Sure seems so. Here are a few examples that illustrate the problem.
Christian Glass had his car stuck on a dirt road, and called for help. He needed a tow truck, or a ride to someplace safe. He hadn’t committed any crimes, he just wanted some simple roadside assistance. Instead, he got a bunch of aggressive, armed deputies who ordered him out of the car and threatened to break his windows…and then they did break his car windows, shot him with a beanbag gun, tased him, and then, when he was rightfully panicking at the inappropriate response, shot him dead.
Why?
None of this makes sense. He was frightened, was worried that the cops might hurt him, and he was right: he’s dead. There was no cause for violence, but that’s all cops know how to do. So they violented him.
At the same time, with such a limited repertoire of possible responses, the cops come equipped with an unassailable sense of entitlement, confident that they are always right.
If anyone wants to talk about entitlement, cops should probably be top of the list. pic.twitter.com/OtlZZhiAfa
— Read Class Struggle Unionism by Joe Burns (@JoshuaPotash) September 14, 2022
PSA to everyone out there, I’m speaking for myself but I’m probably speaking for other officers out there if we’re driving on the freeway in our police car, get the fuck out of the way. If us officers stay behind you long enough, we can find a reason to pull you over.
We all know this. We’re used to it. If a cop wants to charge you with something, they can find a reason, no matter how blameless your behavior. It’s not about enforcing the law, it’s about their power trip.
This officer knows she could get in trouble for making this fact explicit, so notice how she keeps her badge number hidden behind a filter, but it didn’t help her. It was quickly figured out that this is Breanna Straus of the Federal Way, Washington police force. What saved her was the refusal of the thin blue line to address the problem of rotten cops: she only got a 10 hour suspension. It was less than a slap on the wrist, it was a gentle caress.
You might want to be very careful driving near Sea-Tac, she’s back at work. There are rarely any penalties for being an asshole and a cop.
Part of the reason for that is that cops lie. They are expert liars, skilled at concealing how useless and counterproductive they are. Look at how baldly they lied about everything in Uvalde — they’re authorities, you know, and you will learn to respect their authoritative assertions, or they will find a reason to arrest you.
THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY SIX police were standing around playing pocket pool for over an hour while kids were shot, and then they made multiple verifiable lies about the event afterwards. To answer the question in the title…YES. Definitely.
Add to that the fact that cops are institutionally loose with the truth and have gaps built into their reporting so that they can collude and get their story right. Cops call it “testilying”
I get a call from a robot about every month, asking for donations. I always say “I don’t like cops” and it hangs up. I fantasize that they have gotten that response so often they added it to a response branch.
Ummm, I’m the first one to admit cops are usually scum and ready to attack, but reading the linked story of the carcrash guy who got shot, I’m actually having a hard time believing the story is innocent myself!
Here’s the facts as they are in the linked article: The guy called for help after his crash and was scared and irrational. I’ll comfortably say he was on drugs as well given his irrationality but even if he wasn’t, he sure acted like he was…I mean, what was he so scared of that leaving his vehicle even before the cops got there was #1 priority?
Then he admits to weapons (knives) and the cops ask him to exit the car when he offers to toss out his knives. He refuses to exit. (wha? Why not? You just admitted to them and have no intention of attacking, right? You called THEM, remember?)
Now he’s clearly irrational, admits to weapons, and refuses to exit the car. At all. He tells them to push him out and he’ll follow them, but honestly, would YOU believe him??? He’s clearly not listening, panicing, and again, no reason not to just exit…the…car! They keep this up for an HOUR!!!
Finally the cop orders him to GTFO out his car…where remember he’s admitted he has blades, irrational, and refusing to listen to even simple instructions. AND HE CALLED THEM TO HELP HIM! I can’t stress this enough. The cop smashes the glass and sees him clutching the blades and is again totally irrational. So they beanbagged his ass. Exactly like you should. Then tasered him…and he STILL KEEPS THE KNIFE!!! So they shot him.
Now come on…you can’t tell me they didn’t try to handle this properly! I suppose they could have tear-gassed the car but then people would have complained about that too. They tried for an hour to get him to be reasonable, and he refused again and again.
Mental issues or drugs possibly, but the cops ran out of options, and this is FAR from a case of “cops show up to an accident and chaos ensues”. That guy caused his own death 100%, from the start right to the end.
WTF? No. Being irrational and possibly mentally ill DOES NOT JUSTIFY EXECUTION.
They did not handle it properly. Here’s another, better approach: the cops all leave. He’s harmless, no threat to anyone. Then they call an EMT/ambulance/uber to go pick him up and take him home.
People are sometimes irrational. If you can’t handle that without shooting someone, you shouldn’t be a cop.
Without at all denying that cops lie, or justify it in a sick-and-twisted-and-Torquemadaesque variant on “the ends justify the means,” it’s important to remember that they’ve been taught to do so for generations. That one is attempting to understand where a bully fits in a cycle of bullying is not an excuse for the bullying. Or the bullies, however many generations back one must go.
They’ve been taught to do so by abuse from elected officials, both “well-meaning” and… otherwise. That goes for both New York cops fired/disciplined for missing their ticket/arrest quotas in the 1960s and small-town/rural departments downsized as “inefficient” because they didn’t have statistical support for a continued “need.” That also goes for cops everywhere fired/disciplined for not acquiescing to unlawful whims, or even just disgusting whims, all too often tied to election campaigns.
They’ve been taught to do so by abuse from the high-and-mighty-but-not-in-government, especially in small towns and unincorporated areas (and when masquerading as “Deputy Sheriffs”). The legitimate fear for personal safety and livelihood arising from the easily-forseeable consequences of not complying with Boss Hogg’s every whim functions as operant conditioning. And when Boss Hogg all too often uses white sheets as evening wear…
They’ve been taught to do so by “better safe than sorry” attitudes (e.g., the failure to risk purportedly well-trained-and-equipped-for-armed-entry cops’ safety at Uvalde) combined with a very real, small-but-exaggerated, risk from true bad actors — seasoned with just a dash of bigotry as to who might be a bad actor — who actually might put them in harm’s way.
Not so long ago, in a particularly pointed piece on the Daily Show took a couple of steps toward understanding the problem. Not, of course, doing anything about it; that would require the cojones to stand up to both police fraternal organizations and “soft on crime” rhetoric, and I don’t see that anywhere in American public life.
Well, holy shit, he inconvenienced the cops for a WHOLE HOUR before they shot and killed him?
Sarcasm aside, how much time should the police allow for someone obviously experience a mental health break to improve before they escalate the situation to the point where they wind up shooting him?
Seriously, unless the guy in the car dives out, throwing and/or swinging knives at police who are within throwing weapon or melee range, there’s no reason to physically assault the man and then shoot him.
I’m not trained in dealing with people suffering from mental health issues, but I’ve had to deal with a handful of situations in my life where someone was in a delusional state. Nobody wound up stabbed, assaulted, or shot in any of those situations.
The cops could have easily backed off and given the guy time to recover. All the time he needed, with no pressure whatsoever, just so long as he’s not hurting himself or anyone else. He’s got knives in the car? Invite him to exit the vehicle empty handed whenever he’s comfortable and then give him space. Maybe get a counselor or social worker or family member on the phone or on site to help him relax. Get a professional trained to deal with people in his mental state to assist. Ensure the man that he’s not going to be assaulted or murdered.
I’d rather have heard “cops talked to a distressed driver for six hours to de-escalate an odd situation and nothing bad happened” instead of “cops got pissed off at distressed driver who acted weird for an hour, then they physically assaulted and shot him for non-compliance”.
@ mamba
That is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make about someone who has just been in a car crash and is acting irrationally. Not that they might have a head injury, not that they might have been in shock, not that they might be having a mental health crisis, no, it must be drugs. Drug use, as we all know, carries a penalty of summary execution in the United States, and it very well should.
Knives are tools, one of the most basic and versatile tools humans have ever invented. They are only a weapons when they are being used as such, which they very much were not in this case. Even you admit he was offering to throw them out, thus precluding their use as weapons.
The cops didn’t ask him jack shit, they pulled out their guns and screamed at him to get out of the car. They were aggressive and violent from the get-go, as so many cops are, and they escalated the situation at every opportunity.
He called 911 for help and, instead of send an ambulance or a tow truck, they sent a death squad. Christian Glass was no threat to anyone, and they murdered him. They could have just walked away, but they were impatient to get on with, I’m guessing based on their behavior here, using the power of their badges to rape women in the remote backroads.
THEY WERE FUCKING TORTURING AN ACCIDENT VICTIM. He should throw away his only “weapon,” even though the cops have demonstrated their intent to harm him in every way possible? He had to have known by that point that they were almost certainly going to kill him, no matter what he did.
Again, the cops could have just walked the fuck away, but noooooo, he’d disrespected them by being confused and in pain, so he had to die. The only difference between these scumbag cops are and the ones who beat a handcuffed person in a jail cell then charged him with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms is that they’re even bigger cowards.
Every last one of those cops are murderous fucking disgraces to humanity, and nothing more. I’d suggest that they should receive the same care and treatment they gave to Christian Glass, but I believe that torturing someone is always wrong, no matter how vile the person or persons in question are.
As you’ve said over and over, he wouldn’t get out of the car. He’d already disposed of his keys, so the only way anyone would possibly have been in danger is if they climbed in the car with him. The cops had a thousand options besides torture and murder, but they were pissed off that someone who was clearly in distress would dare inconvenience them, so he had to die. I doubt very much he’s the first victim of these sacks of shit in uniform.
Yeah, those cops really took out the trash, didn’t they? You should just say that, next time, and save us the trouble of looking for a shred of decency in your output.
All cops are murderous thugs desperate for cult-like worship from a fearful populace because the only way to be a cop is to be so fucking fragile and insecure. Do away with all of them. And at this point, I’m in favor of that by any means necessary. Defund them, disarm them, fire them, whatever it takes to remove this menace from our civilization. They’ve drawn battle lines in the sand and have defined every single one of us as the enemy.
There is a glimmer of good news: police departments are finding it increasingly hard to get liability insurance. Insurance companies are starting to refuse to cover police anymore, or dramatically raising their rates if they’re still willing to cover them, according to the Washington Post. This has led to some smaller towns simply disbanding their police departments while others are under increased pressure to end risky behaviors like high-speed pursuits and be more reluctant to resort to violence. It doesn’t fix the problem but it’s pushing things in the right direction.
mamba @2
I hope there are plenty of nutrients in all those boots you’re licking.
Of course police respond to the capitalist hellscape.
If that woman still has a job, she shouldn’t. Jesus tapdancing christ, what an entitled asshole.
One shift’s worth of unpaid suspension. Boy I bet she learned her lesson.
PSA = Public Safety Announcement in US? So for your own safety GTFOutta the way? Sounds legit actually….
British police – particularly the “Met” (London’s main force) appear to be advancing rapidly in their study of American police methods. We shall see if the self-styled “Independent Office for Police Conduct” produce anything other than the usual whitewash.
Hey, Mamba, what do those boots taste like, anyway?
Re: Marcus Ranum @ #1…
Calls from “Police Activities League” or similar “charities”? I don’t get robot calls, I get a live body. Then I start asking questions… Do they believe in following the law? (Come on. It’s supposed to be an organization of cops. They should at least give that lip service.) If the guy agrees to that, I move on to asking if they believe in following the spirit of the law as well as the letter of it? If I can get him to agree to that, then I drop the hammer. Why are they calling a number that is on the Federal Do Not Call list, and thus violating at least the spirit to the law even if not the letter of it? (Charities are exempt from the Do Not Call rules. They shouldn’t be, but they are.)
Logic problem:
Mamba asserted, after listing events in rather less than neutral rhetoric, that:
“They tried for an hour to get him to be reasonable,”
This is at best circular reasoning. He was marginally rational/irrational on the initial call, and throughout that hour. So please define “be reasonable” under these circumstances… without relying on “submits to apparent authority when, for whatever reason, apparent authority has had an hour of observing him not being ‘reasonable’.” It is not “reasonable” under any real-world, non-authoritarian definition of that term, to continue making demands of someone who is not functioning the same way you are, with the same assumptions you have, for an hour regarding “putting down the weapons”… and expecting a different outcome.
@9
yes it works slowly but it works. the rates are the result of law suits there is little pressure on management since the suits are covered by insurance even less pressure on politicians then management. When the insurance companies do the math and see the payouts they of course raise the rates . That puts pressure on management and politicians budget pressure which they can not ignore for long. It takes longer but the next election does not have much of an effect however. They are forced to do things to reduce that cost and reduce the liability of crap cops. they have to kick Dirty Harry to the curb because they can not afford him maybe they could look for Hoppy instead (yes I’m old)
that’s capitalism and the market.
Someone in an immobile car, with no ranged weapons, is not a threat to anyone more then a couple feet away.
“Now he’s clearly irrational, admits to weapons, and refuses to exit the car.”
So, take two steps back. Now you are out of range, and if the potential super-ninja stuck in a car wants to harm you, they now have to exit the car, which is one of the things the cops wanted, no?
Cops are scared of the dumbest shit…
Not only are all cops bastards, they are all a bunch of cowards as well
Most people who want to be police, are the very ones who shouldn’t be. Police departments usually hire “experienced” police. People with 200 years of slave patrol baggage. They’re thugs. When you hire thugs, no amount of training can turn them into decent, non-racist public servants.
We need to eliminate the archaic, malignant, military chain-of command system. Most of all, we need to hire people who want to help us, and know whom they’re working for.
What seems unusual here is the victim was low-melanin.
@9 I saw the article in WashPo. Here is the link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/police-misconduct-insurance-settlements-reform/?itid=hp-top-table-main
From the link:
In Springfield, Ore., complaints and settlements involving excessive force by police became so costly two years ago that the city’s insurance risk pool, Citycounty Insurance Services, was given oversight of overhauling the 82-member police department.
The tipping point came on March 31, 2019, when Springfield officers shot and killed Stacy Kenny, an unarmed 33-year-old motorist with schizophrenia who had been pulled over because she was exhibiting “weird” behavior, records show. (The Post previously reported on Kenny’s death).
A 911 recording captured the encounter that began with Kenny begging an emergency operator to explain why police had stopped her. Kenny then can be heard screaming. Officers smashed the windows of her red Nissan, used a Taser on her twice, punched her in the face more than a dozen times and tried to pull her out of her car by her hair, police and court records show.
But Kenny was anchored to the car by a locked seat belt. Her life ended when she tried to flee by driving away with one of the officers still inside the car. On the recording, there’s a burst of gunfire, then an officer says: “We are all okay. Bad guy down.”
Kenny had legally changed her gender but presented as male, so officers believed she was a man.
Her parents filed a wrongful death claim and sued the city. Barbara and Chris Kenny said that as they pressed for answers, they discovered serious deficiencies with the department’s process for reviewing violent police encounters. Officers involved in the fatal incident later testified in depositions that the department never conducted an internal investigation of the shooting.
“A human being died that night and all they did was issue a one-page crappy memo. We asked ourselves, ‘How do we prevent this from happening to someone else in the future?’ ” Barbara Kenny said. “It felt like we had the opportunity to make a difference because what happened was so egregious.”
The Kennys told city officials during settlement negotiations that any agreement would need to include a plan for systemic use-of-force reforms and anti-bias training that would help officers better deal with minorities and people with mental disabilities. They insisted that an external monitor — not a city employee — provide unbiased progress reports on the changes.
Well. Doesn’t that sound familiar.
@3 Unfortunately, for a lot of responders, especially the EMTs, they are not allowed to leave unless the situation has been resolved. So no, they can’t just walk away or leave. If someone is violent or dangerous, you either have to take them into custody or wait until they aren’t dangerous or violent. If someone is sick or injured, you have to treat them or call services that can. You can’t just leave.
Also, it is unfair and unethical to dump someone who is mentally ill or having a substance issue on an Uber driver. Uber drivers are drivers, they are not unpaid, unwilling volunteers for dealing with the mentally ill, the potentially violent/dangerous or people possibly overdosing or having other substance issues.
The cops should have called mental health services or EMTs and put this guy on involuntary hold, which is something that can be done for people having a mental health crisis or other issues. It means you are involuntarily committed to a hospital or mental health facility for a (usually) short period of time until you can be seen by a mental health professional. Because, yes, being mentally ill or having a mental/substance crisis is NOT grounds for execution.
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2019/12/05/report-finds-nypd-often-uses-tasers-on-people-with-mental-health-issues-1230633
“A Bronx man died in 2016 after an officer tased him twice and he went into cardiac arrest. In 2008, an “emotionally disturbed” man fell to his death from a building ledge after being struck with a stun gun. The lieutenant who ordered the Taser blast died by suicide.”
When the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Fuck off mamba, you piece of shit. That was a very difficult story to read and it is outrageous that you have decided to defend a bunch of bullies and murders and you apparently have problem with them killing someone who was likely in need of some mental help and counseling. I hope you fuck off to a distant land where you don’t poison the society you live in with your shit presence. Jesus fucking chris.
John Morales @ 22
The kid was a New Zealander.
Moved with his parents to Boulder Colorado at age 10.
Executed by US police aged 22.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-world-is-just-so-cruel-christchurch-born-man-shot-dead-by-police-in-usa-family-calling-for-cops-to-be-charged/7HI2KE36I5YFAOPRZHPTWQNMJQ/
Yeah, as a New Zealander our cops have problems (racism, raping women being the top two) but I still do a double take when I see a cop with a gun.
The reaction here to this is mostly “how do these people suck so much as de-escalation?” If that guy was in nz, unarmed cops would’ve got him to a hospital.
@19 unclefrogy
Ah… The US Capitalist solution to every problem, aka, “We won’t hold a company, group, agency accountable, unless you sue them enough times that other authorities start to notice, people start losing money, and rich people/politicians start to realize its affecting their pocket books. Otherwise, its nothing but an ‘inconvenience’ for irrelevant people, whose opinions either don’t matter at all, or can be twisted by rhetoric and lies in the next election cycle anyway, thus either a) perpetuating the problem, and/or making it worse, or b) distracting them from it long enough to avoid having to address it, at all.”
I remember there being a shooting case within the last few months where someone tried to justify cops shooting a suspect because he might have thrown his knife at police.
@22
Why do you think its unusual, John?
marner #30
Because this happened in the USA.
“if we’re driving on the freeway in our police car, get the fuck out of the way. If us officers stay behind you long enough, we can find a reason to pull you over.”
Rather disingenuous considering the cops will also pull you over if you try to get out of their way. “Why did you slow down and change lanes when you saw me in your rearview mirror? Were you trying to evade me? Were you exceeding the speed limit? Do you have any drugs or illegal substances in the car? Did you throw something out of your vehicle? You know, I can make you stay here while I call in a patrol to search for whatever you threw out of the car. WHY DO YOU SEEM SO NERVOUS?”
@31, 32: American police kill plenty of white people, way way above the average for a first world industrial country. They also proportionally kill more black and minority people but despite what sitcoms and stand up comics want you to believe, being white doesn’t really protect you from the police. An encounter with the police is way more deadly than all the other industrial countries even if you are white. Police in US kill roughly ten times more per capita than France, about 30 times more than Sweden and so on the list goes.
@31
Basically what lotharloo wrote. Roughly half the people shot by US police each year – and it’s remarkably consistent – are white.
marner @34
And what percentage of the population are white? Without knowing your statement tells us nothing.
marner @34
Well, there are more white people around and American cops are trigger happy so that’s not surprising. That doesn’t mean the cops aren’t racially biased.
I note in particular that there are no national standards for police training, equipment or behavior. There’s no nationwide rule-book that every cop in the country has to follow. There need to be standards for who can be a police officer. There needs to be extensive psychological testing and a thorough background investigation on each would-be peace officer before they can be hired for training. Further, training needs to change. We have allowed too much of an “us vs them” militant philosophy to creep into our police training courses. For example, no law officer should ever be taught Krav Maga. It’s a military fighting technique the purpose of which is to kill or cripple as quickly as possible. Once you crush a man’s windpipe there’s not much chance of them making it to the hospital alive. Perhaps we should go back to the good old days where cops carried revolvers and didn’t use them often. While no law enforcement organization is perfect, I would urge people to look at how they do it in Scotland, where a combative man with a knife is cornered by police with shields and held immobile until he calms down or drops the knife. Nobody shoots him, not even with a taser. Also, I have to say that we do not teach our police to handle a situation peacefully. Walking up to a man in a car and putting your hand on your sidearm while shouting at him to “let me see your hands!” is not a way to de-escalate the problem. We tell officers they need to “Gain control of the situation” without really giving them the tools to do so, and so police walk into a situation and start shouting commands at people, because that’s what they default to. These things need to change, and soon. One final thought: When an officer is disciplined, the record of that discipline needs to be entered into a national database, and should an officer in one community be terminated for cause involving misconduct or criminal behavior, that should also be entered and that person excluded from further employment as a sworn officer. Yes, that’s right — one strike and you’re out, permanently, nationwide. No more traveling thugs with badges.
@32 Yeah, I saw that in the OP and my first thought was “does this walking entitled shitbag not realize that people other than cops also have badges?” Although I would love to be a fly on the wall on the day she finds that out for real.
@33,34,35 Here is the 2020 US Census link
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/2020-united-states-population-more-racially-ethnically-diverse-than-2010.html
Tl,dr, the percentage of the US population that is white, non-hispanic is 57.8%.
So if approximately half of the people that cops shoot per year are white, then being white is mildly but not significantly protective.
However, the black or African American alone population is 12.1% but they get pulled over by cops at approximately three times the rate of whites, which would explain the perception of whiteness as protective, when in fact it is blackness that is NONprotective. If that doesn’t show you how deeply racism is entrenched in policing, I don’t know what will.
@20 Someone who is immobile in a car can still be a threat.
https://www.tennessean.com/in-depth/news/local/2021/01/10/timeline-christmas-morning-bombing-nashville/6578915002/
But if you want proof that cops worry about the wrong people having bombs or guns, here it is:
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2020/12/29/nashville-explosion-woman-warned-mnpd-warner-building-bomb-2019/4082253001/
That said, it should be noted that if that’s what the initial/responding cops actually thought, then it’s noteworthy that they sent female cops in to take the hit. Nice!
From the OP:
““I have two knives and a hammer and a rubber mallet,” he said, in a slight accent, to the emergency dispatcher. “I’m not dangerous. I’ll keep my hands completely visible. I understand this is a dodgy situation.”
The dispatcher relayed that information to deputies.
“I’m not having any luck clearing this party and he’s not making much sense,” the dispatcher told the deputies.
When they arrived on the scene, Glass again offered to throw the tools and knives out the window.”
My read on this is that the guy indulged in more cannabis than he should have and hit the paranoid stage. (This all occurred in Colorado where cannabis is LEGAL and he admitted that he “smoked”.) He may have hit his head or sustained injuries that further confused him. Screaming at him to get out of the car and follow police commands as if he was rational is like expecting someone with a broken leg to go jogging on command. They’re not capable and expecting otherwise is asinine. It’s also not a reason to murder someone. Also, these are COLORADO cops. This can’t be the first guy who’s overindulged in weed. I’d ask “do you shoot everyone who used past their limits” but I suspect the answer would be a resounding “YES”.
@37 “When an officer is disciplined, the record of that discipline needs to be entered into a national database, and should an officer in one community be terminated for cause involving misconduct or criminal behavior, that should also be entered and that person excluded from further employment as a sworn officer. Yes, that’s right — one strike and you’re out, permanently, nationwide. No more traveling thugs with badges.”
SO MUCH THIS.
@3 PZ
As an EMT if I get called onto that scene you bet your ass I’m having cops on scene if they aren’t there already. Not only is that protocol its to ensure my safety. Gotta protect the healer first. Also I as an EMT do not have the power to restrict another citizens rights. Police do. So I need them there anyways no matter what.
If someone is being a danger to themselves as with mental illness, they can be a danger to others. Maybe there’s a better way to handle this but given the information I see there was nothing I can think off. Maybe a tranq gun. Thats the only thing I can think off but tranqs can be lethal if you dont know what your doing.
@24
You cant involuntary hold someone effectively while they are brandishing a weapon. No medic would get close enough to administer chemical restraint. The EMT is useless here until the guy gets shot.
@Mamba
Keep in mind most of the people on this website are privileged white dudes who live in gates communities yelling ACAB while simultaneously pretending this is a capitalist problem as if non capitalist states don’t have an even worse police brutality culture. They are pretty stupid here.
FFS, this is cosmically stupid.
Almost everyone in the USA is on drugs every day!!!
I am at this very moment sitting in front of my screen, watching the sun come up, and drinking a cup of coffee.
Other people are using some form of nicotine such as cigarettes, drinking alcohol, using Cannabis, opiates of various sorts, amphetamines, and a wide variety of legal prescribed psychoactive drugs and/or illegal psychoactive drugs.
In genera,l drug use per se doesn’t make you violent or irrational or prone to attack people with guns or knives.
From what I’ve seen, people who use Cannabis just sort of get relaxed and slow down. We prescribe opiates for pain and they tend to make people sleepy and less interested in moving around. College students use to use and for all I know still use amphetamines during midterms and finals as study aids. They are commonly prescribed for children with focus issues.
There is no doubt that misuse of certain drugs can cause people to behave irrationally. Prolonged use of amphetamines can cause this.
The worst drug I’ve seen for irrational behavior, occasionally such behavior is fatal, and rarely causing violence is alcohol.
The famous last words are, “Here, hold my beer…”
But to see someone who is behaving irrationally, having some sort of mental health problems, and assume that they are on drugs, that they are irrational, and about to become violent is far too many assumptions.
You could more easily claim the cops in this case were behaving irrationally, operating from fear and blind panic at one guy sitting in a car nearly incapacitated, about to become violent, and then getting homicidally violent.
Literally in the same link that PZ shared Glass was shot after he attempted to stab an officer. We wont know fully until the entire bodycam footage gets released tho. Prior to that he grabbed the knife after a police officer tried to extricate him from the vehicle so already he showed clear threat to cause harm to anyone who came close. But just like with Rittenhouse and Jacob Blake lets not turn our brain off so we can have that righteous lefty scree. Lets wait until the facts are in. Thats probaly not going to happen as the idiots screeshing about ACAB have already sided with the knife weilding perp before.
One things for sure I dont know why the cops told him not to throw the tools out the window. Thats a stupid move on the cops part. The cop standing on the car would have clear visual if those tools were indeed a firearm. Of course he dd tell him to drop the knife when he picked it up and he refused.
@39, 40 & 41, logicalcat :
I live in an Aussie suburb. I am pretty lucky. It isn’t a gated community tho’. I’ve never yelled ACAB though might have muttered it once or twice to myself and maybe a friend or family member or two.That’s just me tho’.. Maybe don’t make too many assumptions huh? Do you think anyone here really thinks the police elsewhere aren’t also brutal thugs esp in non capitalist states like say Russia? Although now Russia is capitalist or at least an oligarchic tyranny so, anyhow.
Thing is, are you saying two wrongs somehow add up to a right here and uttering whatabboutery as tho’ that’s useful or some kinda excuse?
Throw in a literal argument from incredulity too? Huh, that’s always convincing – not.
And you immediately contradict yourself. More leathal than a firearm?
There’s also those bean-bag gun things that Aussie police used at least once to arrest a suspect undead – er, that is not killed undead rather than a zombie or vampire.. See :
https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/australian-police-disable-arrest-man-in-airport-standoff-119020300070_1.html
Then there are tasers. Okay, again problematic and less leathal NOT non-leathal but still. Better than ordinary firearms.
Or alternatively is, y’know, convinced the stop brandishing and put down the weapon instead.. Even if that takes a long time.
@42
Glass literally said hes on drugs so yes he was on drugs. He could still be having a mental health emergency especially as certain drugs exacerbate paranoid schizophrenia like weed does. But he definitely was on drugs.
Also there are two forms of weed. One makes you relax, the other does not its a stimulant. Sativa and indica.
There is not too many assumptions here. He said hes on drugs, hes definitely is acting erratically and unpredictable, he also grabbed a knife when the cop came close to extricate him from his vehicle even tho he has said to the police officers to please remove him from his vehicle. The only real assumption in this event is assuming the cops told the truth when they said he tried to stab them and that’s why he got shot. We will see when the evidence comes in. What I don’t want if for dumb leftists to make it into a thing like with Jackob Blake where they painted the narrative dishonestly against the police when in reality Blake was a rapist who was in the middle of kidnapping the children of rape victim who is the one who called the cops. And Blake had a gun and pulled it out before getting shot. The most justifiable police shooting of all time and cities burned because of it. If all cops are bastards then so are all leftists who in that moment were terrorists.
Irrelevant.
I can’t go too far in my area without driving past a Cannabis store. It’s legal in most of the USA.
Because the old movie Reefer Madness was not a documentary.
We made it legal because making it illegal was causing more harm than the drug.
You ignored my main point.
Just being on drugs doesn’t mean much of anything.
FYI, the hospitals are full every day with people hopped up on opiates. We call those people…patients.
Nice of you to admit your bias. You hate leftists.
A fascist.
We haven’t seen one of those in oh let’s see, about 30 seconds or so.
@44
Where the fuck did I say tranqs are more lethal than a firearm? Also the police did use bean bag guns and tazers first before the guy tried to stab the cops. You literally showed up to this conversation ill equipped and misinformed. The “gated communities” comment did it I guess.
Also don’t be the “don’t make many assumptions” while simultaneously making a lot of assumptions guy.
Im not making assumptions. I KNOW that most of the people here are privileged assholes. I KNOW that a lot of them (not all) harbor fantasies in turning this country into an authoritarian communist state. They’ve said so in the past. I KNOW that they pick and choose which stories to get mad at and what facts to believe that suits a dishonest narrative they want to weave. This has been shown time and time again on these boards when cops are the subject. I wonder if anyone here remembers when everyone was screaming ACAB when that cop killed a woman during a stabbing attempt. Cuz I do.
logicalcat@47,
Where was the urgent necessity to get this guy out of the car?
Well it was pretty fucking stupid, and extremely revealing.
@46
Your response to me is whats actually irrelevant. He WAS on a drug that has clear evidence to exacerbate schizophrenia especially paranoid schizophrenia. Im no doctor, but as someone who has cared for mentally ill people it seems that’s what was happening. Showing me the homicide rate is irrelevant because im not stating a “weed should be illegal” comment. Only that it exacerbated the emergency and was a factor. Also you ignore the rest of the facts because they don’t suit your narrative. He had a weapon and refused to give it up, and starting holding on to that weapon as soon as the police got close. Assuming the cops are telling the truth which we don’t know because the facts are not all in yet, he tried to stab them and then got shot.
Pointing out that hospitals are filled with drug addicts is non sequitur. Yea I know. I’m an EMT. Pay attention.
And finally no you fucking idiot im not a fascist. Not everyone whose against online leftists are fascists. Im actually a leftists too its just I actually give a fuck about facts. Facts that Ive noticed you ignored. So tell me. People inventing shit up to stir people into rioting and, death, and arson are these not terrorists? Because that’s what the left did during Jackob Blake. Or do you support their actions?
Making stuff up here.
I just checked this case.
He didn’t have a gun. He did have a knife.
And why did you bring up this case anyway?
This OP was about a 22 year old guy in Colorado.Christian Glass.
Throwing crap against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
That is what Fox NoNews does.
@48
“Where was the urgent necessity to get this guy out of the car?”
What do you even mean by this question? Are you saying what did the cops do to show that there was an attempt to get him out of the vehicle or what? Or was it why they needed him to get out of the vehicle urgently? Clarify please.
“Well it was pretty fucking stupid, and extremely revealing.”
Revealing of what praytell? That I think most of the people on these forums are privileged assholes cosplaying as socialists online? yes I do.
@50
Sorry I melded two different stories together. Thats my bad.
But as for why I brought it up its because a riot occurred because leftists didn’t want to wait for the facts. With this current case leftists are already not waiting for the facts and assuming that the police are violent fascists thugs. Its stupid. And as with the case of Blake led to real harm.
Also forgot to add that while I was wrong about him pulling a gun Blake did do all the other stuff. That part was accurate. The most justifiable police shooting and cities burned because of it. And the same terrorists who caused it have the gall to call others fascists.
More nonsense.
That is rare even with schizophrenics. Most schizophrenics just get high like everyone else.
And you are now making stuff up.
The police didn’t know he was a schizophrenic and flat out said so.
“Glass was an avid tennis fan and player, a trained chef and a self-taught artist. ”
BTW, being a schizophrenic isn’t a death penalty offense.
Cthulhu, this is stupid.
I didn’t say that. Learn to read for comprehension.
The people in the hospital on pain killers are patients, post surgical and the injured. Which is also true of the millions of people every year prescribed opiates.
You’ve just outed yourself as a liar and a fascist.
Most of us are left of center. That isn’t even remotely the same as being socialists.
You are simply throwing scary words around as insults. As well as unimaginative insults like “privileged assholes”.
You did leave out “cultural Marxists” though and “Social Justice Warriors”.
So why are you here. To lie a lot and drop a few insults.
Whatever, I just wasted 3 minutes of my time on a brain dead troll.
@Logicat
The cops did not say “please”. They came up yelling, hands on their guns. If they had started calm, this might have been a non-issue. They didn’t de-escalate, that’s the fucking point. They started like authoritarian bullies, then escalated up from there.
And I rather suspect most people who post here do not live in gated communities. First and foremost, only 11 percent of Americans live in gated communities. Secondly, the people who post here do not have a lot of signs of wealth. Third, PZ is in Minnesota, and I suspect because of typing patterns that many here are a) academics and b) from the north of the country. I can’t prove it, of course- I don’t know that there’s ever been any survey about the people who post here. But it seems likely.
We don’t know that he was on drugs, but that is irrelevant. MJ does not make someone a superhuman ninja. If cops can be patient enough to put their knee on someone’s neck for 10 minutes, they can be patient enough to drink a cup of coffee in their body armor and vehicle until the person calms down or you can get a hold of someone to de-escalate.
Murdering someone shouldn’t be the solution to a problem. With the exception of the victim himself (maybe) nobody was in any danger whatsoever and that is the ONLY time violence should be considered.
Well, the badly misnamed logicalcat just outed himself as a fascist, liar, and troll.
I’m not spending any more time on someone like that.
BTW, his claim that Glass was on drugs is just something he made up.
I read the article from the OP and it doesn’t say that.
The title of the OP is “Are all cops bad”.
Probably not.
Even in this case, the Colorado State Patrol said, “If there is no crime and he’s not suicidal or homicidal or a great danger, then there’s no reason to contact him,”
Some of the police said, no crime, no emergency, so they could have just got in their cars and drove away.
It’s not a crime to be sitting in car having a panic attack or some sort of mental crisis.
I’ve done that myself before in my younger days.
Two guys, of roughly the same size and condition, have a confrontation. One is armed only with a police baton, the other with a knife. I’d much rather be the baton-wielder (especially if I have colleagues present). Better reach, and all you have to do is whack the other guy’s knife arm. If the knife-wielder is sitting in a car, even better. And if the knife-wielder is in some sort of mental distress, a child would know that yelling at him isn’t going to help. There’s absolutely no excuse for going for guns.
It seems that yelling with guns drawn, and assuming that every non-cop is a “perp”, is the default starting point. Summat horribly wrong there.
For fucks sake Glass said he was high! Its in the report.
Also I never said that the police knew he was schizo. That’s not the point. The point is that he was behaving erratically and grabbed a weapon when officers got close then tried to stab one. A fact you are all ignoring in favor of calling me a fascist.
@55
Hell no most people on here are not left of center. Are you new or just a liar? Most people are here are far left evidence by the fact that a socialist democrat like myself is now considered a fascist on here. And you are saying I used socialist as a scary word? Lol no I said y’all are cosplaying socialists because none of you actually believe in your own ideals that you espouse. Socialism is fine to a reasonable degree but nice try with the gotcha. You ignored the word cosplay because you are cherry picking.
@56
Clearly you didn’t read the report that PZ literally linked in the OP. They made every fucking attempt to de-escalate. Glass did not. So you are just lieing. Also pointing out that I think he was on drugs as being irrelevant is actually irrelevant. The point is people were saying hes not and I corrected them. Then people were saying drugs don’t matter and I corrected them. Now people are saying im saying that drugs are the reason why he was shot and im correcting that. They are grasping at straws and projecting that onto me. At the end of the day Glass refused to cooperate and get out of the vehicle, telling the police to come get him out and when they tried grabbed a knife. That’s the facts jack. To me in my experience dealing with paranoid schizophrenia who are high, he behaves like a paranoid schiozophrenia whose high af. But even if he wasn’t he still escalated the situation himself.
@57
For fuck sake Glass literally told the officers he smoked. That’s in the OP. Read it again carefully.
If he got out of the vehicle they would have let him go. And he has to he out in order for the police to help get his car out of the ditch or whatever got him trapped. But he didn’t. He said he has a weapon and refused to leave the place where those weapons are located and picked up a knife causing one of the officers to pull out his gun and Glass dropped the knife in response but still in his vehicle where he picked it up again later. That’s escalation. Don’t be stupid. I’m not even saying the police were innocent either one of them jumped on the hood and flashed a light then pulled out his gun causing Glass to pick up the knife he previously put down. That’s also escalation on the cops part. But goddamn the way you guys make it sound is that this poor guy was minding his own business until fascists jackbooted thugs came in to harass him and kill him and that’s not what happened. And then you brand anyone questioning the false narrative a fascist lol what? You probably should have taken more than the 3 minutes you mentioned to think about this clearer.
Now tell me guys, what makes me a fascists? The fact that I like facts? Are leftists fascists now? Because that’s what I am. I believe in socialist democracy, trans rights, gay rights, medicare for all, feminism, and civil rights for other lgbtqia. I believe in immigration reform that makes it easier for other latinos like myself to migrate here. So wheres the fascism?
I don’t believe in racial superiority. I don’t believe in authoritarianism. I’m for police reform because yea there’s problems with the police but lieing about the facts actually make it harder to fix the issue it just makes privileged people fell better. I grew up in a place that’s over policed by racists ass cops. None of you have that’s obvious. You pick apart the “gated communities are only 11%” well motherfuckers those 11% made their way here.
Wheres the fascism? Fucking nowhere that’s what. But like I keep saying leftists try to make sure right wing strawmen are actually true so the strawman that we call everyone who disagrees with us fascists well thanks for making it a reality assholes.
You know what…I want all of YOU to disavow the authoritarian like entities embedded within the left. Like those who caused the Kenosha riots. Those were fucked up. Here ill start it off: What the left did during Blake/Kenosha was wrong and fucked up and I disavow all of that. It was wrong for us on the left to start a riot based on false conspiracy like we are Jan 6 or something. Thats on us, the left. We fucked up.
Lets see all of you condemn the far left. If you don’t then don’t call me a fascist because you are just as authoritarian as the Jan 6 rioters. How quick do you all resort to lies its disgusting. This used to be my favorite left leaning blog until you guys ruined it.
All this hangs on the fact whether the police were telling the truth that Glass tried to stab one of the officers. As for what happened before that the facts are that this nation has a lot of guns and every officer is in danger from the citizenry thanks to those guns. That’s why they have to stress to get out of the vehicle. So they can have clear view of your person and make sure you have no means of attacking. Glass didn’t do this. Worse off he did try to conceal he had a weapon in his hand and the police noticing he had a knife in his hand is what escalated the events. Lets not be stupid about this. Thats all I ask. You don’t have to believe in false narratives to be a leftists, thats all I ask. You don’t have to believe in false narratives to support police reform, that’s all I ask.
@47. logicalcat :
(Adding numbers for answering convenience here.)
1a) Really? How?
1b) Your extraordinary evidence for that extraordinary claim as per Sagan’s law would be _____________?
Privileged in some ways for most of us? Quite probly. (Raises hand here.)
Assholes? Well, not being a literal sentient anal sphinecter aside, metaphorically speaking I try not to be and think that applies to most of us here.
2) Relevance to this anyhow?
I don’t no.
3) Citations and links and supporting evidence please?
I don’t think there are many apologists for police brutality and abuse of power here but I hardly think that’s the same thing.
Where did I say that that’s what you said?
Actually typed in your #39. quote logicalcat : “Maybe a tranq gun. Thats the only thing I can think off but tranqs can be lethal if you dont know what your doing..” Unquote
Which I responded to by asking in my #44.“And you immediately contradict yourself. More leathal than a firearm?”
(Folks can always scroll up & see for themselves y’know right?)
I also noted your use of whatabouttery and arguing from incredulity as logical fallacies.
4) So why not keep trying those or even try de-escalating instead of resorting to firearms?
5a) Which and who and what and why and what the now?
b) What do you think a smart leftist in this situation would do exactly?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/christian-glass-shooting-colorado.html
From this article Glass thought he was going to be killed by skinwalkers. He was very paranoid and very high on weed and amphetamines according to autopsy. I have yet to see footage of him trying to stab an officer. I’m watching the body cam footage as I type this. What are the rules about posting this stuff on here? Since its graphic and all.
Lets get the facts. Maybe the footage shows officers were fucking wrong and idiotic.
logicalcat @47:
Your memory sucks. There were multiple voices on both sides about that incident, so no, not “everyone”.
@60
Because life is not a video game. As soon as you try to stab someone they have the right to stop you and since those other non lethal means didn’t work the only option they have is lethal. You are ignoring the tried to stab the officer part. Or do you not believe that to be true. It could be false sure but given the facts that we know right now that’s my assessment. It might change when more information comes out.
Also you didn’t even demonstrate that I committed any fallacy or that I contradicted myself. You just quoted me and said “See.” as if that means anything. I said I couldn’t think of another way to end the situation with his life intact other than a tranq gun which might kill him anyway. I don’t know anything about tranq gun other than the fact that sedatives have to be applied carefully by body weight or they are dangerous. Every other non lethal method are actually lethal depending on circumstance including tazers and bean bag shots and especially with repeated use.
And yea folk can scroll up and see you are deliberately misinterpreting in a poor attempt at a gotcha.
“what would a smart leftist do in this situation?”
A smart leftist probably would realize that repeatedly pelting someone with bean bag shots and repeatedly using a tazer on someone would kill that person with more pain than shooting them. So drop the “So why not keep trying those or even try de-escalating instead of resorting to firearms?” line of reasoning. Its fucking stupid. And shows me you are not even prepared to talk about this subject. Also they did try to de-escalate. Repeatedly. But you don’t want to acknowledge that because your identity as a leftist is tied to the false narrative. Mines is not.
@62
I shouldn’t have said everyone you are right after all I was battling against the ACAB narrative so that makes it not everyone. And I do remember people on my side on that but don’t remember who specifically. But I also remember a lot of people on here defending the staber and shitting on the cop who saved lives including his own and I wonder if “everyone” doing that there are the ones who are calling Mamba a bootlicker which is what set me off. Just because you disagree doesn’t mean you are a bootlicker or a fascist. This is shitty behavior and we on the left need to condemn it.
here is the link to the video if this is not allowed then PZ can just delete my post. Trigger warning for violence.
Here’s most of the body cam footage but they don’t show the actual death. Video cuts out but audio is left intact. I assume this is to avoid having the video get taken down as it could violate youtube guidelines. A lot is riding on that last part of the footage and I’m having a hard time finding it. The audio at the end makes no sense without the video.
Watching the footage it makes sense now why the officer did not let him throw the tools out the window. His erratic behavior the cop doesn’t want him reaching around for god knows what. Now it makes sense where otherwise it was dumb. Bad move probably from the cop as it made the already paranoid man more so but hindsight is 20/20.
A not often talked about problem with police shootings is that we are a very armed society. Every cop is on high alert cuz a simple traffic stop can end in an officer down.
@logicalcat:
Right, the police totally did not escalate the situation. I mean, what more could they have done? They asked him nicely to get out the car, then they sent a cute police officer lady to talk to him but it didn’t work! They obviously had to threaten to break his windows, then shoot him with the beanbag, then they had to jump on his car to point guns and flashlights at his face, then they had to taze him and then when nothing worked, they had to shoot him with the gun! You are absolutely right! The police had the utmost patience. My god. These police officers are absolute heroes!
@ ^ . lotharloo : Yes. Well put.
@63. logicalcat :
Thanks for answering my questions 5b) and 4) I guess. What about my other ones tho please?
Citations and links and supporting evidence to say how you know that those here are all ” privileged assholes” a lot of whoem “..harbor fantasies in turning this country into an authoritarian communist state.”
Even if that is true – which I don’t think it is – then what is the relevance of that to this case where police shot dead a scared if paranoid man who called for help?
Link to the case which you remember but I don’t where “everyone” (which you’ve now admitted it wasn’t) was “screaming ACAB when that cop killed a woman during a stabbing attempt” please?
Emphasis added. You didn’t originally have the words “other than” there – your original coment from #39 second paragraph reads :
Your first statement I agree with. Your second is half right – there’s definitely better ways of handling it and it is an argument from incredulity. Your only other alternative is a tranq gun? That’s still an argument for incredulity. I can imagine multiple other options.
Simply seal off the area and bring in a police negotator and back off. Christian Glass was being non-violent staying inhis car and partly co-operative, he wasn’t initially a threat although clearly not okay. Wait it out. Stay calm. De-escalate. Don’t threaten or intimdate him. Allow him to throw or instruct him to slowly drop the tools Just stay well clear when he does.Talk him down or allow him to sit there until he decides he has to get out and encourage him to do so with calmness and reassurance. After all they knew he had called them for help and wasn’t a criminal – not that its should matter if he was..
Cops have shown they can wait around calmly without acting violently – they did that at Uvalde during a school shooting where violent intervention shooting the killer dead might have actually saved lives rather than needlessly taking one.
From the CPR news article linked in the OP :
Yeah. The cops escalated this and did NOT need to respond with violence or threats or end up murdering him.
I’ll let others decide. Obvs I disagree with your characterisation of that. I stand by my view that you are using logical fallacies specifically whatabboutery and arguing from incredulity here as explained already. How else am I to show that if not by quoting your own words here?
No, life isn’t a video game – d’uh! – and who here claims it is? Not me. You are ignoring all the context and leading up to the shooting here which I’ve already quoted above. Add strawman caricaturing to your list of logical fallacies here.
So you are saying involuntary euthanaisa with a firearm is better than risking a man dying painfully but with a good chance of him not dying at all but rather being taken alive for mental health treatment? I strongly disagree & suspect most others will too.Again, the whole situation could have been avoided at the start by police not escalating things and handling it as I suggested above.
Nor is mine. I don’t think it is “a false narrative” nor is my “identity as a leftist” tied to this any particular “narrative” about this one incident. I do kinda oppose police brutality and abuse of power as general principle tho.
Query : where was the suspect/victim going to go ? What was the urgency to get him out of his car ? Police could have waited him out. He was not an immediate danger to others, and if they had kept back and kept talking to him (not shouting orders, talking) eventually he would have calmed down and perhaps have been rational enough to be persuaded to exit his vehicle unarmed. As there was no immediate danger to others, there was no immediate need to end the stand-off quickly. Traffic could be re-routed around the location.
@69 DLC:
The victim committed two of the greatest crimes ever possible in the eye of the police. First, he did not comply 100% with what the officers were asking. The police are GOD. You have to comply with what they say, no questions asked, no ifs and buts. And the second crime was to be perceived as a potential or maybe hypothetically possible threat to the police. This is the greatest crime that can ever be committed by any human being. It merits death on the spot, and depending on the circumstances with tens and tens of bullet holes in your body.
@Stevor
Oh for fucks sake he wasn’t being cooperative he refused to relinquish his weapons making him a threat.
There is no good chance of not dying with bean bag shots and tazers. This is why I said you guys are dumb and cloisters in your own bubble. These things are fucking lethal at the range they were using with repeated volley and the tazer, do I even need to explain?
You don’t argue with good faith. You brandy about debatebro words and pretend they apply then misconstrue everything I say to paint me as the bad guy. Fuck off. I’m the only one here actually linking to real evidence here. Your welcome.
No the cops didn’t escalate this, Glass did when he reached for something inside his car. Officer downs usually starts with someone reaching for a weapon in their vehicle. Never do that. It makes the cops super nervous. And then when the situation calmed down he still didn’t refuse to give up his weapons. I did that once accidently because ADHD is impulsive and the cop got super nervous. Unlike Glass I did it within clear view so the cop could see clearly I was reaching for my registration. Also I’m not black so that helps.
You are also asking for citations on what? The general discussion of the commentariat here? Please. This website has shit search engine and its not like I bookmark every instance of such bullshit. But nice debatebro tactics there. Lets start by adding the name of everyone on here who did not condemn the Blake riot when they should of. Lets start by adding the fact that many here spread the Hillary rigged the primary conspiracy theory when that’s the same authoritarian lie that Jan 6 protestors later used. People like The Vicar has stated they prefer a communist state and would rather support Trump if it meant that liberal democracy dies. Asking for citations on what is a common talking point here shows how bad faith you are. Obviously not “everyone”. I should use my words more carefully. If it was everyone I wouldn’t be here. I would have written off this site as hopelessly far left anti-establishmentarian religious bullshit. The point of my comments is to prevent it. I was irresponsible with my words in saying “everyone”, but damn man never did I see the day someone would argue in favor of Russia conquering Ukraine like some here have. Thats unheard of. And yea not everyone but the mere fact it happens is alarming. Also alarming that people would defend rioting assholes and pretend they are protestors when they are not and shit on a kid trying to defend himself and the city whose business owners explicitly stated that they want people armed to herlp protect their business in a riot where people already have died and burned buildings down and where the cops said to let the riot play out turning Kenosha into an anarchic state temporarily. And people on here defended the rioters. Its a problem and I will never tire of reminding everyone about it. There are authoritarians on our side masquerading as leftists who want peace and value human lives. As for relevance to this case…people who believe in the Blake riots as a good thing, believe that Hillary rigged the primary, or believe that Rittenhouse doesn’t have the right to defend themselves or that Russia’s actions are in the right should not be calling people fascist or bootlickers simply because they want to have a discussion about this case like Mamba did. They weren’t rude about it and the assholes who are calling they bootlickers and myself a fascist are projecting. Thats why I brought it up.
Do you support the Blake riots Stevor? Im going to assume you don’t think the primary was rigged despite this exchange I don’t think you are a complete authoritarian tool.
Oh and FYI logical fallacies are when incorrect statements are used in place of a valid argument. Ive committed no fallacies. You have to actually demonstrate a fallacy has occurred. Any idiot can just say the phrase “whataboutism” like its a magical incantation. I didn’t do any whataboutism.When I bring up shit like Blake riots or other things im bringing them up in addition to my initial arguments which is to be blunt that given the information we have Glass is more to blame and that appealing to ideology is a common problem. They are brought up to declare a trend about the commenters. Commentors which I have to say start and end with accusations of fascism/bootlicking if you disagree with the approved narrative. Which is bulshit. You have to agree on that at least? Right?
“Simply seal off the area and bring in a police negotator and back off. Christian Glass was being non-violent staying inhis car and partly co-operative, he wasn’t initially a threat although clearly not okay. Wait it out. Stay calm. De-escalate. Don’t threaten or intimdate him. Allow him to throw or instruct him to slowly drop the tools Just stay well clear when he does.Talk him down or allow him to sit there until he decides he has to get out and encourage him to do so with calmness and reassurance. After all they knew he had called them for help and wasn’t a criminal – not that its should matter if he was..”
This whole section tells me two things, one is that you don’t know what an argument of incredulity is, and two that you didn’t even see the bodycam video because the police did all that and yet Glass refused to drop his weapons. Worse over he towards the end held it in clear attempt to strike. Which is what promoted the officers to get more aggro. If you don’t want to watch the video is fine but then you don’t have the knowledge to even have this conversation with me.
When I said you think life works like a video game its because you use video game logic. Thinking that repeated tazer and bean bag shots usage will save this guys life. Especially when ammo is limited and they probably exhausted their supply. These aren’t strawmen caricatures. I’m not actually saying you believe what happens in a video game is real. I hope you get that. I say the same thing whenever people say “why didn’t they just shoot him in the arm”.
Where’s the argument from incredulity? Nowhere to be found. I’m not using common sense motherfucker Im using sense, intelligence, and the fact that im an EMT. I know that repeated tazer and bean bag shots would be lethal at that range. Ive seen the power they have. Have you? All Ive said is that a tranq gun is the only thing I can think of but being not too familiar with it might still kill him since I know from working with sedatives safer usage requires exact measurements but whatever. Maybe cops should carry a tranq gun I don’t know. I didn’t commit any logical fallacies and if i did you failed to demonstrate that I have effectively. I dont know of any other way to save this guy (until I saw the video, more on that later) and neither do you because you didnt see the video so you cannot come up with a reasonable approach since the police did exactly what you wanted.
“So you are saying involuntary euthanaisa with a firearm is better than risking a man dying painfully but with a good chance of him not dying at all but rather being taken alive for mental health treatment? I strongly disagree & suspect most others will too.Again, the whole situation could have been avoided at the start by police not escalating things and handling it as I suggested above.”
What I’m saying is that repeatedly electrifying and causing blunt force trauma to the mans head will kill him except more slowly and more painfully than bullets. I know that others will disagree but they are not operating on reality here. If you bother to see the bodycam footage which I know you didn’t do you would see he took three bean bag shots and a tazer and still didnt want to relinquish his weapon. What more do you want? What other possible avenue could they use? They tried everything you said including calmly (tho not at first for reasons ill get into in another post) talking to him and asking him to throw away his weapons hell throw them in the back seat like one of the cops said. Then he’s no longer a threat if he did that. This all ended with him trying to stab an officer. Thats clear in the video (although I dont think he should have been shot there yet, more on that later).
@69 DLC
“Query : where was the suspect/victim going to go ? What was the urgency to get him out of his car ? Police could have waited him out. He was not an immediate danger to others, and if they had kept back and kept talking to him (not shouting orders, talking) eventually he would have calmed down and perhaps have been rational enough to be persuaded to exit his vehicle unarmed. As there was no immediate danger to others, there was no immediate need to end the stand-off quickly. Traffic could be re-routed around the location.”
Let me answer your query since no one else will. They think they answer it but like Lotharlo they just add stupid bullshit that doesn’t answer the question and paints the cops in the most dehumanizing way possible to satisfy the anti-establishmentarian bloodthirst of the commentariat. This post would also serve as a timeline of events and my reasons on what the cops and suspect did right or wrong. That way I don’t have to write a third comment.
The suspect wasn’t going anywhere, that’s the problem. They wanted him out of the vehicle because he had weapons and was in clear mental duress marking him as a danger to himself or others. He didn’t want to go anywhere except inside the location where his weapons are. The logic is that someone that paranoid with weapons could attack other people if he was left alone. While its true that most mental health people are likely to be victims of a crime than offenders, this guy was having an emergency mental health response and is armed and has taken drugs making everything more complicated.
What was the urgency to get him out the car? See above.
Was he an immediate danger to others? The minute he refused to relinquish his weapons he was at that point. The fact he was driving under the influence makes him also dangerous for entirely other reasons.
Did police wait him out? Yes they did. Up top I linked the body cam footage. They waited it out.
The police did talk calmly to him and tried to reason with him and Glass would not cooperate. However at first they did not. What set this whole thing in motions are two fold, one Glass said he had weapons and two he reached for them without the cops consent. This scares police because a lot of officer downs start with reaching for something in your vehicle. Every police officer is seen footage of cops being killed in such a way when they are training. Maybe thats a shitty way to train your police but thats another subject. The cop got aggro when this happened and remained that wayfor a good bit but eventually calmed down. Glass (the suspect/victim) however got his paranoia triggered at least it seems that way to me. After the police calmed down and more officers arrived to the scene everything was going good and the officers were calmly asking Glass to step outside and to also throw his weapons to the back seat. But glass refused to cooperate. They were calm for most of the hour. Offering food, and cigarettes and something to drink. The initial aggro cop even said “im going to step away cuz I dont think he likes me very much.” Even the guy who was more aggro than all of them took steps to defuse the tension.But no cooperation. I know Lotharloo says police think themselves as god (yes I know not literally) but the reality here is that they want him out to get him some help and away from the knives. Glass was never rational and exhibited unusual behavior such as banging his wrist on the windshield cracking it with his bracelet.
Was there a need to end the stand off quickly? No and they didn’t. one hour an 20 minutes is not quick especially in scenarios like these where every minute feels like 10.
Could traffic be rerouted? Technically no since the street is too small but there was no traffic anyways since its night time.
I hope that answers your queries. Now I’m going to try to briefly include a timeline and my thought on this. I like timelines and think they are important. In this timeline Im not going to include the 911 call Glass did as I haven’t reviewed it.
1) Police show up at the scene and everything is generally friendly but the officers are of the stern kind. Glass is already asking “are you going to shoot me?” and the cops are saying that no we need you to get out of the car so we can assess the situation.
2) Cops ask him if he needs medical “you said you need paramedics, do you need medical?” The cops are very authoritative and even told Glass to step out the car because you already said you had weapons in the car. People immediately only hyper focus on the officer asking sternly to get out of the vehicle, but they ignore the fact that he said hes armed and the cops are following protocol for such an individual. The officer doesn’t know what those weapons are and is himself afraid. Thats the purpose of the 2nd amendment. To make authorities scared of the people. Not saying I agree with that but it works and its one of the reasons why police do things this way.
3) Officer tells him do not touch the weapons do not reach for them. Officer gets close to window and says step out or he will break the window. At this point he doenst know what weapon he has yet. The officers cannot hear what Glass is saying but Glass can hear him and he refused to roll down his window. One of the officers comments that he has a knife on his lap and upon hearing this Glass picks up the knife prompting the other office to take his gun out and take some steps back. Glass throws the knife to the front passenger seat. The officer points the gun on him for an entire minute then holsters it. Then says this is
4) Glass mentions he threw the knife and the officer no longer holding a gun on him says ” I appreciate that but to get us all safe I need you to step out of the vehicle to you away from the weapons. I have to note that no one is screaming at the moment or at all yet.
I’m going to say something that is 100% opinion. I think this guy is influenced by people like in this thread or twitter where they paint officers like inhuman demons who only want to kill you, ironically costing him his life because in his inebriated paranoid state made every bad decision possible. That’s just my opinion.
5) Glass starts to reach around and the other officer says “stop reaching for stuff’. That officer does have a gun on hand but not pointing at the suspect. Then Glass starts to repeatedly bang the windshield, breaking due to what I think is his bracelet. Probably just a crack but cant see.
6) for like 10 minutes mostly quiet with the occasional having to tell Glass to stop reaching for stuff. This point the officers stop repeatedly asking Glass to exit the vehicle. Glass throws the Heart sign with his hands.
7) Female officer joins the scene. Calmly tries to talk Glass. Assures him that we see that he is being cooperative and that the best way he can help us out is to put away anything and step out the vehicle. I have to stress here that they cannot help him unless he steps out the vehicle and removes himself from the vicinity of his weapons. She strikes up conversations about the cool rocks he has and is trying to be as calm and peaceful as possible.
I have to stress here that the police cannot leave him alone at this point. Hes clearly under the influence and paranoid. That means hes a danger to others on the road. The fact that he refused to relinquish his weapons is a possible sign that he intends to use them. That’s whats going on in the minds of the officers right now. That this guy is a danger to self and others.
8) Older officer comes to the scene, appears to be the police chief, or at least they call him chief. Glass might be nervous that there are too many cops, but they cant leave one cop solo to talk to a potential violent individual. Back up is there for a reason.
9) Chief tells bodycam officer to turn off something but I could hear so he goes off to where the cop cars are to turn something off. I think its the directional light but not sure. During this time the officer has a conversation with a pedestrian trying to get home telling him to take the long way. Then he takes a personal phone call so he turns off the audio of the bodycam after stating as such. Only lasts 4-5 minutes give or take then hes off to rejoin Glass and the others.
10) Chief is very calm and trying to ask some simple questions. Trying to reassure him that everything is fine and they can help. He offers him food. The initial aggro cop says “I have beef jerky if he wants it.” Goes to his car and says ” I got soda and jerky.” Chief is trying to ask question like “Have you had a long day? ” stuff like that. Just trying to get to the bottom of his current state. Also striking up conversations about the large amethyst he has. Chief is trying his best to be friendly and calm. Everyone is. Including the aggro cop who no longer aggro and mostly quiet. Glass himself is also quiet and not speaking just nodding his head yes or no to the questions or not doing anything. Sometimes he does speak short comments. I’m not keeping exact track of the time stamps but so far we are 40 minutes in and the officers have been calm between 20-30 minutes of it so far.
11) Other officer offers to call someone to help you. Prompting the chief to ask who that is and if he knew the number. Chief say that he’ll make the call. Glass nods up and down. Chief takes out his phone and asks Glass whats the number. Glass doesn’t know and wants to get his phone. Chief is okay with this and reassures Glass its fine saying that hes not scared. Earlier the Chief asks Glass if he had any guns and when Glass said no he believed him. Chief offers to call Glass phone so he can find it easier. Glass is quiet. Then its unclear what Glass said to the Chief but I think its “Do you know the number.” and chief replies that he has the number saved to his phone from earlier and he can have them call you if you want. No answer from Glass. Chief asks if the initial officers if hes always been like this. Officer says “This new nodding is new.” Popping windows are now being discussed by the officers. That means breaking the corners in away that doesn’t shatter the glass all over Mr. Glass face.
12) Formerly aggro cop now states in calm reassuring manner “Hey Christian, can you step out man so we can have the medics look at you for medical purposes?” Christian nods and Chief says “we’ll walk away.” Despite nodding in agreement he decides to not do that and shuts down again. Same cop now offers Glass sodapop. Cant see the medics from this angle and I have to stress that we are not setting foot near that man unless hes in handcuffs or at the least away from his weapons.
13) Another officer on the scene. Blond lady cop more asking him to “Come on out and talk to us. We are here to help you.” More stern than the rest but not aggro like initially.
14) They tell him if he doesn’t open the door they would have to break it open to help him and they do not want to break his window and they reassure Glass that he doesn’t want that either as it can be expensive to repair. Initial cop also states “I really don’t want to have to break your window man.” Throughout this whole thing he says nothing.
15) While Glass is reaching for something they decide to pop the windows. In my opinion this was a mistake on the cops part. Because it gave Glass time to get the knife in his hand, and he did. The police notice the knife and they stop the popping procedure and announce to watch any crossfire. Guns are now drawn, and while not directly pointing at Glass they are at the ready. No one is screaming btw.
I have to note here thus far the police are very reasonable and Glass is not. They offered every possible out in the book short of actually leaving him alone which I repeat they cant since refusing to give up a weapon in their minds means he wants to use them and hes also operating a vehicle under the influence. The popping of the windows is not like breaking the window with a baton or someshit. Its simply popping the frame and removing the window so that they can unlock the door and get to Glass. After that its a matter of wrestling Glass out of the vehicle which is of great risk since he has two knives nearby that he refused to give up. Maybe not wrestling but grabbing by the shirt or arm and coercing him out. Either way unless the officers do some stupid Derek Chauvin shit Glass could have been pulled out and alive, but he decided to pick up a weapon.
16) Initial cop says he will be right back. He goes to his police car and gets the bean bag shotgun. Someone gives the order to one of the officers to stand on the hood gun pointed at Glass. Initially I thought this was a needless act of escalation from the officer but after watching the footage I can see it was done for crossfire purposes.
17) Some kind of weird banging. Dont know what it is. Shotgun obscuring vision. Definitely not a tazer or bean bag blast as those come in later and Glass is unharmed. I assume its Glass banging on the windshield with the large rock he has. Its a nice looking amethyst shaped like a spike. Knife is in his lap at this point.
18) Glass now picks up the knife. The officers voice does get louder say no put it down. Initial officer states he can maybe pop it with the bean bag. This is I assume so that they are not in range of his knife when the windows are open. Another officer says “Cmon buddy please listen to us.” He doesn’t. Blond officer continues to ask Glass to come out and talk to them.
19) Chief tried to reason with Glass. Gets close to the window. Window not completely popped yet btw. Tells Glass can you put the knife and rocks in the back seat. Guarantees that he wont lose them. He also coaches Glass to take some deep breaths. Then tells Glass to please put the knives back seat so they don’t make us nervous.
I have to remind everyone that everyone here except mamba and maybe a few others initially went with the worst explanation and automatically assumed they didn’t try to calm him down. They extensively tried it. I get angry easy so maybe I didn’t explain myself as well as I should but its very dumb and gullible to just go to the most ideological confirming narrative. Leftism should not be a gullible reaction. We are that because we are right. When we start to bend the truth for our ideological position it makes it harder to make real change. And then when someone tried to explain the facts accusations of being a bootlicker you look unhinged and not congruent with reality. The other side feeds off of our faults and grow in popularity. Im not a fascist but some of you are clearly fascist enablers since their job is to paint the left as unhinged liars. And you prove them right.
20) They are trying to calmly get him to come out again. He does the heart sign. Blond cop says they know you mean peace just come out. Chief reassures him up close and reasonably that they are going to have to break the window. If he can please come out. Blond officer tells him to pull on the handle to please do us a favor. Its pretty clear they dont want to break his windows but they pretty much have to. They offer him food again.
21) Chief asked Glass to break the window himself that way it breaks outward. He refuses. He has very large sharp rocks so he can do it easily. Initial officer officers to break the front passenger side and goes to do it.
22) Cop breaks the front passenger side window. Glass immediately picks up the knife. Everyone starts yelling to drop the knife. Glass starts yelling too.
23) Another officer asks the initial cop if he has the bean bag and he says “yup” then that officer says to try to knock the knife from his hand. Thats a lol statement but okay I guess hes in a vehicle so easier target otherwise. Anyways they expend all bean bag shots and Glass still wont drop the knife and is yelling. Officers yelling drop the knife. One officer saying “Please drop the knife dude.” but he does not. While getting pelted with the shots vision is obscured but what I think is the Chief yelling “Dont do it Christian, don’t do it!” Not sure why he had to say that. Maybe another body cam footage could help here. Christian is Glass’s first name in case anyone didn’t know.
24) An officer states “Someone taze his ass.” And the initial officer proceeds to do just that. Glass does not drop the knife. Not sure he can anyways while being tazed as your muscles tense up but after wards, it gets interesting.
25) Glass says “Im a kill every fucking one of you if you do not stop.” Then proceeds to say ” You can still save yourselves. You can still save yourselves. Lord hear me. Lord hear me.”
And holy shit I actually didn’t hear this part of the recording before I decided to rewatch it for this timeline im writing right now. I only caught it now and only after raising the volume of my head set. Thats 1 hour and 9 minutes into the footage for anyone who wants to hear it for yourselves.
26) This is where he gets shot and the video cuts off just before. One officer asks to make sure the door is held shut, then Glass turns and reaches out of the back driver side window to try to stab what looks to be Chief who is near the window and still pleading to Glass. This doesn’t count as a lunge like I initially thought according to some reports as hes still in the vehicle. I mean he lunged his arm sure but lunge to me involves legwork. Audio continues after the video freezes.
My thoughts on this is that the police didn’t have to shoot yet because hes still in his vehicle and his range is severally limited. But im on the fence on this because if he did get out of the vehicle now you got a moving target in line of fire with other officers. Thats why the guy was on the hood assuming of course it was that officer who fires the shots. Cant tell as the video cut off and I still havnet seen footage of the actual death.
27) Officer states “He went for you right Williams?” Other officers yelling Glass to drop the knife. Initial officer says “He’s threatening his throat!” More yelling to drop the knife. Then what sounds like Chief yelling “GODDAMMIT NO! NOO!” and another officer yelling to drop the knife and initial officer telling the other officer to back up. You can hear them backing up
After yelling to drop the knife someone immediately says “what do we do?” another answers “Send medics out.”
Initially this made no sense to me. I think what happened is that Glass got out of his vehicle and succumbed to his injuries outside the vehicle. Now whether he tried to stab the officers I don’t know. Its late so Im not going to fish up the actual death footage to confirm. It could have been that Chief was yelling that because hes upset that this ended the way it did but I don’t think those are cries of grief but of panic. As if Glass was still trying to stab him until the injuries caught up with him. I wont respond to any commenters here because Im tired of bad faith from aggro leftists who think anyone defending the police is a bootlicker or fascist. If I see the actual death footage Ill only post my thoughts on it and an accurate summary of it.
Now what have we learned? That the police were very patient, very accommodating. Did all the things most people here said they should do and yet I somehow think it would not be enough for any of you. This guy in his current state was a danger to people. Whether on the road or elsewhere. He refused to give up his weapons when asked repeatedly. And when officers were breaching his window and not in the breaking glass with baton kind of way he grabbed his knife.
There’s nothing else that could be done. If they let him go and in his clearly messed up state killed someone then the police would be in hot water. If they let him go and he crashes onto someone because he was driving under the influence the police would be at fault. He refused to de-escalate the situation and forced the police to escalate it themselves after attempts to de-escalate by the police failed.
If that were me I would have told the police once they’ve calmed down that I’m going to get out of the car slowly. And I want everyone to just back off and calm down. Of course I don’t get high but I do have the same diagnoses he has. Or at least the confirmed ones. I’m mean either he took a lot of drugs or there’s something else wrong with him to be behaving like that.
Also I gotta say while I think the police + social worker is a good combo, they not doing anything here. Or at least I don’t think. If I get the opportunity Ill talk to some I come across from work and learn for myself. But from the limited knowledge I have of them what they gonna do? Talk him down? The cops already doing that and it failed. Also social workers who respond to these calls don’t exist yet and neither do police negotiators.
I see no other avenue to end this event peacefully especially when Glass himself gave no avenue. He refused to have a loved one call him and talk him down. He refused to see a medic. He refused to relinquish his weapons. He refused to get out of the vehicle. He refused to break the window himself so he had more control in how they were going to extricate him. He refused to drop the weapon when they did have to break the window. He threatened to kill every one of the police officers but then again hes been tazed and shot with a bean bag so he might be too pissed to think (and being high as fuck doesn’t help with that either). He tried to stab an officer and got shot immediately for it. Could they have continued to use the tazer or bean bags? No, because he wasn’t killed for not wanting to get out of the vehicle or for not wanting to drop the knife. No, it was for trying to stab a police officer. There wasn’t any time to get more tazers or bean bag shots. And like I keep repeating these options are still lethal, just less so.
If I gotta say one thing its maybe the officer who shot could have waited longer as Glass was still in his car and doesn’t have the reach. Then again if he successfully got out of his car hes not a moving target with a weapon and those officers were not exactly far away they were pretty close especially Chief who was way to fucking close. He was trying to get Glass to calm down the entire time.
What more could be done? Maybe a tranq gun? shrug
logicalcat:
Or, you know, step back a few meters (that’s yards for USAnians) from the vehicle on either side and persevere, call in an actual negotiator.
For example.
Or, how about this, drive the cop cars against the sides of the victim’s car so he couldn’t open the doors.
For example.
This, too:
Why?!
I honestly don’t understand why you think this is the case.
How is he supposedly either more or less dangerous with broken windows in his car?
This is supposed to be your version of reasonable “leftism”?
You’ve just made it most evident that you’re an authoritarian, not a leftist.
By your own words.
“Officer downs usually starts with someone reaching for a weapon in their vehicle”
Do you have any sort of citations for this? because this seems rather suspicious to me. aren’t most cops wearing body armor sufficient to protect from handguns? And, “reaching for a weapon(rifle)” isn’t a very quick action.
When I was in bootcamp, we tried to do that “spit-polishing” thing, and in the process I managed to taste some boot polish, and, well, it’s not something I’m in a rush to repeat. Do cops use some special boot polish that makes them extra special tasty?
Freakish:
I somehow don’t think you quite understand the concept of “wait out”, on the basis that you imagine that entails smashing in the car windows of someone who refuses to get out of a car.
Not an action any reasonable person would think constitutes waiting out a situation — rather, the opposite.
—
I’m kinda glad I shan’t ever go to the USA where the possibility of that kind of very patient, very accommodating interaction with police is not negligible.
@22 “What seems unusual here is the victim was low-melanin.”
@30 “Why do you think its unusual”
@31 “Because this happened in the USA.”
@34 “Roughly half the people shot by US police each year – and it’s remarkably consistent – are white.”
@35 “And what percentage of the population are white? Without knowing your statement tells us nothing.”
This is why the human race is doomed … because even on a site supposedly populated by intelligent people, we encounter folks like @35 who cannot master basic logic or pay attention to the context of a statement. And then there’s the inevitable strawman:
@36 “Well, there are more white people around and American cops are trigger happy so that’s not surprising. That doesn’t mean the cops aren’t racially biased.”
We have a society full of profoundly stupid people who can’t grasp that
a) If 50% of people shot by police in the U.S. are white, then it’s not unusual for the victim of a shooting to be white.
b) Because more than 50% of the population is white, they are a correspondingly disproportionately small fraction of police shooting victims.
are both true statements, are not contradictory, and pointing out (a) does not assert or imply that (b) is false or that cops aren’t racially biased.
And this is before we get to whole other level of people arguing that police have no choice but to murder people, and whatever is in that “logicalcat” verbal diarrhea. (“I would have written off this site as hopelessly far left anti-establishmentarian religious bullshit. The point of my comments is to prevent it.” — megalomania much?)
You’re such an ignorant and gullible imbecile, in addition to being a raving loon. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/indica-vs-sativa#physical-differences-in-strains
“Note: Recent research indicates that there is little scientific evidence behind these perceived effects.”
There is virtually nothing that logicalcat isn’t wrong about here, from how to spell Jacob Blake and the details of his case to where people here live. lc is a stupid ignorant irrational fulsomely lying loon with delusions of grandeur who isn’t worth anyone’s time debating. I won’t address the ravings of that one again.
@logicalcat:
You are fucked in the head buddy. Here you go: British officers arresting a man with a fucking machete roaming around and swinging it at them. They managed to do it without shooting the guy dead. In US they guy would have been dead at the 1st second, probably by 20 something bullets. Cops in US have been known to not only shoot at people armed with cold weapons but also miss or injure bystanders nearby.
BTW, there are way way more videos like this. It is not necessary to fucking shoot and murder people for having knives, duh.
Cont. here’s a random story:
Police tries to shoot a dog, kills a 4 year old instead:
https://www.msllegal.com/blog/police-shooting-ohio-officer-accidentally-shoots-4-year-old-girl-while-aiming-at-family-dog/
A guy is armed with a heavy lock (gasp, OMG, must be a lock-of-mass-destruction). Police tries to shoot him, kills a girl.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/24/1067766921/l-a-police-kill-teenage-girl-while-firing-on-male-suspect-in-clothing-store-shoo
You are fucked in the head, logicalcat buddy. Fucked in the head.
From #80’s video:
Of course that requires that police and police institutions prioritize avoiding killing people if possible, but that is far from where those institutions stand and how they train police.
logicalcat@51
The letter. I would have thought this was bleedin’ obvious, given that they clearly did try to get him out of the car.
Of your irrational hatred of leftists, despite pretending to be one.
logicalcat@72
That’s so fucking ridiculous I can hardly believe you wrote it. As long as he was in the car, he wasn’t a danger to anyone. If the police were scared he might have a gun, they could have got out of sight – behind a police car, for example. All they had to do was say somethnig like: “We’re here to help, but we can’t do that until you come out of the car, showing your hands so we know you don’t have a weapon. Meanwhile, we’re not going to hurt you or approach you, we’ll just wait until you’re ready. Is there anyone you’d like us to call?”
Sorry, @83, last paragraph, I should have said “wasn’t a danger to anyone except possibly himself”. But while you could say one way of preventing someone being a danger to themself is to shoot them dead, it does seem rather to miss the point.
If only the police had trained detectives and access to, I don’t know, some sort of database or system of records. Maybe they could have tracked down a family member or friend to help before breaking a window.
I’m a lil late to this party, but I have some thoughts for logicalcat. Suppose we change the situation slightly. Assume that me and a few friends have crashed the car and we are all perfectly rational and armed cos Merica.
Cop turns up and we have been watching the news for the past forever or so and are worried about trigger happy cops. So we have waited for them and insist that they show us their hands when they show up. At the first sign of any non compliance with our demands (that we are making ‘for everyone’s safety’), we all draw weapons, point them at the cop and after a while of being ‘reasonable’ we start smashing their windows, jumping on their bonnet, shoot them with tasers and bean bags, before finally blowing holes in them.
What percentage of all the trouble d’ya think we are in now?