Posted on 12/08/2014 10:33:48 AM PST by ConservingFreedom
The family of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old shot and killed by Cleveland police last month, said at an emotional press conference Monday that prosecutors should indict the responsible officer without consulting a grand jury. They were joined by attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented the families of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and now represents the Rice family. [...]
The shooting of Tamir Rice, who was playing with a toy gun at park nearby his house, was captured on video, and shows the officers opening fire on the child within seconds of arriving on the scene.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Yeah, that makes sense. Hire a guy who’s 0 for 2 and expect a different result.
As far as I know this race pimp is 0/2 on convictions and has yet to extract a dime civilly. What kind of fool would hire this clown? This was another case where I found police actions suspect but now that this Crump scumbag is on the scene I am willing to believe the cops were in the right.
They had reports of someone with a possible gun pointing it at other people. As they were pulling up, they saw the kid hide a black object that looked like a gun in his waistband. They may have felt pressured to get to the kid before he (a) did something stupid, or (b) got away. I can see balancing multiple priorities and choosing to get too close because of the danger to others. You're right though that the cop who fired the shot will almost certainly have to change careers.
He was probably not a bad kid, relatively speaking. But he did such a terribly stupid thing. What choice did the cops have?
I know personally a family who lost a son to a police shooting. He was a big guy, 19, in a halfway house for mentally ill kids when he picked up a kitchen knife and threatened the director. She called the cops. He went running out the door at the cops wielding the knife and threatening to kill himself and them . On the 15-foot sidewalk, the cops made the choice to shoot, killed him on the spot. Very charming parents wondered publicly why they couldn’t have shot him in the arm or knees, but they brought no charges.
The family is upscale CA liberal, but no lawsuit. Very little press coverage outside of Marin County, where they live. I don’t even think the SanFran papers covered it, or covered it for more than a day or two, certainly no front page headlines. Oh yeah, the kid/family were white.
That is quite the hair hat!
I think the reality, going forward, is that any use of lethal force against someone 18 and under, or who is mentally disturbed, who can’t be conclusively proven to be armed with a *REAL* gun, is going to be pretty much a guarantee of riots, huge payouts and ended careers.
We had a 14 year old shot here in Santa Rosa.. same line “he took the orange tip off”. That ain’t going to fly anymore, if it ever did; kids modify things, kids don’t have a lot of sense and I fear for the riot that is going to result the next time a police officer shoots only to discover it was just a BB gun.
I know the answer to your question.
They answer is they are selling authentic looking toy guns with no distinguishing marks to differentiate them from real guns. Particularly replicas or bb guns. You can’t tell at a glance under pressure if it’s real or not.
According to Cleveland news, this gun had the identifying markers removed.
Then it wasn’t a replica or bb gun. Airsoft guns have stuff - orange around the barrel. But many airsoft guns even with the orange are made to look like a real gun.
I am sure criminals could make life hell by making their real guns look like toys and screw everyone’s perceptions up.
Because you can’t run around scaring people with a Nerf gun.
i think you absolutely know we aren’t talking about nerf guns.
Of course I do. I was answering your question. What good reason would a child/teenager in a high-crime area in a large city have a realistic-looking gun? WWII reenactment?
am i missing the sarc? cuz otherwise i am really off reading your comments.
As one who has worked with officers for over 20 years, who’s brother is an officer of 24 years, good training that is followed in the field could prevent many of these shootings. For example, the Cleveland shooting was a case of officers being too close to a potentially armed individual thus severely decreasing those officers reaction time. Officers should have been several YARDS away coming at the suspect from different directions barking out commands as they approached. This would have given them a greater time window for reacting to the kid’s actions. Same goes for Officer Wilson in Ferguson, why on earth was he close enough to PROVEN hostile suspects that he was able to be assaulted in his vehicle through an open window?? Don’t get me wrong, according to the many officers I have conversed with regarding these cases, all strongly feel that the shootings were justified given the immediate circumstances but that better training or training that was not utilized could have prevented both shootings.
I am sure you are right. My point is merely that “I couldn’t tell he was a 14 year old” and/or “It *looked* like a real gun, not a BB gun” are simply not answers that will be accepted by most of the public anymore.
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