4 ms·

Generally I disagree with over-militarization of the police force, but a few points: 1) I spend a lot of time listening to emergency band scanners. Considering

Generally I disagree with over-militarization of the police force, but a few points: 1) I spend a lot of time listening to emergency band scanners. Considering the low violent crime rate in Sunnyvale, I'm pretty shocked how often the Santa Clara Sherrifs Dept are called to stand-offs and hostage-type situations. If it is resolved without fatalities, perhaps it doesn't make it into violent crime statistics, but I'm not that appalled that Sunnyvale PD feels the need to own one. 2) KTVU reports that he he came out with a firearm and ran towards them. 3) KTVU reports that they responded with a couple of squad cars, but the man disregarded orders to come out with his hands up. As a murder had been reported, calling SWAT is reasonable, IMO. Again, I agree that police forces in general are over-militarized, but we need to represent the facts accurately. edit: Why the down-votes? He has an alternate explanation that I've acknowledged, and that he didn't provide initially.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
> Again, I agree that police forces in general > are over-militarized, but we need to represent > the facts accurately. We agree on the militarization, I am concerned about factual accuracy, in part because I've got a personal connection with eye witnesses to this event, and their statements do not agree with the official narrative. That is perhaps the most unsettling part here. This is further complicated that it is the second time in 18 months where this has been the case for me. Some additional back story. 1) The event was witnessed in its entirety by friends of ours who live there. They describe the sequence differently than the official sequence of events. 2) A previous officer involved shooting, on my street, was also reported as a 'charged with weapon, officer defended themselves and shot the suspect.' which was also reported very differently by the people who were standing on the curb behind the guy that got shot (and nearly caught in the cross fire). This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed. The similarity between both events is that there had been a 911 call, and police responded 'ready to fight.' I've got a number of concerns with respect to the training and rules of engagement our public safety officers are operating under. I'm a big fan of the classic 'old west' rule that first shot is offense, second shot is defense. Meaning that if you fire first you are the guy doing the shooting, if the person fires back at you they are defending. Clearly I get to follow this one, its in my 'backyard' to use the vernacular. It is certainly going to be a hot topic of discussion at the BBQ we host for the folks running for City Council. (strangely the police report through the city manager which is another topic of discussion for the BBQ)
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > strangely the police report through the city manager which is another topic of discussion for the BBQ Why is that strange? In California, in the usual case (i.e., not in charter cities with a different arrangement), the city manager is the appointed operational head of the city of government, and the city council (including the Mayor, who is effectively just the presiding officer of the council) is a (part-time) legislative body.
- kbenson 13y ago
  > A previous officer involved shooting, on my street, was also reported as a 'charged with weapon, officer defended themselves and shot the suspect.' which was also reported very differently by the people who were standing on the curb behind the guy that got shot (and nearly caught in the cross fire). This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed. A knife is a deadly weapon. I think that's downplayed quite a bit when everyone is worried about guns. 15 yards may be a bit a a distance to start shooting, but there's a lot of information left out that to assume is negligible would be a mistake. For example: Did the suspect advance from behind cover or were they in plain view for a period before advancing? How far was the suspect from other bystanders? Were others in possible danger? In this case, what does "charged" mean? Running full-tilt, or advancing at a quick pace? Were the bystanders looking at the situation from the beginning, or talking among themselves until someone noted something was happening and they all redirected their attention? These are all just some of the details that may or may not be noticed by individual bystanders, and may or may not have affected their view of the situation. Eye-witness testimony is notoriously unreliable for other reasons as well (discussion can make people believe they saw things they didn't). That's not to say the police accounting is infallible, just to suggest that all testimony needs to be examined closely.
  - hga 13y ago
    The Tueller Drill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill) tells us to deal with a potential adversary with an edged weapon within 21 feet with utmost seriousness (do a search on the phrase and watch some videos, they're chilling). Given the rough eyewitness estimate of "15 yards" and whatever the officers estimated we can't dismiss the possibility the shooting was entirely justified.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

> Again, I agree that police forces in general > are over-militarized, but we need to represent > the facts accurately. We agree on the militarization, I am concerned about factual accuracy, in part because I've got a personal connection with eye witnesses to this event, and their statements do not agree with the official narrative. That is perhaps the most unsettling part here. This is further complicated that it is the second time in 18 months where this has been the case for me. Some additional back story. 1) The event was witnessed in its entirety by friends of ours who live there. They describe the sequence differently than the official sequence of events. 2) A previous officer involved shooting, on my street, was also reported as a 'charged with weapon, officer defended themselves and shot the suspect.' which was also reported very differently by the people who were standing on the curb behind the guy that got shot (and nearly caught in the cross fire). This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed. The similarity between both events is that there had been a 911 call, and police responded 'ready to fight.' I've got a number of concerns with respect to the training and rules of engagement our public safety officers are operating under. I'm a big fan of the classic 'old west' rule that first shot is offense, second shot is defense. Meaning that if you fire first you are the guy doing the shooting, if the person fires back at you they are defending. Clearly I get to follow this one, its in my 'backyard' to use the vernacular. It is certainly going to be a hot topic of discussion at the BBQ we host for the folks running for City Council. (strangely the police report through the city manager which is another topic of discussion for the BBQ)

dragonwriter 13y ago
> strangely the police report through the city manager which is another topic of discussion for the BBQ Why is that strange? In California, in the usual case (i.e., not in charter cities with a different arrangement), the city manager is the appointed operational head of the city of government, and the city council (including the Mayor, who is effectively just the presiding officer of the council) is a (part-time) legislative body.
kbenson 13y ago
> A previous officer involved shooting, on my street, was also reported as a 'charged with weapon, officer defended themselves and shot the suspect.' which was also reported very differently by the people who were standing on the curb behind the guy that got shot (and nearly caught in the cross fire). This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed. A knife is a deadly weapon. I think that's downplayed quite a bit when everyone is worried about guns. 15 yards may be a bit a a distance to start shooting, but there's a lot of information left out that to assume is negligible would be a mistake. For example: Did the suspect advance from behind cover or were they in plain view for a period before advancing? How far was the suspect from other bystanders? Were others in possible danger? In this case, what does "charged" mean? Running full-tilt, or advancing at a quick pace? Were the bystanders looking at the situation from the beginning, or talking among themselves until someone noted something was happening and they all redirected their attention? These are all just some of the details that may or may not be noticed by individual bystanders, and may or may not have affected their view of the situation. Eye-witness testimony is notoriously unreliable for other reasons as well (discussion can make people believe they saw things they didn't). That's not to say the police accounting is infallible, just to suggest that all testimony needs to be examined closely.
- hga 13y ago
  The Tueller Drill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill) tells us to deal with a potential adversary with an edged weapon within 21 feet with utmost seriousness (do a search on the phrase and watch some videos, they're chilling). Given the rough eyewitness estimate of "15 yards" and whatever the officers estimated we can't dismiss the possibility the shooting was entirely justified.