The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Valmy]

WTF are you talking about.

You launched a broad attack on a whole group of people. I don't even necessarily am saying this is wrong, but the very least you should provide in making such a broad attack is having some information like a disproportionate amount of calls to the police are made by people from fancy neighborhoods. Or at least if you are going to provide an anecdote have the decency to at least have one that is what you are claiming. I think even rich assholes deserve at least that much.

[Eddie Teach]

I think you are misunderstanding him- the problem is white people, not rich people...

[Jacob]

WTF are you talking about.

You launched a broad attack on a whole group of people. I don't even necessarily am saying this is wrong, but the very least you should provide in making such a broad attack is having some information like a disproportionate amount of calls to the police are made by people from fancy neighborhoods. Or at least if you are going to provide an anecdote have the decency to at least have one that is what you are claiming. I think even rich assholes deserve at least that much.

From my reading, that whole thing was you completely missing Oex's point, focusing on a random detail and deciding that was the main point and arguing vehemently against something that mostly existed in your head.

... but I'm sure someone will be along to say you're completely right at any minute.

[jimmy olsen]

What a stat

Five years ago, when the Guardian counted police killings, it reported that, "in the first 24 days of 2015, police in the US fatally shot more people than police did in England and Wales, combined, over the past 24 years."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police?utm_campaign=falcon&utm_medium=social&utm_brand=tny&mbid=social_twitter&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zv2AvLi7KY

Here's the body cam footage.

[Zoupa]

I don't see a gun in his hand. Even if he had one, his hands were up.

[Malicious Intent]

Saw some footage from a static security cam from another angle. Looked like he quickly dropped something behind the wall, then turned around and raised his hands. Judging from body cam footage after the shot, it may have been a gun.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56768217

Edit:  It's also in Yi's link.

[grumbler]

Yeah, he was carrying a gun and dropped it just moments before the cop fired.  The shooting was clearly unnecessary, but, as I said before, it's not at all clear that the police officer wasn't justified in shooting based on what he could see at the time (lacking slo-mo capability).

A tragedy, but not necessarily a crime.

[garbon]

What was the point of asking him to put his hands up if the plan was to shoot anyway?

[DGuller]

There may not have been a lot of planning done during the chase of an armed suspect.

[mongers]

Anyone seen the video of  shooting dead of the man in the hospital, the guy was found to be conceal carrying a gun?

Was it really necessary to fire that many shots, possible more than the police have fired in UK over the last year.

[grumbler]

Police emptying their magazines is a symptom of the problem.  In the Briana Taylor case, police fired 32 rounds, and only 6 were fired by the officer in the apartment (who had himself been shot).  The other 26 shots were fired blindly by officers outside the apartment (and, indeed, may have shot the officer who was hit).  That's way to much firepower to be deployed outside 'Nam.

[Sheilbh]

What was the point of asking him to put his hands up if the plan was to shoot anyway?

Yeah - I always thought the point of shouting hands up or whatever was so people could drop weapons and show they're not going to use them so don't shoot.

[The Minsky Moment]

Lasty, in relation to your comment about justice being intensely local - that again I think betrays a lack of understanding of the development of the English common law.  The point of referring back to the courts set up by William, is that for the first time in England, there was a centralized judiciary which operated on an assize system - ie the judges were not based in the community but travelled (in place of the crown).  It was through this innovation that the common law developed.  This group of judges began to develop common legal principles which they governed how they would decide the cases brought before them.  Consistency was developed.  It was no longer based on a peer system of justice where the community decided.  It was now the King's justice.  It was not long ago that we still called our highest trial courts "the Court of Kings/Queens Bench".  I think they still might do so in England?  We still refer to Queens/Kings Counsel as a high honour one can be granted.  You even get to wear special robes in court with that designation.

This is conflating a lot of historical developments into a much cleaner - and anachronistic narrative.  What we understand as common law today has little to do with the kind of justice being practiced in the era of William the Conqueror.  William was no ambitious legal reformer and the Anglo-Saxon legal system was basically left in place and then supplemented by new institutions as needed. The "common law" then was just customary law. Very little was written down and no one was thinking about putting in place what we would consider a common law system of adjudication.  At some point Henry I had Anglo-Saxon "law codes" (really just compilations of customary law) translated into Latin, although it can be questioned to what extent this was actually used in dispensing justice.

Medieval kings moved around all the time and didn't stay in a fixed capital.  So the origin of royal circuit courts in England is just the King and his retainers moving about the countryside and taking care of business wherever they were.  Kings might also hold a major council assembly that was modeled after the Anglo-Saxon witan. If an issue arose that warranted royal attention arose somewhere else from where the King happened to be, then a trusted retainer could be sent to deal with it. The main purpose of a royal agent visting a location was to keep an eye out for local trouble and assert the king's interest; if that involved intervening in some local disputes that were of potential interest to the Crown, so be it.  Some counties had permanent sheriffs appointed by the King to perform these functions; that of course is another Anglo-Saxon institution that the Norman kings adopted for their use. This is all a far cry from the late medieval common law courts and institutions.

The system of "general eyres" isn't set up until Henry II reign and even then it's really just formalizing a system where royal officials travel to other regions of the country to keep an eye on royal interests and judge certain disputes (including capital crimes), usually applying some kind of customary law.  It's also probably around this time that some kind of permanent judicial body starts sitting in Westminster.

It is only gradually and over time that justices receive more formal training, that written records are kept, and that institutions develop such that by the late middle ages the common law institutions and practices of the 18th century are reasonably identifiable.  It is Whiggish historians that then project this development back in time to create a narrative of teleological, directed progress as opposed to a series of improvisations that happened to coalesce into something not originally designed.

[Malthus]

I think the answer to the question of whether cops are "civilians" is that both sides of the debate are right.

In colloquial use, police are not "civilians" (they often wear a uniform and carry an identity that allows them certain powers and duties that non-cops lack).

However, under the Geneva Conventions, cops are "civilians". Only members of the armed forces are not. The point is that under these conventions, "civilians" have a different legal status - for the purposes of war and peace: enemy powers have certain obligations towards them, if they join in attacks on soldiers this has a particular legal impact, etc.

In other words, it depends on the context. The term implies a legal distinction, generally that the person known as a "civilian" is not authorized to use force in the same way as a non-civilian, and is consequently owed duties of good treatment and protection by non-civilians ... but the context is different. A policeman who is not a member of the armed forces is a "civilian" for purposes of war and peace, and a "non-civilian" in colloquial use in his or her own society, when going about their duties.