The GOP is losing an opportunity to get out in front of the police violence issue.

[22lcidw]

Interesting.

Talks on reforms could include profiling limits and initiating a contact with a civilian. Obvious crimes like we see now need to be dealt with. This is being done to nationalize the police departments to smooth our entry into the North American Union.

 

[Mac-7]

For once in their lives, Democrats have a police issue in which the cannot play the race card. But they have no answer to police misconduct and violence that isn't about race.

But the GOP has the answer and has had all along. The answer to violent crime is to enforce the law and lock violent criminals up for long stretches, preferably until they are dead or too old to hurt anyone. The GOP needs to get out front and say that they fully expect that to be applied to police equally, if not more so.

If it is capital murder to kill a police officer on duty - and it should be - it should also be capital murder for a police officer to kill a civilian under color of law for any other reaon but self-defense. Self-defense not to be defined as "I couldn't see his hand so he might have had a gun."

Bad policing needs to be stopped by strong state-level investigators dedicated to finding police who break the law and violate people's rights while on duty. Every state should have such an investigative organization, its agents drawn from the best officers with the cleanest records in local police departments.

Federal involvement? Sure. Just print some of that money and give it to those state agencies so they can hire enough agents and prosecutors to make police be less willing to beat suspects and expect the thin blue line to protect them.

Unfortunately the GOP minus Trump suffers from a perennial thumb up its ass

 

[Mac-7]

Police are not held to the same standards as citizens. Police have "qualified immunity" which means if they commit a crime or a tort in the course of duty and are following their protocol and training, they are not liable criminally or civily.

Thats a common sense policy

The police must have an edge or they cant do their job

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I guarantee if a CCW holder shoots an unarmed person because he "might" have a gun, that CCW holder will be at least investigated and most likely tried. It would also be fodder for the news in their never ending quest to disarm citizens.

Police are not held to the same standards as citizens. Police have "qualified immunity" which means if they commit a crime or a tort in the course of duty and are following their protocol and training, they are not liable criminally or civily. That's how the cop that shot the crawling exterminator got away with it. "Well, yeah. I shot the unarmed guy in the back. But I was trained to do so and it's in our policy." Then his sergeants testified that yes, that is how we trained them.

Like the rest of us, a police officer is much more likely to be killed driving into work than by a guy who has no gun the police officer can see. If you can't be a cop without a license to kill unarmed people then it is you who should become an exterminator.

The only difference between me and a police officer is I can't order somebody to freeze and then claim because they didn't, I had a reason to believe they may be armed. I don't have that authority to give such an order. A police officer does. That's why it's of the utmost importance to obey every command they give you. Freeze doesn't mean put your hands in your pocket. Freeze doesn't mean take your hands out of your pocket. Freeze does not mean turn around very quickly towards the officer. Freeze means don't move an inch until otherwise instructed.

99% of all police shootings and fatalities are due to one thing: the suspect didn't listen to the orders of the officer. It's different watching a reenactment on television, and your life flashing before your eyes because somebody may kill you within a half-second. Maybe they should become exterminators? Well now they are, and that's why we have a police officer shortage in this country.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I believe that if police officers are required to be professional and not shoot first and ask questions later, more people will want to be police officers, not less. The police have a reputation - deserved or not - for covering for each other be it for corruption or misconduct during interactions with civilians. Who wants to join an organization like that unless they are predisposed to cover ups?

We don't live in 1964. There are so many cameras around it's hard not to be videoed anywhere you go today. Think of how advanced our forensic science is compared to the past. If anybody is trying to "cover up" for another officer, they won't get away with it for the most part. So don't get your information from Hollywood movies. It's make believe.

 

[Ghost of a Rider]

That isn't self-defense, that is getting scared and shooting before you should. "Making a sudden movement" isn't a crime warranting summary execution. See the gun, then shoot. If you're too afraid to follow that simple protocol, don't be a cop.

No, making a sudden movement is not a crime warranting summary execution. But you left out one very important element: ordering the suspect to show his hands but suspect refuses. At this point, if the suspect makes a sudden movement or any movement that is not ostensibly direct compliance with specific commands, the officer would be justified in thinking the suspect is armed and meaning to shoot, even if it turns out the suspect is unarmed.

Do you know how many cops have been shot and killed in the line of duty in the past couple of years? According to the three sites linked below, upwards of 120 officers were shot and killed by suspects in 2021 and 2022 combined.

Law Enforcement Officer Deaths

Officer Down Memorial Page

USNEWS Article

That cop that shot the guy he was screaming at and making crawl on the floor toward him was let off because the court ruled that it was indeed SOP to shoot a suspect that reaches back to pull up his shorts with both hands in plain view of the officer at all times.

Shooting of Daniel Shaver - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

He was being investigated because he was an exterminator who used a pellet gun on birds and someone saw that perfectly legal weapon in his hotel room. His widow got an 8 million dollar settlement, not that it brought back this hard-working husband and father.

Three important elements you are overlooking:

1.) No one but Shaver knew that the weapon was a "perfectly legal" pellet gun. There was no way for the cops or the hotel staff to know this.

2.) It was a scoped pellet gun so it was perfectly reasonable to assume it was a firearm.

3.) What the fuck was he doing pointing it out the hotel room window? That was completely irresponsible.

None of this is to say that Shavers' shooting was justified, but it does point out how little distinctions and factors like this can lead to an officer shooting.

Arizona town to pay $8 million to widow of Daniel Shaver, shot while crawling unarmed toward police

Shaver was unarmed when shot by Mesa, Arizona police while crawling on his hands and knees toward them in 2016.

reason.com

Please don't worry about the officer. He was fired, but not for the killing. The department argued that shooting an unarmed man in the back was their policy and that he had been trained to do so.

He was fired because he had written "You're Fucked" on his police weapon. Classy guy. The city must really have like him in spite of all the money his fear-driven action cost them. They hired him back so he could live off the taxpayer dime forever. Wonder which will cost the city more, the settlement or a lifetime of payments to this guy so he doesn't have to work.

Arizona police officer who fatally shot sobbing man collects $31K a year pension

The shooting of Daniel Shaver by Mesa, Arizona, Officer Philip Brailsford last year was caught on bodycam in a case that drew national scrutiny over the use of deadly force.

www.nbcnews.com

Philip Mitchell Brailsford, 28, is now retired from the force with a tax-free pension worth $31,000 a year for life — and his attorney confirmed Friday that the settlement was a result of him suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the shooting involving Daniel Shaver of Texas.

He's twenty-eight. No reason to believe that he won't live until 78. 50 years times 31K is 1.55 Million. So the settlement was much more expensive, but the taxpayers will bear all of it, not the police force that created the conditions for it to happen.

Post-traumatic stress disorder due to shooting an unarmed man in the back. If anyone supports that, they should never accuse anyone else of being soft on crime.

Whatever went down between the officer and the department and the city later is irrelevant to the shooting itself. But I will say that, given the number of officers shot and killed by suspects (as cited above), it's no wonder this sort of thing happens from time to time. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the number of officers killed in the line of duty is probably far higher than the number of suspects unjustifiably shot by officers.