Cop in America doing a bad job, again

It’s insane.

but increasingly the norm. Arguing the 13 year old should've been the rational actor, acting like a 13 year old is a man. In other situations, remember police screaming that a 9 year old should "stop acting like a child" as she's maced in the back of a squad car?

any justification, any hindsight reasoning no matter how bizarre and illogical to justify actions.
 
You're putting an onus on a 13 year old kid to figure out the best option in a high-stakes situation. It's kinda bad, mate.
No, I was talking the ideal situation. Obviously they shouldn't have shot so fast - i'm just seeing it from both sides.

They're chasing somebody they know has a firearm, he turns around and raises his hand, how long do you wait until they shoot you first? It must be so difficult.
 
No, I was talking the ideal situation. Obviously they shouldn't have shot so fast - i'm just seeing it from both sides.

They're chasing somebody they know has a firearm, he turns around and raises his hand, how long do you wait until they shoot you first? It must be so difficult.

Couldn’t agree with you more, it’s sad a young kid lost his live but his actions up until the shooting contributed to the situation without a doubt.
 
I know he's not everyone's cup of tea, but this is a really good Sam Harris podcast with a jujitsu professional with regards to police training in the US, and how woefully under trained they are.

They do less than an hour mandatory physical confrontation training a year. And the total required training to become a cop is a little over a third of what a hairdresser needs.

Anyway, I think its a good listen.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/246-police-training-police-misconduct/
 
The 13 year old is one of those situations that is very easy for people to judge outside of the situation. The thing is would people react the same way they are saying on here when facing down someone with a gun? Your life being at risk changes the perspective quite a lot.

It is actually pretty irrelevant that he is 13 because guns make it possible for anyone to kill. Strength is no longer a factor.

Also, how long do you give someone. It takes a second to raise a gun and shoot. By that time it could be too late for you. This isn't cowboy duels where you are the fastest gun in the west and can beat everyone to the draw; this is reality.

It is a horrible thing to happen. But why has a 13 year old got a gun in the first place?
 
The 13 year old is one of those situations that is very easy for people to judge outside of the situation. The thing is would people react the same way they are saying on here when facing down someone with a gun? Your life being at risk changes the perspective quite a lot.

It is actually pretty irrelevant that he is 13 because guns make it possible for anyone to kill. Strength is no longer a factor.

Also, how long do you give someone. It takes a second to raise a gun and shoot. By that time it could be too late for you. This isn't cowboy duels where you are the fastest gun in the west and can beat everyone to the draw; this is reality.

It is a horrible thing to happen. But why has a 13 year old got a gun in the first place?
A 13yr old has got a gun because there are more guns than people in the country, and inevitably, some of them are going in the hands of children.
That is not an excuse for the actions of the officer. And age is definitely an important factor - it can not be expected of a kid to comply without making mistakes in such a situation. The mimum an officer should be trained at, is to clearly identify when a firearm is being pointed at him and then use deadly force. He has the advantage in the situation, because he is already aiming at him. Just assuming he has gun and is going to point it towards him is something I can do while playing an FPS, not the expected action from a supposedly trained professional.
And if he was disoriented by the strobe, then it is again his mistake since he chose to use the strobe light.
 
A 13yr old has got a gun because there are more guns than people in the country, and inevitably, some of them are going in the hands of children.
That is not an excuse for the actions of the officer. And age is definitely an important factor - it can not be expected of a kid to comply without making mistakes in such a situation. The mimum an officer should be trained at, is to clearly identify when a firearm is being pointed at him and then use deadly force. He has the advantage in the situation, because he is already aiming at him. Just assuming he has gun and is going to point it towards him is something I can do while playing an FPS, not the expected action from a supposedly trained professional.
And if he was disoriented by the strobe, then it is again his mistake since he chose to use the strobe light.
This is the point though - it seems these officers simply aren't being trained well enough - if at all.

Also worth noting the outrageous media bias on our thinking here: there could have been a hundred thousand situations that went fine and we'd never hear about them.

On the age of the kid with the gun - I don't really understand how this has any bearing on the officer. It's certainly not his/her fault a child has access to a leathal weapon, and a 13 year old is less likely to act rationally than an adult. So if anything it's a more dangerous situation.
 
This is the point though - it seems these officers simply aren't being trained well enough - if at all.

Also worth noting the outrageous media bias on our thinking here: there could have been a hundred thousand situations that went fine and we'd never hear about them.

On the age of the kid with the gun - I don't really understand how this has any bearing on the officer. It's certainly not his/her fault a child has access to a leathal weapon, and a 13 year old is less likely to act rationally than an adult. So if anything it's a more dangerous situation.
What media bias?? The cases where the officers kill unarmed people are far too many , there is no bias in the numbers.

It is absolutely the officers' fault that he is not taking into account the age of the suspect. Exactly because he may not act 'rationally' he should give him much clearer instructions . And how can you say it is a more dangerous situation? It's a 13 old boy, not a high speed operator that can turn aim and shoot before the cop could blink. He shot because he knew he would get away with it, and he probably will.
 
Disgraceful media only telling us about unarmed people being shot and not reporting all the routine traffic stops and speeding tickets issued where they manage to not kill anyone.
 
Disgraceful media only telling us about unarmed people being shot and not reporting all the routine traffic stops and speeding tickets issued where they manage to not kill anyone.
Also, cats taken down from trees in affluent areas.
 
Disgraceful media only telling us about unarmed people being shot and not reporting all the routine traffic stops and speeding tickets issued where they manage to not kill anyone.
Dd-UDvRUQAUG2tt
 
What media bias?? The cases where the officers kill unarmed people are far too many , there is no bias in the numbers.

It is absolutely the officers' fault that he is not taking into account the age of the suspect. Exactly because he may not act 'rationally' he should give him much clearer instructions . And how can you say it is a more dangerous situation? It's a 13 old boy, not a high speed operator that can turn aim and shoot before the cop could blink. He shot because he knew he would get away with it, and he probably will.
As yourself and other astute posters noted - of course the media will focus on when things go wrong - far moreso today with available cameras, which is a good thing for transparency, obviously. But, if you polled people around the world right now about officer-related shootings of black Americans, you'd probably find that they overwhelmingly believe that we're at a peak number, and it's getting so much worse, and it's the major societal issue so and so forth.

But what if that's not true? Shouldn't we use actual stats and trends to dictate policy? Should policy be determined by public sentiment - itself simply a function of the media?

Again, I don't see how the officer is supposed to assume that a scared, 13-year old armed child is going to act rationally. It's obviously a horrible situation and we should never have gotten here.

But the fact that every poorly trained police officer in America HAS to be armed because every potential confrontee could be is the reason there are so many mistakes. And that's a policy no one seems to want to deal with, because it's much easier to talk about bias or how awful police are.
 
What media bias?? The cases where the officers kill unarmed people are far too many , there is no bias in the numbers.

It is absolutely the officers' fault that he is not taking into account the age of the suspect. Exactly because he may not act 'rationally' he should give him much clearer instructions . And how can you say it is a more dangerous situation? It's a 13 old boy, not a high speed operator that can turn aim and shoot before the cop could blink. He shot because he knew he would get away with it, and he probably will.

At what point did he know the kid's age?
 
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I think you understand my point but I know you like to split hairs. Based on what we know about this kid's actions, do you think it's reasonable to assume that he broke any laws during this encounter?


At what point did he know the kid's age?


At what point did the officer know the age of the suspect?
Without being certain about the exact age, surely anyone can see he is a child?
 
Without being certain about the exact age, surely anyone can see he is a child?
We have the benefit of hindsight to know he was 13. It’s dark at 230am and he’s wearing thick clothing and cap. He doesn’t look short in stature either. I doubt the initial dispatch call even mentioned young kids. It was probably “male suspects shooting at cars”. As an officer going into that scene you’re not treating it any less than the most heightened awareness and seriousness in possibly getting into a shooting to save your life.
 
We have the benefit of hindsight to know he was 13. It’s dark at 230am and he’s wearing thick clothing and cap. He doesn’t look short in stature either. I doubt the initial dispatch call even mentioned young kids. It was probably “male suspects shooting at cars”. As an officer going into that scene you’re not treating it any less than the most heightened awareness and seriousness in possibly getting into a shooting to save your life.

A 13 year old can kill just as surely as a 30 year old
 
The cops weren't drafted into the police force. So the shrug on making deadly mistakes will never track with anyone with human decency.
 
Insulting another member
I'm not saying it is at all, but they didn't know he he'd thrown his gun away. You can barely just make it out on the video when it's slowed down/paused.

The most important issue is they didn't give him time to react, but it's easy to say in hindsight. I think in those situations the kid should have just stood there with his back to them, drop the gun on the floor so they can see it. Wait for them to arrest you.

Anyway it's a very sad situation but let's not pretend he was a 13 year old angel. If you're old enough to roam the streets with a gun unfortunately you'll get caught up with trouble.


Hey feck you
 
Interesting turn of events here.

I recall how many went a bit mental when Ashli Babbitt was thought briefly to have been a 16 year old girl when she was shot during the riots.

Not exactly the same thing here, but there are quite many similarities. And some key differences.
 
I think you understand my point but I know you like to split hairs. Based on what we know about this kid's actions, do you think it's reasonable to assume that he broke any laws during this encounter?

You admitted that you'd prefer cops to kill 'criminals' without defining exactly what constitutes a 'criminal'. So either either your statement is blanket enough to conclude that you would also prefer a jaywalker to get killed, or you must define exactly what crimes are deserving of being killed.
Which one is it? This isn't splitting hairs, these are your words, i'm just trying to get a better understanding of it.

That's before you get into the fact that nobody is actually a criminal until they've been convicted of a crime, until that point they are merely a suspect.
Is that splitting hairs? Maybe for the sake of this debate, but in real life, no.

And, it's not up to the police to assume something about a person or their actions - this is where biases kick in, and you open yourself up for a million hypothetical situations.
 
we also didn't see video of what she did before the cops video turned on. She might have thrown her gun behind a fence. Good thing she was white or he would have had to shoot her to protect himself from this criminal.
 
You admitted that you'd prefer cops to kill 'criminals' without defining exactly what constitutes a 'criminal'. So either either your statement is blanket enough to conclude that you would also prefer a jaywalker to get killed, or you must define exactly what crimes are deserving of being killed.
Which one is it? This isn't splitting hairs, these are your words, i'm just trying to get a better understanding of it.

That's before you get into the fact that nobody is actually a criminal until they've been convicted of a crime, until that point they are merely a suspect.
Is that splitting hairs? Maybe for the sake of this debate, but in real life, no.

And, it's not up to the police to assume something about a person or their actions - this is where biases kick in, and you open yourself up for a million hypothetical situations.

Putting words in my mouth now too. Dishonest.
 
A bit more context to the Rittenhouse donations...



‘You’ve done nothing wrong. Every rank & file police officer supports you.’
 
You admitted that you'd prefer cops to kill 'criminals' without defining exactly what constitutes a 'criminal'. So either either your statement is blanket enough to conclude that you would also prefer a jaywalker to get killed, or you must define exactly what crimes are deserving of being killed.
Which one is it? This isn't splitting hairs, these are your words, i'm just trying to get a better understanding of it.

That's before you get into the fact that nobody is actually a criminal until they've been convicted of a crime, until that point they are merely a suspect.
Is that splitting hairs? Maybe for the sake of this debate, but in real life, no.

And, it's not up to the police to assume something about a person or their actions - this is where biases kick in, and you open yourself up for a million hypothetical situations.

Also this same poster responded to me in the Chauvin thread, talking about how defense lawyers and a proper justice system are cornerstones of our society, and there are lots of people that are wrongly accused/convicted of things. And now here are are, saying he prefers criminals to be killed, but police should always have a proper defense. Absolute joke.