Discussion for article #230495
The victim:
To the police he wasn’t a kid with a toy. All they saw was black hands on a gun. Never seems to stop…
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We need to end police unions. All they do is subvert justice. They protect the bad cops and stop the good ones from doing anything about it.
We also need to absolutely reconstitute our law enforcement training so that they do not feel justified in responding to situations like this with deadly force. They should not be allowed to kill unless there is an ACTUAL threat, not a PERCEIVED threat like a 12 year old with a toy gun, or a guy walking in Walmart with a toy gun, or shooting someone in the back while they carry replica swords. Until such time as the officer is actually in danger they should not fe allowed to draw their weapon and shoot.
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He was pointing the gun at other people in the park.
He was told by police to drop the gun.
He didn’t.
There are lots and lots of true stories about trigger-happy cops killing black Americans without good reason.
This is not one.
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'“The officer had no clue he was a 12-year-old,” said Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association. “He had no clue it was a toy gun, he was kind of shocked. He was concentrating more on the hands than on the age."
Right; since a fucking cop can’t be expected to look at this face and determine if he’s a juvenile;
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Too fucking right; despite getting a dispatch call about a man waving a gun around and threatening people, they find a 12 year old not threatening anyone, but still have to kill him moments after arriving.
The volume of people that immediately surge to exonerate the cops in these wholly unjustified murders is disturbing.
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There’s no chance of injecting reason or logic into the debate as far as the cops and the crooked US justice system are concerned; the time to have sent a clear signal that these incidents will not be tolerated has long passed, as the number of unjustified murders of unarmed Black youths rises.
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That’s mostly horseshit;
'A 12-year-old boy has died after being shot by police in the US city of Cleveland, after carrying what turned out to be a replica gun in a playground.
Police say an officer fired two shots at Tamir Rice after he failed to obey an order to raise his hands.
He did not make any verbal threats nor point the gun towards the officers.
An audio recording of the 911 emergency call made by the man who reported the incident reveals that on two occasions he said that the pistol was “probably a fake” and on another occasion that the person holding it “was probably a juvenile”.
The caller also said that he was not sure whether the weapon was “real or not”.
But Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland police association, said the two officers at the scene were not told about the
caller’s comments.’
Isn’t that convenient?
'The boy did not make any verbal threats toward the officer or point the gun, but reached into his waistband and grabbed it after being told to raise his hands, said Mr Tomba.
“That’s when the officer fired,” he said.’
There’s only the cops’ claim that there was anything threatening in the situation before they projected a lethal threat into it;
'They said they were responding to an emergency call, which described a male brandishing a weapon.
According to a recording, the caller expressed doubts that the gun was real.
“There’s a guy in here with a pistol,” he said. “It’s probably fake but he’s like pointing it at everybody.”
When police arrived, a group of people were sitting around a table under a gazebo next to a car park, according to an account given to Northeast Ohio Media Group by Jeff Follmer, Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association president.
He said the responding officers were not made aware the caller had described the gun “as probably fake”.
So expecting to see an adult male ‘waving a gun around and threatening people,’ the cops instead find a 12 year old boy and a group of people sitting around a picnic table, and not 2 minutes later the boy is dead, even when the cops admit he didn’t threaten anyone.
That’s just crack fucking police work there.
‘However, Deputy Chief of Field Operations Ed Tomba described the incident as ‘very, very tragic’, saying that the child did not threaten the officer verbally or physically.’
And yet was still shot to death.
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These stories make the international news. What a fine example of American exceptionalism.
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Just another thug I’m sure who deserved to be shot down like a dog.
Yeah, well cops are gonna need a new ‘strategy’ when dogs get open carry permits.
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The Cleveland PD has been under investigation by the DoJ since Oct, 2013 as a result of an atrocious high speed chase and deaths of two African Americans. A DoJ final report was expected within weeks but clearly reforms taken so far are proving than satisfactory. Ferguson MO is under the same kind of complete PD DoJ investigation.
The 911 caller told the dispatcher: “There is a guy with a pistol, it’s probably fake, but he’s pointing it at everyone.” He repeats “probably faKe” and adds: “he’s probably a juvenile.”
Procedurally WHY did 911 dispatch omit that important information? 911 calls are fatal in Ohio.
Did officers see Tamir with a gun? NO
Why did the officer shoot to kill…twice?
How could you say such a vile thing? You have ZERO knowledge of Tamir, his parents, his school life…
BTW, Tamir’s house is just across the street from the playground.
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Not so sure about that yet. If he pointed the gun at the cop or someone else, I agree. But I’d like to hear from everyone who was there what exactly the kid did. Did the cop yell “freeze” is another thing I would like to know. I’d like to hear all the eyewitness testimony. Then I’ll judge.
Just like Brown-Wilson, I have not seen all the evidence, so I will not pass judgment at this point.
You are 100% correct on the first point about the “possibly fake” part not being passed along to the cops. But I think the gun was visible. To me it depends on what the kid was doing with it. If he was just touching it and not pointing it, not justified. I’d like to hear all the info.
But the 911 dispatcher has to tell the cops it that the caller said it might be a fake. There were no shots fired, so that should say something.
I think you went out on the limb and fell off. How about if we wait for all the facts first.
Gotta ask, would he have been shot if he was white?
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Well, simply because you always have to make the assumption that the gun is real. The consequences of assuming guns are fake are just too enormous not to.
Look, I agree completely that US cops have a tendency to shoot black people first then justify it afterward. There are far too many examples of that.
But a real gun in the hands of a 12-year-old is probably even more deadly that one in the hands of a 21-year-old.
I genuinely don’t often give police killings the benefit of the doubt. But I can and do in this case.
I heard Rudy Giuliani was upset that Tamir will never have the opportunity to be killed by another 12-year old. Or was it that these outliers conflict with his belief system?
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Where are police vest cameras (ones the officer can not disarm)?
Apparently only prime time TV can convince some people that police Use of Excessive Force is a problem. How may people have to die before it is enough?