After reading this I think it was justified. However, I don't think 10 bullets was really necessary, that's just being trigger happy.
Poll: Was this police shooting justified in your opinion? (Graphic)
- Thread starter Brawndo
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That man, how ever stupid he may have been was a human being, a life, a person with emotions, thought, speech, and in one instant one person with a gun emptied his clip killing him... Yes he may have had a weapon but ummm, does it really look that deadly with at least 5 cops, pepperspray, and a dog, no. Life isn't some cheap trivial thing. I don't know about any one else but in my opinion if you die you are dead no heaven no hell no reincarnation or new life. He is dead forever, I don't think that police should have authorisation to use lethal force unless their lives are in immediate danger.
there, there, nobody's perfect, everything's alright.Todd Ralph said:
would you like a hug?
OT: I think the cop shouldn't have come that close to an armed suspect in the first place, if he wipes a taser from his face is a clear sign to back off, for which he had enough time.
also, they had a dog, they could've given him a warning and released it when he refuses to comply, I don't think he'd fare well against those kinda beasts.
and so, the cop got in trouble, his partner was forced to shoot as a result.
and shot him some more when he hit the ground, which, in fact, I can not justify.
the fact the second officer had to shoot I will not debate, that's justified, but the siituation could have easily been avoided in the first place.
I'm not going to say what I think, instead I'm going to remind people of what happened about five months ago when a similar story was posted from the UK.
Back then the story was as follows: Man with machete keeps police occupied for five hours in tense standoff.
The overwhelming response from these forums?
'This is why the UK police should go armed, so they could shoot this man.'
If you answered 'this is why the UK police should go armed' but are now answering 'this shooting was not justified' then please go away. From watching the clips the only difference between these stories was that one man had a machete and the other a crowbar, both lethal weapons.
Back then the story was as follows: Man with machete keeps police occupied for five hours in tense standoff.
The overwhelming response from these forums?
'This is why the UK police should go armed, so they could shoot this man.'
If you answered 'this is why the UK police should go armed' but are now answering 'this shooting was not justified' then please go away. From watching the clips the only difference between these stories was that one man had a machete and the other a crowbar, both lethal weapons.
I think it's completely justified. Police are trained to go for a kill shot if their gun is being used. The guy shrugged off a TASER and then proceeded to attempt to attack an officer who had put his gun away. If the guy shrugged off a taser, how would a dog stop him? He could easily get a few blows in if officers moved in to physically restrain him, injuring (or possibly killing) an officer or officers. The guy had no other choice. As for firing the 10 or so rounds? Being in a situation where harm could come to you, with adrenaline flowing through you, you'd keep firing until the you knew the guy went down in my opinion. I know I do in horror games (like Doom 3), let alone what would happen in real life.
well, he was that close to interfering serious injury on another officer.
At the point where you attack someone carrying a gun you lose my sympathy.
At the point where you attack someone carrying a gun you lose my sympathy.
Yeah, I see a lot of people saying that as if it specifically justifies the escalation of force.Skopintsev said:
It does not.
Any officer properly trained with a Taser will understand that it's not a true firearm; there's lots of ways for it to fire but still fail to deliver a disabling blow. The fact that someone doesn't go down doesn't mean they're any more uncontrollable than the next guy. To my knowledge - and I've seen a couple documentaries on Taser International and their products - there's simply no way of defeating a taser that operated correctly; there's no drug or training or biological oddity that allows you to remain standing after it discharges into your body, because the taser disables the biochemistry that allowed you to be standing in the first place.
So really, after the taser didn't work, the debate becomes about whether it was acceptable to use guns or whether the officers should have had another non-lethal tactic prepared. Because tasers aren't nearly as reliable as dogs, guns, or batons, and an offender failing to go down after tasing doesn't prove anything new about his threat level.
What video were you even watching? Because it wasn't this one.idarkphoenixi said:
Why didn't they try to taser him or hit him with pepper spray? They did. You can clearly see them hit him with something at about 40 seconds and he just waves it off.
Why were they so close? Maybe because they were going to hit him with pepper spray or a taser and had to be at a pretty close range to do so. Also, you can't arrest a person from 50 feet away.
Why was their first instinct to shoot? Like I said, it wasn't.
Why not let the dog off the leash? How would the dog have prevented the guy from swinging down on the other officer, again?
Why couldn't they overpower him? They were trying to get him to surrender. Normal people will surrender when two police officers point guns at them. Its much better to let them surrender than to force them down. Not only is it less dangerous for the police involved, it at least lets them avoid a resisting arrest charge. He changed the dynamic when he went to assault an unarmed officer (the officer was unarmed at that instant).
Was any life in danger? Yes, the other officer's was. Try taking a few hits with a metal crowbar from a, probably drug fueled, psychopath. How many hits do you think it would take to kill a man?
As for the comment about them not even being issued pepper spray or tasers in America. They are. And, once again, you can clearly see them try that first. Hell, the reason those idiots were taping it is because they wanted to see the guy get hit by a taser.
Honestly, I take offense to you implication about Americans. Ignorance is bliss, though, I suppose.
I do not believe that murder that these cops committed was even close to justified, and I believe that the cops should be serving jail time for what they have done. Yes, there is a suspect with a weapon (a very short range one at that) yes, he wasn't following commands, yes, he MAY have made an advance towards an officer (if your surrounded by 6 people what ever direction you move is an advance at someone), but police officers are trained to use there better judgement, 6 vs 1, i don't care if he has a sword, you can take him down with little to no injuries for the officers, hell one brave man and a rock (or a suv) would probably suffice, but what i really find disgusting is that 10 shots were fired from 2 officers, now if the suspect had a gun then MAYBE this is justified, but a man who has recently been tased in the face has to be running on straight adrenaline, which would be quickly running out and would probably not be able to withstand another shock, let alone multiple, as all of those officers are most likely carrying tasers. If the man is not carrying a gun, yet the officer believe lethal force is needed, then one to tow shots should be taken, while backing away. 99% of attackers (who aren't on pcp) will drop immediately and be incapacitated. Not even rap stars come back from 10 shots to the chest. As far as I can tell this man only threatened people, never actually attacked or injured anyone, why do two cops need to nearly unload there full clips into him, he's not a rampaging bull. The cops choice to fire to defend his partner is not the issue, its the amount of force needed, fire 2 shots, if he doesn't go down then fire more, don't fire 2 shots then continue firing into the limp body on the ground, that is murder.
You know there's no thing as a leg shot right? If you get shot in the leg you're still probably going to die, there's a lot of arteries in the leg. If one of those got severed you'll bleed out within minutes. There is no such thing as shooting to wound in real life...Brawndo said:
Police are trained to shoot for the centre of mass.
Any people saying "should have shot him in the leg" have no idea how things work.
I think he was rather quick to fire, but it's a decision that needs to be made in the moment. The cops are in the right in this case.
Any people saying "should have shot him in the leg" have no idea how things work.
I think he was rather quick to fire, but it's a decision that needs to be made in the moment. The cops are in the right in this case.
The video is right there. You can clearly see he never "swings his metal bar" even once. He raises it and takes a couple of steps towards the officer who tasered him. It's clearly a bluff to make the officer back off. Maybe if they weren't so fucking fat those officers wouldn't feel so threatened by a kid shuffling towards them holding a comically large hammer. The claim that he swung the bar twice is a pathetic lie told with the intention of justifying murder.evilneko said:
The taser probably didn't work because you need both probes to hit. Officers are therefore trained to aim for the chest. For some unfathomable reason he went for the face, making it possible that the second probe didn't make contact with the skin and he was able to brush off the one that did.
Being a police officer is a high risk job. If you don't want to take the slightest risk of getting injured in order to apprehend a criminal, don't become a cop. It's not all parking tickets and attacking peaceful protesters. Occasionally shit gets serious, and if all they're going to do is rock up and shoot anything remotely threatening to death then I'd rather take my chances with the criminals and forgo the cops.
OKBrawndo said:
1) Police will never go for a leg shot. Listen, pistols don't work like the movies. You can't nonchalantly shoot a man in the head from 40 yards away.
In reality, it's pretty hard just to hit a man sized target, and when they're moving it takes years of training and dedicated practice, and even then you're probably only going to hit half the time. Trying to hit the legs, which are smaller and moving much faster, is virtually impossible. Further, even if they manage to hit the leg, the guy is still in danger of dying. A bullet damages a lot of area, much larger than the actual bullet, and if the femoral artery is ruptured you pretty much need to be in a hospital when it happens not to die.
2) Why don't you and five of your buddies go try to overpower an angry guy with a crowbar. You'll pull it off, but at least one of you, and probably 2 or 3 of you, will probably end up in the hospital. Maybe dead. A crowbar is more than lethal, and I can't really blame the cops for not wanting to get in range. Further, it's not a crowbar, it's a sledghammer, which is even worse.
3) Not all police officers carry non-lethal options. So far as I know, most don't.
4) In most cases, you aren't guaranteed to hit with the first shot, and even if you do, one shot from a handgun is not enough to stop most people. Again, it's totally different from the movies. It is not uncommon for it to take even as many as 3 bullets to stop someone quickly. By quickly, I mean before they can injure or kill you. If you are trained in handgun self-defense, they train you to keep firing until the guy hits the ground, and I don't doubt that police training is the same.
Now, all that said, they should have used the dog. I mean, I don't generally condone the use of police dogs as they naturally go for the tendons in the legs and the throat, meaning they can easily cripple or kill the suspect, but the guy obviously had a chance to back down, so loose the dog. Then again, it may be standard operating procedure not to use a dog on an armed suspect, they are expensive to train.
Again, they still should have used the dog, but in a life or death situation like that, you will do what you're trained to do. If they are trained not to use a dog on someone who is armed, then the blame belongs on the guy who trained them, and whoever put the procedures in place, not on the guy who pulled the trigger.
All that said, I can't really have too much pity for the guy, he was threatening the police with a sledgehammer. and the cops have it a lot harder than people think. A gun may be a nearly invincible weapon in the movies, but in reality those handguns are the next best thing to worthless. It takes more time to draw and aim them, then it does to run 21 feet from a standing start. And 21 feet is the average distance that police engage someone from. Add to that the fact that it's hard to hit a moving target and the fact that it can often take 2 or 3 hits to stop someone, and police officers are in serious danger every single day. That has to wear on a guy, it's not like they are military, they signed up to write tickets, maybe investigate some crimes. They didn't sign up knowing how much danger they would be in on a daily basis.
tldr: cops should have used the dog, but I don't feel too bad for the guy, and I don't really think the cops are all that much at fault.
Is this really justified? I mean - I thought police-officers would require some sorts of training against people with such weapons. On his own, a police-officer should - in my opinion - stand heads and shoulders above the average thug. Two of them should have made it relatively easy.
But no, let's just shoot him eight times in the chest. That's easier.
That's part of the risk of the job. Just as how a bouncer at a club may have to deal with groups of people bigger than him brandishing weapons, a police-officer should be trained to deal with a situation with one man and a weapon. Hell, I actually think a bouncer could have handled that situation better. If the police just shoot everything that presents a danger to themselves, in a country where the average citizen can choose to do the same thing, what's the point of the police?
But no, let's just shoot him eight times in the chest. That's easier.
Sorry, but I had to quote this part.Mortai Gravesend said:
That's part of the risk of the job. Just as how a bouncer at a club may have to deal with groups of people bigger than him brandishing weapons, a police-officer should be trained to deal with a situation with one man and a weapon. Hell, I actually think a bouncer could have handled that situation better. If the police just shoot everything that presents a danger to themselves, in a country where the average citizen can choose to do the same thing, what's the point of the police?
OK, lets call the one with the dog Bob and the other one Joe. So Joe puts away his handgun and shoots the guy with a taser (which has no effect) and then tries to reset his taser, the guy sees Joe's unarmed and swings at him with what appears to be a fucking sledgehammer. Bob fires 5 times to defend his partner, but the guy is still standing and appears to be running away (hard to see behind the car) so Joe takes out his handgun and shoots him another 5 times. This all happened in 5 seconds.
I think the shooting was justified but most of you are concerned about the number of rounds fired which seems to be excessive, but you have to understand that sometimes it takes a lot of shots to take somebody down, especially if using 9 mm (or possibly .40) which I think they are since Bob is shooting with one hand very fast and there appears to be little recoil. During 1986 Miami shootout Michael Platt took 12 (9 mm and .38 spl) rounds before going down.
I think they should arm police officers with .45 ACP and .357 SIG backup in case the criminal is wearing a body armour.
Also, seriously? Again with the shoot-in-the-leg bullshit? Ugh.
I think the shooting was justified but most of you are concerned about the number of rounds fired which seems to be excessive, but you have to understand that sometimes it takes a lot of shots to take somebody down, especially if using 9 mm (or possibly .40) which I think they are since Bob is shooting with one hand very fast and there appears to be little recoil. During 1986 Miami shootout Michael Platt took 12 (9 mm and .38 spl) rounds before going down.
I think they should arm police officers with .45 ACP and .357 SIG backup in case the criminal is wearing a body armour.
Also, seriously? Again with the shoot-in-the-leg bullshit? Ugh.
Justified. The guy was about to take a swing at an officer, who had tased him in the face but was ineffective, with a blunt instrument that would have severely injured said officer, his partner saw the potential threat and opened fire on the suspect. This was not a case of police brutality as they did not shoot first and ask questions later. You can see they try to make the suspect to surrender his weapon and put his hands up, which he did not comply, later on tasing the suspect, which did not work, and finally shot him once the officer saw that the suspect had become violent and his partner's life was now in serious danger.Brawndo said:
Completely justified. The man hopped towards the other officer like he was going to swing at him, and the shooter followed SOP and fired until he went down. If he had taken a second to go "Well gee, hang on, now, what's the best course of action, here, do I tell him politely to stop, do I reach for my taser, do I just watch things happen", the other officer could have ended up with a crowbar in his head. I'll never fail to not feel sorry for people acting stupid around officers of the law.