Posted 22 December 2014 - 03:06 PM
D. C. Sessions, on 22 December 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:
Although I must say 14 shots shouldn't have been necessary regardless.
I think these triggering events are actually critical to assessing these events. He woke a sleeping schizophrenic at 3:00 AM in a public park and started frisking him. The chances of escalation were immediately baked in, which is why department policy (obviously written by smarter people) is to approach this situation differently. If an officer is validly under attack, I don't care if the officer took 4 or 14 shots. But if the officer precipitated the events, they are at least partly if not mostly culpable.
This is the same issue I still have with the Eric Garner case, and I still haven't been able to find out what really happened before the video started. Those supporting the police say he was placed under arrest and that's that. If the police had a warrant or saw him actively engaged in a crime, they are correct. If they had no warrant and no evidence of a crime, then they have to take on not just part of the blame but the lion's share.
No citizen should be expected to submit meekly to authority when placed under arrest for no reason. What we need is a reasonable recourse to false arrest and abuse of power that actually works, like a real investigation afterward with real penalties against the offending officer. If their job was potentially in jeopardy, they would be more careful about pushing somebody around just because they were in a bad mood or get their rocks off by hassling people.
" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer