NYPD Shooting

You lot probably know by now that there was yet another shooting involving police and a minority. Police claim that the car hit an undercover officer and then the undercover minivan then they shot an astounding 51 rounds and killed a person and another is critically wounded. What is your lots view on this?


I believe that this getting to the point where there might be chaos in the streets. This has happend far too many times to where we can believe anything the cops say. Don't tell me that there were also 2 black cops so now it makes these shootings right. I have many black friends and they think as I do that minority cops are actually worse than white cops. In Vegas there was over 20 police shootings before June this year. This is pure BS. The Cops abuse there power and these cops along with many others should be put in jail for life for this kind of thing. Why couldn't they shoot out the tires? Why is it that cops shoot people in handcuffs like what happend in Vegas awhile ago? There needs to be justic otherwise like a NYC coucilman predicted there could be chaos.

 

I don't want to jump to conclusions. I wasn't there and I don't know what the cops thought processes were. Obviously something set them off.

I understand they were monitoring this bar perhaps they thought something big was going down, thus juices were flowing, and they let emotions get the better of them.

Its always a tough compromise. You need authority and order but when those with the authority are killing people then what do you do?

 

51 times seems exessive, however, the only point of a gun is to kill. Shooting someone will not prevent them from being able to pull a trigger, or press a detonator, being dead will. The sheer fact of having a gun is for one reason only.

The gun culture in the US is the real cause. The police have to be routinly armed as so many of their encouters are with potentially armed people. This means that the first thing the police do when arriving at trouble is present their wepon. Once this has happened it leaves only 2 outcomes: 1) The suspect will surrender 2) The suspect will get shot.

The police cannot get close to a suspect until they are in control of the situation or grapple for fear of losing control of their wepon.

A scenario: A 17 year old kid is arrested for shop lifting and he is 5 yards away, the officer's gun is pointed at him and he is told to get down on the ground. Instead he panics, turns and runs. The options are a) chase him [he might have a gun] and try to bring him to the floor, b) let him run away, c) shoot him in the back. I understand many police act in lone patrol so fear is greater as there is no backup. The situation changes if, upon arrving at the scene the office gets out a night stick. He can then engage at close quarters and still have an escelation, but if I was a cop in the US I would still go for my gun first - why take the chance.

 

Heh... this is an on-going thing. It's neither Conservative or liberal in sides taken.

Here's the problem:

Society needs law enforcement

It takes a certain type of personality to fit that job... and we all may know one or more persons who has done it. And often the personality that finds it rewarding has been the school-yard bully.

Where we as a society have fallen down is to allow too much latitude on rules of engagement.. the no-knock search for drugs is, it seems, the primary paradigm of abouse and resulted in bad outcomes the most.

Which is stupid.

But it happens at all levels... Remember 'Waco'?
Freedom of Information finds the same disturbing facts as many of us suspected at the time.

We all wondered at the need for a siege... why not use stealth and arrest Koresh when he went into town?
Or, as it turned out, arrest him when the ATF went hunting with Koresh a few days prior to the siege?

The answer can, I think, be found in the premise for Miami Vice and the show Cops. These guys love to feel center stage and that happens no matter the level.

And by the way, the Atlanta debacle is far from over.. the more is known, the more the Atlanta cops, perhaps even the whole Atlanta PD, are in deep crap.