Killed by police - 2015

[Derec]

I don't think anyone has suggested that was a suicide by cop.

It wasn't even that the cop attempted to use deadly force. Garner died to a great extent due to his underlying medical condition, and not because the choke hold (if the hold used is the banned - by department policy, not law - choke hold) is normally lethal.

 

[bigfield]

I don't think anyone has suggested that was a suicide by cop.

It wasn't even that the cop attempted to use deadly force. Garner died to a great extent due to his underlying medical condition, and not because the choke hold (if the hold used is the banned - by department policy, not law - choke hold) is normally lethal.

If a choke hold can accidentally kill someone with a medical condition, then the police should not be using choke holds.

Garner was killed by the incompetence of poorly-trained cops.

Reform the police.

 

[Derec]

If a choke hold can accidentally kill someone with a medical condition, then the police should not be using choke holds.
Garner was killed by the incompetence of poorly-trained cops.
Reform the police.

That's why the guy is being investigated internally and will be disciplined if it turns out he indeed used a banned choke hold. He could not be prosecuted because there was no actual law against it though.

That said, you will never be able to avoid all accidental deaths, especially when trying to arrest those with medical conditions. A tasing could have triggered a heart attack too, or trying to subdue him physically. There was a case where a 350 lbs trans-woman who was drunk and high died while police tried to arrest her. Shit happens, and you can never account for every eventuality.

 

[bigfield]

If a choke hold can accidentally kill someone with a medical condition, then the police should not be using choke holds.
Garner was killed by the incompetence of poorly-trained cops.
Reform the police.

That's why the guy is being investigated internally and will be disciplined if it turns out he indeed used a banned choke hold. He could not be prosecuted because there was no actual law against it though.

That said, you will never be able to avoid all accidental deaths, especially when trying to arrest those with medical conditions. A tasing could have triggered a heart attack too, or trying to subdue him physically.

Garner's death is a symptom of a larger and far more important problem: poor police training and regulation.

The consequences for the officer are not nearly as important as the consequences for the department. The NYPD needs to fix the systematic problems that lead them to put unprepared, incompetent officers out on duty, resulting in easily-avoidable deaths that would never happen under the aegis of a competent department.

 

[Derec]

Garner's death is a symptom of a larger and far more important problem: poor police training and regulation.

Also a symptom of suspects resisting arrest which necessitates an escalation of force by officers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think anyone has suggested that was a suicide by cop.

I'm thinking of cases like the 16 year old kid driving a stolen car who pointed realistic replica at the cop who stopped him--people choosing death over jail.

False dichotomy. You cannot assume that the perpetrator wants the police officer to kill him because he is pointing a gun; it may be that the perp is simply desperate to escape, and in desperation, thinks that such an action will help him get away, even though a dispassionate third party can clearly see that's insane.

People in situations like that are far from rational actors: their actions cannot be interpreted as calculated and the result (their death) cannot be interpreted as the result of premeditation.

And how would pointing a fake gun help him escape??

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It wasn't even that the cop attempted to use deadly force. Garner died to a great extent due to his underlying medical condition, and not because the choke hold (if the hold used is the banned - by department policy, not law - choke hold) is normally lethal.

If a choke hold can accidentally kill someone with a medical condition, then the police should not be using choke holds.

Garner was killed by the incompetence of poorly-trained cops.

Reform the police.

There's no such thing as perfect safety in police operations.

 

[bigfield]

Garner's death is a symptom of a larger and far more important problem: poor police training and regulation.

Also a symptom of suspects resisting arrest which necessitates an escalation of force by officers.

Yes, but poorly trained and regulated police exacerbate the problem. As police in other countries have demonstrated, the US police could do a much better job of dealing with such people without killing them.

False dichotomy. You cannot assume that the perpetrator wants the police officer to kill him because he is pointing a gun; it may be that the perp is simply desperate to escape, and in desperation, thinks that such an action will help him get away, even though a dispassionate third party can clearly see that's insane.

People in situations like that are far from rational actors: their actions cannot be interpreted as calculated and the result (their death) cannot be interpreted as the result of premeditation.

And how would pointing a fake gun help him escape??

In his panic, he may have thought he could use the threat of a firearm to keep the police officer at bay. It's not a rational course of action by any means, but it's a leap to conclude that the perpetrator wanted to be killed by the police officer.

If a choke hold can accidentally kill someone with a medical condition, then the police should not be using choke holds.

Garner was killed by the incompetence of poorly-trained cops.

Reform the police.

There's no such thing as perfect safety in police operations.

I'm not suggesting perfect safety; I'm suggesting safety comparable to other developed nations where the rate of deaths-by-police are a tiny fraction of the rate in the US. That's not too much to ask.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not suggesting perfect safety; I'm suggesting safety comparable to other developed nations where the rate of deaths-by-police are a tiny fraction of the rate in the US. That's not too much to ask.

Not long ago we had a case posted on here where a German policewoman advanced on a knife-armed attacker--and got stabbed. Is that the kind of safety you want?

 

[arkirk]

I'm not suggesting perfect safety; I'm suggesting safety comparable to other developed nations where the rate of deaths-by-police are a tiny fraction of the rate in the US. That's not too much to ask.

Not long ago we had a case posted on here where a German policewoman advanced on a knife-armed attacker--and got stabbed. Is that the kind of safety you want?

So, a cop with a gun killing an unarmed person is somehow better? Police train in tactics to control suspects physically. That training appears to go by the wayside as soon as some cop gets his hands on a shiny new gun and finds himself in an even slightly challenging environment. You seem to take joy in the idea of a "suspect" being defeated by a cop with a gun. Do you think of what these cops do with criminals as some kind of sporting contests? Police work is a thankless and very frustrating job and the idea of winning by killing is unacceptable...well to some of us at least.

 

[laughing dog]

I'm not suggesting perfect safety; I'm suggesting safety comparable to other developed nations where the rate of deaths-by-police are a tiny fraction of the rate in the US. That's not too much to ask.

Not long ago we had a case posted on here where a German policewoman advanced on a knife-armed attacker--and got stabbed. Is that the kind of safety you want?

If the trade off is that the Tamir Rice's of the world are not gunned down, then yes.

 

[Derec]

If the trade off is that the Tamir Rice's of the world are not gunned down, then yes.

 

[bigfield]

I'm not suggesting perfect safety; I'm suggesting safety comparable to other developed nations where the rate of deaths-by-police are a tiny fraction of the rate in the US. That's not too much to ask.

Not long ago we had a case posted on here where a German policewoman advanced on a knife-armed attacker--and got stabbed. Is that the kind of safety you want?

Yes. That's the kind of safety we enjoy here in the rest of the developed world. You are the aberration.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not long ago we had a case posted on here where a German policewoman advanced on a knife-armed attacker--and got stabbed. Is that the kind of safety you want?

So, a cop with a gun killing an unarmed person is somehow better? Police train in tactics to control suspects physically. That training appears to go by the wayside as soon as some cop gets his hands on a shiny new gun and finds himself in an even slightly challenging environment. You seem to take joy in the idea of a "suspect" being defeated by a cop with a gun. Do you think of what these cops do with criminals as some kind of sporting contests? Police work is a thankless and very frustrating job and the idea of winning by killing is unacceptable...well to some of us at least.

Your inability to understand that unarmed doesn't mean no threat doesn't change reality.

- - - Updated - - -

Not long ago we had a case posted on here where a German policewoman advanced on a knife-armed attacker--and got stabbed. Is that the kind of safety you want?

If the trade off is that the Tamir Rice's of the world are not gunned down, then yes.

In your world you'll replace Tamar Rice with a bunch of kids killed because law enforcement is ineffective.

 

[laughing dog]

In your world you'll replace Tamar Rice with a bunch of kids killed because law enforcement is ineffective.

I realize you feel the need to pull out these simplistic conclusions drawn from your bizarrely reasoned and assumed scenarios, but that doesn't make them convincing to the rest of the world. Asking police to be more careful about who they kill doesn't make them ineffective, it makes them more effective because police work is not about killing people.

 

[laughing dog]

One would think that around 1,200 people were killed by the police in one year is a problem for society would be obvious regardless of how many of those deaths were justified and how many were not justified, because 1,200 people were killed. The nature of the problem for society is different based on the circumstances of their deaths, but that does not mean there is not a problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In your world you'll replace Tamar Rice with a bunch of kids killed because law enforcement is ineffective.

I realize you feel the need to pull out these simplistic conclusions drawn from your bizarrely reasoned and assumed scenarios, but that doesn't make them convincing to the rest of the world. Asking police to be more careful about who they kill doesn't make them ineffective, it makes them more effective because police work is not about killing people.

The point is that it makes the police less effective, thus crime will go up.

 

[laughing dog]

The point is that it makes the police less effective, thus crime will go up.

Asking police to be more careful about who they kill doesn't make them ineffective, it makes them more effective because police work is not about killing people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The point is that it makes the police less effective, thus crime will go up.

Asking police to be more careful about who they kill doesn't make them ineffective, it makes them more effective because police work is not about killing people.

It means they're either more likely to die or less likely to get involved.

We are seeing that as a result of this BLM crap--the police backing off, crime going up.

 

[bigfield]

Asking police to be more careful about who they kill doesn't make them ineffective, it makes them more effective because police work is not about killing people.

It means they're either more likely to die or less likely to get involved.

We are seeing that as a result of this BLM crap--the police backing off, crime going up.

Try stepping out of your little bubble and see how non-US police prevent crime quite effectively without killing people at anywhere near the rate of US police.