4 ms·

It's a fascinating and tragic case. However, I think it's an illustration of the fact that the police's role is to determine if a crime has been committed, not

by foldr 3y ago

It's a fascinating and tragic case. However, I think it's an illustration of the fact that the police's role is to determine if a crime has been committed, not to figure out exactly what happened in the case of any mysterious death. Given that this person definitely jumped off the balcony of their own volition, it would be very hard to prove that they were in such danger at that very moment from the other people in the apartment that those people could be held legally responsible for the death.

amelius 3y ago
If a person is being chased by someone with a gun, then jumps off a balcony, is it their fault for jumping? A person holding a gun can make another person do a lot of crazy things without firing it. Replace gun by any other threat.
- foldr 3y ago
  I'm aware that someone jumping off a balcony under their own steam could theoretically be a murder or manslaughter case. My point is that we don't know if anything like that actually happened here. If there is no prospect of proving beyond reasonable doubt that it did, then there is not much for the police to do. It's a sad and frustrating situation for the family. But the police are not Miss Marple; their job is to catch criminals, not solve mysteries.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    He might not be the sharpest mind in St. Mary Mead, but Inspector Slack certainly does his fair share of mystery-solving as a police officer. On a serious point though, I think there is some value in purely investigative work by the police even when there's no prospect of a successful prosecution. Unusual cases might lead to better insights into things that affect many more people: revealing well-hidden criminal gangs for instance. Even if the police can't pin the guilt on a specific suspect or accidental cause, the result of an investigation might simply be better public awareness of a risk, which is a good thing.
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      > there is some value in purely investigative work by the police Simply knowing that every 'mysterious' death will be thoroughly and exhaustively investigated is a massive deterrent to just wiping out your enemies as happens so commonly in many places that have no form of homicide / cold case department.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    Oddly... well, just odd sentiment. The job of the police is to preserve order and accord. That includes investigating, thorougly, mysteries, especially mysteries that involve people jumping off balconies. To avoid a scenario where 'clever people' wander around the country leaving a trail of bodies in their wake because they keep covering their tracks effectively. Seems odd to suggest so firmly and decisively 'oh well too bad so sad, not a police matter, let's move on!' especially given the way the other relevant parties are described to have behaved.
    - foldr 3y ago
      From a practical point of view, the police in the UK are far too starved of resources to investigate mysteries where there is no realistic prospect of prosecuting anyone for a crime. To do this would require dropping higher priority investigations. I also think that it would be overreach for the police to do this kind of thing. The UK is not a police state (in theory at least). The police have no business investigating anyone who they don’t suspect of having committed a crime. In this case, of course, there were reasonable grounds for suspicion and so there was an initial investigation. However, once it became clear that there was no realistic prospect of proving that anyone in the apartment was legally responsible for the young man’s death, there was nothing for the police to do. It's easy to get sucked in by the fascinating story told in the article and forget that legally speaking almost everything turns on the last few minutes before the man jumped – about which we know almost nothing. If he didn't jump in response to an imminent threat to his life, then good luck making any kind of criminal case. >To avoid a scenario where 'clever people' wander around the country leaving a trail of bodies in their wake because they keep covering their tracks effectively. In this case the only person who could realistically be guilty of murder or manslaughter (Sharma) is now dead. So we need not fear that he will kill again.
      - curtisblaine 3y ago
        It always strikes me as odd why they're too starved to investigate unexplained deaths but at the same time they're not too starved to investigate misgendering tweets[1]. There are two explanations I can offer: - misgendering tweets are more important than unexplained deaths - police would be less starved if they allocated their priorities better 1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527
theshrike79 3y ago
If I threaten to kill you with a gun on a balcony and you jump, did you do it "of your own volition"?
- foldr 3y ago
  We don't know if that's the kind of thing that happened here or not. I literally mentioned the kind of scenario you have in mind in my comment: >[...] in such danger at that very moment from the other people in the apartment that those people could be held legally responsible for the death.
KaiserPro 3y ago
Technically the coroner is meant to determine the cause of death. The police are there to work out if its suspicious or not.
- tgv 3y ago
  That sounds US-y: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/coroners https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/coroners E.g., this bit: "The Coroner is expected to open an inquest where there is reasonable suspicion that the deceased has died a violent or unnatural death, where the cause of death is unknown or if the deceased died while in custody or state detention as defined by section 1(2) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009."
pavlov 3y ago
Wait till you hear about the American legal doctrine of "felony murder". You can get convicted for murder when you never even met the victim or knew about them: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/felony-murder-laws https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/felony-murder-... "As a result of the crash, which all parties agreed was unintentional, two men stood accused of murdering his father and a friend who was cycling with him. One of those charged, twenty-five-year-old Sadik Baxter, had never laid eyes on the victims. At the moment of impact, he had been miles away, in handcuffs. "When Donna heard the charges, she asked, How is this even possible? Ian had learned the answer in law school: a sweeping and uniquely American legal doctrine, often couched in terms of justice for victims’ families, called felony murder. To engage in certain unlawful activities, the theory goes, is to assume full responsibility if a death occurs—regardless of intent. "The precipitating offenses in this case: Sadik Baxter had searched five cars for stray cash before surrendering when cops appeared, and O’Brian Oakley, his twenty-six-year-old friend, had fled the scene, lost control of his car in a police chase, and killed the bicyclists. The prosecution charged both men with two counts of felony murder in the first degree. "Recently, Ian spoke with me about the case while caring for his newborn daughter in Brooklyn; as we talked, he sometimes ran his hand down a thick beard he’d grown in homage to his dad. 'It’s truly one of the cruellest ideas in the American legal system,' he said of felony murder. 'And most people don’t even know it exists.'"
- krisoft 3y ago
  It is really hard for me to get myself worked up about this. They were up to no good and as a result two innocent people are dead. Don't do that. Though luck, select your friends and activities better if you worry about this.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Is it really murder if you break into a car and surrender when the cops arrive? What about this real-world example from the same article: "In 2015, when he was fifteen, LaKeith and four friends broke into two unoccupied homes in Millbrook, Alabama, to steal Xbox games and other electronics. A neighbor called the police, who appeared, guns drawn. LaKeith ran into the woods, and one of the officers shot and killed his friend, sixteen-year-old A’Donte Washington, who they said had a gun. The prosecution alleged that one of the older teen-agers had fired a shot, and a grand jury found that the officer’s use of force was “justified.” LaKeith was charged as an adult with murder, for the killing at the officer’s hand." Is a 15-year-old really a murderer when a police shoots his friend for stealing Xbox games? Elsewhere in the world, murder usually means a premeditated killing. This is something completely else.
donkeyd 3y ago
I worked as a detective in the Netherlands and we had a single task; 'waarheidsvinding', which means 'finding the truth'. We didn't have the task of convicting someone or finding a crime, we had the task of finding the truth. So in a case like this, that meant finding out exactly why someone jumped or fell from a balcony.
- foldr 3y ago
  First of all, you obviously only did this in cases where there was some prospect that a crime might have been committed, not in any instance of something mysterious happening. Second, the police did attempt to figure out why the man jumped from the balcony. However, without the cooperation of the other people who were in the apartment, there is really no way to know for sure. And without knowing for sure, there's little prospect of anyone being convicted of a crime. The police don't have infinite resources. At some point you have to accept that the circumstances around a death may never be fully known. This happens all the time in the real world.
  - diggan 3y ago
    > First of all, you obviously only did this in cases where there was some prospect that a crime might have been committed, not in any instance of something mysterious happening. How would you know if a crime has been committed or not unless you actually find out the truth about the event/situation?
    - logifail 3y ago
      > How would you know if a crime has been committed or not unless you actually find out the truth about the event/situation? How would the police get involved unless a crime has been reported?
      - bloak 3y ago
        It's not hard to imagine circumstances in which the police get involved because there is initially some suspicion of a crime, the police do some investigations and then stop investigating because, although many aspects of the case remain mysterious, it really doesn't look like a crime any more. (Alternatively, if it was a crime then the main suspects seem to be dead anyway so we have better things to do with our limited resources.) In fact I'm fairly certain I've read about many cases like that. Journalists might continue investigating in order to sell books and articles and satisfy the punters' curiosity but the police are no longer interested.
NoboruWataya 3y ago
In reality it seems like a combination of police failings and the family expecting too much. The texts that were exchanged and the findings in the apartment certainly give rise to at least a reasonable suspicion of foul play which arguably should have prompted the police to investigate more thoroughly. If not murder, it is entirely possible that other crimes were committed, such as extortion, false imprisonment, obstruction of justice, etc. There may be various reasons why they didn't investigate more thoroughly: incompetence, lack of resources, or some more sinister/political reason. But it is far from guaranteed that a more rigorous investigation would have yielded meaningful answers, let alone a conviction. The parents' theory (that he died accidentally while trying to escape danger) sounds plausible to me, but of course it would when carefully presented by a sympathetic journalist who also decides what other facts of the case to disclose to us. I am doubtful that evidence could be produced to achieve anything close to the "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold required to sustain a conviction. That alone could be a reason for the police to decide not to devote significant additional resources to the investigation. We will probably never know.
- foldr 3y ago
  I agree with you on all points. It’s worth noting that the prime suspect for the lesser crimes you list (Sharma) is now dead. I suspect that’s another factor at play in the police’s decision not to investigate further.
kergonath 3y ago
> However, I think it's an illustration of the fact that the police's role is to determine if a crime has been committed, not to figure out exactly what happened in the case of any mysterious death. That’s a very limited point of view and is more representative of the role of the police in a given context. This might be how it works in London and in the US, but it is not the case everywhere. There are systems, for example, with different police forces, one for actual policing and one working with the judiciary and whose role is explicitly to investigate and find the truth in such cases. In this case, yes. London and the whole British establishment are thoroughly corrupt and the police is subservient.
- foldr 3y ago
  >This might be how it works in London Yes, that is what I am talking about, as this happened in London. As far as I'm aware, most police forces (of the kind that anyone would want to emulate) are focused on investigating crimes, not on attempting to resolve arbitrary mysterious circumstances. >London and the whole British establishment are thoroughly corrupt and the police is subservient. The simplest explanation for why the police stopped investigating is that there isn't any very strong evidence that anyone still alive (Sharma is now dead) is legally responsible for the death of the man who jumped from the balcony. Even if you are right that everything is the worst and everyone is corrupt, it doesn't follow that corruption is explanation for what happened in this instance. The police attempted to find out the truth, but none of the key witnesses were cooperative.

by foldr 3y ago

amelius 3y ago

If a person is being chased by someone with a gun, then jumps off a balcony, is it their fault for jumping? A person holding a gun can make another person do a lot of crazy things without firing it. Replace gun by any other threat.

foldr 3y ago
I'm aware that someone jumping off a balcony under their own steam could theoretically be a murder or manslaughter case. My point is that we don't know if anything like that actually happened here. If there is no prospect of proving beyond reasonable doubt that it did, then there is not much for the police to do. It's a sad and frustrating situation for the family. But the police are not Miss Marple; their job is to catch criminals, not solve mysteries.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  He might not be the sharpest mind in St. Mary Mead, but Inspector Slack certainly does his fair share of mystery-solving as a police officer. On a serious point though, I think there is some value in purely investigative work by the police even when there's no prospect of a successful prosecution. Unusual cases might lead to better insights into things that affect many more people: revealing well-hidden criminal gangs for instance. Even if the police can't pin the guilt on a specific suspect or accidental cause, the result of an investigation might simply be better public awareness of a risk, which is a good thing.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    > there is some value in purely investigative work by the police Simply knowing that every 'mysterious' death will be thoroughly and exhaustively investigated is a massive deterrent to just wiping out your enemies as happens so commonly in many places that have no form of homicide / cold case department.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  Oddly... well, just odd sentiment. The job of the police is to preserve order and accord. That includes investigating, thorougly, mysteries, especially mysteries that involve people jumping off balconies. To avoid a scenario where 'clever people' wander around the country leaving a trail of bodies in their wake because they keep covering their tracks effectively. Seems odd to suggest so firmly and decisively 'oh well too bad so sad, not a police matter, let's move on!' especially given the way the other relevant parties are described to have behaved.
  - foldr 3y ago
    From a practical point of view, the police in the UK are far too starved of resources to investigate mysteries where there is no realistic prospect of prosecuting anyone for a crime. To do this would require dropping higher priority investigations. I also think that it would be overreach for the police to do this kind of thing. The UK is not a police state (in theory at least). The police have no business investigating anyone who they don’t suspect of having committed a crime. In this case, of course, there were reasonable grounds for suspicion and so there was an initial investigation. However, once it became clear that there was no realistic prospect of proving that anyone in the apartment was legally responsible for the young man’s death, there was nothing for the police to do. It's easy to get sucked in by the fascinating story told in the article and forget that legally speaking almost everything turns on the last few minutes before the man jumped – about which we know almost nothing. If he didn't jump in response to an imminent threat to his life, then good luck making any kind of criminal case. >To avoid a scenario where 'clever people' wander around the country leaving a trail of bodies in their wake because they keep covering their tracks effectively. In this case the only person who could realistically be guilty of murder or manslaughter (Sharma) is now dead. So we need not fear that he will kill again.
    - curtisblaine 3y ago
      It always strikes me as odd why they're too starved to investigate unexplained deaths but at the same time they're not too starved to investigate misgendering tweets[1]. There are two explanations I can offer: - misgendering tweets are more important than unexplained deaths - police would be less starved if they allocated their priorities better 1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527

theshrike79 3y ago

If I threaten to kill you with a gun on a balcony and you jump, did you do it "of your own volition"?

foldr 3y ago
We don't know if that's the kind of thing that happened here or not. I literally mentioned the kind of scenario you have in mind in my comment: >[...] in such danger at that very moment from the other people in the apartment that those people could be held legally responsible for the death.

KaiserPro 3y ago

Technically the coroner is meant to determine the cause of death. The police are there to work out if its suspicious or not.

tgv 3y ago
That sounds US-y: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/coroners https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/coroners E.g., this bit: "The Coroner is expected to open an inquest where there is reasonable suspicion that the deceased has died a violent or unnatural death, where the cause of death is unknown or if the deceased died while in custody or state detention as defined by section 1(2) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009."

pavlov 3y ago

Wait till you hear about the American legal doctrine of "felony murder". You can get convicted for murder when you never even met the victim or knew about them: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/felony-murder-laws https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/felony-murder-... "As a result of the crash, which all parties agreed was unintentional, two men stood accused of murdering his father and a friend who was cycling with him. One of those charged, twenty-five-year-old Sadik Baxter, had never laid eyes on the victims. At the moment of impact, he had been miles away, in handcuffs. "When Donna heard the charges, she asked, How is this even possible? Ian had learned the answer in law school: a sweeping and uniquely American legal doctrine, often couched in terms of justice for victims’ families, called felony murder. To engage in certain unlawful activities, the theory goes, is to assume full responsibility if a death occurs—regardless of intent. "The precipitating offenses in this case: Sadik Baxter had searched five cars for stray cash before surrendering when cops appeared, and O’Brian Oakley, his twenty-six-year-old friend, had fled the scene, lost control of his car in a police chase, and killed the bicyclists. The prosecution charged both men with two counts of felony murder in the first degree. "Recently, Ian spoke with me about the case while caring for his newborn daughter in Brooklyn; as we talked, he sometimes ran his hand down a thick beard he’d grown in homage to his dad. 'It’s truly one of the cruellest ideas in the American legal system,' he said of felony murder. 'And most people don’t even know it exists.'"

krisoft 3y ago
It is really hard for me to get myself worked up about this. They were up to no good and as a result two innocent people are dead. Don't do that. Though luck, select your friends and activities better if you worry about this.
- pavlov 3y ago
  Is it really murder if you break into a car and surrender when the cops arrive? What about this real-world example from the same article: "In 2015, when he was fifteen, LaKeith and four friends broke into two unoccupied homes in Millbrook, Alabama, to steal Xbox games and other electronics. A neighbor called the police, who appeared, guns drawn. LaKeith ran into the woods, and one of the officers shot and killed his friend, sixteen-year-old A’Donte Washington, who they said had a gun. The prosecution alleged that one of the older teen-agers had fired a shot, and a grand jury found that the officer’s use of force was “justified.” LaKeith was charged as an adult with murder, for the killing at the officer’s hand." Is a 15-year-old really a murderer when a police shoots his friend for stealing Xbox games? Elsewhere in the world, murder usually means a premeditated killing. This is something completely else.

donkeyd 3y ago

I worked as a detective in the Netherlands and we had a single task; 'waarheidsvinding', which means 'finding the truth'. We didn't have the task of convicting someone or finding a crime, we had the task of finding the truth. So in a case like this, that meant finding out exactly why someone jumped or fell from a balcony.

foldr 3y ago
First of all, you obviously only did this in cases where there was some prospect that a crime might have been committed, not in any instance of something mysterious happening. Second, the police did attempt to figure out why the man jumped from the balcony. However, without the cooperation of the other people who were in the apartment, there is really no way to know for sure. And without knowing for sure, there's little prospect of anyone being convicted of a crime. The police don't have infinite resources. At some point you have to accept that the circumstances around a death may never be fully known. This happens all the time in the real world.
- diggan 3y ago
  > First of all, you obviously only did this in cases where there was some prospect that a crime might have been committed, not in any instance of something mysterious happening. How would you know if a crime has been committed or not unless you actually find out the truth about the event/situation?
  - logifail 3y ago
    > How would you know if a crime has been committed or not unless you actually find out the truth about the event/situation? How would the police get involved unless a crime has been reported?
    - bloak 3y ago
      It's not hard to imagine circumstances in which the police get involved because there is initially some suspicion of a crime, the police do some investigations and then stop investigating because, although many aspects of the case remain mysterious, it really doesn't look like a crime any more. (Alternatively, if it was a crime then the main suspects seem to be dead anyway so we have better things to do with our limited resources.) In fact I'm fairly certain I've read about many cases like that. Journalists might continue investigating in order to sell books and articles and satisfy the punters' curiosity but the police are no longer interested.

NoboruWataya 3y ago

In reality it seems like a combination of police failings and the family expecting too much. The texts that were exchanged and the findings in the apartment certainly give rise to at least a reasonable suspicion of foul play which arguably should have prompted the police to investigate more thoroughly. If not murder, it is entirely possible that other crimes were committed, such as extortion, false imprisonment, obstruction of justice, etc. There may be various reasons why they didn't investigate more thoroughly: incompetence, lack of resources, or some more sinister/political reason. But it is far from guaranteed that a more rigorous investigation would have yielded meaningful answers, let alone a conviction. The parents' theory (that he died accidentally while trying to escape danger) sounds plausible to me, but of course it would when carefully presented by a sympathetic journalist who also decides what other facts of the case to disclose to us. I am doubtful that evidence could be produced to achieve anything close to the "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold required to sustain a conviction. That alone could be a reason for the police to decide not to devote significant additional resources to the investigation. We will probably never know.

foldr 3y ago
I agree with you on all points. It’s worth noting that the prime suspect for the lesser crimes you list (Sharma) is now dead. I suspect that’s another factor at play in the police’s decision not to investigate further.

kergonath 3y ago

> However, I think it's an illustration of the fact that the police's role is to determine if a crime has been committed, not to figure out exactly what happened in the case of any mysterious death. That’s a very limited point of view and is more representative of the role of the police in a given context. This might be how it works in London and in the US, but it is not the case everywhere. There are systems, for example, with different police forces, one for actual policing and one working with the judiciary and whose role is explicitly to investigate and find the truth in such cases. In this case, yes. London and the whole British establishment are thoroughly corrupt and the police is subservient.

foldr 3y ago
>This might be how it works in London Yes, that is what I am talking about, as this happened in London. As far as I'm aware, most police forces (of the kind that anyone would want to emulate) are focused on investigating crimes, not on attempting to resolve arbitrary mysterious circumstances. >London and the whole British establishment are thoroughly corrupt and the police is subservient. The simplest explanation for why the police stopped investigating is that there isn't any very strong evidence that anyone still alive (Sharma is now dead) is legally responsible for the death of the man who jumped from the balcony. Even if you are right that everything is the worst and everyone is corrupt, it doesn't follow that corruption is explanation for what happened in this instance. The police attempted to find out the truth, but none of the key witnesses were cooperative.