Make a mistake at a game of Simon Says? You get killed.

[Darwin333]

Yeah, that's exactly what I said in my post. But if what they did was within department training then it's what he was trained to do. And the guy did reach behind him and his elbow came up as his hand came forward. The exact motion of someone pulling a weapon. He was told he would be shot if he did that and he did it twice. That cop was trained to shoot under those circumstances so the jury found it was a justifiable shooting because the cop reasonably believed his life was in danger.

Everyone keeps saying he put his hand behind his back twice, as if drawing a weapon, after being told not to. The first time he put BOTH hands behind his back while he was on his knees as if he was assuming the position for police to cuff him. It looked nothing like he was drawing a weapon and at that point in time he had not been instructed on what to do or not to do with his hands. It was then they told him they would shoot him if he did it again. The guy was obviously very distraught and they continued to make it worse, guess when people are most likely to make mistakes? The second time he was on his hands and knees 6' away from the cops, there were 4 guns trained on him at least, including two AR-15s, with fingers on the trigger. Especially with the rifles, the angle of the shot and the fact that they were in a crowded hotel there was a very good chance that an innocent civilian on the floor below could be shot. Now personally I don't think that it should require all of these factors, not to mention a slew of others I didn't list, but when you do consider all of these factors there is no way in hell he should have shot the guy just for making a move with his hand. They would have had plenty of time to fire and had more than enough eyeballs on him from different angles to wait until they actually saw something, any damn thing, in his hand before not only killing him but endangering the lives of other innocent people at the hotel. As I stated before, we know the cops were concerned about injuring people on the 4th floor because they assigned two officers to wake up everyone on the 4th floor to make sure they had not been hit. I can even give you their names if you want, there were about a dozen people they had to ensure they didn't accidentally shoot after the unnecessarily shot an unarmed man who anyone with an ounce of reason could see was trying his hardest to comply.

Someone said if the cops hadn't ordered the guy to crawl to them and walked up to cuff him while he was on the floor that his kids would still have a father. How about if the guy hadn't been drunk and playing with a BB gun at the window of his 5th floor hotel room? Folks in a hot tub below saw him point it out the window towards a highway. We are quick to jump on a cop for following bad training (IMHO) and call him a murder, but we give the idiot who cause the situation a pass on the stupid actions that got him killed.

Being drunk and doing something stupid that has no intent to harm anyone else, doesn't harm anyone else and I'm not even sure if it's even illegal shouldn't get you executed by the state. He was showing a guy the scope on his pellet gun FFS. Now that we have found them not criminally liable this is once again shown as perfectly acceptable. Even the police department has no real incentive to change any policy because the very large payout the poor widow will get will be paid by the city and ultimately the taxpayers who they endangered.

BTW, I stopped buying the "following policy" bullshit a long time ago, I don't give a fuck what the policy is it doesn't give you the right to break the law especially when we are talking about murdering innocent people. Their job is to protect the public not kill an innocent man and knowingly endanger a dozen other innocent civilians for no reason. To me the entire "following policy" bullshit is no different than "following orders" being an excuse to do obviously illegal and immoral things.

 

[Paladin3]

Calling for LE training to be changed to not shooting until you see the gun or weapon is a far cry from calling this kind of shooting murder or even manslaughter. Those who are accusing the cop of premeditated murder or executing the guy are only expressing their hate for cops.

Hating and attacking our cops isn't going to fix this situation. We need to reform the way we train our law enforcement officers, require more education and pay salaries that will draw better candidates to the profession. We need the kind of folks who have more respect for the public they serve, and are willing to wait until they actually see a weapon and not shoot just because the suspect reaches. That's a lot to ask someone because suspects don't have to follow the same rules. And it will guarantee that more cops will never reach the age of retirement.

I briefly considered applying to the L.A. Co. Sheriff's Dept. when I was 23, but having worked with many of them as a photojournalist, I knew how little respect LE officers often show the suspects and public they are suppose to be serving. I realized I wouldn't mesh with the overly aggressive LE culture that existed back in 1991 and gave up on that idea. It's gotten a lot better since the pre-Rodney King days but we have a very long way to go.

 

[Maxima1]

Hating and attacking our cops isn't going to fix this situation. We need to reform the way we train our law enforcement officers, require more education and pay salaries that will draw better candidates to the profession. We need the kind of folks who have more respect for the public they serve, and are willing to wait until they actually see a weapon and not shoot just because the suspect reaches. That's a lot to ask someone because suspects don't have to follow the same rules. And it will guarantee that more cops will never reach the age of retirement.

Paying more in salaries and benefits isn't likely to do much. I mean, the body cams haven't made a dent in the amount killed each year, which suggests cops shoot because they feel threatened. I think a paradigm shift in training is most likely to have the biggest effect.

Other jobs also pose a risk to public. Truckers kill more each year than cops. Those people are not involved in gang banger shootings and people with mile long rap sheets. Truckers have a severe shortage (more OT per trucker = more deaths), yet compensation is pretty crappy.

 

[Darwin333]

You don't get it, the LEOs don't WANT to change and any significant change will be fought tooth and nail by their very powerful unions. They see it as "them vs us" yet you say we shouldn't see it the same way, why exactly is that? Hell even if we could get a change of official policy and more/new training it would very likely take a generation of cops to see any sort of meaningful results from it.

No, you change this just like OSHA completely and totally reformed construction safety in less than a decade. You punish the everliving shit out of offenders. When it got to the point that OSHA was quite literally putting companies out of business with their fines everyone got completely on board quick, fast and in a hurry. You start throwing assholes in jail who execute innocent people when no other reasonable person would have done the same and I guarantee that the training, attitudes, and compliance with said training will follow very quickly. Anything short of that and we just keep getting the status quo, more dead innocent civilians, us vs them mentality from the cops, very little training and desire to de-escalate situations and instead actually escalating them, and worst of all a culture of LEOs that think they can get away with virtually anything because it's true.

I don't hate cops, I know a few very good cops albeit I don't think they call the bad cops out nearly enough, if at all. I do think that cops are hired into the culture I mentioned above, one in which you can get away with virtually anything and if you do go WAY overboard 98% of the time the very worst that happens is you get fired. I am against abuse of power in all forms and levels of government but this issue is as serious as it gets. When the public loses trust and faith in their police nothing good can come of it. Mark my words, if nothing is done on the judicial level things will get far worse before they ever get better no matter how much the average joe advocates change. That is something else that I am not ok with, are you @Paladin3?