Quote:
Originally Posted by Dean Jarvis
It's a capital offence in the view of LEO's if you fail to perform as commanded. This has been a problem all along. It's just more transparent lately due to the body cameras in use and everyone carrying an iPhone with a camera.
Back in the day when I was with the 19th SFG we held a combined summer camp with the Arizona NG. Two of them were Phoenix police. They were telling us how they carried a throw-down gun with them. If the person they shot was unarmed they had one they could use.
Not sure what happened to the days when the cops would just go toe to toe with someone and just duke it out. Now you mess up performing one of their commands and its a death sentence.
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a lot of things have happened which have changed the prevailing culture within law enforcement.
1. what happened here is the next step in the same mentality which drives shooting peoples pets simply because they can claim they "felt threatened" by a pet.
It is the next step in what has been created by the pretext of 'officer safety'
once upon a time peace officers were respected and venerated for one simple reason. They chose to do a job which they knew placed them in a position of danger due to our civil rights and the bonafide law. the idea of considering everyone and everything a threat and therefore subject to lethal force was not a primary consideration, the idea was keeping the peace, not default escalation to lethal force. Therefore the peace officer deliberately choosing to place himself in the risk of danger to simply keep the peace and treat the public accordingly. No longer, now the public and their pets are treated in default fashion according to "I felt threatened..." via "officer safety"
2. they are not personally financially responsible for their behavior. "qualified immunity" means an officer does not have to face the same legal responsibilities an average individual does when it comes to lethal force.
The lawsuits? Who pays for those? The public ultimately does.
Where does the insurance money come from? The public pays the taxes which pay for the insurance.
When a cop is subject to the same standards the public faces via a shooting, then cops will likely approach lethal force with the same care as does the public.
3. when the legal system treats cops to the same std the public is treated, then things will change.
The video of the shooting was hidden from the jury, the judge thought it would be "unfair" to the cop were the audio / video record of what actually happened were shown to the jury.
Why is it "unfair" or "prejudicial" to show the truth to a jury so they can make a decision based on the facts?
Why was the statement enscribed on that cops rifle not allowed to be shown to the jury?
These very same things would be shown in court were it an ordinary citizen on trial for lethal force.
4. cops nowadays no longer 'keep the peace' were that the case this individual likely would have been handled entirely different. Once he's prone on the ground, he could have been handcuffed and the situation has been deescalated and things have not been escalated up what happened.
The entirety of those cops behavior was to needlessly and wrongfully escalate that situation via the use of fear to terrify that individual, then deliberately confuse him via multiple rapidly screamed commands into a state where he could not comply with what was demanded of him.
these are some of the things which need to be changed and have produced the culture within LE which lead to this young man being wrongfully killed.