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Comment by hga | Hacker News Reader

Geeze, there's no mystery here. Point a realistic fake gun (1911 airsoft replica with the orange band in front removed) at an armed person and, surprise, in return they'll shoot you with their real gun. And no sane prosecutor or grand jury will try to prosecute them for clear, white line self-defense. What's so difficult to understand about this??

There are so many bad cases of police shooting or otherwise killing people when they had no cause or worse, why focus on ones where they were justified?

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I see that you failed to read the article.

Literally the second paragraph:

  > Because the boy never pointed a gun at a cop. He wasn’t given the chance to even put his hands up.

Sorry, initially I just skimmed the article to see if it said anything new and interesting, it seems I'm misremembering and he just started to draw his gun, and was only prior to that pointing it at the people (a felony, BTW) who called 911, but that makes no difference, it was a justified shooting based on the video and the known facts of the case.

That Roger Clark who they're leaning on so much in the story? He wouldn't be afraid if someone pointed a gun at him? He's an idiot, or simply someone lacking the normal emotion of fear; if the latter, such people are useful, but are not representative of the normal population, the standard by which we determine justification for using lethal force.

This is basically the whole point of the article. That people only remember the press release, not the details.

Their experts didn't agree that the video showed him pulling the gun at all. One said it showed him reaching for it, the other side it showed him jerking after he'd been shot. And personally, I'd have a hard time believing either of them can be conclusive - in one frame between we both his hands clearly, one single frame in dispute, and in the next frame he's already been shot.

It's far from clear-cut.

In terms of judging if the police committed a crime, it's sufficiently clear cut, the standard comes down in favor of the (potential) defendant's side when if it's not "conclusive" like you and some of the experts claim.

Assuming, of course, their testimony was credible, sufficiently consistent, etc.

And my memory error wasn't "from the press release", but from the fact that he was pointing it at people prior to the police showing up.

Oh totally agree that the video isn't enough to find anyone guilty (it doesn't pass "reasonable doubt"). But the question here was whether it even deserved a trial. And they argued the video was conclusive enough that a trial wasn't warranted. And that I'm less comfortable with, personally.

You may not have read the article, but he didn't point it at them. If you watch the video, they drive right up on him and immediately shoot him.

See my reply in another sub-thread of this sub-thread, I skimmed it, missed that, and misremembered his pointing it at civilians previously with the in my judgment credible claim that he was reaching for it from its tucked in his waistband position as the police arrived.

But that doesn't matter WRT to the topic of the article, for as I note, absent other evidence or a lack of credibility from the police officers, the decision to prosecute or convict is supposed to come down in favor of them, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is the standard.

Video of the Tamir Rice shooting is available here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/nov/26/clevel...

To me, it shows events the unfolding intents and events occurring at a pace that written descriptions don't really capture. Your mileage may vary.

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