police shoot bystanders, charge mentally ill man with assault

Are cops responsible for ANYONE the injure in that country of yours?

Not when someone creates a situation or starts an altercation and the police respond with what is seen as a reasonable (for the police) level of force.

We've had people IIRC in the U.S. EXECUTED because they were robbing some place, the police show up and shoot one of the accomplices dead. The surviving crook is then guilty of capital murder because they were assisting in a crime where someone was killed.

The idea is that the police would not be shooting unless the other person started it in the first place. In other words, police operate under color of authority in doing their job and part of their job can involve use of lethal force.

Once in a blue moon for show.
But man, they really, really, really don't want to be.

which is the problem I'm seeing here... this guy wasn't actually a threat to anyone but himself.

That colour of authority thing is becoming an entire spectrum.

The police didn't charge this guy with assault.

Read the story you linked to again. Your topic title is wrong.

Second unless you can show the cops being reckless no they won't be responsible. The blame falls on the guy who started the whole thing.

I'm old fashioned and think that if you shoot someone then you have to bare part of the responsibility especially since there is always a risk when an officer pulls out his gun. That's why so many departments have extremely strict rules about the use of force. If they violated any of those rules in any way, shape, or form then these officers need to go to prison and the department needs to be sued so badly they're forced to issue skirt guns.

It's so easy to sit on your ass in a chair and make a statement like "this guy wasn't actually a threat to anyone but himself" and feel superior to other people.

But you weren't fucking there. You don't know what actually happened other then what you've read. And since you're not a fucking psychic you couldn't have known that the guy was not a threat to other people.

This guy fried his brain and was acting insane. I've seen this shit in person in the jail. People on drugs (molly seems to be the favorite drug right now) who have a bad trip are a threat to others. And just like the guy in this story when these people finally come back to down to reality they don't remember shit about anything that has happened.

This guy tripped out on drugs was a threat to other people. Who the fuck are you to make a claim that he wasn't a threat to anyone other then himself?

Oh, geez, shooting people only harmful to themselves is a sick running joke in my house.

A helluva while ago, back in the 90's, like, 2-3 people in a row got blown away by cops because "they were suicidal".
Yeah, take that madness in.

So, ever since, when there's a corpse with police lead in it, we all go "ope, he was suicidal!".

Neither were you, so whence your knee-jerk righteousness?

Agreed. If it can be shown the officers violated the rules during the investigation (and they will be investigated) then they need to be bounced.

If they were within the scope of their duties then the guy is responsible for the shooting.

It's not just the police it's anybody.

If someone dies or is injured during a crime you commit you're responsible for that and will almost always be charged for it.

Rob a store and a customer has a heart attack? You're facing murder charges.

I know one inmate that just recently got forty years for a robbery where someone died. Wasn't the trigger man but he still got those 40 years.

Out in Philly they just had a robbery where the two criminals where shot to death by a bystander. The third criminal is now facing murder charges over the deaths of his two buddies.

yet they finally subdued him with the taser instead of a bullet...

how much of a threat he may have been is immaterial to the fact that the cops shot two people before trying something less risky to the crowded street.

and that's the even greater question... how liable can a person be for something they had no intent of or control in some of those instances?

I mean, I'll concede the heart attack robbery victim is plausible, if not obligatory. But charging with murder because your cohorts were killed? Seems to be a bit of a leap in responsibility.

Yes because they fired and missed and then saw his hands were empty so they CORRECTLY DEESCALATED to a lower level of force.

The guy was acting out, reached into his pants causing them to shoot at him, and when his hands were finally clear and could be seen they realized there was no weapon in his hand and they stepped down to the taser.

A criminal is responsible for everything that happens during a crime even if it's to his own criminal partners.

Which is the way it should be.

If you don't want to take the risk of being charged for things that happen during you're criminal act you need to work alone or not be a criminal.

Let me use an analogous situation:

1. Suppose Suspect A is driving drunk on the highway.
2. Officer B gets the call from dispatch saying there is a suspected drunk driver on the highway.
3. Officer B races across town to the highway and, in the process, hits a car driven by Citizen C, injuring C.
4. Is A responsible for C's injuries?
5. Is B responsible for C's injuries?

For #4, there are two ways to look at it. On the one hand, you can say YES, because absent A's suspicious behavior, B would not have been trying to get to the highway. On the other hand, you can say NO, because there was NOTHING about A's behavior that necessitated a collision between B and C, nor could A have reasonably foreseen it. I tend to think that the latter is the more acceptable view.

Therefore, I tend to think the answer to #5 is yes. While it can be argued that A was a hypothetical danger to the public (if, in fact, he really was a drunk driver), B's actions were a DEFINITE threat to the public, as evidenced by the fact that a collision occurred. Res ipsa loquitor.

The DIFFERENCE between my analogy and the situation in the original post is that the police officers acted BECAUSE THEY FELT REASONABLE CONCERN FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY (I'm assuming that the shooting conformed to police rules about the use of deadly force). The actions they were taking were necessary from their perspective, and, in the context of doing their jobs, unavoidable.

Therefore, barring some evidence that they were somehow negligent, I can't hold the officers legally responsible.

The responsibility has to fall on the drugged-up guy who caused the situation. However, it seems a bit unfair to me to charge him as if he deliberately injured the bystanders.

Did you copy and paste that answer form a previous thread cause I'd swear I've read it before?

But yes in your example the Officer is generally responsible for injuring C. (we can never say always of course since there are exceptions now and then)

No it's not unfair to charge the drugged-up guy. His actions were a threat to not just the police but to everyone around him. Society at large if you may. If he had not gone bonkers on drugs those police officers wouldn't have shot at him and hit the two bystanders.

Want to do drugs to the point that you're acting out and violent? Then expect to deal with the consequences of your actions. In this case the injuring of two bystanders by police responding to your drugged out of your mind self.

No, I don't think so, though I may well have argued that before.

Not saying it's unfair to charge him, just that I think it's unfair to charge him as if he deliberately committed the harm.

I'm kinda surprised there isn't some kind of "Inciting Public Disorder while Under the Influence" charge that can be applied, perhaps with the addition of a "that results in injury" enhancement. But assault? No.

In my state (it varies) if a criminal flees the police and the police in question make a mistake and get killed by crashing their vehicle and killed, the criminal is then considered criminally liable for their deaths and can face the death penalty.

It happened here when a police helicopter tracking fleeing suspects crashed and killed both people aboard.

But if the police are killed by a mechanical problem with their vehicle, the criminal is NOT liable.

If you start with the whole "well, the criminal never intended to hurt that person" you open all sorts of problems with criminal liability. You can even get in a situation where a criminal shoots a gun at police, misses and kills someone standing two hundred meters away and the criminal claims they can't be liable because they didn't even know the person killed was in the vicinity.

"Look what you made me do" is an excuse so flimsy even children don't accept it.

Agreed.

But there are circumstances where the actions of one person do force the actions of another.

So, they shot two passers by before realizing they were over reacting?

I wonder how that gets explained in the RoE manual?

"When confronted with an irrationally behaving suspect, draw weapon. Fire immediately after commanding suspect produce identification, presume hostile intent when he reaches for a wallet".

Maybe, but this wasn't one of them.

1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.
5. Unless you're a cop and above these rules.

Fortunately Bill de Blasio was elected our next mayor in an epic landslide, in no small part because he promised to do something about police practices like this while his opponent promised to redouble the efforts of the police to be profoundly stupid and careless with people's rights and safety.

If the guy was sufficiently compos mentis to be condemned for his actions, which seems like a bit of a stretch for someone ordered by the voices of his ancestors to kill himself, then he certainly carries responsibility for what happened. He was jumping out into traffic; if a car had swerved and hit someone, the guy would carry part of the blame. This is not essentially any different.

Now, that doesn't mean that the officers are *not* to blame. It isn't clear to me how shooting guns at anything would likely improve an unruly situation with a large crowd in midst of traffic.

You are 100% responsible for every round that leaves your weapon. You are. No-one else. The cops are liable in this instance.

This. Basic rules of firearms, and it is drummed into you over and over again when you are in LEO training.

Agree, 100%

Cops definately liable, discharged their weapons in a dubious situation and injured two civilians, and I thought NYPD officers had to qualify at a gun range on a regular basis or loose their firearms.

You can be highly trained and highly competent with a firearm and still miss your target.

Agreed, but there's a difference between a willful act that leads to a death and simply acting batshit crazy. From the information we have, it appears that the police acted properly, but the question of charging anybody for what is really an accident due to insanity is prosecutorial over reach.