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Not just many cases but also some of the most prominent ones hailed as an instance of unjust policing. For example, in Seattle there was a situation where a wom
by throwawaysea 5y ago
Not just many cases but also some of the most prominent ones hailed as an instance of unjust policing. For example, in Seattle there was a situation where a woman named Charleena Lyles called in a fake incident to lure police, with an intent apparently to kill them because she is thought to have had some kind of fear that they would otherwise come for her. When the police responded, she cornered an officer in a kitchen with knives in hand (https://www.q13fox.com/news/seattle-officer-in-charleena-lyles-shooting-the-knife-is-produced-its-the-oh-my-god-moment https://www.q13fox.com/news/seattle-officer-in-charleena-lyl...), and another cop had to shoot her.
All this took place in 2017. Activists initially tried to turn this event into something but it didn’t gather momentum because it was clearly a defensive police action after they had been lured with an intention to do harm. Come 2020, this incident was dredged up after George Floyd’s death, and suddenly it gained lots of news attention, activist vigils, and so on. And despite how clear cut this incident was, activists claim the police were wrong and that responses to the mentally ill don’t require armed response.
Meanwhile, the fact that Lyles had just recently been arrested for harassment and obstruction of police has not been scrutinized. The truth is she was let off with no consequence, a byproduct of Seattle’s restorative justice policies, and went on with her mental health issues / intent to harm police officers.
- alisonkisk 5y agoThis is an absurd misrepresentation of what happened to Ms. Lyles.
- throwawaysea 5y agoCan you help me understand why you hold this perspective? Per various news sources the previous incident involving Lyles was very similar, where she threatened police officers with scissors, but they were able to convince her to drop them and arrest her without anyone being harmed (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/seattle-police-shooting-charleena-lyles_n_59479a12e4b0f15cd5bc7ff1 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/seattle-police-shooting-charl...). There are also audio recordings from the officers’ response in the later fatal encounter that corroborates their version of the story, including the fact that they gave her warnings to back away 11 times before shooting (https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/charleena-lyles-seattle-police-shooting-case-what-we-know/536467321/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/charleena-lyles-seattle-pol...). Per these links she also had a long history of crimes going further back (assault, robbery, theft, etc). To me it is unconscionable that someone with her history of crime and mental issues is permitted to live without supervision, let alone keep her children, and it is further unacceptable that she was let off a serious incident (threatening to kill a police officer) with no consequence or accountability by a “mental health court”. This looks to me more like a failure of soft-on-crime restorative justice policies rather than a failure of policing.