12 Year Old Shot By Police

[jazzpig]

Jessica,

The civilian dispatchers should have passed on it was possibly a fake, but the police have to assume it's real. No where is it written in the Criminal Code that the police have to be shot first.

The police need better training as they shouldn't be driving right up to the suspect, but the outcome would not have been different. Take a look at the fake gun recovered. If that gun was pulled on officers from point blank, they would not be able to tell whether it was real or not. The boy was told three times to show his hands. Instead he reached for his waistband. His death was his own undoing.

http://wtvr.com/2014/11/26/police-werent-told-12-year-old-they-shot-might-be-carrying-fake-gun/

You don't know that.
If the officer had kept a safe distance, he wouldn't have been as vulnerable, the outcome could have been different.
Is there conclusive evidence that the boy was warned three time?
Apparantly, the officer opened fire two seconds after he got there, is that enough time for three warnings?
Don't police carry body cams and /or squad car cams and recorders now, any footage or tape would help to clarify.

 

[Gyaos]

You don't know that.
If the officer had kept a safe distance, he wouldn't have been as vulnerable, the outcome could have been different.

Let's assume that the toy gun was a real gun, and rather than be at a safe distance or not shoot him, the 12 year old then fired upon
pedestrians, people's pets, or toddlers in the back seats of passing cars, using your logic.

In an instant, everyone would ask why didn't the police officer shoot that kid with a gun.

In other words, the cop was correct whether it was a toy gun that looked like a real gun from a punk, gun-totting, 12 year old jerk-off,
or a real gun from that same punk, gun-totting, 12year old jerk-off.

Reality is not what one doesn't know, but what has to be assumed to secure the public safety under the statutes.
The statute that protects that punk 12year old is to obey what an officer tells him to do; otherwise, the officer can
use deadly force-----in New York.

And if the kid doesn't speak English, he still knew what to do, he has to drop a munition. Again, he could have been inside
watching Sesame Street and then nothing would have happened.

Gyaos.

 

[fuji]

However he was there waving around his toy gun for a long time before the cops for there and no shots were fired. Therefore your "let's suppose" had little to do with reality.

A handgun isn't very accurate beyond about 20 yards so it is unfathomable that they intentionally closed the distance to less than that before they knew what was doing on.

 

[SkyRider]

The fact that it seems to be only black people who get gunned down when holding a toy gun is a mere coincidence then?

Marc Lamont Hill said something to the effect that whites have an "irrational" fear of the "black man".

 

[TheUnknownSP]

Why couldnt the police try other options with this the 12 year old boy like they did with this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_FkzbTf-KM

They certainly took their chances with this grown man with a loaded gun.

 

[Aardvark154]

Why couldnt the police try other options with this the 12 year old boy like they did with this guy?

Indeed there seems to be a real issue as to whether or not best practice was followed. However, that is a different question, and one more suited to a civil suit against the Cleveland Police Department by the boy's family, than was the Officer justified in using deadly force.

 

[fuji]

A lot of these cases involve initial mistakes by the police which result in an unnecessary and rapid escalation. Often, like in the Yatim case, it is the officer closing distance inappropriately and being forced into a situation where they have no choice but to shoot.

The public should not accept that. Officers who limit their own options down to lethal force by making rash and aggressive choices should be fired with cause from the police force regardless of whether their actions turn out to be strictly criminal.

In fact, such terminations should be handed out on review of non lethal encounters so they hopefully aggressive, irresponsible police are terminated before they shoot somebody.

 

[MRBJX]

Indeed there seems to be a real issue as to whether or not best practice was followed. However, that is a different question, and one more suited to a civil suit against the Cleveland Police Department by the boy's family, than was the Officer justified in using deadly force.

You seem to think it's ok to shoot - AND KILL - someone to prevent some act that hasn't occured.

A 12 year old waving a gun around is not and should never be a reason to kill. Not everything in the world is to be measured by risk with the result to of deadly force as its consequence, and its a really sad day for you , when you justify it.

 

[MRBJX]

When someone points a pistol at you, do you believe the average person is willing to take the chance it isn't real?

Someone (the boy?) deliberately removed the bright red plug indicating that it was an airsoft rather than a actual firearm.

Simple way not to be shot, which everyone with either an actual or "toy" firearm should have drummed into them, never point it at someone you are not intending to shoot and kill and that you have the legal basis to use deadly force against.

For children that boils down to don't point it at people - period!

Do you have some other video you saw, or did you watch that video. ?

It looks like the kid was on the ground.

There is no audio, we don't even know if they said anything like - "We will shoot to kill if you don't put down the gun...blah blah and lay down etc"

 

[ZenSouljah]

Once again, cop wants to go home to his family at the end of his shift, on a gun call, not knowing if it's fake or not. Kid reaches for waist area, at this point cop makes a judgement call of shoot and stay alive or don't shoot, possibly go home dead. If you were the cop, what would you do?

 

[jazzpig]

Once again, cop wants to go home to his family at the end of his shift, on a gun call, not knowing if it's fake or not. Kid reaches for waist area, at this point cop makes a judgement call of shoot and stay alive or don't shoot, possibly go home dead. If you were the cop, what would you do?

Not drive right up to the guy so I wouldn't have to shoot him and justify it by saying I felt my life was threatened.

 

[MRBJX]

Once again, cop wants to go home to his family at the end of his shift, on a gun call, not knowing if it's fake or not. Kid reaches for waist area, at this point cop makes a judgement call of shoot and stay alive or don't shoot, possibly go home dead. If you were the cop, what would you do?

Really?

First if your call says the kid has a gun, what are you doing driving RIGHT UP, like 5 feet from the kid then shooting him in the guts.
It would make a hell of a lot more sense to stay on the road, announce via the car PA and instruct the kid what to do.
A lot of shit can be avoided by simply talking to people.

This isnt about a cop wanting to go home alive at the end of the day. Its about a cop who wanted to shoot a kid and had no problem doing it.

 

[nobody123]

Ohio is an open carry state. One of those states where a bunch of moronic rednecks strap their rifles to their back and go to the local Denny's to scare the shit out of customers and staff and make a political point about their "right" to carry firearms openly. This is the second person in recent memory shot dead by cops for the crime of holding a toy gun in Ohio. So why are the open carry gun nuts not up in arms or holding them up as martyrs to the cause? (Hint: Black. Blackity black black)

 

[nuprin001]

Care to point us to the recent news articles regarding white people shot to death for holding a toy gun then?

In addition to the Aardvark links, you realize that demanding media reports is about as stupid as it gets, right?

The media reports "man bites dog". It doesn't report "dog bites man".

Black homicide victims are killed by other black people 93% of the time. A white homicide victim is more than twice as likely to have been killed by a non-white (usually black) killer than a black victim was killed by a non-black (usually white) killer.

The combination of bad socio-economic status and a subculture that supports and excuses criminal behavior puts African-Americans at greater risk. A black person is SIX times more likely to be killed by violence in American than a white person.

That isn't the cops. Police shootings account for less than one percent of black homicide victims. If you eliminated every police killing of a black person (the vast majority of which are clear-cut criminals committing crimes getting shot by the police incidents), you'd still have a homicide rate six times higher that of whites.

The African-American community has problems. Not least of which is the focus on one percent of their homicides while excusing the other 99%.

 

[fuji]

Once again, cop wants to go home to his family at the end of his shift, on a gun call, not knowing if it's fake or not. Kid reaches for waist area, at this point cop makes a judgement call of shoot and stay alive or don't shoot, possibly go home dead. If you were the cop, what would you do?

Yes, but in most of these cases you can identify a mistake that the cop made BEFORE that point that narrowed his own options.

In this case, there is no reason why the cops should have been that close to someone they believed had a handgun -- once they were in that situation your point is valid, but they should be fired for putting themselves in that situation. From across the street they could have opened communications without the same imminent danger and defused the situation without violence. From that close range they had little choice other than shooting -- BUT they put themselves in that position.

Same thing happened in the Yatim case. Forcillo arguably had no choice other than shooting when he pulled the trigger BUT he himself is the one who closed the distance and created the imminent danger. (And then there's the question of why he continued shooting, but let's not reshash that part here.)

You see that same scenario play out again and again. Everybody focuses on the last few seconds before shots were fired, but often you can find very poor and troubling decisions being made by the officer leading up to that moment, bad decisions which narrowed the options down to shoot or don't soot, when a different earlier course of action would have left open a much wider range of responses.

 

[nobody123]

In addition to the Aardvark links, you realize that demanding media reports is about as stupid as it gets, right?

I was going for number of incidents, not number of news articles there. And every time a cop shoots someone it makes the news somewhere. Plus, right Blogsylvania and racist sites go apeshit for this kind of stuff and repost it like mad, so it ain't exactly hard to find. So no, it's not as stupid as it gets.

And Aardvark, sorry for not replying to the links (both to the same incident... you do realise that doesn't mean it happened twice, right?). If shit went down the way the dead guy's brother claims and there was no gun, then yes. It is a damned fucking shame and people should be pissed off about it, in spite of the major differences between what happened to Brown (where the cop knew for a fact he was unarmed) and Dillon Taylor, (who appeared to be reaching for a gun). It could and should still have ended without anyone dying.

 

[nuprin001]

I was going for number of incidents, not number of news articles there. And every time a cop shoots someone it makes the news somewhere. Plus, right Blogsylvania and racist sites go apeshit for this kind of stuff and repost it like mad, so it ain't exactly hard to find. So no, it's not as stupid as it gets.

1. You are assuming that we'd FIND those articles on those racist websites. You're effectively accusing everyone you're debating with of being racist and of perusing sites like that.
2. Are you really saying that if we linked sites like that, you'd actually accept the information? That you wouldn't dismiss the source?

The stats are real. I believe the math, not the noise. You're asking for noise.

And Aardvark, sorry for not replying to the links (both to the same incident... you do realise that doesn't mean it happened twice, right?). If shit went down the way the dead guy's brother claims and there was no gun, then yes. It is a damned fucking shame and people should be pissed off about it, in spite of the major differences between what happened to Brown (where the cop knew for a fact he was unarmed) and Dillon Taylor, (who appeared to be reaching for a gun). It could and should still have ended without anyone dying.

I think we all agree that it's tragic that these people die in such a way. But the police are trained to deal with potentially violent situations in a particular way. You're arguing that the police shouldn't be trained like that. You're not even considering that maybe people shouldn't act that way around cops. There are two sets of actors on either side of this equation. There are good reasons for police officers to act the way they do, for them to be trained the way they are. No training, no matter how effective, will be perfect. Maybe, just maybe, not assaulting a police officer will keep some people from getting shot by the police. Maybe, just maybe, not removing the pieces that identify a toy guy and teaching a 12 year old (not exactly a baby at that age: you can reason with a 12 year old) not to point even a toy guy at cops will keep that kid from being in a terrible situation.

Give me an example of someone doing nothing wrong, just going about their normal course of business, and I'll pile on that cop right beside you. A cop DOES have a higher duty and I DO hold them to a higher standard. I just don't hold them to an impossible standard that completely absolves the other side of the equation from any responsibility whatsoever. If someone, like Brown, escalates a non-violent situation into a violent confrontation, I know where I place the blame for the incident.

 

[Aardvark154]

If shit went down the way the dead guy's brother claims and there was no gun, then yes. It is a damned fucking shame and people should be pissed off about it, in spite of the major differences between what happened to Brown (where the cop knew for a fact he was unarmed) and Dillon Taylor, (who appeared to be reaching for a gun). It could and should still have ended without anyone dying.

I have to love this. The White unarmed man (who was justifiably shot) you write "if [he was unarmed]" but with a Black unarmed man ( Michael Brown) you state that police "knew for a fact he was unarmed" which of course wasn't the case at the time, but further is a red herring you are dragging across the trail.

 

[SkyRider]

Same thing happened in the Yatim case. Forcillo arguably had no choice other than shooting when he pulled the trigger BUT he himself is the one who closed the distance and created the imminent danger.

I do think that sometimes the police resort to brute force prematurely when patience. time and space might have produced a non-lethal outcome.

Here is a story I vaguely recall from a few years ago. Grandfather was upset over some issue and was waving a knife. Instead of leaving the house for a couple of hours to allow the old man to calm down, the wife and daughter called the police who shot the grandfather because he was waving a dangerous weapon. Once you call the police you lose complete control over the situation.

 

[nuprin001]

I do think that sometimes the police resort to brute force prematurely when patience. time and space might have produced a non-lethal outcome.

Here is a story I vaguely recall from a few years ago. Grandfather was upset over some issue and was waving a knife. Instead of leaving the house for a couple of hours to allow the old man to calm down, the wife and daughter called the police who shot the grandfather because he was waving a dangerous weapon. Once you call the police you lose complete control over the situation.

Or, you know, maybe don't wave a knife around when you get upset. That's where I think things started going wrong. Ranting and yelling? Unpleasant but go right ahead. Pick up a knife and the situation becomes very different. If the family was scared enough to call the police, then things were over the line before the phone call was made, don't you think?

Yes, time and space might have produced a non-lethal outcome. Or the grandfather could have killed himself and then the refrain would be "WHY DIDN'T THE POLICE SHOW UP!?!? THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!" The truth is that armed standoffs rarely result in a police shooting. Most people who are coherent enough to not be looking to hurt themselves follow police instructions and end the confrontation peacefully.

I think, just gut feeling, that the majority of police shootings would have had a bad outcome whether the cops were there or not. In the end, the cops' presence means the incident ends. Period. It doesn't go on and on and on.