• noneya@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Lacy said the family also reported that after the shooting, the family was forced out of the home while officers “rummaged through their house looking for any justification for shooting and killing Ryan”.

    Not a good look.

      • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        They constantly get away with it too, i wonder what the stat is for the amount of cops that get put away for misconduct like this versus the ones that don’t, it’s gotta be like 1 out of every 10/100/1000 or something similar.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Saw body cam footage like that once. Guy is on the ground bleeding out and the cop is searching the car for the gun that will justify it. Guy was bleeding out because when asked for his ID reached for his wallet

      • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Edit: Ok, I read the article. Yeah, him charging at the cop with that tool was a really bad move. I still think the situation could have been handled differently. Could have.

        Tasers, batons, or just run away. Diffuse the situation. Imagine a judge saying “You charged against a cop with a gardening tool? Sentenced to DEATH!”

        The boy didn’t get a fair trial. He was murdered with no justification.

        • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That’s basically what their elected prosecutor will say, I’ve seen it a lot. They’ll say “he has a weapon and was committing a crime, so the shooting was justified.” That’s what they said when my local pd shot a kid in the back when he was running away. He hadn’t done anything but run away and was killed.

          • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            He was murdered, if you shoot someone in the back while they are fleeing you are a murderer.

            The cop that shot him is a murderer and a coward.

            • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Yeah, and the states attorney started her excuses with “he was committing a crime” as if execution is the correct answer for running away from police.

            • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              In this case it was the police that was fleeing and the person getting shot was chasing him with a raised gardening hoe. He could have shot him in the house the first moment he started approaching him. He didn’t. He told him to stop or they’ll shoot. He didn’t stop so the police started running away in order to avoid shooting him. He followed. Didn’t leave them much choice.

              • stringere@leminal.space
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                8 months ago

                Didn’t leave them much choice.

                Wrong. The murderer chose to shoot and kill the kid. That was the choice they made.

                They could have…just run away to a safe distance. But they chose to shoot and murder the kid.

                Could have tried to disarm them. Too risky? Run away.

                Stop making excuses for poorly trained thugs with guns killing unarmed citizens.

                • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Being black adds 150 lbs of pure muscle and testosterone-fueled rage. Poor cop was basically facing a sword wielding grizzly bear.

                  /s

        • Moneo@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Edit: Ok, I read the article. Yeah, him charging at the cop with that tool was a really bad move. I still think the situation could have been handled differently. Could have.

          Police in other countries are constantly able to non-lethally subdue people wielding knives. Do not normalize this reaction.

        • escaped_cruzader@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          There was a video posted on reddit, where a cop got stabbed in the neck and died because he was slow to shoot, batons are worthless

              • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                You never know! I may not be able to, but what if I may?

                It seems like you’re saying that batons are worthless for this situation, which may be true.

                But your original comment seemed more general, as in “batons are worthless [all the time],” which is not true.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        As a father of a child with Autism I feel I am more than adequately equipped to respond to this.

        I don’t think many, if any, neurotypical people understand how Autism can impact a person’s ability to process the world in a way that is deemed “normal”. This child may not be verbal, may have aggression issues, may have a learning disability, etc.

        The last thing that should have happened is someone pulling a gun.

        I cry thinking something like this could happen with my son. All it takes is one bad interaction with someone who has absolutely no experience with Autism and this can happen.

        For anyone reading this, do yourself a favour. Volunteer with autistic people. It could be at school or in the community but you all need to learn that Autism does not look like the doctor in The Good Doctor.

        • escaped_cruzader@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I cry thinking something like this could happen with my son.

          Gotta prepare him for when he is antagonized

          My nephew is autistic, ODD and goes violent when going overboard

          The more he is antagonized young, the better he learns how to deal with it. He is getting much better at understanding himself and controlling himself in situations he wouldn’t have a few years ago

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          I posted a similar comment before seeing your more eloquent reply. All I can say is you are 100% right about this:

          I don’t think many, if any, neurotypical people understand how Autism can impact a person’s ability to process the world in a way that is deemed “normal”. This child may not be verbal, may have aggression issues, may have a learning disability, etc.

          And the people who should MOST be aware of this? Those who we issue a gun and a badge.

        • crossmr@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          He was attacking people and hurting people already. This isn’t a situation where he was irritated and the corner and someone provoked him, he was already violent when the officer’s arrived.

      • Moneo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        In Canada (afaik) cops rarely kill anyone who is not wielding a gun, this includes people out of their minds on drugs wielding knives. They are usually able to disarm and subdue the suspect by non-lethal means.

        The idea that a 15 year old kid running at a cop should be shot on sight is absolutely absurd and only normalized in the US, please reconsider your perspective.

        All that said cops still fucking suck in Canada and have a history of being racists and abusive.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        … So why didn’t the officers just fucking leave the house?! There’s no reason for them to stand their ground here. Retreat to safety and call for a crisis counselor and psychiatrist to come help. Call the boy’s parents.

        Fragile masculinity is why those pussy ass cops shot a kid. I hope it tortures them for the rest of their days. And I hope whenever they see a kid with autism from here on out, they’re forced to realize what they’ve done.

        • crossmr@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          The San Bernardino county sheriff’s department was responding to a 911 call on Saturday from a family reporting that a boy, identified as Ryan Gainer, was attacking his family at their home

          If you watch the actual video the sheriff goes into the house to find him and the teenager comes charging out trying to attack him. The officer did leave, he fled while telling him to stop. He didn’t stop and continued to chase him with the weapon and he was shot.

          • PopcornTin@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            That’s why they shouldn’t call the cops when a person of color is involved. The police will just kill them.

            As ADA Krause said in the Rittenhouse trial said, “We all take a beating sometimes.”

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          The cop was literally running from the kid, while the kid was swinging his weapon. The cop certainly wasn’t “standing his ground”.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Father of an autistic teen here - very good chance that kid couldn’t even begin to understand that the police gun would not only harm him, but kill him dead.

        He possibly didn’t understand or was too deep into an autistic meltdown (overstimulated fight or flight response) by that point to possibly comply with the commands from the officer, and (looking at my own son as an example) I doubt that he comprehended the seriousness of wielding such a weapon at the cop or at anyone.

        My son knows he has to be careful with knives, and that he generally shouldn’t touch them unsupervised.

        Does he know he could hurt someone with it? Yes I think so.

        Does he know it’s even possible to stab someone to death with it? He doesn’t even have a concept of “dead” vs “asleep” and has never witnessed a wound that couldn’t be healed with a bandaid. Explaining these concepts in abstract is of very limited value with him.

        They need to send more cops, and with nonlethals less lethals, and try harder not to kill these kids - many of whom exist in a world that almost entirely works in a way they don’t understand, no matter how intelligent they may be otherwise.

        Elijah McClain

        Linden Cameron (not dead, but not for lack of trying)

        Ryan Gainer

        My list of “names of autistic kids shot or killed by cops” that I can list off without trying is slowly getting longer.

        As I always say - I can’t imagine more a of a nightmare than my son interacting with police while neither me nor my wife is present. I’d be less worried if he was playing in traffic. At least I can count on people driving down the street trying not to kill him. And that’s really sad because I wish I could count on the help of police if ever he would need it.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I didn’t even have to open the article to see the boy’s skin color. And I’m not remotely shocked.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      8 months ago

      Bodycam video

      Officer was backing away from the kid, and turned to run away from him. The officer was actively retreating from the attack at the time the shots were fired.

      Two officers were present. It is not clear from the video who fired the shots. It is very clear, however, that the kid was actively attacking the officer.

      • N-E-N@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        Yea sadly the kid was an aggressor here

        But the cops should be using tazers or something non-lethal to deal with this kinda altercation

        • lath@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Wasn’t there a case some year back where a police officer was attacked and they mistakenly grabbed their gun instead of their tazer due to panic? The details are murky.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          But the cops should be using tazers or something non-lethal to deal with this kinda altercation

          Something non-lethal… Like the “bare hands” they attempted to use on their arrival?

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 months ago

          Tazers fail. A lot. You have one shot and if one of the two barbs don’t both go in for a good connection it doesn’t work. It’s not something anyone would want to count on in a situation where you or someone else is being attacked.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            If you have multiple cops at the scene though, you can easily have one go through the tool kit using tazer, pepper spray, etc, while the other one covers them with a gun.

            But that takes like actual thinking and training.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              8 months ago

              while the other one covers them with a gun.

              Yes, exactly. They work through every less-lethal option they have, with an officer ready to escalate to lethal if the subject ever puts someone at imminent risk of death or grievous bodily harm.

              If, for example, an atttacker is ever close enough and aggressive enough to attempt to stick a shovel in someone’s head and neck, a covering officer can immediately stop the attack with lethal force.

              So, officers could start with a less-lethal option, like a baton, or tazer, or bare hands, and only escalate to lethal force if the situation actually calls for it.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              That’s not as simple as it sounds. Even if they somehow knew exactly what has happening and had pre-arranged a plan of action, by the time they knew the taser has failed, the partner is as likely to shoot the other officer as the assailant.

              Tasers simply aren’t effective in these situations.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                Pre-arranged plans… Hmmm like Standard Operating Procedures? Or Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures?

                They didn’t need a football pre game huddle. It’s as simple as one guy saying “cover me” while they choose a less lethal option. This is literally why they train. Why we give them so much money.

                And just because you deploy a Taser does not mean you stop creating space. Likewise, there is no rule that the partner needs to take a shot from 10 meters away. Standard infantry practice for an engaged buddy is to get right up in there and shoot where you can be sure of it. Just make sure you call the shot so your buddy knows to turn away. Which is all also training.

                These guys ran straight into an unknown situation and someone died because of it.

                • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                  8 months ago

                  In the video, what was the time frame from first seeing the kid to the kid attacking him with the weapon?

                  You didn’t watch the video. You are commenting based on an article written by someone with less knowledge and experience than you.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          To safely employ a tazer in this situation, the cop would have needed body armor completely covering his head, neck, torso, arms, groin, and legs. Wearing anything less than full riot gear, that attack posed an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. Striking the officer’s head or neck with a bladed weapon could destroy an eye, sever the carotid artery, or cause a wide variety of maiming or permanently disfiguring injuries.

          Employment of a pain compliance method is only feasible once that threat has been stopped, delayed, or mitigated.

          Neither of the officers present appeared to have had any opportunity to use a tazer or less-lethal device to stop the attack.

          • GekkoState@lemmings.world
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            8 months ago

            You sound like all the cowardly cops. If you can’t handle a non lethal situation like this with your tazer: find another job.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              8 months ago

              I see. And what training, instruction, or other expertise do you have to support your assertion that this was a “non lethal situation”?

              I believe that I could cause a permanently disfiguring, debilitating, or lethal injury with any of the long-handled tools in my shed. I believe if a racist teenager swung one of these tools at a black man, you, too, would consider it to have been a use of lethal force.

              I think a reasonable person facing a 15-year-old attempting to strike them with any of my gardening equipment would reasonably fear a threat of death or grievous bodily harm.

              I reject your characterization of this as a “non lethal situation”.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                I don’t know about him but I was an Infantryman who invaded Iraq. And no. You’re wrong. You don’t just shoot kids clearly having a mental health episode. Especially with multiple cops present. You only need one designated shooter while everyone else works the problem.

                Also, pain compliance is to neutralize threats. If there is no threat then you’re just torturing them. Where I’m from that’s called a war crime.

                Surely we’re holding our police to a higher standard than a 19 year old scared shitless in a warzone? Right?

                • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                  8 months ago

                  You don’t just shoot kids clearly having a mental health episode.

                  Kid tried to jam a shovel in someone’s neck. That’s not a “mental health episode”. That’s an imminent deadly threat.

                  There is no ROE that prohibits anyone from using lethal force in that situation. Never has been. Never will be.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            He was 15. You’re saying that two trained and experienced police officers couldn’t deal with a 15 year old boy. Don’t make me laugh. “Bladed weapon”? Was the kid a samurai?

            They deal with hardened criminals and meth labs in San Bernardino. But a confused 15 year old was their arch nemesis? No one is going to believe that and they better not try to convince a jury with that story. Like the acorn guy, these cops are going to be laughed off the force.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        If only a cop had literally any other option to stop someone with a garden implement other than a gun.

        Too bad guns are the only option to stop people…

      • Moneo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Police in other countries are constantly able to non-lethally subdue people wielding knives. Do not normalize this reaction.

      • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        15 yo with a hoe, vs. 2 “trained”, “fit” men with weapons specifically designed to kill instantly with a twitch of a finger.

        Everywhere else in the world the kid would get a slap on the wrist, parents penalised, settled and sorted.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          Slap on the wrist?

          He spent the day trying to kill everyone around him, and you think he deserves a slap on the wrist?

          Parents penalized? Theit kid tries to kill them, and you’re going to penalize them? The victims?

          Your value system is completely out of whack. Kid is a threat to himself and others, and should have been locked up. Whether as a patient in a psychological institution or an inmate in a correctional facility is an open question, but separation from society and professional supervision is not.

          • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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            Yes, lock him up, that’ll fix him! Fucking put him in a solitary, that does wonders to mental stability, scientifically proven!

            Of course he needs to be institutionalised, but I bet to fuck that this didn’t just happened out of thin air and parents were neglecting symptoms. I bet they didn’t want to / couldn’t deal with it because of the insane (no pun) costs associated with it. (only in the USA, of course)

            Either way, shooting down an underage with a sharp stick is barbaric and medieval.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Sensationalist bullshit title from the guardian. Typical now. You can’t just get unbiased news in many places. They all have to push an agenda.

  • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    There are great questions as to whether it was appropriate to use deadly force against a 15-year-old autistic kid who was having an episode,

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
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      To the cops? Yes.

      Mental illness is always a license for them to kill, it happens ridiculously often even by statistical count.

      Something about unexpected responses and unpredictable reactions to shouting and gun waving that give the pigs an excuse to shoot.

      Remember that deaf guy that was killed because of his whittling knife? I don’t think the cop suffered any consequences except a paid vacation and an innocent and confused life was lost and the world turns on.

      Just crossing the street and clueless the cop was even calling out and bam bam bam shot from behind and he died bleeding out in confusion and fear.

      And 1/3 of the country applauded the cop for his community centered focus on reducing the number of undesirables.

  • taanegl@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Another child murdered.

    I will not shed a single tear for when cops get shot and killed.

    • qdJzXuisAndVQb2@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      US cops really have stored up an incredible amount of badwill, haven’t they? Now, I can’t help but see Nolan’s Batman film (whichever the one is with cops in tunnels), Brooklyn 99 and others as straight up copaganda. Just zero sympathy. The balance will shift at some point, it has to.

        • kureta@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Final. season was really interesting I that regard. Real cop propaganda is The Rookie. It is shameless.

          • Omega@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            The final season was less humorous about it. But even in the earlier seasons, the vast majority of cops outside of the 99 are incompetent, corrupt, or both. Comparatively, Wuntch is one of the least bad in the force.

            • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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              Yeah I knew a cop who can’t stand that show because of how blunt it’s propaganda, pro-police violence, and anti-civil rights the show is.

      • negativeyoda@lemmy.world
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        Most depictions of LE in action movies are copoganda. I mean, shit: the Dirty Harry/ Legal Weapon trope of cops needing to sidestep the rules is so fucked when you think about it

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        8 months ago

        3rd Batman movie, the one that made even less sense than a superhero movie normally makes.

        The entire plan depends on a fusion reactor acting like a fission bomb that Bane didn’t even know was down there, Blackgate being moved within city limits after the events of the second movie for no clear reason, and a letter that again no one knew existed while the plan was being carried out.

        Also if he broke Batman’s back why not just kill him? Why give him a chance to escape?

        • Moneo@lemmy.world
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          Also if he broke Batman’s back why not just kill him? Why give him a chance to escape?

          He explains that he wants batman to watch his city deteriorate to chaos or whatever.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            By putting him in an underground prison where he can’t see it happening?

            Also why? In the comics Bane removed Batman because he was a threat not because of a personal grievance.

            • Moneo@lemmy.world
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              He has a TV showing him Gotham news or some shit. idc what happens in the comic. I’m not defending the movie just telling you what I remember from watching this movie like 10 years ago. There’s a lot of stupid shit in the movie but it’s made abundantly clear why he’s alive and in prison.

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        Not really. It’s just on these forums.

        As soon as you go out into the real world, you’ll see cops are people too and have about the same amount of respect as everyone else.

        First you need to go out into the real world, though.

        • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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          Well, the real world is where these cops are murdering children. And it’s in the real world that we get to experience their maliciousness directly.

          Maybe you should stick to your fantasy land where cops aren’t hair trigger shooting people with basic tools?

        • Bobmighty@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          A cop in my area shot his car with a suspect in it multiple times because an acorn gave him spookies. Also, cops here are widely known to be corrupt and shitty. I’ll just keep on assuming they are incompetent and useless.

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          I had no hatred of police until I worked with/around them for the better part of a decade. Used to go around to different places training them on a new methodology of data entry, and had them come to us after out department got the space. Trained hundreds of departments of all types of cops, trained hundreds of different facilities of COs. Not a single time, in the 1-3 day training periods, did I come away without hearing them brag about, or do, some awful shit. After the 50th or so department, where police fist bumped, and cajoled each other over violating people’s rights, I just couldn’t stand them anymore. They will sit around bouncing ways of violating people’s rights that will still provide them the protection of immunity. They trade pointers on the best ways to trump up charges against people they know aren’t breaking the law, but they don’t like. The moment the room was all male, or all the x minority was out of ear shot, the bigotry came out. At first I tried reporting it. Got told that since I am a white dude they didn’t think I was gonna care, and if I pushed this issue it was only going to be bad for me.

          This stuff affects their personal lives too. It is very common for cops to slowly lose anyone out of their life that isn’t a cop, or directly related to one. They hang out in bars where they have driven off pretty much everyone but other cops, their social events tend to be nothing but other cops and their families. There are whole subdivisions of domestic violence professionals that deal only with the families of police. They isolate themselves with their behavior and then blame everyone else for hating cops. Meanwhile many of the people who stopped hanging around them will tell you it’s because they are paranoid, bigoted, and quick to anger, if not violence.

          They also drastically over value the rarest dangers of their jobs. Spend enough time around police and you will hear about how many of them are ambushed and murdered. That is very rare, and most often the result of the cops doing something shady with their position. You very rarely hear them mention how driving all the time, and the recklessness of driving in emergency situations, is actually what kills them most often. While it was starting to gain some traction in the latter days of me working in the justice industry, they also rarely discussed how sitting all day, alone, in their car, caused a myriad of health issues, namely heart disease and other obesity/sedentary related illnesses. No, not worth talking about much if they can’t make themselves the victim.

          Policing, in the US, has become a cult of sorts.

        • nac82@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Rapists are people, too. Dictators are people, too. Murderers are people, too.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Cops killing children dealing with mental help episodes and get rewarded with more funding is something that makes me sick. Body Cam footage shouldn’t depend on if cops feel like releasing it should be sent to an independent party automatically. RIP Ryan.

  • Toneswirly@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    So if a cop, afflicted with PTSD from shooting teenagers, points a gun at me and I kill him in self-defense… Do you think the criminal justice system will hand-wave it away as easily as this?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      So if a cop, afflicted with PTSD from shooting teenagers, points a gun at me and I kill him in self-defense…

      The thing is, liberals want to see this as some kind of exercise in fairness. “Oh if can shoot me then I can shoot them!”

      No. This is a gang-violence thing. The MS-13 gang member can shoot you because he’s got a gun and years of psychological scarring and a willingness to kill to survive. You can’t shoot the gang member, because all his buddies will show up at your house, hold you down and skin your dog alive while you’re forced to watch, then bust out all your teeth and hang you out to dry as an example.

      Cops work the same way.

      • Malfeasant@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        This. I forget the court ruling, but there was one, that found you are legally allowed to defend yourself against a police officer who is not acting lawfully, up to and including killing the cop… But good luck surviving that long.

        • aksdb@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          … and proving it. In the end he could likely have been in plain cloths, no badge, in a bar after work and could still somehow claim to have announced himself and tried to prevent some bad perceived crime and it would be fine. Or if he got killed they would likely pull out is glorious career and what good cop he was to argue that he MUST have acted rightfully.

    • CaptainProton@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Well you’re not a cop and have a gun, so this side is the Internet already thinks you’re a fascist gun nut and belong locked away.

  • Vespair@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    For some reason this is unpopular, but I don’t think a police officer should be allowed to remove their firearm from its holster until actual assault has occurred, unless non-police citizens are in danger.

    A cop merely being scared should never be a reason somebody dies.

    If you can’t handle the pressure, don’t be a fucking cop.

  • _lilith@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This piece of shit couldn’t fight a 15 year old with a hoe? What a coward. One gut punch and the kid would have folded like a lawn chair.

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        8 months ago

        kids a buck fifty soaking wet, looks all of 5’5 from the pictures, and the family wasn’t helping. Did you kill all of those “15 year old thugs”? seems like we might have heard about you if you were as much of a coward as this cop

      • aksdb@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        If I encounter a professional boxer in a bad mood, I would shit my pants. If another professional boxer encounters a professional boxer in a bad mood, they would shrug it off and deal with whatever happens.

        Cops get trained. Being prepared for dangerous situations is essentially the core of their fucking job. Apparently, that preparation seems to be often simply “if shit gets ugly, shoot the shit out of whatever frightens you”. Cops should be better at dealing with this than random citizens with a gun.

      • Senal@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        “by a wide variety of men”

        I imagine your ability to definitely determine parentage, i’m assuming through observation and research, got you moved to somewhere your observational talents could be better employed ?

        No point in wasting that kind of talent on the streets fighting the statistically high percentage of 15 year old bodybuilding thugs and their mothers.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Let’s list all items that do not look like a gun during a police encounter. I’ll start:

    Small puppy Couch Basketball Bucket full of fruit Ice

    I can’t think of anymore at the moment. There’s bound to be one or two other items.

    • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      No one has claimed it looked like a gun. He was running towards the police with a gardening hoe with a clear intention to hit him. There’s video of it in this thread. This is not an example of a police shooting an innocent person. They shot someone that was attacking them with a lethal weapon.

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Billy club, taser, or just a good old Sparta kick to the chest. If lethal force is your first instinct when a child comes at you with a stick, you should in no way be allowed to carry a weapon.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Billy club, taser, or just a good old Sparta kick to the chest.

          Wouldn’t a gardening hoe have range/length/blockage on those other weapons, making them ineffective for defense?

          • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Club yeah, taser should be able to reach out and touch him, pepper spray, or just run back and try to talk the kid down since you’re the grown adult, fuckin something from these shitbirds who get a tax break on an MRAP and then cosplay as soldiers with none of the rules. Lethal force should be the last resort, not a reflexive first move. Bad training that is essentially just thin blue line propaganda.

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Club yeah, taser should be able to reach out and touch him, pepper spray, or just run back and try to talk the kid down since you’re the grown adult,

              I was thinking the taser wires could get caught up in the hoe forks, as they would be in front of the person.

              Pepper spray may work, though I’ve always read that there’s some people who get used to it, so it doesn’t stop them from doing their violence.

              I’m thinking at the point where someone is running at you (per the OP picture) with a deadly instrument it’s probably too late to talk them down.

              Lethal force should be the last resort, not a reflexive first move. Bad training that is essentially just thin blue line propaganda.

              Can definitely agree on this one. Considering we keep seeing this crap over and over again, I got to wonder what kind of training the police departments are giving their people, that this keeps coming up.

              Not discarding proper training, but what we really need is something that only exists in fiction, Star Trek phasers, set on stun.

            • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              Did you watch the video? The cop literally was running away from the guy that was chasing after him.

          • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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            8 months ago

            The way you defend against a reach weapon is by closing in, not giving space. Unless you have murderous intent.

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Unless you have murderous intent.

              I think it’s safe to think that would always be the case, if someone comes at you with a weapon.

              • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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                8 months ago

                *child *farm implement

                And by you I meant the cop. But I agree we can assume they’ll always have murderous intent. That’s the only thing they’re trained to do. Mental illness? Murder. Acorn fell? Murder. Child having an episode? Murder. Suspect complains they can’t breathe? Murder.

        • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          No, tasers and clubs are used when someone is of no threat whatsoever to you (ego disincluded). Guns are for everything else. But also sometimes just for everything /s

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Now lets put you there under an attack and give you 4 seconds to decide what to do. I wanna see that Sparta kick.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            4 seconds to decide what to do.

            Isn’t that what training is for? To train the brain to react appropriately? Why do hair dressers require more training than cops?

            • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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              The training, what little there is, is the problem in this case unfortunately. All the killology and us vs them horseshit they tell cops leads to precisely this type of situation. Proper training means that is indeed more than enough time to check down an ROE before using lethal force, but when you have a hammer and no one punishes you for hitting the wrong nail…every kid looks like a nail if they’re they wrong socioeconomic type or color and you’re constantly in “fear for your life.”

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              8 months ago

              The point is that it’s quite easy here to observe the video comfortably from your couch at home and with the power of hindsight ponder what they should’ve done instead. The officer being attacked here had no such luxury. This is in no way me saying that there’s zero issues on how policing is done in the US. There’s nuance to these things.

          • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Why is it important to let everyone know that you are at any given moment about 4 seconds away from killing a child?

              • Wayren@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                No mother fucker. No. This was not a man. This WAS a child. Fuck off with your quotation marks.

              • Thteven@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I was willing to give your argument consideration until this braindead-ass comment. You can fuck right off now. Goddamn boot lickers.

                • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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                  8 months ago

                  Describing a teenage boy as a child is just pushing a narrative to minimize the potential threath by him. Look at the pictures in the article. If someone his age and size charges at you while wielding a weapon then you should be scared for your life. That is not to say shooting is the optimal solution but you better do something and quick.

          • mriormro@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            If you can’t handle a teenager with a gardening tool what the fuck can you handle?

            Keep in mind: these are supposed to be trained professionals with convenient access to lethal weapons and yet every. god. damn. fucking. time their response is to escalate to the point of killing.

            Cops can go fuck themselves. As a profession they’ve proven themselves as capable as a toddler and as dumb, angry, and confused as… I don’t know. I didn’t even think it was possible to be as dumb, angry, and confused as they are.

              • in4aPenny@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Because as a cop you dehumanize yourself and other people, therefore are undeserving of humanity. Ya’ll have been killing black kids long before that time ya’ll dropped C4 explosives on their homes in 1985. Cops are irredeemable fascist pigs, gun-wielding arms of the state, whom the 2nd ammendment was written to permit shooting.

          • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Maybe that’s why they give all that cop training for? You speak as if cops are cornered deer.

      • Moneo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Are you aware there are countries all over the world where police don’t resort to shooting children when situations become tense and potentially violent?

          • in4aPenny@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Cops in America also firebombed and dropped C4 on civilians so ya’ll might actually be in competition with not just Sierre Leonean justice but like Islamic terrorists too. In fact, cops have killed more civilians than Islamic terrorists could ever hope for. Cops are the real terrorists of America.

                • ultranaut@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  While super shitty and something a lot of people don’t know about, it also happened so long ago that when you bring it up to people they don’t really take it seriously as an example of anything and will dismiss whatever point you are trying to make. It’s a “historical event” more than it’s something people typically feel is a part of “now”. These days the police operate completely differently, as the person you’re replying to said, what we saw with MOVE was an ad-hoc action that isn’t really an example of typical police behaviors in the contemporary US. They aren’t dropping bombs from helicopters, it’s a weird dumb thing they have done but the world we live in now is roided out SWAT with military surplus and they are doing a pre-dawn raid because they love to LARP and that’s what they train for.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I have been assaulted in a very similar fashion, shovel, around same age, and I was also a teenager. I did not need or want a gun to diffuse the situation. And this officer had grown man strength.

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          I agree. Using a firearm obviously was not the optimal solution here but not totally unjustified either.

          I’m sure had he been unarmed he likely would have dealt with it by other means aswell. One of the big drawbacks of carrying a firearm is the ease of hasty and irreversible decisions.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        You sure this was what set him off? You sure he didn’t hear an acorn drop?

        Either one can apparently trigger police officer Psycho Mode.

      • Llewellyn@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I wonder why they don’t shoot in less vital spots like legs or hands in cases like that. Distance seems to be small enough to precise shoot.

        Are they undertrained or deliberately escalating?

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          We were told when I was in junior high about 30 years ago by one of our teachers that cops weren’t allowed to attempt non-lethal shots with guns. It either had to do with being sued for intentional maiming or something, or that if a person isn’t endangering you enough that lethal force isn’t necessary, then shooting your gun at all is putting someone at risk of death when it isn’t warranted. We were also told it was better to just run away because cops weren’t allowed to shoot you in the back because you are no longer a threat.

          I don’t know if any of that was true then or if it is still true now, but it makes me really sad as an adult that a teacher felt it was important to teach kids about how to not get shot by police.

        • devnull406@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The thinking is that a gunshot is always lethal force. If you want to stop the threat most effectively you aim for center mass. So in this case someone is attacking you with a weapon capable of causing death or great bodily harm and legally you can defend yourself with deadly force.

        • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Legs are suuuuuper lethal. Hit the thigh, good chance of obliterating the femoral artery, gives you well less than a minute to stop the bleed before the person loses consciousness and maaaayyyybe a couple of minutes before they are unalived.

          And as others have pointed out, they are massively under trained in the US, and the training they receive is basically that every person you interact with has a gun and they want to kill you, so pull your gun ASAP and make your first shot a kill.

        • ansiz@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The training deliberately is to aim for center mass, the police have made no secret to that.

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          I’ve wondered the same thing. That’s what police often do where I live. Here’s an example.

          To my knowledge they’re not exactly instructed to do so but probably choose to do that of their own will likely because killing someone is going to fuck you up wether it was justified or not.

          • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Is that a garden hoe? Looks like an adze to me, which, if that’s what the kid was wielding… I could see an argument for use of force. An adze is basically a curved hoe with a bevel that can be as sharp as an axe’s, just perpendicular to the handle.

            A garden hoe, which is what it looked like in the video, is a flat piece of metal on the end of a handle that would definitely hurt, but not like an adze, and likely wouldn’t be sharpened.

            They used to call them shin splitters or something because carpenters back in the day would stand on top of logs and swing the adze down towards their feet to mill that face of the log flat. If you missed, well… Yeah, goodbye toes/shin/etc.

  • Aleric@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Poor kid must have been planting oak trees. The pig thought they were preventing a future massacre.

  • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    So for context my local PD dealt with a fine gentleman who attacked a security guard in his car dual wielding a hatchet and metal pipe. They spent several hours trying to talk him down before charging him with a shield and arresting him without much further ado. If you guessed he was white you guessed correctly.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Society failed this boy. More spending on medical research, and care could have prevented this event. But instead we spend way more money on killing more people in other countries. And the medical research could help those who serve in the military as well. But no, must cut those costs as much as posdible.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Whatever happened to tasers? I guess it’s not that convenient for the police to have someone capable of suing back, makes one wonder how many cases aren’t able to get the attention this kid is.