1701

Amen to that

1702

Hell, I’m to the left of Bernie Sanders, and I just can’t watch Sharpton or the Ed Show or a few others on MSNBC. They get pretty ridiculous. I mean, I like the comfort of my bubble and all, but c’mon. I also don’t mistake the bulk of what’s on MSNBC as news. Just like Fox, it’s opinion/commentary.

I like Rachel Maddow, though, and listen to her via the internets. She obviously has a strong point-of-view, but I find her funny in a good way rather than a bad way. I like her take on things. She’s welcome in my bubble anytime.

As to this latest shooting, it’s hard to say with certainty what’s happening there. It looks like to me the cop is trying to open the guy’s door, who pulls it back closed (or tries to prevent it from being opened?) Then, the cop reaches into the car, there’s a bit of camera movement, the gun comes into frame, and that’s it. I don’t think the car is actually moving until the guy gets shot. The cop certainly wasn’t going to get dragged anywhere. He didn’t fall backwards because he was getting dragged forwards. I think he fell backwards because he had his other hand on the doorframe and he lost his balance as the (now dead) driver pushed on the gas. That and oh crap I just shot a guy level adrenaline makes you ungraceful.

I might suspect that the cop brought his gun out because that was his best (but dumb) idea at the time, and maybe didn’t mean to pull the trigger. Or maybe not? Who the hell knows. I imagine some close analysis by experts might reveal more. Perhaps the fellow officers will provide an accounting of events that isn’t just reiterating what the shooter says happened.

In any case, if the camera wasn’t there we would be hearing how the victim put the officer’s life in jeopardy until the point that the officer had no choice but to reluctantly use lethal force. Close the books on it. Justified kill. Just through viewing that crappy video, I’d say with reasonable certainty that story is bullshit.

It’s also really, really crappy policing. Having a campus cop pull some guy over because of a missing front plate is clearly wrong-headed and outside the scope of that that department should be concerning itself with.

1703

The cop should have never reached into the car. That’s just a stupid thing to do. You can’t control someone by reaching in, as the sitting driver has all of the leverage. Someone can grab your arm and pin you, plus you put yourself in the position of the car starting and you being dragged down the road. It’s just a bad decision. I do think the officer thought he might be dragged down the road, though he obviously wasn’t and I think he just panicked. But he never should have put himself into this position to begin with. I don’t think it was malicious on his part, it’s just a tragedy all the way around.

1704

No, it’s not. Timothy McVeigh was pulled over and caught because he was missing a tag. Police can catch people guilty of serious crimes with traffic stops for small things like this.

1705

This.

Sharpton basically always does this stuff. He would be right at home with a show after O’Reilly on fox news (well, other than the different political party).

1706

There is now some post-shooting video from the other officers on the scene. Their statements to each other could be construed alternately as the one cop saying that he was in danger and the other agreeing with him, or the one cop trying to come up with an excuse and the other one tacitly agreeing to the story.

I think that there is enough fuzziness in the video that they might not be able to convict him for murder. But it seems like manslaughter would be a slam-dunk. Say what you want about almost being run over after intentionally leaning into a car that the guy is trying to drive away in – there is absolutely no indication that the driver was any threat to anyone whatsoever.

I think that pulling a gun in that situation is just outright irresponsible. Especially since the cop had backup right there.

1707

Griffman is totally right that the first mistake the cop made was reaching into the car. That is absolutely not what you do and automatically puts you into a bad position where you lose a lot of control.

He was trying to prevent the guy from starting the car, but it was a dumb move.

1708

Yet he gets to stay at MSNBC because he loves Comcast. Bernie was going in on MSNBC earlier today due to their lineup changes.

1709

whoops duplicate

1710

Except the cop’s mistake leads do someone else’s death. This isn’t just a mistake; it’s a completely avoidable tragedy that likely would have been covered up if it wasn’t for the camera.

I don’t know why a cop would bother stopping someone missing one license plate, or why the thing became physical at all… or why you would try to drive away in a situation like that. Maybe he feared for his life for some reason, and I guess he had a right to fear that since he’s dead.

1711

edited: duplicate content, missed that this was posted on page 56

1712

I don’t know who you are arguing with because I don’t think anyone here disagrees with you.

1713

Playing devil’s advocate here: pulling someone over for a missing plate is perfectly valid, especially on an empty residential street where the stop won’t really impede traffic - a car missing one of its plates is a pretty good indicator of shenanigans in states that require both front and rear. I’m a little unclear as to why a cop who was assigned to the university was out doing traffic stops off-campus, but I doubt there are nefarious reasons for that.

As for why the guy was going to run? Maybe he was drunk and didn’t want the DWI, or wasn’t sober enough to think straight. Maybe he thought that not having his license on him was a huge deal and panicked. Maybe he believed there was a warrant out on him an panicked. Or maybe he wasn’t actually going to run at all - turning the car on was a nervous reaction and he would have turned it off a second later when he realized what he was doing. We’ll never know, sadly.

1714

The missing plate stop is a no-brainer for most police. It’s a legit stop and it’s a good excuse to run the driver’s name and see if anything else is out of order. Is the missing plate itself a serious crime? No, but neither is out of date tabs, a broken taillight, or any of the other hundred minor vehicle violations you could cite.

1715

Yeah, it’s not really a legitimate criticism of the cop to say, “He shouldn’t have even pulled him over!”

Of course he should have. The guy was breaking the law. It’s cops’ job to enforce laws, even minor ones. If you don’t think those laws are worthwhile, then change the laws, don’t expect cops to just not enforce them.

And the reality is, in this case, that guy was seemingly breaking other laws. He had a bottle of gin on the floor of the drivers’ side, seemingly didn’t have a license, and then freaked out.

And when you watch the video, the cop isn’t being aggressive towards him at all. He’s being pretty damn cool the whole time.

The cop definitely made a big mistake, but folks are seemingly imagining the situation to be even worse than it was.

I think one of the big problems here is that in virtually all of the coverage from many sources, they specifically cut out the part where the guy does things wrong. The footage that’s being shown by MSNBC and CNN, and even Larry Wilmore, is basically a clip of the cop talking to the guy, and then cutting to the part where the guy is dead in the car.

I’m sorry, but that is a ridiculously disingenuous portrayal of the situation.

All the shit the guy in the car did doesn’t excuse the cop’s actions, but when you scrub the video down to just hide all that stuff, and not show the part where you can hear the guy’s car’s engine revving prior to the shot, you are fucking lying about shit.

The fact that you can hear the car’s engine spin up prior to the shot means that the guy slammed his foot down on the gas. Some sources are saying that the car “rolled forward” but that too is bullshit. The car didn’t roll forward. It drove a block down the street.

It’s really annoying to me when media groups specifically lie to portray what they want from a situation, rather than just showing the shit that happened. Because in this case WE HAVE A FUCKING VIDEO. SHOW THE FUCKING VIDEO IN IT’S ENTIRETY.

1716

A lot of news networks won’t show the full video because it has a guy getting killed on it. American news networks are pretty different from international news in that respect. We try not to actually show killings on the news except in extreme cases like a high-profile assassination.

That said, I think the edited versions of this cut out too much.

1717

You can blur his head to not show the actual impact, but what’s happening is that these various broadcasters are cutting out huge chunks, and then flat out lying about what takes place.

With the actual video, there is still a lot of stuff which is unclear. It certainly doesn’t exonerate the cop. But in order to have a real discussion about this, we need to be talking about facts, not just contrived interpretations of crap. Because at this point, people are believing crap which is absolutely untrue, and basically puts them into a situation where if the truth comes out (which it most certainly will in an actual trial), they’re going to be unable to reconcile the court findings with the “reality” which was previous fed to them by the media. And that is just going to create even more animosity between the community and the cops.

I mean, here, we’ve got Oghier saying this:

They don’t scuffle. The guy starts the car, the cop shoots him, then the car starts moving. The victim’s hands don’t contact the officer

That’s clearly not true at all when you watch the video. They clearly DO scuffle, and the victim’s hands are almost certainly in contact with the cop (largely due to the cop being an idiot and reaching into the car).

(I’m not meaning to pick on Oghier here either, merely using him as an example. The fault here does not lie with the media consumer as much as it does with the narrative presented by the media.)

I understand that a huge problem is that cops lie about shit like this. But the answer to that isn’t to just lie more in response.

1718

I don’t think the broadcasters are flat-out lying. I think there are elements of the video (the longer un-edited one) that are debatable. You cite Oghier’s statements as an example of how the media is misleading people, but I don’t think that’s a result of them lying to him. Or him lying. I think you can watch the same video and come to those conclusions as well without any lying.

For sure, I think people are predisposed to view that video according to what they think it will show them, but I don’t think they’re necessarily lying. I just think the video isn’t as clear-cut as you seem to think it is.

1719

I understand why cops do traffic stops. In some cases, there is an obvious public safety interest. In other cases, they are basically fishing for warrants. Cops get a little bit of a sixth sense for that. A guy I know calls them “Warrant Mobiles” (and that’s looking at the car, not necessarily profiling the driver). The majority of times that warrant ends up being for a suspended license. I worked in a fairly large county corrections system. Sometimes it felt like half the people getting booked were because of suspended license. They’ll never be able to pay off their fines, thus they will never get their license back, but they’ll keep on driving anyway – it’s an endless cycle. Warrant. Arrest. Judgment to pay some new fines. Release. Failure to pay fines. Warrant. Arrest. Judgement to pay some new fines and maybe serve some time. Release. Fail to pay fines. Arrest. It’s the circle of life.

I don’t begrudge the cops here. It’s their job. For the ones I know, it’s not actually a part of their job that they enjoy or take much satisfaction in.

However, in this particular case, I think a campus cop doing traffic patrols a mile off campus and pulling someone over for a missing front plate is, simply, a bit bullshit. What happened after he pulled the guy over is clearly the bigger issue, as this particular officer doesn’t seem to be – for whatever reason – equipped to deal properly with the situation. Yeah, he seemed relatively calm and professional. Right up to the point where he wrestled with the guy through a car window and then promptly shot him in the head.

Yeah, it appears as though the guy wanted to drive away. Maybe he had a warrant. Maybe he was driving under the influence. Neither of those things (or the attempt to flee) creates the justification to kill him. The only consideration is whether the officer faced a clear, immediate threat to his own life. Based on the video, I don’t think that’s the case. The officer was alongside the car. He doesn’t appear to be in some way entangled in the car or held by the driver. The driver has no weapon. The car didn’t actually start moving until after the shot. With a dead man at the wheel.

I want to think the best of people, and coming from a family of cops I want to think the best of our police. Whether this was a dumb, tragic mistake or a malicious murder will come out in court, I suppose. Unfortunately, all we have now is the video and a statement from the cop that isn’t supported by the video.

1720

I think one thing that everyone can agree on, is that it’s good that this case is going to trial, and that it’d be terrible if it just got swept under the rug.

What’s troublesome to me is the narrative that is being spread by media outlets isn’t necessarily based on the evidence at hand, and thus we may end up with a situation where the outcome of the court case ends up being seen as unfair.