Why did you shoot the suspect 68 times

I noticed that in the Ferguson decision the following happened.

The blacks invoked racism faced with a problem that might not be about racism at all, but a problem affecting all Americans.

The whites argue that there would have not been a problem in Ferguson, if the police officer would have been black or the victim not black. So far so good, they would probably have been right. But then they go on saying there shouldnt have been a controversy, when excessive force by law inforcement should be an issue regardless of the races involved.

I remember a case where a chief of police replied to a reporters questions why the suspect was shot 68 times "because thats all the ammunition we had" a reply for which he recieved many positive comments. I can not imagine a scenario in Germany where a chief of police could make such a statement without being put on trial or at the very least terminated (as in fired). And whats worse Americans, instead of looking at European countries and asking themselves why we dont have war zones (except for actual war zones occasionally) they poke fun at the situation here for being rather pansy assed with the lack of manly wild west shootouts and hard men willing to go full auto.

I am quite sure Americans do not want racism, but if they do not want police brutality at the very least they have very warped idea of good and effective law enforcement.

a reply to: Merinda

Here's a link in case others don't know what you're talking about.

drkentshow.com...

Now, I'm not defending all the shots, but lets do some math here, along with some basic human nature.

The average SWAT team is 12 guys, but since this was a state wide manhunt, there were probably more than one SWAT team looking for him.

Most SWAT teams carry M4-series weapons which carry a 30 round magazine.

30x12=360 rounds

Theoretically, each of those officers could have fired only 5 rounds a piece.

Now on the the human nature side of things.

One of their own had been killed, with the final shot behind the ear at close range, another wounded and a K-9 killed as well. Needless to say, they didn't want to capture him alive and he sealed his fate by firing on the SWAT teams as well.

An illegal alien in Polk County Florida who got pulled over in a routine traffic stop “executed” the deputy who stopped him.

The sheriff’s deputy was shot eight (8) times including behind his right ear at close range. The illegal alien shot and wounded a second sheriff’s deputy and killed a police dog.

I'm not sweating it.

a reply to: Merinda

Ouh, they will hate you. I tried something similar (German police fired 85 bullets in 2011, and that didn't went so well..

(From TDawgRex):" Needless to say, they didn't want to capture him alive "

Well, there it is, the main problem. I may quote Wikipedia, which quoted Terry Pratchett who said this about Sam Vimes, a commanding police officer in many of his books, as follows:

"Vimes is fundamentally a person. He fears he may be a bad person because he knows what he thinks rather than just what he says and does. He chokes off those little reactions and impulses, but he knows what they are. So he tries to act like a good person, often in situations where the map is unclear."

A policeman should STOP acting when it comes to acting as an operating judge. There is a very distinct and really important difference between jurisdiction and executive forces.

If not, it is not a police. It is a mob, only with weapons and no controlling counterforces.

originally posted by: TDawgRex
a reply to: Merinda

I'm not sweating it.

And that is the reason why you are progressively loosing all of your rights.
You either allow something, or you don't. The circumstances under which you "don't sweat it" while the police force basically tries and sentences a suspect by firing squad should not be variable.
They are officers of the law, not a posse, and should be able to be held accountable when they talk so casually about the killing of another human being, be he an illegal alien, a murderer, or as in this case, both.

a reply to: Merinda

I think there are many people in the United States of America, who have a well rounded and sensible view of law enforcement, and how best to achieve some peace and safety for American citizens living there. However, those views are not being absorbed into the legislative paradigm which prevails over events at the moment. I think most people would agree that police officers ought to be held to a higher standard than a regular citizen, ought to be expected to behave in a manner which pays proper respect to their place within communities, and should be expected to be trained to a very high standard in the use of their weapons, and indeed in close quarters combat. This last part needs expanding upon I think.

Part of the problem with the police officers who have made the headlines lately, apart from any psychological issues they might have, is what appears to be a problem with training. In some of these cases, the training fails before the weapon even leaves the holster, because the intention behind drawing their weapon is not pure, righteous, or lawful. Sometimes the training fails because the officer sees fit to draw their weapon, when they should be looking to manually restrain the suspect and place them in handcuffs.

There will, for example, never be a time when a police officer should be discharging rounds at a suspect, if that suspect has no ranged weapon to hand, and is not within striking range with a melee weapon of some sort. Furthermore, all hand to hand range engagements, ought to be handled with superior martial arts training, which ALL officers should be thoroughly grounded in, to the point where nothing short of a martial arts trained assailant with a knife, should pose any physical threat to an officers life. To be clear, unless they can pass a high degree of proficiency in the arts martial, they should not be employed as law enforcement officials. There should be no police officer who cannot handle a suspect without drawing a gun to control the situation.

For those moments when the gun at their hip is the only recourse available to them to enforce the law, every officer should be proficient enough with their firearm to make kill shots at the edge of the effective range of the weapon, to place shots on specific areas of the body when closer in, and to make certain of killing suspects confirmed as being armed, with tight, controlled, and minimal groups of shots, minimising the chances of a) not taking the suspect down, and b) risking bystanders being injured by stray fire.

People like to counter arguments like this, by saying that suspects are often moving around and are hard to hit, but if the training was up to a decent standard, then that argument would be invalid. It is hard to run one hundred meters in less than ten seconds, because I have never trained to do so. I do not need to do so, and so I have never learned. Police officers DO need to be better with their firearms than they are, and so they MUST get that training, and learn to have as little trouble taking down a mobile, armed assailant, as they would have shooting bullseyes at the range.

And while on the subject of the range, the amount of range time that is engaged with by officers per year is DISMAL! Check this article out...

www.policeone.com...

This is not the first article I have read which points out that some officers only go to the range in order to re-qualify for their yearly proficiencies! This boggles my mind! You cannot do ANYTHING professionally, if you only train for it once a God damned year! I do more training for my job than police officers in the states do for theirs, and my job does not require the occasional use of deadly force! When an officer is not on patrol or otherwise on duty, that officer should be at a dedicated police range, preferably within the grounds of the nearest large precinct house, sharpening up their skills, and learning from resident, not contracted, but resident crack shot training officers.

People also say that under fire, under stress, ones reactions and stability physically, are not guaranteed. This means that YET MORE training, training of the body and mind, to counter that manner of stress down to the point where unflappability is the norm, not the exception, is necessary as well. Obviously, officers are not receiving ANY of the training types I have mentioned. They miss excessively, they hit bystanders, they find it hard to kill dangerous suspects, and unarmed ones alike, without discharging a vast amount of bullets, and they are so scared and weak that they have to draw their guns when they ought to be using their hands.

The fact is, that not all police officers in the US are failing on all of these points, but I would bet you that the vast majority are failing on one of them, and that is not acceptable.

But there is one aspect in all this, that you simply cannot offer training for. The fact is that police officers should not have power trips, should not be in awe of themselves, should not consider themselves as over and above others in terms of importance, and should not be allowed to develop ego problems and keep their jobs. They are though. Not all of them by any stretch, but a significant number.

Lets be honest about all this. Training frequency and quality need to be upped, significantly, if things are to improve, and right along side that the moral imperatives of officers should be questioned and when found to be acceptable, should be reinforced. When those imperatives are found wanting, they should be out of a job. It is VERY simple.

That quote was from our god of a sheriff Grady Judd. I remember when the SWAT team killed that guy that day. I was right down the road when all that stuff happened. The guy shot two deputies earlier in the day, killing Deputy Matt Williams and his K-9 Diogi. Now, I'm not a fan of our Sheriff one bit, he's done some pretty controversial things,(search Grady Judd and look for my thread on him) but when it comes to killing a cop, I think the guy got what he deserved.

a reply to: Ismail

The individual fired first upon both his run in with the law. And the last time was with a heavily armed SWAT team. They don't come armed with roses you know?

I'm not sweating it because a highly dangerous individual was removed from this realm.

originally posted by: TDawgRex
a reply to: Ismail

The individual fired first upon both his run in with the law. And the last time was with a heavily armed SWAT team. They don't come armed with roses you know?

I'm not sweating it because a highly dangerous individual was removed from this realm.

Sure.
But you let the police make that decision, when according to the law, it should have been a judge.
And you let them make jokes about it afterwards. About the killing of another human being, albeit a dangerous one.

What happens when the police decide that *you* are a highly dangerous individual ?

a reply to: Ismail

I am guessing you didn't read or understand the confrontation. First off, the guy executed one cop and wounded another. So he has established he isn't a nice person. He is prone to violence. And he doesn't care who he kills, as killing a cop is much worse than just killing some random dude.

Next, he was confronted with SWAT. Lots of gung ho cops with full auto weapons. (like what the folks across the pond think all Americans are like) Now, he had a choice to surrender and hope he wasn't shot. If he did that, and was not shot, he would go to trial and have that lovely day in court you think he should have had. But, he chose the other option. He fired back at the SWAT team.

Now, I am not sure at what level of comprehension you have about police and such, be even in the land of make believe, or where you live for that purpose, if you have already killed a cop, and you are facing a large group of his brothers in arms, and they are armed, if you shoot at them, expect to be shot and killed.

Please explain to me how this would have happened where you live.

a reply to: Ismail

You forfeit your right to due process when you are actively shooting and killing people.

Good God man, that should be common sense.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I respect your opinion and it is obvious that your are highly intelligent.

That being said I don't think you understand what you are asking the average patrol officer to be.

Superior marksmanship to be able to strike moving targets the size of baseball under stress with a pistol, superior martial arts skills...you are basically saying that every police officer should possess the skills of an Army Ranger or Navy SEAL.

You also said that if a police officer is not patrolling they should be training. So when will they have days off? People are already complaining that we are mimicking a standing army. I don't think that would go over very well.

You also show that although you may possess superior knowledge in other subjects, you do not possess it in regards to the topic of ballistics.

Just Google the phrase "handguns are poor at stopping an attacker." Do some research and maybe then you will understand why multiple rounds at times are necessary to stop a threat.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Here is an excellent thread by an ATS member to check out as well.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: network dude

Yup, I read and understood what happened during the initial confrontation.

I also understood how and why the man was shot during the second.

What I have been trying to make a point about is the attitude. This should not be something that people "don't sweat" about. Neither should it be a the butt of crass gung ho jokes about not having any ammo left. Several people died by gunfire during the incident, and somehow this tragedy is turning into a smirking point, peddled mostly by the usual "guns are kewl crowd", many of whom are quick to complain about the coming police-state. Well this is how police-states get started : all-round insensitivity to violence when it's perpetrated against other human beings, whether such an outcome was inevitable, or arguably deserved.

Please explain to me how this would have happened where you live

It wouldn't have.

No guns, see.

a reply to: Merinda

When the police are victims, they serve out their own justice. It's a vendetta that is usually met with the criminal losing his life or getting a major beat down. It happens all the time.

There's two systems of justice in this country, one for the police and elite and one for the average guy on the street.

a reply to: WeRpeons

So what should the police have done when the man (who already murdered someone) started shooting at them?

a reply to: TorqueyThePig

So what should the police have done when the man (who already murdered someone) started shooting at them?

It seems that these cops need to go back and have more target practice considering it took all these cops to unload their guns to kill one person. I'm sure it wasn't the 68th shot that finally hit its mark. It was simply cop vengeance pure and simple. There are numerous other beat downs and cop over kills resulting from murdered police officers. The recent Pennsylvania trooper killing which resulted in a beat down of the criminal is just one example of many.

a reply to: Ismail

In regards to the suspect that was shot 68 times. The guy sealed his own fate and made it obvious he wasn't gonna be taken alive. I'd be on your side if you used a different case as an example, but this one I feel the guy got what he deserved.

Probably so next year, the police can put there ammunition quota's way up. LOL just joking. For real this is a disgrace, I think these police officers that use over excessive force, are just roid raged murderers who just so happen to get a pay check from the public. One day, this will reach a critical boiling point, maybe in a year, or maybe in fifty years, but eventually the public will have had enough. You can only treat the very people that pay you badly for only so long, before they get sick of this crap.

a reply to: WeRpeons

So police officers should be able to read each others mind and know who is going to shoot and when?

Well what if they all perceive the person shooting at them is a threat?

What if one thinks the person is firing directly at them or if another thinks they are firing at their partner? Would you not shoot if someone was shooting at you? Would you not expect your friend, spouse, partner to shoot at the person that was or they thought were shooting at you?

68/12 is about 5 bullets each. What if each of those officers perceived the guy shooting at them a threat in their own minds and they all fired. There is a psychological affect that takes place is situations like that.

www.policeone.com...

Again it sounds more and more like people expect police to be super hero's. Martial arts masters, able to hit moving targets the size of baseballs under stress, and now mind reading.

That being said I am all for more training for every police officer.

a reply to: amicktd

The guy sealed his own fate and made it obvious he wasn't gonna be taken alive.

Yes, he probably did.

I'd be on your side

What side is that ?