Trust, but verify. I believed them when they said they had a video, and I believed them when they provided a written description of the video. They would look extraordinarily bad to be caught lying about something so easy to verify, so I saw little reason not to trust.
It fit the pattern: individual gets caught committing a minor criminal act, but rather than facing the music and accepting the slap on the wrist punishment, they instead choose to escalate to the point of endangering people, and then Pikachu-face when they get shot.
What does her race have to do with this case?
Did “being black” stop her from hearing or understanding the officer calmly ordering her to get out of the car? Did “being black” prevent her from seeing the other officer in front of her vehicle? Did “being black” force her to put the car in gear and depress the accelerator?
I’ll save my outrage for cases like Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, George Floyd, and other actual victims of police abuse. I have no sympathy for someone who would endanger lives to avoid facing minimal and deserved consequences for their own criminal actions.
Witness states she put down the bottles before she left the store.
The description of the video states she accelerated towards an officer. The video shows an officer step in front of the slow rolling vehicle. He even takes a step forward right before he jumps on the hood.
He was also able to safely get away from the slow moving vehicle after he fired a shot, something that he could have done before choosing to end a life
Witness states she put down the bottles before she left the store.
Whether she did or did not take the bottles is completely irrelevant to the shooting. A complaining witness claimed she had; officers had sufficient cause to conduct a stop and investigate that complaint.
The description of the video states she accelerated towards an officer. The video shows an officer step in front of the slow rolling vehicle.
The video shows an officer stepped in front of a stopped vehicle. That vehicle was later driven toward the officer. The description is accurate; your claim is not.
Pedestrians have the right-of-way over vehicles. Even if she was moving when he stepped in front of her, she was obligated to stop, both under traffic laws, and per the lawful instructions given by the officers. She was not justified in driving toward the officer.
She escalated from being suspected of shoplifting to committing assault with a deadly weapon.
He was also able to safely get away from the slow moving vehicle after he fired a shot, something that he could have done before choosing to end a life
That might be relevant if he had a “duty to retreat” from the assault. Do you believe he had a legal obligation to retreat? If so, under what legal theory do you believe he acquired that obligation?
Rhe police had her license plate number. Her physical description. They had the nature of her offence being a non-violent crime. The car did not quickly accelerate and the police officer against all common safety advice put himself in the path of the vehicle.
That his first action was to pull a gun and fire and not just get out of the way and approach the problem at a later time in a less heated situation is excessive force. Back when I worked security I watched lots people pull this stunt on police officers before and surprise - none of them got shot and none of the police got hit by a car and everybody still got their resisting arrest charge at the end if the day.
If you are scared enough your psychological reaction is to stay in a place of safety or to flee and cars provide the opportunity to both… Which is why you aren’t supposed to put yourself in the path of someone’s potential escape with your body. People are panicy animals who can divert entirely to basic instinct, particularly when they are hurt or in a lower estimation of being able to defend themselves like pregnancy.
This is an example of someone killed because of bad police training and decision making that ignored entirely how scary even normally benign police interactions can be to black women. If she was worried about harm to her baby because of the police’s habit of putting people forcefully on the ground or slamming them against cars she would be placed under extreme distress having one yell at her to leave her car like they meant to do her violence.
The police here created wholecloth the “need” to shoot this woman. From the moment they started escalating, blocking her route of egress and not taking the moment of thought to ask if this could not be de-escalated and addressed later safely given the minor nature of the complaint.
The officer’s decision to stand in front of her car may indeed be “against all common safety advice”. For your argument to prevail, however, you will have to go a little further. You will have to demonstrate that his actions were unlawful, or otherwise so egregious as to justify her deliberately moving her vehicle toward him. Unfortunately for your argument, there is no legal prohibition against him standing in front of her car.
Without that justification, her actions posed a credible, criminal, imminent, threat of death or grievous bodily harm, which justifies the use of any level of force, up to and including lethal force, to stop that threat.
You have not answered my question. Did the officer have a duty to retreat? If so, under what legal theory do you believe that duty arose?
This is an example of someone killed because of bad police training and decision making that ignored entirely how scary even normally benign police interactions can be to black women.
Scared or not, she had a legal duty to follow the officer’s lawful instructions. Scared or not, she had a legal duty to yield to a pedestrian in the path of her vehicle. Neither her race nor her sex nor her medical condition relieve her of those legal duties.
They may gain the legal justification needed to avoid prison in the States but here in Canada they would be fucked and they would have had the legal duty to retreat. The duty of police here is to merit only so much force as is required in a situation for all parties to get to safety and reassess if the situation merits any harm. Even if someone takes a swing at you with a weapon lethal force is only justified if all other potential options for resolving the conflict have been exhausted. Since she was rolling very slowly the potential threat to life was low. The officer had time to both draw and aim a weapon which means he also had time to remove himself from the psth of the car. Also the scope of the percieved crime comes into play. It was a non-violent supposed theft of property. Here unless someone has seen the uninterrupted process of selection, concealment and removal from property the crime is not chargable. Stores however are able to ban customers from their premises based on the criteria of suspicion of prior theft. So an arrest made under the circumstances of incomplete suspicion of theft would likely just fall apart in court. Escalating to yelling at her and making her feel her life is threatened in the first place for such a mild offence would have been considered at least a little dodgy. Ideally here police are supposed to utilize means to de-escalate conflict. Losing their cool for a minor charge and escalating the conflict to yelling even if the case was airtight would have been seen as a need to retrain them.
Here’s what thia would have looked like in my country. They would have stated the person was under arrest and was to leave the vehicle, tell them the legal consequences of resisting arrest but to do so in a calm.way that keeps the situation safe for all. If the cost to safety of themselves and the public of enforcing the arrest is too dangerous given the nature of the crime then any force applied would be potentially considered improper use of force. Since the he only thing endangered is a small amount of property the authority of the officer neither of those things are worth more than the safety of all involved. Legal ramifications can happen safely elsewhere after everyone has cooled off. They had the tools to do that.
The police here would not be justified. The limitations of their powers are that their first duty is to the safety and to protect the lives of the public and themselves. Their authority to command is entirely second to this. The question of “were there ways to resolve this safely for all parties without a non-violent resolution” would be asked. But even if something is lawful does not make it just.
Regardless of ruling, what happened here is essentially that these officers placed more value on an inflated idea of their authority than the safety of themselves and the woman. They placed themselves in the path of harms way for a percieved stolen property under $50. They shot someone and effectively killed two because they felt justified doing so for a charge of property under $50. Their first reaction they made to being lightly jostled by a car was not to remove themselves from her path and pursue the charge later with the tools they had or even to draw a weapon to warn her to stop and give her a second chance of compliance. Their first reaction was to draw take a second to aim and then fire a lethal shot. At the end of the day she was killed for an improper reaction to authority over a tiny amount of property that the police valued more than her safety.
If that is the society you want I am at least glad that I don’t have to live in it. For a country that calls itself “land of the free” the powers you give to police is inhumane.
I don’t think you understood my point. You seem to have missed an important difference in meaning between “verified” and “verifiable”.
“Three angels can dance on the head of a pin” is not a verifiable statement. It can’t be proven true or false. “There are three cats in this bag” is readily verifiable, even if that fact has not yet been verified.
Their claims were readily verifiable at the moment they made them; they were verified when the video was released.
Knowing that the police would want to paint themselves in as positive light as possible, and knowing how bad they would look in getting caught making so blatant a lie, trusting their statement was not unreasonable.
According to the police.
According to the video.
The one that was released after your comment. You believe anything anyone who shoots a black person says.
Trust, but verify. I believed them when they said they had a video, and I believed them when they provided a written description of the video. They would look extraordinarily bad to be caught lying about something so easy to verify, so I saw little reason not to trust.
It fit the pattern: individual gets caught committing a minor criminal act, but rather than facing the music and accepting the slap on the wrist punishment, they instead choose to escalate to the point of endangering people, and then Pikachu-face when they get shot.
What does her race have to do with this case?
Did “being black” stop her from hearing or understanding the officer calmly ordering her to get out of the car? Did “being black” prevent her from seeing the other officer in front of her vehicle? Did “being black” force her to put the car in gear and depress the accelerator?
I’ll save my outrage for cases like Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, George Floyd, and other actual victims of police abuse. I have no sympathy for someone who would endanger lives to avoid facing minimal and deserved consequences for their own criminal actions.
Witness states she put down the bottles before she left the store. The description of the video states she accelerated towards an officer. The video shows an officer step in front of the slow rolling vehicle. He even takes a step forward right before he jumps on the hood. He was also able to safely get away from the slow moving vehicle after he fired a shot, something that he could have done before choosing to end a life
Whether she did or did not take the bottles is completely irrelevant to the shooting. A complaining witness claimed she had; officers had sufficient cause to conduct a stop and investigate that complaint.
The video shows an officer stepped in front of a stopped vehicle. That vehicle was later driven toward the officer. The description is accurate; your claim is not.
Pedestrians have the right-of-way over vehicles. Even if she was moving when he stepped in front of her, she was obligated to stop, both under traffic laws, and per the lawful instructions given by the officers. She was not justified in driving toward the officer.
She escalated from being suspected of shoplifting to committing assault with a deadly weapon.
That might be relevant if he had a “duty to retreat” from the assault. Do you believe he had a legal obligation to retreat? If so, under what legal theory do you believe he acquired that obligation?
Rhe police had her license plate number. Her physical description. They had the nature of her offence being a non-violent crime. The car did not quickly accelerate and the police officer against all common safety advice put himself in the path of the vehicle.
That his first action was to pull a gun and fire and not just get out of the way and approach the problem at a later time in a less heated situation is excessive force. Back when I worked security I watched lots people pull this stunt on police officers before and surprise - none of them got shot and none of the police got hit by a car and everybody still got their resisting arrest charge at the end if the day.
If you are scared enough your psychological reaction is to stay in a place of safety or to flee and cars provide the opportunity to both… Which is why you aren’t supposed to put yourself in the path of someone’s potential escape with your body. People are panicy animals who can divert entirely to basic instinct, particularly when they are hurt or in a lower estimation of being able to defend themselves like pregnancy.
This is an example of someone killed because of bad police training and decision making that ignored entirely how scary even normally benign police interactions can be to black women. If she was worried about harm to her baby because of the police’s habit of putting people forcefully on the ground or slamming them against cars she would be placed under extreme distress having one yell at her to leave her car like they meant to do her violence.
The police here created wholecloth the “need” to shoot this woman. From the moment they started escalating, blocking her route of egress and not taking the moment of thought to ask if this could not be de-escalated and addressed later safely given the minor nature of the complaint.
The officer’s decision to stand in front of her car may indeed be “against all common safety advice”. For your argument to prevail, however, you will have to go a little further. You will have to demonstrate that his actions were unlawful, or otherwise so egregious as to justify her deliberately moving her vehicle toward him. Unfortunately for your argument, there is no legal prohibition against him standing in front of her car.
Without that justification, her actions posed a credible, criminal, imminent, threat of death or grievous bodily harm, which justifies the use of any level of force, up to and including lethal force, to stop that threat.
You have not answered my question. Did the officer have a duty to retreat? If so, under what legal theory do you believe that duty arose?
Scared or not, she had a legal duty to follow the officer’s lawful instructions. Scared or not, she had a legal duty to yield to a pedestrian in the path of her vehicle. Neither her race nor her sex nor her medical condition relieve her of those legal duties.
They may gain the legal justification needed to avoid prison in the States but here in Canada they would be fucked and they would have had the legal duty to retreat. The duty of police here is to merit only so much force as is required in a situation for all parties to get to safety and reassess if the situation merits any harm. Even if someone takes a swing at you with a weapon lethal force is only justified if all other potential options for resolving the conflict have been exhausted. Since she was rolling very slowly the potential threat to life was low. The officer had time to both draw and aim a weapon which means he also had time to remove himself from the psth of the car. Also the scope of the percieved crime comes into play. It was a non-violent supposed theft of property. Here unless someone has seen the uninterrupted process of selection, concealment and removal from property the crime is not chargable. Stores however are able to ban customers from their premises based on the criteria of suspicion of prior theft. So an arrest made under the circumstances of incomplete suspicion of theft would likely just fall apart in court. Escalating to yelling at her and making her feel her life is threatened in the first place for such a mild offence would have been considered at least a little dodgy. Ideally here police are supposed to utilize means to de-escalate conflict. Losing their cool for a minor charge and escalating the conflict to yelling even if the case was airtight would have been seen as a need to retrain them.
Here’s what thia would have looked like in my country. They would have stated the person was under arrest and was to leave the vehicle, tell them the legal consequences of resisting arrest but to do so in a calm.way that keeps the situation safe for all. If the cost to safety of themselves and the public of enforcing the arrest is too dangerous given the nature of the crime then any force applied would be potentially considered improper use of force. Since the he only thing endangered is a small amount of property the authority of the officer neither of those things are worth more than the safety of all involved. Legal ramifications can happen safely elsewhere after everyone has cooled off. They had the tools to do that.
The police here would not be justified. The limitations of their powers are that their first duty is to the safety and to protect the lives of the public and themselves. Their authority to command is entirely second to this. The question of “were there ways to resolve this safely for all parties without a non-violent resolution” would be asked. But even if something is lawful does not make it just.
Regardless of ruling, what happened here is essentially that these officers placed more value on an inflated idea of their authority than the safety of themselves and the woman. They placed themselves in the path of harms way for a percieved stolen property under $50. They shot someone and effectively killed two because they felt justified doing so for a charge of property under $50. Their first reaction they made to being lightly jostled by a car was not to remove themselves from her path and pursue the charge later with the tools they had or even to draw a weapon to warn her to stop and give her a second chance of compliance. Their first reaction was to draw take a second to aim and then fire a lethal shot. At the end of the day she was killed for an improper reaction to authority over a tiny amount of property that the police valued more than her safety.
If that is the society you want I am at least glad that I don’t have to live in it. For a country that calls itself “land of the free” the powers you give to police is inhumane.
It’s the only reason you believed the police before they released the video.
As though you don’t have excuses for why each of them had it coming too.
No. I believed their easily verifiable description of the events.
I’m more pissed off about each of them than you are. Castile in particular.
It wasn’t verifiable before they posted the video. In the absence of evidence, you believed the people who shot a black person.
I don’t think you understood my point. You seem to have missed an important difference in meaning between “verified” and “verifiable”.
“Three angels can dance on the head of a pin” is not a verifiable statement. It can’t be proven true or false. “There are three cats in this bag” is readily verifiable, even if that fact has not yet been verified.
Their claims were readily verifiable at the moment they made them; they were verified when the video was released.
Knowing that the police would want to paint themselves in as positive light as possible, and knowing how bad they would look in getting caught making so blatant a lie, trusting their statement was not unreasonable.
You believed them immediately without evidence.