of interactions that cops have with people and the percentage of people doing something stupid at any given point of the day.
- mgarfias 10y ago
  Piss poor trigger discipline. The officer kept his finger on the trigger even when he didn’t intend to shoot. I hope the therapist guy gets a big settlement out of this.
  - aphextron 10y ago
    Poor trigger discipline would explain an accidental shot. He fired 3 times. He wanted to kill someone, like a large percentage of people who become cops, and saw an opportunity.
    - ptk 10y ago
      I have no training in law enforcement and my firearm knowledge begins and ends with the NES Zapper, but I just don't know how this situation in particular ever got to this point. Unless there is some really shocking missing footage, it doesn't even seem right that a gun should have ever been unholstered much less pointed at the victim with a finger on the trigger. Not only do I not see any imminent threats, the victim is offering perfectly plausible explanations for all witnessed behavior during the ordeal. 3 shots... :(
      - mgarfias 10y ago
        Wife was formerly a dispatcher with the Sheriff’s Office here. They had numerous run ins with autistic kids freaking out and hurting people. “He's autistic” becomes not an explanation, but a warning.
    - mgarfias 10y ago
      Well, the CNN coverage I saw didn’t mention 3 shots. Also, there was no video of the shots being fired. Note, I’m not saying there weren’t three shots, just that often the first reports get things wrong. If he was indeed shot 3 times, then this goes way beyond negligent and into criminal.
- aphextron 10y ago
  "I don't know" - The officer involved
wyck 10y ago
I have no idea how police are trained but it seems situational awareness and decision making is something they should spend more time on.
- Cenk 10y ago
  I coincidentally saw this tweet today: https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 Apparently police officers spend 58 hours learning how to shoot, but only 8 hours are spent on de-escalation tactics.
  - talmand 10y ago
    I don't necessarily think they should get much more training on it. They have specialists for that. That training should only be how to identify such a situation and contain it. Then call in the expert to deescalate. For some reason the contain part doesn't seem to be given a chance too often.
    - soneil 10y ago
      I have to disagree with that quite strongly. Almost any instance where an officer is dealing with a member of the public who does not frequently deal with law enforcement, it's going to be stressful for the member of the public. Knowing how to talk them down has to be more valuable than being able to shoot them. I'm British .. we have pretty much the exact opposite of what you describe - we arm our officers with their mouths, and have firearms teams that can be called in if required. I guess this makes me biased, but I do see asking an autistic patient (especially someone severe enough to need to be homed) "what's wrong?" to be more intuitive than firing at them. Missing and hitting someone else just has to be the icing on the cake.
      - talmand 10y ago
        There's was nothing evident pushing the police officer to fire his weapon on those two men. Waiting for a specialist for what appeared to be a dangerous situation might have saved the the guy's trouble of being shot for no reason. What you describe for your British officers is training, which we apparently don't have. But I have to ask, if these officers encounter a situation they believe is a violent escalation do they just starting talking right away and handle the whole thing themselves? Or do they engage until a specialist is present, such as a hostage negotiator? If they do, then that's identifying and containing the situation until it can be resolved. That was missing from this situation.
karlshea 10y ago
> And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.'”
- mywittyname 10y ago
  The best thing to do in a situation involving the police is ask them, in the heat of the moment, to be very specific as to what their reasoning is behind something. Being human, they may slip up and say the wrong thing, and that's really the only "out" you have. Otherwise, the prosecutor will put themselves in the officers shoes and find a reason why their actions were justified. Once you get something, shut up.
  - brador 10y ago
    I disagree. Never talk. Just freeze, hands up slowly. Then freeze. Stand there and let them come to you and throw you to the ground. In most cases they shoot when they detect unexpected motion.
    - talmand 10y ago
      This was a serious problem with the situation though. He was eagerly complying but his continuing speaking to the officers was due to his concern of the other guy who was likely unable to comply with the officers that currently had their guns drawn. My first guess on this from what I've read is that the officer fired because of answering a call of a man with a gun, seeing the toy truck as a gun, not hearing or ignoring the other man explaining the situation, man with toy truck makes sudden movement with toy, and finally officer fires missing toy guy and hitting the man on ground. All within the span of a few moments. But that's a guess because I have no information on angles or distances of officer, toy guy, and shot guy. I would not be surprised that the officer didn't intend to shoot the guy on the ground but that's the way it turned out. I would expect it to be ruled a bad shoot but who knows these days.
      - spacemanmatt 10y ago
kentosi 10y ago
Is this purely a lack of training, or is it idiocy? Why would you shoot someone lying down with his hands up?
- badlucklottery 10y ago
  >Is this purely a lack of training, or is it idiocy? Both. Why would someone even have their weapon pointed at a non-hostile person instead of in a safe direction in case of a negligent discharge? That shows a staggering lack of training and forethought.
- mywittyname 10y ago
  It's not a lack of training. In several of these similar cases, they officers were found to have acted in accordance with their training -- which is why they aren't disciplined. I've seen videos some of these training exercises. The "dangerous" situation exercises seem to favor escalation to deadly force as soon as viable and encourage the trainee to look for a reason to escalate. One was a domestic violence situation, where, when the trainee is told, the appropriate response to a person reaching into the sink is to use deadly force, since there may be a gun in there. Which is why, I think, any situation results in a successful lawsuit or settlement should automatically be considered a violation of training policy.
dmtroyer 10y ago
Unconscionable.
FreedomToCreate 10y ago
This is a definite sign that policing organizations need to have better tools when recruiting and training police officers, and need to take responsibility for the incompetence of there officers. Even in engineering, an incompetent engineer on a great team can wreck havoc for others.
- vkou 10y ago
  This isn't a matter of incompetence. This is a criminal matter - or at least, it should be, if the police policed itself.
  - spacemanmatt 10y ago
    You and I wouldn't get administrative leave and the police's blind eye if we shot someone who was laying on the ground with their hands up.
  - FreedomToCreate 10y ago
    This is a matter of incompetence on part of the policing organization in Florida for recruiting a person for being an Officer, when that person is obviously not remotely acceptable for the job, as proven by the shooting. And in regards to it being a criminal matter, the officer does have the right of being innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. You and I can make our judgements but he does have the right to defend himself.
guardiangod 10y ago
If human lives are not at stake here, this whole incident is hilarious enough to be an Onion article. A white autistic male with a toy truck in his hand is okay, while his black caretaker, with his back to the ground and hands up, is shot.
- zerr 10y ago
  Don't rush with conclusions, they've shot an autistic kid as well http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/la-state-police-probe-shooting-killed-son-suspect-article-1.2424300 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/la-state-police-pro...
ceedan 10y ago
The worst part truly is what happened after he was shot: "The therapist said police then rushed him, patted him down and put him in handcuffs. Kinsey said what police did after the shooting is what upsets him the most. “They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come. I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding — I mean bleeding, and I was like, ‘Wow.'”" http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-miami-police-shot-unarmed-man/ http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-... Doesn't sound like the officers had an ounce of common sense. Shouldn't they have applied some pressure to the wound or elevated the leg? I really hope that they didn't just roll him over, cuff him and just watch him bleed.
- inuhj 10y ago
  If you're going to mount a defense you can't break procedure as though you committed a huge mistake. The cynic in me thinks that the officer was hoping the victim would die in a haze of his own confusion and self-preservation.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  It's my understanding that many police are taught to heavily prioritize their own safety over that of suspects/perpetrators (and at times innocent civilians too). It's part of the 'warrior mentality' - for much the same reason that they're quick to shoot first and ask questions later, they're also slow to aid the defeated, as they've got to first make sure they're all right, their comrades are all right, the proper notifications are delivered up the chain of command, the chain of custody is properly established on all present evidence and individuals being detained, etc. None of which is remotely reasonable, imo, but that's the reality of the warrior mentality. What really bothers me most about it is that police and their defenders tend to fixate on the fact that their 'lives are on the line every day' - but they don't mention that their training and behavior goes to great lengths to mitigate the inherent risk of their job, to the point of putting suspects and civilians at significantly higher risk of injury or death when interacting with police.
- goalieca 10y ago
  Are the cops trained in First aid!? Flipping him on his stomach is the worst thing to do. Wtf is going on America!?
koenigdavidmj 10y ago
I really wanted to believe that cops shooting black people basically for sport was a media invention. The cases up until then were all like Michael Brown, with an ambiguous situation and useless video. But there is quite simply no explanation that could possibly justify this. Same for the Baton Rouge "he lifted his head!" case from last week, where people try to argue that lifting one's head meets the statutory requirements for resisting arrest, as if merely checking an item off a list makes it okay to kill him, even if he is not physically able to pose a real threat of death or injury.
- mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
  I'm glad you finally came around, but if you think this is the first non ambiguous situation, you've been ignoring what black folks have been saying for decades.
- mikestew 10y ago
  I really wanted to believe that cops shooting black people basically for sport was a media invention. A lot of us were open to the idea that it was a media invention. Then cell phones began to have cameras in them. As a side effect, we found that UFOs aren't real, and there's no Big Foot. (No, this is not original with me.) I think what we've really found out is that for a lot of people, if they have a gun and they get just a little bit nervous, the slightest thing will have them pulling the trigger. For example, there was a video a few years back of some arrest in Nevada. Cop standing over the cuffed and restrained accused with gun drawn, and the gun suddenly goes off (not hitting the accused, fortunately). I watched the video several times trying to figure out what set her off. I have no idea. All I could conclude was that she had her finger on the trigger and...I don't know, tripped? Accused ripped a fart? She looked as surprised as anyone, so "it just went off"? (For the uninitiated, handguns don't just "go off"; either you intentionally pulled the trigger, or you fucked up.) When questioned in this case by the victim as to why the cop shot him, cop allegedly said, "I don't know". That might be true. So maybe we need to teach cops to keep that finger out of the trigger guard until ready to shoot, like the rest of us were taught.
  - torkable 10y ago
tzs 10y ago
Police are often not particularly good marksmen. I wonder if it is possible the shots were intended for the other guy and missed?
- talmand 10y ago
  Until I get more information, that's my current theory.
antiviral 10y ago
I really am beginning to wonder what kind of people self-select to become police officers: a strong belief in order, conformity, and demand for unquestioning obedience, with no hesitation for meting out brutal penalties for any divergence. It also seems that the training they receive only amplifies these tendencies rather than screening out these pathological behaviors. The cop with the most abuse complaints (68 complaints) in Chicago was actually given a service award. See here: https://cpdb.co/data/bmEM6b/citizens-police-data-project https://cpdb.co/data/bmEM6b/citizens-police-data-project and compare here: http://guardianlv.com/2013/05/chicago-annual-award-ceremony-in-honor-police-departments-heroes/ http://guardianlv.com/2013/05/chicago-annual-award-ceremony-... Unfortunately, it also seems like this has been going on for a long time, perhaps decades. Movies like Training Day (with Denzel Washington) appeared as pure fiction when they appeared in 2001; now you can watch them as watered-down documentary of the real thing.
- torkable 10y ago
  It's common knowledge that they are almost entirely people that have something to prove, how tough they are. Many of them are bullies that couldn't hack it in the military and joined a police force. They're all bullies, and all bullies are cowards. The reason these unarmed black men are getting shot is probably not a direct "I hate black people" kind of racism. It's "I'm a fucking coward, I see a big black man and I'm scared, so I'll pull my gun." If you're scared (and probably stupid) and holding a gun, bad things are likely to happen. tl;dr american cops are fucking cowards that were probably bullies in high school and never grew up.
- aphextron 10y ago
  Interesting data in a really poor format. I'd be more interested in seeing where these officers fall on a national curve. Absolute numbers of "complaints" don't really tell us much.
yardie 10y ago
The upshot, besides the victim coming out alive, is North Miami is predominantly black. If this case does go to a jury trial this cop is fucked.
- travmatt 10y ago
  Or the prosecutor will take a cue from Ferguson and bring a limp-dick indictment in order to find a way to get his colleagues off the hook.
  - yardie 10y ago
    Ferguson had no video. Just the word of the live officer and 24 eye witnesses who each saw 24 different things. I think even the dumbest prosecutor should be able to pull this off.
    - travmatt 10y ago
      the colloquial saying is a prosecutor could make a grand jury indict a ham sandwich. The failing to secure an indictment, I'll always contend, was a deliberate choice reached in advance by the prosecutor.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
aphextron 10y ago
There's a very simple way to solve this entire problem. Every single case of a police officer killing someone leads to automatic charges of manslaughter, no matter the circumstances, which must then be refuted in a court of law in front of a jury of the police officer's peers. Police safety will not be affected, as any person in true danger will risk a manslaughter charge to save their own life. Clear cut cases of necessary force will be open and shut without much issue, but the cowardly murderers with their fingers on the trigger around the country will think long and hard before they make that decision to trivially end someone's life.
- talmand 10y ago
  Telling people that every time they perform this one particular action they will immediately be punished, regardless of the situation, will only result in worse problems than you are trying to solve.
  - spacemanmatt 10y ago
    Punished? No, the PP proposed trial to determine whether punishment is necessary. You demonstrate the problem we face -- we can't even put killer police through formal fact-finding. Prosecution is not punishment. If you kill someone, there is probable cause to charge with murder and let the court establish permissibility of the killing.
    - talmand 10y ago
      You don't go to court unless you've been charged. I would imagine it's hard to keep your job as a police officer if you're charged with a crime every time you have a violent encounter with a person. You speak as if there's no fact-finding at all. A police officer can face up to three such things; local, state, and federal. If not more.
      - travmatt 10y ago
        A few years ago there was a murder of a mexican immigrant in a portion of my state known for it's xenophobia. The sheriffs department there was known to abuse said immigrants and intentionally mishandled the police report to aid the teens in being acquitted by the local all-white jury. The feds picked the case up and tried the murderers in federal court under federal hate crime laws, they were sentenced to 9 years. The police chief and some of his deputies were convicted and their minimum sentences ranged from 5-7 years (although they of course served much less than that) for essentially a badly biased police report and some terrible local ties - truly, the only thing that saved them from a very long prison sentence was the compassion of a judge. There's still a lot of xenophobia in the town, of course - but I'm betting the institutional memory of a DOJ civil rights investigation will last quite a while.

72 points by zerr 10y ago

Cenk 10y ago

Why would you shoot an unarmed person lying on the ground in the middle of the road with their arms raised? It almost as if the police in America feel like no situation can be resolved without someone getting shot.

pjmlp 10y ago
I read somewhere that if you don't "behave" when stopped on the highway, there is a good probability to get shot when being asked for the documents.
- talmand 10y ago
  I really doubt that. If true, the land would be littered with the bodies of people who did something stupid in front of police officers. Considering the number of interactions that cops have with people and the percentage of people doing something stupid at any given point of the day.
mgarfias 10y ago
Piss poor trigger discipline. The officer kept his finger on the trigger even when he didn’t intend to shoot. I hope the therapist guy gets a big settlement out of this.
- aphextron 10y ago
  Poor trigger discipline would explain an accidental shot. He fired 3 times. He wanted to kill someone, like a large percentage of people who become cops, and saw an opportunity.
  - ptk 10y ago
    I have no training in law enforcement and my firearm knowledge begins and ends with the NES Zapper, but I just don't know how this situation in particular ever got to this point. Unless there is some really shocking missing footage, it doesn't even seem right that a gun should have ever been unholstered much less pointed at the victim with a finger on the trigger. Not only do I not see any imminent threats, the victim is offering perfectly plausible explanations for all witnessed behavior during the ordeal. 3 shots... :(
    - mgarfias 10y ago
      Wife was formerly a dispatcher with the Sheriff’s Office here. They had numerous run ins with autistic kids freaking out and hurting people. “He's autistic” becomes not an explanation, but a warning.
  - mgarfias 10y ago
    Well, the CNN coverage I saw didn’t mention 3 shots. Also, there was no video of the shots being fired. Note, I’m not saying there weren’t three shots, just that often the first reports get things wrong. If he was indeed shot 3 times, then this goes way beyond negligent and into criminal.
aphextron 10y ago
"I don't know" - The officer involved

wyck 10y ago

I have no idea how police are trained but it seems situational awareness and decision making is something they should spend more time on.

Cenk 10y ago
I coincidentally saw this tweet today: https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 https://twitter.com/samswey/status/685147750237913088 Apparently police officers spend 58 hours learning how to shoot, but only 8 hours are spent on de-escalation tactics.
- talmand 10y ago
  I don't necessarily think they should get much more training on it. They have specialists for that. That training should only be how to identify such a situation and contain it. Then call in the expert to deescalate. For some reason the contain part doesn't seem to be given a chance too often.
  - soneil 10y ago
    I have to disagree with that quite strongly. Almost any instance where an officer is dealing with a member of the public who does not frequently deal with law enforcement, it's going to be stressful for the member of the public. Knowing how to talk them down has to be more valuable than being able to shoot them. I'm British .. we have pretty much the exact opposite of what you describe - we arm our officers with their mouths, and have firearms teams that can be called in if required. I guess this makes me biased, but I do see asking an autistic patient (especially someone severe enough to need to be homed) "what's wrong?" to be more intuitive than firing at them. Missing and hitting someone else just has to be the icing on the cake.
    - talmand 10y ago
      There's was nothing evident pushing the police officer to fire his weapon on those two men. Waiting for a specialist for what appeared to be a dangerous situation might have saved the the guy's trouble of being shot for no reason. What you describe for your British officers is training, which we apparently don't have. But I have to ask, if these officers encounter a situation they believe is a violent escalation do they just starting talking right away and handle the whole thing themselves? Or do they engage until a specialist is present, such as a hostage negotiator? If they do, then that's identifying and containing the situation until it can be resolved. That was missing from this situation.

karlshea 10y ago

> And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.'”

mywittyname 10y ago
The best thing to do in a situation involving the police is ask them, in the heat of the moment, to be very specific as to what their reasoning is behind something. Being human, they may slip up and say the wrong thing, and that's really the only "out" you have. Otherwise, the prosecutor will put themselves in the officers shoes and find a reason why their actions were justified. Once you get something, shut up.
- brador 10y ago
  I disagree. Never talk. Just freeze, hands up slowly. Then freeze. Stand there and let them come to you and throw you to the ground. In most cases they shoot when they detect unexpected motion.
  - talmand 10y ago
    This was a serious problem with the situation though. He was eagerly complying but his continuing speaking to the officers was due to his concern of the other guy who was likely unable to comply with the officers that currently had their guns drawn. My first guess on this from what I've read is that the officer fired because of answering a call of a man with a gun, seeing the toy truck as a gun, not hearing or ignoring the other man explaining the situation, man with toy truck makes sudden movement with toy, and finally officer fires missing toy guy and hitting the man on ground. All within the span of a few moments. But that's a guess because I have no information on angles or distances of officer, toy guy, and shot guy. I would not be surprised that the officer didn't intend to shoot the guy on the ground but that's the way it turned out. I would expect it to be ruled a bad shoot but who knows these days.
    - spacemanmatt 10y ago

kentosi 10y ago

Is this purely a lack of training, or is it idiocy? Why would you shoot someone lying down with his hands up?

badlucklottery 10y ago
>Is this purely a lack of training, or is it idiocy? Both. Why would someone even have their weapon pointed at a non-hostile person instead of in a safe direction in case of a negligent discharge? That shows a staggering lack of training and forethought.
mywittyname 10y ago
It's not a lack of training. In several of these similar cases, they officers were found to have acted in accordance with their training -- which is why they aren't disciplined. I've seen videos some of these training exercises. The "dangerous" situation exercises seem to favor escalation to deadly force as soon as viable and encourage the trainee to look for a reason to escalate. One was a domestic violence situation, where, when the trainee is told, the appropriate response to a person reaching into the sink is to use deadly force, since there may be a gun in there. Which is why, I think, any situation results in a successful lawsuit or settlement should automatically be considered a violation of training policy.

dmtroyer 10y ago

Unconscionable.

FreedomToCreate 10y ago

This is a definite sign that policing organizations need to have better tools when recruiting and training police officers, and need to take responsibility for the incompetence of there officers. Even in engineering, an incompetent engineer on a great team can wreck havoc for others.

vkou 10y ago
This isn't a matter of incompetence. This is a criminal matter - or at least, it should be, if the police policed itself.
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  You and I wouldn't get administrative leave and the police's blind eye if we shot someone who was laying on the ground with their hands up.
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  This is a matter of incompetence on part of the policing organization in Florida for recruiting a person for being an Officer, when that person is obviously not remotely acceptable for the job, as proven by the shooting. And in regards to it being a criminal matter, the officer does have the right of being innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. You and I can make our judgements but he does have the right to defend himself.

guardiangod 10y ago

If human lives are not at stake here, this whole incident is hilarious enough to be an Onion article. A white autistic male with a toy truck in his hand is okay, while his black caretaker, with his back to the ground and hands up, is shot.

zerr 10y ago
Don't rush with conclusions, they've shot an autistic kid as well http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/la-state-police-probe-shooting-killed-son-suspect-article-1.2424300 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/la-state-police-pro...

ceedan 10y ago

The worst part truly is what happened after he was shot: "The therapist said police then rushed him, patted him down and put him in handcuffs. Kinsey said what police did after the shooting is what upsets him the most. “They flipped me over, and I’m faced down in the ground, with cuffs on, waiting on the rescue squad to come. I’d say about 20, about 20 minutes it took the rescue squad to get there. And I was like, bleeding — I mean bleeding, and I was like, ‘Wow.'”" http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-miami-police-shot-unarmed-man/ http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-... Doesn't sound like the officers had an ounce of common sense. Shouldn't they have applied some pressure to the wound or elevated the leg? I really hope that they didn't just roll him over, cuff him and just watch him bleed.

inuhj 10y ago
If you're going to mount a defense you can't break procedure as though you committed a huge mistake. The cynic in me thinks that the officer was hoping the victim would die in a haze of his own confusion and self-preservation.
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
It's my understanding that many police are taught to heavily prioritize their own safety over that of suspects/perpetrators (and at times innocent civilians too). It's part of the 'warrior mentality' - for much the same reason that they're quick to shoot first and ask questions later, they're also slow to aid the defeated, as they've got to first make sure they're all right, their comrades are all right, the proper notifications are delivered up the chain of command, the chain of custody is properly established on all present evidence and individuals being detained, etc. None of which is remotely reasonable, imo, but that's the reality of the warrior mentality. What really bothers me most about it is that police and their defenders tend to fixate on the fact that their 'lives are on the line every day' - but they don't mention that their training and behavior goes to great lengths to mitigate the inherent risk of their job, to the point of putting suspects and civilians at significantly higher risk of injury or death when interacting with police.
goalieca 10y ago
Are the cops trained in First aid!? Flipping him on his stomach is the worst thing to do. Wtf is going on America!?

koenigdavidmj 10y ago

I really wanted to believe that cops shooting black people basically for sport was a media invention. The cases up until then were all like Michael Brown, with an ambiguous situation and useless video. But there is quite simply no explanation that could possibly justify this. Same for the Baton Rouge "he lifted his head!" case from last week, where people try to argue that lifting one's head meets the statutory requirements for resisting arrest, as if merely checking an item off a list makes it okay to kill him, even if he is not physically able to pose a real threat of death or injury.

mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
I'm glad you finally came around, but if you think this is the first non ambiguous situation, you've been ignoring what black folks have been saying for decades.
mikestew 10y ago
I really wanted to believe that cops shooting black people basically for sport was a media invention. A lot of us were open to the idea that it was a media invention. Then cell phones began to have cameras in them. As a side effect, we found that UFOs aren't real, and there's no Big Foot. (No, this is not original with me.) I think what we've really found out is that for a lot of people, if they have a gun and they get just a little bit nervous, the slightest thing will have them pulling the trigger. For example, there was a video a few years back of some arrest in Nevada. Cop standing over the cuffed and restrained accused with gun drawn, and the gun suddenly goes off (not hitting the accused, fortunately). I watched the video several times trying to figure out what set her off. I have no idea. All I could conclude was that she had her finger on the trigger and...I don't know, tripped? Accused ripped a fart? She looked as surprised as anyone, so "it just went off"? (For the uninitiated, handguns don't just "go off"; either you intentionally pulled the trigger, or you fucked up.) When questioned in this case by the victim as to why the cop shot him, cop allegedly said, "I don't know". That might be true. So maybe we need to teach cops to keep that finger out of the trigger guard until ready to shoot, like the rest of us were taught.
- torkable 10y ago

tzs 10y ago

Police are often not particularly good marksmen. I wonder if it is possible the shots were intended for the other guy and missed?

talmand 10y ago
Until I get more information, that's my current theory.

antiviral 10y ago

I really am beginning to wonder what kind of people self-select to become police officers: a strong belief in order, conformity, and demand for unquestioning obedience, with no hesitation for meting out brutal penalties for any divergence. It also seems that the training they receive only amplifies these tendencies rather than screening out these pathological behaviors. The cop with the most abuse complaints (68 complaints) in Chicago was actually given a service award. See here: https://cpdb.co/data/bmEM6b/citizens-police-data-project https://cpdb.co/data/bmEM6b/citizens-police-data-project and compare here: http://guardianlv.com/2013/05/chicago-annual-award-ceremony-in-honor-police-departments-heroes/ http://guardianlv.com/2013/05/chicago-annual-award-ceremony-... Unfortunately, it also seems like this has been going on for a long time, perhaps decades. Movies like Training Day (with Denzel Washington) appeared as pure fiction when they appeared in 2001; now you can watch them as watered-down documentary of the real thing.

torkable 10y ago
It's common knowledge that they are almost entirely people that have something to prove, how tough they are. Many of them are bullies that couldn't hack it in the military and joined a police force. They're all bullies, and all bullies are cowards. The reason these unarmed black men are getting shot is probably not a direct "I hate black people" kind of racism. It's "I'm a fucking coward, I see a big black man and I'm scared, so I'll pull my gun." If you're scared (and probably stupid) and holding a gun, bad things are likely to happen. tl;dr american cops are fucking cowards that were probably bullies in high school and never grew up.
aphextron 10y ago
Interesting data in a really poor format. I'd be more interested in seeing where these officers fall on a national curve. Absolute numbers of "complaints" don't really tell us much.

yardie 10y ago

The upshot, besides the victim coming out alive, is North Miami is predominantly black. If this case does go to a jury trial this cop is fucked.

travmatt 10y ago
Or the prosecutor will take a cue from Ferguson and bring a limp-dick indictment in order to find a way to get his colleagues off the hook.
- yardie 10y ago
  Ferguson had no video. Just the word of the live officer and 24 eye witnesses who each saw 24 different things. I think even the dumbest prosecutor should be able to pull this off.
  - travmatt 10y ago
    the colloquial saying is a prosecutor could make a grand jury indict a ham sandwich. The failing to secure an indictment, I'll always contend, was a deliberate choice reached in advance by the prosecutor.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

aphextron 10y ago

There's a very simple way to solve this entire problem. Every single case of a police officer killing someone leads to automatic charges of manslaughter, no matter the circumstances, which must then be refuted in a court of law in front of a jury of the police officer's peers. Police safety will not be affected, as any person in true danger will risk a manslaughter charge to save their own life. Clear cut cases of necessary force will be open and shut without much issue, but the cowardly murderers with their fingers on the trigger around the country will think long and hard before they make that decision to trivially end someone's life.

talmand 10y ago
Telling people that every time they perform this one particular action they will immediately be punished, regardless of the situation, will only result in worse problems than you are trying to solve.
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  Punished? No, the PP proposed trial to determine whether punishment is necessary. You demonstrate the problem we face -- we can't even put killer police through formal fact-finding. Prosecution is not punishment. If you kill someone, there is probable cause to charge with murder and let the court establish permissibility of the killing.
  - talmand 10y ago
    You don't go to court unless you've been charged. I would imagine it's hard to keep your job as a police officer if you're charged with a crime every time you have a violent encounter with a person. You speak as if there's no fact-finding at all. A police officer can face up to three such things; local, state, and federal. If not more.
    - travmatt 10y ago
      A few years ago there was a murder of a mexican immigrant in a portion of my state known for it's xenophobia. The sheriffs department there was known to abuse said immigrants and intentionally mishandled the police report to aid the teens in being acquitted by the local all-white jury. The feds picked the case up and tried the murderers in federal court under federal hate crime laws, they were sentenced to 9 years. The police chief and some of his deputies were convicted and their minimum sentences ranged from 5-7 years (although they of course served much less than that) for essentially a badly biased police report and some terrible local ties - truly, the only thing that saved them from a very long prison sentence was the compassion of a judge. There's still a lot of xenophobia in the town, of course - but I'm betting the institutional memory of a DOJ civil rights investigation will last quite a while.