The Tamir Rice Shooting Was Legal. That’s The Problem.

This explains a lot.

The Tamir Rice Shooting Was Legal. That’s The Problem.

I dunno. Any kid handling a realistic-looking gun in front of police officers, pretending to be a bad ass gangster.... Well, it shows poor judgment if nothing else.

Did you watch the video of the incident? (I don't have a link to hand, but it was readily available a while ago.) The kid had a toy gun, but not in his hand. He stood and watched the police car roar up. The police jumped out of the car and shot him, just that fast. About two seconds from the car stopping to the kid hitting the dirt. And they then stood around watching him die, making no attempt to help him.

The point this article makes is that this is how police are trained to act. Protect and serve, anybody?

NoCoPilot wrote:

I dunno.  Any kid handling a realistic-looking gun in front of police officers, pretending to be a bad ass gangster.... Well, it shows poor judgment if nothing else.

And when did it become a capital offense, one so heinous that it required immediate execution, for a twelve-year-old child to show bad judgement?

The poor judgement here was by the asshole cop.

No argument, the responding officer showed poor judgment in shooting first, asking questions later.

However, consider these ameliorating circumstances:

1. The 911 call indicated a young black man was brandishing a pistol at passers-by, which the surveillance video clearly confirms

2. When the police car pulled up, Rice approached the car. I couldn't tell if his weapon was out or not, but his behavior could easily be interpreted as aggressive under the circumstances

3. Online photos of Rice before the shooting show him posing with the gun, making "gangster" hand gestures and pretending to be tough. This posturing explains why he was brandishing the toy gun in public

4. The responding officer describes the victim as "about 20 years old" in his radio call for medical assistance. The memorial photos of Rice look to be about nine. At the time of his shooting he may not have been obviously underage

Nothing you describe is a reason to shoot the kid - even if he had been forty years old, there is no mitigation in what you have written. The cop was just a typical chicken shit, grownup schoolyard bully, like most cops.

Police have killed well over a thousand people in the US this year. About 50 cops have died "in the line of duty" (most from traffic accidents).

The whole nation is jumpy. Hate-mongers like Trump and the NRA do not help. The perception of the US overseas, and increasingly here at home too, is that it's the Wild Wild West with shootings happening on every street corner.

Perhaps President Sanders will be able to do something to demilitarize police departments and return them to community-based policing.

Again, read the article. Court rulings and police training (all over the country) now say that it is appropriate and legal for police who feel the slightest bit threatened to shoot to kill. That is the major problem.

One could observe that police in many places automatically feel threatened by any young black male, but not by white open-carry enthusiasts. But that's another story.

The Paranoid Style of American Policing

Quote :

What we have made of our police departments America, what we have ordered them to do, is a direct challenge to any usable definition of democracy. A state that allows its agents to kill, to beat, to tase, without any real sanction, has ceased to govern and has commenced to simply rule.

I agree.

I also agree.

Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail from the local Police Association (asking for money, of course).

excerpts:

"...we are mindful of the unprecedented wave of violence against our fellow officers in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York and especially the execution murder of a Texas Sheriff's deputy."

Remember, this is a little coastal town in California. What the fuck does that have to do with us? The biggest problem the local cops have is the fact that the last good bakery in town closed, so their donuts aren't as fresh.


"Your contributions...support our police officers and families of fallen officers."

There has never been a local police officer killed in the line of duty. By "fallen" does he mean too drunk to stand up? That I would believe.

Asshole. He'll get money from me when he pries it from my cold, dead hands. (Take that, Moses.)