Discussion for article #241634
Wonder if the result of the investigation would have been the same had the boy been white?
I guess the standard of police professionalism supported by this prosecutor is âshoot first, ask questions later.â
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"The officers did not create the violent situation," Sims wrote. "They were responding to a situation fraught with the potential for violence to citizens."
Iâd say that by pulling up so close so fast, they did create that violent situation. These reports only seem to focus on how they reacted when they were only two feet away from him. This was not a situation where they came around a corner and the kid was right there with the gun in his hand. They chose to force the confrontation to be violent. They could have pulled up from 50 feet away, got out behind their doors and told him to drop the weapon while pointing their guns at him. Thatâs what a professional would do, and I did not see that addressed in these reports.
These are only two reports. The prosecutors office will have lots of other things to consider, plus this goes to a grand jury.
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Jesus fucking christ. All these months that have passed when we were wondering just what the hell was taking so long and itâs now clear that all the motherfuckers were doing was expert shopping for someone whoâd sell them reasonable doubt, thereby justifying declining to prosecute. And, after all this time, they finally found some people who could slice the question they purported to be posed sufficiently fine to enable themselves to give an expert-sounding opinion without vomiting on it while they were signing.
Last week, I was reading the story about how cops were trying to link the recent spike in murder rates to their fear of patrolling and being caught on video âdoing their job.â And what struck me was that the real problem is that they look at these videos and donât see cops acting like fucking maniacs, but, rather cops âjust doing their job.â Their attitude is âwell, yeah, this is what âthe jobâ is and of course itâs ugly and shocking for you people who donât live in the âreal world.â So weâre just gonna pull back and do nothing until you beg us to defend you from âthe animalsâ and stop paying so much attention to how we do âthe job.ââ
They donât even get the critique that thereâs a systemic training, doctrine and attitude problem here. In their minds, across the nation, itâs just a lot of liberal bleeding hearts and race-baiters making adults-in-a-Peanuts-special wahhh-waaah sounds. Theyâre acting like soldiers (IMO legitimately) do when civilians see pictures of what war actually looks like and are shocked and appalled. And itâs just not penetrating that theyâre not soldiers, theyâre not supposed to be soldiers and the fucking problem is that they think they are soldiers.
And no, this isnât a problem of the kind of people who become cops or that a lot of cops are veterans. A lot of cops have always been veterans. It is entirely and purely an institutional problem, a pervasive problem of training and doctrine that translates into a culture that weâve allowed to grow in this nation since the 80âs.
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The logic behind this is fascinating:
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Cop shoots man with gun â justified.
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Cop shoots 12-year-old kid with toy gun â also justified if the cop didnât know it was a 12-year-old kid and that the gun was a toy.
Conclusion: Ignorance is a copâs best friend.
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This is disgusting. Truly. That prosecutor is a coward.
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Tamir was the fifth person with an airsoft replica killed by police. In this case the 911 caller said the kidâs gun was probably fake. The kid had it in his waistband and when the cop who had not been told the gun was probably fake by the dispatcher arrived on scene he told the boy to show him his hands and shot him when he reached for his gun which had the orange toy ID paint removed. Time from arrival on scene to shooting was all of two seconds. Plus the 12 year old kid was Black.
Browsing airsoft literature reveals that the toys are manufactured to be accurate replicas of real guns. The realistic appearance has led to a customer not even making it out of Walmart* without getting killed by police. Plus the customer was Black. No parent should allow their children to have an airsoft replica since they are so easily mistaken for real guns by trigger happy cops who have a demonstrated tendency to shoot Black people at the slightest opportunity.
So what happens when some deviant paints the tip of a real gun red?
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Open Season legitimized.
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I glommed on to the same thought as youâŚ
I can see gun manufacturers doing it with âcricketâ kid sized hand guns.
If these cops are so afraid of the public they serve maybe they should be in another line of work.
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Obscene.
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Theyâre going on the advice of a retired FBI guy who shall remain anonymous?
The folks who summarized this report, must be puny white men who are literally punks when it comes to judging on whether a 12 year old boy posed a severe threat to a police officer.
Letâs not forget, the officer NEVER communicated to Tamir to drop his gun! The officer NEVER communicated to Tamir that his LIFE was in imminent danger at that point in time.
For Tamir Riceâs life was swept away from him, without a warning being utteredâŚso how in the hell is that âjustifiedââŚonly to puny white men is that scenario justifiable!
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And if the cop couldnât tell from 2 feet away that the person was a child and the gun was fake, then pretending ignorance is a copâs best friend. Or rather, retro-fitting an excuse of ignorance. And delaying it all for a year so the media is chasing some other squirrel, then using the phony excuse of ignorance.
Guess it worked.
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the rookie patrolman who shot Tamir moments after pulling up beside him
For âmomentsâ, read âsecondsâ, because thatâs what it was. It was a drive-by shooting. And yeah, the prosecutorâs been expert-shopping at the pre-charge stage, when the appropriate thing to do would be to have that stuff argued out at trial.
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Well that now tells everyone, even a skeptic, that the police can and will do as they please⌠justified? how? can anyone make a logical decision within 2 seconds after arrival that lethal force is requiredâŚ
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If killing a 12-year-old before he has time to react, in 1.7 seconds,
is âreasonableâ and "fair"then we need to reconsider the definition and application of those words.
Weâre watching ⌠to see what the grand jury does.
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Cops and prosecutors work together. Successful conviction of a case helps to perpetrate a performance based raise for each of them. For a prosecutor to eff up a case against a cop is as natural as for a cop to commit perjury to help a prosecutorâs case. Throw in law & order elected judges and a for profit private prison system complemented by parole officers, and you get a giant self-licking ice cream cone.
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Back in the early 70âs I was 12, Tamir Riceâs age growing up in the suburbs on NYC me and my friends in the neighborhood would take our Daisy Bb/pellet rifles(NRA approved!) and go in the woods next to a public park with a gazebo similar to the one in the video and shoot at trees or targets we placed on the them. The town police would drive by the wooded area and had the sense to figure out what we were doing, leave us be and let us explore our childhood. Mind you this was during the Nixon era when the populous was ironically a bit less paranoid and the NRA was not off in crazy town. You figure the Cleveland police would have used the same discretion.
Wonder if the result of the investigation would have been the same had the boy been white?
TBH it probably would. This kind of shit happens somewhat less often against white people because theyâre much more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt, but when it does theyâre no more likely to have actual justice. Donât forget there was a white kid walking along a road with a pellet rifle slung over his back, who was shot from behind by the cops when he turned around when they shouted at him to drop the gun. Justified because âthe barrel of the gun loweredâ.
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