Atlanta-area police shoot dead unarmed and naked African American man

And yours is. Gotcha.

It was called the "Broken window" policy. Look it up.

INCREDIBLE!!! Yeah, yeah, all the people the cops killed died of "medical issues". You know, bullets and heart faulre and stuff. The cops really had nothing to do with it. If Garner was choked, the cop was right. If he wasn't choked, the cop was right. If he survived this treatment, the cop was right. If he died, the cop was right.

And YOU are the one arguing that facts matter? Clearly, they do not. Pick a fact situation, ANY fact situation, and the cop is right. So why bother with facts?

 

I have read reports of studies donne on perception and race. In this study white people based on just pictures of faces thought that more AA people were threatening looking. Here's the kicker, the AA subjects thought the same way as the white subjects about white people. they concluded that becuase in the majority of cases the races spend by far more time in their own race groups and not enough time with the other that it's hard for some people to pick threatening looks, stances...... from the opposite race.

I can definitely see your point, do you believe that maybe it wasn't necessarily racism, but a lack of familiarity or even a case of just not knowing what this man was doing?

 

Where am I using speculation in place of fact?

We are not talking about everyone who died in police hands, we are talking about garner. The man wasn't choked, so what are you complaining about. People were all we angry cuase he was choked#!!!!, but he wasn't so why are you still angry?

And apparently to you everything police do is wrOng no matter what, that's why you gave to try and pull speculation as fact

 

Yes, I think that is entirely possible. Racism can generally be regarded as a form of xenophobia, fear of strangers -- that is, anyone different and not understood. People tend to be distrustful as the default. And as we see (I hope we see), this mutual distrust is self-reinforcing, because people ACT on the distrust for lack of any counter information, and those actions feed back to ratify the distrust. This is a fairly universal problem growing out of human nature, and hard to correct.

 

Garner tried to say he couldn't breathe. Let's say, just for civil discussion, that his inability to breathe had less to do with the cop's hold on his neck, than it had to do with the fact that he was obese and had a heart condition. But regardless of the cause, I don't understand the necessity to continue with the hold. The guy was in terrible shape, he could barely get up on his own anyway, he was unarmed and had his hands up and was backing away. Maybe the cop's action would have been appropriate for someone who was young, in good shape, clearly making threats, etc.

So I'm not complaining about a choke, I'm complaining that the police action was inappropriate to the situation, unnecessarily aggressive, and ultimately fatal.

 

Police tried being civil. They asked him to place his hands behind his back. They talked with him for a while. Police are not their to negotiate terms. If your being arrested, it is not optional for you. He resisted arrest, was showing increased signs of aggression by starring to shout waving his arms creating distance from the officers, and verbally telling them no leave me alone. What are the officers suppose to do. It's unfortunate he is dead but the officers did not use any weapons and we're able to subdue him and people still have problems with it

 

Stay with the facts as we know them. Tactically, it would've been ideal to use at that time.

"Going home tonight" is part of our problem with cops' attitudes and people's attitudes towards cops. If going home is your mission, drive a godamn bus! I realize officers have no legal obligation to protect people. Serve and protect is a slogan, not even worthy of being called a motto, since they don't live by it. Since we're being so honest about these days with this "go home tonight" mantra, I suppose we should go ahead and remove "serve and protect" from all of their patches and patrol cars.

 

Incorrect, I dislike bad cops that think they are above the law even if they consist of a minority. I'll concede that maybe I am painting with too broad of a brush. However, I do know that I didn't say that cops are constantly violating civil liberties. As for statistics, I do not think that there are any meaningful statistics out there and I would view anything with skepticism as that data would be based off of something that is subjective.

Let's consider asset forfeiture as an example. There are countless stories of cops taking people property with little or no justification. In 2012, ACLU settled a case in Texas where the cops were pulling people over and coercing people to hand over their money. The punishment for the officers involved in that case was no more than a slap on the wrist (new rules and training). I did not see anything about any of the officers in that case being fired.

Garner's medical conditions do not excuse the officer for an alleged crime. If a person A punches person B which causes person B to die, person A is still culpable regardless whether or not person B had a medical condition that contributed to the death. I see the argument medical excuse as just an attempt to rationalize the officer's use of a technique that is not SOP. One could call it blaming the victim.

Officer Wilson did not go to court because the prosecutor intentionally biased the jury. While the evidence does tend to support Wilson, there is evidence that there should have been a trial. Since that did not happen, nobody can truly say whether or not a crime was committed. Holder not indicting is not really an indication of anything as the only thing that Holder could prosecute is a violation of civil rights. There was very little, if any, evidence to support that Brown's civil rights were violated.

Someone was saying that the guy was within 15 feet of the cop. I know that the time it takes to draw and fire is much less than the time it would take for the man to cover 15 feet even for someone who is trained. In other words, his weapon had to have been drawn beforehand. I agree the details are scarce and anything said about the situation is at best speculation. My main point is that it has the appearance that the officer went into a situation when the guy was naked and unarmed and chose to resolve it in a way that he did not have to get his hands dirty.

Are you claiming that officers do not receive training on how to subdue someone without the use of a or gun?

 

Yeah, we get it. It's really a shame the police killed him for selling individual cigarettes, but he DID ask to be left alone, so that's OK. Now, if he'd murdered someone in New York, he'd still be alive.

 

M

I cannot claim for all officers butmy dept does BEST training to deal with people with disabilities and mental illness. However that does not mean things cannot quickly escalate out of hand and deadly force be needed. I think its unfair to quickly judge this officer with so little facts being known and automatically assuming the use of force is not warranted.
As far as your scenario goes with persons a and b, let me state this: for a crime to happen there needs to be mens rea and actus reas, the guilty mind and the guilty act. You have to do it and intend to do it. If person a wanted to inentionally kill person b with a punch then you are correct. If person a did not know the punch would have killed him, he cannot be held accountable for murder, but a lesser charge.so with this officer he was not actively trying to kill garner with a choke hold so accuse him of murder is plain wrong. The officer even let him go once on the ground and had the presence of mind to roll garner on his side to make breathing easier becuase he is such a large man.

 

Once you have commited a crime you cannot just tell the cops to leave you alone and go away. He broke the law. He was being arrested and was going to have his day in court. Garner excalated the situation by resisting and becoming beligerant. The police reacted based upon that. The police did not just say," hes selling illegal cigs, lets kill him." So stop with the pity rhetoric.

 

Please tell us why you think mace would have been ideal at the time?
And us going home at the end of the night as an attitude is not the problem. We take our job seriously and make it as safe as we can for everyone involved. That is why we give orders to people. When people refuse them, thats when the bad things happen. Cops have the right to be safe performing their duties and we will not have our lives taken becuase someone doesnt want to go to jail, recieve a fine, or just disagrees with the crimes they commited. We go through intensive training on use of force scenarios on when we should or shouldnt use our tools. Myself, if you threaten my life and have a means to follow through with that threat, you better bet im going to survive. I will use the force nessessary. I will use a higher grade of weapon then you. You bring fists i bring a taser or baton. You bring a bat, i bring a gun. You bring a gun, then its on. Everything is on the citizenry. We react to you.

 

I already said why OC would've been ideal. The man was naked. Everything it touched would've burned. Not to mention it's the appropriate level of force on the continuum. You have a real uphill battle convincing people it's ok to shoot an unarmed naked man. I don't care how crazy or how high. Less than lethal tools aren't on the duty belt for use on compliant, sober people. They're to be used on combative people.

 

After this man's family sues the city of Atlanta, it won't look like he took the easy way out. Quite the contrary. His relatives will be sitting pretty. When will these cops learn?

 

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But this man was naked. Where could he hide a gun? Wouldn't a taser have worked to subdue him?

 

Number 1 excuse: "I was in fear for my life". This doesn't hold up when dealing with a mentally deranged naked man. Just my opinion.

 

A man doesn't have to have a gun on him to obtain one, and that is not the only thing cops are worried about.
and with the taser, the closer you are to it when it deploys the less effective it is. If this man was charging the officer would have to pull it, turn it on, aim it, then deploy. To much time. By the time it deploys the man would have been too close making the taser next to useless

 

True enough but if this man is aggravated to the point he is charging an officer, chances are this would have just pissed him off. I can find and show you a video of a cop in nh (using improper force for no reason) using OC on a man and this man then pulling a gun and shoot the officer dead. Yes it burns but does not make you less dangerous..

Not mention OC can rub off onto the officer and can now effect the officer. This officer being alone was wise not to use mace.

If this were me, depending on the situation and how much reaction time I have, I already have my baton out. But if I'm trying to keep this man calm, my hands are free. The gun may have been the only plausible toolto use. People just don't like yo here about when an officer needs to use it

 

Everyone trained in OC knows it does not affect 100% of subjects 100% of the time. But the fact is it is mostly affective on most everyone. As you should know, the reason to use it is to "change the channel" in the subject's mind from attacker to - MY GOD, I'M ON FIRE! Yes, it does (*)(*)(*)(*) them off sometimes. The second affect is giving the officer tactical advantage. You can't hit what you can't see. The subject's hands usually go straight for their face or wherever the OC is burning. That's when the officer can move in to use either empty hand control or even a come along with the baton. Yes, the officer will get OC on him. That's why he was sprayed in training, so he'll know the effects and be able to fight through it.

One of the biggest and strongest men I've ever known went to his knees and cried like a baby after being sprayed. The guy it affected least in my experience was an old man with a leather face and grit like I've never seen. He wiped it off with his bare hand and then causally went to the water. Five minutes later he was training again. We don't base our assumptions on how it will work on anything other than tactics and the use of force continuum. We don't assume it won't work because the person is high or mentally ill. It works on high people and the mentally ill. It probably won't work well on someone high on PCP, but then how likely is it someone is high on PCP in this day? Kind of an antiquated drug anymore. Anyway, it's better to take the chance and have the baton at the ready than to go right to the firearm when dealing with an unarmed naked man. Incidentally, people on PCP do like to get naked, so I can understand the reluctance to employ OC.

 

The taser isn't to be used on passive aggressive or non-compliant subjects. It's to be used on combative subjects that usually aren't standing still. I find it hard to understand how shooting someone that is moving is easier than tasing or spraying someone that is moving.

 

Just one?

There's always tomorrow....

 

It's difficult to imagine the circumstances under which it would be a valid excuse. If the naked unarmed man was beating him; trying to take the gun from his holster; had just committed a violent felony serious enough to warrant it. The probability of these circumstances exist, but they don't appear to be applicable here.

 

Mentally deranged naked man who was found to be military trained. Of course the officer did not know this, but what if Hill got his hands on the officer and used training on him? Both are trained to kill.

 

Just because he was in the military doesn't mean he is trained to kill. Now if he was Marine Recon, Navy Seal, Ranger, Green Beret you might have a point.

 

Tasers are one shot, if you miss your screwed. Combative subjects can be standing still, so that rhought is moot. Im tired of explaining this but the taser is not as effective at close range, the prongs need to be able to spread. So by time the taser could be deployed, its effects prob would have been non existant. And i already posted why the mace is not a good choice for this scenario.