2833

Well yeah, but punishable by death?

Why escalate it to a dangerous chase and put the cop and suspect in mortal danger? Did they shoot someone? Was there any other reported crime other than some shots fired? A serious offense sure, but they had one of the guys right there. Cuff him then track down the other one later if necessary. He ran away - he wasn’t looking to kill a cop. Why would the cop think he was in immediate mortal danger? You admit that if he had shot the kid while running, that would be wrong. The kid wasn’t a threat, no need to shoot. But the cop chased him, ordered him to stop (which he did immediately), ordered him to show his hands (which he did immediately), then shot him.

2835

You have just argued that possession of a gun automatically makes you a target for the cops. And the cops are justified in killing those targets whenever they fear for their safety, even if it’s the cops actions that make them unsafe. You are part of the problem here.

Edit: a tiny part. But still, as long as this line of argument is supported by tens of millions of Americans, nothing will change.

2836

All of which did nothing to prevent the cop escalating the situation to the point he “had no choice” but to shoot a child that was obeying his orders.

2837

You’ve made this point a couple times and it gets overlooked. For the all the argument that the 13 year old kid should have done x or shouldn’t have done y, the actions/tactics of the police that led to that “split-second decision” seem to get a pass. Their tactics also play a significant role in creating a situation where the kid basically can’t comply without getting shot due to the cop fearing for his life / being stressed.

2838

No, it’s not… but it means that the cops are gonna, at an absolute minimum, detain you… and rightfully so.

And if you run, then they are gonna chase you.

And if you turn on them, and they think you have that gun, then you are going to be reasonably perceived as a threat.

That’s the thing, if we are to judge the cop and say that he did something wrong, what would that be? That the cop should have just let the kid turn on him, while he still thought he had a gun? While I think it’s easy to say that, because we know in retrospect he had dropped it, I don’t think that’s reasonable to claim is the correct choice for the cop at that point.

So here’s an example…
What should the cops have done, if not give chase to the armed suspect?

Just let him go?

I mean, simply letting the suspect go and not chasing is a reasonable course of action in SOME situations… like car chases. In those situations, they’re often able to track the suspect via other means, or already know who they are, and can just pick them up after the fact.

Like, for instance, Daunte Wright. There was really no reason to escalate things in that case. They knew who he was. They could go pick him up at their leisure.

In this case, if things went on as you suggest, the suspect would have just ditched any contraband. I feel like simply chasing criminals and catching them is a fairly standard part of a police officer’s job. Presumably the guy who they had already in custody had been caught via some chase… should they have just let him run away too? It just seems like a somewhat odd take on policing.

Ah, and that’s certainly not the case when someone pops into the thread and tells me that I have no empathy, right?

2839

What would be so terrible about rules of engagement that require an overt act rather than suspicion someone might use deadly force? Not “I thought he had a gun” but shots fired or at least clearly and directly aiming a weapon. After all we’ve given police departments lots of body armor and equipment.

2840

Dude, carrying a pistol in your hand on the streets of chicago at 2am absolutely makes you a target for the cops. How could it not? Do you honestly not want the cops to stop people from doing that?

As for the cop’s actions making them unsafe… what did the cop do here that was wrong?

2841

Isn’t this along the lines of what the rules of engagement are for our military in places like Iraq and Afghanistan? I thought they were along these lines but it’s not something I know much about.

2842

@Timex, man, sometimes your best move is to put the damn shovel down.

2843

From what it looks like, the cops pulled up, the two guys were standing there. Adam ran away while the other guy just stood there. The cop even ran over him to chase Adam. I believe I saw in other videos that the cop’s partner immediately detained the other guy, who again, just stood there and didn’t run away. They had him without a struggle or chase at all. So yeah, let the other one run away instead of pursuing him and escalating the situation. And if he ditched contraband, they could have likely just found it.

2844

I keep going back to this and not understanding how we see this stuff all the time on the relatively safer streets of the US. I know parts of the country have a crime problem, but come at me when you’re foot patrolling the streets of Village #12 in Afghanistan where literally every male has an AK or machete slung on their back, and a verifiable portion of that populace want to see you dead. Our team would hand out candy to kids and medicine to households one day, then bust into apartments and apprehend bad guys the next day, and everyone around us was armed but we didn’t light up every silhouette that startled us.

I literally had a guy shoot at me in a dark bedroom (he missed) when we were going house-to-house and we didn’t kill the guy because our orders didn’t include open engagement. We dogpiled him and zip-tied him for pickup.

2845

Two points here:

  1. This was not one of those cases where the cop merely suspected the kid had a gun. He literally saw the gun, in his hand. We all saw it, it’s on video. So we need to be clear that this is distinctly different from the bullshit cases where cops just suggest that they THOUGHT someone was armed. This is different.
  2. If you want to make that kind of change, so be it. Maybe it would work. You’ll get more cops shot, but maybe that’s acceptable.
2846

Depending on the ROE for the area or the mission.

But see my post above.

2847

Appreciate the information.

2848

He did not see a gun pointed at him. That should be the absolute minimum standard.

2849

You have to understand that this is not enough, because the child did not immediately OBEY, and the child did not FOLLOW THE LAW, so the child has to be punished with death. It’s all about forcing out groups to respect and submit to authority. It is deeply a part of conservative thinking.

2850

In some ways this is reasonable, but you need to consider that if you have a gun pointed at you, there is a high chance that you are going to die. That’s what you are asking the cop to wait for.

Again, I’m not saying that’s definitely too high a bar to set, but we need to be fully cognizant of what we’re asking… and if folks have a preconception that ACAB, then they’re not really making a fair assessment anyway, since they actually want the cops to die, so putting them into a situation where they’d likely die would be beneficial.

That’s the thing, I’m fully willing to criticize cops… and I’ve done so here, many, many times. More so than should be necessary.

But I am perhaps somewhat unique here in that I don’t think all cops are evil men looking to murder people.

2851

It’s in the video for one frame, which is enough that we can be certain that the cop saw it, just as the kid’s empty raised hands are in the video for one frame, though in that case we have to assume that the cop could not have seen them.

2853

It’s literally part of their job that we train and armor them for.

2854

Well, you mention they already had the other guy in custody. Maybe question him to lead to the other suspect? At this point, you have to assume you’re not dealing with, like, a mass shooter, so yeah, why not just talk to the guy you have and pick up the other guy later?

Someone having a gun in their hand is not an overt action.

If policing was at all a noble profession, then they’d be concerned with the safety of all citizens, including criminals, even if that meant they themselves would be in danger. That’s how firefighters work - they routinely place themselves in danger to help other people. Police should function the same way. It’s not like they have any shortage of non-lethal ways to detain even armed people, and they’re often armored to boot.