The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Berkut]

If the major issue with any potential course of action that doesn't involve just shooting is the fear that you may no be able to walk without falling down, again, you might consider another line of work.

The don't have eyes in the back of their heads. They have to stay focused on the guy with the knife, and stay in a position to quickly fire.

..which they can do while maneuvering to maintain separation from someone walking towards them...

You know, unless they forgot to tie their shoes, and trip.

[Syt]

I'm glad when police cordoned off the scene and people backed up nobody was hurt due to a serious backwards walking accident.

[CountDeMoney]

I never managed to fall backwards while maintaining a safe distance from anybody.  But maybe I was just lucky, being left-handed and all.

[alfred russel]

I'm glad when police cordoned off the scene and people backed up nobody was hurt due to a serious backwards walking accident.

You ask someone to balance across a 2 foot wide walkway a foot above the ground and she has no problem at all. You raise that walkway 100 feet in the air and ask her to do it, and she won't try and think you are a madman for asking.

[sbr]

Those would be good explanations for why a police officer made a mistake - perhaps in this case a mistake was made.

But the argument here is not that a mistake was made, but that in fact they did exactly what they should have done.

And I think you're trying to put too fine a point on it.

Someone working for a government agency shot and killed a citizen.  I am not sure that it's possible for that point to be too fine.

[derspiess]

Someone working for a government agency shot and killed a citizen.  I am not sure that it's possible for that point to be too fine.

When it's a crazy person coming at them with a knife, I think it is.

[Razgovory]

I'm not going to respond in in-depth to Berkut (in no small part because of the screwy quotes), but he and I have a different idea what the cops are supposed to be doing.  It would seem for him the optimal situation is if the cops didn't arrive at all, since that would do the most to protect people from being shot by cops.

[11B4V]

I never managed to fall backwards while maintaining a safe distance from anybody.  But maybe I was just lucky, being left-handed and all.

That's cause you all (lefties) are backwards anyway.



































and you write funny too.

[CountDeMoney]

Policeman resigns after pointing rifle at Ferguson protesters
Officer was suspended after cellphone video caught him threatening civilians protesting shooting death of Michael Brown

August 29, 2014 5:45PM ET

A police officer resigned after he was suspended for pointing his semi-automatic rifle and threatening protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, amid demonstrations that broke out after the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, police said.

Lt. Ray Albers resigned Thursday, St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez said. Albers had been shown on cellphone video pointing his rifle at demonstrators and threatening them on Aug. 19 in Ferguson.

In the video, a man is heard saying, "Oh my God! Gun raised!" as the officer approaches. The officer walks near the man, gun pointed, and appears to threaten to kill him. A St. Louis County police sergeant forced the officer to lower the weapon and escorted him away.

A message left on Albers' home phone was not immediately returned.

The fatal shooting of Brown – an unarmed African-American teenager – by a white police officer ignited days of protests. Local police in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who refused to disperse and, at times, vandalized nearby stores.

After widespread criticism of the local police response, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon placed the State Highway Patrol in charge of securing Ferguson with a more relaxed approach. Nixon later called in the National Guard and imposed a curfew that was lifted after several nights of clashes between police and protesters.

The Associated Press

[grumbler]

It is comical that the primary reason the cops had to shoot that man 9 times, including twice after he was already on the ground, was their fear that they would not be able to move from the spot they were in without falling down.

If you are standing and up against a man with seven bullets in him lying bleeding on the ground, you are at an immediate disadvantage.  Justifiable self-defense.

[HVC]

It is comical that the primary reason the cops had to shoot that man 9 times, including twice after he was already on the ground, was their fear that they would not be able to move from the spot they were in without falling down.

If you are standing and up against a man with seven bullets in him lying bleeding on the ground, you are at an immediate disadvantage.  Justifiable self-defense.

if he was mad before you sot him 7 times, imagine how mad he was after. better take no chances.

[CountDeMoney]

You know you have issues when you have to disband the entire PD and start over from scratch, like a Jiffy Lube under new management.

FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it. Everyone in the Jennings police department was fired. New officers were brought in to create a credible department from scratch.

That was three years ago. One of the officers who worked in that department, and lost his job along with everyone else, was a young man named Darren Wilson.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/darren-wilsons-first-job-was-on-a-troubled-police-force-disbanded-by-authorities/2014/08/23/1ac796f0-2a45-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html

[CountDeMoney]

At least 5 Ferguson officers apart from Brown shooter have been named in lawsuits
WashingtonPost


Federal investigators are focused on one Ferguson, Mo., police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager, but at least five other police officers and one former officer in the town's 53-member department have been named in civil rights lawsuits alleging the use of excessive force.

In four federal lawsuits, including one that is on appeal, and more than a half-dozen investigations over the past decade, colleagues of Darren Wilson's have separately contested a variety of allegations, including killing a mentally ill man with a Taser, pistol-whipping a child, choking and hog-tying a child and beating a man who was later charged with destroying city property because his blood spilled on officers' clothes.

One officer has faced three internal affairs probes and two lawsuits over claims he violated civil rights and used excessive force while working at a previous police department in the mid-2000s. That department demoted him after finding credible evidence to support one of the complaints, and he subsequently was hired by the Ferguson force.

Police officials from outside Ferguson and plaintiffs' lawyers say the nature of such cases suggests there is a systemic problem within the Ferguson police force. Department of Justice officials said they are considering a broader probe into whether there is a pattern of using excessive force that routinely violates people's civil rights.

Counting Wilson, whose shooting of Michael Brown on Aug. 9 set off a firestorm of protests and a national debate on race and policing, about 13 percent of Ferguson's officers have faced ­excessive-force investigations. Comparable national data on excessive force probes is not available. But the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, funded by the libertarian Cato Institute, estimated on the basis of 2010 data that about 1 percent of U.S. police officers — 9.8 out of every 1,000 — will be cited for or charged with misconduct. Half of those cases involve excessive force.

The Ferguson Police Department and city officials declined to comment on the cases.

In all but one of the cases, the victims were black. Among the officers involved in the cases, one is African American.

Ferguson has plenty of company when it comes to federal scrutiny of police departments.

Under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the Justice Department has initiated twice as many reviews of police departments for possible constitutional violations as the next most prolific of his predecessors. At least 34 other departments are under investigation for alleged civil rights violations.

But Clarence Harmon, a former St. Louis mayor and city police chief, said the number and types of allegations in Ferguson set the city's department apart.

"The cases themselves are fairly extraordinary — so is the volume," said Harmon, who in 1997 became the second black mayor of the city. "It's prima facie evidence of discriminatory practices. I would be surprised if Justice didn't make a recommendation that they be placed under scrutiny."

James O. Pasco Jr., national executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, cautions that police officers are constantly accused of using excessive force and that those accusations are just "one side of the story" and do not tell exactly what happened. In 90 percent of cases in which a department has a systemic problem, the issue is with poor management, not the individual officers, he said.

"To suggest that police officers are a marauding, white occupying army out there to deprive minorities of their civil rights is at variance with common sense," Pasco said. "You can't have rogue officers in a well-managed police department."

The five officers and one former officer have faced complaints of excessive force in five civil rights lawsuits; one of the suits was resolved with the officer not being held liable and the department paying a settlement, and four are pending, one on appeal. Two of the officers faced these complaints during their time at other police departments.

One officer allegedly used excessive force in two incidents, both while at the Ferguson Police Department.

Samuel Bagenstos, a former Justice Department attorney who helped oversee the civil rights division for the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011, said a federal probe into potentially systemic problems within a police force would consider hiring practices as one of several factors.

"They would look at whether they are properly screening people that they are considering to hire," said Bagenstos, now a professor of law at the University of Michigan.

The most recent civil rights lawsuit naming Ferguson police officers was filed days after Brown was shot and involves a September 2011 incident.

According to the lawsuit, officers encountered a dazed-looking man walking from behind a building in a residential area. Officer Brian Kaminski ordered 31-year-old Jason Moore to put his hands up and walk toward him, according to the suit, which then alleges that Kaminski fired his Taser prongs into Moore's chest and legs.

A second officer, Michael White, arrived and physically held Moore while Kaminski repeatedly Tasered him with electric currents, the lawsuit said.

Both officers are white. Moore was black.

Moore, who had a mental disorder, suffered a heart attack on the scene and died. His wife, Tina Moore, filed the lawsuit, saying her husband's death was another example of Ferguson police using excessive force.

"There was no need for the officers' excessive use of force in continuing to Taser Jason Moore in order to preserve the peace, maintain order or to overcome any resistance to authority by Jason Moore," says the suit, which names Ferguson Mayor James Knowles and Chief Thomas Jackson.

"Rather than applying the appropriate level of force required to restrain Jason Moore, Officer Kaminski, with the assistance of Officer White, instead Tasered Jason Moore until he became unresponsive and died," the suit continues.

Tina Moore's attorney, Mark Floyd, declined to comment on the case. Peter Dunne, an attorney recently assigned to represent the officers, also declined to comment, saying he has yet to review the case since it was just filed.

Dunne is also representing White in a case that involves one other current Ferguson officer and a former officer who has since been elected to the Ferguson City Council. A 54-year-old welder, Henry Davis, was injured in an altercation with the three officers. Officers say it happened because Davis became combative, which Davis denies. The officers charged Davis with destruction of property when his blood stained their uniforms. Davis is black. The officers are white.

The other two officers — John Beaird and Kim Tihen, who is now on the City Council — testified that Davis initiated the fight. Davis testified that he asked for a mat to sleep on in the jail cell, a request he said was denied. When he protested, he said, the officers started to hit him, then handcuffed him. White, Davis said, kicked him in the head. Medical records show he suffered a concussion.

The judge said that Davis, who was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence and other violations, suffered injuries but that they were "de minimis" — too minor to warrant a finding of excessive force, records show. The case is being appealed.

Davis's attorney, James W. Schottel Jr., said he believes his client will ultimately prevail because he is introducing new evidence to show that his client's concussion is a serious injury.

Dunne disagreed about the merits of Davis's case: "What I would say is, he got turned down at every point. . . . Not a single thing he sued for [was] allowed to go forward to the jury."

Dunne also represents the Ferguson officer who faced at least five complaints of excessive force when he worked at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Eddie Boyd III arrived in Ferguson four years ago after three internal affairs investigations into complaints — in 2004, 2005 and 2006 — that he assaulted and injured children without cause.

Boyd and the children are African American. In at least two cases, the children said Boyd pistol-whipped them. In the 2006 case, the department "sustained" the allegations, concluding that Boyd had used unnecessary force when he struck 12-year-old Jerica Thornton with his pistol, records show.

Boyd was suspended and demoted to the rank of a probationary police officer. But the next year, Christopher Dixon, a high school freshman, said Boyd tackled him as he fled an after-school fight and hit him in the face with the butt of his pistol. Boyd said he accidentally hit Dixon's face with his handcuffs when Dixon resisted arrest, records show.

Boyd resigned from the St. Louis force shortly after this incident, saying in a deposition he wanted to avoid the "red tape" of what would have been his fourth internal affairs probe. Boyd was not held liable in the Dixon suit. His police department settled out of court, paying the teenager $35,000, according to Dixon's attorney, Matthew Devoti.

Another lawsuit filed against Boyd alleging he assaulted a suspect is pending.

"I think it's incorrect and misleading to say that he is a guy with a record when he denied that he acted improperly in all of these cases," Dunne said. "In two of these [internal affairs] cases, they were found to not have any merit at all."

Another Ferguson officer faced a complaint on a previous job.

Justin Cosma was one of two Jefferson County sheriff's deputies who in June 2010 came upon a shirtless 12-year-old boy who was checking the family mailbox. The deputies asked him what he was doing, knocked him down, and hogtied him, and the boy was choked and beaten, the lawsuit claims. The officers and the boy are white.

When asked about the accusations, Cosma's attorney, Jason Retter, said he does not comment on pending cases.

Cosma was one of the officers who arrested reporters, including a Washington Post journalist, covering the protests in Ferguson over the killing of Michael Brown.

In the Jefferson County incident, Cosma filed a report that the 12-year-old assaulted him and his partner and was "resisting/
interfering with arrest, detention or stop." The local prosecutor refused to bring charges against the juvenile.

"They were talking to him and the next thing that happens is they are restraining him," said the attorney for the boy's family, Richard Lozano. "Because he was shirtless, he was grabbed around the neck. He had choke marks. They tied his hands and feet behind his back, and hogtied him — all on his property, all while his mother was inside the house."

[Razgovory]

That's a lot.

[jimmy olsen]

Yet all those folks who brought assault rifles to Target weren't bothered. I wonder why? 

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/8/26/172728/694

Video of Black Man's Death Raises Questions

by Steven D
Tue Aug 26th, 2014 at 05:50:56 PM EST
John Crawford was the unfortunate black man holding a BB gun in the toy section of a Walmart Store in Beavercreek, OH, when police, in response to several 911 calls, shot and killed him on August 5, 2014.

Police have maintained that Crawford was waving the BB gun around in a threatening manner when they arrived and refused their commands to drop the "weapon" (even though Ohio is an "open carry" state), thus requiring his execution style death by cop.

However, Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine, who assigned the case investigating the police homicide of Mr. Crawford to a special prosecutor, recently allowed family members and their attorneys to view the surveillance tape from the store that shows the moments up to and including John Crawford's shooting death by police. After viewing that tape, the family's attorneys and Crawford's father dispute the police account of this incident in no uncertain terms:

   

Attorney Michael Wright said: "We need Mike DeWine to refer this case to the Department of Justice. Not to a special prosecutor."

    Wright said Crawford did nothing wrong in Walmart. "Nothing more, nothing less than shopping."

    Wright, who has seen store surveillance video of the shooting incident, said Crawford was shot while talking on the phone, holding the butt of the gun with the barrel pointed at the floor.

    He said Crawford was "shot on sight" in a "militaristic" response.

This is extremely troubling news. Much like the case of Michael Brown, the family has been complaining that leaks about the investigation have benefited the police shooters and denigrated John Crawford's character.

    "Everything released is one-sided. There is nothing favorable to John Crawford. You can't show different pieces, show it all, don't trickle pieces to gain favor of the public, "said Michael Wright, Crawford family attorney. Wright wants to see the release of events in chronological order.

    Wright says the video shows Crawford standing in the direction of some shelves. He say Crawford was talking on his cell phone and probably did not see or hear the police officer sent to the store to investigate. He said in one frame you see Crawford on the phone, the next you see him on the floor.

    Crawford's father questions the timing of the state's investigation.

    "My main concern is the delay. What's taking so long? I understand it's a process, but frankly, I see stall tactics," said John Crawford II [the decedent's father].

According to the family and its lawyers, the video supports their claim that John Crawford was on his cell phone talking to his girlfriend and doing nothing else when the police entered the store and shot him down for the crime of being Black and holding a toy gun in a Walmart.

    Crawford was speaking by cell phone to his girlfriend, who was with his parents, when he was shot.

    "He said he was at the video games playing videos, and he went over there by the toy section where the toy guns were," said LeeCee Johnson, the mother of his two children. "The next thing I know, he said, 'It's not real,' and the police start shooting, and they said 'Get on the ground,' but he was already on the ground because they had shot him."

    Johnson put the phone on speaker mode, and she and Crawford's parents heard him die.

    "I could hear him just crying and screaming," Johnson said. "I feel like they shot him down like he was not even human."

The Grand Jury is set to begin hearing evidence regarding the Crawford shooting on September 22, 2014, assuming no further delays. Meanwhile, one of the police officers who shot Crawford is already back on the job, while the other one remains on administrative leave with pay. It should be remembered that Mr. Crawford was not the only victim of this "incident." Another shopper, 37 year old Angela Williams "collapsed and died as she scrambled to get away after police fired at Crawford." All because of the claims made by 911 callers such as this one:

    In one of those calls, which was released by police, a Wal-Mart shopper told emergency dispatchers that it looked like the man — later identified as Crawford — was trying to load the rifle and that he had pointed it at two children, WHIO reported.

    The 911 caller's wife said that Crawford was on the phone and that he was messing with the gun. She said that after police ordered Crawford to put down the unidentified weapon, "I heard two shots after I saw him turn. He still had the weapon in his hand."

Considering the content of the video, and the fact that Crawford was a father of two children with his girlfriend (with the couple expecting a third child), I find that story a little hard to swallow. Sounds like panic by white shoppers and an unwarranted response by the police who shot a harmless man while he was talking on his phone. All because he was a scary black man. But what do I know.