Police gun down INNOCENT 72 year old man, blame poor lighting for being at wrong home

[Darwin333]

Let's see: Suppose this man hadn't decided to pull his gun out and "defend" his home. Think he'd be dead now?

Let's see: Suppose you go read what "stand your ground" laws actually are and come try this again. Maybe you won't look like quite as retarded as you currently do.

 

[Darwin333]

I think that if anyone causes an unnecessary death - either their own or someone else's - by "defending" themselves with a gun, we get to keep score.

In this instance the cops caused said unnecessary death, which gun law do you like that would have prevented them from fucking up the address and shooting an innocent man?

 

[Darwin333]

Just because the cops made the blunder that initiated the situation doesn't mean they were totally responsible for his death.

It goes back to two kids on the play ground:
Kid 1 calls Kid 2 stupid.
Kid 2 punches Kid 1.
Teacher takes Kid 2 to principle's office, and Kid 2 complains "but he started it!"

It doesn't matter. Kid 2 escalated the situation to violence.

In this case, the cops may have instigated the entire incident, but the old guy escalated it to lethal violence. It doesn't matter who was legally/illegally where for what reason. That's how it went down, where it went down. I suppose you could accuse the cops of trespassing, but that's a separate issue from the violence, and as such would be considered a separate charge in court.

While I understand the point you are trying to make there is a huge difference between your example and an old man having every reason in the world to believe his house was being invaded by armed bad guys. We only have what the cops said to go by and while I am not accusing them of lying they would have a HUGE reason to lie if it didn't go down like they said. Even then, how much time was there between them identifying themselves and the first shot? Perhaps the old man was putting the gun down and he didn't do it in a safe way (causing the muzzle to point in the direction of the cops on its way down)?

At the end of the day it all boils down to this, at least in my mind:

The man had a legal right to be there.

The cops did NOT have a legal right to be there. As a matter of fact the cops usually call that sort of "mistake" breaking and entering. Most of them are quite happy to inform you that ignorance is not an excuse and will arrest and charge you even if you were completely ignorant. In a life and death situation where you can VERY easily get innocent 3rd parties killed I refuse to accept ignorance as an excuse. I especially don't accept some bullshit like "it was dark so we couldn't read the numbers on the house"..... you gotta be shitting me. If this amount of negligence caused someones death on one of my job sites someone would, rightfully imo, be going to jail for negligent homicide.

 

[waggy]

I don't give two fucks how someones house is marked (as long as its accurate), if the police think they have enough evidence that you have committed a crime or you are doing something illegal in your home they can damn well accurately figure out that they are kicking down the right door. It is absolutely 100% unacceptable for them to fuck this up, period. full stop. end of story.

/this

it blows my mind they couldn't do a drive by and make sure they had the correct house. That NOBODY used a flashlight to look.

I would think that if you are going to storm a house fully armed you would do the basics like know what fucking house you are going to storm.

 

[irishScott]

While I understand the point you are trying to make there is a huge difference between your example and an old man having every reason in the world to believe his house was being invaded by armed bad guys. We only have what the cops said to go by and while I am not accusing them of lying they would have a HUGE reason to lie if it didn't go down like they said. Even then, how much time was there between them identifying themselves and the first shot? Perhaps the old man was putting the gun down and he didn't do it in a safe way (causing the muzzle to point in the direction of the cops on its way down)?

At the end of the day it all boils down to this, at least in my mind:

The man had a legal right to be there.

The cops did NOT have a legal right to be there. As a matter of fact the cops usually call that sort of "mistake" breaking and entering. Most of them are quite happy to inform you that ignorance is not an excuse and will arrest and charge you even if you were completely ignorant. In a life and death situation where you can VERY easily get innocent 3rd parties killed I refuse to accept ignorance as an excuse. I especially don't accept some bullshit like "it was dark so we couldn't read the numbers on the house"..... you gotta be shitting me. If this amount of negligence caused someones death on one of my job sites someone would, rightfully imo, be going to jail for negligent homicide.

I don't accept ignorance as an excuse, I think these cops should be charged with negligent manslaughter. My point is that, if their story is true, they are not wholly responsible for the man's death.

Here's another scenario. I'm sitting at home with a loaded gun pointed at my head and my finger on the trigger. No suicidal intentions, I'm just sitting there like that. The cops kick down my door by mistake. The shock of their entry causes me to reflexively pull the trigger, and I die.

Whether the cops caused the situation or not, I put myself in the position for such a situation to kill me via an idiotic lack of gun discipline. If the cops' story is true, this man is guilty of the same thing in principle IMO.


Granted the cops have a great incentive to lie if things really did go sideways, but I can't honestly pass judgement on that suspicion. If we're going to judge the situation objectively, we can't let our feelings about horror stories (about other cops) or general statistics bias the judgement. The question is of the actions of these two specific cops. I wish we had conclusive information beyond their word, but for now we don't.