[Police brutality] American injustice, yet again.

[Ragitsu]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34769178

Baffling and disturbing. I don't expect much, if anything, will arise to clear the officers in this case.

 

---

 

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/11/tuscaloosa_police_investigatin.html

 

Disproportionate force, anyone?

[Old Man]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34769178

 

Baffling and disturbing. I don't expect much, if anything, will arise to clear the officers in this case.

Nothing has arisen to clear officers in previous cases and yet they still usually keep their jobs.

[Ragitsu]

Nothing has arisen to clear officers in previous cases and yet they still usually keep their jobs.

 

Where else can you get that kind of job security?

[Cygnia]

Where else can you get that kind of job security?

Politics

[Old Man]

Marshals who killed 6-year-old had history of violence, rulebreaking, and stalking, and probably did not have authority to patrol in the city

[Marcus Impudite]

So Stafford and Greenhouse been thrown in the slammer and their bail is set at a cool million each? Unexpected, but promising.

[Old Man]

Promising, but:

 

- The prosecutor has to be willing to prosecute cops.

- The jury has to be willing to convict a cop.

- The judge has to be willing to sentence a cop.

- Reasonable doubt means "I saw a gun/I feared for my life" works pretty well as a defense.

 

Cops can literally choke a man to death on video and not even get fired, let alone indicted. So we'll see.

[Marcus Impudite]

Promising, but:

 

- The prosecutor has to be willing to prosecute cops.

- The jury has to be willing to convict a cop.

- The judge has to be willing to sentence a cop.

- Reasonable doubt means "I saw a gun/I feared for my life" works pretty well as a defense.

 

Cops can literally choke a man to death on video and not even get fired, let alone indicted. So we'll see.

Perhaps, though I doubt the fact that they ventilated an innocent 6-year-old child will win them very many points with any jury (provided it goes to a jury trial). Plus there's the fact that they're behind bars right now instead of enjoying a paid vacation.

 

I'm not going to jinx it by saying it's a sure thing, but this one sort of looks like justice might be done... for a change.

[csyphrett]

The Winston-Salem Journal reported a man was pardoned after 30 years in prison and is suing for malicious prosecution. As part of his defense, he alleged that the police who picked him up dangled him from a bridge, and then threatened his parents to get a confession.

 

When he was retried, a jury found him not guilty of the crime.

CES 

[薔薇語]

 this one sort of looks like justice might be done... for a change.

 

 

Yeah, he might have to serve a couple years of jail time. On the weekends, of course. You don't want to disrupt the man's life too much. And while banning him from being an officer might be too harsh, they will politely and cautiously ask that he not be 'on the beat' while he finishes his weekend sentences. Unless, you know, they really need him to do it. 

 

SOAR. 

[薔薇語]

Here is a show for all those CSI fans out there. Oh, and for every single adult who cares about the truth of criminal investigations. ^^

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nSgUVmdDSs

 

SoaR.

[Markdoc]

Here is a show for all those CSI fans out there. Oh, and for every single adult who cares about the truth of criminal investigations.

 

I simply cannot watch those shows. Long, long ago, before I moved to the US, I used to work in a pathology department, and one of my teachers was a leading forensic pathologist (a brilliant guy, but like all pathologists, I've met, a wee bit strange: he's the guy who played the "jelly brain" trick I'v' mentioned here before). There is pretty close to zero overlap between fantasy TV forensic pathology and actual real life forensic pathology.

 

cheers, Mark

[Cygnia]

Yeah, CSI and L&O make me cringe with their portrayal of forensics.  Not that the real thing is very encouraging, given the constant delays and screw-ups...

[Ragitsu]

[Ragitsu]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/11/24/3725633/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-video/

 

I wonder which part of police marksmanship training teaches the sexdecuple tap.

[薔薇語]

It is right before the session where they teach you to search for surveillance footage and delete anything that could convict your dirty rotten ass. 

Soar. 

[csyphrett]

I believe that police officers are taught to shoot until the target falls down. A man was shot in New York over thirty times because his door frame held him up a few years ago. The squad responsible was disbanded

CES   

[Old Man]

Oh my god, they were disbanded?! Those poor, poor murdering cops! Won't someone think of their benefits? /s

[Pattern Ghost]

I believe that police officers are taught to shoot until the target falls down. A man was shot in New York over thirty times because his door frame held him up a few years ago. The squad responsible was disbanded

CES   

 

While this is true, it's also common for people to simply keep pulling the trigger in a shooting and not even realize it. It's something that has to be trained out of people, and is hard to do. Often, when asked how many shots they fired, people will grossly underestimate their shot count.

 

Of course, that still begs the question of whether shots needed to be fired in the first place.

[csyphrett]

In the case I mentioned, the cops thought this guy was breaking into his own house. When they asked him what he was doing, he turned around with his wallet in hand. I guess he thought he was being robbed. So they started blasting away. The doorframe held the victim up in the line of fire so he couldn't fall down. It might have looked like he was still trying to shoot.

CES 

[Pattern Ghost]

I should probably clarify that I wasn't disagreeing with the training to shoot until the person falls down. Just pointing out that a lot of these excessive round counts come from adrenal reactions.

[Ragitsu]

I believe that police officers are taught to shoot until the target falls down.

 

The man (victim) was down after the first two shots. Unless I missed something, he didn't look to be practicing an impromptu mime technique of propping one's self up on thin air after taking both nine-mill rounds to the torso.

 

On top of that, nearby Burger King footage of the vicinity at the time was conveniently deleted, and it seems that the cruiser that recorded the damning video swerved a little too far to the right...

[Markdoc]

Trying to shoot .... with a wallet?

 

In most jurisdictions "He had something in his hand" is (thankfully) not considered grounds for the use of lethal force.

 

cheers, Mark

[Old Man]

As a practical matter, that's incorrect.  All the cop has to say is "I thought he had a gun/I was in fear for my life".  IIRC cops have gotten off without penalty using this defense after slaughtering people armed with wallets, phones, stuffed animals, and nothing.

[Old Man]

The man (victim) was down after the first two shots. Unless I missed something, he didn't look to be practicing an impromptu mime technique of propping one's self up on thin air after taking both nine-mill rounds to the torso.

 

On top of that, nearby Burger King footage of the vicinity at the time was conveniently deleted, and it seems that the cruiser that recorded the damning video swerved a little too far to the right...

 

I think you're conflating the recent Chicago street execution outrage with the older doorframe outrage.

 

But you're not the only one who thought it was odd that the driver of the police cruiser almost managed to get the camera pointed away from the execution.

 

It doesn't matter anyway.  Prosecutor Alvarez is really tight with the police union; she has no intention of actually convicting this executioner.  She plainly wasn't going to even charge him until it turned out the video was going to be released.  As I understand it, a murder one conviction in Chicago requires significant premeditation, multiple victims, or other heinousness that even this case doesn't reach.  (It's actually the same here, I believe.  1st degree murder charges are extremely rare.)