Police shoot an "armed" middle school student

[yookiwooki]

Sadly, I think the cops were justified in this. There was no way to know if the gun was real or not and a lot more people could have been killed if it was a real gun.

When it comes to police brutality, my theory is that most cases of authority using excessive force are because the authority figure is terrified. I think police brutality is so prevalent in recent years because there is so much fear mongering in the media and politics. Everything is a war now: War on Drugs, War on Terrorism, War on Crime... If cops were given a more realistic perspective on how dangerous the world is, there would be less police brutality.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Dude, I tried reasoning with people from North America on this. Don't waste your time. They genuinely believe shooting this kid with the aim of killing him was the best way to resolve the situation.

Regards from Wales.

Herp. Because it was. The number of school massacres we've had is probably somewhere in the double digits by now. The kid was threatening lethal force (Filed off the orange safety cap of the gun to make it look real, assaulting another kid, then saying that he was going to "Kill everyone") and so the cops responded with lethal force. As they're supposed to. They did what was expected of them.

Under no circumstances is a potentially lethal situation met with non-lethal force. (Well, I suppose that isn't totally true. We do have hostage negotiations sometimes.)

Look if cops feel that their eyesight is all they need to charge someone for a speeding ticket than they damn well need to use that same amazing eyesight to tell a gun isn't real or assume a middle school child might not deserve death instantly. Had the kid killed another human and been holding a hostage than yes I could see this situation being remotely valid.

They find people who admit to killing multiple people and guess what those dudes are alive and getting a pretty sweet life with the money of other people.

Derp. Look at one of the many, MANY pictures in this thread comparing real guns to BB/pellet guns. Up close they're very similar and would be impossible to tell apart from a distance greater than a few feet.

 

[cswurt]

Whaaaat?
I thought children were invincible.
That's what Skyrim would have be believe.

The bullet just passed through him and he was unharmed, right?

 

[Sovvolf]

Derp. Look at one of the many, MANY pictures in this thread comparing real guns to BB/pellet guns. Up close they're very similar and would be impossible to tell apart from a distance greater than a few feet.

It'd be still hard to tell even if you wasn't stuck in a high pressure scenario where lives could potentially be at stake. Seriously, some times the only difference between the two is a little screw at the bottom of the grip for the co2 canister (some of them, like the handcannon I posted don't even have that) and maybe the safety is slightly bigger. Other than that, outside of actually holding it or inspecting it from a safe environment.

 

[senordesol]

Look if cops feel that their eyesight is all they need to charge someone for a speeding ticket than they damn well need to use that same amazing eyesight to tell a gun isn't real or assume a middle school child might not deserve death instantly. Had the kid killed another human and been holding a hostage than yes I could see this situation being remotely valid.

They find people who admit to killing multiple people and guess what those dudes are alive and getting a pretty sweet life with the money of other people.

Did I read that correctly? Only if the kid had killed someone would a shooting be 'remotely' valid? By 'remote', I assume you mean 'remote' so (in your own words) you'd prefer one or more innocent people die before the police even begin to start to assess considering trying to stop a lethal threat with lethal force.

So we end the day with two or more body bags, rather than one. Fantastic.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Senordesol and Kopikatsu are perfect examples of why the rest of the world hates America, It is better to kill a child than to teach them how to interact with the world. I have a scenario, everytime a child is threatening or hurts anyone in any way. Lets kill their parents, the parents clearly raised the child to be violent and if they accidently reproduce again there is no way to tell that the child won't be a murderer, instead of correcting them and fixing the situation we can solve all our problems with guns and murder. The point is the child never hurt a single person he just had a gun that was made to look real. Why not approach the situation with a collective good instead of an OMG he has a gun fire stance.

I have an idea no more guns. Bam all problems solved, kid wouldn't have been holding something that would have confused the cops, cops wouldn't have had the capacity to shoot him. I am such a genius.

wat. Children can kill. We have numerous instances of children under the age of 10 murdering their parent(s) and occasionally other people. (And not because they were being abused, they just got their hands on a gun and used it.)

Also, hindsight is 20/20. The cops aren't psychic. They didn't the know the gun he had was fake and they had no way of telling the gun was fake. And as mentioned previously, we have had middle schoolers shoot up their own schools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Middle_School_massacre

13 and 11 year old set up an ambush and murder four other students and a teacher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Middle_School_shooting

14 year old shoots two other 14 year olds before being brought down.

And I didn't have have to look hard for those. I just put in 'middle school massacre' into Google and those were the first two links.

As for the 'no guns' thing...let's take away knives too, shall we? People kill with those. And bows. And cars. And piano wire. And basically everything else. (Before someone herps along and says 'GUNS WERE MADE FOR KILLING', they weren't. They were made for hunting. As were axes, knives, and arrows. They were turned into weapons later.)

Besides, people in the US wouldn't give up their guns even if ordered. How exactly do you propose to remove guns from the world? Ask nicely? Sprinkle some fairy dust and hope everything works out okay?

 

[Sovvolf]

The point is the child never hurt a single person he just had a gun that was made to look real. Why not approach the situation with a collective good instead of an OMG he has a gun fire stance.

One the child never hurt a single person (cept the kid he decked) however, from the cops point of view, the guy had a gun, he was irate and screaming about killing people... How do you know he doesn't actually have a real gun or a pellet gun? Its easy to look down at the situation in hindsight where we know it was a pellet gun. The cops didn't know, though they knew the kid was screaming about killing people... Good chance that he's going to go nuts and kill people.

Two, they warned him and asked him to drop his weapon, they didn't run in and just shoot him. They tried to calm him down and get him to drop the potential lethal real gun. They didn't open fire until he raised the gun towards the police officers. Far as the cops knew, that gun was real and the kid was bout to fire it at them and kill them.

Its not that he is just a kid its that the pontential threat of death shouldn't be answered with death, nor should a response of death. There is never a reason to kill unless they openly desire death.

The kid was attempting (and succeeded) suicide by cops... He was openly desiring death...

 

[senordesol]

Senordesol and Kopikatsu are perfect examples of why the rest of the world hates America, It is better to kill a child than to teach them how to interact with the world. I have a scenario, everytime a child is threatening or hurts anyone in any way. Lets kill their parents, the parents clearly raised the child to be violent and if they accidently reproduce again there is no way to tell that the child won't be a murderer, instead of correcting them and fixing the situation we can solve all our problems with guns and murder. The point is the child never hurt a single person he just had a gun that was made to look real. Why not approach the situation with a collective good instead of an OMG he has a gun fire stance.

I have an idea no more guns. Bam all problems solved, kid wouldn't have been holding something that would have confused the cops, cops wouldn't have had the capacity to shoot him. I am such a genius.

Its not that he is just a kid its that the pontential threat of death shouldn't be answered with death, nor should a response of death. There is never a reason to kill unless they openly desire death.

When the 'kid' is pointing a gun at your face, when lives are in plausible imminent danger, the 'teaching moment' has passed. The police had no way of knowing whether the weapon was real (and the teen DELIBERATELY modified the weapon to make that distinction more difficult) or not. From a distance it looks real enough, and so they MUST assume it is. Whether he had hurt (actually, according to the story he had punched a kid then drew his weapon) anyone is immaterial. If someone points a GUN at your FACE do you wait for them to pull the trigger to see if they're serious? I wouldn't. I've got a family to consider, and I'm sure those officers do to. They GAVE him MULTIPLE ORDERS to drop his weapon, he CHOSE to point it at them. If that were a real weapon, any one of those officers could now be a split-second from death.

If the world hates us Americans because we're able to apply logic and perspective to such a tragic scenario, rather than living in a fantasy world where all the guns can magically disappear, then I'll take that hatred as a compliment.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

Sad, yet tis the kids own fault. You don't point guns at the police, even in jest. They don't know it's fake...besides, sounds like the kid may have had a deathwish, at least from the vague description of the incident in the article.

 

[noobium]

Well maybe next time he will put down the toy when the officers tell him... o wait nevermind

 

[Kopikatsu]

Well maybe next time he will put down the toy when the officers tell him... o wait nevermind

This is a lesson for parents. Teach your kid to comply with police commands. If they tell you to drop the gun, then drop the gun. If they tell you to freeze, don't book it.

 

[madwarper]

Senordesol and Kopikatsu are perfect examples of why the rest of the world hates America, It is better to kill a child than to teach them how to interact with the world.

If "the rest of the world" is as delusional as to think that someone drawing a bead on you with a firearm is time for a "teachable moment", then I'm more than fine with them hating me.

I have a scenario, everytime a child is threatening or hurts anyone in any way. Lets kill their parents, the parents clearly raised the child to be violent and if they accidently reproduce again there is no way to tell that the child won't be a murderer, instead of correcting them and fixing the situation we can solve all our problems with guns and murder.

Nice strawman.

The point is the child never hurt a single person he just had a gun that was made to look real.

No, I think the point is that you either delusional at best, intellectual dishonest at worst. Why don't you start by reading the article?

• Police shot and killed an eighth-grader in the hallway of his middle school Wednesday after the boy brandished what looked like a handgun and pointed it at officers. It turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing.
  [...]
  Shortly before the confrontation, the boy had walked into a classroom and punched a random boy in the nose for no apparent reason, police said. Investigators did not know why he pulled out the weapon.

a) He DID assault others. b) He was threatening them and the police.

I have an idea no more guns. Bam all problems solved, kid wouldn't have been holding something that would have confused the cops, cops wouldn't have had the capacity to shoot him. I am such a genius.

HA! Let's assume your proposal is even feasible in reality (hint: it's not)...
Gun violence plummets, while stabbings, beatings and all other forms of violence skyrocket. If someone wants a weapon to threaten and/or hurt others, the unavailability of guns isn't going to deter them.

 

[ccggenius12]

Guns are well and truly part of American culture now, for better or worse.

But introducing guns to the UK police forces would be a bad idea. One which would lead to criminals buying a lot more of them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have found the one sane person on the internet. Bow before our new lord and master!

 

[Nielas]

Dude, I tried reasoning with people from North America on this. Don't waste your time. They genuinely believe shooting this kid with the aim of killing him was the best way to resolve the situation.

Regards from Wales.

The only thing that has really insulted me about this whole argument i've been having is the additude from the American posters, they're trying to make me look like an asshole for wanting to NOT KILL CHILDREN.

You are getting the attitude because you seem to be advocating the position that the police must risk the lives of police officers, teachers and other children on the possibility that a gun being pointed at them might be a realistic looking toy and not something that is about to kill them.

 

[Gecko clown]

If officers think someone has a gun AND they tell him to put it down AND they don't, then it's not the officer's fault. The problem is that, in America, police are allowed to carry guns and therefore have the option to shoot someone. If they didn't have this option the, slightly deranged, kid would still be alive. The officers could have found another way round it and realize that the weapon wasn't real.

 

[senordesol]

If officers think someone has a gun AND they tell him to put it down AND they don't, then it's not the officer's fault. The problem is that, in America, police are allowed to carry guns and therefore have the option to shoot someone. If they didn't have this option the, slightly deranged, kid would still be alive. The officers could have found another way round it and realize that the weapon wasn't real.

And if the weapon was real, we'd have three dead officers. Yeah. That's better.

 

[Snotnarok]

Completely justified by the cops, they used the means they had to take down someone they saw had a lethal weapon. Just because the weapon isn't actually lethal changes nothing since they had no reason to think other wise, black gun shaped object=dangerous.

This isn't even arguable, you wave a 'GUN' around and the cops will use deadly force. If you think they should have used Tasers or something well sadly a lot of areas don't allow officers to use tasers for fear of abusing them or some such. A lot can't even get pepper spray.

My areas city cops are completely under funded with rickety "recommended you buy your own" hand cuffswhile my own suburb neighborhood has the HIGHEST paid cops in the country and they don't do much more than pull people over that don't stop at lights. Yet the city cops area dealing with shootings and gangs and they get less pay and less equipment.