I hold no grudge for the initial shooting, that was more than justified. But the second shooting, which happened minutes later, where the perp was alone on the bus, dying from his wounds while slumped on the floor, and the cop was adjusting to get just the right angle through the door, and started shooting at him, slowly, methodically, almost like he was a target on the range, or he was clearing a level in a video game, was rage inducing. I remember watching that and the hair on the back of my neck went up, and I turned to my parents and said, "we're watching a murder here". There was no threat to the cop or anyone else, and he was just outright trying to kill him. That was why he got the attempted murder conviction, and rightfully so. If the guy hadn't died of his original injuries, that would have been a murder conviction. Personally, I just hope he gets heavier jail time than your typical attempted murder.
Toronto police announced that he's been suspended with pay. This was after being found guilty. They really need to revamp this "punished with paid vacation" crap for incidents like this. He lied in testimony saying he was coming off the trolley to kill him. He was doing no such thing.
To give the guy the benefit of the doubt, in a real-time, shooting situation like that, shit is not what it seems. I have no doubt that his impression of what happened at the time was skewed slightly, and don't just automatically think he's making shit up. We have the benefit of watching it remotely, without adrenaline-induced tunnel vision. One of the biggest issues I had while watching it unfold live, was that he was sitting there plinking away at the guy, and there must have been 20+ other officers right around him, with more situational awareness, and NOT ONE said, "HEY, STOP!". They also weren't seeking cover with weapons drawn, so they felt no immediate sense of threat or danger. They basically sat there and watched a fellow cop take shots at the guy without doing anything. And with respect to the paid leave thing, I have no problem with him getting paid leave for a bit while they sort shit out, like his appeal, etc. The guy's life is beyond fucked, and there are legit reasons for the paid leave policies, even if idiots on Twitter get outraged over it. Most people who get outraged of things have no clue about the details of what they're outraged about, so their opinions/feelings/outrage are beyond worthless. In the big scheme of things, a few grand in paid leave is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the other costs.
Hold on, what about his buddy rolling up, after an entire clip was unloaded into a guy...AND FUCKING TAZING HIM! I had to rewind to make sure it wasn't a flashlight and that I heard the buzzing correctly.
What about the officer, the one standing next to the officer doing the shooting, that never even drew his pistol? The guy in the shorts parked his bicycle and walked over to where the action was and never thought he needed his gun. Literally, almost the exact distance between that officer and the threat as the officer that shot the threat. Get that dude to testify exactly how much danger the victim presented. This is the first I'm hearing about this story. I'm so out of touch with what's going on around the world. What a horrible video.
That video doesn't show all of what DCC described happened prior to the beginning of it, what made that adrenaline start running, and who or what the officer thought he might be protecting. Did I hear someone ask if anyone is still on the bus? (In the beginning of the video, he is brandishing the knife at the door, and the officer says drop the knife. Why didn't he drop the knife? If he did, and continues down the steps with his hands up, I bet he doesn't get shot. So, there's that, too.) How do you know they were buddies? He may have just been the nearest officer responding. If you look in the mirror in the video, you can see the guy still moving. Despite the fact that he's been shot and had "an entire clip (sic) unloaded into" him, they still have to shot "drop the knife!" Had the officers previously encountered the guy to know that in addition to the knife he was still holding, that he didn't have a gun on him? So, you could say the officer was being non-lethally cautious by tasing him as he approached instead of emptying his weapon into him. I don't think it's unreasonable for that officer to still treat the guy as a threat based on his earlier actions, refusal to comply, and that he's still moving. All that said, I think the officers could've handled that differently, but I don't have all the information. If there were still people on the bus, couldn't the additional shots have potentially ricocheted into them? If it was empty, could another officer have approached from the rear door, especially once he was down?
My recollection of the video (having watched it unfold live) started with him on the bus with some passengers (2-3?), him with a knife drawn, and being very, very sketchy and emotionally distressed. People on the bus with him had every right to be absolutely fearful for their lives. Then the cops managed to get them off the bus (back door, I believe) so at that point it was only him on the bus, and the bus was contained. The cops then tried to storm the bus (which to me was a questionable move... should have waited and let shit de-escalate rather than force the issue). At that time, the guy seemed to move aggressively towards the cop with a knife, at which point he shot at him and retreated from the bus. The guy was on the ground, not visible to the camera, but not up and moving, and the cop then positioned himself to get a line of sight to the guy through the front door, and started plinking away... with SECONDS between shots, while the guy was immobile on the floor of the bus, with the cop not being under any threat at all. Again, that is only my recollection, and I haven't re-watched any of the video, but it was gripping enough that me and my folks all were astounded at what we were watching, and had very, very strong feelings at the time that this was WRONG. I cut cops a fair bit of slack due to the nature of their work, but this was WRONG. I remember just staring at it and saying, "we just watched a cop murder someone live on TV". First and foremost, I think the problem was that they didn't do ANYTHING to de-escalate the situation, and did the exact opposite, which led to the shooting. If you watch any of the reality cop shows from around the world, you'll find that North American cops, by and large, appear to try and control situations via intimidation and force, whereas other countries (UK, New Zealand, Australia, etc) do the exact opposite... they interact with people like humans and de-escalate the situation. At least this is how the various "reality" shows portray things, so take that for what it's worth. (I torrent a ton of those foreign cop shows and it's entertaining and eye-opening as hell). Most senior, experienced cops that I've met have that training and experience to do that kind of de-escalation, but most female cops and younger male cops take the "power trip" approach, and it's problematic.
I didn't meant "buddies" like "friends and fellow corrupt cops", just fellow officer on the scene. Also, he wasn't the nearest officer, he came bursting on screen after the shots had been fired and the officers advanced. He pushed through other officers to get there. And his tazing would have seemingly been a logical course of action after the first shots, not after 10 rounds. He was "moving" but he couldn't even get off the floor. I half expected them to shoot him another 5 times after the tazing. I'm pretty defensive of cops. But these guys look like lost with no clue what to do following a couple overly aggressive hardos.
My God. Though we don't see if the guy had a knife when the initial shots are fired, I don't have an issue with the initial 3 shots that put the guy down. I've seen horrible shit in my life (having been a clerk in the criminal division, I saw video, photos, etc. of crime scenes and sometimes crimes while they were in progress) - but the shots after he was down? Fucking hell. My God, I physically flinched with each one. As I said, based on the video, I'm not going to second guess the initial shots, but every single one after that? Should have been a separate count of attempted murder. What a cocksucker. Now, maybe I'm hearing things, but did anyone else hear the cop laughing during the tasing? In the video it's around 1:39-1:41. I've listened several times, and that's what it sounds like to me, but I could be wrong.
That was an awful thing to watch. I agree with everyone else, the second volley of shots was pure murder. There was no danger to anyone. Not only that, the guy re-holsters and draws his gun twice after the second round of fire.
Could somebody telle about this Zika virus spread by mosquitoes? They're saying that MILLIONS of people are going to get it in the Western Hemisphere. I'd like to know if this is panic button bullshit since I read it in Associated Press, and well, they fucking suck. Does anybody in here know more about it?
I only know what I've read, which is probably about as much as you. But apparently it's particularly bad in Brazil - where hundreds of thousands of people will go this summer to see the Olympics. It also appears that several governments are asking women not to get pregnant. In El Salvador, they're being asked to hold off until 2018.
From what I read, it will manifest like your average flu based on th symptoms but causes those little shrunken head babies in pregnant chicks.
Part of me is really curious as to whether it's just an aesthetic impact or if their brains will be squished or underdeveloped or less capable. Another part of me wants to make a whole series of headhunter jokes, but this is the Serious thread, so I can't.
FBI video of the Oregon shooting: (Fast forward to 5:45 for the shooting. No gore, it's helicopter footage) It looks justified to me. He had his hands up, then dropped them and turned. They knew he was armed. Splash one. One could make the argument that he was trying to drop his weapon, but in the heat of the moment the LEO can't wait to see what his intentions are, if he guesses wrong or hesitates, he is the one who's dead.
One of his fellow occupiers from the other vehicle had a refreshingly realistic outlook on it, something along the lines of, "look, he ran from a roadblock, and he was aggressive towards them... how can you expect anything different? He got what was coming to him". Dude actually seemed very level headed and reasonable, which was honestly surprising to me.
What I find most interesting about this encounter is the dichotomy between this and other LEO shootings. Pretty much the unanimous comments before the video was released were "The cocksucker deserved it." even though the response from the Bundy camp was "He had his hands up, the Feds murdered him." No one believed that for a second, and rightly so. Yet, in other police shootings, as soon as it happens there is a huge outcry that the police were in the wrong as soon as someone says "It was murder! Fucking cops!" Why is this? There was a case in Memphis yesterday...a car chase, a foot chase, and then a shoot out. The suspect had a lengthy criminal history, including shooting at individuals and house full of innocent people because he was angry. The suspect was killed. His brother now has a warrant for his arrest because after the shooting he called the police and said he was going to kill LEO's. A real upstanding, pillars of the community, type of family apparently. The rest of the family has gone on the offensive in the media with the standard "He was a good boy, he was turning his life around, he had a baby on the way, he didn't deserve this, fuck the police" bullshit. And everyone is falling for it and railing against the police. How have we come to this?
At this point, why even debate the subject? Race relations now have a momentum of their own going in the wrong direction. The media cannot be trusted to report an actual accounting of events until 48-72 hours after the fact but have no problem crafting a narrative purely based on hearsay and supposition fueling the negative race relations/government relations/police relations at the moment the event actually happens. Clearly there is an agenda in there somewhere. Let's just have the civil war already and open the FEMA camps and get it over with. Where else is this heading? What is the point of all of this otherwise because it sure as fuck isn't helping anything. I read an article today quoting Charles Barkley. He was bashing ESPN for how they are framing the Super Bowl narrative and rightly so. They are using a Black/White, Good/Evil dichotomy to create a narrative. Is that necessary? Back to the video for a minute: What the fuck was the cop doing who left the cover of his own truck and looked like he was trying to dive under the wheels of the subject vehicle? How did the second occupant get wounded? Why were they throwing flash bangs and shooting at the truck after the first guy was shot? So many questions...
You have to remember that this wasn't an SUV full of Shriners being pulled over. These were armed idiots who had stated they were willing to fight and die. If any of them even so much as twitched they were going to get shot, and rightly so because of their own stupidity.
I think it's something different. The occupiers are passing themselves off as some sort of armed mini militia going up against the government, whereas the other shootings are the local high-school-bullies-with-guns against a single person. As much as people rail against the government sometimes, it's still the United States of America, and good old patriotism kicks in.