Empty solipsism.

Of course one can reasonably draw a conclusion about a man being shot by watching a video of the man being shot. You could make exactly the same argument for Nguyen Loan. It would be just as absurd.

For starters, in the quote at the top of this post. You shouldnt come to a conclusion if you dont have the facts and you can't have the facts if you weren't there logically precludes everyone who wasn't there coming to a conclusion. Since the only people there were the cops and the dude that they killed, and since the dude that they killed is too dead to weigh in on the issue, it seems impossible to hold them accountable.

also here, in the quote above the statement where i said you said cops couldnt be held accountable.

Given this assumption, it seems like it would be quite difficult to hold a cop who was not a vulcan or some other being incapable of mendacity accountable.

also here:

whatevs. better "can't" than "aren't"

As a law enforcement officer, i did find their tactics a bit strange. Not sure why they didn't go hands on sooner. There is obviously a reason for why they didn't just take him to the ground immediately. The man may have been saying he had a gun and wasn't going to do anything they said, or whatever it may be; tough to speculate when you don't have all the facts. I'm sure when the full story comes on in the near future, it will all make sense. Until then it's difficult to speculate on their use of force escalation.

Your first sentence sure made it sound like you were berating people.

bolded is an interesting use of the passive tone.

I'd read a little more before you decide to talk about how much sense LV law enforcement makes.

Why was he stopped in the first place?
Wanted for Murder?
Armed Robbery?
Taking tourney chips off table?

He tried to hail a cyclist going past, the cyclist thought it looked dodgy so called the police.....

Guy was prob thirsty...

How about just back off, locking yourself in the car, keep an eye on him and wait on the SWAT team, since the three pussy LEO's can't seem to put cuffs on him. He's in the middle of no where, what's he going to do?

If he starts chucking rocks at passing motorists, trying to assault cyclists or whatever, then give him a dose of fast rate lead poisoning.

maybe putting fake tourney chips in the game at Borgata

Facts:

1. Suspect failed to obey all commands according to the video
2. According to the narrator suspect was tased
3. According to the narrator suspect was sprayed
4. Suspect was removing clothing
5. Suspect was acting very irrational
6. Suspect assaulted officers
7. Suspect was a large male
8. After spraying and tasing suspect it appears officers were waiting for further assistance before going hands.
9. If OC and taser were ineffective there is a good chance suspect is on PCP along with the irrational behavior and removing clothing
10. Suspect was taken to the ground and broke free
11. Suspect jumped in cruiser
12. All 3 officers at the same time jumped away from the cruiser as if they were in immediate/imminent danger and fired their weapons.

8 and 9 are speculation. That speculation is based on over 20 years law enforcement experience on a large department. Before I retired I was a high ranking officer, had been involved in shootings, and been on shootings that my officers had. PCP was/is a major drug of choice a good portion of the area I worked. It is standard to have at LEAST 4 officers respond to pcp calls for service because of the inhuman strength it gives suspects. (And it was not unusual to deal with up to 10 calls for pcp a shift where I worked) That is on top of the amazing strength some of these guys have normally. I was going to make some ignorant statements myself at some of the ignorant statements about the video but I won't. It doesn't do any good. I have dealt with people running their mouth that have no clue for too long for it to really bother me.

To address a few issues quickly though. Door to cruiser was unlocked. Yes looked like it. But if you notice when that officer pulled up the suspect took off running and the officer driving that cruiser jumped out in the foot pursuit. That falls under shi* happens. Sorry he was trying to help and do his job. AR-15 in cruiser. In locked mount? I have no idea. I wasn't in his cruiser. They have to be opened with a key? No. Key is the back up. There is a switch that unlocks it as the primary release. Did the suspect find/hit the switch? I don't know I wasn't there. Two guys couldn't just take him down and handcuff him. My guess is they didn't think they could, especially after OC and a taser did not take effect, which is why it looks like they were waiting for backup. Guy looked to be about 6'1 or bigger and at least 220. Throw in the possibility that he is on pcp and they obviously were doing the right thing as far as I am concerned.

We would have jumped him with 5 or 6 officers and taken him down. That would have been the best way to handle it with the least amount of injury to the suspect and officers. They obviously didn't have that option and the suspect forced their hand by trying to flee. At that point you have to go with what you got. Instead of posting video's like this and making comments that you have no idea what your talking about....check out the number of video's of officers getting killed by doing things as simple as walking up to a car, or getting someone to sign a ticket. Things that are far more "safe" that dealing with this guy. Here I will make it easy for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzSZYN9C2Mg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1gYEG1TzBk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ililCtp0Bk

Now go ahead and tell me what you did at work today on your construction site, electrician job, truck driver, online poker star, doctor, lawyer, "drive through technician (you want fries with that?) etc. and I will then tell you without having a clue how to do your job, how you could have done it better and how much of a "pu**y" you are for doing it like you did it.

You make some decent points, but then you go and make yourself into a complete douche with your last paragraph and everything else you said that might be intelligent goes out the window.

You don't feel an unarmed man (although obviously disturbed) being killed by the police is a video worth posting or commenting on? Yes there are many videos of police being harmed on duty but there are also many videos of police brutality and excessive force using your argument none should ever be shared as we don't know what we are talking about and the cops always are just trying their best.

The individual was shot the instant he got into the car, I find it very unlikely he had found the key or combination of buttons to release the gun in that period of time. Obviously these are split second decisions but you are 100% giving the shooter the benefit of the doubt in this situation and saying we don't have the right to question it?

My guess is this will turn out to be a mentally challenged person reacting poorly to aggressive commands and then being shot. Again sad situation for all involved I don't envy the police but I also don't automatically give them a free pass when an unarmed person is killed.

lol yeah your right. I guess sometimes stupid people saying stupid things does still get to me. Still doesn't change the facts though.

He was in the cruiser for about 9 seconds before the shots were fired. The button for my AR was located on the dash, where our fleet mounted it which was not MY choice. I could get in and literally have it out of the rack in 3 seconds and that was a roof mount. With that being an SUV it was probably on the floor which would have been faster. Meaning you don't know if he was armed or not. That's my point. You don't know anything other than a guy was shot. If you want to say that fine, but once you get into questioning tactics and diagnosing a suspect with "mentally challenged" you are in over your head. By the way, someone "mentally challenged" can kill you just a fast as someone that isn't. That is good info to have in an after action report, but in the second before I pull a trigger I am not asking the guy with a gun/reaching for a gun/knife/etc if he is on meds or has a psychiatrist on speed dial.

I am not saying there are not cops out there who do not have the best intentions when they go to work. Every profession out there has bad people in it. What I am saying is that from just the video posted, I don't see anything inherently wrong with the way things went. Was it perfect? No. Is anything we do, police, every really a perfect scenario? No. Everything is too fluid and there are too many variables to consider in a millisecond of time. There is a reason when reviewing and adjudicating lethal force situations the ONLY thing that matters when determining if the use of force was justified is ...Did the officer think he or another person was in imminent danger of death or serious injury? AND Would a reasonable officer have acted the same way in the same situation? If those two are answered in the affirmative the shooting is justified. I am not saying that there may not be training issues involved that would have to be addressed which lead up to the officer being in that situation, but if those two are yes then it is a justified shooting.

Example: If you pull up on suspicious vehicle at 4am in a parking lot behind a business with a window broken out and upon approaching the vehicle a guy jumps out with a dark object in his hand and says he is going to kill you....you do not have to wait for the guy to shoot to decide that yes I can use lethal force. If you believe the individual has a weapon and you are in imminent danger you may use lethal force. The scale for judging that would be as I already explained, would a reasonable officer in the same situation have done the same thing? Of course. Now do you address why the officer was there by himself and didn't wait for back up? If that was the case yes, but that is irrelevant to determining if a shooting is justified or not.

There is nothing fair about our job. I do not have to let you pull a gun before I shoot you. I do not have to let you get the first swing after you say you are going to assault me. I do not have to let you get the first shot off. We will always use one level of force above that force which is being used against us. Why? Because there is nobody else to call. We can't step back and say.....well hell I better get away from this guy and call the electrician or plumber or whoever. There is nobody. We are it. There is no do over if we get it wrong and there may not be any going home to our wives, girlfriends, kids, mothers or fathers. We make split second decisions that affect peoples lives forever and get Monday morning quarterbacked by people for doing jobs they don't want to do. How long does it take you to call an all in raise most of the time? Probably about 100 times longer than it takes us to decide if we are going to have to pull a trigger or not. My shootings happened so fast that I didn't even know I shot til after I pulled the trigger. That happens when someone is pointing a gun at you.

Do you have the "right" to question it? If you want to use the word "right" yes you do as all officers work for the public. Are you "qualified" to question it? Not even a little bit. The only ones qualified to judge whether it was a good shooting or not are the investigators involved, which I am sure will be more than just the police department (States Attorney's Office, Citizen Review Board, etc.) Any shooting is a bad thing. It is bad for suspects, officers, witnesses and families.

Take it one step farther. If they let the guy just walk away or keep on riding his bike, or didn't even show up because they thought it was a bs call and the guy killed someone....after they left or when the didn't show up....then they are wrong for that too right? No win situation. No matter what the police do there will be people out there who question the way it was done, having no idea what they are talking about. They are also the first ones screaming the loudest when the police don't show up to help them as fast as they think they should when they need them.

Ok Broad, was that better? lol

Shut the flying **** up with this ****.

I choose to work as a lawyer and not a police officer mostly because the first pays more and is more in-line with my intellectual abilities.

But at least partially, it's because I'd prefer to work in a job where my mistakes or lapses in judgment don't cost people their lives.

They're cops. They're trained because their mistakes have very real consequences. We give them weapons, badges, and responsibilities. That's why they're held to a higher standard than the jobs you just mentioned. It should be that way, too.

I don't have to be a "drive-thru technician" to know not to take a **** in someone's Dr. Pepper. Similarly, I don't have to be a cop to know that it's not right to shoot an unarmed man.

If those cops are so poorly trained or have such poor judgment that they can't handle a situation like this without someone being killed, then we need to find a few more high school graduates with childhood inferiority issues to take their place.

Of course, the problem here is structural. When you have a ****ty job with ****ty hours and ****ty pay that also requires people to (at least sometimes) put their lives in danger, you're not going to attract candidates with especially lively mental faculties. Then you put those re-treads into difficult situations where they're asked to interpret and apply legal principles that are well above their head. Well, what the **** do you expect?

Put midgets in the NBA and you'll see shooting percentages go way down, too.

You're pretty sensitive about this. I find your inability to see why citizens might want to comment on this and your inability to see why citizens might want answers from police on this, as damning evidence of your inability as a police officer to understand the complexities of your role.

A more reasonable officer would recognize that the filmed slaying of an (apparently) unarmed man is reason for concern, and while it's not immediately incriminating against the police, citizens have a right to be concerned about the actions of the people they entrust with the ability to "protect and serve."

You seem to want a benefit of the doubt for police officers that police officers have neither earned through their collective action nor earned through their general qualifications. When police routinely fire shots into men looking for help after getting into accidents, disabled men in wheelchairs who are armed with a ballpoint pen, and countless other people, they surrender the benefit of the doubt. That's not to say that the presumption is necessarily against officers. It's just to say that people rightfully draw inferences from video that might not support your overly sympathetic (to police) picture of the incident.

But that's standard fare. You folks are useful to prosecutors only to the extent that massage parlor whores are useful to married men only - for a few minutes less than you'd like.

Wow, where to start....

Lawyer, obviously a highly trusted and esteemed job. Not much lower than lawyers except maybe bookies and bums as far as reputation goes. Don't you read the jokes? (A police officer was asked why the lockers in the police gym had locks on them. Officer answered "because some of the lawyers use our gym too") Then again I do know a few good, decent lawyers. So maybe it's just ones like you.

Ok, your mistakes don't cost people their lives. Actual lives or livelihood? Financial livelihood is important too don't you think? Your "mistakes" aren't that polarized because your a lawyer. Or maybe more specific, they don't affect you as much as other people so it's ok. Meaning you can get away with your mistakes. Ok, that means you have made mistakes at your job and because a cop is a cop, they can never make a mistake. I am glad you chose a profession based on your self evaluation that you couldn't handle being a cop. I agree. By the way, YOU don't give them anything. Not unless your involved in selection and training.

Did the video show he was unarmed? Attempting to arm himself? Had armed himself? NO. It showed him jumping in the vehicle. What happened after that is unknown other than the fact that he was shot. What the hell kind of lawyer are you? Divorce? Patent maybe? Have you ever actually seen the inside of a courtroom? How do you miss pertinent facts like that? Just saying "unarmed" does not make him unarmed no matter how much you want it to. It shows someone ignorant of facts he can prove in a court of law. You can't prove it, why say it? Oh wait, because it's one of them lawyer tricks. Did he have a knife on him? Did he have any other type of weapon? Unknown. Obviously there was something for all 3 officers to jump away from the vehicle and start shooting. That is important. ALL 3 officers acted at the same time and jumped back. I can't say why, but I have a feeling it is because they were facing a threat of some sort. Have you ever been in a situation like that? Well wait, ok....lets say your sipping your starbucks, sitting in your office, watching Dr. Phil, charging someone $250 an hour to do it and a really mad person calls you on the phone.....nah, not even worth it....

As far as the hours, job and pay go. Well I kinda liked working different hours/days. Gave me uncrowded water for fishing, woods for hunting, great selection of tee times, uncrowded courses, plenty of time to play poker, 5 or 6 long vacations a year and four days on and four days off was great for the family. Pay? I had a six figure base pay and made almost that much a year in overtime on top. I retired this year at 42 and will never have to work another day of my life. Your right, I sure wish I went to one of them smart-like-lawyer schools so I could work til I was 60 something. Unfortunately I am just one of those "retreads without lively mental faculties" who decided he wanted to do a job he liked and helped people. Maybe if I was smarterer I would have a job like you. Maybe if we was all smarterer like you there wouldn't be any cops at all then when the shi* hit the fan we could call lawyers! No wait, that wouldn't work. You would have to check your bank account before you made the call. "Sir please stop stabbing me for a minute I have to check my bank account to see if I can afford to call a lawyer to come help me". lol I know right? Like a lawyer would risk his life for any amount of money.

Speaking of "re-teads" go. Most guys I know that have that much hate and disrespect for police officers, first, really don't know police officers very well. Second, I really can't comment on "childhood inferiority" but it certainly sounds like you have some adult issues. How many of my brother officers have "known" a girlfriend or wife of yours? That is usually where I hear that type of hate. Either that or a family member has been locked up or something. But based on your rant, which by the way was totally uncalled for as I said nothing negative about any of the professions I mentioned especially since I have family in all of them, I would say the former reason would be the basis for your negativity.

Put lawyers in the NBA and shooting percentages will do down also. Players can't shoot while keeping their hands on their wallets.

Wow, a lawyer making a whore joke......I have heard it all now lol!
What's the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute? A prostitute will stop screwing you when your dead!

Why does the law society prohibit sex between lawyers and their clients?
To prevent clients from being billed twice for essentially the same service.

What's the difference between a lawyer and a gigolo?
A gigolo only screws one person at a time.

What do lawyers and sperm have in common?
One in 3,000,000 has a chance of becoming a human being.

Faulker out!

An unarmed person doesn't deserve a death sentence. LV police have killed many many people. I'm sure "internal affairs" will clear them ASAP and their paid vacation will be over soon

Thanks for proving my point.

It's a sad reality that the people with the most power are those least capable of exercising it properly.

If being a cop is too stressful/dangerous/unrewarding/no win/low pay (pick one) then don't be one. You knew what you were signing up for.

In front of the main building where I work we have a black marble plaque with the names of employees killed on the job. 23 at last count, more than double the amount of policeman AND fireman put together in this community.

Statistically, in the number of deaths per 100,000 employees, being a garbage man is more dangerous than cop.

If I make the wrong split second call on my job I'm the one that dies, not the unarmed crazy guy I'm trying to help.

And there is someone to call after the patrol cop, it's the SWAT team. Who will usually kill the unarmed citizens even faster than the fat and weak doughnut munchers.

As far as we know, the NHP officer never fired. And it was his car.
I doubt BLM rangers are as heavily trained in detaining/restraining people as Metro or NHP officers.

Just because you can draw a conclusion, doesn't mean it's right.

jw3913, I agree with you that we don't know what happened in the vehicle, but we do know what happened before hand. I give the cops the benefit of the doubt when it comes to intentions, but there clearly were lapses in judgment/training here. Doesn't mean the cops in question are bad people. But just like we question doctors when they make mistakes it also makes sense to question cops. Clearly the cops here knew they had an erratic individual. In that situation they should have first acted to secure any unsecured firearms within the suspect's reach and the video shows they had the time to lock the door to the vehicle before things got this far.

Also, as a citizen it is absolutely my place to judge whether it was appropriate for an officer to open fire in a particular circumstance. As long as cops are given guns and are permitted to shoot me if certain criteria are fulfilled I had better be able to weigh in on the reasonableness of those criteria. For instance if the rules of engagement allow a cop to shoot a "suspicious" looking person with an unidentified object and/or hands in his pockets, as long as the officer is afraid for his life, then I have concerns. The fear for life standard has to be reasonable and perfectly lawful activity shouldn't be able to be a basis for being killed or assaulted. People make sudden movements when startled. If I am walking down the street at night in a hoodie with my hands in my pockets and a cop shouts "Freeze!" from behind me, I am probably going to jump or whirl around just as a natural reaction. Also, if I don't comply, maybe it is because I am wearing head phones or am hearing impaired. Doesn't mean I should be subject to assault or electrocution.

Further, I think a lot of these situations could be avoided if cops were not permitted to stop people without a reasonable suspicion that they are engaged in criminal activity. People legitimately get ticked off at being profiled and will be less than compliant when they feel, legitimately, that they are being harassed. This leads to misunderstandings. If the price of not stopping to "talk" to every minority kid with baggy pants in a bad neighborhood is that a few more drugs go un-confiscated then so be it.

Another thing that could be done to improve cop safety is reduce the criminal penalties for non violent drug crimes. Criminals will be much less likely to resist, fight, or flee, if they know they are not going to face years in prison for possession of some crack.

Cut the personal attacks guys.