Stephon Clark killed by Sacramento police - he was in his own family's backyard

[coloradoatheist]

He was unarmed and no threat to the police at the time of the shooting. Furthermore, at the time, he was a suspect - the police could not KNOW what he had or had not done.

So your response seems a bit odd, unless you are claiming it is okay for the police to gun down unarmed civilians who pose a threat to someone somewhere sometime?

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He was breaking into other people's houses and cars that night. That is a threat to people which they were investigating and no idea why he was doing it.

Was that ever actually demonstrated? The helicopter footage showed him going through back yards, but I never saw anything showing him actually breaking into anything

I'm not sure either way but minor. The police aren't going to say, "Hey we are chasing a guy that's breaking into things around the neighborhood, there is no way he doesn't have a gun"

You seem to be saying it is okay for the police to gun down an unarmed civilian on the mere suspicion he or she might have a weapon. If that is true, that is giving the police carte blanche to execute anyone anytime anywhere on the flimsiest of excuses.

Except the helicopter had seen him near houses and climbing fences, the pointed the officers to where he was, when the cops said stop he ran, of course he is a threat then. And when he had turned he had an object in his hands and with the dark that's enough. Only after shot did they know it was a cell phone.

 

[bilby]

He was shot outside of a house, not attempting to break into it.
White collar crime, stock fraud, pee in the sink. But like I said... he wasn't in a house at the time... and no one breaks into empty cars to rape people. It just isn't efficient.
*spit take*

And yes, gun ownership is a liberty.

Privilege. The right to vote is liberty. Free speech is liberty. Being able to go across the nation is liberty. Gun ownership is a privilege.

This is a side conversation, but when gun ownership is allowed via the second amendment, that's a right, not a priviledge.

And to investigate why he was breaking into houses they wanted to talk to him, but he ran from the cops when they confronted him. So a guy who was breaking into homes and now running from the cops, he is considered a threat.

Someone who is running away is not a threat, so considering him one is insane.

But then, I live in the 95% of the world where we don't defend our property, and just consider regular break-ins and thefts a normal part of life. We would do something about it, if only we had guns. But instead we have to just tolerate a huge wave of crime that has led to my house being broken into zero times in the 25 years that I have lived in Australia. It seems too high a price to pay for just not having a repeat of the Port Arthur Massacre; But what can I do?

 

[laughing dog]

He was unarmed and no threat to the police at the time of the shooting. Furthermore, at the time, he was a suspect - the police could not KNOW what he had or had not done.

So your response seems a bit odd, unless you are claiming it is okay for the police to gun down unarmed civilians who pose a threat to someone somewhere sometime?

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Was that ever actually demonstrated? The helicopter footage showed him going through back yards, but I never saw anything showing him actually breaking into anything

I'm not sure either way but minor. The police aren't going to say, "Hey we are chasing a guy that's breaking into things around the neighborhood, there is no way he doesn't have a gun"

You seem to be saying it is okay for the police to gun down an unarmed civilian on the mere suspicion he or she might have a weapon. If that is true, that is giving the police carte blanche to execute anyone anytime anywhere on the flimsiest of excuses.

Except the helicopter had seen him near houses and climbing fences, the pointed the officers to where he was, when the cops said stop he ran, of course he is a threat then.

On what basis is Mr. Clark a threat at that point?

And when he had turned he had an object in his hands and with the dark that's enough. Only after shot did they know it was a cell phone.

It seems to me that you are tacitly approving of the "shoot first, then find out" approach.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

What's worse is that 90% of people carry a cellphone. So that gives police permission to shoot almost everyone at night because they might have a gun. Empirically, what we observe though is that this applies to certain people way more than others. So it seems not to be true.

Here's a different take on what happens:

It's probably true that the cops couldn't tell that the object in the suspect's hand was a phone, not a gun. It's also true that in general, police are predisposed to expect violence from black men regardless of the situation. A black man and a white man in otherwise similar situations are not likely to experience the same outcome. Regardless of what anyone claims to be the causal factor... at the end of the day, police use race and ethnicity to profile suspects, and if that suspect is black, they are primed to perceive the suspect's actions as aggressive, violent, belligerent, and otherwise uncooperative. A white suspect is more likely to be given a longer time to comply with orders, and is likely to be given the benefit of the doubt with respect to their actions.

 

[Derec]

What's worse is that 90% of people carry a cellphone. So that gives police permission to shoot almost everyone at night because they might have a gun. Empirically, what we observe though is that this applies to certain people way more than others. So it seems not to be true.

If the cell phone was in his pocket, he'd have been fine. Arrested and violated, but alive and unhurt.

Why was he running holding his phone anyway? Since he was jumping over fences and stuff, and you need both hands for that. Did he pull it out after he jumped the fence into his grandma's yard? If so, why?

Speaking of guns and cell phones, this will definitely not help matters. Not one bit.

 

[marc]

He was breaking into other people's houses and cars that night. That is a threat to people which they were investigating and no idea why he was doing it.

Was that ever actually demonstrated? The helicopter footage showed him going through back yards, but I never saw anything showing him actually breaking into anything

I'm not sure either way but minor. The police aren't going to say, "Hey we are chasing a guy that's breaking into things around the neighborhood, there is no way he doesn't have a gun"

So you don’t even know if he had anything to do with the crime that was being investigated, while inflating the supposed threat from the crime to excuse killing an unarmed man.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

What's worse is that 90% of people carry a cellphone. So that gives police permission to shoot almost everyone at night because they might have a gun. Empirically, what we observe though is that this applies to certain people way more than others. So it seems not to be true.

If the cell phone was in his pocket, he'd have been fine. Arrested and violated, but alive and unhurt.

Why was he running holding his phone anyway? Since he was jumping over fences and stuff, and you need both hands for that. Did he pull it out after he jumped the fence into his grandma's yard? If so, why?

Speaking of guns and cell phones, this will definitely not help matters. Not one bit.

None of what you are saying addresses the issue. People pull out cell phones for all kinds of reasons. Including at night. In his case, maybe he was going to call the police after the people who yelled at him, video record them, or use the light of the phone so he could put his key in his door since he was next to the door. The argument I was responding to was justifying police at night shooting someone because they think they have a gun. The counter I made was that this could not be the reason so many blacks are being shot by police because if it were, then we'd expect to have so many other people shot by police who have cell phones. We really don't hear about this. Therefore, logically, I support a multi-variate approach like what Emily wrote. I am unsure of why you snipped it from my post when you replied, but here it is again:

It's probably true that the cops couldn't tell that the object in the suspect's hand was a phone, not a gun. It's also true that in general, police are predisposed to expect violence from black men regardless of the situation. A black man and a white man in otherwise similar situations are not likely to experience the same outcome. Regardless of what anyone claims to be the causal factor... at the end of the day, police use race and ethnicity to profile suspects, and if that suspect is black, they are primed to perceive the suspect's actions as aggressive, violent, belligerent, and otherwise uncooperative. A white suspect is more likely to be given a longer time to comply with orders, and is likely to be given the benefit of the doubt with respect to their actions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And when the person they are chasing goes out of view and then turns back on them that will make them suspect ambush.

How can seeing a person turning back towards the officers be a sign of an "ambush". An ambush is suspect hiding behind a corner in the dark waiting for the officers to rush past him, and then shoot them the officers from behind. THAT is an ambush.

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I'm curious where in the path they would identify which bullets were fired from which officer and if that explains the differences since they were a little apart.

The major question left, will Sacramento settle a lawsuit prior to one starting and just move on or fight it.

Do we know whether the suspect had broken in to any places at this point?

You can ambush someone coming at you around a corner--you know they're coming, they don't know you're waiting for them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I have no problem with why the police were pursuing a criminal suspect. I was just wondering why the police were shooting an criminal suspect who was unarmed.

They thought he was armed.

Then why was George Zimmerman acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin. Wasn't he pursuing a criminal suspect with the intent to subdue him?

No. He was following with the intent of guiding the police to Trayvon. It's your fantasy that he was attempting to engage.

Is turning around toward police officers who are pursuing someone grounds for shooting at him twenty times? How many times should they have shot at him if he did not turn around?

Reality. Quit trying to change it.

 

[laughing dog]

They thought he was armed.

They were very very wrong. And all because they did not bother to ascertain whether he was actually armed or not. At the least, that is negligence.

 

[coloradoatheist]

They thought he was armed.

They were very very wrong. And all because they did not bother to ascertain whether he was actually armed or not. At the least, that is negligence.

Yeah they should have asked the TSA to show up a few minutes earlier and put up a metal detector and once he went through they can continue the chase without pulling out their guns.

 

[laughing dog]

They thought he was armed.

They were very very wrong. And all because they did not bother to ascertain whether he was actually armed or not. At the least, that is negligence.

Yeah they should have asked the TSA to show up a few minutes earlier and put up a metal detector and once he went through they can continue the chase without pulling out their guns.

That would be pretty fucking stupid and expensive compared to withholding fire for a few seconds.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yeah they should have asked the TSA to show up a few minutes earlier and put up a metal detector and once he went through they can continue the chase without pulling out their guns.

That would be pretty fucking stupid and expensive compared to withholding fire for a few seconds.

Yeah they can wait until they are shot. We see lots of movies where the star gets shot and continues through the building going after the person is shot. Or Clark could have stopped when spotted instead of a dangerous chase.

 

[laughing dog]

Yeah they should have asked the TSA to show up a few minutes earlier and put up a metal detector and once he went through they can continue the chase without pulling out their guns.

That would be pretty fucking stupid and expensive compared to withholding fire for a few seconds.

Yeah they can wait until they are shot.

They can wait to confirm what is in the hand. That may mean getting shot at, it may not. Like it or not, it is part of the job description for the police to sometimes get in harm's way. Allowing them to kill citizens who pose no bodily threat without serious repercussions is wrong.

I expect that within the next couple of years, someone is going to be found not guilty of pre-emptively killing a police officer because of their credible fear of being killed by the police.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Wrong.

Police are not unlike civilians.

The police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

- Robert Peel, founder of modern policing.

Doesn't change the fact that police are expected to go after bad guys, civilians are not.

 

[scombrid]

How can seeing a person turning back towards the officers be a sign of an "ambush". An ambush is suspect hiding behind a corner in the dark waiting for the officers to rush past him, and then shoot them the officers from behind. THAT is an ambush.

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Do we know whether the suspect had broken in to any places at this point?

You can ambush someone coming at you around a corner--you know they're coming, they don't know you're waiting for them.

That would be a good reason to not charge into the enclosed back yard before pausing to assess the situation.

Seems charging blind into that situation creates a situation where you as the charger are either shot or shoot.

If they charge into a similar environment and the person is planning to ambush rather than holding a cell phone then they are going to get shot at even if they pull the trigger as quickly as they did. Their tactics there were foolish and should place on them some of the responsibility for shooting an unarmed suspect.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Warning: this is going to be long. I have a lot to say. And it's probably giong to piss off almost everyone... simply because I'm going to say that nobody in this thread is entirely wrong. Loren and Derec are not wrong. Laughing dog and Jimmy Higgins are not wrong. Nor is anyone not specifically named.

[pause for angry outbursts]

Let's take this case. A vandalism suspect is reported to flee police through backyards. When the police find him, that suspect walks away, then turns back and walks toward the police. The suspect has something in his hand that cannot be identified by the police. The police open fire and kill the suspect.

It's probably true that the cops couldn't tell that the object in the suspect's hand was a phone, not a gun. It's also true that in general, police are predisposed to expect violence from black men regardless of the situation.

No--police are predisposed to expect violence from a fleeing criminal.

A black man and a white man in otherwise similar situations are not likely to experience the same outcome. Regardless of what anyone claims to be the causal factor... at the end of the day, police use race and ethnicity to profile suspects, and if that suspect is black, they are primed to perceive the suspect's actions as aggressive, violent, belligerent, and otherwise uncooperative. A white suspect is more likely to be given a longer time to comply with orders, and is likely to be given the benefit of the doubt with respect to their actions.

Except the statistics don't agree with you. Police have a lot more encounters with blacks, said encounters are no more likely to be violent.

Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012, even though they made up just 13 percent of the US population.
...
Racial minorities made up about 37.4 percent of the general population in the US and 46.6 percent of armed and unarmed victims, but they made up 62.7 percent of unarmed people killed by police.

It's easy to find arguments for why the police might have been justified in their actions in any specific case. Or if not justified, at least understandable. When all you look at are case-bay-case, one-by-one situations, there's almost always some justification available. That's how bias works: because there's no clearly irrational basis for the reaction, it's easy to find rationalizations for one's actions. But when you start looking at the aggregate patterns involved, a different picture emerges. Just like old school printing: When you look at each dot in the frame, it's clearly black, yellow, cyan, or magenta... so it's easy to conclude that no green dots exist and that each dot is clearly a dot; when you back away from the details, you can see the forest emerge.

This argument only makes sense if you assume blacks are no more likely to be criminals than whites. Reality doesn't agree. (Although it looks like this is actually a socioeconomic effect, not a racial effect.)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How can seeing a person turning back towards the officers be a sign of an "ambush". An ambush is suspect hiding behind a corner in the dark waiting for the officers to rush past him, and then shoot them the officers from behind. THAT is an ambush.

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Do we know whether the suspect had broken in to any places at this point?

You can ambush someone coming at you around a corner--you know they're coming, they don't know you're waiting for them.

Goodness you are hopeless. They saw him, from a distance, turn around. No ambush potential!

And as I originally noted and now you seem to finally be on the bus, the officers put their lives in danger by recklessly chasing the suspect, easily could have put themselves in an ambushed position. Good thing he didn’t have a gun and wanted to harm the officers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is a side conversation, but when gun ownership is allowed via the second amendment, that's a right, not a priviledge.

And to investigate why he was breaking into houses they wanted to talk to him, but he ran from the cops when they confronted him. So a guy who was breaking into homes and now running from the cops, he is considered a threat.

Someone who is running away is not a threat, so considering him one is insane.

See the cops firing at him while running away?

What you're missing is that when he tried the Who, me? defense he now appeared to be a threat.

But then, I live in the 95% of the world where we don't defend our property, and just consider regular break-ins and thefts a normal part of life. We would do something about it, if only we had guns. But instead we have to just tolerate a huge wave of crime that has led to my house being broken into zero times in the 25 years that I have lived in Australia. It seems too high a price to pay for just not having a repeat of the Port Arthur Massacre; But what can I do?

This isn't a case of using lethal force to defend property. Thus your acceptance of being victims is irrelevant to the situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Speaking of guns and cell phones, this will definitely not help matters. Not one bit.

Yikes!

Expect the number of people shot for cell phones in their hands to go up.

Something like this should be an NFA item!