Not shooting at all would be the preferable option, but law enforcement doesn't always have the luxury of that option in a life-threatening situation. Hope the armrests on your armchair aren't getting worn down from all that quaterbacking you're doing.
I could say the same for you. Stop acting as if your opinion on the topic is any less armchair quarterbacking. Of course it would be better not to shoot. But, killing a teenager for acting like a teenager is not a solution. It's a lazy way out of a tough situation.
It's not and should not be deemed a sacrifice if one person is or appears to be a clear aggressor threatening the other with death or great bodily harm. And in your other comment, you seem to be aware that training is to aim for center mass but still seem to think that training is wrong. It makes sense for two reasons: 1. a torso is an easier target to hit than an arm or a foot (bigger and less movement) and thus is more likely to prevent the person from carrying out a threat 2. even assuming an equal likelihood of hitting a limb as a torso, it's still possible/probable that someone wounded in the arm or leg can still execute a threat whereas it is less likely that they can with a wound to the torso.
I understand the center mass thing as well as the risk of the target carrying out their intentions. However, and I think I've been clear that I'm not watching a video of a child being killed by a police officer, so I don't know the timing or the distance between the two girls, nor between the cop and either girl. I'm speaking in general terms here. It's not unrealistic to be aware that something may happen and anticipate and be prepared to intentionally shoot an arm or leg. It's not unrealistic to train to shoot an arm or leg. This is another reason for more intensive training for police officers. Dealing with teenagers is not the same thing as dealing with adults. And, our society really does put teenagers at a disadvantage. We treat them as children until they act like children, then we treat them as adults. Let's assume these were two six year old boys. Would you then say shooting the child is the best way out of that situation? As a society, we need to either ALWAYS treat teenagers as adults or ALWAYS treat them as children. No more arbitrary changes.
Translation: I know fuck all about what happened but will offer my uninformed opinion anyway. Buh bye.
So you admit ignorance, but still opine. OK. Pretty much every expert in the field says it is unrealistic to train to shoot arms and legs. In this particular case, the girl who was about to stabbed was directly behind the assailant (and at that time, she was absolutely the assailant). If the officer missed, he might have hit her downrange. Then we might have two dead girls, not one. It was the best of bad options. But that's why it's tough to be a police officer. Per the video he was on the scene 12 seconds when the stabbing took place, and the girl with the knife had just come into frame 3 seconds before. . If there was no way to stop the 6 year old from killing another child, then yes. And one of the big problems with our criminal justice system is we have too many legislature defined arbitrary rulings. Nuance needs to come into play at every level, otherwise you are definitely having miscarriages of justice.
I can sympathize with not wanting to watch the video. I didn't and generally don't watch the videos of these cases. I can generally trust that people who do watch them describe them accurately because a mistake or lie will be rapidly corrected. It seems from the description of the Columbus incident it's fairly clear that the girl with a knife was a threat, and if so, the officer was justified in shooting. Obviously pretty much anyone with a soul wishes that it was avoidable. And there might be reasons that makes the girl with a knife's actions more justifiable or complicated. But at the end of the day legally (and I would say morally), the officer seemingly was justified in shooting here. The police officer seemingly had few other alternatives in the split-second. If we're talking about a scenario where a six-year-old boy was charging someone else with a knife with an apparent intent to stab them, shooting would be justified. Depending on the circumstances, it might be the only option or the best option or not that good an option. Because an adult could probably disarm even the buffest six year old while risking minimal harm to self, if the officer was close enough it would probably be worth the risk of attempting to physically disarm a six year old. But that presumably a different equation than disarming a 15YO. And it is a different question than the one the law presents which is: is the shooting justified or not? Under the law, it should not matter if the person much whether the person with the knife was 6 or 60, black, white, male, female, transgender or whatever. What matters is if the person reasonably seemed to pose a threat of death or great bodily harm to another. If the person does, an officer is justified in using deadly force. If the person doesn't, the officer is not.
I've not seen any descriptions so far, other than the one girl was backed up against the car. And here's the issue. What level of threat? Someone else, someone besides WAB and Demiurge (who have a history of posting statements that are anti-teenager when the teen is possibly involved in a crime - so I clearly can't take their word for 'it"), hasn't posted any descriptions of where the subjects were and proximity to each other. So, I don't know the level of threat. Justified. Sounds like a great name for a tv show or some wild west type justice. I'm beginning to hate that word. Legally. Morally. I think the moral option would be to only have specially trained officers deal with teenagers. But, with what we are working with in today's society .... Again, we do not have any description of timing here. We don't know if it was a "split second" decision or if there was an opportunity for other actions. Oh, I vehemently disagree. Age, size, even gender should all be taken into consideration.
Unfortunately, I've seen the video. The girl who got shot was essentially in "mid-stab" when she got shot. She was attacking a girl who had her back against a car and was holding a puppy or small dog.
The girl who was shot had called the police. The other girls were involved in a home invasion, and the girl with the knife was defending herself. The police shot her in the chest four times.
Having seen the video, there was nothing the officers on the scene could have done short of letting the girl get stabbed. Which, of course, would lead to a whole different conversation. But in @Jenee's fantasy-land, the police solved the highly-volatile situation with group therapy.
When the police arrived, the girl who got stabbed and another girl were standing close to the street. The girl who did the stabbing was far from them, away from the street close to the house. As the cop was walking up, the girl who got shot ran out from where she was, bowled over a girl (right by the cop), then made a hard right turn and charged the girl in pink with a knife and was in mid-stab. The girl with the knife wasn't "defending herself" from anyone. The girl that was getting attacked was literally just standing around holding a small dog. She was certainly not in the middle of any kind of home invasion.
Exactly. The police officer shows up, and some unidentified girl runs up to stab a different unidentified girl. There's no time to stop people and ask who is who. If that cop had hesitated, the girl in pink would have been suffering a nasty, possibly fatal knife wound.
It's a piece of footage, which the CPD made private almost immediately after releasing it. Watch it here: https://www.10tv.com/article/news/l...mbus/530-c77bb47e-97d1-47b5-8ed8-099c105a0f20 The officer pulled his gun before he knew she had any kind of weapon on her. I guess if you're a 17 year old white boy with a gun, it's not an issue, but a 15 year old black girl defending herself against two other girls just needs to be put down.
Please. Describe the scene. Where were the subjects located? What was the proximity? and yes, I live in a fantasy world where humans can behave decently toward each other and to teenagers.
Yep. I have the piece of footage released by the CPD in the post above this one. It's only a partial video, and the CPD says they'll release the rest tomorrow.
I don't think Amaris actually watched the bodycam video. (It's freely available on YouTube right now).
Everything looked pretty calm as the cop walked up. People just standing around, then this girl cam charging in, knocked another girl over, almost ran into the cop, then turned and tried to attack someone just standing there holding a dog. I don't see how the cop could have known who called the cops on whom. BTW, the video doesn't show her getting shot.
I did. Upon looking at the video, how can you possibly know he didn't see the knife before drawing his gun?
The video is pretty self-explanatory. The girl with the knife charged the other girl without any warning. At that point, IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER what transpired beforehand. The officers had less than two seconds to react. The video clearly shows the attacker's arm raised with a knife, less than a foot or two from the potential victim. The fact that this is even being debated in the context of the Chauvin verdict debases the George Floyd murder and the important conversation about Black Lives Matter.
He may have, but he'd have to be awfully perceptive and cognizant of what was going on, which means he'd likely already be willing to fire four shots into the chest of this girl. Either way, he saw black people, it threatened him, and he pulled his gun. I am biased, but history shows that bias has a lot of evidence to support it. Also, CPD carries tasers, standard issue.
The video I saw shows all the way through the shooting, including the first aid the cops applied to the girl who was shot.
