“Honest mistakes” generally isn’t all that good a defense for ordinary non-police civilians. Even if I were to shoot someone in defense of hearth and home there still might be nights spent in jail if the robber dies.
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Let’s assume it was an accident. That doesn’t make it not manslaughter. She killed a man. There have to be consequences.
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That will hinge on whether the shooting was justified, accidental or not. With him trying to escape in his car, looks awfully like the Jacob Blake case, which ended in no charges.
The question is, why wasn’t she fired? Any of us in the public sector would be terminated immediately for this calibre of error. The fundamental problem is that cops have no accountability. How does this help?
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If I shot someone fleeing in a car there would, sure as God made puppies, be a slew of charges I would hafta face. That a police officer gets bo skate is wrong. If gives them the freedom to shoot at will. That is not law enforcement. It’s anarchy.
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You’re not a cop taking a person into custody who has a warrant out for their arrest.
A warrant for a misdemeanor charge got a kid killed. But you are right, I am not a cop. But I have lived thru the results of a shooting in self defense. And I expect a police officer would be treated way differently than I was.
edit
One interesting thing happened at the sentencing of the perp involved in my experience. I had been called to the bar by the judge. At that moment the perp on trial blurted out at me “I’m gonna kill you!!!”. The judge whacked his gavel and said “Add 15 years for attempted murder!!! Sentence to be served consecutively!”. I walked to my seat quietly and sat down.
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She wasn’t shot at.
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She got there first.
No. Trying to run from the cops got him killed. Having an illegal gun in the first place set him up for it.
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Police union. The chief can’t fire her. All he can do is assign her to desk work for the rest of her career.
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Only if you believe that “the officer believed he was deploying his Taser and not wielding his service firearm.”
How can that even be proved?
It cannot.
If this is allowed to stand, then we can look forward to hundreds of “accidental shootings” like it.
Can’t be disproved either. That’s how jury trials work.
It’s a start. But that’s all it is - it doesn’t do one thing toward solving the problem.
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Since when does manslaughter require intent?
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“Hey, this box of the new combo face mask and parachute things, sitting on the table here, isn’t that from Q branch?”
“What box? I thought Agent Danny already picked that up for the new mission.”
“Hey, did anybody see the medical supplies that just got delivered for the employee break room?”
“Uh oh.”
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I had not read the kid had a gun. I thought it was over misdemeanor warrants, an expired tag and air freshener hanging from his mirror. And that he tried to get away from the officers. It’s understandable why he would run knowing driving while Black is a felony as is fleeing while Black and just living while Black. It’s the evil trifecta.
Then there’s the case of the Army officer who drove to a lighted spot to try to defend himself at a traffic stop. In that case the Army guy had the presence of mind to set his phone to record all that happened. There also was the angle from the cop who proceeded to yell contradictory commands at him and pepper spray him in the process. All while having guns pointed at him. Had the video not gone viral that cop would have skated free and easy and the Army guy could easily been dead.
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Sounds like a serious design flaw in the Tasers, to me. Something like that should feel different. Kind of like the design principle that, if it’s important for something to be plugged in right side up, it should be physically impossible to plug it in upside down.
</engineer>
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The warrant was for illegally having a gun without a permit and running from the cops.
Funny way to spell “feature”.
Designed to feel like your sidearm, so you just use the same posture, grip and trigger pull.
Dunno why anyone might mistake the thing that feels pretty much the same as the other thing when in the heat of a situation with eyes on a suspect.
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