Unarmed white man killed by police in Oklahoma

[Loren Pechtel]

If you threaten someone who is legally and physically able to shoot you wouldn't you expect them to do so???

Not by pointing a finger. It is fucking insane for someone to shoot a firearm at another person just for pointing a finger at them.

The reality is that such decisions must be made very quickly, sometimes they will be fooled.

 

[laughing dog]

Not by pointing a finger. It is fucking insane for someone to shoot a firearm at another person just for pointing a finger at them.

The reality is that such decisions must be made very quickly, sometimes they will be fooled.

You cannot seriously justify the shooting of someone pointing a hand in the shape of a firearm with "oops, he was fooled". A police officer should not be fooled by that. If he or she is, he or she should not be on the force. Hell, he or she should not be permitted to have any sort of weapon.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The reality is that such decisions must be made very quickly, sometimes they will be fooled.

You cannot seriously justify the shooting of someone pointing a hand in the shape of a firearm with "oops, he was fooled". A police officer should not be fooled by that. If he or she is, he or she should not be on the force. Hell, he or she should not be permitted to have any sort of weapon.

The guy acted like he was drawing a weapon. The decision as to whether it's real or not must be made very fast.

The guy was trying to fool the cop, I'm not going to blame the cop for being fooled.

 

[laughing dog]

You cannot seriously justify the shooting of someone pointing a hand in the shape of a firearm with "oops, he was fooled". A police officer should not be fooled by that. If he or she is, he or she should not be on the force. Hell, he or she should not be permitted to have any sort of weapon.

The guy acted like he was drawing a weapon. The decision as to whether it's real or not must be made very fast.

The guy was trying to fool the cop, I'm not going to blame the cop for being fooled.

Of course you are not going to blame the police officer. But please do not expect anyone to take your comments on this issue seriously after you continue to defending a police officer for shooting an unarmed civilian who pointed a finger at him.

 

[zorq]

You cannot seriously justify the shooting of someone pointing a hand in the shape of a firearm with "oops, he was fooled". A police officer should not be fooled by that. If he or she is, he or she should not be on the force. Hell, he or she should not be permitted to have any sort of weapon.

The guy acted like he was drawing a weapon. The decision as to whether it's real or not must be made very fast.

The guy was trying to fool the cop, I'm not going to blame the cop for being fooled.

No, the guy didn't act like he was drawing a weapon. I don't even see any gun shaped hands in the body cam footage. The officer told the suspect to show him his hands and the suspect complied. The officer then shot the suspect 4 times.

The suspect stumbles, tries to right himself by pushing up off the ground and both of his hands clearly have no weapons. And then the officer shoots him ONE MORE TIME. Before he collapses in a death spiral that violent police officers NEVER seem to try to prevent with first aid or CPR or anything.

Even after it's obvious the suspect had no weapons the officer tries to tell his partner that he saw a weapon. This officer is either blind or stupid or dirty as shit.

 

[repoman]

His reaction to shooting the guy was very cold and he needs to be screened for being a psychopath.

 

[zorq]

His reaction to shooting the guy was very cold and he needs to be screened for being a psychopath.

After the shooting, the officer spends the next 2 minutes pointing his firearm at the unarmed corpse like he expects it to pop up and eat him ala The Walking Dead.
I guess I could have included "delusional" in my list of problems the officer might be suffering from, but psychopathy might make the list too, but that is kind of implied in my "dirty as shit" option.

 

[bleubird]

Yesterday,a teen customer thought it was funny to do the finger gun thing,and ask for a $100,000.(candy bar).All we have is pepper spray and Thumper(old ax handle) Should I have taken it to the next level? Or just tell the lad that;down south that might get you shot.As I did.

 

[RavenSky]

Not by pointing a finger. It is fucking insane for someone to shoot a firearm at another person just for pointing a finger at them.

The reality is that such decisions must be made very quickly, sometimes they will be fooled.

So now you are saying the cops are so stupid or so blind that they mistake a human finger for a gun.

 

[Jarhyn]

The reality is that such decisions must be made very quickly, sometimes they will be fooled.

So now you are saying the cops are so stupid or so blind that they mistake a human finger for a gun.

Loren has a point: adrenaline leads to really weird hallucinations in the split second time frames that panicked decisions are made in. Once hopped up on adrenaline, my hand felt the magazine of a rifle as if it were the handle. Note that these two things are nearly nothing alike.

It's not unheard of that a person could get someone to hallucinate a gun by pulling their hand up quickly, especially if they have their fingers out like a barrel, and if that person is an armed cop, it could very well be mistaken for a gun. IA'm fairly certain that the entire function of adrenaline is to cause processing in the brain to halt faster; it can't make us smarter or better, just more hasty.

All that said, though, it does not appear that anything like that happened according to the body camera.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I'm a racist. I realize this. I see dark skinned people on the bus I ride every day, and I get irrational and insane perceptions being offered up by my mind of them being ridiculous ape people. I see some unearned perception of filth wreathing the sagged pants, and an unwarranted feeling of slime when some drunk African American has a stupid conversation.

I know that these feelings are entirely irrational. That these things I dislike are a product not of being black, but being poor and raised in a shitty culture. Even so, my mind has the unfortunate predisposition to see the taint of poverty and recklessness on anyone with dark skin. It's something I've fought with for years. Sure I can correct it whenever I see it rationally, but what about all the times I just Derp and don't notice until after I've already done or said something awful and undeserved?

So don't tell me for a moment there isn't a problem of racism in this country. I pride myself with my ability to disregard my feelings, but they are there, and I don't think they can ever not be there for humans; it's just too easy a leap for the intuititive mind to make.

This is a brilliant and unsassailable post. Jarhyn knows there is a problem, because Jarhyn knows Jarhyn is the problem. There is no way to refute that. Brilliant!

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

There is no "deep rooted issue of racism in this country" and cops are not disproportionally applying lethal force to black suspects. It is the media which almost exclusively focuses on blacks getting killed by police that are creating the illusion of that.

I'm a racist. I realize this. I see dark skinned people on the bus I ride every day, and I get irrational and insane perceptions being offered up by my mind of them being ridiculous ape people. I see some unearned perception of filth wreathing the sagged pants, and an unwarranted feeling of slime when some drunk African American has a stupid conversation.

I know that these feelings are entirely irrational. That these things I dislike are a product not of being black, but being poor and raised in a shitty culture. Even so, my mind has the unfortunate predisposition to see the taint of poverty and recklessness on anyone with dark skin. It's something I've fought with for years. Sure I can correct it whenever I see it rationally, but what about all the times I just Derp and don't notice until after I've already done or said something awful and undeserved?

So don't tell me for a moment there isn't a problem of racism in this country. I pride myself with my ability to disregard my feelings, but they are there, and I don't think they can ever not be there for humans; it's just too easy a leap for the intuititive mind to make.

I know you are a racist. So is everyone else. Any time there is a coincidental correlation between people who look a certain way and some detrimental element of culture, there will necessarily be feelings of racism.

Edit: the sad part of this is that the Bayesian mechanism that makes people intuit race rather than poverty as the element driving the things we see that we don't like is that even black people can end up racist from it in stunning ways, whether by being exposed to the 'zoo' and seeing poor people who happen to be black acting recklessly in an attempt to stop being poor (effort does little to help people who by default lack access to legal employment networking) or by becoming defensive of all the things that they learned when they were young about what it 'means to be black' and defending the very cultural elements people dislike and that, at any rate, they can't escape.

I dont 100% agree with you but I do appreciate the humility and most of what you have to say. I think it's ALSO true that racism is culturally taught and while you may want to take on the moral burden of your thoughts, it does a disservice to imagine that racism is in a vacuum of individuals all only coming to that end because of individual tendency to generalize and jump to conclusions. It's entirely possible that at one point in ancient pre-history that was true, but now and for millennia, stereotypes and tribalism are taught since birth, and privilege and rank are assigned (or at least externally wished for by cultural actors) at birth. So I agree that [almost] everyone is racist to some extent but I have to ADD there are cultural mechanisms to this racism.

 

[laughing dog]

This is a brilliant and unsassailable post. Jarhyn knows there is a problem, because Jarhyn knows Jarhyn is the problem. There is no way to refute that. Brilliant!

Jarhyn is tacitly assuming that he is not unique in his outlook - that a sufficient number of people are like him as well. You know, sort of like you assume there are a sufficient number of Kumbayah hand-holders so that the effects of racism will melt away.

 

[fast]

I'm a racist. I realize this. I see dark skinned people on the bus I ride every day, and I get irrational and insane perceptions being offered up by my mind of them being ridiculous ape people. I see some unearned perception of filth wreathing the sagged pants, and an unwarranted feeling of slime when some drunk African American has a stupid conversation.

I know that these feelings are entirely irrational. That these things I dislike are a product not of being black, but being poor and raised in a shitty culture. Even so, my mind has the unfortunate predisposition to see the taint of poverty and recklessness on anyone with dark skin. It's something I've fought with for years. Sure I can correct it whenever I see it rationally, but what about all the times I just Derp and don't notice until after I've already done or said something awful and undeserved?

So don't tell me for a moment there isn't a problem of racism in this country. I pride myself with my ability to disregard my feelings, but they are there, and I don't think they can ever not be there for humans; it's just too easy a leap for the intuititive mind to make.

I know you are a racist. So is everyone else. Any time there is a coincidental correlation between people who look a certain way and some detrimental element of culture, there will necessarily be feelings of racism.

Edit: the sad part of this is that the Bayesian mechanism that makes people intuit race rather than poverty as the element driving the things we see that we don't like is that even black people can end up racist from it in stunning ways, whether by being exposed to the 'zoo' and seeing poor people who happen to be black acting recklessly in an attempt to stop being poor (effort does little to help people who by default lack access to legal employment networking) or by becoming defensive of all the things that they learned when they were young about what it 'means to be black' and defending the very cultural elements people dislike and that, at any rate, they can't escape.

I dont 100% agree with you but I do appreciate the humility and most of what you have to say. I think it's ALSO true that racism is culturally taught and while you may want to take on the moral burden of your thoughts, it does a disservice to imagine that racism is in a vacuum of individuals all only coming to that end because of individual tendency to generalize and jump to conclusions. It's entirely possible that at one point in ancient pre-history that was true, but now and for millennia, stereotypes and tribalism are taught since birth, and privilege and rank are assigned (or at least externally wished for by cultural actors) at birth. So I agree that [almost] everyone is racist to some extent but I have to ADD there are cultural mechanisms to this racism.

I wouldn't deny that racism is culturally taught, but it would manifest either way.

 

[RavenSky]

Loren has a point: adrenaline leads to really weird hallucinations in the split second time frames that panicked decisions are made in. Once hopped up on adrenaline, my hand felt the magazine of a rifle as if it were the handle. Note that these two things are nearly nothing alike.

It's not unheard of that a person could get someone to hallucinate a gun by pulling their hand up quickly, especially if they have their fingers out like a barrel, and if that person is an armed cop, it could very well be mistaken for a gun. IA'm fairly certain that the entire function of adrenaline is to cause processing in the brain to halt faster; it can't make us smarter or better, just more hasty.

All that said, though, it does not appear that anything like that happened according to the body camera.

Sorry Jarhyn... while I agree with everything you have said in the above post, particularly in a situation like this when the police officer's car had just been rammed and had overturned (according to the article), Loren is not presenting a well-reasoned argument as you just did. He is reflexively defending the police as he always does.

Also, as you noted, the body-cam does not show the man pointing a finger or anything else at the cop. Even at that, I could accept adrenaline making the cop think he saw something when he didn't - but I would expect police officers with the authority and ability to shoot civilians to be well-trained enough not to react without thinking/verifying. If our soldiers can be trained not to shoot until sure, our police officers can be too.

Humans will never be perfect. There will be mistakes - even deadly ones. I understand that. But we could greatly reduce the number of them with proper training for the police officers.

Moreover, if a police officer demonstrates that they can not stay calm under fire, so to speak, then they have demonstrated they are not fit for the position. Fire them or put them on permanent desk duty.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm a racist. I realize this. I see dark skinned people on the bus I ride every day, and I get irrational and insane perceptions being offered up by my mind of them being ridiculous ape people. I see some unearned perception of filth wreathing the sagged pants, and an unwarranted feeling of slime when some drunk African American has a stupid conversation.

I know that these feelings are entirely irrational. That these things I dislike are a product not of being black, but being poor and raised in a shitty culture. Even so, my mind has the unfortunate predisposition to see the taint of poverty and recklessness on anyone with dark skin. It's something I've fought with for years. Sure I can correct it whenever I see it rationally, but what about all the times I just Derp and don't notice until after I've already done or said something awful and undeserved?

So don't tell me for a moment there isn't a problem of racism in this country. I pride myself with my ability to disregard my feelings, but they are there, and I don't think they can ever not be there for humans; it's just too easy a leap for the intuititive mind to make.

I know you are a racist. So is everyone else. Any time there is a coincidental correlation between people who look a certain way and some detrimental element of culture, there will necessarily be feelings of racism.

Edit: the sad part of this is that the Bayesian mechanism that makes people intuit race rather than poverty as the element driving the things we see that we don't like is that even black people can end up racist from it in stunning ways, whether by being exposed to the 'zoo' and seeing poor people who happen to be black acting recklessly in an attempt to stop being poor (effort does little to help people who by default lack access to legal employment networking) or by becoming defensive of all the things that they learned when they were young about what it 'means to be black' and defending the very cultural elements people dislike and that, at any rate, they can't escape.

I dont 100% agree with you but I do appreciate the humility and most of what you have to say. I think it's ALSO true that racism is culturally taught and while you may want to take on the moral burden of your thoughts, it does a disservice to imagine that racism is in a vacuum of individuals all only coming to that end because of individual tendency to generalize and jump to conclusions. It's entirely possible that at one point in ancient pre-history that was true, but now and for millennia, stereotypes and tribalism are taught since birth, and privilege and rank are assigned (or at least externally wished for by cultural actors) at birth. So I agree that [almost] everyone is racist to some extent but I have to ADD there are cultural mechanisms to this racism.

I don't think the elements are necessarily culturally bound. It's more 'my parents weren't smart enough to see that it was just a statistical coincidence and took their feelings as truth of God,a and so saved me the time of leaping to the conclusion by teaching the racism outright, and my own Bayesian mind hits confirmation bias heavily'

My parents weren't racist persay, any more than I myself am. But the point is, with humans, this racism is emergent, and it means that the only way to fight it is to *eliminate the statistical situation which makes it emerge*. I have thoughts on how to do that, but they would require things that people would be very uncomfortable with.

Edit: also, is it just me or do certain people sometimes just mysteriously vanish from a discussion after bombshells get dropped like that?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I dont 100% agree with you but I do appreciate the humility and most of what you have to say. I think it's ALSO true that racism is culturally taught and while you may want to take on the moral burden of your thoughts, it does a disservice to imagine that racism is in a vacuum of individuals all only coming to that end because of individual tendency to generalize and jump to conclusions. It's entirely possible that at one point in ancient pre-history that was true, but now and for millennia, stereotypes and tribalism are taught since birth, and privilege and rank are assigned (or at least externally wished for by cultural actors) at birth. So I agree that [almost] everyone is racist to some extent but I have to ADD there are cultural mechanisms to this racism.

I don't think the elements are necessarily culturally bound. It's more 'my parents weren't smart enough to see that it was just a statistical coincidence and took their feelings as truth of God,a and so saved me the time of leaping to the conclusion by teaching the racism outright, and my own Bayesian mind hits confirmation bias heavily'

My parents weren't racist persay, any more than I myself am. But the point is, with humans, this racism is emergent, and it means that the only way to fight it is to *eliminate the statistical situation which makes it emerge*. I have thoughts on how to do that, but they would require things that people would be very uncomfortable with.

Edit: also, is it just me or do certain people sometimes just mysteriously vanish from a discussion after bombshells get dropped like that?

I think the confirmation bias is reinforced through stereotypes that are culturally bound. The method of transmission of these ideas are pervasive. Your parents teaching you is an example. But you've also got art, language, peers, religion, politics, and our crazy uncles expressing these things on Thanksgiving at the table in front of the next generation.

 

[Malintent]

So now you are saying the cops are so stupid or so blind that they mistake a human finger for a gun.

Loren has a point: adrenaline leads to really weird hallucinations in the split second time frames that panicked decisions are made in. Once hopped up on adrenaline, my hand felt the magazine of a rifle as if it were the handle. Note that these two things are nearly nothing alike.

It's not unheard of that a person could get someone to hallucinate a gun by pulling their hand up quickly, especially if they have their fingers out like a barrel, and if that person is an armed cop, it could very well be mistaken for a gun. IA'm fairly certain that the entire function of adrenaline is to cause processing in the brain to halt faster; it can't make us smarter or better, just more hasty.

All that said, though, it does not appear that anything like that happened according to the body camera.

You all understand that the VEHICLE was the weapon the perp was using, right?
The "fingers like a gun" was displayed exactly when? after what was said to him to illicit the response?

Was it, maybe, "Hey you! stop ramming us with your vehicle. stop". to which the perp replied (in sign language) I will shoot you if you try to stop me.. or you will have to shoot me to stop me from killing you with my car.

Point being, you can take a single data point (fingers like gun!) and paint any picture you like. you can take a long complex and nuanced story that takes some good critical thinking and consideration... and just reduce it to "finger gun bang bang duh!"

honestly... people are not quite as idiotic as other idiotic people can make them look by distorting, ignoring, and just omitting facts.

 

[Jarhyn]

Loren has a point: adrenaline leads to really weird hallucinations in the split second time frames that panicked decisions are made in. Once hopped up on adrenaline, my hand felt the magazine of a rifle as if it were the handle. Note that these two things are nearly nothing alike.

It's not unheard of that a person could get someone to hallucinate a gun by pulling their hand up quickly, especially if they have their fingers out like a barrel, and if that person is an armed cop, it could very well be mistaken for a gun. IA'm fairly certain that the entire function of adrenaline is to cause processing in the brain to halt faster; it can't make us smarter or better, just more hasty.

All that said, though, it does not appear that anything like that happened according to the body camera.

You all understand that the VEHICLE was the weapon the perp was using, right?
The "fingers like a gun" was displayed exactly when? after what was said to him to illicit the response?

Was it, maybe, "Hey you! stop ramming us with your vehicle. stop". to which the perp replied (in sign language) I will shoot you if you try to stop me.. or you will have to shoot me to stop me from killing you with my car.

Point being, you can take a single data point (fingers like gun!) and paint any picture you like. you can take a long complex and nuanced story that takes some good critical thinking and consideration... and just reduce it to "finger gun bang bang duh!"

honestly... people are not quite as idiotic as other idiotic people can make them look by distorting, ignoring, and just omitting facts.

Given that the perp wasn't in the vehicle when he was shot to death, and shot again, and when he was bleeding out on the ground, I'm pretty sure the threat of his 'weapon' was neutralized already.