911 Caller Faces Charges For Giving Cops Bad Info Before Fatal Police Shooting

[ksen]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ronald-ritchie-john-crawford_us_57065a21e4b0b90ac2714e86

An Ohio judge found probable cause this week to charge the man whose 911 call led to police officers storming a Walmart and fatally shooting 22-year-old John Crawford III.

huh

Ok, now what about the cops that came rushing in guns blazing?

 

[Mumbles]

The grand jury that the prosecutor called chose not to indict either officer.

Try to look shocked.

(Also, the caller isn't facing charges yet. The judge has found probable cause for a misdemeanor, but can only refer it to the sameprosecutor's office that has taken no action thus far.)

 

[Underseer]

The grand jury that the prosecutor called chose not to indict either officer.

Try to look shocked.

(Also, the caller isn't facing charges yet. The judge has found probable cause for a misdemeanor, but can only refer it to the sameprosecutor's office that has taken no action thus far.)

Thanks for the reminder.

 

[zorq]

I feel for the family. Their loved one was innocently shopping in Walmart and chatting with his girlfriend on the phone was killed. There have been no repercussions for the killers because the killers were police officers who weren't doing their jobs, though I'm sure they thought they were.

I don't blame the family for pushing for some kind of acknowledgement that wrongdoing took place so that some illusion of justice can be sustained.

But should the putz who made the phone call get a misdormenor? I don't think so. I think he was trying to be helpful in the hyper paranoid, terror alert orange, environment that mostly political conservatives in the US have been trying to foster especially since 9/11. Should being helpful but really really wrong be a crime for an average citizen? I don't think so. The responsibility belongs with the responding officers. They are the professionals They are the ones expected to know how to handle situations.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But should the putz who made the phone call get a misdormenor? I don't think so. I think he was trying to be helpful in the hyper paranoid, terror alert orange, environment that mostly political conservatives in the US have been trying to foster especially since 9/11. Should being helpful but really really wrong be a crime for an average citizen? I don't think so. The responsibility belongs with the responding officers. They are the professionals They are the ones expected to know how to handle situations.

He said things that were categorically not true: That the guy was loading it. This is akin to swatting.

 

[zorq]

But should the putz who made the phone call get a misdormenor? I don't think so. I think he was trying to be helpful in the hyper paranoid, terror alert orange, environment that mostly political conservatives in the US have been trying to foster especially since 9/11. Should being helpful but really really wrong be a crime for an average citizen? I don't think so. The responsibility belongs with the responding officers. They are the professionals They are the ones expected to know how to handle situations.

He said things that were categorically not true: That the guy was loading it. This is akin to swatting.

Ever been wrong? Happened to me.

 

[dismal]

He said things that were categorically not true: That the guy was loading it. This is akin to swatting.

Ever been wrong? Happened to me.

I'd be surprised if there is not some bad faith test. It would be a bad precedent to criminalize honest mistakes.

 

[ronburgundy]

Ever been wrong? Happened to me.

I'd be surprised if there is not some bad faith test. It would be a bad precedent to criminalize honest mistakes.

It would be pretty near impossible to prove a person was deliberately lying rather than misperceiving a situation like that, unless they go boast on Facebook how they just got a black guy killed by lying to the cops.

 

[Shadowy Man]

But should the putz who made the phone call get a misdormenor? I don't think so. I think he was trying to be helpful in the hyper paranoid, terror alert orange, environment that mostly political conservatives in the US have been trying to foster especially since 9/11. Should being helpful but really really wrong be a crime for an average citizen? I don't think so. The responsibility belongs with the responding officers. They are the professionals They are the ones expected to know how to handle situations.

He said things that were categorically not true: That the guy was loading it. This is akin to swatting.

Regardless of what the caller said, the police have a responsibility to do their own threat assessment.

 

[ronburgundy]

He said things that were categorically not true: That the guy was loading it. This is akin to swatting.

Regardless of what the caller said, the police have a responsibility to do their own threat assessment.

Yes, but part of that assessment is factoring in the statements of eyewitnesses. Shit can go down very fast and very deadly when the threat is real. Cops must make very quick decisions under pressure and fear (they are not and should not be expected to be perfectly rational spockian robots). Wrong information is going to alter their subjective assessment of threat to some degree. There is no way around that. If the other factors put the threat near the threshold, then that wrong info could be enough to tip the scale in favor of "shoot".

It is very plausible that wrongful 911 and witness accounts have and will sometimes be the deciding cause in a police response. Thus, wrong info is morally culpable for the outcome. The problem is that making it legally culpable is dangerous and increases non-reporting, and very difficult to prove it was deliberate and not a mistake.

 

[RavenSky]

I feel for the family. Their loved one was innocently shopping in Walmart and chatting with his girlfriend on the phone was killed. There have been no repercussions for the killers because the killers were police officers who weren't doing their jobs, though I'm sure they thought they were.

I don't blame the family for pushing for some kind of acknowledgement that wrongdoing took place so that some illusion of justice can be sustained.

But should the putz who made the phone call get a misdormenor? I don't think so. I think he was trying to be helpful in the hyper paranoid, terror alert orange, environment that mostly political conservatives in the US have been trying to foster especially since 9/11. Should being helpful but really really wrong be a crime for an average citizen? I don't think so. The responsibility belongs with the responding officers. They are the professionals They are the ones expected to know how to handle situations.

I agree that the bulk of the responsibility belongs with the responding officers - they are the ones that need to be held to the highest standard for the safety of the general public.

However, the caller lied to dispatch. He made claims about the situation that were false, which in turn led police to believe they were walking into a dangerous situation, rather than an innocent guy talking on a cell phone while checking out a product that store sells.

 

[dismal]

I feel for the family. Their loved one was innocently shopping in Walmart and chatting with his girlfriend on the phone was killed. There have been no repercussions for the killers because the killers were police officers who weren't doing their jobs, though I'm sure they thought they were.

I don't blame the family for pushing for some kind of acknowledgement that wrongdoing took place so that some illusion of justice can be sustained.

But should the putz who made the phone call get a misdormenor? I don't think so. I think he was trying to be helpful in the hyper paranoid, terror alert orange, environment that mostly political conservatives in the US have been trying to foster especially since 9/11. Should being helpful but really really wrong be a crime for an average citizen? I don't think so. The responsibility belongs with the responding officers. They are the professionals They are the ones expected to know how to handle situations.

I agree that the bulk of the responsibility belongs with the responding officers - they are the ones that need to be held to the highest standard for the safety of the general public.

However, the caller lied to dispatch. He made claims about the situation that were false, which in turn led police to believe they were walking into a dangerous situation, rather than an innocent guy talking on a cell phone while checking out a product that store sells.

How did you determine he did not report what he thought he saw?

 

[ronburgundy]

So, more careful reading suggests there may be little evidence that what the caller said was even incorrect (let alone a deliberate lie).

"The court does note that at the time that Ronald Ritchie is relaying to dispatch that Mr. Crawford is pointing the gun at two children, the video does not depict this event," the judge wrote.

That is some rather deliberate language indicating that there is nothing to confirm that Crawford didn't at some point do something close to what Ritchie stated, but rather that "at the time" Ritchie was talking to dispatch there was no video evidence that Crawford was doing that during that moment. IF the video clearly showed Crawford the entire time he is in the store and he never does anything like Ritchie described, then the judge would have said more clearly that there there is nothing in the video consistent with with Ritchie's description, or even that the video clearly contradicts him.

Regardless, that doesn't change the larger discussion of the issue that cops must rely to some extent on witness claims when making split second response decisions, and that even if its hard to prosecute, inaccurate reports to police are a serious and consequential ethical failing, even when they are not outright lies.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I agree that the bulk of the responsibility belongs with the responding officers - they are the ones that need to be held to the highest standard for the safety of the general public.

However, the caller lied to dispatch. He made claims about the situation that were false, which in turn led police to believe they were walking into a dangerous situation, rather than an innocent guy talking on a cell phone while checking out a product that store sells.

How did you determine he did not report what he thought he saw?

What would look like loading the weapon? This is almost certainly a case of exaggerating what he saw to speed the police response.

 

[dismal]

How did you determine he did not report what he thought he saw?

What would look like loading the weapon? This is almost certainly a case of exaggerating what he saw to speed the police response.

This sounds like an assumption, not a fact. It's easy to make things true by assuming they are true.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What would look like loading the weapon? This is almost certainly a case of exaggerating what he saw to speed the police response.

This sounds like an assumption, not a fact. It's easy to make things true by assuming they are true.

Since they are charging him there probably was something he said that was too far from the truth to be a simple mistake.

 

[Underseer]

This sounds like an assumption, not a fact. It's easy to make things true by assuming they are true.

Since they are charging him there probably was something he said that was too far from the truth to be a simple mistake.

Or it's possible that they are charging him in order to cast blame for the incident on him and away from the cops who actually killed that man.

But the government would never abuse its power like that, would it? We can trust what the government does!

 

[Arctish]

If this article is correct, Ritchie has something of a history of making inaccurate statements. Claiming to be an ex-Marine when he was kicked out after 7 weeks for a "fraudulent enlistment", claiming Crawford was loading the weapon, claiming Crawford was pointing it at children, etc.

There's also this account:

Crawford arrived at the pet products section in the next aisle, estimated at 60 yards from where he had picked up the item. Then, his family and their attorneys say, at about 8.20pm, he stopped and stood still for about six minutes. “With the rifle pointed down and the cell phone up in his right hand,” said his father, he stayed there facing a shelf, apparently preoccupied by the call.

“He didn’t move,” said his father. “He was stood so still, in fact, we thought the track had actually stopped. I asked the technician ‘what’s going on?’ and he said ‘Well, the reel is still running Mr Crawford, look at the time’.”

Ritchie, on the other hand, stated that at this stage, Crawford was “pointing [the BB rifle] at things, like moving things around the shelf with the gun.”

It looks like there's enough evidence to go to trial, if it comes to that.

 

[ronburgundy]

If this article is correct, Ritchie has something of a history of making inaccurate statements. Claiming to be an ex-Marine when he was kicked out after 7 weeks for a "fraudulent enlistment", claiming Crawford was loading the weapon, claiming Crawford was pointing it at children, etc.

There's also this account:

Crawford arrived at the pet products section in the next aisle, estimated at 60 yards from where he had picked up the item. Then, his family and their attorneys say, at about 8.20pm, he stopped and stood still for about six minutes. “With the rifle pointed down and the cell phone up in his right hand,” said his father, he stayed there facing a shelf, apparently preoccupied by the call.

“He didn’t move,” said his father. “He was stood so still, in fact, we thought the track had actually stopped. I asked the technician ‘what’s going on?’ and he said ‘Well, the reel is still running Mr Crawford, look at the time’.”

Ritchie, on the other hand, stated that at this stage, Crawford was “pointing [the BB rifle] at things, like moving things around the shelf with the gun.”

It looks like there's enough evidence to go to trial, if it comes to that.

That doesn't imply anything other than for the specific time period the family is choosing to focus upon..
It is suspicious that they keep trying to make claims only about specific time points rather than just saying that the tape shows the Crawford never does anything that could be interpreted as pointing the gun at anyone. It implies that either the tape does show him do that at some point other than the time period they are talking about, or that there is some period of time where Crawford is not captured on camera and thus could have done what Ritchie claimed. If either of those is true, then they have no case.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If this article is correct, Ritchie has something of a history of making inaccurate statements. Claiming to be an ex-Marine when he was kicked out after 7 weeks for a "fraudulent enlistment", claiming Crawford was loading the weapon, claiming Crawford was pointing it at children, etc.

There's also this account:

Crawford arrived at the pet products section in the next aisle, estimated at 60 yards from where he had picked up the item. Then, his family and their attorneys say, at about 8.20pm, he stopped and stood still for about six minutes. “With the rifle pointed down and the cell phone up in his right hand,” said his father, he stayed there facing a shelf, apparently preoccupied by the call.

“He didn’t move,” said his father. “He was stood so still, in fact, we thought the track had actually stopped. I asked the technician ‘what’s going on?’ and he said ‘Well, the reel is still running Mr Crawford, look at the time’.”

Ritchie, on the other hand, stated that at this stage, Crawford was “pointing [the BB rifle] at things, like moving things around the shelf with the gun.”

It looks like there's enough evidence to go to trial, if it comes to that.

Yeah, that sounds pretty damning. He gave the cops radically false information and caused them to overreact. Sounds like involuntary manslaughter to me. (Yes, it's possible to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter from false words alone. And since such use-of-force cases are evaluated based upon what the shooter knew it's possible for the shooter to be completely innocent and the speaker guilty of a crime.)