So Sick - Police Shootings

Cleveland

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2011
Location
Texas
Yes I'm about to rant. I've been holding it in as much as possible other than speaking with wife from time to time. But I'm just done. I'm sick of turning on the news, or pulling up yahoo and hearing about all of the big bad power hunger thug police officers.

I think or would like to think, but maybe I'm wrong but whatever....I think I have a pretty strong compassion / caring for human life.

but you know what the common denominator in damn near most incidents: Resisting arrest in one form or another. Latest incident on the news is a drug dealer that ran from the police, then tussled with police, and put his hands in his pocket (possibly to throw out the pill bottle). Well I'm sorry boo freaking hoo. I'm so sorry that this or any other incident has happened. Truly I am but damnit the fact reminds, if you didn't resist, didn't run, didn't put your hands in your pocket, and followed instructions you would be alive.

Now have there been incidents where a police officer was completely in the wrong and should be charged in a citizens death. Of course. Hell Dallas, Texas has almost 4,000 police officers.....3,500 or so to be more exact (not sure if that has changed but it's the last stat I remind from a few years back). That's ONE city in ONE state. Did you really think none of them would make a mistake? Did you really think none of them are just as morally corrupt as some of this worlds citizens? Every profession has people in it that make bad choices, or turn for the worst, and police are no different. They are the same as you!

^ Now those incidents I just spoke about. You know what they are few and far between. But you want to know how many police officers were killed from gunfire in 2014 ? ..... 46 of them (can maybe subtract a few for friendly fire / training incidents) .... How many were actually shot in 2013 ? 31 .... and with 2011 being the worst with 73 shot, followed by 2007 with 70 shot. And all incident resulting in the death of the officer. Which by the way every year since at least 2004 at least 50 or more officers were shot and killed...every year....every year. (with 2 years at 30). Hell protest for them! Stand with them! And you wonder why they feel it's us against them? Because they are the only ones who seem to give a crap about each other. Blue wall of silence....hmm I wonder why.

And do you know how many incidents those officers actually take chances on every day? Case in point. Officer and myself making an arrest of a guy who refused to exit his vehicle. I grab him to drag him out, he resist, I grab his hands as best I could, he doesn't have much time to reach for anything, we later find a gun in the front of his waist band (inside his pants). Which by the way, fighting isn't that easy as the public seems to think it is. It's fairly hard to subdue a 100 lb women that doesn't want handcuffs put on her if the fight is in her. You get in trouble if you taze, you get in trouble if you pepper spray, you get in trouble if you use verbal judo...don't want to be too offensive, you get in trouble if you touch them too firmly, you get in trouble if you looked at them wrong, you get in trouble for not hurting them, you get in trouble simply for being alive, you get in trouble for getting out of your damn bed in the morning.......when in the hell did we become supermen / women? Last I checked I was human.

So yes they are a bit on edge. Follow the damn commands.
 
This is obviously a very sensitive issue and being from Wales I will try and offer my thoughts in a clear way as possible.

Firstly, I agree that police officers do a fantastic job given the threats they face every day. My ex-housemate is a police officer so I hear some horrible stories and I am amazed that they have the self discipline to avoid losing their cool more. However, I guess that is part of their training and why they are police officers, not vigilantes.

Secondly, even my ex-housemate will admit that despite there being 99% police officers who do their job with the best of intentions and incredibly well, there are that 1% (probably even less than that) who don't play by the rules and do use it as a chance to bully, assault, and manipulate. The Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases I cannot comment on too much because I do not know much about the cases. However, I agree with your comment about resisting arrest but at the same time you have to ask questions when one of the victims is shot more than several times and in the other instance the victim is heard crying that he can't breathe whilst in an illegal chokehold.

I would need to research both cases a lot more before I could deliver a more educated view but I certainly don't think every police officer is innocent. That said, I don't think every alleged criminal is innocent either! What a mess.
 
can you tell me what the average age and M/F sex theses people are that resist just wondering , so are youth centers a help
with police taking part like a in counseling capacity

so we all can breath easier RC

P S good jobs for drop outs ,investing in our youth
 
Good post. I can see how people are upset at the use of deadly force - especially with the last two incidents. But I just don't get how these are connected to race. I honestly don't think these white cops took down these two individuals because they were black. They reacted by reflex - adrenalin kicked in and they responded.

For the choke hold, in my opinion the cop should have loosened up on the guy because you just don't know in what condition the guy was in, and choke holds can be dangerous. They aren't called choke holds for nothing.

But in each case, guilt needs to be properly dished out. If you reach for a cop's gun, what do you think the result will be? If you are told to put your hands behind your back and refuse, what do you think will happen next?
 
Good post. I can see how people are upset at the use of deadly force - especially with the last two incidents. But I just don't get how these are connected to race. I honestly don't think these white cops took down these two individuals because they were black. They reacted by reflex - adrenalin kicked in and they responded.

For the choke hold, in my opinion the cop should have loosened up on the guy because you just don't know in what condition the guy was in, and choke holds can be dangerous. They aren't called choke holds for nothing.

But in each case, guilt needs to be properly dished out. If you reach for a cop's gun, what do you think the result will be? If you are told to put your hands behind your back and refuse, what do you think will happen next?

I think that is common throughout Western society especially. This refusal to take responsibility for your own actions. If someone trips over a paving stone then you're more likely to hear them say "I'm going to sue the council for not sorting that out!" as opposed to "I'm so clumsy, I should have watched where I was walking". Bad example, but hopefully you get what I mean.
 
The US needs to do something about their gun politics. Getting shot for putting your hands in the pocket or whatever is obviously caused by the policeman being piss afraid of the subject pulling a gun, and I would be aswell if I were there knowing how many guns that was around.

Making it into a racial thing is just stupid though.
 
I think it is a sad situation all around.

Like so many other peoples' comments that I have read, when reading other news articles about such incidents ......"Why did they not listen?".... "Why did they run?"...... "Why did they resist?".......

The list of questions goes on and on.

I watch the news and read it too. So many stories are "slanted" to get more sympathy or supporters, either by the victims family or the cops..... with the press running with their every comment...... How do you know just WHAT to believe?

I do feel for the family of the guy in New York City.......... I mean he was just selling illegal cigarettes........ I think the taxes in NYC on one pack is somewhere around $5....... seriously? $5?


Then this morning, on the news, I heard that this guy has been arrested some 29 times........... for basically the same thing. The complaints were from area businesses, saying crack heads would come to him wanting cigs, therefore drawing crack heads into the area.

It was also said, the video capture was not complete from the beginning.......... so who knows what happened prior to the start of filming.

I wouldn't want to be a cop............ it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of job.

So, I will close my comment by repeating how I started it:


I think it is a sad situation all around.
 
Very touchy subject. There are two sides to every story. I read about a 12 year old that was shot by a police officer who was already fired from a different dept. He did poorly on his fire arms training. The kid was playing with a toy gun at a park when he was shot. How about the little kid that got a flash bang grande thrown into his crib while he slept ? My brother in law is a retired Sheriff deputy and even he agrees that some (not all) officers can be loose cannons and things like this occur. As far as race, yes it is true that profiling does happen (IMO). I was stopped myself one day after work and given a ticket for a tag light being out. I did not know what a tag light was (at that time i was only 19 and just started driving) and the officer said, open your trunk i will show you what a tag light is :eek2:. I was driving an Oldsmobile Cutless that my dad restored as part of his car projects. He also restored a Ford Ferrling(sorry about my spelling) and a 1960 Mercedes Benz among other cars.My car was in the shop. I might add that my father who is well over 60 has never been involved with the law and has worked at the same company since he was 18 years old. In my opinion racial profiling does exist but not every case is the same. Sometimes the police have good cause and sometimes they do not. If my life was in danger and i felt threatened i would protect myself also. There are a lot of police officer's who were good cops who got shot and killed.Each individual case has to be reviewed and not just clumped in together.
 
can you tell me what the average age and M/F sex theses people are that resist just wondering , so are youth centers a help with police taking part like a in counseling capacity
so we all can breath easier RC

P S good jobs for drop outs,investing in our youth

Couldn't tell you the average age but I'm sure someone has the stats on it. If I had to guess it would be mostly young males any where from 17 or so to 29 or so. But as I said I'm just guessing.

Also I'm sure some youth facilities are great but speaking for the ones I know of out here....Not so much. I would rather send a kid to prison than some of these facilities.


For the choke hold, in my opinion the cop should have loosened up on the guy because you just don't know in what condition the guy was in, and choke holds can be dangerous. They aren't called choke holds for nothing.

Agree. For the life of me I'm not sure why he didn't. Plenty of officers were there. I understand why he went for it, in order to affect the takedown, but not sure why he didn't losen it. Been there plenty of times, and many officers typically (out here) will tell you, "hey losen up a bit" assuming the fight isn't out of control. Which from the video it wasn't. So I don't know what he was thinking.


Very touchy subject. There are two sides to every story. I read about a 12 year old that was shot by a police officer who was already fired from a different dept. He did poorly on his fire arms training. The kid was playing with a toy gun at a park when he was shot.

I'm actually glad you brought that up. Because it's huge problem. My question is why do parents allow their kids to possess, or buy for them....guns that look realistic? Citizens called the police on the 12 year old because they thought the gun was real BUT might be fake. Think about that for a second. They called because they thought it was real. How do you think the officer feels? The citizen is in a comfortable position to decide and think about it, but for the officer you don't have much time to decide. We get calls all the time about subjects with a gun and pointing it at people, then get there and find out it was fake, but looked real. That's just bad waiting to happen. If you google the TV show cops in reference to that recent incident in which a cameraman was accidentally shot by an officer, you will see where the guy they were shooting at was trying to rob a wendys with a toy gun that looked real. They have pictures of the gun on the internet next to the real thing.

Although I don't agree with how the officers handled the approach of the 12 year old kid. I just was speaking in regards to the toy gun. In terms of the incident, officers should have approached from a large distance, and at worst made a tactical approach. Not freaking pull up right on side of the kid. Even if you don't know exactly which subject it is or where he is, you still try to park for enough from the incident location (with in reason) to take a survey of the area, and choose your approach...and defiantly don't go speeding up to the location as shown in the video.
 
Couldn't tell you the average age but I'm sure someone has the stats on it. If I had to guess it would be mostly young males any where from 17 or so to 29 or so. But as I said I'm just guessing.

Also I'm sure some youth facilities are great but speaking for the ones I know of out here....Not so much. I would rather send a kid to prison than some of these facilities.




Agree. For the life of me I'm not sure why he didn't. Plenty of officers were there. I understand why he went for it, in order to affect the takedown, but not sure why he didn't losen it. Been there plenty of times, and many officers typically (out here) will tell you, "hey losen up a bit" assuming the fight isn't out of control. Which from the video it wasn't. So I don't know what he was thinking.




I'm actually glad you brought that up. Because it's huge problem. My question is why do parents allow their kids to possess, or buy for them....guns that look realistic? Citizens called the police on the 12 year old because they thought the gun was real BUT might be fake. Think about that for a second. They called because they thought it was real. How do you think the officer feels? The citizen is in a comfortable position to decide and think about it, but for the officer you don't have much time to decide. We get calls all the time about subjects with a gun and pointing it at people, then get there and find out it was fake, but looked real. That's just bad waiting to happen. If you google the TV show cops in reference to that recent incident in which a cameraman was accidentally shot by an officer, you will see where the guy they were shooting at was trying to rob a wendys with a toy gun that looked real. They have pictures of the gun on the internet next to the real thing.

Although I don't agree with how the officers handled the approach of the 12 year old kid. I just was speaking in regards to the toy gun. In terms of the incident, officers should have approached from a large distance, and at worst made a tactical approach. Not freaking pull up right on side of the kid. Even if you don't know exactly which subject it is or where he is, you still try to park for enough from the incident location (with in reason) to take a survey of the area, and choose your approach...and defiantly don't go speeding up to the location as shown in the video.

this is your observation and I do not doubt it my opinion this is a good starting place for elected officals to weed the garden so to speak [[ I would rather send a kid to prison than some of these facilities.]]

I think we have to be naive to think that the elected officials can ever expect this job of mentoring to be finished . when there on the job I for one want more than the as a whole are giving , career politics is some thing that needs policing in it self
my .02 cent but wishing you the best RC
 
Very touchy subject. There are two sides to every story. I read about a 12 year old that was shot by a police officer who was already fired from a different dept. He did poorly on his fire arms training. The kid was playing with a toy gun at a park when he was shot. How about the little kid that got a flash bang grande thrown into his crib while he slept ? My brother in law is a retired Sheriff deputy and even he agrees that some (not all) officers can be loose cannons and things like this occur. As far as race, yes it is true that profiling does happen (IMO). I was stopped myself one day after work and given a ticket for a tag light being out. I did not know what a tag light was (at that time i was only 19 and just started driving) and the officer said, open your trunk i will show you what a tag light is :eek2:. I was driving an Oldsmobile Cutless that my dad restored as part of his car projects. He also restored a Ford Ferrling(sorry about my spelling) and a 1960 Mercedes Benz among other cars.My car was in the shop. I might add that my father who is well over 60 has never been involved with the law and has worked at the same company since he was 18 years old. In my opinion racial profiling does exist but not every case is the same. Sometimes the police have good cause and sometimes they do not. If my life was in danger and i felt threatened i would protect myself also. There are a lot of police officer's who were good cops who got shot and killed.Each individual case has to be reviewed and not just clumped in together.

There is much more to the story. The 12 year old had a toy gun THAT LOOKED REAL. Several people observed the boy in the park pointing the gun at people and they called 911 to report it. When police arrived they told the child to drop the gun and raise his hands. He ignored them and pointed the gun at the cops. One of them shot the boy, who died.
 
Its sad to see a 12 year old boy getting shot dead.

But in the end he was carrying a gun that looked real and refused to put it down and pointed it towards the police so guess the officer had no choice but to shoot.

The main problem is that they live in a country where guns are freely owned and the chances of a 12 year old having a real gun are too high to take a chance on. Over here 12 year olds are usually way by the stage of playing with toy guns and im guessing its the same over there so the police are not going to take chances.

Sad thing is that as long as you live in a country with so many guns and armed police then this sort of thing will happen again and again. Just have to look at the incident a few months back where a 9 year old girl accidentally killed the instructor with an uzi. How damned irresponsible of both the instructor and the girls parents to let a girl that age near such a powerful weapon.
 
I'm glad somebody opened a thread like this.

As far as I am concerned the police in this Country need a lot of work. Did any of the police officers involved in the Eric Garner arrest, or any police involved in any arrest for that matter, realize or even care that when you are kneeling on somebody's head, forcing their face into the concrete and four other guys have their knees in your ribs and all you limbs pinned that it is practically impossible to comply with their request to put your hands behind your back?

Or do they realize or even care that if you "stop resisting" when you are in that position your ribs will probably break or that your teeth will smash out on the concrete?

The Mike Brown case went about how it should have, if you are a big guy and you punch a cop in the face you are probably going to get shot. As far as the Eric Garner case the police can try to rationalize it all they want but the fact remains that they killed a man, who by most accounts was a caring harmless man, with their over-zealousness. Sure, Mr. Garner was a petty criminal and so are the vast majority of police.

When we were kids we used to buy fireworks from a local cop who would confiscate them from other kids and sell them, somebody probably should have knelt on his face for a little while. Another cop I know used to bring us weed that he confiscated and never turned in and I am sure these are not isolated incidents.

A friend of mine got arrested for DWI and, while he was restrained and being processed, the police were taunting him to the point where he became agitated and the police, fearing he might get his hand free, jumped all over him to pin his face to the ground and during that incident one of the officers sprained his wrist and they charged my friend with assaulting a police officer. Luckily for my friend there were other witnesses and the Judge eventually threw the entire case, including the DWI, out.

I know of many other similar stories, this crap happens way too often.

Are there good cops out there?

I'm sure there are many but there is also way too many with a chip on their shoulder who should not be in a position to destroy, or take, peoples lives. Arrest them, process them, jail them if needed but don't kill them. If you can't do that you should not be a police officer.
 
simply what john said ive witnessed up close for 50 years my wife's father was murdered by the locale police beaten to death[ in a jail cell] after they arrested him and after they closed the cell door for the first time he was white they were white

you see he was running for public office but not on the same platform as the boys in office
 
I'm glad somebody opened a thread like this.

As far as I am concerned the police in this Country need a lot of work. Did any of the police officers involved in the Eric Garner arrest, or any police involved in any arrest for that matter, realize or even care that when you are kneeling on somebody's head, forcing their face into the concrete and four other guys have their knees in your ribs and all you limbs pinned that it is practically impossible to comply with their request to put your hands behind your back?

Or do they realize or even care that if you "stop resisting" when you are in that position your ribs will probably break or that your teeth will smash out on the concrete?

The resisting shouldn't have happened in the first place, so it's not really the police concern if a subject is worried / scared that if now that they are already resisting, if they should decide to stop what might happen to them. As I've said I agree the officer should have loosened his hold on the neck but in terms of each officer being on top of you like that, it's typically to stop the resistance as quick as possible to avoid anyone getting seriously injured.

Point is most officers don't want to hurt anyone.

But back to taking up aggressive positions on a subject. The rule of thumb is "not looking for a fair fight." I would prefer to have 20 officers help me arrest someone and all of us make it home, as oppose to only two of us, and having to tussle with them. The longer the fight the more likely someone will get hurt.

In that incident you grab whatever you can, you hold down whatever you can. I don't care if it's a pinky finger. That's one less pinky finger likely to hurt someone. In the midst of using force, yes it's easy to lose track of what another officer is doing. Which is why it's so hard to recall the incident and write the report. Which is also why you typically try to only write what you did, unless you're 100% sure of what you saw.

But one thing videos don't show you is how much a person is still tensing their body. Not saying this happened. But many times a subject has been actively trying to break free from a grip, and you know if you stop holding down they will continue to fight. Not to mention the subject has already resisted, now the question is how far will they take it. Do they have a gun on them, do they have a knife? If the officer waits to see, and ends up shot, or stabbed, will any of the public protest for that dead officer?

In the end it still goes back to "don't resist in the first place." Because truth be told if an officer has to put hands on you, then I am of the mindset that he should put them on hard and fast. It's a fight at that point, and if you've been in one, you can't nicely fight someone while also fighting to stay alive. Which is what you're doing. Once it starts you don't know what will happen. So you better be treating it as such. You should be wanting to end it quickly. That's a lot different that wanting to hurt someone, or not stopping to think.

And no simply resisting arrest should not equal a death sentence but it's akin to running across a busy highway during rush hour traffic. You've just increased the chances that something stupid might happened. And in terms of numbers / stats, the sheer amount of fights that happen daily in which people resist arrest compared to people being killed by an officer is easily well under 1%. For example over 50,000 assaults on police officers happened in 2013 alone. ***Remove however many you want for those few who disgrace the badge and made up their story / report.*** Either way that's still a hell of a lot of assaults for just one year. And each incident imho could have resulted in the citizen being shot.
 
Just one other thing many don't take into account:

We acknowledge the effect being in the military or going to war has on a soldiers mindset but we don't seem to care much for what officers deal with daily. They truly see the worst mankind has to offer on a daily basis over and over. They are put into situations that could easily result in their death because they hesitated.

For some reason we say things "well they chose to protect and serve," "well if they can't do the job," as if the officer should be immune to the things around him. How many times can a person deal with something before it takes it's toll on their soul? Then you turn around and the people you were sworn to protect don't really seem to care very much about you living or dieing. You've been lied on, spit on (thankfully never happened to me, but I've seen it happen to others more than once.....lol, for some reason that was kind of funny to me...gawd those officers were pissed lol :D), complained on with bs IAs opened on you, and all because someone didn't agree with a decision you made.

When you combine the pathetic media reporting, with an emotionally charged society (I've had guys challenge me simply because they are mad at something they heard an officer did in the news), and officers on edge, you end up with a flammable cocktail.

Things will continue to spiral out of control with out more acts like this:
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If you read the story of the 12 year old did you see the part about the officer ? There was more then one story about a 12 year old shot by police. The one i commented on said the officer did poorly in some areas of training and was also fired from a different police dept. By the way, a simple Google search will reveal a lot more incidents that have went beyond what was a simple matter. Just like a simple Google search would also reveal that some really good officer's were killed in a senseless manner. There should be something more that can be done on both sides IMO. Like Clayton said it could have probably been handled different. I have grown son's who i never let play with toy guns of any kind. I have heard of too many accidental shootings by children. I was raised around guns being from a small country town. We lived off the land for our survival. My grandparents were simple farmers owning land that is still in our family even today. I was taught about guns and how they were used. I also was taught to never point a gun at anything unless i was trying to kill it. I was shown how to hunt at 3 years old and I saw first hand, the damage a gun could do to a deer or other animal. I learned from example and experience. It is sad that some kids today are not taught that guns are not toys. Real or fake, you should never play or point guns at other people. I do believe, like i said also, not all officer's are good officer's, just like not all are bad. It is one thing that goes along with being human. It is human nature to be diverse.
 
I am always polite to the police when I am pulled over. I place my hands on my steering wheel , so that they see me in my side view mirror.

When they ask for my docs, I say that I have to go into my pocket book to get them. I don't argue but I do say that I thought that I was driving really well today...usually met with a slight smile.;)

One time I was pulled over and the police officer looked very nervous. He said he pulled me over as my van's rear tires were bald. I said yes, I was going to get new ones, soon....He asked for my docs and he was shaking so bad, his hands...he was talking on his radio and was stuttering and I felt so bad for him, but I did not understand why.

I don't know why he was nervous but I don't think that I could ever be a cop.
 
One time I was pulled over and the police officer looked very nervous. He said he pulled me over as my van's rear tires were bald. I said yes, I was going to get new ones, soon....He asked for my docs and he was shaking so bad, his hands...he was talking on his radio and was stuttering and I felt so bad for him, but I did not understand why.

He might have been in field training, so still in sort of a recruit / rookie type phase. If another officer was around watching, either in the same car or outside of it, then there was a good chance he was. But then again I guess some officers also do ride two to a car even when neither is in field training, just for safety reasons.
 
I have many friends who are in law enforcement. I do NOT envy them their jobs, basically I feel there isn't enough money on the face of the earth for what these people deal with on a daily basis. In my own little corner of the world, we have lost too many "young" cops in the last few years. Imagine, going to a disturbance call at a doctors' office (which happened to be right across the street from the hospital...but to no avail, the officer lost his life)...the last call of your shift. Man is disgruntled because nurse won't write him a prescription for a drug the man FEELS he needs. Police officer talks the man into a "calmer" mood, what do does man do??? Swings around , nails the cop, takes his gun and shoots him point blank. Or the officer who is on trial now for "aggressively" shooting out the tires of the car in which a person who had held hostages in a local store was trying to escape in. The person was injured when his car rammed into two patrol cars. Why is it we only piss and moan about the bad events that take place? Yes, I agree there are bad cops out there, BUT (and maybe I need to take the blinders off...but don't really think so) there are many more GOOD cops.

I used to work graveyard shift in a well known/popular 24 hour restaurant...I can attest to some of the "ugly" forms of life which come out after dark. I, for one, would NOT want to have to stop any of these individuals when they have done something wrong. Too many drug related incidents where they are carrying guns and knives hidden in their baggy clothing. Yes, they take an oath to "protect and to serve" and they take this job knowing they are putting THEIR life on the line to hopefully ensure the safety of honest people like you and me every day. There is always two sides to every story, and people need to start taking more responsibility for their actions.

End of my rant...my hat goes off to those who CHOOSE to put that uniform on every day...
 
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Came across this youtube video allegedly showing Michael Brown assaulting then robbing an old black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

Does this change your opinion in any way about the shooting? Does Michael Brown still look like a "gentle giant" after seeing this video?
 
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Came across this youtube video showing Michael Brown assaulting then robbing an old black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

Does this change your opinion in any way about the shooting? Does Michael Brown still look like a "gentle giant" after seeing this video?

I know some people on this board dismiss anything Snopes-related, but they make a very good case for the person in the video NOT being Michael Brown, and for the attack not even happening in Missouri.
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