N. Miami cop shoots a black man who's lying down with hands in the air

Paraphrasing a comment: I asked the officer why he shot me and he said he didn't know.

The man is recovering and talking to reporters.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/07/21/us/miami-officer-involved-shooting/index.html

Why? Because I'm a dumb fuck and the position is not sought after enough to have high quality workers in the field.

Other Teams Pursuing That wrote:Why? Because I'm a dumb fuck and the position is not sought after enough to have high quality workers in the field.

I know A few very good cops who follow the law and department policy and who wouldn't know how to lie to save their lives.
I also know of cops and prosecutors who make lying their living, all in the interest of putting away the "bad" guys. Those true believers are a danger to society and the criminal justice system. I've heard so many stories from my best friend, who is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state.  Enough stories that when I hear someone say, "The vast majority of cops are good" to think that it's really only a majority, not a vast majority. One real problem is there aren't enough good cops to call out the bad cops.

Edit to change that last sentence to read: One real problem is there aren't enough good cops calling out the bad cops.

The police only shot 3 times and only 1 hit him in the leg.

This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

RIP, Fred.

Wow, what a piece of shit.

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

Great job pulling out that quote. It is a clear and present danger.

We either abolish police.... or we're always going to have "accidents".

You don't fix this.

Unless, of course, you're the type that really thinks what's going through a cop's head is...."Hey... it's a black guy on the ground... this is an easy kill... LET'S DO THIS!" In which case I don't know how to even continue that convo.

Saw this in the morning. What reason do you come up with for shooting a man on his back arms in the air yelling "I'm a theatapist and all he has is a toy truck."

We really have to have better screening for cops we give guns to.

DWags wrote:Saw this in the morning. What reason do you come up with for shooting a man on his back arms in the air yelling "I'm a theatapist and all he has is a toy truck."  

We really have to have better screening for cops we give guns to.

If I approach that situation, gun out and drawn, definitely... but....... first, he's on his back on the ground so he's not going to be a very good shot if he doesn't have a real gun.... second. I find myself something to hide behind. While that is occurring you're hearing her talking and saying he's weird in the head and it's a toy".... so I do some peeking around the tree... a few times cause there's tricky pieces of shit out there. So do it a few times and then.....

If I'm Kat Williams circia 2006...
"This nigga really do just got a yellow ass tonka truck in his hands".

I put my gun away and work on figuring out what the best way to get the poor fella out of there is.


Maybe the situation was different before the video. Totally give the cop that benefit of doubt... but from what I saw....

I don't have any cop training, though.... so maybe there's something I'm not considering. Before I find a tree or something to hide behind my gun is drawn on the alleged suspect, no doubt..... just like if I got some bitch ass trying to rob my house. Just saying... unless there's some crazy variable I am not privy to...

Seems like an easy fix.... assuming no more real informaton

DWags wrote:Saw this in the morning. What reason do you come up with for shooting a man on his back arms in the air yelling "I'm a theatapist and all he has is a toy truck."

We really have to have better screening for cops we give guns to.

I read he was actually aiming for the guy with the toy truck.

Rocinante wrote:

DWags wrote:Saw this in the morning. What reason do you come up with for shooting a man on his back arms in the air yelling "I'm a theatapist and all he has is a toy truck."

We really have to have better screening for cops we give guns to.

I read he was actually aiming for the guy with the toy truck.

I've been on A LOT of ride alongs so I get mistaking certain things.... but how do you see yellow and think gun? How do you mistake that? I might think stun gun or something like that.... but fire arm?

Dude should go bye bye for a very long time. Not that's it any consolation to that son or mother

Rocinante wrote:

DWags wrote:Saw this in the morning. What reason do you come up with for shooting a man on his back arms in the air yelling "I'm a theatapist and all he has is a toy truck."

We really have to have better screening for cops we give guns to.

I read he was actually aiming for the guy with the toy truck.

I know that's going to be the story going forward. However, he's still going to have to say why he was shooting at the guy with the toy truck. "Toy Truck" doesn't sound like "he has a gun on my please shoot him". But It most likely will be sold to us that way.

The problem is with police culture and training. They think they're soldiers. They literally approach every potentially dangerous situation with their gun drawn, which ironically makes even the most innocent encounters life threatening for the citizen, all because the cops are too scared to do their damn job.

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem is with police culture and training. They think they're soldiers. They literally approach every potentially dangerous situation with their gun drawn, which ironically makes even the most innocent encounters life threatening for the citizen, all because the cops are too scared to do their damn job.

I need to preface this, you've been very nice to me Anomander... so my disagreement comes from a place of wanting to do this civilly.

But how much training do you have as a police officer and what training needs to change, in your view, to be effective and acceptable?

I saw Bill Maher do this the other day.... and I really like Bill Maher. I watch him every weekend. But he siad the same thing "training".... I was thinking... Bill Maher has been a rich guy in Hollywood since the early 90's if not before. When was he training with police to the point where he can ascertain what is wrong with their training?

I've done a lot of ride-alongs. One thing I noticed and the cop pointed out to me.

After 9pm... we can't tell shit about who's in the car. Black white, hispanic..... we don't know till we walk up to the car.

So we pull over a car for going 95 in a 70.... and almost always black. But on a report... that's going to look racist even though we have no idea who is in the car until we approach. Maybe it's different during the day, all my ride alongs were at night (I liked the action).

xsanguine wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem is with police culture and training. They think they're soldiers. They literally approach every potentially dangerous situation with their gun drawn, which ironically makes even the most innocent encounters life threatening for the citizen, all because the cops are too scared to do their damn job.

I need to preface this, you've been very nice to me Anomander... so my disagreement comes from a place of wanting to do this civilly.

But how much training do you have as a police officer and what training needs to change, in your view, to be effective and acceptable?

I saw Bill Maher do this the other day.... and I really like Bill Maher. I watch him every weekend. But he siad the same thing "training".... I was thinking... Bill Maher has been a rich guy in Hollywood since the early 90's if not before. When was he training with police to the point where he can ascertain what is wrong with their training?

If someone is not doing their job properly in any field, including policing, I believe that training and process are to be blame. Blaming the individual is a cop out because let's be honest even good intentioned cops make mistakes, just like any good employee does.

Let's take this case as an example. The police receive a call regarding an armed suspect, threatening suicide. They arrive on the scene and immediately take cover and draw their weapons on the suspect, with no visual confirmation of a weapon at this point.

The therapist claimed to be yelling at the Police that his patient was not armed and that he's holding a truck. The police claim they couldn't understand the yelling and when the patient made a quick movement, one officer discharged his weapon 3 times, missing the intended target (the patient) and hitting the therapist (not armed with a weapon or a toy truck for that matter).

In my opinion, if you have no visual confirmation of a weapon, and nothing more than a phone call that says someone has a weapon, you should probably engage in dialogue with said individuals from a safe distance, prior to drawing your weapon let alone firing it. Cops are well aware of how piss poor witnesses can be at identifying weapons/faces/whatever and they should take this into consideration when arriving at a scene. Citizens are innocent until proven guilty after all.

The officers made a lot of assumptions about the situation based on the phone call they received, which is understandable, but they did a shit job of assessing the situation once they arrived on the scene. Their process for approaching and contacting the suspected gunmen was poorly thought out and even worse in execution, resulting in the near death of two innocent men.

Cleveland did a study a couple years ago after several incorrectly escalated incidents and they found that precincts that received more scenario based training hours had significantly less incidents of this nature. I would advocate more scenario based training for potentially dangerous situations. I don't have all of the answers obviously and it's not my job to come up with them, but that would certainly be a good place to start.

I think the best long term solution is to develop non lethal weapon technology that is both quick and effective for officers to use in these situations. Worst case scenario someone should go home with a headache or some scrapes/bruises, not in a body bag. I can't believe with all of our military spending that we can't come up with something that disables but doesn't kill people...

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem is with police culture and training. They think they're soldiers. They literally approach every potentially dangerous situation with their gun drawn, which ironically makes even the most innocent encounters life threatening for the citizen, all because the cops are too scared to do their damn job.

Not sure you know what 'literally' means.

The_Dude wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:The problem is with police culture and training. They think they're soldiers. They literally approach every potentially dangerous situation with their gun drawn, which ironically makes even the most innocent encounters life threatening for the citizen, all because the cops are too scared to do their damn job.

Not sure you know what 'literally' means.

Deflecting from the bigger point. A favorite tactic of yours.