quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Something I haven't seen addressed in this thread:

It appears that there is a race of people in America that systematically have received different responses from police...

Imagine, if you will that any contact with a person in uniform is seen as a potential kidnap and/or murder about to happen. Videos and witnesses for generations document that 'going peacefully' is just as likely to end up in a kidnap or murder for this group of people. Do you 'go quietly' to slaughter, or fight for your life??

If you lived your whole life as part of that group, do you think your response to any contact with police might cause you to behave in unpredictable ways?

I think that's heavily debatable in 2020 - for example, the data on police killing of unarmed suspects seems to have the opposite racial valence - with white suspects more likely to take a bullet than blacks.


But even if it were true, or believed to be true - how does that translate into policy?

You can arrest black makes for crimes if they agree to be arrested but if they resist, you should let them walk?


I know you're not suggesting that, but really, what would be the policy implications of what you are saying?

Jon,

quote:

I don't see where you're going with the 'earlier part of the interaction' argument.

Here I was thinking about the justification for letting someone get away. IOW there was nothing in the interaction that would suggest he would be a danger to others, so if the choices are (1) shoot him or (2) let him get away, then pick #2. You don't do that with someone who was actively trying to hurt others before the cops showed up.
So it matters whether we're talking about a sleeping drunk person vs. a serial killer.

quote:

Really the point is what limits we place on a cop's ability to escalate force in the face of escalating force being applied to him.

Here is the key, I think, and this is why I keep returning to the point that Rayshard Brooks was running away when he was shot. In that moment, was Brooks an active threat to the officer? I would say no. And even if we say that the taser should be considered a lethal weapon, if you read about tasers (which you can do in the NYT) they become progressively less effective and less harmful the further away you get.

Brooks was firing a taser (over his shoulder? haphazardly?) while running away.

I guess I should stop writing that because it is not impressing upon you the same thing that it is impressing upon me, which is that Brooks, because he was running away, was not a threat to the officer to the degree that shooting Brooks was justified.

quote:

Do cops have to take a taze?

Yes. If we're going to let them get away with tasing people to extent that they do, then yes.

Having said that, this is not the main question for me.

This is the main question for me:

quote:

we've traditionally allowed cops to escalate force to whatever point necessary to subdue their attacker *if* they or another person are facing imminent threat of death or severe injury.

Someone who is running away is not an imminent threat.

quote:

You can arrest black makes for crimes if they agree to be arrested but if they resist, you should let them walk?

Re this comment (I assume you meant Black males), I would adjust it a little bit.

You can arrest people for non-violent crimes, if they try to get away and there's not a clear indication that they are then going to start perpetrating violence upon others, you don't shoot them just to prevent them from getting away.

I have thoughts, but I can't share them right now. Tonight, maybe.

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
jon, you seem to have a totally wrong idea of what I'm trying to say. Point is, I'm not trying to say/argue anything.

I just posted a piece of news. Nothing else. Not trying to prove a point.

I bet Vulcans have more self-awareness than this.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

You can arrest black makes for crimes if they agree to be arrested but if they resist, you should let them walk?

Re this comment (I assume you meant Black males), I would adjust it a little bit.

You can arrest people for non-violent crimes, if they try to get away and there's not a clear indication that they are then going to start perpetrating violence upon others, you don't shoot them just to prevent them from getting away.

Justice ShiroKuro has it exactly right.

Because a person who has already punched the cop in the face, stolen his weapon which is designed to incapacitate people, and pointed that weapon at him while running away, can be trusted to keep running away should the incapacitating weapon do what it is designed to do. Rather than circle back for the cop's other weapon, the one which is designed to kill people, and finish the job. The cop has to judge all that in a split second or be pilloried by the most compassionate souls of our society as being on the wrong side of our greatest social problems.

SK - we agree that if the choice is shoot or let them run away, you let them run away. Literally we are 100% in agreement on this. (you could imagine exceptions with exceptionally dangerous individuals - say Bin Laden - but that's not what we see here)


But again, or rather still, you're eliding over the fact that he was firing a taser at the cop.


The officer never faced the decision 'shoot or let him go'.

He faced two decisions in succession (at least once Brooks got away):


Choice 1: 'pursue or not'

Choice 2: 'shoot or get tazed'



He pursued without shooting until he was shot at.

Then the choice he faced was accept the shots or escalate.

If Brooks hadn't shot at the cop, and was able to outrun him, then we would have seen the cop faced with the 'shoot or let him get away' decision.


But that's not what happened. It never got that far.

SK I think you're making assumptions like 'if only the cop hadn't shot him, Brooks would have stopped trying to taze him and just ran away. And further, none of his tazing attempts would have been successful, since the first one wasn't. And even further, the cop should have realized all of that the very moment he saw Brooks point the taser at him'


I know those aren't your words, but you have to be assuming that or something like it in order to think this was a choice of 'shoot or let him get away'.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
Sorry, not NYT, CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/14...ks-sunday/index.html

But here's the NYT article as well:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...ries&pgtype=Homepage

And as these articles and the one posted by WTG note, the death was ruled a homicide, so...

Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Homicide doesn't mean unlawful. It means died at the hands of another person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide

Correct.

"hom·i·cide (hŏmĭ-sīd′, hōmĭ-)
Share:
n.
1. The killing of one person by another, regardless of intention or legality.
2. A person who kills another person.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin homicīdium and homicīda : homō, man; see dhghem- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots + -cīdium and -cīda, -cide.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved."

And shooting a person in the back when they are running away is murder.

"mur·der (mûrdər)
Share:
n.
1.
a. The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.
b. An instance of such killing.

quote:

I think you're making assumptions like 'if only the cop hadn't shot him, Brooks would have stopped trying to taze him and just ran away.

I am indeed making those kinds of assumptions.

I also have as a starting assumption that we must hold police officers to the highest possible standard, that we must expect them to make nearly impossible decisions in a split second, and that those decisions should always lean toward deescalation.

Firing a pistol at the back of someone holding a taser is not deescalation.

It's been interesting to talk with Mr. SK about this, because we're comparing it to policing in Japan of course. Japanese police officers do carry guns, but they are trained not to think of those guns as tools to be used in the duties of policing. Instead, they are trained to view those guns as weapons whose only purpose is to kill another human being. Mr. SK was careful to make the distinction that they are not even supposed to see their guns as tools for self-defense. And so pulling out one's gun is to be avoided at all costs.... There's a very different sensibility there. Sorry, it's a bit of thread drift though.

Back to the US... when we give a police officer a firearm, we need to hold them to the absolute highest standard.

In the US, we have not been doing that yet. It's long past time to start.

Yes, Rayshard Brooks had a taser, and yes, he fired it at the police officer. The officer than made a choice to escalate, and now Mr. Brooks is dead. I still maintain that someone who is running away is not an imminent threat, and it's near impossible to reconcile bullets in the back.

Where does it show Brooks:

1. With the tazor in his hand

and...

2. Turning around and firing it when running away?

I can't find this. It isn't on the tapes.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
Where does it show Brooks:

1. With the tazor in his hand

and...

2. Turning around and firing it when running away?

I can't find this. It isn't on the tapes.

Check the last video in this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...ries&pgtype=Homepage