Cop Indicted For Murder

[Toni]

No, I didn't. What a bunch of garbage.

Loren mentioned the anti tank rifle in post 201.

Yes, Loren mentioned the anti tank rifle as the type of gun required to have the kind of recoil force you claimed when you said

"was thrown back by the recoil of the WEAPON HE FIRED INTO THE HEAD OF A MAN WITH HIS HANDS IN THE AIR."

What a bunch of garbage indeed. I just can't decide what is more putrid garbage, your original claim, you current proven false denial that you said it, or the second half of your quote where your claim DuBoses had his "hands in the air" when shot, when the stills definitely show that he right hand was on and steering the already moving car before and when he was shot.

Your claim:

Originally Posted by ronburgundy View Post

In an ideological effort to deny that the officer was movements and tumble were in any way affected by the momentum of the moving vehicle driven by the fleeing criminal, Toni made the truly absurd claim that the officer (whom she asserts had two feet firmly on the ground at the time) was thrown backward and to the ground by the incredible recoil on his handgun. Loren, pointed out that this is utterly impossible unless the gun had the notorious collar bone breaking recoil of an ant-tank rife capable of piercing tanks. Then ksen displayed his own ignorance of firearms by implying that such guns don't even exist, despite a simple google search required to establish their reality and validity of Loren's point.

Only I never made such an assertion. Compare your claim, quoted just above with what I actually posted, higher up in the post.

Also, look at the link I provided, narrated by the newscaster. The clip stops short of the shot fired but clearly shows both of his hands in the air and the officer's gun in the car, pointed at his head.

Use as many descriptors as you like. Putrid is one with which you seem to be most familiar. I am sure there is a reason for that. It will not hide the fact that you are making false claims.

 

[Derec]

Sorry Toni, I am with the Anchorman here. You did say the recoil threw him back.

Also, look at the link I provided, narrated by the newscaster. The clip stops short of the shot fired but clearly shows both of his hands in the air and the officer's gun in the car, pointed at his head.

I am sure every single frame of this video will be scrutinized by both the prosecution and defense teams in the weeks or months leading up to the trial. But you have to remember that Tensing did not have the benefit of slow-mo video or stills but lived the encounter in real time. The time between the traffic stop going fubar and the shot was very short and Tensing would not have had the time to realize DuBose put his hands up in the split second before he shot.

 

[fast]

Try actually reading my full post. I acknowledge that the cop seems to have pulled his gun inappropriately to initially stop DuBose from fleeing which is was definitely in the act of doing when he started the car prompting the cop to yell "stop" and reach in. But once DuBose began to accelerate, which he definitely did prior to the shot, he put the cop in danger and the cop reacted under that duress. I already said, he might have shot DuBose more as an attempt to stop a fleeing criminal (suspected of being a danger to others on the road), but that isn't murder and it doesn't change the fact that he was in danger due to DuBose attempted to flee.

I was once told that it doesn't matter why I do what's right so long as what I do is right. If the officer was in his moral right to shoot the fleeing suspect because of the danger posed to the officer due to the acceleration of the vehicle by the suspect, then I'm not so sure it matters if the reason the officer made the fatal shot was because the suspect was fleeing, for the presence of the justification trumps any alternative reasons.

Curiously, do you think the officer should have known that he was ultimately putting the suspects life in danger? He probably didn't think it through, but the reasoning for reaching in the vehicle would be to prevent the very thing the suspect managed to do anyway (accelerate away), and it's that (and having part of his body in the car) that presented the danger to his own life thereby creating the justification for the fatal shot of the suspect. If he knew (I don't think he did) but if he knew, then he was knowingly gambling with the suspects life when he initially reached in the vehicle (prior to the acceleration). After all, the consequence of failing to stop the suspect from doing what he did would create the added danger to the officer.

 

[ZiprHead]

I am also a fan of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Glade" rap.

"It's not Mac 10, Cartman!"

 

[Toni]

Sorry Toni, I am with the Anchorman here. You did say the recoil threw him back.

Also, look at the link I provided, narrated by the newscaster. The clip stops short of the shot fired but clearly shows both of his hands in the air and the officer's gun in the car, pointed at his head.

I am sure every single frame of this video will be scrutinized by both the prosecution and defense teams in the weeks or months leading up to the trial. But you have to remember that Tensing did not have the benefit of slow-mo video or stills but lived the encounter in real time. The time between the traffic stop going fubar and the shot was very short and Tensing would not have had the time to realize DuBose put his hands up in the split second before he shot.

That was not my objection. My objection was to the statement I had bolded:

Toni made the truly absurd claim that the officer (whom she asserts had two feet firmly on the ground at the time) was thrown backward and to the ground by the incredible recoil on his handgun.

.

I did NOT claim that he had two feet firmly on the ground (how would I know that? It's not shown in the video.) or that the recoil was incredible.

He clearly fired with one hand on the gun, and without the second hand to steady/brace against recoil. There would have been some recoil. Enough to throw him back and to the ground? I don't know. We don't actually see the shot. If the car was moving, the recoil of the gunshot plus a natural human inclination to recoil one's own arm away from such a grievous wound would have all contributed to the officer falling. It is pretty clear that he wasn't dragged for 30 feet but instead was running alongside the car, possibly to try to turn off the engine as that is what he attempted to do just before killing Dubose. It isn't hard to believe that he fell. It is pretty hard to believe that a dead man 'rabbited' away, as Loren claims unless to rabbit means that a dead foot presses down on the car's accelerator, causing the vehicle to move forward.

Tensing surely did know that Dubose's hands were in the air. By the video's account, it's more than a 'split second' that Dubose's hands are in the air. Tensing made a split second decision to fire his weapon into the skull of a man. He surely had the duty to notice whether or not the man was actually being threatening or showing submission by having his hands in the air.

 

[abaddon]

I wouldn’t know why DuBose’s hands are in the air (mostly the left, the right only looks to have moved a very little just before getting shot). I would think he’s panicking and freaking out.

In fact it looks a lot like two men panicking and freaking out. But only one of them had the professional responsibility to not do so.

Crimes aren’t always planned, some are heedless. One of these guys is called an "officer" and a "cop", the other is called a "criminal". But they're both criminals now (though the one's needlessly dead).

This is not a “justified shoot” or “justified kill”. Tensing’s reason for shooting comes after creating a problem that he then tries to solve by shooting somebody.

 

[RavenSky]

And it totally supports the fact that IF the car was moving (rather than the cop), it was moving barely inches and was therefore no danger to the cop at all. But it looks to me like the cop was the one moving - forward towards the front of Dubose's car. Look where Dubose's is in each frame.

It wasn't moving all that fast because he had just started to drive off.

IF the car was moving at all at that point (& I do not believe it was) you just admitted that the cop was in no danger because "it wasn't moving all that fast".

P.S. Your repeated use of the word "rabbited" like you are using some official lingo makes your posts sound ridiculous, especially since it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

 

[RavenSky]

Huh

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/cincinnati-shooting-samuel-dubose-gin-6189266

A gin bottle found in the car of a black man shot dead by a police officer contained air freshener not alcohol, a coroner has confirmed.

I am also a fan of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Glade" rap.

Exactly as Dubose said.

I wonder if Derec will have the good grace to admit he was wrong.

 

[atrib]

I wouldn’t know why DuBose’s hands are in the air (mostly the left, the right only looks to have moved a very little just before getting shot). I would think he’s panicking and freaking out.

In fact it looks a lot like two men panicking and freaking out. But only one of them had the professional responsibility to not do so.

Crimes aren’t always carefully planned, some are heedless. When describing an interpretation of the events, we can call the one an officer of the law and the other a criminal, and that’s correct. Or we can call them both criminals, and that’s correct too. Saying the officer was inept but not malicious makes him less criminal than a murderer but still criminal.

But this is not a “justified shoot” or “justified kill”. Tensing’s reason for shooting comes after creating the problem where he then imagines that shooting somebody will solve that problem.

As I had written earlier in this thread, the killing was either an act of criminal incompetence, or the result of malice. I think Officer Tensing was foolish to put his left arm into the car to do whatever he was trying to do while holding a loaded gun to Dubose's head, and it is clear from the video that his left hand was not physically entangled with anything in the car before or at the time he discharged his weapon.
(1) The car had barely moved between the time he put his left arm into the car and the time he fired his gun, and
(2) had his left arm been caught up causing him to be dragged he would not have been able to maintain control of his body and fire his gun.

I think the discharge may have been accidental (not premeditated), but he is still responsible for taking the life of a human being who did not deserve to be put down like a rabid animal. I think Tensing will be spending time in prison in the company of real gangbangers, without a badge and gun to hide behind.

 

[atrib]

Huh

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/cincinnati-shooting-samuel-dubose-gin-6189266


I am also a fan of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Glade" rap.

Exactly as Dubose said.

I wonder if Derec will have the good grace to admit he was wrong.

I suspect Derec and Loren will continue to apologize for the killing all the way to Tensing's sentencing. As Loren has told us, all uneducated poor black people are gangbangers, and he probably believes cops are doing the world a favor by putting them down in the streets.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

anti-tank rifle

ummm . . .

What I had in mind:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTRS-41

There is such a thing as an anti-tank rifle, although it wouldn't work against modern tank armor.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

He possibly rolled a few (as in 2 or 3) feet while playing push-hands with the policeman.

Whether he rolled a bit, had only just started to drive away (so weirdly slowly), or was stationary, it all comes back to the same thing: So what?

2 or 3 feet in a very short period of time--DuBose had stomped on the gas.

If he hadn't freed himself.

Freed himself of his grip on the seatbelt.

You're assuming that he wasn't restrained. I don't see his left arm, we don't know what happened to it.

Try again to name what Tensing was stuck to, very specifically. Base it on what we all see, and no more repeating the officer's blatant lie about his hand being stuck in the steering wheel or any visibly false conjectures about DuBose holding onto any part of Tensing's clothing or body. Tensing fell only after the car actually accelerated. Which was after he'd shot DuBose. Isn't it interesting it only finally accelerated in the way most people would expect a person intent on escape would do, only after he was shot in the head?

The frames upthread show movement before the shot.

To whatever extent Tensing may have been in danger, he created ALL of that danger himself.

True but irrelevant. That's the fundamental difference between civilian and LEO self defense. A civilian isn't allowed to create the hazard that leads to the use of force, cops routinely create the hazard in the course of their duty.

I do agree he made a big mistake in reaching into the car but that's not enough to remove the right of self defense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We have three reference points in the first three shots--the steering wheel (note that it's off screen in the first one but we can figure out where it has to be), the passenger window frame and the car in the background. There is no possible movement of the camera that would cause the shift we see, that can only happen with either the car moving to the left or the parked car sliding to the right. Since we have no major event that could have slid the parked car to the right we are left with him driving to the left--he was rabbiting before the shot was fired.

No. Please look again. The vehicle framed by the passenger window isn't the only thing that moved with respect to the window frame. So did Dubose's head--it moved backwards with reference to the upright vehicle window frame. The angle at which the images were shot changed because they were taken by the video camera on the officer's body and the officer moved. Dubose's position possibly changed because he was shot in the head.

As you say, DuBose moved--ignore his position. Look only at the position of fixed objects. From how they move we can determine how the scene is moving.

It would help if you knew something about firearms. He fired a handgun, not an anti-tank rifle. There is nothing like the recoil you are envisioning.

With one hand, he fired. Not with a second hand acting to stabilize. At near point blank range. I still cannot figure out how that happened if he was being dragged along by the car.

And why couldn't it happen? The range is very short, the lack of a stabilizing hand won't make him miss. I would be very surprised if he hadn't practiced shooting one-handed.

When he points out how his pant leg shows he was 'dragged,' I cannot see ANY damage. If he had been dragged by a car that was speeding away, his pants would have been in shreds.

If he hadn't freed himself.

You mean if he hadn't let go of the seatbelt. If he had been dragged even a little bit, his pants would have been really messed up, visibly showing skin. Heck, I got more messed up falling from my bicycle when I was learning to ride a bike.

You're assuming he wasn't able to keep his feet under him as the car started to roll.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If it was that cut and dried then why did Tensing and his fellow officers feel the need to lie about what happened?

You simply decided they lied.

 

[Derec]

As Loren has told us, all uneducated poor black people are gangbangers,

#notallblackpeople, but this one was, if not a gangbanger, then certainly a criminal. He was convicted in 2005 for drug trafficking and 2 pounds (easily "with intent" quantities) were found in his car.

and he probably believes cops are doing the world a favor by putting them down in the streets.

Had he not tried to flee he would have been arrested, drugs would have been found, and he would have gone to prison for a good long time. He gambled big and lost everything.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In an ideological effort to deny that the officer was movements and tumble were in any way affected by the momentum of the moving vehicle driven by the fleeing criminal, Toni made the truly absurd claim that the officer (whom she asserts had two feet firmly on the ground at the time) was thrown backward and to the ground by the incredible recoil on his handgun. Loren, pointed out that this is utterly impossible unless the gun had the notorious collar bone breaking recoil of an ant-tank rife capable of piercing tanks. Then ksen displayed his own ignorance of firearms by implying that such guns don't even exist, despite a simple google search required to establish their reality and validity of Loren's point.

No, I didn't. What a bunch of garbage.

Loren mentioned the anti tank rifle in post 201.

He summed up the subthread accurately.

 

[Toni]

No. Please look again. The vehicle framed by the passenger window isn't the only thing that moved with respect to the window frame. So did Dubose's head--it moved backwards with reference to the upright vehicle window frame. The angle at which the images were shot changed because they were taken by the video camera on the officer's body and the officer moved. Dubose's position possibly changed because he was shot in the head.

As you say, DuBose moved--ignore his position. Look only at the position of fixed objects. From how they move we can determine how the scene is moving.

Read more carefullyl the officer wearing the camera moved, which is why there are different angles of the interior of the vehicle.

And why couldn't it happen? The range is very short, the lack of a stabilizing hand won't make him miss. I would be very surprised if he hadn't practiced shooting one-handed.

Please note: I never suggested the lack of a stabilizing hand would make him miss. At that range, it would be hard to do.

When he points out how his pant leg shows he was 'dragged,' I cannot see ANY damage. If he had been dragged by a car that was speeding away, his pants would have been in shreds.

If he hadn't freed himself.

I honestly don't quite understand how you think things happened. He obviously shot Dubose in the head at close range, with the hand holding his firearm inside the vehicle.

Can you please give me a timeline, or at least an order of these events. When did the vehicle start to 'speed away?' When did Tensing shoot Dubose in the head? When did Tensing begin to be dragged by the speeding vehicle? When did he free himself? What happened first? second? third? fourth?

I think I am misunderstanding you because the timeline I think you mean simply doesn't make sense. Can you please clarify it for me?

You're assuming he wasn't able to keep his feet under him as the car started to roll.

Yes, I am assuming (his version/your version) that he wasn't able to keep his feet because in the video, when speaking to the other officer, he says he was dragged and points to damage on his pant leg that is not discernible in the video. I would expect more damage if his pants leg had been damaged because he was dragged in the street. But that seems to be contradicted because earlier in the video, we can clearly hear Tensing's footsteps and breathing as he moves along side the car as it moves: he's not being dragged, he's running along side it. The car cannot be moving that fast because he can keep up without difficulty. His breathing is not labored, the footfall is not that quick. He's not running fast. The car does not seem to be 'speeding.'

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Freed himself from WHAT? The only thing keeping him in the car was his hand on the seatbelt. Dubose's hands were in the air when the shot was fired.

And Tensing was not being dragged; during his "Stop.... STOP!" engagement his body actually moves FORWARD with respect to the window.

Observe:

Tensing lunges into the car: his foot is still on the ground

Tensing yells "stop" the first time. See the reflection on the car's side panel. Not only is he still on his own two feet, but he is far enough away that his body is not touching the side panel yet.

^ Tensing draws his gun. Dubose puts his hands up and Tensing is reaching for his seatbelt. He is not holding on to anything that would physically keep him attached to the car.

^ Tensing grabs the seatbelt and leans FURTHER into the car, thrusting the gun towards Dubose's head. Note the angle of Tensing's arm; he is slightly IN FRONT of Dubose, pulling his seatbelt forward.

^ Half a second after the gunshot kills the driver, the car begins moving forward. Tensing starts to fall back and a moment later the rear frame of the window makes contact with his hand (it doesn't STRIKE his hand; the car is still moving too slowly for that).


There's one really obvious flaw with the "he shot in self defense" theory: Tensing reached into the car with his LEFT hand while drawing the gun with his right. If the car had been dragging him, his left arm would have been pulled to the back of that window and Tensing would no longer be able to place his right arm into the window to shoot Dubose in the head.

So it's really very simple. Tensing was NOT dragged by the car. Not thirty feet. Not thirty inches. He shot Dubose in the head and then threw himself backwards as the car began to move.

Go stick your arm and head into your friends car window and have them step on the gas. Then you'll see how armchair simplistic your notion is that him running along side the car and also being pulled along against his will are mutually exclusive.

"Running alongside the car" and "being dragged against his will" ARE mutually exclusive. Running alongside the car -- assuming that's what he actually did -- means he is deliberately keeping his position relative to the car in an attempt to continue to engage Dubose. There goes any justification whatsoever for the gunshot in that case...

He had to run along side it at first or his arm and possible head would have gotten caught in there

IF he was running alongside the car, then all he had to do was pull his arms and/or head OUT of the car and get out of the way.

But he's not running alongside the car. Walking or shuffling at most, although he still may very well be stationary.

Note in the 3rd frame that Eddie presents, it is clear that the drivers seat isn't even parallel yet to the right-hand (from the officers view) sidewalk on that cross street and you can only see the right 20% of the SUV. By the Derec's second frame, the officer is not yet pointing his gun and yet that right hand sidewalk is already out of view and the driver's seat is already parallel with the SUV, which is now in full view. By the time the gun is fired, the drivers seat is now almost parallel with the row of bushes...

It's not actually possible to determine that from the footage because Tensing is not parallel to the sidewalk or the driver's seat, nor is his relative position constant. You're basically trying to judge whether or not the car is moving by measuring from the perspective of a chaotically-moving camera (with a wide-angle lens, no less).

Also, it is total nonsense that the driver ever "put his hands in the air" as though to surrender.

I'm not sure why he put his hands in the air; it's clear that his hands WERE in the air and not, for example, on the steering wheel (in an attempt to steer the car in an escape maneuver) or on Tensing's body or uniform.

Yes, he was probably trying to run along side of it because his head and arm were in the car when it started to move and that would be the instinctual reflex as would holding onto the seatbelt.

I believe the instinctive response when the car you're leaning in is starting to move forward is to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WINDOW.

I could be wrong about this, of course. It is entirely possible that human beings are hard-wired to stick their heads deep into the windows of moving cars and then attempt to shoot the diver, just as a matter of instinct. But, somehow, I doubt it.

That said, he probably should not have pulled the gun to try and stop him or reached in to put himself at risk when the driver drove off.

No, he DEFINITELY should not have pulled a gun to try and stop him or reached in and put himself at risk. His resorting to deadly force in the process of that colossally stupid move is the reason he is being indicted for murder.

BTW, if we are going to allow DUI that results in deaths to be prosecuted as homicide (which is currently the case), then isn't a DUI suspect that attempts to drive off engaging in attempted homicide?

No, because a DUI doesn't necessarily result in a fatal accident.

More importantly, given that a moving car with a dead man at the wheel could just as easily run over an innocent bystander on the sidewalk, shouldn't the officer face an additional charge of reckless endangerment of the public?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Way to shoot yourself in the foot. The back of that white car is about 35 feet from the officer in the first image. That guy next to that car is shorter than each of the segments in the sidewalk he is walking on, making each segment about 7 feet, with 3 segments between that sidestreet (where the SUV is) and the back of the car). That is 28 feet, plus the cop parallel with the near side of that sidestreet, so that is another 10 feet for 38 total.

Make it easier on yourself, Ron; Dubose' car is two car lengths behind the car in front of him (about 16 feet for an average four-door car). The water stain in the middle of the street is more or less at the midpoint of those two car lengths, and by the time Tensing has rolled back to his feet he is slightly behind the position of the water stain. That's a displacement of fourteen feet maximum, far less than the 30 feet Loren and Derec are claiming.

The car wasn't in motion when Tensing dove into the window. It wasn't in motion when he fired the shot. It WAS in motion immediately AFTER the shot (you can actually hear the engine rev up in the audio) and we can see Tensing's hand getting grasping the window for a quarter of a second as he falls. Guess what else we can see?

^ Bottom of the frame: those are Tensing's legs falling out from under him. Which is what ACTUALLY happens when one is being dragged on the side of a moving car.

The car accelerates rapidly after the shot and Tensing falls over, rolls, gets back to his feet. Displacement of about 14 feet, let's call it a generous 16 for the sake of argument. He wasn't being dragged for that long, maybe a quarter a second. But covering 14 feet in one half to one quarter of a second means the car would have an average speed in that period of about 20 mph. Which seems to me consistent with the car suddenly having its accelerator driven to the floor by the dead man's foot.

Which is what we see in the video and what we hear in the audio: Tensing yells stop, followed by a tussle, followed by a gunshot, followed by the sound of the engine revving and Tensing falling over and rolling backwards.

Your alternate explanation is that Tensing ran alongside the car for two seconds while he was wrestling for control of the car. The struggle itself lasts about two seconds; if that motion alone accounts for Tensing's new position, then the car was moving at an average speed of about 5 mph, which is basically a brisk walking speed. But then that doesn't account for the car's burst of acceleration or Tensing falling backwards, which means it would have to have been moving slower than that, far less than 3mph.

Which means there are three possibilities:
1) The car was stationary when Tensing shot Dubose and the burst of acceleration knocked him on his ass (he hits the ground so hard that for a second the bodycam is pointed at his face).

2) The car was crawling at a fast walking pace and Tensing was leaning in, following along when he shot Dubose and the burst of acceleration caused him to fall over.

3) The car was crawling at a snail's pace and Tensing was leaning in, following along when he shot Dubose and the burst of acceleration startled him into loosing his balance.

The only thing that DIDN'T happen is that Tensing was dragged by the car and shot Dubose in self defense. That's just bullshit: at NO time before the shot was fired was Tensing in any actual danger, despite his most earnest efforts to place himself in it. He WAS in danger when the car accelerated and if he'd rolled the wrong way the rear tires would have gone over his head. So, for that matter, was anyone else who might have found themselves in the path of that runaway car. But that, again, is a danger of his own making, a result of his choice to end Dubose's life rather than allow him to resist.

Not to mention he was also now on the other side of the road from the car because the moving criminals car not only pulled him forward but pushed him backward due to the driver steering to his left to try and get around that white car as he tried to flee, all of which he did before being shot in the head.

We actually see Dubose's steering wheel immediately before the shooting; it's already turned slightly to the left, and Dubose never has a chance to touch it before he is shot in the head.

And it bears repeating: Tensing PULLED FORWARD on Dubose's seatbelt, from a position slightly in front of him, close to the rearview mirror, immediately before he fired the shot. Whatever speed the car was moving at that point (anywhere between 0 and 5mph, we've determined) Tensing was moving faster.

 

[Toni]

No, I didn't. What a bunch of garbage.

Loren mentioned the anti tank rifle in post 201.

He summed up the subthread accurately.

No. He invented quite a lot of garbage and attributed it to me.