The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Syt]

More on the Cleveland shooting (link contains video):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/11/26/officials-release-video-names-in-fatal-police-shooting-of-12-year-old-cleveland-boy/

Video shows Cleveland officer shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice within seconds

A rookie Cleveland police officer responding to a 911 call jumped out of a cruiser and within seconds shot and killed a 12-year-old boy wielding what later turned out to be a BB gun, according to surveillance video released by authorities Wednesday.

Video of the fatal Saturday shooting of Tamir Rice, 12, by officer Timothy Loehmann, 26, was made public at the request of Tamir's family. "It is our belief that this situation could have been avoided and that Tamir should still be here with us. The video shows one thing distinctly: the police officers reacted quickly," reads a statement from the family, who also called on the community to remain calm.

The video's release comes after days of protests in Cleveland, centered on Tamir's death and also responding to the grand jury decision in the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson by a white officer.

Loehmann is white, according to public records. Officer Frank Garmback, 46, drove the patrol car. Both have been placed on administrative leave, under department policy.

"The release of this video is in no means an effort to try and explain the actions of the division of police or of the young man," Deputy Police Chief Edward Tomba said at a news conference Wednesday — hours after about 200 people protesting the fatal shooting blocked traffic on a busy Cleveland street. "We are honoring the wishes of the family in releasing this and also in the spirit of being open and fair with our community."

The grainy footage, which lacks audio, shows Tamir pacing up and down a sidewalk, swinging the gun in his hands, pointing it a few times and chatting on a cellphone.

A man shown sitting under a nearby gazebo made a 911 call, telling the dispatcher "there's a guy in here with a pistol, pointing it at everybody," according to audio of the call. The caller said the gun is "probably fake, but you know what, he's scaring the s— out of people," and later said, "I don't know if it's real or not." He described Tamir as "probably a juvenile." He eventually left the park.

But information about the gun possibly being fake wasn't mentioned to the officers in a call to them about a young black male with a gun in a park.

Tamir eventually sat alone under the gazebo. The video then shows the police car pulling right up to the structure. Loehmann shouted from the car three times at Tamir to show his hands as he approached the car, Tomba said. Loehmann exited the car, and within two seconds, shot Tamir from about 10 feet away.

Police had earlier said two shots were fired by a single officer, and that Tamir had reached into his waistband when Loehmann shouted the commands.

The gun turned out to be an Airsoft gun. Authorities had said it resembled a semiautomatic handgun and lacked the orange safety marker intended to signal that it's a fake.

"Shots fired, male down, um, black male, maybe 20," one of the officers radioed in. "Black hand gun."

Within four minutes of the shooting, two other law enforcement officials arrived, and one performed first aid on Tamir, Tomba said. An ambulance came minutes later. Tamir died from his wound on Sunday.

Loehmann has been a Cleveland police officer since March. Garmback, a certified field training officer, joined the force in February 2008. They have both given statements and police are still looking for witnesses, including one other person shown walking with Tamir, officials said.

Results from the police investigation will be sent to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, which could ask for additional work. The evidence will be presented to a grand jury for possible charges, as is the policy with all fatal police shootings.

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department opened an investigation into the Cleveland Police over allegations of excessive and unreasonable deadly force.

In a statement earlier this week, Tamir's family said: "While we request the release of the complete video, we also ask for the media to give our family privacy as we continue to grieve and learn about what happened."

"We feel he did not deserve to be taken away from us," the statement read.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams requested the public respect the highly-sensitive nature of the video. "This is 12 year old boy. We want people to view this video with that in mind," he said Wednesday.

Within hours of the video's release Wednesday, several Cleveland organizations called to demonstrate the shooting, according to the Plain Dealer. About 200 protesters had gathered in a city square the night before and spilled into the street in a mostly peaceful protest, the paper reported.

By early Wednesday night, a handful of protesters had come out, but the video's release didn't spark immediate mass demonstrations.

"Please protest peacefully and responsibly," Tamir's family statement read. "Your prayers, kind words and condolences have meant so much to us. We understand that some of you are hurt, angry and sad about our loss."

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said Wednesday that Tamir's death wasn't connected to what was happening in Ferguson.

"Whether there was Ferguson there or not, that doesn't matter to me. What mattered to me was it happened in Cleveland, and it happened to a child," Jackson said. "It's about the child, the loss of his life, the grieving of his family, and what we have to do as a community."

[Martinus]

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/07/25/st-louis-county-police-officer-charged/

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A 13-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police
Department is charged with felony assault after striking a MetroLink passenger on
the hand with his expandable baton following an argument.

The county Prosecuting Attorney's Office on Friday charged 44-year-old Dawon Gore
of Ferguson with second-degree assault. He was jailed on a $3,500, cash-only bond.

Gore is accused of using excessive force against an unnamed 24-year-old light-rail
passenger in late April at the Hanley Road station in Clayton. He's been assigned to
the department's MetroLink unit since May 2012.

A police press release says the investigation was forwarded to prosecutor Bob
McCullough in early May with a recommendation to press charges.

I thought America's laws stated quite clearly that if a black hits a white, the black's arm should be cut off, no? 

[Razgovory]

That doesn't tell us enough to be useful.

[Razgovory]

More on the Cleveland shooting (link contains video):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/11/26/officials-release-video-names-in-fatal-police-shooting-of-12-year-old-cleveland-boy/

Yeah, I won't defend police action on that one.  That's fucked up.

[Syt]

I will view the video at home and reserve to reverse my judgment till then.

[Tonitrus]

I dunno, you see the police cruiser roll up (on the grass too, probably would have been wiser to come in a from a little more distance)...and I am presuming the cop who fired came from the passenger side...and the kid is reaching into his pants right as they come up, probably just as he is opening the door.  That leaves him almost no time to avoid getting shot at point blank range if that gun were real.

Very hard to say it's cut and dry wrong.

[Tonitrus]

If one were to follow the Russian media, you'd think the entire US is engulfed in racial violence and being burned down in riots.

And from the spokesman from the Russian Foreign Ministry:

"Such a large-scale explosion of popular indignation and disproportionate reaction of law enforcement agencies reaffirm that this is not an isolated incident, but the systemic flaws of American democracy, and not able to overcome the deep racial divide, discrimination and inequality. That black citizens remain socially unprotected part of the American population, are regularly subjected to violence and harassment by law enforcement agencies. "

[Admiral Yi]

This most recent one does not look good for the cops.  Probably the first time I've said that about a cop incident.

[Malthus]

It is odd that the shooting of the 12 year old isn't getting public traction like the other case. It is a far more obvious case, judging by the video, of the cops screwing up. They basically drive up, hop out, and shoot the kid.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I think these incidents are an expected result of training. My understanding is that under the mantra of officer safety police are taught to react mechanically and instantaneously to situations like this, and specifically they're trained to look at the hands of a person they encounter above anything else. One guy on CNN said it's likely the cop who shot didn't even see it was a kid, because he was so keyed on the hands, his mind went "hands...gun, gun being raised...must shoot" in about 1.5 seconds time. Probably legit didn't know it was a kid until after they went over to him afterward.

It's in a way similar to how raw recruits in the military are drilled, you want them to react a certain way in combat and so to do that you ingrain in them over and over again that this is the way to act. The military however rarely deals with gray areas, and when it does it does so poorly (which is why an occupation army is a really bad police force.)

When the current NYPD Commissioner was a uniformed cop back in the 1970s he first got notoriety when he stopped an armed robbery. The robber had a gun out and was holding a woman hostage. Bratton was right there essentially a few feet away, and talked the guy down. This day and age it feels like you don't have police who do that anymore because they're trained to respond to any threat to their lives with lethal force. In Bratton's day they were expected to exercise more judgment, and to *gasp* even perhaps risk their lives if necessary for the good of the populace they're supposed to protect. I can't see a 1970s cop (as a rule) shooting a little kid even with a real gun, he'd be trying to get the gun out of the kid's hand. In 2014 I think it'd be the rare cop that would have acted differently in this situation, given how cops are trained.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It is odd that the shooting of the 12 year old isn't getting public traction like the other case. It is a far more obvious case, judging by the video, of the cops screwing up. They basically drive up, hop out, and shoot the kid.

It isn't though. Remember the original narrative that was spread about Darren Wilson / Michael Brown was that Brown fled, surrendered, and was literally on his knees with his hands up and Wilson shot him in the back repeatedly and killed him, execution style. This was enough of a narrative that it was even addressed in the grand jury. There's not a single witness of course, even the ones who presented testimony the most injurious to Wilson, that tells a story anywhere close to that. But that of course doesn't matter to the people who are wanting to get people riled up over issues like this.

Once that story hit the airwaves, it guaranteed some protest. Then the Ferguson PD reacted to what were initially mild protests like Nazi Stormtroppers, which then caused this whole thing to blow up. So the Ferguson story's reality may be more benign than this, but it started out as a much more incendiary story. Then, the Ferguson police poured gasoline on what was a relatively controlled low fire to turn it into a conflagration.

There have already been protests in Cleveland over this, the police essentially have ignored them/left them alone.

[Malthus]

Fair points. That makes sense.

[DGuller]

If one were to follow the Russian media, you'd think the entire US is engulfed in racial violence and being burned down in riots.

And from the spokesman from the Russian Foreign Ministry:

"Such a large-scale explosion of popular indignation and disproportionate reaction of law enforcement agencies reaffirm that this is not an isolated incident, but the systemic flaws of American democracy, and not able to overcome the deep racial divide, discrimination and inequality. That black citizens remain socially unprotected part of the American population, are regularly subjected to violence and harassment by law enforcement agencies. "

That said, the Russian forums are far less gleeful than you might expect.  Russians are more virulent racists than they are anti-Americans, most of the comments are about how the blacks should be re-enslaved/deported to Africa/exterminated.

[CountDeMoney]

I dunno, you see the police cruiser roll up (on the grass too, probably would have been wiser to come in a from a little more distance)...and I am presuming the cop who fired came from the passenger side...and the kid is reaching into his pants right as they come up, probably just as he is opening the door.  That leaves him almost no time to avoid getting shot at point blank range if that gun were real.

Very hard to say it's cut and dry wrong.

From the video, it looked to me like a justifiable shooting.  An unfortunate one, but justifiable. 

[Syt]

If one were to follow the Russian media, you'd think the entire US is engulfed in racial violence and being burned down in riots.

And from the spokesman from the Russian Foreign Ministry:

"Such a large-scale explosion of popular indignation and disproportionate reaction of law enforcement agencies reaffirm that this is not an isolated incident, but the systemic flaws of American democracy, and not able to overcome the deep racial divide, discrimination and inequality. That black citizens remain socially unprotected part of the American population, are regularly subjected to violence and harassment by law enforcement agencies. "

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/soviet-propaganda-back-in-play-with-ferguson-coverage/511975.html

Soviet Propaganda Back in Play With Ferguson Coverage

Those relying on Russia's state-run media right now are probably under the impression that all of America is up in flames and on the brink of imploding because the U.S. government is tyrannical and has been oppressing the underdogs for too long — and Ferguson is proof. 

In the Russian press, what started out as protests following Monday's decision not to indict the white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in a small town in Missouri back in August has morphed into an existential crisis worthy of front-page stories and hour-long segments on state-run television.

Why should these protests warrant so much attention not only from Russia's state-run media, but also from the Foreign Ministry? Why has the late 18-year-old Michael Brown become such a cause celebre to Russians ranging from minor political figures to regular police officers, all of whom have portrayed the incident and current rioting as proof of oppression and human rights violations by U.S. authorities?

The attention given to this case is especially puzzling when one thinks back to February 2012, when the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin triggered similar protests in the U.S. Why was Martin's face not splashed across the covers of Russian newspapers next to proclamations of the U.S. racial divide? Where was Russia's bleeding heart then?

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the most likely one: Martin, a black, unarmed high school student, was shot long before the Ukraine crisis, long before Russian media needed a distraction for its domestic audience.

And the U.S. protests are the perfect distraction: The image of the U.S. descending into chaos as the oppressed rise up against the oppressors comes straight out of the Soviet propaganda playbook.

So does the racial aspect of the Ferguson shooting. American racism provided a go-to argument of American hypocrisy for years under the Soviet Union, with phrases like "Well, you lynch negroes" hurled back at the U.S. in response to any allegations of human rights violations in the Soviet Union.

Racial discrimination in the West dominated Soviet propaganda and featured heavily in all forms of media, even comics and science fiction novels. Portraying the West as a racist hellhole masquerading as a just superpower not only took the U.S. down a notch, it also puffed the Soviet Union up in the eyes of its domestic audience, making it look more like the utopia it pretended to be.

The same tactic is being used by Russia's state-run media now. The events in Ferguson and related protests have managed to edge out the Ukraine crisis, with montages of rioting in the U.S. relegating the Ukraine crisis to the sidelines.

On Thursday, Ferguson was the top news story on the English-language website of Sputnik, the freshly unveiled state-run news agency with tentacles extending to numerous continents in dozens of languages.

Images of Michael Brown and burning police cars were accompanied by headlines like "Seething America: Waves of Discontent Flood Almost 40 States" (Vesti) and "Americans Stocking Up on Weapons After Ferguson" (NTV).

But the hysteria over Ferguson wasn't limited to the media. In fact, the media was simply echoing the message sent by representatives of the Foreign Ministry.

On Tuesday, Alexander Lukashevich, the official spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, denounced the U.S. authorities' "heavy-handed response" to events in a three-minute video posted to YouTube.

"People who were just trying to express their stance as civilians were met with a harsh rebuff by the police ... such a large-scale outburst of the public's resentment and the disproportionate reaction by law enforcement authorities once again shows that we are talking not about an isolated incident, but systemic flaws in American democracy, which hasn't been able to overcome a deep racial divide, discrimination, and inequality," Lukashevich said, adding that African-Americans regularly face attacks and harassment in the U.S.

In closing, Lukashevich "reminds" the U.S. of its "need to meet the obligations it has taken on to uphold democratic principles," adding that "Moscow is following the tense situation in Ferguson with concern."

Even ordinary Russian police officers have been used to shame the U.S. authorities for the events in Missouri, with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper offering commentary from Mikhail Pashkin, head of the Moscow Police Union.

"It would have been sufficient to simply wound him [Brown] in the leg," Pashkin said of the shooting, according to the report. "But they have a different way of treating blacks in America."

That such a wide array of people should jump on the Ferguson bandwagon with such strong statements is an indication that the distraction is working — and it is greatly needed in light of Russia's own economic problems and increasing isolation on the world stage.

There is no doubt that the U.S. has plenty of flaws to fix, and the protests over Ferguson have most certainly thrust this into the spotlight.

But comparing the Ferguson protests to "Obama's Maidan" — an analogy that has dominated much of the Russian media this week — says more about those making the comparison than anything else.

And it reeks of desperation. The reliable Soviet trick of shouting "Look, a racist!" any time a problem at home threatens to rear its ugly head may be effective for now, but the fact that Moscow has resorted to this only reveals its own insecurities.

Coming from a place where spontaneous protests are not just broken up but banned by law, this preaching about how to handle public discontentment just seems like grasping at straws.