Policeman shoots victim under dodgy circumstances

[Ilosar]

My point is was that this death was easily avoidable. And yet it happened.

Really? Easily avoidable? I'd like to see how you would have reacted if I gave you a gun and told you to go to a location where a crime is taking place and you are supposed to stop it, and when you arrive the perpetrator start running towards you in the middle of the dark, ignoring your commands. You have zero time to think what to do and you have to make a choice, so, what do you do?

You're assuming this is what actually happened. Just like Tags assumes it could have been easily avoidable.

 

[Gonzalez]

I'm sorry, did I ever in my posts presumed to have the answer of what actually happened? I thought I was at most giving this the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Tagaziel]

Really? Easily avoidable? I'd like to see how you would have reacted if I gave you a gun and told you to go to a location where a crime is taking place and you are supposed to stop it, and when you arrive the perpetrator start running towards you in the middle of the dark, ignoring your commands. You have zero time to think what to do and you have to make a choice, so, what do you do?

And don't give me that "they are supposed to be trained these kind of situation", there is no "this kind of situation", no amount of training can possibly prepare you for every single conceivable scenario, each situation is different from another and more often than not you are expected to use your judgment than to follow a 1, 2 ,3 step. There is a procedural framework, but it's just that, a framework, it is not supposed to give you the answer for every single thing. He had to make a call, and it was a bad one, now all that's left is to see if he did it within the procedural framework that governs his duties.

In this tragedy, like in most tragedies, it's never one single factor that defines it all, the accident, the woman confusing him for a burglar, the taser not working, all led to the instant the shit hit the fan.

I am not a policeman, so that's a fallacious argument. As far as my knowledge tells me, policemen are specifically trained to handle dangerous situations, so that they don't behave like untrained civilians with guns. Unless it's different in your country, which I sincerely doubt.

 

[Crni Vuk]

My point is was that this death was easily avoidable. And yet it happened.

Really? Easily avoidable? I'd like to see how you would have reacted if I gave you a gun and told you to go to a location where a crime is taking place and you are supposed to stop it, and when you arrive the perpetrator start running towards you in the middle of the dark, ignoring your commands. You have zero time to think what to do and you have to make a choice, so, what do you do?

Fallacy. Tagaziel isn't a police officer who received a training and education that should have eventually prepared him for such situations, he has a Master's degree in law. I have spend a long time in the fire brigade when I was in my 20s. We did a lot of training and education. Of course you can not prepare people for everything, that is impossible. But you try to make sure that they at least have a chance to deal with the situation in a different way compared to someone who isn't a fire fighter. Making you think and behave in a different way. A police officer has a dangerous job, no one with a sane mind would ever argue about that and I am sure it's a lot of pressure. But they also have a lot of responsibilities and they actually knew what their job is like. No one was forced to become a police officers. And I will be honest here. I droped my duty in the fire brigade once I realized that I got panic attacks and that I could not deal with the stress anymore. It was a hard decision. But I dont want to be out there while someone eventually has to trust me with his life. I expect from people that you can consider professionals to actually act like professionals and that means that they sometimes have to do very difficult tasks.

It really seems to be similar to some incident in Germany during the 1960s. Benno Ohnesorg, [October 15, 1940 – June 2, 1967) was a German university student killed by a policeman (Karl-Heinz Kurras) during a demonstration in West Berlin. (...) In January 2012, research carried out by federal prosecutors and Der Spiegel magazine has found that the shooting was not in self-defense as always claimed by Kurras and that it was certainly premeditated. Newly examined film and photographic evidence also implicate fellow officers and superiors, demonstrating that the police covered up the truth in subsequent investigations and trials. Additionally, medical staff who carried out the postmortem on Ohnesorg were ordered to falsify their report. However, the new information is unlikely to be sufficient for the case to be reopened

And don't give me that "they are supposed to be trained these kind of situation", there is no "this kind of situation", no amount of training can possibly prepare you for every single conceivable scenario, each situation is different from another and more often than not you are expected to use your judgment than to follow a 1, 2 ,3 step. There is a procedural framework, but it's just that, a framework, it is not supposed to give you the answer for every single thing. He had to make a call, and it was a bad one, now all that's left is to see if he did it within the procedural framework that governs his duties.

It can not prepare you for every single situation that might happen out there. But that is not even WHY they do training. Take the drill in the military for example. Its about to change the way how people behave and think in certain situations. And training can do a lot here, comparing mercenaries from Black Water with well trained Marines in combat situations in Iraq for example.

Black Water employees without military training have higher casualties with Iraqi civilians compared to the US Marines as they tend to behave different in urban combat compared to someone who received nothing else but a short instruction on the shooting range. Marines tend to seek for cover and identify the shooter for example and concentrate their fire on the target, while Black Water mercenaries that lack any military background tend to panic a lot and shoot every moving target and in turn causing more harm to civilians.

There will always be very hard and tough situations. I am sure everyone is familiar with this "poor cop" story thx to movies, alone, inside a dark alley, someone runs at him with a gun, he shoots, turns out it was a kid/teenager with a toy gun. Sure. Who could always decide whats right or wrong? Particularly when your life is on the stake.

But I still expect from a cop to act and think different then some guy from the neighborhood watch with his rifle running around in the streets.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

I never understood that ''the guns protect us from the govn't'' mentality.

Probably because it worked against King George, and directly resulted in the nation's independence. Precedent like that makes arguing over their efficacy difficult. That some rednecks do or don't hide behind that is incidental.

The US's leaderships have done pretty horrible things all along its history (Tags has got most of them covered, I'll personally highlight slavery, mass segregation, near-genocide and concentration camps) and none of those were stopped by upstanding citizens going on shooting sprees because of that one bill they didn't like.

Those institutions were obviously of benefit to some in power and in their interests to perpetuate. "Shooting sprees" don't sound particularly sound strategically to achieving one's goals, do they? But the country does have a history of (strategic) armed action against the feds as a catalyst for social change going back to abolitionists like John Brown or resistance leaders like Crazy Horse.

First of all, I'm Polish, not German, so your "hurr durr you are all Nazis" argument goes wide. Particularly when you consider United States' history, including institutionalized slavery, genocide of indigenous peoples, racial divisions, imperialism, and plenty of other negative aspects your "unique" political and cultural situation created.

Second, your "herp derp, I'm better cooz Germans are Nazis" argument is completely without merit, since the predominant majority of the German population was born during or after the war and as such have no connection to the crimes committed by the Nazi regime and Germans serving it.

Unless, of course, you believe that blaming children for the sins of their fathers is warranted, so how about you apply that philosophy to yourself too (see above for an abridged list of things to include).

Where did you get your masters?

 

[Tagaziel]

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Why?

 

[Gonzalez]

You guys have some very funny ideas of what is like to be either in the military or in a police force, you think once someone enters there they stop being human beings and turn into robots or something. And I have been in both.

It doesn't "change" you, if you let the military change you it means you have no personality, they just teach you to do the job, but you're still a human being who sleeps, eats and fucks, has personal problems and a personal life, you don't turn into freaking robocop.

If anything years of experience in a force will change you far more than mere training can, and you are still not exempt of making mistakes.

 

[Gonzalez]

Deciding now what happened seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Exactly, but some people seem to already have decided and use it as a baseball bat to bash either the cop, the department or the US as a whole (it's still not clear to me at wich).

For me the US can do whatever they want within their borders, I'm far more worried of what they might want to do outside them. As far as your internal problems go that's for you guys to figure out.

 

[Crni Vuk]

@Gonzalez
so it could never cross your mind that a police officer could do something wrong?

Some of us here have their experience as well you know. And some even have jobs that require a lot of responsibility. If you do something wrong here then you will be judged with a different threshold.

I am not bashing every police officers or the police as whole. But its a fact that they are a professional force. I would expect at least that they are better prepared of dealing with problems like violence compared to a civilian.

 

[Gonzalez]

so it could never cross your mind that a police officer could do something wrong?

Excuse me but that's my whole point, he totally could, I never said I exonerated him, I actually did said I did not, for all I know he could have killed him in cold blood. What I say is that this case is not yet solved, and people already are using this to yell "bigot" and "murder" at the top of their lungs.

 

[Shoveler]

Black Water employees without military training have higher casualties with Iraqi civilians compared to the US Marines as they tend to behave different in urban combat compared to someone who received nothing else but a short instruction on the shooting range. Marines tend to seek for cover and identify the shooter for example and concentrate their fire on the target, while Black Water mercenaries that lack any military background tend to panic a lot and shoot every moving target and in turn causing more harm to civilians.

Uh what, Crni you realize that virtually all Black Water were former military right? The reason they had higher casualty rates is they didn't have the same equipment the Marines have. And things like air cover. Jeez.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Black Water employees without military training have higher casualties with Iraqi civilians compared to the US Marines as they tend to behave different in urban combat compared to someone who received nothing else but a short instruction on the shooting range. Marines tend to seek for cover and identify the shooter for example and concentrate their fire on the target, while Black Water mercenaries that lack any military background tend to panic a lot and shoot every moving target and in turn causing more harm to civilians.

Uh what, Crni you realize that virtually all Black Water were former military right? The reason they had higher casualty rates is they didn't have the same equipment the Marines have. And things like air cover. Jeez.

nope, not all of them. Also, a lot of it is rather useless in urban warefare. Marines have to face the same situations like Blackwater mercenaries very often, where they happen to be in some ambush without air support or heavy artillery. The difference is, that those marines eventually know how to act in urban areas under heavy fire. And it is a fact that the US marines usually have much lower civilain casualties compared to mercenaries.