Criminal gets murder charge for cop shooting bystander?

[Reshad]

A man is being charged with second-degree murder because one of the nine shots cops took at him killed a bystander. Here's the story.

Thoughts?

[Gromgor]

It won't stick, and the cops that were firing at him while bystanders were in the crossfire should be charged. In Law Enforcement there is a priority system of what you place the most protection upon - Civilians are at the top, then the officers themselves, then the suspect, then non-living property.

They failed to maintain this system of priority.

[Frobozz]

It shouldnt stick, it shouldnt stick at all. But because there are a ton of people out there that feel cops can do no wrong this guy might eat the felony-murder charge. Im not sure what the law is in Florida but having an unloaded firearm on you may be a felony, in most states it isnt. So Im not sure how they are going to make the murder charge, but cop worship sucks.

[Achtius]

It shouldnt stick, it shouldnt stick at all. But because there are a ton of people out there that feel cops can do no wrong this guy might eat the felony-murder charge. Im not sure what the law is in Florida but having an unloaded firearm on you may be a felony, in most states it isnt. So Im not sure how they are going to make the murder charge, but cop worship sucks.

At the risk of agreeing with Joreth on anything, I find a great deal of truth in this statement. Basically any (insert occupation here) worship sucks. People are people and they need to be held accountable for their actions, both negative and positive. Our society, as I have observed it, tends to see ignoring negative actions as a reward. We rationalize them away as isolated incidents in an otherwise "good system" or from a mostly "good person" which only further encourages a lack of personal responsibility.

[Red Syns]

The law that permits this is a good law. A "good shoot," as in one that was justified, will have all consequences placed onto the criminal. Why? Because if the criminal hadn't been committing the crime, the shooting wouldn't have occurred.

The only question is, was the shoot justified, or was it not? The Taser failed, and he was reaching for his waistband. I don't know all the details, but from what I can tell, if the cops deploy a taser 999 of 1,000 times, they've tried a minimum of verbal instructions. If you've had the police fire a taser at you and it fails, doing anything other than putting your hands in the air is a stupid idea. Reaching for your waistband? That's an aggressive move. Without knowing any further details, it looks like a perfectly understandable situation from the police's perspective. If it turns out to be that the future details reveal he was compliant, then the policeman should have the charges placed on them instead.

Job worship might suck, but people who just assume the police were wrong are worse.

[Frobozz]

The law that permits this is a good law. A "good shoot," as in one that was justified, will have all consequences placed onto the criminal. Why? Because if the criminal hadn't been committing the crime, the shooting wouldn't have occurred.

The only question is, was the shoot justified, or was it not? The Taser failed, and he was reaching for his waistband. I don't know all the details, but from what I can tell, if the cops deploy a taser 999 of 1,000 times, they've tried a minimum of verbal instructions. If you've had the police fire a taser at you and it fails, doing anything other than putting your hands in the air is a stupid idea. Reaching for your waistband? That's an aggressive move. Without knowing any further details, it looks like a perfectly understandable situation from the police's perspective. If it turns out to be that the future details reveal he was compliant, then the policeman should have the charges placed on them instead.

Job worship might suck, but people who just assume the police were wrong are worse.

Red, Im not sure what your profession is or what your background with the legal system is. But I can tell you that your description of "f the cops deploy a taser 999 of 1,000 times, they've tried a minimum of verbal instructions." is both not supported in fact, reality, or police policy. The use of a taser is considered one step below the use of a firearm, so in order to properly deploy a taser the cops need to (legally) go through their use of force spectrum before they can get there - this includes the use of less deadly methods.

Lastly "job worship might suck, but people who just assume the police were wrong are worse." How do you figure? The burden should always be doubting that the police acted appropriately, their every movement should be scrutinized, and their reports should be doubted. That is the way our system is supposed to work, but it doesnt work that way because people are afraid to criticize them - they would rather convict an innocent person than call a cop a liar.

[Gromgor]

Let's change this scenario just a teensie weensie bit.

Let's say a cop (undercover or otherwise) was found selling some drugs and/or engaging in other FELONY level actions. A group of citizens decided they were going to place him under citizen's arrest. One of them happens to have a taser that they fire at him and it fails to serve it's purpose. The cop then reaches for his waistband and 9 shots are fired at him, one hitting a bystander, killing them.

Who would you then say was guilty of the bystander's death?

If you say the guy who fired the gun, you're absolutely correct.

If you try to argue about authority or this or that defense, you are wrong. In ALL, read that again, in ALL cases of use of Force, EVERY SINGLE LAW ENFORCEMENT BODY is REQUIRED by policy to do whatever limits the risk of potential by standard harm. This means letting the guy get away, if the cost of shooting him will result in a bystander possibly being hurt. Yes. It IS better to let the criminal go than to have an innocent person gunned down by a trigger happy cop.

When I was a correctional officer and we had to escort an inmate to the hospital for treatments, we carried side arms. Yet, we basically had an understanding that if you were to ever use that sidearm, even to prevent that inmate from escaping, inside the hospital, you might as well turn around and place your hands behind your back then and there.

Why? Because of the risk of hitting bystanders. You would NEVER be justified in discharging your weapon in such a scenario.

[Kailen]

At least the po po is using excessive force on everyone equally now...

[Red Syns]

Joreth, I don't understand what point you're making. I'm military, so I understand the spectrum, and the spectrum only proves my point: verbal commands are ranked well "below" the non-lethal weaponry, and therefore have always preceded the use of tasers in every video I've ever seen. I've never seen a video where the police jumped straight to tasers with no other actions.

Gromgor, I confess, I don't know the laws regarding such a situation as well as I ought to. My understanding is that in all cases, the criminal will have all instances of crimes placed on their head, if we assume the shooter was in the right. However, you talk here about how police should permit a suspect to flee, rather than shoot in a potentially harmful environment. I agree! But this case is not that the suspect was fleeing. The suspect made an aggressive move, and was fired upon for it. In this case, he even had a weapon, although they're claiming it was unloaded. I suspect they mean there wasn't one in the chamber, not that there was no magazine. The spectrum Joreth mentioned earlier (for the military, anyway) says I need to keep one step ahead of the suspect, not one behind. If he's reaching for his waistband after a failed attempt at using non-lethal force, the next escalation is lethal force, as seen here.

Kailen, go jump in a river. Statistics show that the police are more likely to fire upon a white individual than a black individual. Oh, sorry, that doesn't fit your narrow view of the world. Go ahead and ignore what I'm saying and pick up your "He was only carrying a sandwich!" sign for the latest Ferguson incident.

[Gromgor]

Two things:

First - You just got trolled by Vyrn. Telling him to go jump in the river ain't how you slow him down. I kind of hate having to point this out because I know the ensuing argument would have been fucking hilarious to watch. Joreth is going to be pissed at me for ruining it.

Second - The problem is the cops think they have to be "one step ahead". They are INTENSIFYING the situation. That used to not be the case. As cop-worship increased, so too did their aggressiveness. Well, that and the war on drugs and several other political actions that basically gave cops a get out of the threat of jail card. Cops don't suffer consequences for their actions the way civilians do, which is completely backwards. If we are to entrust individuals with great authority and the capacity to ruin people's lives, they should be under an almost oppressive amount of scrutiny and should have even greater penalties than civilians for abuses of power and authority. Cops have too much authority, too much jurisdiction. They are responsible for too much and have too vast of powers (and indifference) as a result of so much they have to cover. Their job description needs to be shortened, their leashes tightened and their indiscretions called into question. Questioned and when found guilty, legal action against the officer taken.

As for "verbal" commands, hell, you can watch an episode of COPS and see verbal commands being abused. "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!" while in the process of tackling the individual. Not before. Not waiting for compliance. Yelling it WHILE IN THE THE PROCESS of violently attacking a suspect. They do this. are trained to do this, so that when the suspect is in court, the D.A. can ask, "And what did the officer say?" It's done so the cop can cover the state's ass when the individual tries to sue. "So the officer instructed you to get down on the ground, but due to your non-compliance you were forced to comply?" "That's not what happened." "Did the officer or did the officer not say 'get down on the ground'?"

There's only three kinds of cops in this world: Dirty cops, cops covering for dirty cops and incompetent cops and anybody who has ever worked in any kind of law enforcement and is truly honest about it will confirm this. Not every cop is a bad cop, but they all KNOW a bad cop. They've seen that cop do things that were WAY outside of their authority. The moment they don't say anything about it (because of some cop code or what the hell ever reason) they are covering for a dirty cop. Any cop that hasn't seen this has either been on the job less than a week or is too incompetent to be a cop, because they aren't paying attention.