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Another cop "fears for his life" - Officer Michael Slager Shooting Unarmed Black Man In The Back

Jimmy Higgins said:
Why the fuck are we talking about his car?! He doesn't have a car anymore. He was slaughtered by an officer.
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Because some people here don't want to talk about the facts of the case, namely, a police officer who shot a fleeing suspect in the back multiple times and killed him, even though said suspect apparently did not present a threat to the officer or to the public at large when the shooting happened. It is easier to deflect the conversation to unrelated matters than deal with the core facts of the case. And being stupid, being behind on child support payments, not having proper registration and insurance documentation for the car you are driving, or even resisting arrest are not crimes punishable by summary execution.
 
If this cop turns out to be the cold blooded killer he is made out to be, what's that got to say about police recruitment?
 
angelo said:
If this cop turns out to be the cold blooded killer he is made out to be, what's that got to say about police recruitment?
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Might not be all the recruiters fault. Maybe the wrong people like applying. This study did suggest the criteria for recruiting be looked at though.

Personality Characteristics of Supercops and Habitual Criminals

This study tested the hypothesis that supercops and criminals resemble each other in their dominant dispositions but differ from average citizens and average police officers who in turn tend to be similar to each other.
Abstract: All subjects were males between 21 and 35 years of age in Los Angeles County. The study instrument was Reming's Response Disposition Inventory (RDI), a list of 250 adjectives and brief descriptions believed to describe both supercops and criminals. Demographic data were collected using a written questionnaire administered prior to the RDI. Results supported the hypothesis that supercops and criminals tend to respond similarly to identical stimuli. The study also confirmed the notion that there are identifiable personality characteristics positively related to police productivity. The profile of the supercop and the habitual criminal was characterized by dispositions toward control, aggressiveness, vigilance, rebelliousness, high energy, frankness in expression, intense personal relationships, high self-esteem, feelings of uniqueness, extroversion, sociability, jealousy, tendencies not to change opinions easily, philandering, and tendencies to avoid blame. Study findings indicate a need for re-evaluating police officer selection criteria and the assumptions on which such criteria are based to reduce mismatches between individual police officers and their assignments. 12 references, 6 tables.
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Nice Squirrel said:
1) A man is dead because of the reaction of a police officer. It doesn't matter the color.
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Oh but it does. That is the whole point of the OP making the OP and fishing for a reaction from Derec.

3) Police do not have the power of summary execution.
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That's what this issue should be about, and should be the focus, but it won't be. BLM will instead mix it in with far more questionable cases and turn it into a race issue.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Rhea said:
Remember a Good Cop is a cop who blows the whistle on a Bad Cop. Have we ever seen a Good Cop?

I expect he made a statement of some kind before the video surfaced. It'll be interesting to see what he said.
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I do hope he made some kind of statement. He's involved in a conspiracy to cover up a murder and needs to go to jail as well.
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Yes, this really should be a big focus for the prosecution. It is the police culture of this that leads to cover ups and lets people get away with horrid actions like this shooting.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Keith&Co. said:
Well, a judge told him to pay the amount. He didn't. Judges take such insults to their authority very poorly. So he'll be brought in front of another judge to be yelled at for failing to properly venerate the guy in the flowing black dress.
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So? In what way does jail help that situation? Mail him a summons and if he doesn't show up to defend himself, just rule against him and mail his employer a court order to deposit X amount of the guy's paycheck in his baby mama's bank account every month.

The goal of warrants for outstanding child support payments should be to get the money to the child. It should not be for people to demonstrate a respect for the authority of the court. The court has the ability to enforce its authority without any respect being given to them.
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Another great point. You're on a roll Tom.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
Oh but it does. That is the whole point of the OP making the OP and fishing for a reaction from Derec.

3) Police do not have the power of summary execution.
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That's what this issue should be about, and should be the focus, but it won't be. BLM will instead mix it in with far more questionable cases and turn it into a race issue.
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Here is the thing, #BLM has a point. Had the video not popped up, none of this would never have transpired. That officer would still be serving after having committed manslaughter.
 
Rhea said:
Interestingly, (alarmingly? Horrifyingly?) the only thing that would make running from the cops "stupid" is the near certainty that
  1. they will try to shoot you dead if you disobey
  2. AND not face any discipline over it.
Without that near-certain assumption it is not stupid to run from police.
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#1 is all that matters for the wisdom of running. Whether the cop gets disciplined for killing you should not be a concern in deciding to run. And 100% certainty they will shoot also has little to do with it. Any chance that the cop will shoot you if you run should be enough for any rational person not to run, unless they are running from the kind of serious violent crime that will land them in jail for years.
IOW, unless you are a violent criminal, it is stupid to run. Not coincidentally, this is also in the mind of the cop, which makes the cop infer you are fleeing from a serious crime if you run, increasing the odds they shoot you.

Whether the cop making such an inference and shooting you on that basis is legal is of minimal relevance to the fact that such an inference is essentially instantaneous and automatic, and will effect their decision making no matter what consequences are put in place for decision errors.

This cop should be charged with murder. But even if convicted, and even if all such use of force was convicted, it would still be stupid to run from an armed cop to flee anything less than a serious violent crime. Such convictions won't change the nature of the human brain which infers a more serious crime from a fleeing suspect, because that suspect is choosing to put their life at any level of risk to get away, which implies they think being caught will result in consequences on par with death. That chain of association which then triggers fear and parasympathetic reactions that impair judgment happens in milliseconds.

BTW, when suspects do get away because cops do not shoot to stop them, you can guarantee than some percentage of those suspects go on to assault, rape, and kill other people. That is a statistical certainty.
That fact doesn't mean the law should let cops shoot all fleeing suspects, but it is something critical to keep in mind when trying to decide what the rules of use of force should be, how we should punish violations of those rules, and what to do to better train cops to stay within those bounds.

One idea would be to have cops go through regularly repeated training and simulations designed to inhibit what is arguably a natural impulse to use more force against a fleeing suspect. For example, go through hundreds of VR simulations where a non-violent suspect flees and they must simply let them go. They get real world punishments for any poor performance in the VR simulations, including even just reaching for the gun, let alone actually shooting. Doing this enough times could retrain the brain to weaken the escalation impulse when a person flees, yet when the context of actual violent criminal arises where force against flight is warranted, they would still use it because that entails a more conscious decision based upon deliberate assessment of the threat level.

BTW, cop movies are likely partly responsible. TV cops constantly shoot at fleeing suspects. "Stop or I'll shoot!" is a phrase implanted in the brain of every person in America, and probably the #1 phrase uttered by kids playing cops and robbers. And yet, it inherently implies shooting a fleeing suspect, which is illegal in most circumstances. The brain does not differentiate fiction and non-fiction. Associations are formed either way and in this case, it is reinforcing a naturally arising inference.
 
ronburgundy said:
BTW, when suspects do get away because cops do not shoot to stop them, you can guarantee than some percentage of those suspects go on to assault, rape, and kill other people. That is a statistical certainty.
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Suppose the statistical certainty is that x% of the successful fleeing suspect go on to assault, rape and kill other people. At the time of the chase, the officers cannot determine which fleeing suspects are going to do that, so what is the point of that "statistical certainty"?
 
ronburgundy said:
BTW, when suspects do get away because cops do not shoot to stop them, you can guarantee than some percentage of those suspects go on to assault, rape, and kill other people. That is a statistical certainty.
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Interesting derail. Because the guy ran away from his car. A car that is registered to him... with an address. An address to go to, to arrest him (if necessary) or at least give him the paperwork and bill for getting his car back.

There was no imminent danger of future crimes here.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
ronburgundy said:
BTW, when suspects do get away because cops do not shoot to stop them, you can guarantee than some percentage of those suspects go on to assault, rape, and kill other people. That is a statistical certainty.
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Interesting derail. Because the guy ran away from his car. A car that is registered to him... with an address. An address to go to, to arrest him (if necessary) or at least give him the paperwork and bill for getting his car back.

There was no imminent danger of future crimes here.
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Then I guess we might as well eliminate the whole concept of pre-trial detention. After all, you know where they live and can go grab them whenever you want.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
Interesting derail. Because the guy ran away from his car. A car that is registered to him... with an address. An address to go to, to arrest him (if necessary) or at least give him the paperwork and bill for getting his car back.

There was no imminent danger of future crimes here.
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Then I guess we might as well eliminate the whole concept of pre-trial detention. After all, you know where they live and can go grab them whenever you want.
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Well, it is certainly over used. People who are innocent until proven guilty should be free until convicted, unless there is an overwhelming reason to expect that they are likely to flee, re-offend, or be attacked by vigilantes. The VAST majority of remand prisoners don't really need to be behind bars while they await trial. And of course, whether detained or not, people should have a right to a speedy trial, so that the innocent have charges hanging over them for the minimum possible amount of time. Justice delayed is justice denied.

So yes, the vast majority of pre-trial detention should be eliminated - it's easy to eliminate flight risk by such means as the confiscation of passports, and the use of tracking anklets to limit suspects to travel within a specified area, for example.

Keeping people in jail when they haven't had a trial is really inexcusable in a modern society. A simple order not to leave their city or state until their court date should be more than enough.

Oh, sorry, was that intended to be sarcasm?
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
Interesting derail. Because the guy ran away from his car. A car that is registered to him... with an address. An address to go to, to arrest him (if necessary) or at least give him the paperwork and bill for getting his car back.

There was no imminent danger of future crimes here.
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Then I guess we might as well eliminate the whole concept of pre-trial detention. After all, you know where they live and can go grab them whenever you want.
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Dude that comment was so obtuse it was a straight line! Comparing pre-trial detention with no trial death sentence.

Seriously, you abuse analogies so badly it should be a crime.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Here is the thing, #BLM has a point. Had the video not popped up, none of this would never have transpired. That officer would still be serving after having committed manslaughter.
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Whatever point they might have is completely drowned by the noise caused by their poor choice of causes. That 15 year old leaving a party? Good cause, as far as we know. Alton Sterling or Quanice Hayes? Not good causes.
 
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