• Coach@lemmy.world
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    3 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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        3 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.

      • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
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        3 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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          3 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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            3 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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              3 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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              3 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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                3 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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                  3 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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          3 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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          3 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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                3 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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        3 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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          3 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

        • crossmr@kbin.social
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          3 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.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          3 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.

      • Moneo@lemmy.world
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        3 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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        3 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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          3 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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            3 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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          3 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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        3 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.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      3 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

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      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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        3 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

        • 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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            3 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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              3 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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                  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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            3 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.

        • lath@lemmy.world
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          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.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          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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            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.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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              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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                  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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              3 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.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          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?

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        3 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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        Police in other countries are constantly able to non-lethally subdue people wielding knives. Do not normalize this reaction.

      • 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.

      • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        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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          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.

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    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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    Another child murdered.

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

    • qdJzXuisAndVQb2@lemm.ee
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      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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          Final. season was really interesting I that regard. Real cop propaganda is The Rookie. It is shameless.

          • Omega@lemmy.world
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            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.

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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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        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.

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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.

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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.

      • harderian729@lemmy.world
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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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          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.

        • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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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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          Rapists are people, too. Dictators are people, too. Murderers are people, too.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    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.

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    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?

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      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.

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        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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          … 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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      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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    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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    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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        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

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        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.

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        “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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    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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      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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        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.

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          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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            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?

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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.”

            • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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              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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            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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                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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                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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                  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.

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            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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                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.

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          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

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          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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            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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              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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              Did you watch the video? The cop literally was running away from the guy that was chasing after him.

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              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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                *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.

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        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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            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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                  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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        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.

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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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        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?

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          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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          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.

        • ansiz@lemmy.world
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          The training deliberately is to aim for center mass, the police have made no secret to that.

        • SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml
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          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.

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          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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            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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    Poor kid must have been planting oak trees. The pig thought they were preventing a future massacre.

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    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.

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    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.

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    TLDR: What is the “5 foot garden tool”? That’s all I want to know!

    So many details and blame thrown about, but suddenly vague on “gardening tool?” It was 5 feet of something. A rake? A scythe? A stick?

    It sort of matters what is in your hands when you approach police; not that that’s ever a good idea. Even with a disability, he could be dangerous.

    I’m astounded by The Guardian. How does an article explain is such detail the events of an altercation and aftermath yet space so terribly on such basic information?

    • andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun
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      Maybe don’t take a job of protecting and serving if a kid with a gardening tool is a bit too frightening for you to handle non-lethally.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        How should police have handled it?

        The bodycam video shows the officer approaching with his gun holstered, drawing it while backing up, turning and trying to run away, while the kid quickly closes the distance and tries to strike the officer’s face, head, and upper body with a long-handled tool.

        How should the officer have handled this?

        How would you have handled this?

        If a random person were attacked in such a manner, is it possible that they could have lost an eye? Is it possible that they could have been permanently disfigured? Had their carotid artery severed and quickly bled out? Been knocked out?

        Is it possible that a reasonable person could have reasonably believed this attacker posed a credible, criminal, imminent, threat of death or grievous bodily harm to an innocent person?

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          First of all, they got radios. He knew cop number 2 was a second behind him. So have the tactical patience to group properly.

          Designate a lethal guy and a non lethal guy.

          In the future, train actual hand to hand to trap an arm holding a weapon and neutralize it.

          We don’t pay police to kill us.

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                Correct. I wasn’t referring to this situation.

                I was referring to the parent comment, where they suggested responding officers should wait around outside, while the kid is trying to kill his family members inside.

                This kid charged as soon as the first officer made verbal contact with the occupants. So, when called to a domestic dispute, where a family member has been reported using a weapon, parent comment seems to suggest adopting a policy of “stick thumb up ass and wait until we have overwhelming force” before even approaching the scene.

                Ignore that the enraged attacker is trying to kill people inside. Ignore that the occupants are calling for help. Just stand by and wait for more people.

                That’s what police did at Uvalde. Parent comment is recommending a policy consistent with the bungled response at Uvalde.

                “Uvalde Gambit” concisely implies the problems with parent comment’s suggestion: waiting consistently leads to worse outcomes than immediate actions.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              Oh so those are the choices? No engagement at all until a third party intervenes or charging in like a Call of Duty player?

              That’s not a good faith argument.

              • Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de
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                The other choice is what most humans would do. That’s remove yourself from what you perceive as a dangerous situation. I know it hurts fee fees when ego is on the line but better than killing someone.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  Right? The kid was no longer threatening the family. Lead him to your partner. Do a dance around the patrol car.

                  Nope straight to shooting kids.

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            Are you asking or telling? Are you telling me that it would have been more appropriate to use a tazer, or are you asking me if a tazer would have been a feasible option?

            Are you trained and qualified to determine when and how to employ a tazer? Are you qualified to discuss the conditions under which a tazer can or should be employed?

            Basically, do you actually know what you’re talking about when you mention a tazer?

            • andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun
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              I’m not asking you. I’m phrasing it as a question because it’s one of the most blatantly obvious answers to your question. A taser is better unquestionably when someone is coming after you with clearly not a gun. Yes. I’m not trained but I have enough common sense to realize that not killing someone who’s chasing you with a clearly non lethal weapon is much better than killing them.

              • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                who’s chasing you with a clearly non lethal weapon is

                The weapon in question is a metal blade on a stick.

                It is readily capable of destroying an eye. (Aka: “Grievous bodily harm”) It is readily capable of severing the carotid artery. (Aka: “death”) It is capable of causing a wide variety of similar permanently debilitating, disfiguring, or lethal injuries to the officer in a very short period of time.

                The video shows that the kid was attempting to strike a retreating officer in the head or upper body. Any person in the officer’s position would reasonably fear a significant possibility of death or grievous bodily harm from this attack.

                I therefore reject your assertion that the weapon being employed against the officer can be reasonably described as “clearly non lethal”.

              • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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                How was that tool clearly non lethal? If fists are potentially lethal, then a long sturdy tool sure as hell is.

            • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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              I’m not trained in how to employ a tazer, but a cop probably should be.

              It seems like there ought to be some way to safely help a teenager having a mental breakdown without killing them.

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                I’m not trained in how to employ a tazer,

                Clearly. If you had been trained on the proper use of a taser, you would recognize that they can’t be effectively employed in the way you suggest.

                You might as well be arguing that the cop should have just shot the weapon out of the kid’s hands. It’s just as feasible.

                • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  <.< Well, y’see, a taser and a gun are very similar in these instances. You take it out, point it at the target, and pull the trigger.

                  Since there were two cops, that means there were two tasers. Funny how two guns were used though, as if they never even considered using their tasers?

      • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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        I have plenty of dangerous gardening tools in my shed.

        The fact is, and point I was trying to make, we don’t know what the tool was therefore, we can’t draw conclusions about acceptable risk yet.

        Protecting includes the family, the ones who called the police in the first place, from danger too.

        • PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
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          Oh for Christ’s sake. What other countries does this happen in? Is the US so profoundly filled with dangerous gardening tools that they present a clear and present danger in the hands of a child facing armed and armored officers? I believe they have garden tools in places like England and New Zealand and such.

          Maybe if we didn’t arm every cop like they’re supposed to take Baghdad and train them that their first job is coming home alive, huh?

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            3 months ago

            Yo, no offence here, buut you people seem to forget all about the random Europe attacks with bladed instruments. Let alone all the attacks in the rest of the world that go unreported globally.

            Melee weapon attacks are dangerous and often deadly. My country prohibits having anything that can be classified as a white weapon in your car due to how many fuckwits started hitting and stabbing each other in traffic.

            You lot are really downplaying the risks involved just because cops were at the center of it.

            • PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              No offense here either, but you seem to have fallen for the NRA-driven narrative that knife attacks are more common in Europe as if that balances out the enormous rate of gun crimes (including this one) in the US. Statistically, both the US and Europe have approximately the same rate of knife attacks - with some countries in Eastern Europe being a bit higher.

              But let’s reason that through a bit more, just to be scientists. If an officer is willing to fire a gun at the literal drop of a hat, and that was somehow a deterrent to knife crimes, then we might hypothesize that the fact that in European countries officers use de-escalation first and engagement with pepper spray or tasers second would in fact see far higher rates of knife crimes. They don’t.

              So logically speaking, I don’t think either the statistics nor the models support your hypothesis.

              • lath@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                My “hypothesis” is simply that you’re downplaying the dangers of an attack with a melee weapon. They can be and often are deadly, regardless of how often they happen.

                • PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  So should a cop respond with lethal force against a child because they have a garden tool, or has the rest of the planet been making a terrible mistake that only the Americans, with their off the charts levels of violence and incarceration, have figured out?

                  Do you think a militarized police force has a negative effect on violent crime and the rest of the world outside of places like Haiti and Somalia need to catch up with us?

          • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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            3 months ago

            I’m not here defending or jumping to conclusions of anyone or any economic, cultural, or racial statement.

            All I want to know is what the damn tool was!

            • Moneo@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Dude it literally doesn’t fucking matter. Police in other countries disarm people wielding knives on a regular basis, without fucking killing them.

              You are siding with an incompetent, oppressive and racist organization under the guise of rationality. Please stop. Cops are not your friends. They do not protect you. They are state sponsored bullies.

              A couple years ago I would have understood where you’re coming from and possibly even agreed with you. But the more I learn about the history of police and how utterly ineffective they are the more I agree with radical leftist beliefs. No matter how much you want to believe we live in a functioning society, with a functioning police force, it just isn’t reality. The police have a long and violent history of brutalizing and murdering the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society. Fuck the police.

              • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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                3 months ago

                The “if you’re not with me, you’re against me” argument is BS and a tool of the ignorant. I’m not your enemy because I refuse to debate a position I never addressed in the first place. I was talking about a garden tool, nothing else. You want to goad me into an argument I simply won’t have.

                Furthermore, you have no business telling me who my friends are. I have, in fact, had some very positive experiences with police in the past. I don’t share your rational and I am, as an individual, entirely entitled to my first hand, fact-based opinion even if it doesn’t reflect yours.

                • Moneo@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  You’re asking for information that is simply irrelevant, police should and can disarm people wielding melee weapons. Maybe you genuinely believe you are asking an important question, but asking questions like “but what did he do to deserve it” is a common bad faith argument used to muddy the waters and make the situation appear more ambiguous than it truly is. Hence, no one in this thread wants to fucking answer your question. You are the one attempting to goad people into engaging in an argument we simply won’t have.

                  I too have had positive experiences with cops, this proves absolutely nothing. You are entitled to your opinion and I’m entitled to think society would be better off if people like you had a more critical opinion of an organization that does pretty much anything other than serve and protect.

        • halfwaythere@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          What a crap take. You know how many people young and old have been in a foreign country with a majority of the populace looking to kill them, have a thing called ROE Rules Of Engagement to guide when they should shoot to kill. Many time people with weapons, lethal weapons in their hand and those people would have to gauge whether or not they were a threat.

          All police should have to adhere to a common ROE when engaging with the America/non American populace. If soldiers had to do it in a country where they were not welcome it should be a no brainier that the people sworn to “protect and serve” should have to do this bare minimum in our own country.

          • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
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            3 months ago

            You did read the article including the part he was attacking his sister possibly with the garden tool or “piece of glass” while his other family was avoiding him and calling the cops? What is your threat assessment of that?

            Anyways…

            I don’t know if the shooting was justified or not, and I’ve never made such statement and don’t have an opinion one way or the other.

            My post, if you read it again, is about The Guardians lack of information about the freaking tool.

            That’s all I want to know. What is the tool? JFC people.

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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            3 months ago

            Can you provide me with an example ROE and show me how the actions of the police here would have violated it?

            Just for clarity, Here is the body cam video of the attack.

            What ROE would have prohibited a member of the military deployed in a foreign nation from using lethal force in an equivalent scenario?

      • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I can crack your skull with a single swing of a gardening hoe. It’s hilariously unreasonable to expect police not to treat this as a lethal weapon. Look at the video; they’re telling him to stop or they’ll shoot and even turn around and start running away in order to avoid doing that.

        Also the “kid” is a 15 year old adult sized man.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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            3 months ago

            A cop could trip on the sidewalk walking up to the door and crack his head open. This is such a stupid argument. These people are supposedly paid to deal with dangerous situations. Cop lovers always talk about how “they’re putting their lives on the line” yet in reality, we see they’re really putting everyone else’s life on the line in every situation because apparently your life is worth more than everyone else’s once you take a 6-week course at a local community college and put on a badge.

          • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Shooting violent people that attack others with bladed long weapons is a justified use of force. No doubt there are better and worse ways of handling situations like this but if it’s racist police murdering innocent people you’re looking for then this isn’t it.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              If you watch the video it’s reaching shears. Don’t make this out like it’s a sword. And he’s holding it a hand on either end so he has no leverage to swing it. You could easily tackle him and render them useless.

              Absolutely a fucked up panic shoot that will get swept under the rug with the rest. Cowards shouldn’t have badges and they should face charges for playing judge dredd.

              • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                Near impossible to tell from the video but definitely looks more like a hoe to me. Also, the cop had around 4 seconds to figure out what to do and he’s literally running away from the guy chasing and about to swing at him with it the moment they opened fire at him. It doesn’t get much more legitimate from that.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  Okay and still, what leverage does he have with his hands like that?

                  This officer also created the situation by not waiting just a couple seconds for his buddy. Instead we have two guys acting individually with just pistols.

                  There’s certainly no other outcome expected from a couple guys panicking with guns

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              So yes. You think you have a license to shoot anyone. Great. I really don’t look forward to your future headline.

        • braxy29@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          you know, educators and mental health workers are expected to manage situations like this without shooting students/patients/clients.

        • Moneo@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Also the “kid” is a 15 year old adult sized man

          Weird how you only hear this type of stuff when describing black kids. 🤔

          • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            I don’t understand why you all care so much about someone’s skin color. If you disagree with something I’ve said then tell me what it is. These ad-hominem attacks aren’t doing much.

            • Moneo@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Because black children being described as and treated like adults is a pattern that has been repeatedly used to justify violence against them.

      • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        That’s the beauty of it, police don’t have to protect and serve in America. Courts made sure of that. Don’t need to know the laws they’re enforcing either. Just run an obstacle course and take a 40 hr course on killology - the idea that policing is the most dangerous job on the planet and everyone is trying to kill you at all times- and presto, they give you a gun, body armor, and protection from the legal and financial repercussions of your actions.

        Plus, there’s lots of networking opportunities with local white supremacist and christofascist organizations.

    • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Too bad he wasn’t a big white man with a knife! Then the cops would have tried to talk him down!

      • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        I hear what you’re saying, and black people are targeted disproportionally for these sorts of extra judicial killings, but there are plenty of videos of white people being executed by cops and also facing the same cushy “repercussions”.

        If minorities aren’t safe then nobody is safe.

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      Aren’t police carrying non-lethal stuff like tasers and trained in deescalation techniques that could be used to subdue someone without shooting them?

      Edit: not ‘desecration’, although maybe they are

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      3 months ago

      From the body cam videos you can easily glean the size and shape of the tool in question and how the kid was handling it, but the clarity isn’t enough to conclusively determine the specific tool.