"Murder." This is a very, very sad story and the shooting shouldn't have happened. There are Los Angeles cops, tired, frazzled from doing a beat in a worse neighborhood in LA than most, very early in the morning, which means it was probably still dark. "Murder?"
Yahoo carried this sad story in a headline all day Saturday and I was surprised and dismayed to see it there again on Sunday . Why is it? This isn't a purposeful shooting, this is a terrible mistake and who could not feel great sadness for the victim? But, can we also think of our sadness for the cops who made the fatal error? The man was approaching them very "suspiciously" and fumbling at his waistband as if for a hand gun! These cops have LIVES, they have families, they have children depending on them and they would never shoot a man in cold blood.
This is the type of thing the media does so well and so often, isn't it, drawing attention to the police and what they might have done wrong .... while they give every damn excuse in the book to those who could hurt them and the rest of society, those who've stolen, raped, shot, killed....... We don't give the police excuses but we give the bad guys the 'abuse excuse', the sympathy, the ridiculous suggestion that they could have done no wrong, "they were just victims of the police"....and, if the police do one thing wrong in the arrest, etc., the perp is often freed. This is the pressure our police have on them. We should honor them but we blame instead.
Oh, and we give the victims' families millions. Of course this man's family calls this "MURDER." They must already have a good attorney.$$$
God rest Mr. Eugene's soul...........and God help those policemen who must be so upset and sad at what happened and have to now face investigations and live with the fact that they mistakenly shot an innocent man. Please, people, let's give the police the benefit of the doubt, too, from time to time, don't you think?
z
80 comments:
I'd like to know what the "suspicious behavior" was they decided to investigate.
Reads as if the guy was alone, not involved in any altercations and doing, well we don't know but automatically give the benefit of the doubt to the cops? Nope.
Head shot? No attempt to disable? Was the threat that great?
There are some questions here.
Oh and just how did the far left mainstream media "come down hard"?
They reported that the cops shot an unarmed man. Should they have hushed it up?
If that article is "coming down hard" then you must want no report at all.
You are so right, Ducky. There is no reason to wait until the investigation produces tangible results ... just go ahead and convict the police without the same benefit we give to crooks; the presumption of innocence.
I swear —you are such an idiot.
Mustang out
Now get a load of THIS:
Cantor Says Campaign Office Was Shot At, Accuses Dems of Exploiting Threats
FOXNews.com
Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain." Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain."
Cantor said "a bullet was shot through the window" of his campaign office. The incident happened Monday, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress. Most of the threats so far have been reported by Democrats, but Cantor -- the No. 2 Republican in the House -- is one of about 10 lawmakers who has asked for increased security protection, Fox News has learned.
In brief and pointed remarks, Cantor said he would not be releasing any information about the other threats he's received, as some lawmakers have done, out of concern that it would "encourage more to be sent."
And he admonished his colleagues -- specifically Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine -- for "dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting these incidents be used as a political weapon."
"Any suggestion that a leader in this body would incite threats or acts against other members is akin to saying that I would endanger myself, my wife or my children," Cantor said. "It is reckless to use these incidents as ...
Complete article at the following link:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/25/rep-cantors-richmond-campaign-office-shot-overnight/#/p
~ FreeThinke
As for the substance of the item posted, I say,
"TOUGH! SHIT HAPPENS! GET OVER IT.
"Los Angeles police have mistakenly killed an autistic Black man who approached them while fumbling for something at his waste."
Shouldn't that be 'waist'.
Don't bother calling for fairness from the media, ain't gonna happen. Just call for the police to be disbanded, then all the bwave liberals who hate cops can form their own little force, that's all politically correct, loving of homos and all that. Let's see how they do the job.
Re the threats against democrats. I wouldn't assault a democrat myself even if they are loathsome fascists but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for beating democrats and leftists. But how will criminalizing people making difficult, somewhat justified and often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the beatings of democrats? Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don't believe in beating democrats, then don't beat one.
I smell the nice scent of the revolution coming...
I'm with Ducky, some sort of trial process to find the officers guilty, followed by a swift execution.
First...let me thank you all for not mentioning that I'd accidentally typed "...fumbling with his WASTE" on the post! Boy, would THAT have been a different story! (HEH!!) eeeeooooouuu!!
Second: FT, you KNOW Democrats NEVER do things like that! :-)
Odd that Yahoo homepage covered this when the Dems were being threatened but I don't see anything on Cantor...(Odd, right? :-) (as if)
Ducky, Here is the information that IS IN THE LINKED ARTICLE:
"Shortly after midnight, two LAPD gang enforcement officers were on patrol northbound on Vermont Avenue near James Wood Boulevard. They said they saw a man on the sidewalk suspiciously looking around and manipulating something in his waistband area."
You probably don't know Vermont and James Wood Blvd...it's scary...midnight, and a guy's acting suspiciously and manipulating something around his waistband area..(I know Beamish might have something to add here about that for you, but I'll let it pass :-)
"come down hard" IN GENERAL, Ducky..is unfair. We need to investigate and stop jumping to conclusions that police are automatically WRONG. They have wives and kids at home counting on them to stay alive, too.
Of course there are questions here..but this is America. I'm just not one who always considers the perp the guy on the right side.
Mustang..thanks for your support on this........the media constantly jumps to the worst scenario, with cops and soldiers.
We'll have nobody signing up soon and then they'll be wondering WHERE IS THE COP??
OH, my...comments aren't printing...
Got to look into this..sorry, folks.
If you're going to comment, try to save it before PUBLISH, thanks.
well, that one worked.........??
Ducky, please see Mustang's remark...he pretty much says it all.
Read the article and see the guy was acting oddly and fumbling at his waist....cops have families, too...let's give them the same benefit of the doubt we give others.
Also, I want to thank you all for not commenting earlier, before I realized and changed it, that I'd typed on my post "...fumbling at his waste"...ugh!! (true, I had!)
Anonymous - If you are serious, I hope you don't look forward to something so destructive as that.
This is what they want. It should be obvious given the set up by the congressional democrats who gloated as they marched right through the crowd of protesting Americans on the weekend.
They were taunting the crowd, and with no evidence, accused them of racial slurs and spitting.
They should be ashamed of themselves, behaving like schoolyard bullies, but the definition of a bully is cowardice.
They are in full attack mode. They are out to intimidate and discredit the American people who are demonstrating against what they're doing.
It's as though they were poking us in the chest and saying, "I dare you to hit me".
They want this. They are the ones trying to incite hate. If we fell for this, we would be stupid.
We'll "hit" them at the polls on election day. We'll focus on a sweeter, more lasting victory. We'll remove them from their lofty place of power, with ballots, and send them packing.
This is what they fear, and this is what they're trying to prevent.
They're afraid and they'll try anything. Dirty tricks, lies and threats, are their means to their ends.
But we must keep marching, and working for candidates who will restore sanity, and observe the constitution. This must be our purpose, and our only goal.
We can be angry, but it must be chanelled into constructive action which leads to political victory. That is a revenge that would be sweet indeed.
Pris
I once ran a stop sign after midnight on New Year's on my way to pick up my teenage daughter after a party. This was a quiet neighborhood. The stop sign was at the entrance from a short bit of street coming obliquely into a main street where you could see half a mile in both directions, nothing was coming, and yes I didn't see the cop in the shadows and I ran it. I might have been driving a tad too fast too. Also had a fast looking car in those days. But I wasn't drunk or anything, just picking up my daughter late at night. I've never seen a cop act so scared in my life. He parked some distance behind me, cautiously crouched with his hand on his gun as he got out of his car, and approached so defensively I was almost afraid I was going to get shot and wasn't sure how to reassure him I wasn't a threat. I just sat there hoping for the best and when he got close enough to see me and talk to me he started to calm down. I was as scared as he was. That impressed on my mind how scary their job is to them, but it also impressed on me how easy it would be to get killed by mistake. It was New Year's, somewhere in town there were belligerent drunks, maybe worse, plenty of cop haters around too, I don't know what all. I'm not entirely sure what I learned from that. But the campaign against the cops is purely ideological and considering the time and place he could have been on edge for that reason already anyway. They represent the "oppressor" class in Marxist theory, the enemy rather than the working guys they are. It's all a matter of how you define things. Time we all learn to think from the Marxist perspective I'm afraid.
Sometimes autism isn't apparent in a given situation. Furthermore, autistic individuals often behave in a "suspicious" manner.
What a horrible thing!
The cops couldn't know that the man had Autism just by looking at him, and if they felt their lives were in danger because of the appearance of the suspect potentially drawing a weapon then the shooting was valid.
Oh, MK...so you DID see that 'waste' and I commented that nobody did!
My comments section is really screwed up, I think it's Blogger, and I had only a few comments here when I mentioned that and then, apparently, a whole bunch came in that had been left earlier...like yours! SO, I thanked everybody for NOT noticing WASTE and commenting..and YOU DID !!!
Oh, well...just explaining so people don't wonder why I mention that in an earlier comment after you HAD mentioned it.
geeesh, enough of THIS!
Faith, that would really show how frightened cops are...thanks for that. I don't think some people recognize how dangerous their job truly is, and that they have hearts and minds and feelings, too.
AOW...no doubt about that...if adult autistics are anything like the little boy I taught in preschool, they surely do not act in a manner of someone just walking down the street at night....and the article mentions his behavior.
Brooke, I believe it was valid.
Ducky does make a good point about shooting in the head being a bit over zealous, possibly, but, again, I'm thinking that in the heat of real fear one can just plain make a mistake.....even cops
AOW wrote:
"Sometimes autism isn't apparent in a given situation. Furthermore, autistic individuals often behave in a "suspicious" manner."
Though to a degree you are correct, I would say most often than not Autistic children and adults do not behave in a "suspicious" manner unless they are feeling threatened.
Having two children with Autism has taught me a lot. But if it taught me anything it taught me that just like no two people are alike, neither are people with Autism so I am rather reluctant to make generalites regarding Autistic behavior.
Of course my older son died 13 years ago and was a savant so he was quite different from my son now who is extremely high functioning to the point that he realizes he is "different." That is really painful.
I'm not exactly a "give the cops the benefit of the doubt" kind of guy, so sorry if I disappoint.
A 27-year-old Koreatown man was killed in an "officer- involved shooting" early this morning, police officials said.
Steven Eugene Washington died from a gunshot wound to the head, according to Los Angeles Police officials.
From this we surmise that the police shot the man in the head, instead of making a disabling shot. A round through the hip or thigh would have brought the man down without killing him and severely minimized any flight risk, should the suspect have transformed himself into one of those miraculous people that can outrun a squad car and radio waves to call in backup.
::insert rolling eyes here::
Shortly after midnight, two LAPD gang enforcement officers were on patrol northbound on Vermont Avenue near James Wood Boulevard. They said they saw a man on the sidewalk suspiciously looking around and manipulating something in his waistband area.
So, we're talking about a visual read of body language that could have only have been credibly made with such detail in nighttime lighting conditions within 50 yards provided the cops were in motion (patroling northbound).
When police officers attempted to conduct an investigation, the man advanced rapidly toward the officers while trying to remove something from his waistband, LAPD officials said. Then officer-involved shooting occurred.
At what distance to the target did the cops' attempted "investigation" begin that afforded the suspect both room and time to "advance rapidly" towards them yet clear them the duration needed to draw weapons and line up a head shot? How close to the cops did their target get before they dropped him?
Police said Washington did not have any weapons. Two officers involved in the shooting have been reassigned while the circumstances are under investigation. Family members told ABC-7 News that Washington was not a violent man. He was autistic and had the intelligence of a 16-year-old. They also described his death as a murder.
Play this out in your head.
Cops see a man, and are close enough to the man to see the always undefinable "suspicious" body language from him yet are far enough away to "attempt an investigation" (with binoculars, what?) while the man "advances upon them rapidly" (one step, five steps, a 100 meter dash, what?) within the duration needed to draw a gun and shoot it into the head of an allegedly "advancing rapidly" (jog, trot, hopscotch, sprint, what?) while he fumbled for "something in his waistband" (meaning target is moving toward them, fumbling with something in his waistband - but not retrieving it, whatever it was - and the cops had time to draw weapons and aim and fire before "rapidly advancing" overtook them).
I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare this trigger-happy cop scenario an example of why Mayberry Sherriff Andy only gave Deputy Barney Fife one bullet, and made him carry it in his shirt pocket.
I live in St. Louis, where two cops fired 21 rounds into a car in a routine traffic stop without hitting anyone in the car, so the LA cops' marksmanship can be commended, but given the details of this shooting, I gotta cry bullshit on the cop's version released to the media.
"He was autistic and had the intelligence of a 16-year-old".
Down here...I read today that a "16 year old"...will be tried as an adult...for the near stomping to death of a 15 year old girl...who had texted this animal something he didn't like. The victim, a girl, is in a coma from having her head stomped on by this..."16 year old".
So..what exactly does this infer? That a 16 y/old...can't commit a crime? Apparently..only when the progressive scumbags at the ACLU...decide that...assault and murder...are really a misunderstanding.
Instead of getting pissed at outlaw government royalty...we should start first...with the ACLU.
The revolution has begun. And if our forefathers had capitulated...and decided against action, war and violence...we'd all be kissing Queen Elizabeths ass...and paying for the destruction of Britian...and their mudslime assassins.
"shooting in the head being a bit over zealous????
Me...I'd give the cop a Sharpshooter ribbon...like I got when I achieved expert on an M16...a head looks like a pin from 100 yards away...and I nailed it 9 out of 10 times. Semper Fi....brother defenders.
"Anonymous" is probably a leftist troll who is attempting to bait the board into open advocacy of violence.
His remarks generally have a the unmistakable aura of grotesque caricature about them.
~ FT
Anonymous,
As much as I hate to rise to Ducky's defense on the merits of his "disabling shot" point (because I normally make no effort to hide my contempt for Ducky's perennial imbecility) cops are indeed trained to make "largest body mass" shots. A head shot is not a "largest body mass" shot, particularly if the target is "advancing rapidly" towards you, which means the sight picture is increasing in size (extend your hand out in front of you and move your palm towards your face... your hand appears to get bigger as it gets closer...)
That two cops are involved in the shooting implies some details missing from the article:
- They were conducting their patrol from a squad car (or at least a vehicle)
- They recognized that the man was "suspiciously" digging in his waistband and decided to investigate further, which means they were close enough to the man to see movement with his hands in nighttime / streetlamp illumination (if that) - which means they were well within range for even an amateur shooter to make a full body mass shot.
The man approached them "rapidly" as they approached him to "investigate" the crime of the century that is digging in a waistband after midnight, which means distances were being closed throughout the encounter, which increases the ease of a head shot while also increasing the ease of a body shot or the standard FBI training hip / thigh disabling shot. As "gang enforcement" police officers, one would hope their gun and target live fire training is a bit more in depth than some dumb mook rookie fresh from washing out of Marine Corps boot camp on a psych discharge.
There's a enough "probable cause" to suspect that thses cops are full of shit.
They were close enough to the target to see him digging in his waistband, and felt safe enough to approach for further investigation, yet as the distances closed, went for head instead of heart or hip.
And two officers involved, so they either a) both got out of the car to check this guy out, or b) are both lousy shots and one of them was lucky to actually hit the guy in the head at point blank range.
As I said, the cop's story = full of shit.
Beamish..I say let's get a better report than 30 lines in another quick Yahoo "SCREW THE COPS" piece...there's nothing there...very little. We don't even know what the cop report says.
As I said, none of you know that area, how dangerous it is, none of you know how badly lit it might have be and, as I also said, it's sad and maybe even questionable that they didn't wound him in the leg or something. ..
I'm trying to say I'm tired of our jumping to conclusions that IT'S THE COPS' FAULT before getting a full investigation.
The family will get MILLIONS, of course...that's why they're calling it "murder". Sad that they'd let an autistic 16 yr old be out alone at midnight.
To whoever left the nice comment below here...you used my full name and I don't use that here AT ALL so I'm glad I was here shortly after you published to delete it! I know it's so easy to do that :-)
So....to my readers...
I've deleted it and reprinted this comment from Anonymous (who knows me!! who are you? :-) Thanks for coming by and saying....
"I totally agree with your position. Thank you for your support of our officers who take on risks that not many of us step up to assume. Staying out of trouble is a great way to avoid being accidentally injured or killed in this manner."
thanks!
Z,
I know California has some weird laws (all states do) but I'm fairly certain "digging in your waistband on the sidewalk after midnight" is not something that merits further "investigation" by cops passing by in a patrol car.
The cops had time to see the man, decide to investigate him, approach to do so, and then arm up and drop him with a headshot as he approached them while "fumbling with his waistband" which is why they decided to "investigate" him in the first place.
We're not talking about a life or death quick decision being made here. Now it's possible the Yahoo blurb story has condensed away some relevant details, but I don't think so.
A "mentally 16" autistic 27 year old is still a 27 year old and has every right to be out on the sidewalk whenever the hell he feels like it. Or at least as long as he doesn't dig in his waistband while passing cops are watching him.
Sorry, but it IS the cop's fault. The guy's head didn't suck the bullet out of the cop's gun against the cop's will, afterall.
As for the victim's family, they should get as much money as a wrongful death suit can award them. And if the cop's can't make their story less shitful in front of a jury, they ought to be imprisoned.
It's awful hard to have a police state without police.
Just sayin.
I think beamish makes a good point. There are two sides to this.
Was two sides to this.
Now its the cop's words vs. the brains on the pavement.
Layla,
By "suspicious" I mean that many time autistic adults make a "move" alarming to the police.
I teach an autistic adult. He does have a lot of nervous "tics" and gets agitated whenever he perceives a threat, whether a threat exists or not.
Sad, really.
Ducky, please see Mustang's remark...he pretty much says it all.
----------------
He doesn't say much of anything. There was an unarmed man shot and there was a brief press release.
Now the far right have upped this to a lynching when in fact there has been no such thing.
Standard procedure after a shooting has been followed and that's it so far.
Of course in recent years the LAPD has been completely free of controversy.
mustang should go back to musing about why it was so unnecessary to honor Dr. King. That plays to his strength.
Meditation Exercise to Relieve Stress
Here's a stress management technique used traditionally in Sicily. Try it; it does wonders.
1. Picture yourself lying prone on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.
2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.
3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.
4. No one knows your secret place.
5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.
6. The soothing sound of a gentle water fall fills the air with a cascade of serenity..
7 The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of Nancy Pelosi, the person you are holding underwater.
There!! See? It really does work... You're smiling already.
~ FreeThinke
Ducky, by not feeling it necessary to honor Dr. King, does that make Mustang a hater of all Blacks?
And, do you STILL not get it?
We are saying that the police deserve at LEAST the same benefit of the doubt as suspects.
Also, who said anything close to 'lynching'...nice choice of words there, Ducky. Very subtle.
Beamish, I'd still insist that we don't know the facts and it's a very slippery slope to constantly be suspecting the police of wrongdoing and giving the perps the free pass, which often happens here because of 'thinkers' like Ducky who can never wrap what brains they might have around police actually fighting their butts off every day trying to keep us safe and keep alive for their families at the same time.
I suspect there is no greater racist/bigot on this planet than Ducky. After all, isn’t Ducky one of those Jew-haters who advocates the right of disgruntled Muslims to murder Jewish children by the busload? And I have not heard Ducky say any kind words about Hispanics. And he certainly has nothing kind to say about his fellow Americans who happen to hold a different political view.
No, I think the reality here is that Ducky is the racist. Scant chance he’ll admit it though. The left usually win their arguments by pointing fingers at everyone else. You know, as the Nazis did in the 1930s —and very successfully.
Mustang out
Oh, and Ducky also demeans women in the worst possible way … so he is beyond racist. He is no gentleman.
Mustang out
Z,
I will make a short comment on this just to rile up the natives, then I'll comment again when I return. Thanks for your comment, too much at school lately while I'm battling the bug.
I'll dispense with my war stories, suffice it to say in my career I've been several officer-involved shootings. News stories are never able to depict the scene of shootings accurately. For instance, was this a high-crime neighborhood? According to Z it was. That's a large factor in how the police perform their duties.
What else was going on in the neighborhood at the same time. Was there vehicle traffic? If so, was it nearby. Could this be part of an ambush? Did the man respond to verbal commands? Were there other people in the area? Were they in a housing area, or an industrial area? All relevant.
I was much more on guard in high-crime neighborhoods than I was in others. I was a little more on edge when approached by young men fitting a gang profile (oops, bad word) than I was when approaching a soccer mom who ran a red light. Reaching in a waistband is a very suspicious thing to do in a gang neighborhood.
The fact that the guy was autistic is completely irrelevant. Move on.
It is all well and good to criticize these officers, but until you've been shot at in a similar situation it's hard to relay the terror involved. Sorry to sound dramatic, but getting shot at is not a pleasant experience.
I'll return later. Thanks.
Mustang, knowing you as I and many other bloggers do, when anybody besmirches your character it shows some real dull thinking and a willingness to demean before one THINKS.
Thanks for your comments here...
and thanks for the really good man you are.
Semper FI, dear friend.
Law and Order..I forgot you're battling the bug, sorry to yank you over from your blog here, but you can see why I wanted to hear your input, your having BEEN a policeman!
Thanks for taking the time and thanks for these points you bring up...
i'll look forward to more and especially look forward to hearing you say you're 100% well again.
God bless.
so late to the party, sorry i missed so much of the fun...
i hear what l&ot is saying and would agree that the knowledge of the area and what is prevalent in a specific are has to be taken into account. however, i also agree with beamish and ducky (god i did NOT just type that) when they say it should have been a disabling shot, not a kill shot.
i am coming to realize that a good many of the police here in california (not just in my barbaric neck of the woods) are really statist. and yes, they are looking to enforce a police state.
no, we don't know all the facts. yes, we do need to learn those facts so that a rational decision for punishment can be made. yes, yahoo and other media outlets routinely write articles to cast the police in as bad a light as possible. yes, these sort of "hit" pieces make it damned-near impossible to get a jury who isn't biased about the "facts" of the case prior to participating in the trial.
murder? nah, it's not murder. more likely extremely bad judgement on the part of one or both of the officers and an attempt to cover up their knee-jerk response to the perceived threat. do they deserve jail? nope. but they do deserve some sort of censure.
btw, that area is about the worst there is in l.a. - the only corner i can think of that MAY be worse is normandy and 150th...
Law and Order, who criticized the officers? There was a shooting of an unarmed man, that is going to be reported.
The man's relatives are going to call for blood, pretty standard.
Other than that nothing has been said and all you're reading is far right wingers being reflexive.
I defy anybody to find anything that is out of the ordinary in that short clip z posted. Yes, there will be a hearing and I imagine they'll be exonerated.
Ducky, THINK MAN...My post is IN GENERAL, DUCKY..this was an excellent, but not the only, example of COPS getting the brunt of the blame.
Other articles here in LA have been far worse, jumping to conclusions about the cops far before the perps.
Is Ducky's real name STRAWMAN by any chance?
Is DUCKY'S real name STRAWMAN by any chance?
Let's go real slow, z.
The article states some of the facts of the shooting. There has been no blame at all attached.
You are merely demonstrating a knee jerk reaction that is based primarily in hysteria.
Is DUCKY'S real name STRAWMAN by any chance?
This is the fifth or sixth attempt to post, and remarks are NOT posting.
@#*&@#*&@#^&*%^&!@^%@!@!
Free Thinker,
Thanks so much for the meditation. I know that it is wrong, but it made me smile.
Mona
Z,
What perp? Is it against the law to fumble with your waistband after midnight on a public sidewalk in California?
Now I've personally had a gun shoved in my face by the Blueshirt Gestapo for being on a sidewalk before, so it's a bit of a tenuous stretch for me to readily afford "benefit of the doubt" to government authorized thugs.
Here in St. Louis, there are two prominent gangs that war constantly. One is deeply involved in drug running, car thefts, extortion, and assasinations-for-hire. The other is not allowed to wear badges.
I have a friend in prison with solid alibis rotting for life for a murder he did not commit (and more importantly, could not have committed) while the justice system will not even prosecute the actual murderer that confessed, so color me a bit skeptical of the whole rah-rah red white and bluie mom and apple pie American criminal justice system.
There are good cops (somewhere) and there are bad cops (everywhere). Nothing in the information given (scant that it is) points to "honest mistake" by these cops.
I'll be the first to eat my words if some unrevealed bit of information exonerates them.
But I don't foresee it happening.
When the Treasury Department commandos and local SWAT come to take me down for not buying health insurance, do they get this charitabvle benefit of the doubt as well?
Ducky and Beamish.
I give up. The point's being lost and that's fine...whatever.
I LIVE HERE, there is TONS of this kind of guilt heaped on the cops before ANYTHING is known. I used this recent situation as a vehicle to express the FACT that I believe suspects ought to at least get more immediate incrimination than those trying to do their job protecting the community..if ANYBODY should.
Thanks.
Did you even READ Law and Order's excellent questions?
Ducky...don't EVER do that "take it slow, Z" SHIT again, okay? I take your crap here every single damned day and have lost at least 3 readers because of you..
Just STOP. I like your input but I am SICK AND TIRED of your demeaning CRAP. I didn't build this blog to go through what I went through at Frontpage..TRUST ME, DUCKY. Just STOP. Argue like an ADULT.thank you.
I should delete this for the language, but you know what? It's been building up and it's feeling good to let it out.
I'm sorry to anybody I've offended.
Ducky,
This is all about criticizing the officers.
Z,
Having said that, there are bad cops as there are others in jobs who are bad. This seems to be one of those perfect storms in which bad circumstances meet bad circumstances.
I can only say that I became a police officer with the best of intentions. I never wanted to shoot or kill anyone, but sometimes that happens. All of the police officers I've known feel the same way.
If this was just a situation in which these officers said "You know what, this guy won't take his hands away from his waistband, so, gee, let me think, I'll shoot him", I would say have at them.
I never thought about politics while I was working 18 years of midnights on the job. I only thought about survival. When I was a cop, I didn't even know what a statist was.
This whole thing reminds me of when I was in the military. When we came home we were held out as symbols of the corrupt political regime. Hell, I was 21. I went where I was sent.
When I was a cop, I enforced the law as it was written. I think it's a mistake to assign your political biases to the foot soldiers of government. I don't hold water for the government, but I do want those foot soldiers to survive. Just some thoughts.
Anon. After you click publish, back out of here, and come back. Your comment will be here.
At least that works for me.
Pris
Anonymous, I salute you and thank you for keeping us safe...as I do the police, too.
It's hard for many of us to even consider violence in America today and I certainly don't advocate it, but I sure do feel something big's got to happen before we're Socialists...before the gov't owns everything.
That forcing of students to now go ONLY to the gov't for student loans is so disgusting and such a harbinger of what they've got ready for us that I can hardly believe it.
And, of course, when do you think they'll start putting limits on which schools they'll give loans for....think they'll give a loan to a Christian college for long?
Pris, I have never had a problem at anybody else's blog...what do you mean by "back out and come back"?
"Anonymous, I salute you and thank you for keeping us safe...as I do the police, too.
It's hard for many of us to even consider violence in America today and I certainly don't advocate it, but I sure do feel something big's got to happen before we're Socialists...before the gov't owns everything.
Thank you. However...I...don't need to be thanked. It's 233 years of men...and I WILL say MEN...that have defended this country against all odds...against all comers...against all fascists, socialists, despots, monarchists, fanatics, (
Muslims anyone? ) now the "Council of Aggravated Insolent Revolutionaries ( CAIR ). I fought in Iraq....a sewer and a fooking joke of a country that wouldn't know true democracy...if it gave them all unlimited goats to marry and sleep with! These "people" are hopeless frauds...that will never accept a peaceful existence...let alone a constitutional republic like we have fought and died for. They know one thing...sharia....tribal...barbaric...savage retribution... dictated by their "religion"...a political ideology unlike Italian fascism...even emulating Nazism that would make Adolph proud.
They're not worth saving...they're not worth one of the comrades...friends...Marines....troops...lost since 2003. They are shit eating, savage, illiterate nomadic Neatherandal pieces of shit. Yet...we die...every day for these frauds...these vermin.
I held the rank of Major...I made the Corp...my life..my career...I put it above family...friends...it was my country I served..FIRST.
Now...we need to further degrade our fighting men...with DADT?
My opinion? I see he complete dissolution , destruction of morale...in all the Armed Services.
God...save America.
Anon..
Seems to me there've probably been a lot of gays in the military who wanted to serve their country and most of them didn't tell anybody, they just lived their lives...
I'm posting tomorrow on Iraq's election and I thought there was some hope in that the secular guy, Allawi, is at least neck/neck with al Maliki........who knows?
I've been starting to think it might be better to bring our guys home and REALLY protect our borders, plus close all immigration for at least five years...I don't see a down side to that.
Someone says it better than I could.
"we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before -the White House, the Senate and the House of representatives-, and have implored -their- interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the – others-. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from -the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives-. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
Major
Major, who wrote it? I tried to Google it and couldn't find it. It has to be from the past because nobody uses "God of Hosts" anymore...Heck, nobody uses a lot of that beautiful language anymore, sadly.
???
It's beginning to feel more and more like FBM around here.
The air is foul the setting begrimed.
~ The Pompous Snot
My sitemeter shows clearly where most commenters are writing from and at what time.
Many have 'begrimed' my blog with some pretty outlandish comments but I put up with them most of the time. Perhaps we all need to do that if we want to be here.
Thanks.
Why would anyone WANT to be here, if geeeeZ turns into another FBM, Z?
It's heading that way more and more.
The person who consistent;y refuses to give himself a name is a mental case, consumed with rage. He has nothing constructive or even faintly interesting to say.
If such types truly are responsible for defending us, it's no wonder we are in such a frightful mess.
This is not "discussion" this is mud slinging.
You are being taken over by destructively obnoxious types -- the fate of most online discussion groups no matter what the topic. I know you wanted to be above that sort of thing. Too bad it seems unavoidable in this medium.
I wish you well always.
~ FreeThinke aka The Pompous Snot
FT,you have posted as anonymous as well, I know that. As I said somewhere else, I have sitemeter and I can see.
Also, I think anybody can see this site is the farthest thing from FPM at its worst....I have some of the best commenters in the blogosphere and only have to delete when someone is really not a good commenter and insists on either using gratuitous profanity or just can't let his or her point GO...JUST LET IT GO, everyone is NOT going to agree with all of us and all of us are not right no matter HOW right we think we might be.
I welcome and cherish those commenters who have kept the level of integrity on my blog that I so hoped to have...it's an honor and privilege to have those commenters here.
Z,
It's not about where you live. St. Louis works very hard to be the most violent city in the United States. We even beat out Detroit consistently, but that's only because there's no money to rob fdrom people in Detroit. The Koreatown section of Los Angeles is comparatively tame, and images of Korean shop owners defending their businesses with guns during the LA riots made me proud to be an American. That's how you keep yourself free and safe. The right to keep and bear arms, exercised responsibly, makes police departments near completely unnecessary.
The overwhelming majority of deaths by gunfire in the United States are a product of police actions, not criminals in the act of committing a crime, so I don't think it is too harsh a standard to not give cops "the benefit of the doubt." Police organizations are very much an abdication of the personal right and responsibility to defend oneself over to a government entity, thus we must hold our police to a higher standard when they're the trigger man. They are NOT licensed to kill by virtue of wearing a badge despite what many of them think of themselves.
We will NEVER know the side of the executed waistband fumbler's story. All the labelling of him as a "perp" or a "suspect" and the characterizations of his actions as "suspicious" all come from the men who executed him.
What evidence do we have that the man was "fumbling with his waistband" or that he "advanced rapidly" towards the cops? The word of his badge-wearing executors alone. Period.
All we have is the result - an innocent man executed by two cops who claim the man warranted further scrutiny from them in their patrol because he was spotted standing on the sidewalk "fumbling with his waistband" after midnight.
We're being asked to give "benefit of the doubt" to the reasoning behind agents of law enforcement deciding to investigate a "waistband fumbler" in the first place, and why it was necessary to execute the "waistband fumbler" when he stopped merely standing on the sidewalk and began moving (if indeed any of his executor's testimony isn't pure fabrication).
Is it a crime to fumble with your waistband on a public sidewalk? What is it about fumbling with your waistband that would draw cops on patrol to escalate to a potentially violent confrontation?
The cops' story (as we know it so far) has holes you could turn a freight train around in.
Benefit of the doubt? I doubt the benefits of that. We've all seen the videos of cops using a taser on an old lady at a traffic stop for yelling at them.
America would be a more civilized society without cops.
"Why would anyone WANT to be here, if geeeeZ turns into another FBM, Z?"
FT, after the obscene post you left on this blog a few days ago(which had to be deleted), I would be careful of accusing others about being obnoxious.
This is totally uncalled for and I'm shocked at your behavior. You could have emailed this opinion to Z, if it meant so much to you, and if you really cared about her.
I suggest you start your own blog, instead of setting yourself up as some kind of critic, where it costs you nothing to sound off.
You wish Z well? If that's the case you have a hell of a way of showing it.
Pris
Beamish, I couldn't disagree with you more..and I'm THE ONE calling them PERPS SUSPECTS, etc...the cops are quiet in that story.
Except I will say that a lot of very good American cop's families would be a lot better without their loved ones on the streets protecting scum...and US.
Pris, I hoped nobody'd seen that before I deleted it..frankly, I read a few words and didn't read 3/4 of it. It turned my stomach.
Thanks for the support. I hope now we can JUST LET THIS GO now. I don't understand why this happens ALL THE TIME.
Z,
Regardless, an innocent man was slain by men charged with upholding the law because they spotted him "fumbling with his waistband" and pursued this obvious threat to the fabric of civilization itself (note the sarcasm) to its lethal conclusion.
California's down one waistband fumbling "suspicious person." Yay, cops.
Beamish! For goodness sake...we don't have all the facts! That article was short and, as I said before, there is PLENTY we don't know!
Of COURSE just fumbling with a waistband isn't reason to KILL SOMEONE! Do you think I think it IS?
My FACT is that LA FREQUENTLY jumps to the MOST rotten conclusions about ANYTHING POLICE...and it's very often found NOT to have been the case...extenuating, more detailed facts and witness accounts have to be taken into account..circumstances SHOULD count.
thanks.
Z,
Except I will say that a lot of very good American cop's families would be a lot better without their loved ones on the streets protecting scum...and US.
Who's US? I've never been protected by a cop. Harrassed, threatened, robbed in the name of the government ban on parking cars in parking spaces, but never protected.
For protection, you call the cops and hope they arrive in time, or you protect yourself. The courts have already ruled several times that police are under no obligation whatsover to respond to a call for help at all, much less in a timely manner. "To protect and serve" is a myth, not an obligation. It sure as hell isn't a mandate or even an institutional charter.
When I was mugged in the streets of downtown St. Louis, less than a 5 minute drive from the main police hedquarters, and my wallet stolen around 15 years ago, I learned this truth. I got to the nearest phone, called the police, and they arrived 5 HOURS LATER to ask "which way did the muggers go."
My response was "They're probably in f*cking Kansas City by now you incompetent assholes."
They're Johnny-Law-on-the-spot to dole out parking tickets. Need help fast, you're up shit creek.
So, people who rely on police protection are at best naive and foolish and at worst suicidal.
How much money could local governments save if these useless licensed thugs were forced into an honest profession?
well, we've had very different experiences...that means a lot.
thanks
Beamish! For goodness sake...we don't have all the facts! That article was short and, as I said before, here is PLENTY we don't know!
And our only source of information will be the cops themselves. All other witnesses to the encounter are DEAD.
Of COURSE just fumbling with a waistband isn't reason to KILL SOMEONE! Do you think I think it IS?
No I think you're too smart for police work, Z. (Yes, it is a fact that potential police recruits are turned away if their IQs are too high)
What's missing here is the reasoning the cops escalated to what they characterize as "investigation" upon seeing a man allegedly fumbling in his waistband.
Cops on patrol a spot man digging in his waistband and kill him.
"Digging in his waistband" is the reason they claim to investigate further, rather than "patrolling" on to the next 24 hour donut shop.
Not good enough for me.
Do you think the media (or anyone, like me for example) just woke up one day and thought, "You know, cops just suck let's hate on them for no good reason."
Or is there a history of police behavior going back centuries that should cause added scrutiny and skepticism when innocents are killed by them?
"Major, who wrote it? "
I picked this up on Pajamas Media.
BTW: If you want me to go away...I will. I'll not post where I'm either unwanted nor welcome.
No animosity or anger. Just say the word Z.
Major
beamish..my GOSH! Do you think I believe ALL COPS ARE SAINTS?
ALL I'M SAYING IS THAT THE MEDIA AND ;PUBLIC HAVE BEEN PROVEN MAJOR WRONG ENOUGH TIMES THAT I KNOW ALL COPS AREN'T BAD ..
Major, did you hear ME say I don't want you here? you are welcome.
When you're not, I'll let you know, nobody ELSE WILL, I assure you. :-)
Beamish,
It would seem that you have a rather large chip on your shoulder toward the police. Yes, I'm Captain Obvious. I spent 26 years on the street enforcing laws. I did my job to the best of my ability and I'm proud of my profession.
I realize I'm certainly not very bright for putting myself on the line for all those years, but someone has to do it. I'm sorry you got robbed and the police didn't come to save you, but I can say that my actions and those of my fellow officers have saved not only individual citizens, but we represent the last line against total anarchy.
I would say that twice in my career I was reminded of my position as a servant who was hated by everyone. I stood twice between a group of KKK members as they ranted not only against minorities, but against the police as government stooges that uphold a bankrupt and corrupt system. Sound familiar?
On the other side was a large group of people who wanted at the KKK members. They accused us of protecting the KKK because they represented our true views. What was in the balance was the first amendment.
It must be protected at all costs especially when it protects really disgusting speech. I realize you will never respect the police, but I respect your right to rail against whatever perceived injustices you seem to have suffered. God bless America.
Thanks, Law and Order...
For your service and for your comment.
What worries me is if cops have had ENOUGH so badly that they're literally burned out. Here in LA, they see that rush to judgment AGAINST the cops no matter how much info is in, and they see perps winning HUGE (one was 30 million the other day alone) amounts of money because ONE COP was a nightmare (if the testimony is true) and what CAN the cops think?...that everybody's against them, what else?
I've met some cops I found unnecessarily unfriendly and I've wondered about that, too. I think it's the climate these days...
it's KILL THE COP OR THE SOLDIER, they MUST BE WRONG and I don't see how any society survives that way.
Maybe it even makes cops so ticked off they DO react in ways they shouldn't.
I am NO expert but it's very distressing what's happening here in LA.
LAOT,
I don't believe we'd live in anarchy if people were truly allowed to defend themselves rather than outsource that personal responsibility to government agents.
Police rarely respond to criminal activity while it is occuring. Usually it is after it has occured. No one calls the police and says "I'm being raped right now, hurry!" The overwhelming majority of the time, they responding to take a report, not stop a crime in progress.
We do see lowered violent crime rates in states with civilian concealed carry laws.
We also see more police brutality cases in states where the government intrudes to the point where they're telling you where you can and can not smoke a cigarette.
And now we're going to have people arrested for not buying health insurance. Are the 90 - 104 IQ barely not retarded cops going to be enforcing the buy insurance or go to jail laws? You know it's going to be an easy catch like parking tickets.
Giving the police the benefit of the doubt while remaining vigilant of statist, totalitarian trends in the laws they are charged to enforce is becoming more and more incompatible. That's my point.
Beamish,
I don't have problem with your viewpoint. I do however, take exception with your characterization of police officers being "barely not retarded." I was a cop and I think I'm out of your range of non-intelligence. Maybe I just slipped through the intricate screening system put in place to keep police stupid.
It would seem to me that that hiring policy would be conterproductive to quality armed employees, but maybe I not smart enough to figure it out. As for stupid police, I can make a statement here from experience.
The vast majority of new police hires have some college, mostly of the associate degree variety, many have Bachelor's degrees. After all, you can't be a cop until you're 21, so most opt to go into the military or college.
I know this to be the case because I was on many interview boards that hired officers. In our case we pre-screened out all candidates without at least an associate's degree or four years military experience and most of them had college.
Your blind spot considering intelligence undercuts any other points you make.
LAOT,
All you have to do is google "police officer average IQ" tro find all sorts of studies on the matter. The 90 IQ range is where most studies point. 85 IQ is mentally retarded, 100 IQ is average intelligence. If the average IQ of a cop is 90, he's a lot closer to being mentally retarded than he is to being just average intelligence. Below average intelligence or barely not retarded, take your pick, but studies seem to suggest the law enforcement profession isn't exactly attracting the intellectually gifted.
Throw on top of that lawsuits filed and lost by police applicants turned away BECAUSE their IQ scores were to high (the idea being intelligent people would be bored by the tedium of police work), and you see that less intelligent police applicants have a institutionally greater chance of getting hired.
I'm not trying to be egregiously insulting, but it is what it is. The average cop in America is a window licking moron.
This doesn't mean that every cop on the beat is only 5 IQ points away from being fascinated with trying to lick his own elbow, but rather that there is a significant number of crayon munchers dropping the average IQ of police officers well below average intelligence.
That quite frankly scares the shit out of me.
Beamish,
Allow me to comment on your posts. I read some of the things on google and one word comes to mind, really? Set aside for a minute that people who cherry pick stats and weave them into some kind of theory that they view as rock solid, are usually fooling themselves and those who are predisposed to a certain outcome already.
Set aside that IQ tests are at least controversial as a source for evidence of job ability. They aren't used much in any evaluation of fitness. Now I'm not a believer in the multiple intelligences drivel that is crammed down the throat of educators in this day and age.
Social sciences, I have always maintained, aren't sciences at all but merely glorified opinion. Made up statistics are fodder for supposed science. Sorry, I don't buy it.
I'm kind of surprised that you take these at face value. I particularly liked the one site that equated low IQ with voting for Bush. That explains the election results, that's for sure.
Beamish, I thought you were more cynical than that. Disappointing.
I'm cynical enough to doubt the benefits of giving cops the benefit of the doubt.
The surveys of intelligence tests given to police officers clearly denotes it as a profession rather open to those of lower than average intelligence. As for alleged IQ tests for Bush voters, that's a red herring in your argument, as there lacks a specificity in the pool of examples of identifiable Bush voter IQ tests that are tangibly very present in IQ tests included the personnel records of police departments not so easily dismissed. Police departments themselves released their IQ data, not "social scientists." (I would remind you that history is a social science...)
You're taking offense when none is intended. An associate's degree in law enforcement is no more intellectually impressive than a associate's degree in cosmetology. College degrees are not an indicator of intelligence. IQ tests are.
Given that we're talking initially about two cops who are the sole living source of information about the details of the execution of someone allegedly fumbling with their waistband enough to arouse their curiousity / suspicions, I can't discount the likelihood that their report is self-serving rather than factual, and will under investigation be revealed to be farcical, as if "investigating a waistband fumbler" isn't farcical enough alone to fail to meet "probable cause" criteria for their initial decision to "investigate."
I certainly hope I'm overreaching the conclusion that the police officers that will be enforcing the government mandates of where to park, where to smoke, where to buy health insurance, etc. are going to be the dimmest of bulbs.
I wish I could be convinced my fears are unwarranted. I don't believe they are.
Beamish,
Thank you for your reply. I would start by saying that IQ tests are iffy at best in the world of academia as an indicator of intelligence.
As for social sciences I don't subscribe to the social science world. Science was attached to certain things in academia to give it credibility. Womens Studies, African American Studies, Peace Studies, Conflict Studies, etc., are all examples of this canard.
The fact that the discipline in which I teach calls itself a social science doesn't convince me that it's a science. I think more along the line of a liberal art open to interpretation.
I wish that liberals would go along with the facts and leave the interpretation out of it, alas that's not going to happen. Facts are facts, but not in the world of social "science."
As for PDs releasing their own statistics, a few PDs which are really susceptible to political pressure doesn't a trend make. Politics are powerful and upper level managers are dependent on elected officials for their jobs.
As for the Bush thing being a red herring, it's the same thing. Those numbers are as reliable as the rest of the opinion based things I saw in the google search. Opinion is opinion sorry.
Social science? Right.
LAOT,
Again, it is what it is. It is a fact of history that police departments have used IQ testing in hiring, and it is a fact of history that the data gathered from the average result of the IQ tests of hired police officers is "below average intelligence."
Arguing with me over this is not going to fault the reliability of IQ tests given, or magically make hired police officers more intelligent than they actually are. Particularly when the police departments that conducted these IQ tests with applicants in fact knowingly HIRED the below average intelligent applicants thus their scores weigh into the average of all hired police officer IQ tests.
The average police officer is 10 IQ points lower than the IQ of the average person, and only 5 IQ points above mental retardation.
It is what it is.
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