Another "I can't breath" death: Police Reform & Protests in the USA

[Endus]

Cops in Denver decide it was a grand idea to start open firing on a suspect who was in the middle of a crowd. The suspect and five bystanders were injured and are in serious or critical condition.

Also gonna just take a small aside to rant about the passive voices that go on in a lot of these articles involving cops shooting at people, because this one in particular makes it seem like five people mysteriously came down with bullet wounds despite only one party firing any weapons.

Man, that article's egregious about it, too.

"They noticed there was a person armed with a weapon who was creating a disturbance"

What kind of "weapon"? Because to cops, swinging a bag around could be a "weapon". Or a stick he picked up off the ground. It makes me think if they identified the "weapon", we wouldn't agree it's necessarily actually a weapon.

And what kind of "disturbance"? Was he actually threatening anyone? Because I imagine if he were, you'd have said he was threatening people.

"As officers approached the armed person, they determined the person posed a “significant threat,” and multiple officers fired at the person, according to Thomas."

How?

Explain it. "The cops said they had reason to shoot" is not evidence they had reason to shoot. At least explain what they though posed a significant threat. Being this cagey makes me assume they had no such explanation.

And like you said, absolutely fascinating that it's always some passive "bystanders were injured by bullets for some indeterminable reason as police fired on a suspect who was definitely doing something he shouldn't have been doing but we can't say what because reasons." Can't ever suggest cops shot innocent people because they're shit at the basic minimums of their job.

[Canpinter]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.den...-shooting/amp/


This article gives some actual details Atleast.

[Edge-]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.den...-shooting/amp/


This article gives some actual details Atleast.

So...he pointed the gun at the police? Or he simply reached towards his wasteband "in a motion consistent with pulling out a firearm"? Only one said he had the gun at that point?

An unnamed officer feared for his life with the gun pointed in his direction? Why not others? Surely other officers had the gun pointed at them too, right?

No description of the officer shooting? Just one officer hearing "four to six gunshots" and then seeing the guy fall to the ground?

As always, lots of holes in the initial police reports that seem fairly suspect.

And I'm sure there will be precisely zero discussion over broader topics like, "Should we really have a Second Amendment where officers are in perpetual fear that every suspect they encounter may be armed, and that dealing with an armed suspect in a crowd is inherently super dangerous."?

[Canpinter]

So...he pointed the gun at the police? Or he simply reached towards his wasteband "in a motion consistent with pulling out a firearm"? Only one said he had the gun at that point?

An unnamed officer feared for his life with the gun pointed in his direction? Why not others? Surely other officers had the gun pointed at them too, right?

No description of the officer shooting? Just one officer hearing "four to six gunshots" and then seeing the guy fall to the ground?

As always, lots of holes in the initial police reports that seem fairly suspect.

And I'm sure there will be precisely zero discussion over broader topics like, "Should we really have a Second Amendment where officers are in perpetual fear that every suspect they encounter may be armed, and that dealing with an armed suspect in a crowd is inherently super dangerous."?

I don't fucking know? Hell I'm fairly sure America/Americans are not worth saving at this point and I say that as one of the filth.

[Edge-]

I don't fucking know? Hell I'm fairly sure America/Americans are not worth saving at this point and I say that as one of the filth.

Not asking you specifically, just kinda like...yelling into the ether, not expecting an actual response.

[Twdft]

And I'm sure there will be precisely zero discussion over broader topics like, "Should we really have a Second Amendment where officers are in perpetual fear that every suspect they encounter may be armed, and that dealing with an armed suspect in a crowd is inherently super dangerous."?

A couple weeks ago when a first heat wave hit Germany I couldn't sleep at night. I went out into a near public park, sat on a bench and listened to some fine Dr Who audio play while cooling off. At 1am. I spent exactly zero thought about someone sneaking around the park with a gun. Not sure I could do the same in America...

[postman1782]

Judge in Elijah McClain case finds sufficient enough evidence to continue trial.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-find...ry?id=87065423

The judge in the case says there is enough evidence to pursue a criminal case against the 5 former police officers and paramedics in the case. Lawyers for the cops and paramedics claimed that they didn't have enough evidence to proceed, but the judge disagreed.

They are set to be arraigned on August 12th.

[Zeth Hawkins]

Four officers charged in connection to Breonna Taylor's death.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...a-taylor-death

[Edge-]

Four officers charged in connection to Breonna Taylor's death.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...a-taylor-death

and one count of making a false statement to federal investigators.

Have the cops...tried not lying to other cops?

“The object of the conspiracy was to cover up the fact that the Springfield Drive warrant affidavit was false, misleading, stale, and unsupported by probable cause by submitting a false investigative letter and making false statements to criminal investigators,” court documents state. “It was further part of the manner and means of the conspiracy for Joshua Jaynes to contact other officers and pressure them to provide support for the false information in the Springfield Drive warrant affidavit.”

Why is it that descriptions of how the cops behave when they're under any investigation are largely indistinguishable from organized crime?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Four officers charged in connection to Breonna Taylor's death.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...a-taylor-death

They should be charged with felony murder.

[postman1782]

Have the cops...tried not lying to other cops?



Why is it that descriptions of how the cops behave when they're under any investigation are largely indistinguishable from organized crime?

The mayor and all the people that tried to get the gentrification in the area should be charged too. They did this so they could buy Taylor's house for a fucking DOLLAR, because her house was in the middle of an area they are trying to gentrify.

[Edge-]

https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-08-15...t-lawsuit-says

In the early morning hours of July 15, Daniel Fox heard a loud noise coming from his neighbor’s house on 53rd and Rockhill Road. When he went outside to investigate, he discovered someone had kicked in the door.

Fearful for his family’s safety — he has two small children — Fox called the Kansas City Police Department. While waiting for the police, he looked over at his neighbor’s house and could see an intruder inside.

At 1:33 a.m., two officers responded. After talking with Fox, they left 10 minutes after they’d arrived. They never entered the neighbor’s house.

Alarmed, Fox called KCPD a few minutes after they left to ask why the neighbor’s house was still open and why the police had done nothing. One of the initial responding officers called him back and informed him that “their hands were tied.”

So Fox stayed awake the rest of the night on a couch, gun cradled in his lap, in case the intruder came to his house. The next morning he posted a video on Twitter recounting what happened and asking that the KCPD’s inaction be brought to the attention of the mayor’s office or the KCPD.

That evening, a captain at Metro Patrol left him a phone message. The captain, whom Fox later learned was James Gottstein, said that, since the DeValkenaere verdict, the police no longer searched abandoned houses without a search warrant.

Gottstein was referring to the conviction by a Jackson County judge last year of former KCPD Detective Eric DeValkanaere in the killing of Cameron Lamb, a Black man who was backing into his garage. The judge found DeValkenaere guilty of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action and sentenced him to six years in prison.

DeValkenaere and his partner had entered Lamb’s property without a search warrant while investigating a high-speed car chase that had occurred earlier in the day.

“I’m sorry you had that experience,” Gottstein told Fox in his voicemail message, “but many citizens are going to have that same experience but it’s kind of out of the police’s hands until that judgment is overturned on appeal so that we can go back to our business to keep citizens safe, you take care, buh-bye.”

Just before 10 p.m. the same day Gottstein left that voicemail message, two KCPD officers showed up at Fox’s house. One of them wore a tactical chest vest adorned with weapons.

Fox’s wife answered the door. The officers told her they wanted to “stop by and talk to” Fox and left a business card. Later, Fox listened to Gottstein’s voicemail and was shocked at its tone, feeling it was meant to intimidate him.

Or as he alleges in a federal lawsuit he filed last week against the police department as well as Gottstein and the two officers who showed up at his door, Fox “felt afraid and believed the true intentions of KCPD and its officers were not to help him, but to intimidate and retaliate against him for his critical Twitter post.”

Fox’s lawsuit, from which the description of what happened was drawn, seeks unspecified damages for violations of the First Amendment and conspiracy to violate his constitutional rights. It also asks the court to rule that the KCPD's alleged policy of “hands-off policing” since the DeValkenaere verdict “is contrary to the public interest.”

“The balance of harms weighs heavily in favor of returning to the policy and practice of responding to reported crimes in place before the DeValkenaere ruling, where officers were not indiscriminately prohibited from entering personal residences with probable cause or exigent circumstances,” Fox’s lawsuit states.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, police spokeswoman Donna Drake said in an email, "While we do not generally comment on or speak about details of pending civil litigation to ensure fairness for all sides involved, we want to assure the public that we take any complaints about our members very seriously. And we want the citizens of Kansas City to feel safe in bringing any concerns about an officer’s conduct to our attention, whether it is done through the Office of Community Complaints or brought directly to our department."

Drake also posted a link to the department's search and seizure procedures at KCPD.org.

Asked about the lawsuit, Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Jean Peters Baker said she had heard of other cases where Kansas City police officers refused to act on a 911 call, claiming their hands were tied by DeValkenaere’s conviction.

Baker said that was a misunderstanding of the law and contrary to KCPD training. She said that even if the officers believed they couldn’t enter the midtown property next to Fox's, they should have stayed, set up a perimeter and waited for the intruder to exit.

Fox, a game designer, said this week in a phone interview that he felt unsafe and unprotected after the incidents in question.

“And I think I’m probably not the only person to feel this,” he said. “I’m sure that these things have happened too with other people in the community.”

Fox said he believed the police were clearly trying to intimidate him, “and I shudder to think if I was somebody who was marginalized what their response would have been instead.”

Sarah Duggan, Fox’s attorney and a former police officer herself with the Tonganoxie, Kansas, Police Department, said she thought Fox is one of many residents who have been victimized by KCPD's alleged unwillingness to take appropriate action when responding to residential calls.

“This leaves the community and its citizens at risk,” she said.

The lawsuit says that hands-off police “stems from a gross misinterpretation of the facts and ruling” in the DeValkenaere case.

In that case, Jackson County Circuit Judge Dale Youngs found that DeValkenaere had no probable cause to believe a crime had been committed by Lamb. Nor, Youngs ruled, were there exigent circumstances justifying DeValkenaere's presence on Lamb’s property.

Police are allowed to enter private property without a search warrant if people are in imminent danger, if it’s necessary to prevent physical harm to people or the police themselves, if relevant evidence is threatened with destruction or if a criminal suspect might escape.

“I don’t think I’m the only person who has experienced this with the Kansas City Police Department,” Fox said. “And if this [lawsuit] helps, and if other people are willing to speak out after hearing my story, then that’ would be great.”

KC Police just out there not doing their jobs because one of their own was convicted of murder. Seriously, I'm wondering more and more why I don't pursue a job in law enforcement so I can legally just choose not to do my job and still draw a taxpayer salary from the people I'm choosing not to protect.

[Xyonai]

New Footage has come out from the shooting in Denver, in which police open fired on a suspect that disarmed himself in front of a busy restaurant, striking six bystanders in the process.

The thread also includes a slowed down version of the footage to get a better idea of how absolutely stupid and reckless this was.

[Edge-]

New Footage has come out from the shooting in Denver, in which police open fired on a suspect that disarmed himself in front of a busy restaurant, striking six bystanders in the process.

The thread also includes a slowed down version of the footage to get a better idea of how absolutely stupid and reckless this was.

I keep getting told that guns aren't a threat, yet police consistently treat them as such, even when they're no longer in the posession of an individual.

But real, officer on the sidewalk who was on the literal opposite side of where the dude threw the gun and fired directly at him with a crowd of people behind him has beyond zero excuse for his panicky bullshit. Aren't officers ostensibly trained to keep their cool under this kind of pressure? I get it, we're all human and shit happens, but this is a kinda, "There's no room for mistakes like this" thing because those mistakes potentially kill innocent people.

[Xyonai]

I keep getting told that guns aren't a threat, yet police consistently treat them as such, even when they're no longer in the posession of an individual.

If a police officer can justify shooting you dead for 'having a gun' under any circumstances, then you don't actually have a right to bare arms. You'd think this fact would rile up the Chuds more, but they seem more than happy to just let cops open fire on the 'wrong' types of gun owners for "reasons".

But yeah there was absolutely no excuse for the second guy to just start spraying bullets into the guy with that many people behind him if he wasn't an active threat, and any excuse anyone -can- come up with is probably going to be some weak, smooth brained bullshit like 'lmao they should've left when the cops rolled up'.

[Endus]

If a police officer can justify shooting you dead for 'having a gun' under any circumstances, then you don't actually have a right to bare arms.

I'm honestly shocked this argument hasn't ever been made successfully in court.

If you have the right to bear arms, cops shouldn't be permitted to just shoot you. Imagine if you had "free speech", but if a cop didn't like what you were saying, he could kill you? Where's the "right" in that equation?

[postman1782]

New Footage has come out from the shooting in Denver, in which police open fired on a suspect that disarmed himself in front of a busy restaurant, striking six bystanders in the process.

The thread also includes a slowed down version of the footage to get a better idea of how absolutely stupid and reckless this was.

Well, if anything, every single one of those officers should be looking at jail time. And thankfully, they now no longer have qualified immunity, Colorado is one of the few states that have gotten rid of that.

[P for Pancetta]

I keep getting told that guns aren't a threat, yet police consistently treat them as such, even when they're no longer in the posession of an individual.

But real, officer on the sidewalk who was on the literal opposite side of where the dude threw the gun and fired directly at him with a crowd of people behind him has beyond zero excuse for his panicky bullshit. Aren't officers ostensibly trained to keep their cool under this kind of pressure? I get it, we're all human and shit happens, but this is a kinda, "There's no room for mistakes like this" thing because those mistakes potentially kill innocent people.

Don't forget the myriad of gun shaped objects people might concealing in their pockets like phones, vapes and wallets. Better stay on your toes as a cop. I'm pretty sure the Secret Service has gotten really good at recognizing hidden weapons, would be nice if this info was shared with the police.

The accountability part is the worst imo, why not punish bad cops? because it would deter people from becoming cops? Isn't that exactly what you want? for bad cops not to want to be cops?

[Edge-]

Don't forget the myriad of gun shaped objects people might concealing in their pockets like phones, vapes and wallets. Better stay on your toes as a cop. I'm pretty sure the Secret Service has gotten really good at recognizing hidden weapons, would be nice if this info was shared with the police.

Also, "literally nothing in your hands at all" can look like a gun, too.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/l...-part/2977196/

New body-worn video of a police shooting in Leimert Park from July was released Thursday, in which LAPD officers can be heard acknowledging that the suspect was not holding a weapon before officers opened fire on the man.

The 12-minute video shows officers approach 39-year-old Jermaine Petit, give commands for him to stop and drop his "weapon," and when he doesn't comply, he is shot. One officer also says to another that what they believe is a weapon is "not a gun" before the shooting.

"It's not a gun, bro"...that's one of the officers speaking.