The depiction of police (allegedly) escalating the situation with threat of deadly force, especially with kids present, literally (not figuratively) got my adrenaline going.
I'd be interested in hearing both sides of the story with supporting evidence.
Not "allegedly". There is video: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665
The thing is this story is not at all surprising or unusual for the US. This kind of stuff is constantly happening on an almost weekly basis and after all the evidence is collected the result is "Yes this all did happen and no we are not going to do anything about it"
US law enforcement has very little oversight on their use of force.
Police departments are not required to report how many citizens they kill nationally, and they’re shielded from legal liability in virtually every case. Even when charges are brought, judges parse the law to an insane degree, to the point where sending attack dogs against a surrendering suspect in the woods is illegal, but not if they’re in a “grassy ditch”.
I’m not being hyperbolic, that’s an actual case where cops got off because there was no clear and specific precedent that what they were doing was wrong. And since they got off, they didn’t make new precedent to stop it in the future. Of course.
This person clearly was not a fugitive and I’d be surprised if she or her family posed any threat but they chose to enter her home guns drawn.
Why?
Yes, but it costs more and the potential hazard justifies it. Of course, if there are innocents involved the police might go in anyway, and they will allege such danger in the request for the warrant. Obviously Rebekah presented a suspected danger of continued cybercrime unless her alleged activity was interrupted immediately. Looking for the warrant...?
All laws implicitly carry the premise of enforcement by deadly force. What you see on the video is just stock procedure embodying that premise. This is the product of calling the police "Law Enforcement Officers".
I am not. As much as 'anti-intellectual', or 'plain wrong' it may be it may be, I am not interested in seeing evidence produced by the state or local police.
The US has regressed to a fascist state. Neither the police, nor politicians, nor federal judges can be trusted at this point. The whole system reeks of corruption at every level.
Me too.
Coming in guns drawn is not that uncommon in that scenario. You have a suspect refusing to answer the door for 20 minutes, so you don't know if they are preparing an ambush or other danger.
If I was a better writer, I’d adapt these things to prose and write up some Alice in Wonderland style story. People will go to the most ludicrous lengths to defend the most incredulous actions by police. Was the kid gonna throw his Tonka truck at him?
The "point a gun at a child" part comes in that her children where upstairs, but if the cops are looking out for hidden gunmen, why would they belief what she says.
It turns out those police officers had been a violent mob that swarmed a woman’s car, ripped her out of it and gang assaulted her before arresting her (she was later released without charge). The child they broke the window and took him out before taking his picture and using it for propaganda. But they got their child for a photo op, so I suppose it was justified.
FWIW, the caption was: “We are not your enemy,” the union said in the posts showing Young’s son. “We are the Thin Blue Line. And WE ARE the only thing standing between Order and Anarchy.”
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/30/philadelphi...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2020/10/30/929752605/mom-dragged-from-su...
It really should be uncommon though.
Being a police officer isn't close to one of the most dangerous jobs in America, but being in contact with an adversarial police officer is one of the most dangerous situations to be in. I'd be more afraid of the police, like many people.
"Being a police officer isn't close to one of the most dangerous jobs in America, but being in contact with an adversarial police officer is one of the most dangerous situations to be in."
This is a logical fallacy. It can be dangerous to be at the hands of an hostile officer, but then an equal comparison would be to say that being a police officer I'm the presence of an armed violent criminal is dangerous.
But like you said, being an officer is not the most dangerous profession. Just like being in the presence of a police officer is not that dangerous.
There is no reason to draw your weapon in this context. Danger should be determined from context clues, not defaulted to the highest priority.
There is no reason in hell you can ever justify pointing a weapon at a child. Period. That goes beyond bad policing and into disrespecting guns and plain stupidity. This is someone’s home not a war zone.
It would be great if we had good video of how the gun was pointed and where the people were. It was likely only pointed up the stairs in a "low-ready" manner and not aimed. But we will never know.
How about defiantly refusing to open the door and a past conviction for assaulting an officer as context clues?
At least three pistols were drawn by officers entering the home. The first officer doesn't draw his weapon until after interacting with the suspect, being told her husband and children are home, and then entering the home. If she has a previous conviction for assaulting an officer that wouldn't matter since she was already removed from the situation at this point. The first and third pistols I saw were pointed at the floor the whole time. The second officer has his pistol aimed at the top of the stairs as he is walking towards the bottom of the stairway.
And like my comment said, we don't see any people at the top of the stairs, so we don't know if it was aimed at anyone or not. Even if there are people up there, we can't tell if the gun is aimed at anyone or pointed "low" (into the top few stairs) or at a higher angle to aim at a person as it's only a 10 degree or so difference in angle and we don't see the full scene. All we can do is make assumptions, which isn't helpful.
He may have been following his SOPs perfectly. I don't think this is an appropriate SOP for LEOs to use in this situation. I don't think this case called for having weapons drawn at all. My view is that this SOP is likely to contribute to unnecessary civilian injuries and deaths.
Why wouldn't this be appropriate when clearing a building with unknown threats when dealing with an uncooperative person? The only way it leads to unnecessary injuries is if the officers don't make a proper identification of a threat/non-threat, which can happen with the gun in other positions too.
This type of search wouldn't have been necessary anyways if she had complied immediately. They would have normally asked everyone to exit before doing their search, but once the suspect has been uncooperative and they gain entry they need to be proactive about the search to avoid evidence destruction or suspect fortifications given the suspect's actions. Now had she opened the door quickly, I would agree that the actions would not have been appropriate because you're supposed to clear the building by voluntary means first. In this case, the suspect's family declined that voluntary option by not complying.
Some people would argue that not having guns drawn in this type of case would result in more police deaths. I agree but don't view this as a deal breaker. How many civilians will die with guns drawn vs how many police officers die without? Should we count civilian and police lives the same in this situation? Police officers are compensated for the risks they take and have protective gear like body armour to reduce this risk. In the linked video I don't see the police using any head covering other than ball caps. If they thought there was a risk why didn't they put on helmets? I'm sure the Tallahassee police have access to that kind of PPE. The fact that they chose not to wear full PPE suggests to me that they didn't believe there was a substantial threat in the home.
Every building search is considered high risk. It's not an extreme risk, which is why they didn't execute it as a no-knock with SWAT, but there is still risk. The actions taken appear to consistent with that level of risk.
Here's what a quick google search turned up.
This link [0] shows that US police kill over three times as many people, per capita, than Canadian police. However, I think there are other issues, like easy access to guns, that affect this stat so this isn't really a very useful stat for our discussion.
This group [1] has been collecting info on arrest related deaths but a quick look only showed me links to how they collect data and not the actual data. It also looks like they stopped their surveys in 2012.
This paper [2] has some of the most relevant stats I've found for our discussion and covers use of lethal force by police between 2009-2012. From their numbers, 83% of victims were armed or believed to be armed (this includes toy guns, etc) and over 93% of the deaths were from firearms. If we assume that the 7% of deaths were the police didn't shoot all apply to unarmed victims then 10% of the people killed by police were unarmed and shot. Their stats also show LEOs being killed in less than 2% of these incidents. Their numbers do show 9% of these cases resulting in an injury to LEOs but we don't have numbers on non-fatal police caused injuries so I don't want to compare apples to oranges.
[0] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ [1] https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=82 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6080222/
Unarmed in the context of this paper would only be as it applies to deadly weapons. The suspect could still pose a threat with an alternative weapon (such as a pipe) or even pose a threat with bare hands too. The percent of people killed without posing an immediate threat would be more appropriate, and was 5% (would like to see the details of those with prosecution metrics). I would guess that 5% that mostly fits in the 7% you mentioned (which includes cars, suffocation, falls, etc), but unfortunately the paper doesn't seem to get granular enough for that. So I don't think we can draw a good conclusion from this paper that there were more civilians unjustly shot by police than the police being shot by civilians (the paper leaves out non-fatal incidents too). On that note too, the 2% officer fatality rate you show would not be fully encompassing. Meaning, it would be missing encounters in which the suspect killed the officer without also being killed.
[1] Suspect accused of a non-violent offense, with no violent history.
Her whole family had headphones in? She had headphones in even while talking to and hanging up on the police? Seems unbelievable in case.
Soeaking of idiots ruining their life: Assange might be a good example that people know. He was allowed to surrender on his own/with his lawyers (first time around). Not sure about his latest arrest, but IIRC he was resisting and all they did was humiliate him by carrying him out like a petulant child.
The rights/procedures for the search warrant vary by state. I have a general understanding of them for my state.
Every citizen should learn their rights. I think it's terrible, and a sign of a poor state of education and civic duty that so few people know their rights. This lack of knowledge allows violations to happen without any punishment.
Seriously- I’m not just being difficult here. Threats of deadly force should not be the default.
For context, this is coming from someone who carries a handgun every day for personal reasons. I’m not at all uncomfortable with guns. I am extremely uncomfortable with law enforcement using guns in a way that would get me arrested, charged, and convicted when there is zero legal justification for them to do so.
You also don't have the duties assigned to police. That's the difference. If you have the legal authority to clear a building, you could act lawfully the same way they did.