No more hesitation!
Posted on 12/13/2017 4:42:22 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
The jurors who acquitted Philip Brailsford of second-degree murder last week were told to judge him based on "how a reasonable officer would act, versus a regular person with no police training," as The Arizona Republic put it. That distinction was crucial, because a "regular person" would never get away with shooting an unarmed man who was crawling on the floor, sobbing and begging for his life.
Like other recent cases in which jurors failed to hold police officers accountable for the unnecessary use of deadly force, Brailsford's acquittal shows that cops benefit from a double standard. Unlike ordinary citizens, they can kill with impunity as long as they say they were afraid, whether or not their fear was justified.
Daniel Shaver got drunk and did something stupid. But he did not deserve or need to die for it.
On January 18, 2016, Shaver, who was 26 and lived in Granbury, Texas, was staying at a La Quinta Inn in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, while working on a job for his father-in-law's pest control company. After inviting two other hotel guests to his room for a drink, he showed them an air rifle he used for work, at one point sticking it out a window to demonstrate the scope's range.
Alarmed by the rifle's silhouette, a couple who had been using the hotel's hot tub informed the staff. That's how Brailsford and five other Mesa officers ended up confronting Shaver in a fifth-floor hallway.
The bodycam video of the encounter, which was not publicly released until after the verdict, shows that Shaver, who according to the autopsy had a blood alcohol concentration more than three times the legal threshold for driving under the influence, was confused by the strange and contradictory orders that Sgt. Charles Langley barked at him. Instead of simply handcuffing Shaver as he lay face down with his hands behind his head, under the guns of three officers, Langley inexplicably told the terrified and intoxicated man to crawl toward him.
While crawling, eyes on the floor, Shaver paused and reached toward his waistband, apparently to pull up the athletic shorts that had slipped down as he moved. That is when Brailsford fired five rounds from his AR-15 rifle.
"He could have easily and quickly drawn a weapon down on us and fired without aiming," Brailsford said later. Yet neither of the other two officers who had guns drawn on Shaver perceived the threat that Brailsford did.
One of those officers testified that he would not fire based purely on the "draw stroke" Brailsford thought he saw. He would also consider the context, such as whether a suspect is belligerent and threatening or, like Shaver, compliant, apologetic and tearful.
Brailsford said he was trained to ignore context. "We're not trained necessarily to pay attention to what a suspect is saying," he testified. "We're supposed to watch their actions and what they do with their hands."
The jury apparently accepted the counterintuitive argument that police, because of their special training, are apt to be less careful with guns than the average citizen would be. A similar dispensation seemed to be at work last June, when Minnesota jurors acquitted former St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez of manslaughter after he panicked during a traffic stop and shot a driver who was reaching for his license.
Even more astonishing was the failure of South Carolina jurors to reach a verdict in the trial of former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager, who shot an unarmed motorist in the back as he ran away. Last May, five months after that mistrial, Slager signed a federal plea agreement in which he admitted the shooting was not justified.
All three of these officers said they were afraid, but that is not enough to justify the use of deadly force. When juries fail to ask whether police have good reason to fear the people they kill, regular people have good reason to fear police.
And that is of course true for everyone else too. How do you know the guy in line behind you at the bank isn't going to draw a weapon and start robbing the bank. Or maybe the mentally ill homeless guy who is muttering threats will decide to act on his delusions. Or maybe that shifty looking kid watching you is about to attack.
Is it OK to even pull out your firearm and start barking orders at the people around you? No, and anyone who did so would rightly be considered unfit to carry a firearm. Trained police officers need to be able to maintain discipline even if they are scared. We expect the members of our armed forces to do so, even in places way more dangerous than a hotel hallway. Anyone too scared to control their trigger finger in potentially dangerous situations has no business being a police officer.
I've seen several videos of multiple cops yelling multiple, and contradictory commands. Now what? Respond only to the loudest shouter?
Watch the video - his shorts were falling down and he apparently reached behind himself reflexively to pull them up.
And just as a hint I'll tell you that the last thing you see is the kid running over the cop (I know because I've done a good amount of research on this incident and this perp).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF-BtESLEsU
“”He wasn’t a scared cop, he was a showboat cop with an audience behind him and he screamed commands to the victim like he was training a dog.””
I was surprised to learn on further reading that the guy yelling those conflicting/stupid instructions was the SGT. and not the cop who did the shooting. I haven’t read anything that clarifies WHY the one cop shot when he did. It didn’t appear that anyone else found the guy on the floor threatening. Can’t help but wonder what action was taken against the SGT., for behaving the way he did. If he was so scared he couldn’t make himself understood in a more understandable manner then he should leave LE....
BTW, dog trainers/handlers don’t issue directions to dogs that way either.
“”By the time Officer Friendly gets to your car, all interior lights on, keys on the dash, license, registration and insurance cards clearly visible, hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, window down, puzzled look on your face... “”
Did you mean that for sarcasm? I surely read it that way as how would any driver DO ANY OR ALL OF THAT without MOVING?
I suspect the cop shooter in this story would shoot the driver before he had time to pull over.
Normal Sane American...
Ain’t many left!
That should all be done by the time Officer Friendly gets to your door.
With even minimal practice you can do it.
I’ve done it a dozen times.
Two citations in over 45 years of driving...
His very own personal AR, all tricked out with cool operatortidbits like the ejection port door.
I still think this dork was itching for the shoot, saw his chance, and took it.
I couldn’t see who was doing the talking. This was the worst police work I can imagine and, in the end, it was one cop who did the shooting.
I was in the sandbox in the eighties during the “Tanker Wars”
Our Rules of Engagement during that deployment was a defensive posture. This meant that we could only defend ourselves against actual aggression - we could only fire if someone shot at us or we had a *verified* threat. In other words, we were required to assess and guarantee the threat before opening fire.
Later, during Desert Storm and the endless garbage that followed, the ROE was a combat posture: Shoot at the enemy, or anyone who seems to threaten you. The latter because lots of enemy fighters chose to wear civilian clothes. Or were women. Or kids. You were expected to exercise judgment, but if you truly felt that you were in danger, you were cleared to shoot.
What the police and their apologists want is combat posture ROE. And if that’s their ROE, then who is the enemy?
Us. Everyone who isn’t a cop. It has to be - there isn’t anyone else...
And we could be anyone - because we don’t wear uniforms. We could be a man, a woman, a child...
Even scarier is that this is pretty much what the courts, other cops and their apologists have given them. After any shoot, the thin blue line forms a protective wall around the shooter. And if they do happen to go to trial, all they have to do is say they were afraid and even the juries are instructed to give them leeway.
Cops should be on “defensive” ROE. They should only be allowed to fire if fired upon, or there is a genuine threat assessed and verified. If they fail to do this and shoot an innocent person they should go to jail - forever.
Why? First of all because they *asked* for the job - no one forced them to become a police officer. Secondly, they’re *supposed* to be better than everyone else - at least that’s what we’re told. They’re “heroes” for doing nothing more than putting on a uniform and wearing a badge. Finally, they’re supposedly very well-trained - which is why they get to walk around in tacti-cool gear wearing shooting glasses and carrying loaded Glocks and AR-15’s.
Shooting when you’re in *fear* of losing life or limb is a defense for a civilian - not a trained police officer.
The reality is that being a cop is *dangerous* - which means that sometimes (often depending on where you’re a cop) you will be afraid. If you can’t control your fear and remain calm enough to assess and verify an actual threat to your life prior to opening fire, you shouldn’t be a cop.
Go wash cars or something.
This was a very bad shooting, that’s all that can be said. If you or me had done it, we’d be in prison. The cop isn’t a step above us, it was horrible judgment.
No more hesitation!
A surprise no one has not posted those "No Hesitation" training targets.
As I was typing...... ;-)
Justified.
I recall seeing this awhile back. I don’t know if these are legit training targets are internet created fake news. If real, then it would be valid to point out that in scenario training, you don’t always get confronted by the gang banger with mask and gun, and you might have to make some less than black and white decisions. On the other hand, if these types of targets were being used to desensitize LEO from shooting anything or anyone including little Mikey who found this Saturday night special in a ditch while playing with his friends, than that would be a problem. Maybe some current LEO’s can comment.
We should have an IQ test for police and some sort of way to screen out the adrenaline chasers. That would be racist, sexist, biased, take your choice though and not everyone would get to play.
So instead we have dead people... pretty much like every socialist policy we have ever tried.
Not long ago, there were threads here about police departments rejecting the more intelligent applicants.
If so, it paves the way for the less intelligent with poor decision making capability to run amok.
If the cop had tunnel vision and was scared shitless of an unarmed babbling drunk then he should never have been given a badge. And it’s obvious to anyone, who doesn’t have tunnel vision and isn’t scared shitless, the man did not have a gun in his gym shorts.
Look at the picture of the punk cop. He wanted to shoot someone as soon as he put on his badge. Had he not become a cop he would have killed someone else. He’s a thug and every cop with him should have told him to put down his weapon. They knew he was a loose cannon. I don’t understand how anyone can watch that video and defend the piece of shit.
And I was a cop and had to go into a building once with guns drawn. Some people were in a closed business. As soon as we went in we realized they were just some college kids working late pressing t-shirts. This cop would have shot them. We asked “How’s it going?” and holstered our weapons.
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