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Comment by fennecbutt | Hacker News Reader

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The cops made a big mistake but why is there some juvenile sitting in the dark, middle of the night, lighting up fireworks the moment the police start getting close. That's what I don't understand. There is some weird stuff going on in this story and the article jumping to conclusions isn't helping.

What lethal force is necessary when responding to a phenomenon that regular in mass occurs at least once a year in this country?

Lightning up fire works is something I would expect a juvenile to do.

I like how all 3 replies ignored the part where I put in context "the moment police were getting close", as if to assume I was asking why fireworks were ignited at night in general. I saw the body cam footage, and the cops legitimately thought someone was shooting at them, because when they got close, they heard, what literally sounded like gunshots. Should they have just blind fired? Absolutely not, terrible training by those officers, but it's not hard to see why there would be some confusion.

>the cops legitimately thought someone was shooting at them

But cops always "legitimately" think someone is shooting at them. Have you heard of the acorn incident?

Forty-seven officers were shot and killed in the line of duty in 2023. That's about 1 a week.

And way more than that die every year of automobile accidents, or fucking heart disease!

Well there's 700,000 cops in the US, so sounds like their priors are legitimately terrible.

Is that a lot? More than one unarmed person per week is killed by the police in the US.

If you were a juvenile, and wanted to light off fireworks, when else would you do it but at night?

why is there some juvenile sitting in the dark, middle of the night, lighting up fireworks

Huh?

Genuinely confused by that question? When does anyone light fireworks? I've never seen them any time but at night.

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