The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/police-cases-stir-national-protests-debate-072514910.html

Police: Chokehold victim complicit in own death

Eric Garner was overweight and in poor health. He was a nuisance to shop owners who complained about him selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. When police came to arrest him, he resisted. And if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," it means he could breathe.

Rank-and-file New York City police officers and their supporters have been making such arguments even before a grand jury decided against charges in Garner's death, saying the possibility that he contributed to his own demise has been drowned out in the furor over race and law enforcement.

[Razgovory]

Independence Ohio isn't exactly Hill Street Blues.

Man, if was a cop, (and it was something I seriously looked into), I sure as hell wouldn't want to be looking for action.  I would much rather be a glorified CSO and crossing guard.

[CountDeMoney]

http://news.yahoo.com/police-cases-stir-national-protests-debate-072514910.html

Police: Chokehold victim complicit in own death

Eric Garner was overweight and in poor health. He was a nuisance to shop owners who complained about him selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. When police came to arrest him, he resisted. And if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," it means he could breathe.

Rank-and-file New York City police officers and their supporters have been making such arguments even before a grand jury decided against charges in Garner's death, saying the possibility that he contributed to his own demise has been drowned out in the furor over race and law enforcement.

Of course.  Black people used to hang themselves.  Now they just choke themselves.  Amazing.

[Ed Anger]

Independence Ohio isn't exactly Hill Street Blues.

Man, if was a cop, (and it was something I seriously looked into), I sure as hell wouldn't want to be looking for action.  I would much rather be a glorified CSO and crossing guard.

Damn right. 60K-80K sitting in a car doing nothing? Sounds like my kind of job.

I wouldn't want the School Resource officer bullshit however.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Independence Ohio isn't exactly Hill Street Blues.

Man, if was a cop, (and it was something I seriously looked into), I sure as hell wouldn't want to be looking for action.  I would much rather be a glorified CSO and crossing guard.

Damn right. 60K-80K sitting in a car doing nothing? Sounds like my kind of job.

I wouldn't want the School Resource officer bullshit however.

You mean hinding behind a bush waiting for a speeder. 

[Razgovory]

Independence Ohio isn't exactly Hill Street Blues.

Man, if was a cop, (and it was something I seriously looked into), I sure as hell wouldn't want to be looking for action.  I would much rather be a glorified CSO and crossing guard.

Damn right. 60K-80K sitting in a car doing nothing? Sounds like my kind of job.

I wouldn't want the School Resource officer bullshit however.

The guy who was a School Resource officer when I was a school was elected Sheriff.  He still holds that position.  So it seems like a good way to advance your career.  The domestic disturbance calls is what turned me off.  You see some ugly shit, and it's like someone tearing your heart out.  I don't know how they deal with it.  Maybe it requires being an unfeeling prick, maybe it turns good people into cynical bastards like seedy, I don't know. Seeing a father being pulled away from the kids and wife he just beat and have them crying, threatening and begging for him to be released is extremely unpleasant.

[Ed Anger]

Independence Ohio isn't exactly Hill Street Blues.

Man, if was a cop, (and it was something I seriously looked into), I sure as hell wouldn't want to be looking for action.  I would much rather be a glorified CSO and crossing guard.

Damn right. 60K-80K sitting in a car doing nothing? Sounds like my kind of job.

I wouldn't want the School Resource officer bullshit however.

You mean hinding behind a bush waiting for a speeder.

I mean sitting in the Target parking lot reading the Internet and looking at the jailbait.

[Sheilbh]

And I don't buy the argument that the "bad guys" are more armed, or better armed, now than they were 20 or 40 years ago as an excuse for ignoring the continuum of force and maintaining firearms discipline.  Shit's always been dangerous, and study after study on line of duty deaths have shown that cops that die (when not involved in motor vehicle accidents) in most cases do so because they fucked up with judgement in a tactical situation.   But that's not an excuse to toss training and procedure out the window and go straight to the Glock in every case, because then you have nowhere else to go but one direction.

Yeah. I could be wrong but I'd have to guess that things were more dangerous back during the crack epidemic and, of course, crime in general's down massively from where it was 40 years ago.

Who are police forces accountable to in the US? Local Mayor, Governor?

[CountDeMoney]

Whichever government they work for, whether it's the city, county, or state.  But yeah, sometimes it's a mayor, sometimes it's a city council, sometimes it's the city manager, etc.

There's been a progressive theme in recent years that shitty little police departments for shitty little municipalities (like Ferguson and Independence) should get rolled up together into larger agencies.  But that will never, ever happen.

[MadImmortalMan]

It has happened a bit. There was that story about the St. Louis County city that disbanded itself.

[CountDeMoney]

Meh, that's the exception to the rule, though.  Everybody is going to want to keep their little fiefdoms, and their funding.

[Syt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/nyregion/new-york-police-officer-fatally-shoots-brooklyn-man.html

Officer's Errant Shot Kills Unarmed Brooklyn Man

[...]

Honest accident that could happen to everyone, or a rookie who fucked up?

Today in "Cops who make the force look bad":

http://www.ibtimes.com/nypd-officer-texted-union-rep-instead-calling-paramedics-moments-after-shooting-akai-1738228

NYPD Officer Texted Union Rep Instead Of Calling For Paramedics Moments After Shooting Akai Gurley: New York Daily News

Moments after a rookie New York Police Department officer accidentally shot 28-year-old Akai Gurley in a Brooklyn stairwell last month, he texted his union representative instead of calling paramedics, unidentified sources exclusively told the New York Daily News.

Officer Peter Liang and partner Shaun Landau did not communicate with their commanding officer for more than six and a half minutes after the shooting, the Daily News reported. The commanding officer and a 911 operator -- who was made aware of the shooting by a neighbor in the building -- attempted to contact the pair, but they did not respond.

"That's showing negligence," a law-enforcement source told the News. "The guy is dying, and you still haven't called it in?"

When the officers returned to their radios, they reported an accidental discharge, a source said. According to police, the officers did not immediately know the bullet struck Gurley.

Liang, who has been on the force for less than 18 months, was on a violence-reduction overtime detail that had him and his partner Landau conducting floor-by-floor sweeps of buildings.

On Nov. 20 at about 11 p.m. EST, the officers were at the Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York in Brooklyn, WNBC-TV reported. Several major crimes had been reported at the housing project this year. The officers had finished checking the eighth floor, the top floor of the building, when they noticed the stairwell leading to the roof was dimly lit. For safety reasons, they took out their flashlights. Liang also drew his weapon, while Landau kept his holstered.

When Gurley, who was unarmed, appeared on the seventh-floor landing, he startled the officers -- and Liang accidentally discharged his weapon. The bullet hit a wall and ricocheted into Gurley's chest. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has called the shooting "an unfortunate tragedy" and Gurley a "total innocent."

Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney Ken Thompson has launched an investigation into the shooting, saying he would convene a grand jury "to get to the bottom of what happened," WNBC-TV reported. "Many questions must be answered, including whether, as reported, the lights in the hallway were out for a number of days, and how this tragedy actually occurred," Thompson said in a statement shortly after the event.

[DGuller]

What an idiot.  You have a situation where only your partner is a witness, and all you have to do when shooting an innocent guy who was no doubt reaching for his gun is not shoot the wall first, and he failed at that.

[The Brain]

Public sector unions.

[OttoVonBismarck]

What an idiot.  You have a situation where only your partner is a witness, and all you have to do when shooting an innocent guy who was no doubt reaching for his gun is not shoot the wall first, and he failed at that.

That case is interesting because the cop actually fired down a blackened hallway so he really had no idea what he was shooting at. His story is he had his gun drawn and accidentally pulled the trigger. I think whatever actually happened that cop is a fuck up, 10 year olds know you don't fire at something if you don't know what it is. And if he really did accidentally discharge that should be an insta-firing / negligent homicide charges.