Tough Moral Quandary

[Gospel]

It's perfectly reasonable that our trained officers sometimes can't differentiate between a toy gun and a real one, and then receive unwavering support for their errors. Naturally, we shouldn't expect any better from untrained civilians.

 

[southernhybrid]

From the linked article:

Mylett said at least two of Liming’s friends fired the toy guns, which shoot small water-filled pellets, in the direction of the basketball players. The players ran away as two in Liming’s group ran in their direction.

The players then turned around, ran back and confronted the teens at their car, with a fight ensuing. Liming and two of his friends were assaulted, Mylett said.

“At the conclusion of it, Ethan Liming is dead,” Mylett said.

Under the circumstances, Mylett said, “Ethan Liming did not deserve to die that night at that point based on what we know now.”

Police arrested DeShawn and Tyler Stafford and their cousin Donovan Jones in Liming’s death on charges that included murder. They were held at the Summit County Jail on $1 million bonds.

Men are indicted on lesser charges​

A Summit County grand jury in late July 2022 opted to indict the three men on lesser charges.

The case also gained notoriety because of its racial overtones, though Liming’s family, police and defense attorneys agreed that race had nothing to do with what happened to Liming.

The men charged in Liming’s death are Black. Liming, who was white, was with three friends the night he died, two who are Black and one who is white, the family has said.

“We’re pretty confident — once the jurors hear all the facts — they will not have a choice but to realize this tragedy was brought on by the actions of the victim and his friends,” said Jon Sinn, who represents DeShawn Stafford.

That's the problem. While I think it was wrong and stupid to shoot the pellet guns in the direction of those who were playing on the court, if the players hadn't gone back to confront those with the pellet guns, no one would have been harmed.

And, the article mentions that two of the White boy's friends were Black, so it's hard to make this into a racial issue. It's more of a macho, you can't get away with that, so we're coming back to get you thing, in my female opinion. It's sad that someone died and others might get jail time, over such stupidity on the parts of both groups of young men. It's obvious they didn't mean to kill the teenager, but it might be hard to prove the fight was started in self defense. That will be up to a jury to decide and hopefully, their lawyer has enough information to convince a jury it was done in self defense. I don't have enough information from these articles to know exactly what happened, other than a bunch of teens and young men did some really stupid things.

 

[Politesse]

This reminds me of Zimmerman and Martin.

An Aggressor aggravates an innocuous party minding their own business. The party minding their own business confronts or engages physically with the aggressor. Then someone ends up dead.

In the Zimmerman Martin case, the aggressor killed the party minding their own business. In this case, party minding their own business killed the aggressor.

But those are just the broad strokes of what happened. As always, the devil is in the details, and luckily in this case, we have more than just the word of one party to provide some of those details. And that was always the biggest problem with the Zimmerman Martin case. We couldn't trust Zimmerman to tell us the truth. It has always boggled my mind how easily and quickly certain people chose to believe every word spoken by man with such a strong motive to lie.

Anyway, I have much more trust in a just outcome for this case as the large amount of evidence available will be weighed appropriately in a court of law.

If you can't trust a guy who regularly has the police called on him for threatening people with guns and who may well have murdered a teenager for tresspassing, who can you trust?

 

[Gospel]

While I think it was wrong and stupid to shoot the pellet guns in the direction of those who were playing on the court, if the players hadn't gone back to confront those with the pellet guns, no one would have been harmed.

I concur, except that there was harm given that charges could have been filed against Liming and his friends for assault.

 

[TV and credit cards]

And on no planet are these mistaken for real guns. Even a cop would go to prison trying to make such a claim.

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[Gospel]

Rare as it may be, there have been real guns disguised as toy guns before.

 

[Jarhyn]

The events that transpired should lead to dispassionate assignment of charges to everyone involved. There are claims of stolen cars and destroyed phones. That elevates the act to murder in a lesser degree or manslaughter in a higher degree, accessory, and grand theft, if this is indeed true, and accessory to involuntary to the other party.

Grand theft, yes. Robbery, yes. I'm not so sure on accessory to involuntary manslaughter, though.

The fact is, I would like to see guilt reflect onto all parties for deaths of either side, because that's the cost of not having responded sensibly here.

From the linked article:

Mylett said at least two of Liming’s friends fired the toy guns, which shoot small water-filled pellets, in the direction of the basketball players. The players ran away as two in Liming’s group ran in their direction.

The players then turned around, ran back and confronted the teens at their car, with a fight ensuing. Liming and two of his friends were assaulted, Mylett said.

“At the conclusion of it, Ethan Liming is dead,” Mylett said.

Under the circumstances, Mylett said, “Ethan Liming did not deserve to die that night at that point based on what we know now.”

Police arrested DeShawn and Tyler Stafford and their cousin Donovan Jones in Liming’s death on charges that included murder. They were held at the Summit County Jail on $1 million bonds.

Men are indicted on lesser charges​

A Summit County grand jury in late July 2022 opted to indict the three men on lesser charges.

The case also gained notoriety because of its racial overtones, though Liming’s family, police and defense attorneys agreed that race had nothing to do with what happened to Liming.

The men charged in Liming’s death are Black. Liming, who was white, was with three friends the night he died, two who are Black and one who is white, the family has said.

“We’re pretty confident — once the jurors hear all the facts — they will not have a choice but to realize this tragedy was brought on by the actions of the victim and his friends,” said Jon Sinn, who represents DeShawn Stafford.

That's the problem. While I think it was wrong and stupid to shoot the pellet guns in the direction of those who were playing on the court, if the players hadn't gone back to confront those with the pellet guns, no one would have been harmed.

And, the article mentions that two of the White boy's friends were Black, so it's hard to make this into a racial issue. It's more of a macho, you can't get away with that, so we're coming back to get you thing, in my female opinion. It's sad that someone died and others might get jail time, over such stupidity on the parts of both groups of young men. It's obvious they didn't mean to kill the teenager, but it might be hard to prove the fight was started in self defense. That will be up to a jury to decide and hopefully, their lawyer has enough information to convince a jury it was done in self defense. I don't have enough information from these articles to know exactly what happened, other than a bunch of teens and young men did some really stupid things.

Yeah, like, I don't see what's unclear about how they were accessories to an unintentional manslaughter, are guilty of disturbing the peace, and should themselves see consequences of only the legal recognition of their guilt with no further obligations, except perhaps to write letters of apology to the parents of their dead friend.

The people who responded are also guilty of a number of things, notably assault and unintentional homicide, or worse, depending on whether allegations that things were stolen and evidence covered up through the smashing of phones, as has been claimed by others.

There is guilt and shame on every side of this and every one of those kids needs to be dragged in front of a magistrate.

 

[Toni]

And on no planet are these mistaken for real guns. Even a cop would go to prison trying to make such a claim.

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SplatRBall is a Full Auto and Semit Auto Electric Soft Water Bead Gel Ball Blaster. Provides hours of fun. Shoots water ball bead ammo.

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Please. In my town, cops shot a guy for Gavin g a gun that turned out to be a pocket knife and they were at least 20 yards away from the guy.

People have been killed for having a cell phone that police thought was a gun.

Police officers are NOT held to the same standards as civilians although police have training that citizens do not.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

While I think it was wrong and stupid to shoot the pellet guns in the direction of those who were playing on the court, if the players hadn't gone back to confront those with the pellet guns, no one would have been harmed.

I concur, except that there was harm given that charges could have been filed against Liming and his friends for assault.

If it were hockey, there would be matching fighting penalties and two minutes instigation on the Liming party. Yes, a game misconduct would have happened if the other guy then stole the Zamboni.

 

[ZiprHead]

Dispatch has no authority to give you orders, they can only ask.

That's not what my argument is about. I'm not disputing that. During the call, he vocalized his annoyance with individuals evading legal consequences for their actions, and even acknowledged pursuing someone—whom he suspected of criminal activity—despite being counselled against doing so by the dispatcher. I mean those are fairly clear indicators of an aggressor.

TM was on the phone with his girlfriend when he was attacked by Z. Z's behavior after he got off on the charges clearly shows him to be a violent racist asshole.

 

[Gospel]

Dispatch has no authority to give you orders, they can only ask.

That's not what my argument is about. I'm not disputing that. During the call, he vocalized his annoyance with individuals evading legal consequences for their actions, and even acknowledged pursuing someone—whom he suspected of criminal activity—despite being counselled against doing so by the dispatcher. I mean those are fairly clear indicators of an aggressor.

TM was on the phone with his girlfriend when he was attacked by Z. Z's behavior after he got off on the charges clearly shows him to be a violent racist asshole.

He received a charge for stalking too. [insert surprised Pikachu here]

 

[Swammerdami]

Facts. Do they matter?

Just clicked and read the first dozen posts. Hope I don't spend more time on this. There's plenty of other news more interesting and more important.

The point of the OP was that no one did anything that should have resulted in death... yet someone died anyway. This is the trouble with chaos. As Jesus and Gandhi both said "Shit happens."

But when there is no intent for such an ultimate outcome, and none of the actions that led up to it should have led to the outcome of death, how do you manage it? Is sending a teen to prison for punching someone that was with a group that was antagonizing them remotely justice, even if someone did die?

I don't know. Glad I'm not sitting on the jury. Especially if all they get is the one-sentence summary we see in OP.

More detailed article:

Details? Aren't we supposed to just rush to judgement, perhaps first asking about the participants' races?

Self-defense or manslaughter? Brothers to go on trial for Ethan Liming's death

DeShawn and Tyler Stafford will go on trial for Ethan Liming's death after a fight in the I Promise School parking lot. The brothers claim self-defense.

news.yahoo.com

I was looking at this as an unfortunate accident resulting from the actions of stupid teen boys until I read this:

DeShawn and Tyler continued to hit and kick Liming while he was on the ground.

As Liming’s friends tried to get him into his car to take him to the hospital, Jones began punching them and took their cellphones, throwing them to the ground and breaking them.

Tyler and DeShawn argued with Liming’s friends, who ran from the scene. Tyler got into Liming’s car and drove it to the west end of the parking lot. He parked the car, took a cellphone from it and threw it to the ground, breaking it.

Tyler, DeShawn and Jones left, leaving Liming lying on the pavement. None of them called 911; one of Liming’s friends alerted police.

Details? Factual details? Yours is not the new American way, TV and credit cards.