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Is the policeman who killed an unarmed man at his house going to be charged? Ideally this wouldn't be a rhetorical question. How long until the police give the

Is the policeman who killed an unarmed man at his house going to be charged? Ideally this wouldn't be a rhetorical question. How long until the police give themselves the right to kill someone annoying by anonymously phoning in a warning then making sure they're amongst the ones who turn up?

downandout 9y ago
This was my immediate reaction. My guess is that the blame and punishment will all be laser focused on the caller, in an attempt to avoid a public outcry for the actual shooter’s head. That cop shouldn’t be on administrative leave, he should be in jail for murder.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  I’m as upset about police shootings as anyone, but there’s no way you can make this claim with the information available.
  - downandout 9y ago
    An unarmed man was shot and killed in his own doorway. The officer that shot him could not have seen a weapon, because there was no weapon. That is all the information that is necessary to make a determination not only that he should be charged with murder, but convicted of it.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      I know, why even bother with a trial? We've all read the news accounts, let's string him up! /s So due process is one concern here, but also, my concern here is more about the fucked up system we have. Is it reasonable to create a broken system, heavily arm cops, train them poorly, get them hyped up, and send them off with bad intel into (what they believe is) an incredibly high-stakes / high-stress environment, and then when one of them makes a human mistake that anyone could make in that situation, toss them in jail and throw away the key? EDIT: this is an excellent article on the mentality that I'm talking about: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-gun-shooting-training-ferguson/383681/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-...
      - downandout 9y ago
        >I know, why even bother with a trial? We've all read the news accounts, let's string him up! They have the weapon he fired, police body cam footage, the bullet, and the fact that there was no weapon on the victim, which means the cop did not see a weapon. So he just fired because the guy put his hands down and then obeyed commands to put them back up, which last I heard was not on the list of causes for justifiable homicide. This wasn’t a “mistake that anyone could make”. You don’t shoot guns at people unless they have a gun and are about to shoot at you, even if you happen to wear a badge. So yes, tossing him in jail and for a long time seems like the appropriate outcome in light of the evidence.
        ryanwaggoner 9y ago
        Yeah, that’s not how due process works. You don’t know what happened or what the evidence is. And from your responses, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you have no law enforcement experience or training. Sorry, but the outrage you feel upon reading a few news stories online is vastly insufficient to imprison another human. You’re talking about simple mob justice, that’s all.
        DanBC 9y ago
        > You’re talking about simple mob justice, that’s all. Unfortunate turn of phrase, when it's the police who kill over a thousand citizens without trial or often arrest each year.
        ryanwaggoner 9y ago
        And that’s a horrible problem, but the answer isn’t more senseless violence as payback.
        rland12 9y ago
        The issue is that the officer is not facing a trial. No chance for due process because the people are not bringing a case, so it doesn't matter what the evidence is. He is on administrative leave.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    The information available is that the victim was unarmed and not moving towards any of the officers. He raised and lowered his hands a few times. Not one account, even the officer who shot the person, indicates the man was behaving violently towards anyone. If it weren't a police officer that did it odds are the shooter would be in jail pending some charge related to homicide but not whatever that district's version of pre-meditated murder is. The only difference in this case is it is an officer, and they get special treatment in the US because our justice system is garbage.
- mxscho 9y ago
  Making such claims without background information does not help anyone. To play devil's advocate: What if the shooter had a previous case where one of his colleagues died? What if he's involved in many cases where the targets do indeed have guns and an adequate reaction is required? I'm not saying that he's completely innocent, but calling this murder is just bullshit. Coming from a country where this is prohibited, the fact that everyone is allowed to carry guns is a much more interesting fact considering that we here usually don't have incidents like this. But that's also another discussion I guess.
- MikkoFinell 9y ago
  Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? What happened was an absolute tragedy, and every measure should be taken to avoid anything like that ever happening again. The shooting was not justified, and cops need better training, non-lethal options must be expanded, penalties for this kind of "prank" must be made harsher. Everyone agrees on that. But to call the cop a murderer, as if he had executed someone he knew was innocent, just for fun, that's not right either. Cops face actual murdering psychos on a daily basis, and must be able to respond to how the situation looks at the time. Again, not trying to justify the shooting, but trying to encourage a more nuanced perspective.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - watwut 9y ago
    Statistically, policing is nowhere near top dangerous occupations in USA. And most causalities are from traffic accidents. It is safer and safer every year. So maybe they could give some of that safety to public too. There is such a thing as exaggerating risks and you are doing that now. Non trained members of public are expected to keep perfect calm and control. It makes Bo sense that expectations on random Johny are higher then those on trained cops.
  - nazgob 9y ago
    Isn't it like that in many countries? Do not fire unless fired upon? It's also a common rule of engagement for many militaries deployed in Afganistan, Iraq or other 'dangerous places'.
  - Miner49er 9y ago
    Did you watch the video? There is no way a cop should have felt threatened.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    > Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? If the only information you are operating off is an unconfirmed civilian report, I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. At the very least, they should be 100% certain that the suspect has a weapon - the police should act at a far higher standard than "feared the male pulled a weapon from his waistband". IMO, the police should be there for the protection of society as a whole, but _sometimes_ (far from all of the time) act as if they are just protecting themselves over and above that/at all costs.
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  I do think the caller should be convicted of murder. I'm not sure exactly which charge would be most appropriate for someone who deliberately created a situation in which someone could be killed, and they were. Ah — from the Wikipedia page [0] it looks like felony murder is the right charge. It's certainly at least involuntary manslaughter. I do agree with you, though, that a close look should be taken at the shooter and the situation with an eye toward possibly charging the shooter. I do think that in general, police in many parts of the US are too insulated from the consequences of such decisions. I'm not completely sure, though, based on this article, that I would consider the officer culpable. Police are trained to react quickly and to protect one another. The description here does leave me with the sense, however, that the one who fired may not have had a particularly good view of what the victim was doing. Arguably there is a systemic problem that when there are many officers, all with different and incomplete views of the situation, the odds of one thinking that something is going on that justifies opening fire get to be unacceptably high. Anyway I do hope you're not suggesting that the shooter's responsibility somehow mitigates that of the caller. ETA: Ah, I didn't know there was body cam footage we could see [1]. Okay, I have to agree with you, this looks pretty damning. There were no officers within easy target range of the victim; the shot was taken from well across the street. Even if the victim had been pulling out a gun, unless he's a Clint Eastwood character, he's going to have to take a second or two to aim it to have any chance of hitting anyone at that distance. It was not necessary to fire that quickly. I have to qualify this by saying I'm no firearms expert, but that's how it looks to me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) [1] http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192089304.html http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192089304.html
  - downandout 9y ago
    >I'm not completely sure, though, based on this article, that I would consider the officer culpable. Police are trained to react quickly and to protect one another. If being trained to “react quickly” involves shooting people when they are not 100% sure the person has a weapon, then they are being trained to commit murder. That will likely be an aspect of the inevitable lawsuit against the police in this incident. But the mere fact that they were trained to commit murder does not absolve individual officers of criminal responsibility when they actually murder someone. >Anyway I do hope you're not suggesting that the shooter's responsibility somehow mitigates that of the caller. No, I’m not.
- sodosopa 9y ago
  The gamer knowingly made a statement inciting violence at the victim. I would say that's more of the problem and should be categorized as the murderer. Being a shithead troll gamer shouldn't mean you are insulated from conviction over the officer.
thesmallestcat 9y ago
If you read the reports, he didn't kill anybody, he "discharged his firearm." It's like blowing your nose, really. Or an excited puppy relieving itself.
rboyd 9y ago
Seems like we'll have to wait until it's another cop or politician that gets the mistaken bullet.

downandout 9y ago

This was my immediate reaction. My guess is that the blame and punishment will all be laser focused on the caller, in an attempt to avoid a public outcry for the actual shooter’s head. That cop shouldn’t be on administrative leave, he should be in jail for murder.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
I’m as upset about police shootings as anyone, but there’s no way you can make this claim with the information available.
- downandout 9y ago
  An unarmed man was shot and killed in his own doorway. The officer that shot him could not have seen a weapon, because there was no weapon. That is all the information that is necessary to make a determination not only that he should be charged with murder, but convicted of it.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    I know, why even bother with a trial? We've all read the news accounts, let's string him up! /s So due process is one concern here, but also, my concern here is more about the fucked up system we have. Is it reasonable to create a broken system, heavily arm cops, train them poorly, get them hyped up, and send them off with bad intel into (what they believe is) an incredibly high-stakes / high-stress environment, and then when one of them makes a human mistake that anyone could make in that situation, toss them in jail and throw away the key? EDIT: this is an excellent article on the mentality that I'm talking about: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-gun-shooting-training-ferguson/383681/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-...
    - downandout 9y ago
      >I know, why even bother with a trial? We've all read the news accounts, let's string him up! They have the weapon he fired, police body cam footage, the bullet, and the fact that there was no weapon on the victim, which means the cop did not see a weapon. So he just fired because the guy put his hands down and then obeyed commands to put them back up, which last I heard was not on the list of causes for justifiable homicide. This wasn’t a “mistake that anyone could make”. You don’t shoot guns at people unless they have a gun and are about to shoot at you, even if you happen to wear a badge. So yes, tossing him in jail and for a long time seems like the appropriate outcome in light of the evidence.
      - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
        Yeah, that’s not how due process works. You don’t know what happened or what the evidence is. And from your responses, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you have no law enforcement experience or training. Sorry, but the outrage you feel upon reading a few news stories online is vastly insufficient to imprison another human. You’re talking about simple mob justice, that’s all.
        DanBC 9y ago
        > You’re talking about simple mob justice, that’s all. Unfortunate turn of phrase, when it's the police who kill over a thousand citizens without trial or often arrest each year.
        ryanwaggoner 9y ago
        And that’s a horrible problem, but the answer isn’t more senseless violence as payback.
        rland12 9y ago
        The issue is that the officer is not facing a trial. No chance for due process because the people are not bringing a case, so it doesn't matter what the evidence is. He is on administrative leave.
- sidlls 9y ago
  The information available is that the victim was unarmed and not moving towards any of the officers. He raised and lowered his hands a few times. Not one account, even the officer who shot the person, indicates the man was behaving violently towards anyone. If it weren't a police officer that did it odds are the shooter would be in jail pending some charge related to homicide but not whatever that district's version of pre-meditated murder is. The only difference in this case is it is an officer, and they get special treatment in the US because our justice system is garbage.
mxscho 9y ago
Making such claims without background information does not help anyone. To play devil's advocate: What if the shooter had a previous case where one of his colleagues died? What if he's involved in many cases where the targets do indeed have guns and an adequate reaction is required? I'm not saying that he's completely innocent, but calling this murder is just bullshit. Coming from a country where this is prohibited, the fact that everyone is allowed to carry guns is a much more interesting fact considering that we here usually don't have incidents like this. But that's also another discussion I guess.
MikkoFinell 9y ago
Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? What happened was an absolute tragedy, and every measure should be taken to avoid anything like that ever happening again. The shooting was not justified, and cops need better training, non-lethal options must be expanded, penalties for this kind of "prank" must be made harsher. Everyone agrees on that. But to call the cop a murderer, as if he had executed someone he knew was innocent, just for fun, that's not right either. Cops face actual murdering psychos on a daily basis, and must be able to respond to how the situation looks at the time. Again, not trying to justify the shooting, but trying to encourage a more nuanced perspective.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- watwut 9y ago
  Statistically, policing is nowhere near top dangerous occupations in USA. And most causalities are from traffic accidents. It is safer and safer every year. So maybe they could give some of that safety to public too. There is such a thing as exaggerating risks and you are doing that now. Non trained members of public are expected to keep perfect calm and control. It makes Bo sense that expectations on random Johny are higher then those on trained cops.
- nazgob 9y ago
  Isn't it like that in many countries? Do not fire unless fired upon? It's also a common rule of engagement for many militaries deployed in Afganistan, Iraq or other 'dangerous places'.
- Miner49er 9y ago
  Did you watch the video? There is no way a cop should have felt threatened.
- stordoff 9y ago
  > Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? If the only information you are operating off is an unconfirmed civilian report, I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. At the very least, they should be 100% certain that the suspect has a weapon - the police should act at a far higher standard than "feared the male pulled a weapon from his waistband". IMO, the police should be there for the protection of society as a whole, but _sometimes_ (far from all of the time) act as if they are just protecting themselves over and above that/at all costs.
ScottBurson 9y ago
I do think the caller should be convicted of murder. I'm not sure exactly which charge would be most appropriate for someone who deliberately created a situation in which someone could be killed, and they were. Ah — from the Wikipedia page [0] it looks like felony murder is the right charge. It's certainly at least involuntary manslaughter. I do agree with you, though, that a close look should be taken at the shooter and the situation with an eye toward possibly charging the shooter. I do think that in general, police in many parts of the US are too insulated from the consequences of such decisions. I'm not completely sure, though, based on this article, that I would consider the officer culpable. Police are trained to react quickly and to protect one another. The description here does leave me with the sense, however, that the one who fired may not have had a particularly good view of what the victim was doing. Arguably there is a systemic problem that when there are many officers, all with different and incomplete views of the situation, the odds of one thinking that something is going on that justifies opening fire get to be unacceptably high. Anyway I do hope you're not suggesting that the shooter's responsibility somehow mitigates that of the caller. ETA: Ah, I didn't know there was body cam footage we could see [1]. Okay, I have to agree with you, this looks pretty damning. There were no officers within easy target range of the victim; the shot was taken from well across the street. Even if the victim had been pulling out a gun, unless he's a Clint Eastwood character, he's going to have to take a second or two to aim it to have any chance of hitting anyone at that distance. It was not necessary to fire that quickly. I have to qualify this by saying I'm no firearms expert, but that's how it looks to me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law) [1] http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192089304.html http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192089304.html
- downandout 9y ago
  >I'm not completely sure, though, based on this article, that I would consider the officer culpable. Police are trained to react quickly and to protect one another. If being trained to “react quickly” involves shooting people when they are not 100% sure the person has a weapon, then they are being trained to commit murder. That will likely be an aspect of the inevitable lawsuit against the police in this incident. But the mere fact that they were trained to commit murder does not absolve individual officers of criminal responsibility when they actually murder someone. >Anyway I do hope you're not suggesting that the shooter's responsibility somehow mitigates that of the caller. No, I’m not.
sodosopa 9y ago
The gamer knowingly made a statement inciting violence at the victim. I would say that's more of the problem and should be categorized as the murderer. Being a shithead troll gamer shouldn't mean you are insulated from conviction over the officer.

thesmallestcat 9y ago

If you read the reports, he didn't kill anybody, he "discharged his firearm." It's like blowing your nose, really. Or an excited puppy relieving itself.

rboyd 9y ago

Seems like we'll have to wait until it's another cop or politician that gets the mistaken bullet.