St. Louis: White Missouri cop kills armed black 18-year-old

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Please quit with this straw man, Pat. It's unworthy of you.

John

All I'm saying is we have expectations of our cops to act like programmed, infallible robots on the mean streets of America. Having lived in northern Europe for 11 years and the reminder of my life in relatively dangerous American cities, it's simply ridiculous to expect our cops to act like their counterparts in (relatively crime-free) northern European countries.

I can assure you that I'd much prefer living in a relatively safe, mostly unarmed society with far fewer social problems and not one where we use legions of armed cops to address our seemingly intractable social ills. Yet, unless and until we solve these problems, armed cops and the attendant fuck-ups associated with them will remain part of the American fabric. Get used to it.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by finnbow

We live in a country where significantly more law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the single year of 2010 (177) as soldiers killed in Iraq in all years from 2010 to the present (118).

Yet, we expect them to make perfect split-second decisions at the risk of their own death or criminal prosecution if their split-second decisions prove incorrect after the fact. Furthermore, these decisions are made on the mean streets of the most dangerous country in the industrialized world with 300 million guns in circulation and a plethora of social problems. How would you like to have a job where your decisions had to be made in seconds and wrong decisions cost you your life, livelihood or freedom?

I've been to over 60 countries and the only places remotely as dangerous as the rougher streets of the American cities I've lived (DC, Baltimore and New Orleans) are Mombasa and Colon, Panama, and then only at night.

This is the backdrop for our laws which state that a cop must only reasonably perceive a threat (even if, after the fact, a threat didn't truly exist) before using deadly force. It's a chicken and egg conundrum. Some seem to contend that tough cops beget tough streets, whereas others seem to contend that tough streets beget tough cops. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in between, though skewed toward the latter IMHO.

OK Mr Law and Order (oh you have not been to Iraq by the way, and I doubt you would get off of plane in Honduras or El Salvador today) give me the statistics of how many people have been killed by the police in any given year.
Good luck.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by icenine

OK Mr Law and Order (oh you have not been to Iraq by the way, and I doubt you would get off of plane in Honduras or El Salvador today) give me the statistics of how many people have been killed by the police in any given year.
Good luck.

And I doubt their cops are unarmed bobbies.

[merrylander]

You all assume that the kid was actually armed and the weapon they found was not a simple plant. Cops have been known to carry the odd weapon for just such purposes.

Ask yourself, you get confronted by a cop so you pull a gun? Sure that is exactly what anyone would do. Except if you are going to pull it you had damn well better use it and use it fast.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by merrylander

You all assume that the kid was actually armed and the weapon they found was not a simple plant. Cops have been known to carry the odd weapon for just such purposes.

Ask yourself, you get confronted by a cop so you pull a gun? Sure that is exactly what anyone would do. Except if you are going to pull it you had damn well better use it and use it fast.

I agree that a "drop piece" is possible. It happens a lot but this kid looks like he was serious trouble and had a pretty nasty rap sheet that he accumulated in a rather short space of time. (One wonders why he wasn't behind bars.)

It also appears from the surveillance video that one of the group (the dead one?) was standing lookout in front of the convenience store and moved off when the police cruiser hit the lot. Were he and his accomplices about to hit the store?

Berkeley is not Ferguson. Most of the police and most of the elected city officials are black. The black mayor of Berkeley has said that, after reviewing the tape (or a tape), he's satisfied that the police officer acted appropriately.

The thing is this shooting has become the fifth in a "cluster" of other shootings in the St. Louis area. Several of the first four are highly questionable so it's tempting to view this latest one with a high degree of suspicion.

John

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by Boreas

I agree that a "drop piece" is possible. It happens a lot but this kid looks like he was serious trouble and had a pretty nasty rap sheet that he accumulated in a rather short space of time. (One wonders why he wasn't behind bars.)

It also appears from the surveillance video that one of the group (the dead one?) was standing lookout in front of the convenience store and moved off when the police cruiser hit the lot. Were he and his accomplices about to hit the store?

Berkeley is not Ferguson. Most of the police and most of the elected city officials are black. The black mayor of Berkeley has said that, after reviewing the tape (or a tape), he's satisfied that the police officer acted appropriately.

The thing is this shooting has become the fifth in a "cluster" of other shootings in the St. Louis area. Several of the first four are highly questionable so it's tempting to view this latest one with a high degree of suspicion.

John

On a news show they were interviewing a black kid and he said when a cop accosts him he does not ask for ID. The cop asks 'are you on parole or probation.'

So if the kid had a long rap sheet the worst was some jail time. To me it is a mugs game that if you pull a gun you had damn well better be prepared to use it or you are a dead man.

[sheltiedave]

This one is, by all accounts, justified.

Merry lander is also correct that at. Louis has had multiple cases where gun plants occurred, bu this is not one.

[whell]

Originally Posted by sheltiedave

This one is, by all accounts, justified.

Merry lander is also correct that at. Louis has had multiple cases where gun plants occurred, bu this is not one.

That may be the case, but that doesn't stop folks - whose emotions on this issue have been rubbed raw by the constant harangue from the left - from acting out and taking out their aggression on cops who may have been just doing their job.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by merrylander

You all assume that the kid was actually armed and the weapon they found was not a simple plant. Cops have been known to carry the odd weapon for just such purposes.

Ask yourself, you get confronted by a cop so you pull a gun? Sure that is exactly what anyone would do. Except if you are going to pull it you had damn well better use it and use it fast.

Wow...

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Wow...

Really? There's no such thing as a "drop piece"???