Price Waterhouse analyst murdered in his home by police

[Derec]

I think that you missed PH's point.

I do not think I have. I think he really thinks many more police officer should be prosecuted for shooting perps.

 

[laughing dog]

That 12 year old (Tamir Rice)
- was armed with a realistic looking replica that had orange tip removed to make it resemble a real gun even more

- had adult-like height and weight (in fact, he had similar height and weight to oft maligned, but fully adult George
While it is true that one of the officers pulled too close to Rice and the other officer opened fire too quickly, you can't only blame them.

This has beeb discussed to death. Tamir Rice was unarmed and no threat to anyone. The police rushed in without bothering to ascertain ehat eas happening,

The two officers killed that boy. Of course thst can be blamed. Tsmet Rice is not responsible for his height or weight or the fears.

 

[Derec]

This has beeb discussed to death.

Yes, it definitely has beeb[sic].

Tamir Rice was unarmed

BS. A realistic looking replica, modified to look even more realistic, qualifies as being armed. Had he held up a convenience store with it, he'd have been charged with armed robbery, like this guy was. Or these two geniuses.

and no threat to anyone.

Only in hindsight.

The police rushed in without bothering to ascertain ehat eas happening,

Agreed. There is blame all around.

Tsmet Rice is not responsible for his height or weight or the fears.

Of course not. But it did make him look more adult than he was.

Also "Tsmet" and all the other typos? 21st century version of this affliction?

 

[laughing dog]

BS. A realistic looking replica, modified to look even more realistic, qualifies as being armed.

A toy gun is not a weapon, so he was not armed.

Only in hindsight.

BS. He had no weapon and he was not menacing anyone.

Of course not. But it did make him look more adult than he was.

That is no excuse for cowardice.

 

[Derec]

A toy gun is not a weapon, so he was not armed.

It was a realistic looking replica, further modified to make it look even more realistic. He was armed for the purposes of how police are to respond to a threat. Unlike Monday morning quarterbacks like you, police do not possess the power of hindsight.

BS. He had no weapon and he was not menacing anyone.

He had a weapon. A weapon that was deliberately modified to resemble a firearm even more than it already did.

That is no excuse for cowardice.

It's not an excuse for anything. Just an explanation as to why he would be perceived as a young adult (or at least an older teenager) with a real gun rather than a tween at play.

 

[Metaphor]

A toy gun is not a weapon, so he was not armed.

It's irrelevant that it wasn't a real gun, as long as it reasonably looked like a real gun.

But the repeated reminder that somebody was unarmed seems to me to carry the implicit assumption that therefore somebody was not dangerous or that it was unreasonable to think they were dangerous or that using a gun against them is never justified. None of these is true. Of the cops who die each year in the line of duty, some fraction of them die from gun wounds from their own weapon that was grabbed and shot by somebody they were encountering.

If you are carrying a loaded gun and pointing it, you are making a credible threat of violence. If you do the exact same thing with an unloaded gun, you are making a credible threat of violence. If you do the exact same thing with a realistic replica, you are making a credible threat of violence.

 

[laughing dog]

A toy gun is not a weapon, so he was not armed.

It's irrelevant that it wasn't a real gun, as long as it reasonably looked like a real gun.

It is not irrelevant- he was not armed.

But the repeated reminder that somebody was unarmed seems to me to carry the implicit assumption that therefore somebody was not dangerous or that it was unreasonable to think they were dangerous or that using a gun against them is never justified. None of these is true. Of the cops who die each year in the line of duty, some fraction of them die from gun wounds from their own weapon that was grabbed and shot by somebody they were encountering.

Is there a relevant point here? Of the unarmed civilians killed by police each year, some fraction were not dangerous or threatening anyone.

If you are carrying a loaded gun and pointing it, you are making a credible threat of violence. If you do the exact same thing with an unloaded gun, you are making a credible threat of violence. If you do the exact same thing with a realistic replica, you are making a credible threat of violence.

Tamir Rice was not pointing his toy at anyone when two police officers killed him.

 

[laughing dog]

It was a realistic looking replica, further modified to make it look even more realistic. He was armed for the purposes of how police are to respond to a threat. Unlike Monday morning quarterbacks like you, police do not possess the power of hindsight.

Which means they should not shoot first then ask questions.

He had a weapon.

Rational discussion is not possible when someone insists that a toy is a weapon.

 

[Metaphor]

It is not irrelevant- he was not armed.

But the repeated reminder that somebody was unarmed seems to me to carry the implicit assumption that therefore somebody was not dangerous or that it was unreasonable to think they were dangerous or that using a gun against them is never justified. None of these is true. Of the cops who die each year in the line of duty, some fraction of them die from gun wounds from their own weapon that was grabbed and shot by somebody they were encountering.

Is there a relevant point here? Of the unarmed civilians killed by police each year, some fraction were not dangerous or threatening anyone.

Irrelevant to whether shooting them was justified. If a reasonable trained person would have believed they were a threat, that is sufficient to act like they are a threat.

 

[laughing dog]

It is not irrelevant- he was not armed.

But the repeated reminder that somebody was unarmed seems to me to carry the implicit assumption that therefore somebody was not dangerous or that it was unreasonable to think they were dangerous or that using a gun against them is never justified. None of these is true. Of the cops who die each year in the line of duty, some fraction of them die from gun wounds from their own weapon that was grabbed and shot by somebody they were encountering.

Is there a relevant point here? Of the unarmed civilians killed by police each year, some fraction were not dangerous or threatening anyone.

Irrelevant to whether shooting them was justified. If a reasonable trained person would have believed they were a threat, that is sufficient to act like they are a threat.

No one mentioned justified.

Fortunately, neither the prosecutor nor the jury nor the judge fell for such nonsense in this case.

 

[Metaphor]

Irrelevant to whether shooting them was justified. If a reasonable trained person would have believed they were a threat, that is sufficient to act like they are a threat.

No one mentioned justified.

Fortunately, neither the prosecutor nor the jury nor the judge fell for such nonsense in this case.

If the actual case of being armed or not is irrelevant to whether a cop shooting is justified, which you seem to agree, then why do you keep bringing it up?

 

[blastula]

FRFF has made a complaint with the judicial commission over the judge's proselytizing to Guyger. When the judge hugged her, she also gave her a bible and preached to her. That is weird, not down with that.

Amber Guyger judge's proselytization an abuse of power, FFRF charges - Freedom From Religion Foundation

 

[ruby sparks]

My tuppenceworth:

On the proselytizing: personally, I think it could have been overlooked in this instance, but that's not up to me. I admire both the Judge and the brother for their forgivingness and that is what is the main takeaway here for me. Society could do with more forgiveness and if religion spurs some to more forgiveness then that's a plus for religion, imo.

On who forgives and who doesn't: it seems a sad reflection on race issues in the USA today that what the two (black in this case) people did quickly starts an (online) debate about which race forgives the other more. That said, I googled for quite a while last night and the pattern does seem to be that blacks in such situations express forgiveness more often than the reverse. A lot more, if my googling is anything to go by. It wasn't a comprehensive survey. If it is the case, one could speculate about the reasons, and some have. One might be that blacks are in general more religious than whites. I doubt that's the only factor.

On Tamir Rice: I do think there was blame on both sides, as expressed by derec. Blame may not be the best word. It seems wrong to apply it equally to a trained, supposedly responsible adult police officer and a 12-year old boy, but what I mean is I can see how the boy's behaviour was part of the reason he was shot.

On Police shootings in general: with data such as unarmed blacks representing over 40% of all unarmed shootings while blacks are only 13% of the population, and indeed other statistics, studies and analysis of police behaviour in general, I think there is definitely enough cause to be concerned. That said, I also think the case that police are racist is sometimes overstated.

 

[ruby sparks]

"Results also indicate that religion helped individuals’ to
forgive whites for the historical racial offenses. Forgiveness
literature indicates that religiosity contributes forgiveness
[40], [73], [74], [75], [76]. Besides, religion has always been
an important coping mechanism for African Americans [77],
[78], [79], [80] African Americans tend to have higher levels
of religious participation than other groups in the United
States [81], [82], [83]. In the unique history of African
Americans, slavery and other forms of oppression has resulted
in distinctive religiosity [83]. African Americans use formal
religious involvement to cope with social adversities such as
race, class, and gender oppression [84], [85], family and
parenting stress, psychological distress, and daily hassles [86].
It also has been documented that religion plays a role in
shaping African Americans’ cognitive outcomes [i.e.,
interpretations and appraisals of events], including a role in
framing such events in times of adversity [87]. Therefore,
from the findings of this study, it can be suggested that
religion helps African Americans to cope with historical
adversities."

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.308.3330&rep=rep1&type=pdf

 

[ruby sparks]

So one process could be that those facing more adversity more often turn to religion as a coping mechanism, and the religion in turn urges more forgiveness.

 

[ruby sparks]

Also worth noting that Guyger had already openly indicated in court that she was (a) full of remorse, and (b) receptive to receiving forgiveness, including from god.

AMBER GUYGER: "I felt like a piece of crap. And I asked God for forgiveness. And I hate myself every single day. I wish he was the one with the gun and he killed me. I never wanted to take an innocent person's life."

Is it even proselytizing in that case?

 

[laughing dog]

Irrelevant to whether shooting them was justified. If a reasonable trained person would have believed they were a threat, that is sufficient to act like they are a threat.

No one mentioned justified.

Fortunately, neither the prosecutor nor the jury nor the judge fell for such nonsense in this case.

If the actual case of being armed or not is irrelevant to whether a cop shooting is justified, which you seem to agree, then why do you keep bringing it up?

The premise of your question is s straw man.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is not irrelevant- he was not armed.

But the repeated reminder that somebody was unarmed seems to me to carry the implicit assumption that therefore somebody was not dangerous or that it was unreasonable to think they were dangerous or that using a gun against them is never justified. None of these is true. Of the cops who die each year in the line of duty, some fraction of them die from gun wounds from their own weapon that was grabbed and shot by somebody they were encountering.

Is there a relevant point here? Of the unarmed civilians killed by police each year, some fraction were not dangerous or threatening anyone.

Irrelevant to whether shooting them was justified. If a reasonable trained person would have believed they were a threat, that is sufficient to act like they are a threat.

Isn't that circular? In general, this is the conservative argument on Police shootings... 'if they shot the person, the person was a threat'.The default is the shooting is justified because there was a shooting.

 

[RVonse]

I will offer a simple observation about how these cases with shootings in America, particularly involving police, play out.

This is a sad, simple story. A man in his own abode, through no fault of his own, just living his life and doing nothing wrong, was shot and killed. That should never happen. It isn't complicated.

The discussion of these issues, even here on a freethought blog where logic and reason vary significantly from other settings, principally shifts to trying to explain, solely from the perspective of the shooter, why this may or may not have been an excusable event. Did the shooter have some tenable reason to feel a threat, regardless of the perspective of the victim? That is the metric American society has allowed to be applied.

It should be simple. You can't shoot people who have done nothing wrong. You are an obvious societal risk who takes a life when not needed. We as society should demand that you account for the life you took.

But that's not how it works.

At a bare minimum, this is manslaughter. The shooter negligently attempted to enter the wrong apartment. Her genuine belief that she was not wrong as to whose apartment it was may show she did not act with intent, but doesn't excuse the negligence which created the event. At best, it was a negligent taking of life due to the shooter's failure to reasonably determine the apartment was not her own.

Yet the discussion will all turn on whether her killing should be excused. "She didn't know." "It was a mistake." "He scared her." Goodness forbid anyone actually care that a guy minding his own business at home was needlessly killed.

I agree with you, should at least be a manslaughter charge.

I do also agree with Dismal that race has nothing to do with anything here. Because its actually not race.... but it was/is her sex and also the fact she was a police officer that may end up getting her out of trouble. In America, women and police officers are always treated better than anyone else. All else equal, a woman or a police officer can shoot someone without consequence. But the reverse is never true.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And yes: it is rare for police officers to be convicted of anything when they shoot unarmed people who may or may not be 'perps.' I can think of a couple of cases that were discussed on this board, one involving the shooting death of a 12 year old playing in the park who was gunned down on sight by two police officers, one of whom had been deemed unfit for duty by another PD.

you mean that kid that was terrorizing passers by with a toy gun that was modified to look real (removed the orange plug).. someone called the police... then the kid pointed the toy gun at the police... that poor innocent boy that was growing up to be such a fine young man?

.. "12 year old 'playing' in the park" my fucking ass...

Well, he was 12 and he was playing in the park--just in a threatening way.

And I don't think he "pointed" the "gun" at the police. Rather, he did what you so often see--someone is caught with contraband (and a toy gun with the tip removed is contraband) and they try to ditch it when they see the cops. Oops, to ditch a gun you generally must draw it.

The cops will assume a weapon is real unless they know otherwise, they roll up and the guy pulls a gun. Of course they shoot! A horrible outcome but the police are not at fault here. Realistic replica firearms are not something you should play with in public! (Note that something like an organized Airsoft event is fine--everyone knows the weapons on the playing field are not real.)