For all those who think cops in the U.S. are getting out of hand...

[Quartus]

You ought to try Czechoslovakia!

Policeman shoots at jaywalker
From correspondents in Prague
July 21, 2004

A TRAFFIC police officer fired shots when pedestrians in the Czech city of Plzen ignored his warnings not to cross a street illegally, a newspaper has reported.

http://news.com.au/common/story_page...E13762,00.html



Halt or I'll shoot?

[Selfdfenz]

Not sure which is actually worse.
LE that guns down jaywalkers or LE that guns down a dude in bed armed with an aluminum can.......gotta give that some thought.
S-

[carebear]

What if the jaywalkers were armed with cans? How does THAT skew your thinking?

And would it result in a UK can-ban as well?

[4V50 Gary]

Regarding the man in the bed, the Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor set very good standards. The officer's action is not subject to Monday Night Quarterbacking but to the standards of an officer with like training and experience. That is, if an officer with like training and experience would have reacted as the officer who was involved in the shooting, then the latter's conduct is acceptable.

You're serving an arrest warrant. Your suspect has a violent history and has been known to resist arrest. One subject's action leads you to fear for your life. Do you hesitate or shoot? My point, we don't have enough details to pass judgment on that officer who was involved in the shooting.

Sometimes a gun comes up, sometimes a knife, sometimes some other dangerous weapon. You don't know and the Academy doesn't teach mind reading yet. That's where the Supreme's standards in Graham v. Conner is good for society. It doesn't give the officer a license to kill. It gives him/her a chance to protect his/her life. Let's withhold judgment until more information is available.

BTW, I don't think any cop in the US would shoot a jaywalker unless that jaywalker was involved in another crime which threatened public safety. Say the guy was jaywalking and had a PRG-7 and he wanted to take out a vehicle. In that case, jaywalking is just incident to the larger crime that he wants to commit. Now, turning to the Czech cop, my "American" standards and values don't apply, but I'm sure the Czechs aren't exactly enamoured with the outcome either.

[Selfdfenz]

"Graham v. Conner is good for society. It doesn't give the officer a license to kill."

Well actually if you will think about what you are saying that is percisely what it does. The std, as you express it, is dumbed down to what most other officers with similiar training would do given their feeling or preceived threat????? If most oficers would be scared enough to shoot unarmed people in bed..... it's ok? Sounds pretty goofy to me. If "most other officers" with fairly similiar training would consider shooting thru occupied dwellings to get a pert that "might " be in there and "might" be a threat and then later checking for kids is that an acceptable std? I guess it is.

But on a positive note that finally explains Ron's shooting choices as they regarded Weaver's wife and the justification for it up on Ruby Ridge.....
It's not so much an issue of right or wrong or even murder as it is what other officers might do and how they were trained.

Course, the gov settled the Weaver deal with a big check in the end and I bet you there will be a similiar outcome on this Coke Can shooting.

I know this may be out of the box but possibly LE shouldn't do those things or be trained that way!
S-

[4V50 Gary]

As I've stated, the Supreme Court Standard holds that an incident must be viewed in light of how an officer of like training and experience would have responded. On the surface, shooting a man who is in bed may seem outrageous. But what if that man had a gun and pointed it at you? I'd shoot and I'd bet you would too. After all, as reasonable people we wouldn't murder a man but we'd shoot in self defense to stop a threat, wouldn't we? Now, let's say the man says he's going to shoot you and had something hidden in his hand. He begins to raise it. Do you shoot or wait for his muzzleflash?

What if it's only a knife? Do you have enough martial arts skill to disarm a knife wielding assailant or are you going to shoot? What if it's a blunt instrument? Shoot or don't shoot?

What you call it "dumbing down" is the standard that the Supreme Court set for all law enforcement within the US and within US jurisdiction (Guam, Puerto Rico, Wake Island) to abide by. I didn't make it up and I invite you to read the case yourself (in fact, if you want to read a really well written decision, read People v. Koon & Powell - the Rodney King decision that convicted Officer Powell and Sgt. Koon). What you believe is a bad shooting is called by that Court as "Monday Night Quarterbacking" and that's exactly what the Court seeks to avoid.

Furthermore, as neither of us have sufficient insight into this incident to determine whether we ourselves would shoot or not. We don't know what that officer saw and what the suspect said prior to the shooting. Until we read the reports, judgment should be withheld.

Now, turning to Ruby Ridge, do not believe for a moment that Graham v. Conner supports the shooting of Weaver's wife. A trained sniper is suppose to be a good observer. It stretches beyond the limits of credibility to even risk a shot in which Weaver's wife was killed. It was in my opinion a bad shot and the settlement is only part of the resolution. The missing half of the resolution is the criminal suit that should have been brought against Horuchi. Had criminal prosecution against Horuchi been followed, I'm sure Horuchi would be in Club Fed.

That abuse by Law Enforcement does exist cannot be denied. NYPD wasn't trying to cure constipation with that broomstick. In SF, the Dep. Chief's son beat up someone for his fajitas (I would have called it an armed robbery and not an internal affairs beef). However, not every police use of force is a violation of civil rights or police abuse and the vast majority of law enforcement officers practice restraint and use that which is reasonably necessary to effect the arrest. They are to be commended.

Don't be so quick to jump on the bandwagon to denounce every action as abusive. Remember the media isn't here to inform but to sell advertising time or space. The Boston Massacre is perhaps the best example of "yellow journalism" against a lawful authority.

BTW, since the standards of Graham v. Connor is too much "dumbing down" as you say, what standards do you propose for law enforcement?

[C_Yeager]

Did the article say if he was carrying the new CZ-P01?

[IamNOTaNUT]

Not to beat a dead horse, but for clarification: The standard in Graham v. Connor says that an officer's actions must be reviewed in the context of what a reasonably well trained police officer would have done under the same circumstances. This includes the facts or beliefs about the case as the officer involved understood them to be, even if those facts later turn out to be inaccurate.

In a nutshell, the court says that an officer's actions must be reasonable under the circumstances. It tries to avoid reviewing an officer's split second decisions made on the street with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. The court recognizes that life on the street is far different than the stale environment of the courtroom, and that officers will occasionally make mistakes. The reasonable officer standard allows people to be human, but still punishes aggregious actions by government agents.

As to the coke can, I can think of several diferent situations that would justify the shooting, as well as several that would clearly not be justified. But I don't have the facts, so I will withold judgement on this until more information comes out.

[carebear]

So it more or less applies the "reasonable man" standard we non-LEOs live with to LEOs? Thus recognizing that they are, in fact, just people like the rest of us not blessed with psychic abilities and inhuman powers?

Good. We ask a lot on LEOs as a society without also asking cops to be omniscient too.

Now if they could just work on pulling over drivers who get in my way and double-checking raid addresses. <joking, just joking >

[alphamaniv]

Well as long as the Law enforcement folks have the right address, i guess the "resonable traing" thing is ok. But they do make mistakes when serving those things from time to time. Then some poor guy who has never done wrong in his life hears his door kicked in and defends his home, as I figure most of us here would. Then the homeonwer is gunned down, for no good reason.

Edit to add: I am not against the LE community, but I am a strong advocate of individual rights. For example, the LEO's can carry, say an MP5, as a citizen, I should be able to arm myself with one without paying through the nose for tax stamps and all that jazz. Run the background check and hand it over, but that's just me and probably better discussed in its own thread.

[myopicmouse]

So if your in bed with 'wood' thats an offensive weapon you can be shot for!

Saying that, remember the american cop a while back who shot the guy in the back of the head when he was lying on the groung coz he wouldn'y put his hands behind his back?

[2nd Amendment]

You're serving an arrest warrant. Your suspect has a violent history and has been known to resist arrest...

Keep in mind here that in this particular case the "victim" was in fact not the suspect and, as things stand now, it doesn't appear they believed him to be such at the time. He was just a poor, dumb(and medicated)SOB who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[LAK]

There is a common denominator in most or many of these shootings "in error", for want of a better term, be it misread circumstances and the tagging of innocent bystanders, wrong addresses or otherwise.

Entering peoples' homes should be a last resort reserved for serious offenders - and even then every avenue to arrest the suspect outside should be exhausted first. There are many infamous examples, some involving a considerable number of lost lives, where it all could have been avoided had the subject simply been staked out properly and arrested in a manner of surprize in a public place.

This obsession with entering homes places peace officers in a needlessly more dangerous position - and as such place their fellow citizens in a similarly needlessly dangerous position.

This is a political and administrative issue that should have been addressed a decade or more ago. As it stands such incidents will continue and likely increase.

[tyme]

What's wrong with holding the officer in charge of the raid responsible (criminally... for manslaughter) for any innocents killed if the raid location is wrong? That provides incentive for the officer to check things out more carefully, and perhaps even to have other officers check the intelligence independently.

Fair? If not, why not? Mistakes happen, it's true, but checking and double-checking reduces errors, and if there is an error that results in an innocent person being killed, the police should be held responsible.

[carebear]

Tyme, good point.

Works for the military doesn't it? If I as a platoon sgt. made what appeared to be an avoidable error, I would definitely be given a court martial and could possibly be held criminally liable for my negligence if the facts bore it out.

Big difference between a public, legal fact-finding proceeding and the typical "internal review" process used now.

[warhammer357]

If it stopped the guy from jaywalking what is the problem?

[ninenot]

Well, THAT story gives one a good reason to watch, very carefully, those people who drink Pilsener beer and are armed.