WAFB: Man shot by BRPD multiple times to chest, back
The Baton Rouge Police Department confirms that Sterling died during a shooting at the Triple S Food Mart, which is located at the corner of Fairfields Avenue and North Foster Drive. The shooting happened at roughly 12:30 a.m. after police say they were contacted about a man who was carrying a gun and selling CDs outside the store.
Police said the uniformed officers responded to the disturbance call from someone who claimed the man was threatening him with a gun. Officials said an altercation happened between the officers and Sterling, who was shot during it.
BRPD officials said that two uniformed officers were placed on administrative leave following the incident. They added that any other information about the officers would be released on Wednesday.
Just In: Baton Rouge cops kill 37 year old #AltonSterling in front of a Store where he was selling CD's Today pic.twitter.com/V45XbROhs3
— Today'sLoop (@TodaysLoop) July 6, 2016
I’ll withhold judgment of the baton rouge powers that be to see if charges are brought promptly, but now is the perfect time to express my disgust at part of the reaction to this. One can already find jerkholes on the internet saying that he just needed to comply more promptly with the police in order to avoid being killed. For fish’s sake, they’re supposed to be agents of the law, not roadside brigands.Report
So far some of the usual suspects are actually saying this looks pretty bad. I suspect that will change when they have something trivial to hang their hat on. (“Oh. It turns out the CDs he was selling were counterfeit. We should move on.”)
I have folks on my Twitter feed blaming illegal immigration and the Second Amendment. Which, coincidentally, the speaker was already not very fond of.Report
I’ve seen people pointing out that he claimed to be a member of the Bloods on his facebook page and he has a prior conviction of “carnal knowledge of a juvenile” (at age 21, though).
So expect to see those start popping up (if they weren’t made up entirely, which they very well could have been).Report
From what I’ve read, he had a record, was a registered sex offender, and was carrying a gun. These things should no doubt carry a death sentence without appeal, according to people already mouthing off on Twitter.Report
Now more than ever, we need to do that thing I always advocate doing.Report
This. Many people have a very strong law and order drive as certain posters on this site demonstrate. Even if past misdeeds are irrelevant to why the police were hurting or killing the victim at the present, the past misdeeds of the victims are used to justify police violence.Report
This is simple murder. There is no other way around it.Report
“Simple” murder, as opposed to what? We keep hearing folks throw that term around in incidents before there’s even an investigation.Report
As opposed to what gets printed in the Darwin Awards.
Simple murder is when you use a gun.
Miniature explosives sent up a guy’s urethra into his bladder? That’s intricate murder, dear.Report
It’s possible that an investigation could turn up new evidence that complicates the picture. That said, what about that video struck you as ambiguous? What new evidence could surface to justify shooting a man who is being held to the ground by multiple police officers?Report
The closest thing I’ve heard as a defense of the officer’s actions is “Maybe he was reaching for a taser.”
Which doesn’t work for me, but I don’t know the applicable standards of engagement and the law.Report
The closest thing I’ve heard as a defense of the officer’s actions is “Maybe he was reaching for a taser.”
It’s a classic.Report
I don’t know the ins and outs of tasers, but do they typically require multiple pulls of the trigger?Report
I think that’s a good reason to be skeptical of the accidental taser theory: if you pull a trigger expecting to taze somebody but shoot them instead, why do you then shoot them four more times?Report
Maybe it was full auto.Report
Well, it didn’t taze him the first time.Report
You got two large guys on top of a guy, who is face down (I think, hard to tell) who can not shake the cops off, I’m a bit curious why they could not get control of the gun by simply putting a hand or knee on the wrist with the gun. It probably took more effort to pull their sidearm out (because that hand is no longer able to assist in holding the suspect down) than it would have to just pin the appendage.
I can imagine a scenario where they couldn’t get at the hand holding the gun, but then, they would not have been able to see it either. And it would take quite the double jointed contortionist who could manage to apply the leverage needed to overcome such a pin and hope to shoot one of the cops.
Granted I can’t see everything, but that is what jumped out at me.Report
New video with a clearer view of the shooting is available.Report
OK, he was on his back, that changes the dynamic, a lot.Report
That was my sense from the first video. Can you elaborate on how it changes things, @oscar-gordon ? I assume this puts the person underneath in a more advantageous position and, therefore, the two on top in a less advantageous position. I still don’t know how that breaks down into who had the advantage or if such a thing can even be sussed out (again, I’m not an expert on grappling/wrestling but I do remember from gym class that you were much better off in certain positions than in others and at times you could be in control while “on the bottom”).
It does still remain curious how he got shot in both the chest and back. Is there the possibility that a bullet missed and ricocheted up off the ground and into his back?
I’m certainly not trying to make the case for the cops but just trying to understand what are reasonable possibilities (and therefore what are unreasonable possibilities and what are impossibilities).Report
First, until the coroner makes a ruling, assume any information about where a shot entered or exited is speculation. At point blank range with a hard surface backstop, an entry wound can look similar to an exit wound to a casual observer.
As to the wrestling match, just think about how much range of motion and leverage you have when face down on the ground as opposed to face up. A person on their back has a lot more options to work with, and if he had a gun, and got it out of his pocket, he could manage to plug an officer pretty quickly. If he was on his face, even if he managed to get the gun out, reaching behind himself and trying to shoot an officer is a much taller order.
In short, being on his back made him a lot more dangerous.
I can’t even be too critical of the takedown, since he was kinda tucked under the car, so rolling him over was going to be problematic. The whole takedown could have been done better, but such things are unpredictable.
Finally, from the second video, the one cop pulls his gun and pretty damn clearly tells Sterling to cut it out or he’ll get shot. Since Sterling was face up, he should have seen the gun and that was his cue to calm the hell down. Short of him not having a gun, or something that could not be mistaken for a gun, I suspect this will be ruled justified. Why he tried to pull the gun (assuming there was one), I don’t know, maybe he got his bell rung real hard during the takedown and had taken leave of his senses.Report
FWIW, I’ve seen research that shows it can take a child’s braim/body up to 7 seconds to process and respond to a verbal command. Not sure how that translates to adults but, “Stop or I’ll shoot… Bang!” is a scary proposition. But, again, so many specifics we don’t know.
As discussed below, the entire altercation seemed avoidable.Report
Possibly, really depends on what happened before the video starts (which should be on the body cams).
Real irony will be if he wasn’t reaching for a gun, but for a wallet, so he could show his Police Benevolent Society donation receipt.Report
If indeed he was reaching for anything. He’d just been tazered, so might have been more twitching spasmodically than consciously taking any kind of action.
Seems the cops had to remove his pistol from his pocket for him, after they shot him – he hadn’t done so by the time he was shot.Report
Balko has a good interpretation of the event. Mainly this:
Report
Good find, @oscar-gordon .
A few takeaways:
1. Often times in these matters, we focus on the final moments… which are almost always harried, chaotic, and at least somewhat unknown (even here, with multiple videos already surfaced, we don’t know — and may never know definitively — if Sterling’s hand was on or reaching for the gun). But these moments are just the tail end of the whip. There were a long series of decisions — by Sterling, the officers, and others — that resulted in those final moments being necessary. I think we need to put a lot more focus on those choices. And, personally, I think the bulk of the onus falls on the police as, theoretically, we have control over them. Saying no one will get shot by the police if they just listen (even though we have documented instances of individuals getting shot by the police precisely because they listened) is like saying no one will be the victim of CO brutality in prison if they just never commit a crime. We can’t stop people from committing crimes or not acting perfectly in the presence of cops nor should we want to! One of the costs of freedom is that some people are going to abuse their freedom and commit crimes or act less-than-perfectly around the police. Their should be consequences of this but it shouldn’t include extralegal consequences levied absent due process and in great disproportion to the initial actions. So we can argue endlessly about whether the cop should have pulled his gun and fired or not. Instead, I’d rather ask about why the cops were there, how did they approach the situation, why did they physically engage with Sterling, etc.?
2. If such a miscommunication can lead to a death, I wonder if we’d be well served to develop more universal language for describing a situation. “Gun on person” versus “Gun in hand” or something.Report
Decrease the threat level. “Pocket, gun in pocket” codes for “there’s something not dangerous”
“Gun ” followed by whatever, ought to code for “imminent danger”Report
I find it interesting the believing that a guy has a gun in his hand as opposed to actually having one in his hand is what constitutes the difference between a “crime” and “not a crime”.
I find it more than interesting, actually.Report
Likely not a crime, sure. This time. By the next time, I expect cops to have some fucking words to describe the difference between “gun in pocket” and “gun in hand.”
Actually, I might even say that it should be a minor crime this time. You fucked up, you got someone dead. Pay up, you idiot.Report
Sure it could have been avoided. Just get on the ground when the cops tell you to. Too easy.Report
Does this goes for everyone in every interaction with every cop ever?Report
Yes, if they tell you to get on the ground I would.Report
What if they tell you to get on your knees? What if they tell you to pull down your pants and underwear and bend over? What if they do this after kicking down your door? What orders offered by the cops do and do not need to be followed?Report
I guess I’ll have to wait and see.Report
Well you seem so eager to advise OTHERS what to do so… what should THEY do?Report
You seem so eager to come up scenarios in a desperate attempt to make some sort of a point.Report
Well, given your comment history here, it’s a little odd that you’re suddenly taking the position that citizens should be lickspittles in the presence of police.
That particular discussion is usually held in the context of parents of a certain color having a Talk with their kids about how to survive contact with the police.
Did Ferguson really have to roll out tanks and snipers on their own citizens? Are citizens supposed to take it, or can they demand better from their government?
(The real outrage will be once again what’s legal. The deference to police is built so deep into the judicial system that it will probably be quicker and easier to change police culture than it will to change the law.)Report
The government has many police powers.
Building officials can red tag buildings, health inspectors can shutter restaurants, the EPA, EEOC and OSHA have broad police powers to compel citizens to obey the law.
And in the words of Rush Limbaugh, they are all jackbooted thugs, the ones that the Bundy clan pointed high powered rifles at.
Except municipal police. They are the brave knights in blue, the thin blue line separating us and our wimminfolk from the hordes of savages.
When in the presence of municipal police, the proper way to demonstrate American liberty is to cringe and genuflect and avoid making eye contact.
But those effing Bureau of Land Management agents? Yeah, man, they need some serious 2nd Amendment action.Report
Despite gun control rhetoric, Obama arms federal civilian agencies more than ever.
http://circanews.com/despite-gun-control-rhetoric-obama-arms-federal-civilian-agencies-more-than-ever/Report
This is a valid criticism of Obama and the Democrats claim to be concerned about police militarization.
But the GOP hasn’t exactly covered themselves in glory on this issue, so I’m not sure what your point is.Report
+1
Amazing how the agents of oppression only exist at the federal level.Report
My dad spent some time as a cop and gave me the talk. Being polite to cops has gotten me out of at least one ticket and one time when I probably should have been arrested.
I’ve also seen officers who thought they didn’t have to listen to MPs bc they were enlisted and it’s not gone very well for them.Report
I suppose I was guessing accurately that you were related to a cop. I mentioned to Jaybird awhile back about the difficulty of cops working among people they know well.
My father never had the polite talk with me. He had the talk that the criminals had a better legal standing, and that is why he left that occupation back in the 70s. They trained somewhat different back then.
The only time he used his gun was after he had been stabbed in the hip once and was about to be stabbed again. There is a pretty apparent ‘live and let live’ violation there. I would like to think that didn’t change him, but it sure seemed he lost something in that conflict. Some fraction of trust in fellow men.
For better or worse he was around during my chilhood due to the fact he could use a 38 special to a proficiency to survive a mortal conflict.
I do my best to give police a chance to demonstrate what live and let live should look like. Most of the time we get along fine. On other occasions it gets ugly and I have no qualms looking these men in the eyes and ask them if they are looking for trouble.
Police today have training stemming from parts of the military. They are trained to look at people as either wolfs, or sheep. Quick binary classifications. I think if the rules of engagement need to change, it needs to come from those folks in charge/hold value of social constructs.
If the Republican side of the fence is fooling itself that this type of action is neccessary, they need to re-examine the ground under them. If a republic is trully about individuals, the police force needs to start having some respect for individual sovereignty. This appears to be lacking in the actions of the police, both local and federal.Report
It’s generally an advantage in the big city to look like a wolf. Bonus points if you don’t need a gun to do it. (please note: hand in pocket done right looks an awful lot like gun).Report
Yeah the problem there is the bluff callers. After that you have to have a pretty good Plan B.Report
If you’re in a bar, the fact that everyone there’s drunker than you is a great Plan B (don’t be the drunkest person. You’ll be the one starting the fight, and look the fool doing it).
If you’re out on the street, the second step is walking fast and not looking lost. Harder to hassle if you move faster than everyone (and a HELL of a lot more obvious if you’re being followed).
Default Plan B is generally car keys (they’re always handy and don’t look like weapons).
Good Plan B is a 6 pack of something decent. Broken glass is good at intimidating people.
[And, for those paying attention — just give the muggers the fucking wallet. If you must have a plan B, have a fake wallet. The above is for people a good bit more serious about pain than muggers].Report
The smart thing to do would be for the police to quickly call out bad policing on their own, rather than closing ranks.
Surely they recognize it, at least some of the time. Some of these cases involve officers who were fired from one or more policing jobs for cause, only to land at another and hit the nationwide news.
But the way it goes, the PR is basically “Nah, he was a good cop, that was a bad guy” which makes it seem like police in general approve of this crap. (Even though I suspect, in private, quite a few of them might think the guy in question was an incompetent moron who should never had worn a uniform in the first place).Report
This is why they tend to always show the mug shots of the deceased.
Sure, the cop shot the guy after pulling him over for a busted taillight… but in 2010, he got arrested for possession of an eighth of marijuana!Report
I think it would be the smart way, but I’m not sure what their assumptions are.Report
FWIW, I don’t think that “smart way” is unique to police. While the stakes are different, I’ve long believed that for education reform to really take hold, it needs to come from within the ranks of teachers.Report
Well true, but I’ve seen teachers close ranks in response to some truly stupid initiatives too. And I’m sure cops have plenty of institutional memory when closing ranks and presenting a united front WAS a good idea.
In this case, I think it’s causing them far, far more damage than if they could openly admit there’s a problem to be addressed.Report
Oh yea… that was my point… I didn’t make it so well, it seems.
Teachers and cops (and other groups) often do themselves a disservice by closing ranks around their own. I think they’d all be well-served to self-police (no pun intended).Report
Nice dodge. You’ve been exposed. Again.Report
Yes kazzy, once again you’ve exposed me. Does it make you feel intellectually or morally superior. Maybe more manly? Congratulate, old bean. Give yourself a pat on the back and a cigar.Report
Pssst. Kazzy. Bring up the numerous Oakland police prostitution scandals.Report
What if you do everything they tell you to & you get shot anyway?Report
I recall in discussions here (at the Ole OT!) about that event people* complained that even tho he did exactly what the cops told him to do, he obeyed the commands with too much gusto and impulsive, reflexive obedience (inspired by fear of not obeying promptly, no doubt), so it was still his fault that he was shot.
*Quite a few libertarians, in fact, if memory serves.Report
I do not recall this response to the Crawford incident on OT. Could you give an example? (A quick perusal and all I found were some abstract comments by Heffman, but nothing that laid out a defense.)
That seemed like the one of the most clear cut cases.Report
The Crawford situation is a disgrace. He should be the starting shortstop, but Cub fans are totally stuffing the ballot box.Report
Not the Crawford incident, the Levar Jones incident (the one Oscar linked to). I think the comments were embedded in several of the many larger threads on cop violence we had back then and not (I don’t believe anyway) within a post dedicated to that situation specifically. And the comments were surprising for the reasons provided upthread (and to be clear, it wasn’t that the comments were exonerating the cops, more that they accorded blame to the victim).Report
I did get my cases mixed up, but was thinking of the convenience store video. Don’t remember the response your referring to, but “Jones” is unfortunately harder to look up than “Crawford.”Report
I’ve come to the conclusion that you should treat police like skittish animals. Move slowly, talk softly, and try not to look threatening.
I mean I’m pretty lucky, as a white middle class guy I don’t look terribly threatening to the cop species without working hard at it.Report
There are two possible readings here.
#1 – you should do what the police ask because that’s the prudent thing to do — they’re holding guns and won’t hesitate to shoot you or otherwise make your life unpleasant. It’s the same advice you might give someone who was being mugged. In principle you shouldn’t have to, but if you don’t recognize the power imbalance, on some level it’s your own fault if you get shot.
#2 – you should do what the police tell you because they have authority and should be obeyed. This is a little more problematic, since it’s not hard to find examples of police abusing their authority. (Though just because there are lots of examples doesn’t mean it’s a pattern).Report
@kenb
I think there are others. In this particular case, I think we have classic victim blaming based on who the victim is. I don’t doubt for a second that notme would be singing a very different tune if it was a different arm of the government issuing orders to a differently pigmented person.Report
I gotta say, man, it is fucking hilarious when a white guy tries to assert that the cop can’t arrest him — can’t even ask for his driving license.
http://www.kxly.com/news/north-idaho-news/Man-tased-in-courthouse-brouhaha/16248208
I assert that notme will tell this white guy to follow the fucking orders if he doesn’t want to get tazed.
notme may very well be a racist creep, and there may very well be a bit of “knife size” going on here (where people’s conclusions change their read of the facts), but I think this is pretty straightforward shit.Report
There’s verbal command and then there’s the sight of the gun in your face, or very near it. I’m thinking most folks struggling are going to calm the f down when they see the gun regardless of what’s said.Report
Damon,
See a gun, folks panick. Panicky folks are into fight or flight, so yes, some freeze — some jerk, and some go into full on “run away” mode, which doesn’t look calm in the slightest.Report
Yep, there’s that too. But I’d expect any “civilian” who’s life has been relatively free of violence to be more of the freeze than resist mode. But again, this is coming from a guy who’s exposure to violence has been low too.Report
My experience with “fucking idiots” is pretty much limited to people driving on the road. But honk a horn, be someplace they didn’t expect, do half a dozen things, and people panic.
The threat of violence doesn’t change people’s panic response. You can unlearn panic, you can learn how to deal with panic (I know a guy who NEVER panics, because his reactions are too fucking slow — he’s trained himself out of it).
When you’re running on instincts, you’re out of rational mode. Resist isn’t the word, even. It’s “rat backed into a corner” time, teeth flashing.Report
This assumes that the person in question didn’t just have their bell rung during a takedown.Report
agreedReport
Being on your back is much more advantageous vs on your stomach. I’m taking jujitsu and we start is these positions. You have much more leverage, visual area, etc on your back. It’s a much more defensive and offensive potion. Hell, we practice being on your back and getting the guy on top of you into a submission. Doing that from belly down is much much harder.Report
I’m no expert in submission moves or whatever the hell they’re called but… from what I saw in the video… neither were these guys. I’d be curious to learn what sort of training cops are offered in this area.Report
I’m glad to see that your are at least willing to wait for an investigation before declaring the cop guilty.
You are a lawyer, right?Report
What have I said that you think a lawyer who isn’t personally involved in the case shouldn’t say? Yes, of course there should be an investigation and no punishment should be administered without the proper proof and process. But there are a finite number of ways to justify the use of deadly force. Given the video evidence we already have, I think it’s quite unlikely that any reasonable justification existed here.Report
You said, “What new evidence could surface to justify shooting a man who is being held to the ground by multiple police officers?”
Who knows what evidence could be found? If you were being charged wouldn’t you want all the possible evidence collected? Or would you want to be judged on one piece of evidence?Report
I think that’s an incredibly uncharitable reading of my comment. I’m not calling for them to get locked up without a trial or investigation, I’m stating my own opinion about the facts as we currently know them.Report
I didn’t say you said any such thing.
I merely noted that you appear to be ok with judging them based solely on the video b/c that tells us all we need to know. I gave your words their plain meaning.Report
I think that’s an incredibly uncharitable reading of my comment.
I think assuming notme read your comment at all is incredibly charitable of you.Report
Don is just sore b/c he said something and I called him out on it.Report
Yes, opining on current events should require the same evidential standard as sending someone to prison.Report
You said, “What new evidence could surface to justify shooting a man who is being held to the ground by multiple police officers?”
Do you understand realize how silly that sounds. As if no other evidence could possible come to light that is useful.Report
Deliberately misunderstand me all you want, but I was saying that, given the video, it was difficult to imagine what could have transpired that would have amounted to a justifiable homicide. Maybe you disagree with me on that, (and most certainly you do, given the comical lengths you’ve gone through I’m the past to defend any and all police use of force everywhere) but I don’t see anything wrong with what I was saying.Report
I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if, after the government investigates the government’s actions, the government concludes the government was completely justified in depriving a citizen of life without due process.Report
This should be investigated and if appropriate, charges should brought.Report
You do get that the police have an incentive, a very, very powerful incentive, to make sure that the investigation never produces results that could lead to charges, correct?
I mean, I know it happens that officers very occasionally get convicted of some manner of homicide, but AFAICT, those cases are ones where it’s next to impossible to structure a narrative in any other way.Report
I get that. That doesn’t change the fact that an investigation should take place b/c other evidence might be found before we start talking of murder. Or does it?Report
Oh no, the investigation should happen.
I just don’t have a lot of faith in the investigation coming to a just result.Report
It seems like calling the cops and telling them a black man is scaring you gives at least decent odds that the black man get killed.
Let’s hope no one gets any crazy ideas…Report
I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t a low key SWATting. Perhaps someone tried to scam or rob Mr. Sterling, and he showed his piece to discourage them, but failed to follow-up with a 911 call to report it (because he shouldn’t be owning a gun and would rather not have the police talking to him).
One of the rules of carrying a firearm, if you have to show it, you have to be the first to call the police, before someone else does, because the cops are going to act on the info they have.Report
From the link Don Zeko posted above,
“Store owner Abduallah Muflahi told The Daily Beast that Sterling was not the person who was causing trouble and was a welcome presence at the store for years where he sold CDs from the parking lot.”
So, if you are outside a store and have a gun, and someone altogether else pulls a gun on somebody inside the store, such that you don’t even realize there was such an event, there’s not much you can do. Whatever the information the police acted on was apparently insufficient to correctly identify the suspect.
If it was “black man with a concealed pistol” that’s perhaps not very surprising – the store where he was killed being between the zip codes 70802 (100% black) and 70806 (95% black).Report
@dragonfrog
I think we have a misunderstanding. I’m saying someone may have tried to do something to Mr. Sterling (not the market), such that he felt the need to show his gun, and because he’s a felon in possession, he did not call the police to report the incident. The person he pulled the gun on, however, can call the police to report a man with a gun hanging around outside the market.
I would be curious if Baton Rouge practices Community Oriented Policing, or if it’s all radio dispatch on irregular patrols. A beat cop would have known about Mr. Sterling and his normal presence at the store and (perhaps) would have approached things differently.Report
Ah, further reading suggests the call was “man in a red shirt selling CDs pointed a gun at someone”
So yes, it probably was Mr. Sterling the caller described, whether the events were describe truthfully or not. Mr. Muflahi might have meant that Mr. Sterling was responding to, not causing, trouble, when / if he drew his gun.Report
DOJ inserts itself in to Baton Rouge shooting. That didn’t take long did it? This makes me wonder why the DOJ investigate the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Surely there was some racial glory to be had.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/07/06/doj-opens-probe-on-baton-rouge-shooting.htmlReport
Your comment here is barely literate so it is kind of hard to respond.
That said, while current policy/protocol might say otherwise AND while the DOJ may or may not be the best group to conduct such investigations, it seems pretty clear that all investigations of police shootings should be done by an agency wholly independent of that police department and municipality. And, yes, I’d extend this to other investigations of government agencies and their employees as well.Report
So we can’t jump to conclusions as to whether a video of a man being shot while held prone on the ground shows a murder yet, but we can assume that the DOJ’s involvement is crassly political?Report
Yes, it is the DOJ civil rights division. I wonder how often the DOJ civil right division investigates when the cops shoot a white guy? This is akin to the DOJ charging Dylan Roof with murder. I guess they will execute him again after SC does.Report
How often do black officers shoot white guys? That would be an interesting statistic. Too bad police departments aren’t required to submit such data to the FBI.Report
If black cops shoot other blacks more often than they shoot whites are they being racist? Maybe the DOJ should investigate?Report
As the self appointed (*) Blue Lives Matter defender is this forum, can I ask you to please stop, notme (noptme). If you think you are helping the cops, you definitely aren’t. You are just embarrassing yourself.
On another news, the investigation was transferred to the FBI and the US Attorney by the BRPD themselves. It was not yanked away from them
And, yes, the second video makes the situation far less clear. So please let’s suspend judgement for a bit
And, yes, the police is too trigger happy. The SWATification of America is a major problem. If disproportionately hurts the black population, and it makes the police-community relationships much more difficult.
And, finally, yes. Blue Lives do matter. Coincidentally, the last two Blue fatalities registered were also in LA: Deputy Sheriff David F. Michel, Jr, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, killed on June 22th; and Sergeant David Elahi, Sterlington (LA) Police Department, Killed on July 3rd. 51 officers have died in the course of duty so far in 2016. Do give them a thought once in a while.
(*) until a moderator tells me to stopReport
It is notme and you can be the self appointed grand poobah of what ever you want. I’m just mocking the doj always jumping into situations where they aren’t be necessarily needed or wanted based on politics or who got shot.Report
>>I’m just mocking the doj always jumping into situations where they aren’t be necessarily needed or wanted based on politics or who got shot.
The DOJ is *required* to open these investigations.Report
So you are telling me the doj investigates every time the cops shoot somone? I’m curious, what law require them to do so?Report
If black cops shoot other blacks more often than they shoot whites are they being racist?
…Possibly? Is there some reason this possibility is so self-evidently absurd as to be dismissed with a rhetorical question?Report
The answer is “yes” if the point of the comment is intended to impugn allegations that cops are racist (since black people kill black people too…). The answer is “no” if the point was to impugn allegations that black people can be racist against blacks, which is – as you say – presented as a self-evident absurdity.
On the third hand – the one with a steely GRIP! – is notme’s history of comparing black-on-black inner-city killings with cop-on-black killings as if the comparison ought to made straight up, and apparently with the conclusion that black people’s being-murdered rate is evidence that their deaths are justified. Even when they’re only 12 years olds playing with a toy gun … (he LOOKED older!).Report
notme,
Frankly, my dear, you don’t know the people in the civil rights division. If you want to talk political, you should see the rampant firings persecution OF THAT DIVISION under GWB.
If the NEW civil servants are a little overzealous, well, payback, my friend, is a bitch.Report
Well, nothing to worry about here folks, as the DOJ has landed. I am sure the BRPD chief will step up onto the plane and talk about grand kids and this will all get cleared up.Report
The NAACP is already calling for the police chief and mayor to resign. It’s never too early to make demands.Report
We never want to rush to snap judgements. Ever. Nobody wants to do that.
Oh, the cops? That’s different.Report
51 dead cops this year so far, and counting. Last one, this last Sunday.
A cop dies in service, it barely makes the local pages, in a slow news day. And yet, I cannot imagine myself going out every morning and facing those odds of not coming back from the office.
Black lives matter, yes. Blue Lives Matter, too.
So, at least, tone down the sarcasm, please. You do have a valid point. Don’t waste it in cheap shots
Thanks, and bestReport
There are over a million police officers in the US. 100 deaths a year is 100 individual tragedies, but as odds it’s about the same as dying in a car crash.Report
It barely makes the news when a cop dies????? That is not my experience in any way shape or form. When cops die it is big news. In no way do their deaths not matter.Report
Being a cop is safer than being a construction worker, which is safer than being a roofer, airline pilot, or recycling collector.
Cops die at a rate of about 11.1 per 100,000, while airline pilots die at about 57 per 100,000, five times higher.
I think its time to put to rest this stuff about how tough it is to be a cop.
Most cops in fact rarely if ever have to pull their weapon, much less fire it.
The romanticization of the police as heroes doesn’t even do them any favors- it shields them from accountability, and makes it harder to weed out the bad actors.Report
Back when the Aurora theater shooting happened a lot of us here at the ole OT made dark-humor jokes about the cop response: that they waited until the shooter ran outa ammo before rushing in to Save Lives and Help The Wounded. It had to be safe for the cops before they’d perform their bought and paid for duty. (I admit I was one of those dark souls.) Well, on NPR today I heard some reporting on why the Orlando Police took so long to actually bust into the Pulse and take the shooter out and sure nuff, one of the comments was that they waited to enter until it was clear that no cops were gonna experience the risk of gunfire and etc, while lots of injured folks were bleeding out.
I’m not saying that’s the Real Story of what happened (how would I know?) but it’s sure consistent with a story certain dark-humored people like to tell.Report
Stillwater,
We don’t pay these people to be bodyguards. We don’t, okay?
Maybe we should. But we don’t.
We also don’t pay these people to be combat-trained veterans who won’t freeze under fire (or even selectively hire those hardened souls).
I expect cops to take actions to save their own lives — but I also expect them to get in there and try to save lives. Just not so much at the risk of their own.Report
We also don’t pay these people to be combat-trained veterans who won’t freeze under fire (or even selectively hire those hardened souls).
We do Kim. They’re called SWAT teams.Report
There is a paltry quantity of SWAT in the nation. Less than the night-watchman state would probably be comfortable with.
It’s just the effects of having those teams around, operating under the parameters they do, that tends to leach to the regular enforcement. It becomes less about protect and serve, and more about identifying threat and patrolling possible combatants.Report
When we had an active shooter here, we had FIVE police departments show up. (they were BORED, mmkay? reciprocal agreements generally don’t give them cause to go into the city…). [granted, normal police can help handle “keep people out of trouble”]
I can guarantee you that at least two of those weren’t SWAT, and I doubt they had SWAT scrambled terribly quickly, if at all.
Does SWAT do more than drills? Because it’s a different matter being in actual combat, than simulating it. How often does a member of a SWAT team have to deal with people shooting back?Report
Question: How often does a member of a SWAT team have to deal with people shooting back?
Answer: Never! They wait for the shooter to run outa ammo!Report
IIRC, the most common cause of an officer losing his life on the job is “car accident”.Report
A nice quotation I read just now:
“The definition of a police state is when the government’s prime concern is for its own safety, not for the lives, liberty, and property of the people it has sworn to protect.”Report
This guy seems to have listened also: http://gawker.com/black-man-shot-and-killed-by-police-officer-in-minnesot-1783254573
Why was the woman whose boyfriend was just shot calmer than the cop? Why didnhe keep his weapon pointed at the clearly incapacitated man instead of administering first aid? Why did he fire into a car containing a child before even seeing a weapon?
If telling an officer you are permitted to carry, are carrying, and then reaching for the identification he ordered leads to being shot, you don’t have the right to carry. Where’s the NRA? GRAs? What about his 2nd Amendment rights?Report
This is why we need gun control. If the guy never had a gun, he’d still be alive.Report
I suppose another tack to take would be to express concern that we’re not doing enough to address mental health issues among police officers, which appear to be rampant.Report
We could start by not promoting the idea that the police are at war & in constant danger. You spend all your community contact time at red alert, and you are not going to be doing well.Report
In other words…Report
That’s a great speech. That is the heart & soul of community oriented policing.
Too bad it’s not something a lot of police leadership, or union leadership*, buy into and push into the rank & file culture.
*Let’s not forget how much influence police unions have over department training, standards, & culture.Report
Police need some Zen
Heard something on NPR this morning about how mindfulness is being introduced in military training as well.Report
I wouldn’t mind seeing military-level PT requirements for police officers. If you aren’t fast enough to chase a perp and if you aren’t strong enough to restrain them, you’re more likely to feel like you have no choice but to resort to use of a gun.
I mean, I’d also like military-level rules of engagement too… but I’d also like a million dollars.Report
No kidding. We held 19-year old privates in war zones to stricter ROE’s than some police forces expect out of 20-year vets.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear that after the Oregon stand-off ended, the FBI went on a witchhunt to figure out who had discharged their firearm without reporting it.Report
@morat20
Wait, what? The only shooting I had heard of was the guy who was killed during the stop outside of the reserve.Report
That’s the one. IIRC, they found one more bullet than was reported being fired (and could tell/prove/whatever it came from one of the FBI agents).
They (the FBI) opened up an investigation because it wasn’t reported.Report
I missed that detail. Good on the FBI.Report
Waco and Ruby Ridge really altered the FBI’s approach, I think. While, in hindsight, the mistakes at both were not nearly as egregious as they seemed, it was sufficient for the FBI to really rethink their approach.
I mean look how they handled the militia stuff in the first place. They just basically waited for the idiots in the first standoff (the one in New Mexico) to get bored and wander off, rather than confront them. Then they simply waited on the Oregon folks to, by and large, get bored or get talked into surrendering.
The one exception was partially pushed by the State police and even then the FBI went massively out of their way to prevent loss of life.
And then the ringleaders who didn’t surrender were quietly rounded up at airports or other places, rather than having their homes stormed. (Including the initial idiots from New Mexico).
Patience and restraint got them what they wanted, even as state officials and the public were urging them to move faster.
And then to cap it off, apparently they gave a crap that one of their agents discharged a weapon and didn’t report it.
Maybe we can export that to the police, instead of armored vehicles.Report
Oh man, I wish. I think we’ve all had enough of LEOs being bad-ass when bad-ass isn’t called for.
BTW, not every black man with a carry permit gets shot. I have to wonder if the guy in MN had read that, and was trying to emulate it.Report
If you see the police as a gang, all these interactions make a lot more sense.
I am someone who is, technically, flying the colors of an affiliated gang. Most of the time, I wear suitable-for-casual-Friday-or-better clothing when out and about (well, excepting the occasional trip to the grocery store in pajamas), I speak using decent English, and I radiate “employed and/or employable”.
I got pulled over the other day for doing about 10 over the speed limit BUT! IN MY DEFENSE! The speed limit was relatively new because of a relatively new housing development. Anyway, I got pulled over, made some light jokes with the officer about the mess in my glove department (“my glove department is the same way”, he chuckled back to me), and I got let off with a warning and was told that there was a new speed limit and I needed to pay attention to it. I nodded and gratefully thanked the officer.
I’m a member of an affiliated gang. I’m flying their colors, anyway.Report
I wonder if it should be standard procedure for cops to carry their firearms during routine traffic stops. How often do they use those guns to protect themselves or others? How often do they use those guns to harm folks undeserving of that harm? What ratio do we need to reach between those two numbers before we can say, “No, you don’t need to bring your weapon with you for a broken taillight”?Report
Is the gun for enforcement, as in the government has the monopoly on force, or is the gun for self defense?
What are the ends you are reaching for here?Report
Fewer dead people?Report
How is that working for ya with armed enforcement as a social construct?Report
@joe-sal
I’m not sure I’m understanding you. Can you elaborate?Report
American society has come to the expectation that the group doing the enforcement be armed to do enforcement work. Is this something you support?Report
@joe-sal
I don’t know if I agree or disagree that that is an expectation; I’d have to think more on it.
Do I want us operating under that system? No. And as someone charged with enforcing rules, maintaining order, and the like (as an early childhood classroom teacher), I know it is both possible and preferable to do so through means other than fear of force. But I strive for the high-trust/high-collab @jaybird reminds us we are lacking.
Do you think many people would challenge police authority in a violent manner if they didn’t have weapons? During eoutine traffic stops?Report
“Do I want us operating under that system? No.”
-That is pretty candid, and it is my position as well. I think if one wants to live mostly without armed coercion it’s the first big step.
“Do you think many people would challenge police authority in a violent manner if they didn’t have weapons?”
-Probably, I think the way authority is placed and the concept of what the police institution is, may be a problem into itself. Not that the police institution or police are flawed, just the conditions in which populations behave or have expectations, that give ‘demand’ for the police institution. That’s a really long discussion though.
“During eoutine traffic stops?” (routine)
-For enforcement purposes, no.
For self defense, yes.
Although I echo much of what Oscar has said in the past, that if they use their firearms in public they should be held equally accountable as an ordinary citizen performing the same action.Report
Is it true that English cops don’t carry guns? If so, why do things function differently there?
This is a genuine question… what about their culture likely makes them different than ours?Report
Sir Robert Peel. Unfortunately, he established his principles (effectively) in 1822, and we’d already rebelled.
The bedrock of British policing are the 9 Peelian Principles:
Basically the Brits ended up embracing consent-based policing, which was…rather unique at the time.Report
IIRC the Brits did struggle at one time with being overly aggressive, and many today criticize them with not being aggressive enough.
But Sir Robert was describing an ideal, so one has to expect imperfection when striving for it.Report
Well true, they aren’t perfect.
But when your foundation is community and consent based policing, it’s just entirely a different approach to the American notion that cops are there to keep the savages in line.
Which is cultural. Jim Crow, hippy punching — heck, it goes back to cops roughing up immigrant groups to keep them away from decent folk. We’ve always expected the cops to be police, but also society’s brutal mechanism to keep the “wrong sorts” down. The wrong sorts always being violent, brutish, uncivilized, un-American — whatever.
You can see it in acts like that UCLA guy pepper-spraying sitting protesters, or the use of tasers for ‘pain compliance’. We expect the cops to act as judge and jury, to immediately assign punishment for failure to adhere to the local norms. (Heck, it’s the same bit of American psyche that views prison rape as just part of the punishment).
We created that policing culture, accepted it, praised it. Now it’s on video instead of being safely confined to the ‘wrong sorts’ and we’ve done a 180.Report
That seems to be the goal of COP (Community Oriented Policing)Report
By and large a lot of police (and their leaders) recognize the problem. But it’s like shifting any embedded culture — it’s uphill all the way, and the culture fights back.Report
Actually @kazzy some English cops carry guns, most do not. In some places, like Belfast, they are required to carry at all times (or were last I was there.) In other places, such as Manchester, some do, some do not (in believe they keep them in the patrol cars.) All branches (its a national police force) seem to have a firearms team, similar to our SWAT.Report
Many here have probably seen the video of several English police using wheeled garbage bins as shields to subdue a man actively attacking them with a machete.
It ends as one would hope – the guy swinging the machete is arrested, nobody is seriously injured. Of course it doesn’t always go like that, but it would pretty much guaranteed never go like that in North America.Report
@aaron-david
It makes sense to me to have different “tiers” of cops. If you are on traffic detail, no weapon. Run the plates and if anything comes back fishy, you call the next tier… guys who travel with a weapon in their vehicle but not on their person. Above that, you have something approaching a SWAT team, called in very rarely.
I mean, you look at situations like the Michael Brown killing. Leaving aside if the officer’s actions were justified once engaged with Brown… why did he even engage? The kid was walking down the street, maybe impeding traffic, maybe carrying something he shoplifted. Roll your window down and ask him to come over. If anything out of the ordinary happens, roll your window back up, call for backup, and trail at a safe distance. Once you have three or four unarmed guys on site each with a weapon in their car, have some approach (unarmed) while one hangs back ready to arm himself if anything goes sideways.
What is the worst that happens? Maybe Brown bolts and gets away with… shoplifting? Jaywalking? Is that really a worse outcome than what did happen?Report
Brother Rowe had this up on FB.Report
@kazzy
Reason wonders the same thing.Report
@kazzy @oscar-gordon For what it’s worth, I criticized the NRA on this and was informed that this is consistent with general behavior (after a high-profile incident of this nature) for this sort of thing.Report
@will-truman
Can you clarify what you mean by “this is consistent with general behavior for this sort of thing”? I’m not sure what you are referring to.Report
I mean when there is a high-profile police shooting of this nature. Some examples of the pushback against criticism:
(These are both people I would generally consider to be reliable, in that they have either been critical of the NRA in the past in Cooke’s case, and in Green’s case is not an NRA/GRA loyalist.)
I vaguely think that they get out in front of mass shootings, but I could be wrong about that. If I am right, there is also a case to be made that they have to respond more quickly because people are in the process of calling them murderers.
The closest thing we have to a comment from the NRA is Cam Edwards (who does a podcast, though I’m not familiar with him other than being “some NRA guy”) and he says that it doesn’t look good for the police. (He almost certainly is speaking for himself and not the NRA, though.)Report
Sorry, @will-truman . I’m still lost. Not disagreeing or rejecting your point… generally confused as a function of so many pronouns.
Are you saying the criticism of the NRA is valid? And offering these as examples of others who might be generally in favor of gun rights pointing out the NRA’s failings?Report
I’m not saying the criticism is valid or not. My own view is that it depends on the criticism of “Why haven’t they yet said anything about this thing that just happened” or “Why don’t they talk more about this?”
Neither of these are definitively valid or not valid. But it was useful context to me that they are not specifically refraining from commenting on this particular event, but that they tend to be slow in responding overall to specific cases. That may be acceptable, or may not be acceptable, but for me at least it changed my perspective from when I tweeted this:
Report
NRA typically does not get out in front of shootings on Twitter:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/13/nra_tweets_after_mass_shootings.html
The Sandy Hook presser was a week after the shooting.Report
Okay, so they are pretty consistent even there.Report
Good link, @oscar-gordon . Curious to see if it generates much response.Report
And now cops in Minnesota have killed a man for complying.Report
After shooting Philando Castile, the police grabbed Diamond Reynolds’s phone and deleted the video she had taken. Facebook claimed that the video had gone offline because of a “technical glitch”
Here’s an article.Report
Wouldn’t be surprised, damage control and all that.
It’s why my vids get uploaded to a secure site.Report
“Damage control” is an interesting euphemism for “evidence tampering”.Report
You say ‘tampering’, I say ‘controlling the narrative’.
Who are you gonna believe anyway, a courageous LEO, or some hysterical black woman…Report