JSG, cops shouldn't be judge and executioner. No disagreement with you there. Speaking of job description for cops, I really don't believe being a psychologist is part of their job too. Why is a mentally ill person roaming around the street by himself? And when something tragic like this happens, the fault should fall squarely on the cops' shoulders?
For sure police need to investigate why the use of excessive force. I think we all can agree those cops used way too many bullets. Where's the taser gun?
However, even the dude filming the incident realizes the inappropriate responses by that young man from beginning to end. He was acting crazy. When cops are called in to respond to that, continually acting crazy IS asking for trouble. Seasoned rational cops may be able the get things under control. However, if they were rookie cops, or perhaps the cop just came from another tense and violent crime scene,... Then it'd be difficult to predict the outcome.
The problem with that mindset is lack of accountability. If a group of friends goes out partying, one gets belligerently black-out drunk, mixes in with the wrong crowd and breaks the law; does that person not hold some responsibility for their actions? The courts think so.Originally Posted by JSGeneral
Same goes for mentally ill people, if they are deemed incapable of self-control for their actions, they are pretty much given a life sentence in a mental hospital. Inside these hospitals is pretty similar to being in jail, with some differences.
Finger pointing as defined by Merriam-Webster is : the act of blaming someone for a problem instead of trying to fix or solve itYou stated that we shouldn't point fingers... but before that, you point them at both the cops and the dead man. I get what you're saying Godson, and I agree that a taser should of been used. But I will never understand why someone will get any share of the blame if they were suffering from mental illness and the police make the decision to use lethal force. I just don't share that point of view, but I still will try and understand it and not roll over that viewpoint if I post further on the issue.
I made it clear that both parties involved were not in the right and could have done things differently. I also said that what has been done is done and the only thing we can do from here is to figure out what could have been done to prevent the death of a human being. Tazering was the obvious answer, what was the reason why to police officers did not pull the tazers instead of their guns? Is it lack of training or is it something else?
The part where the officers lied on their report is not really a surprise to me. They just shot a human being to death and were possibly afraid of the repercussions. Another point is that I read a study in some cases (ie stress), we can accurately recall less than 30% of what was actually seen/heard.
Just because a person has a mental illness does not give them a free pass to act out. Mentally ill people do know right from wrong, they just have a difficult time associating with it and controlling their behaviors.
Just because a police officer has a gun does not give them a free pass to shoot someone when a less permanent option is available. First option should be the tazer. Perhaps when two police officers are present, one should have the tazer drawn and the other the gun. I honestly don't know much about officer training, etc being I am not one. Perhaps a party could shed some light one what could be implemented.
Not me, because the proper amount of bullets is whatever makes the offender drop to the ground. Despite what people who've never studied real-worlds shootings realize, it's damn near impossible to get people to keep track of their rounds fired unless they get high-level, special forces training. In police shootouts, magazine dumps of the first magazine happen in a lot, if not the majority of shootings due to adrenaline. Usually the process of reloading the second mag slows things down.
Yep. By that same token, a lot of people with histories of mental illness chose not to take their medication. Alcoholics may get ill without alcohol, but that doesn't absolve them of negative/risky behaviors.
FWIU, they responded to a call of armed robbery, which probably had them in the mindset of dealing with an armed robber, not a suicidal person. They would've had to change mindsets very quickly. Just because a person says, "Shoot me!" doesn't mean that they're suicidal; some people say it because they think that you can't shoot them, so it's not a universal statement that automatically means they want a suicide-by-cop.I made it clear that both parties involved were not in the right and could have done things differently. I also said that what has been done is done and the only thing we can do from here is to figure out what could have been done to prevent the death of a human being. Tazering was the obvious answer, what was the reason why to police officers did not pull the tazers instead of their guns? Is it lack of training or is it something else?
A taser isn't a perfect choice if for an offender armed with a lethal weapon, because if it fails, the offender is likely to be on top of you by the time you can draw your gun or the time your partner can shoot them.
He was dropping to the ground by the 3rd shot. There was a shot or two as he was going down and the rest were after he was down. I counted 9 total.
Okay, you just keep having unrealistic expectations of what minimally trained police will do in high adrenaline situations.
Training needs to be better then. Over half the shots were after he started to fall.
Falling and ducking probably don't look that different when you think somebody's coming to stab you and need to make that determination in less than a second. Honestly, I'm surprised when a police shooting doesn't result in a magazine dump.
Better training would result in the man being just as dead because he'd have four bullets in the heart/lungs and two in his head.
I'm not going to improve this thread by adding more of my two-cents on top of this discussion. There's a part of me that totally nods to what you are discussing regarding personal responsibility... no matter what their condition. The other part of me does not see it that way... making me conflicted. Still, I did what I could to try and express that other point of view. At the time, I didn't think of it as contentious. I apologize if others took offense to those statements.
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