I do agree with you, though, that a close look should be taken at the shooter and the situation with an eye toward possibly charging the shooter. I do think that in general, police in many parts of the US are too insulated from the consequences of such decisions. I'm not completely sure, though, based on this article, that I would consider the officer culpable. Police are trained to react quickly and to protect one another. The description here does leave me with the sense, however, that the one who fired may not have had a particularly good view of what the victim was doing. Arguably there is a systemic problem that when there are many officers, all with different and incomplete views of the situation, the odds of one thinking that something is going on that justifies opening fire get to be unacceptably high.
Anyway I do hope you're not suggesting that the shooter's responsibility somehow mitigates that of the caller.
ETA: Ah, I didn't know there was body cam footage we could see [1]. Okay, I have to agree with you, this looks pretty damning. There were no officers within easy target range of the victim; the shot was taken from well across the street. Even if the victim had been pulling out a gun, unless he's a Clint Eastwood character, he's going to have to take a second or two to aim it to have any chance of hitting anyone at that distance. It was not necessary to fire that quickly. I have to qualify this by saying I'm no firearms expert, but that's how it looks to me.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_(United_States_law)
[1] http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192089304.html
If being trained to “react quickly” involves shooting people when they are not 100% sure the person has a weapon, then they are being trained to commit murder. That will likely be an aspect of the inevitable lawsuit against the police in this incident. But the mere fact that they were trained to commit murder does not absolve individual officers of criminal responsibility when they actually murder someone.
>Anyway I do hope you're not suggesting that the shooter's responsibility somehow mitigates that of the caller.
No, I’m not.
It also has psychological repercussions, where anybody who's not cop nor family is expendable by default. What is it like for a cop trained in this way to visit a mall?
I don't think I can agree with this. Police departments have policies for when officers should and should not shoot at people. In cases where the policy was followed, I think we have to say that relieves the individual of responsibility.
In this instance, of course I don't know whether the shooting was according to policy. And of course I hope, and expect, that it wasn't. But if it was, then it's the policy that has to change first.
That is all the information that is necessary to make a determination not only that he should be charged with murder, but convicted of it.
So due process is one concern here, but also, my concern here is more about the fucked up system we have. Is it reasonable to create a broken system, heavily arm cops, train them poorly, get them hyped up, and send them off with bad intel into (what they believe is) an incredibly high-stakes / high-stress environment, and then when one of them makes a human mistake that anyone could make in that situation, toss them in jail and throw away the key?
EDIT: this is an excellent article on the mentality that I'm talking about: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-...
They have the weapon he fired, police body cam footage, the bullet, and the fact that there was no weapon on the victim, which means the cop did not see a weapon. So he just fired because the guy put his hands down and then obeyed commands to put them back up, which last I heard was not on the list of causes for justifiable homicide. This wasn’t a “mistake that anyone could make”. You don’t shoot guns at people unless they have a gun and are about to shoot at you, even if you happen to wear a badge.
So yes, tossing him in jail and for a long time seems like the appropriate outcome in light of the evidence.
You’re talking about simple mob justice, that’s all.
Unfortunate turn of phrase, when it's the police who kill over a thousand citizens without trial or often arrest each year.
He is on administrative leave.
We have quite a lot of information and evidence already, and while our conclusions must necessarily be tentative we are absolutely entitled to form a preliminary impression.
Look, in this situation they're armed, covered, and have a strong numerical advantage etc. etc. etc. and you're offering a panic defense. If I was to rely on my anxiety level to govern my conduct I'd have killed 30 or 40 people by now.
There is such a thing as exaggerating risks and you are doing that now.
Non trained members of public are expected to keep perfect calm and control. It makes Bo sense that expectations on random Johny are higher then those on trained cops.
If the only information you are operating off is an unconfirmed civilian report, I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. At the very least, they should be 100% certain that the suspect has a weapon - the police should act at a far higher standard than "feared the male pulled a weapon from his waistband".
IMO, the police should be there for the protection of society as a whole, but _sometimes_ (far from all of the time) act as if they are just protecting themselves over and above that/at all costs.