Wrong.

The argument I am having with Rococo is a simple one and not what you describe.

I made the claim that police had the lowest standard or burden when it comes to killing an innocent civilian as they have an EXTRA element of defense we (and soldiers) do not have in that they can argue 'yes i screwed up. No he was not a threat and never was. But I feared he was'.

That is a valid defense a cop can present and if a jury agrees the cop can and does walk.

I was correct about that. But that does not mean as Rococo tries to pretend that I said they got off 100% of the time with it.

We also got into a debate as to whether the cop is using subjective judgement when he wrongly thinks someone has a weapon, etc and kills them. Again i was right and he was wrong. It is subjective.


He keeps trying to argue, wrongly that since the jury is asked to apply an 'objective man' test saying 'would an objective man in the same situation come to the same conclusion' that, that somehow means the cops decision was not subjective. That is wrong.

I'll look up and post some legal review and assessment of this situation. There are dozens of such studies that I can post.



But here is an article amongst the dozens for some red meat on the topic.

California Lawmakers Pass Bill Limiting Police Use of Deadly Force

Officers will now have to argue that killing was necessary and not just say they had a fear they were in danger.

A bill requiring police to be more careful when applying deadly force against citizens has passed the California legislature and is now heading to the governor's desk.

AB 392, first introduced by California Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D–San Diego), changes how police across the state are expected to evaluate conditions and dangers before resorting to deadly force. Currently, the state requires that police have a "reasonable fear" that they were in danger. Thus, police can argue that the use of deadly force is justified based on what they think might happen, even if it turns out that they were mistaken and there was no actual threat....

I know, i know the above I have cited does not exist. I am wrong. California changed a law specifically to address EXACTLY what I say happens because it does not happen and they just like to make things up.


...In other words, the police officer has to be able to argue that there is an actual imminent threat in order to justify using deadly force.

The bill was originally introduced in the wake of Stephon Clark's killing by Sacramento Police in March 2018. Police, responding to 911 calls about vehicle break-ins, identified Clark as a suspect, and chased him into a backyard. There, two officers apparently mistook Clark's cellphone for a gun and opened fire on Clark, shooting him eight times and killing him.

Of course, and that's a fine subject for discussion, but it relates more to how juries deliberate, the rules of evidence, and the efficacy of jury instructions.

So, you would say the current legal standard is adequate?

First, California should not have one law for the police and another for everyone else, so that's screwed up to start with. If the proposed law change is meant to clarify the position for prosecutors and judges, well, OK, but you should never have one law for the police and another for everyone else anyway.

Second, you were talking about jurors, but the Stephon Clark case never went to trial. The DA declined to bring charges.

I'm not sure the legal standard is the main problem. I don't think juries need to be instructed that police officers often have to make split-second decisions, blah, blah, blah.

While police officers do have to make quick decisions, and that should be something the defense attorney can point out in an opening or a closing, I don't know that it needs the imprimatur of the court in a jury instruction.

Circling back, this whole thread/derail started because I was outraged after watching the Daniel Shaver shooting (which I prefer to call an "execution") that corpus posted in the other thread. Golfnutt said that the jury took 20 minutes to find that guy not guilty. Maybe, per the letter of the law, he wasn't guilty, but it just doesn't sit right with me that nobody was held responsible for the monumental ****up that resulted in someone's death.

This...

"...Currently, the state requires that police have a "reasonable fear" that they were in danger. Thus, police can argue that the use of deadly force is justified based on what they think might happen, even if it turns out that they were mistaken and there was no actual threat...."


... is how the law, as it was written and was interpreted and applied in every State because the wording of the prior cited cases was left fairly open to interpretation.is how the law was APPLIED to cops.

It is only in the past few years several States have been willing to talk about this and address the issue and push legislation to clarify and remove this protection from Cops.

The problem with the objective/subjective distinction is that often the most compelling evidence of how a reasonable officer would have reacted is the actual officer-defendant's reaction. This is compounded in killing cases because the decedent is no longer alive and the facts are mostly within the control of the officer and law enforcement generally. (Who sometimes falsify or omit important facts from police reports, as we have seen lately.)

At bottom, most juries are not going to assume the officer on trial is anything but a reasonable officer unless there is substantial evidence to the contrary (e.g., George Floyd facts). So these garden variety shooting cases are inherently difficult to win.

What would be constructive, perhaps, is implementing a data-driven tracking system that flags officers with unusually high rates of use of force investigations or shootings and firing/blacklisting them before they can do too much harm.

The best way is to ensure high quality training and good selection standards.

Oversight is necessary, and it can be decent and necessary quick-fix for more immediate problems. But ultimately you must build something can be trusted to act with integrity and competence at a decent level. Laws and systems won't work better than they humans that carry them out.

This is fairly apparent, but still necessary to point out. Too often some "looks good on paper" regulation with some oversight is offered as a solution to systemic problems. It's a start, but it's usually just a matter of time before such things get as bad as the problems they are meant to fix.

Agree that hiring standards need to be improved as well. Right now the barrier to entry in police departments is minimal. People with the power to maim and kill if they think it's reasonable to do so had better be some of the smarter people in society IMO. And we mainly only require a high school diploma.

Doctors, probably one of the few other professions with such power over human life, go through 10 years or more of training, including rigorous coursework and exams, before they can practice on their own.

Here's a link to today's press conference held by New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, where he explains the ongoing dispute between himself and NYC's police unions over a state Civil Rights Law (§50-A) that protects police disciplinary records from public/media scrutiny.

De Blasio believes the law must be repealed/reformed.


[VIDEO TIMESTAMP 1:28:10-1:30:37]

"I have been fighting with the police unions my entire career."
"If they want a fight, we'll fight."
---

See Law: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CVR/50-A
Local Story: https://wcbs880.radio.com/articles/s...yorks-50-a-law
Lobbyist Research: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/20...er-misconduct/
_____

I think you'll find, though, that anyone, not just police officers, can argue 'reasonable but mistaken belief' in murder cases where they claim self-defence or the defence of others. And the proposed law change in California seems to be a bit of tinkering that won't really affect that. For all I know, constitutional issues might arise if that argument were to be disallowed.

The SAS team who shot dead three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar in 1988 were not found at fault by the inquest or even by the European Court of Human Rights, even though the suspects turned out to be unarmed. The terrorists had just driven a car across the border from Spain and parked it at the site where they planned to detonate a massive car bomb during a daily military parade held in Gibraltar, a parade which attracts tourists. The bomb car was later discovered in Spain and the bomb was indeed massive and would have killed dozens, possibly scores of people.

In fact the car that had just been parked by the parade ground was the 'dummy', not the bomb car. The dummy was used to reserve that parking space. The next day, having returned to Spain, the terrorists planned to bring the bomb car over the border. One of them would move the dummy out of the way and the bomb car would take its place. For the bomb run, all three terrorists would be armed (the guns were found at their rented apartment), and they would presumably have shot to kill if anyone tried to stop or question them. But on the dummy run, with nothing incriminating in the vehicle, they weren't armed. The arrest team could not know this. Nor could they know that the bomb was to be timer-detonated and not command-detonated, and thus none of the terrorists would be carrying a radio-control 'button' detonator. The arrest team had to assume that the car was the bomb car, that the terrorists were armed and that the bomb could be command-detonated. (Because if they made the opposite assumption and got it wrong, a lot of people would die.) So, as soon as the terrorists made sudden movements when challenged, possibly even reaching for guns that, in their panic, they'd forgotten they weren't carrying, the arrest team had to open fire.

In fact, or at any rate in hindsight, the deaths weren't necessary. The terrorists could have been chased down, pinned to the ground and cuffed. But the arrest team couldn't know that, and the law has to allow for reasonable but mistaken belief. The ECHR found fault with the orders the arrest team were given (stressing the possibility of command detonation when timer detonation was more likely), but found no fault at all with the arrest team themselves.

At issue is that Police are not TRAINED to 'Serve and Protect'. They are trained to dominate and enforce.

The oath may say 'serve and protect' and the citizens might be the bosses and clients, but in training they are taught they are the enemy. A risk.

Police officers should be REQUIRED to accept some risk in the profession.

Not a crazy amount of risk but when SWAT officers are STANDING above prone, apparently unarmed people they have ordered to lie on the ground, and that cop not only has on a full bullet proof jacket and other gear and he is already DRAWN DOWN on the suspect, then the slightest twitch by the suspect should not get him shot, because the cop 'feared he might have a weapon in his belt'.

You, THE COP, have all the control of the situation,you ARE armed. You are STANDING. You are AIMING ALREADY. You have BODY armor.

You should be willing to first see the gun before firing as opposed to just firing out of FEAR of one. You have all the protections and advantages in that situation.

If you are not willing to take at least some minor risk then don't take a job where you swear to Serve and Protect.

We, normal citizens, have to take that risk if we kill someone we think is threatening us so its not like we want the cops to be held to a higher standard than we are.

Oopsie daisy. Sorry about that. On with your day.



If this young man had stumbled, while being forced to walk backwards, I want to believe that the cop with the gun pointed at him would have not fired and would have taken the risk that he was falling and not trying to do some movie, jump, flip around maneuver where he simultaneously pulls out his gun and shoots the cops dead while stumbling.

The cops have all the advantage. They are already drawn and aimed and facing the right direction.

Take some risks!

While I agree that police training in the US could be improved, especially at many local law enforcement levels, increased risk-taking is unlikely to be the answer. Increasing risk increases the chances of things going wrong, things going wrong risks more lives lost and more complicated situations. In arrests gone afoul due to police handling, I'm convinced you'll find that almost always the errors start long before the situation arose and that errors done there and then are merely one in a long series that caused the incident.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but dangerous situations are best resolved by making them manageable and less risky. Sure, there might come the moment you need a sprinkling of heroism, but relying on heroism is a surefire way to make people end up hurt or dead. There is also the "last line"-maxim. The last line can't fail, because there is no-one left to take over. It does not always apply to police operations, but it can.

To give an example of these things from another branch of people at the sharp end: One of the most effective ways of lowering harmful outcomes on the operating table is to train the personnel in always starting the operation by making sure they have the right patient. It sounds farcical, but is very much true.

Disagree.

That is why citizens and soldiers in active war zones dealing with civilians are held to a higher standard.

Trigger happy, pull the gun first cops, are a big problem. It was not always that way. Not that many years ago you had generations of cops who would brag about never pulling their gun a single time in their entire career.

Certainly some situations require maximum aggression and minimum trust of the situation by the cops. But they act as if every situation now does, even when approaching a random in the streets.

If you want police-men to take more risks, you're going to get more triggers pulled. People who take more risks are more likely to get themselves into critical situations with fewer options to resolve them.

Good soldiers on front-lines are very much trained in risk handling and procedures, the safest plan (within the boundaries of the ROE) that yields the desired outcome is the best plan. High-risk takers are just a menace to themselves, their fellow soldiers and innocent civilians.

Disagree.

The vast, vast majority of cases where cops are using their gun as a first resort as part of 'control' are completely unnecessary.

There is this hollywoodized view of policing now of every perp being a Terminator like threat, which may exist in some situations but in most situations is simply not the case.

If the cops were trained to wait that extra few seconds to actually identify a threat first, most times they would see there was no threat.

This 'you were J-walking and when i confronted you, you gave me attitude so I pulled my gun', needs to stop. It is pure power tripping.

OK, Cuepee. I'll bump this thread. As I noted in the other thread, you repeatedly said that I was wrong about the law. Go through this thread. Please quote any sentence, in any post, in which I misstated the law. Please quote any two posts of mine that you believe are internally inconsistent.

Rococo takes a year-long delayed victory lap due to Covid restrictions?

Sadly, no. Cuepee was trying to relitigate this issue in the transgender thread so I bumped to avoid the derail.

It seemed in the trans thread that Cuepee was saying he meant reasonable belief all along, but reading this he really emphasised that it was the belief itself, even capitalising "fear ALONE". And the first response to Rococo pointing out it needed to be reasonable wasn't "that's not what I meant" it was "You are wrong".

Whatever Cuepee meant is for him alone but I wouldn't interpret his posts as anything other than stubbornly missing the point.

lol.

I was going to reply out of courtesy only but your completely dishonest take that "I was trying to litigate this" deserves no reply.

Please pay attention in any subsequent debate you and i get in to as I will simply state you said something in another thread and characterize in a way you disagree with, as a way to substantiate my point, and if you dare to then address it I will refuse while pointing my finger at you for 'trying to relitigate it'.

As the other poster said, you dredged up a years old point to try and make a point and then you create a situation where I have only the option to agree or ignore it as any addressing of it by me, you then label as my bad. Me trying to relitigate in that thread.

Quite the creative argumentation structure counselor. It would NOT serve you in court. IT would be laughed out.

Rococo : I am going to bring up this point from a years old thread we never agreed upon in this other thread. You can only agree or ignore it as making my point. If you dare ask to see what i am referring to or STILL disagree then you are the one derailing this thread. If I choose to bump the old thread to continue to defend my point, that is on you too, for forcing this by not simply agreeing.

That's another Cuepee bingo!