Marine fatally shot in his car by police in front of his two young daughters

reply to post by Kryties


No, you ask the questions first, but once you decide to shoot, you shoot for the center of mass, and you figure they will probably die, and you've already decided that is an unfortunate but necessary outcome.

And, I'm not one to make excuses for cops. I'm about 50/50 in these threads. Lots of times I condemn the cops, and sometimes I defend them. If I were in the situation of this cop, with the information he had at the time, I might choose to shoot as well. I'm not even a cop, but if I thought 2 young girl's lives were in danger, and the erratic person was acting violently and aggressively, and ignoring me, and trying to flee with the girls in his vehicle, I might shoot him. If I was a cop, I would almost positively shoot him.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Given that we know exactly the same information about what happened, I personally would still have shot the man in the leg to be sure I wasn't killing an innocent man. Therein lies the difference between trigger-happy and logical thought. The cop simply did not have enough information, only his opinion, to make such a fatal and eternal judgement on somebody else.

Was the officer not equipped with a taser?

reply to post by Kryties


Can you hit an 8" moving target under stressful situations from considerable distance with any type of reliability?

I shoot all the time, and I don't trust that I would be able to make that shot.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I don't know, although I have hit several rabbits square between the eyes with iron sight while they were scurrying toward their burrows. Does that count?

But again, it comes back to this....why the hell did the cop shoot an unarmed man in the back in the first place? What on earth could an unarmed man have said to a policeman that would cause a summary execution to be performed?

EDIT TO ADD: And why, if the shot to the leg would have been hard to make, did the officer shoot in the first place knowing that his shots could go astray and hit one of the children?

reply to post by Kryties


Of course, all the evidence will come out later, but as it stands now, it wasn't an execution, it was a dangerous and erratic man about to endanger the lives of 2 innocent children.

I could be wrong, we may find out details later to show that it was indeed an extreme overreaction, but if the story stands as written now, then I feel the shooting was justified. A man speeding in an SUV, crashes through some gates, acts erratically, says something apparently inflammatory for the situation, and then ignores the policeman's orders, and attempts to get back into the vehicle with 2 scared children........ I'd probably shoot him.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Kryties

 

and attempts to get back into the vehicle with 2 scared children

Were the children scared because of their father or because of the police officer pointing a gun at him?

First off huge props to xcathandra ( ah hell can't remember the spelling :lol You sir know the laws used to protect the behaviors seen in law enforcement VERY well. As one who has huge respect for command of ones study and the application thereof, I do applaud you, and do so sincerely.
However what you have taught me via your own thoroughness, is that by the very rules you state we ALL are in great danger in any encounter with LE. As it seems any perception of threat can be treated with "escalated force" . A term so ambiguous it has come to mean lethal force for a series of misdemeanors and traffic violations and or ANY non-compliance, or in some cases target practice on restrained pets and shooting a kid in the back for flushing his pot stash while G-ma's house is raided.
So as far as LE having quite a large bit of legal cover over this, I still only see a huge elephant in this room and that is so far all you have that attempts to justify this is " we don't know what he said to the cop". your example was "maybe, I am gonna go kill my kids" ( sorry for the poor paraphrase but am trying not to ramble) So what we should expect to hear via the shoulder link to the dashcam is some sort of immediate threat to the children? That is the criteria which this man's life was ended upon? Is there anything else this man could have said to justify deadly force?
I think in the wake of your excellent legal defense of this we all deserve to know what words we say will get our asses kicked or shot? What could the sunday school teacher say to get the cop to reach into the vehicle and endanger himself and the woman (obviously the sunday school teacher was in more danger, she is dead) if it is as stated and she rolled up his arm ( and why did he leave it in there). I know off topic but relevant as these folks are dead over perceived threat. And the sunday school lady a victim of some form of escalation if the cop had his arm in her window.
This leaves us with what did they say that could cause ths escalation? Are there guidelines or trigger words or is it as arbitrary as the escalated force rule?
In all what you have shown very well is the wide latitude you have to use your guns, given the degree of "perceived threat" felt by an officer. This in effect says "Watch your mouth boy" to me. I think that is how you all are beginning to come off. and thanks to you I see why.
No encounter is a safe encounter with the enforcers of "law" and thanks to our well versed LE we now know exactly why.
While I agree we do not know what exactly went down except a man WAS shot in the back in front of his kids allegedly over something he "may" have said prior to attempting to drive away. I sure hope has said some horrible stuff or ya'll better watch yo mouth boy. Cause you might get your arse "escalated" to death
APB

This is how I am reading it....straight from the news itself.....

www.sfgate.com.../n/a/2012/02/10/state/n092441S33.DTL

Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr. was a devout Christian who walked at the San Clemente High School track with his family early in the morning, Maj. Christopher Cox told the Los Angeles Times ( lat.ms...).

Authorities say a deputy tried to pull over Loggins for a traffic violation at about 4:30 am Tuesday when he drove through the school parking lot gate.

Authorities say Loggins ignored the deputy's orders and when he walked back toward the SUV, the deputy feared for his life and fired.

Loggins' 9- and 14-year-old daughters were in the SUV at the time. Neither was injured.

Loggins' wife usually walked with the family but had stopped going because she is pregnant, Cox said.

"He was a mentor, somewhat of a father figure, to a number of the Marines," Cox told the newspaper. "He was very soft-spoken, very nonconfrontational — very, very respectful. He was just the epitome of respect."

Read more: www.sfgate.com.../n/a/2012/02/10/state/n092441S33.DTL#ixzz1mNKugpUt

So a man who usually takes early morning walks with his family at the high school, enters the high school grounds in a fast manner. The marine ignores a cop who wants to ticket him for speeding and continues about his normal, daily routine. The cop, not liking the fact that somebody ignored his directions, pulls out his gun and shoots the guy twice in the back, shattering glass in the marines car. The fact that the glass shattered from bullets is testament to how close those bullets came to hitting the children.

In short - Marine speeds, cop tries to ticket him, Marine ignores cop, cop shoots him in the back.

That's how it reads to me. Worst case scenario, if I were the cop, I would shoot for the leg to avoid killing a possibly innocent man who was just having a bad day.

reply to post by Kryties


I'm assuming they were scared because they had just crashed through a gate in a speeding vehicle, and their father was wandering around erratically outside the vehicle.

Here is my pure speculation, coming from a father with a bad temper once in awhile. If my speculation is correct, then it will be a major tragedy, but the only one to blame is the father. BUT, I suspect something was going on between him and his daughters in the vehicle that day, and it compounded with some type of stress already on the father, and he lost control for a few moments. He hit the gas pedal, crashed the gate to make a point to the girls. He was furious and fuming, and didn't quite know what to do next. The police officer getting involved was a complication, and the man suddenly felt cornered. He might have been fine if he was left alone to cool off, but the insertion of a police man with a gun, and some criminal penalties for running the gate, and everything was bearing down on him, and he made the snap decision to just F the world. He probably didn't really want to die, or to hurt the girls, but for a few moments his rage got the best of him. From the cop's standpoint, he could only thing about the limited window of opportunity, and the danger to the girls, and he had to act immediately.

If the cop never showed up, perhaps it would have been a minor traffic incident and some grounded girls, but that doesn't mean the cop did anything wrong. The father should have de-escalated the situation on behalf of his girls. If he is this erratic and unreasonable, then he really was a danger either that day, or another day.

Of course, that is all pure speculation, I'm just trying to put myself in the Father's shoes and trying to figure out what could have created that chain of events.

reply to post by getreadyalready


My father recently had a serious accident when he forgot to take his diabetic medication and had a hypo behind the wheel - crashing into several cars then finally a telegraph pole. This is an equally plausible theory on what occurred to the marine based on his crashing through the gate and 'acting erratically'. In fact, to me it makes more sense than a Marine going apecrap for no particular reason with his kids in the car.

It is time the American people stood up, lined these pigs, corrupt politicians and banker criminals, against a wall and methodically execute them with a single high caliber gunshot to the head.
A close family member was a cop for 24 years and drew his weapon twice. And never fired it. This was years ago, something has changed.
The time has come people. Peaceful protest is a joke to them. The only thing left is to start killing them like they kill us. Period. And yes I know you are watching and listening pigs....
Oh, flame away cop lovers....Armed revolution NOW!!!

reply to post by Kryties


That is a very plausible explanation. I suspect, once all the variables are known, this will be written off as a very unfortunate tragedy. The man seems to be a good man, and he probably meant no harm to anyone, but the cop had no way of knowing any of this, and he will probably live with regret forever.

Now, if the cop has a jacket full of previous over-reactions, then the force needs to at least fire him, and possibly charge him, but so far it just seems to be an unfortunate series of events that led to a tragedy.

another tragic statistic with in the world we live in today...from what iv'e read,not all the facts have been released yet .. could the officer dealt with the situation differently?

some would argue the use of taser gun for police in domestic situations .....the man could have been involved in a domestic dispute with his wife/partner and was not acting rationally at the time...

a police presence only adds to the anxiety,i do know this. When an officer draws his gun and gives you instructions to raise your hands ,drop to the floor what ever .. failure to follow these order no matter what state of mind you are in will result in you becoming another cop killing statistic...

.should the officer be charged with man slaughter?....was he alone? ...did he have access to a taser gun?

Originally posted by Tw0Sides
reply to post by loam

 

They shot this poor guy in the Back, multiple times, he was unarmed.

Not much more to say about this, its happening to frequently ;lately.

A day of reckoning is coming, Day of Pigs, if you will.

I fear the same as you, soon for every one of them randomly kill a citizen, you'll find one of them with a random arrow in between the eyes...

Originally posted by getreadyalready
and he will probably live with regret forever.

I should bloody well hope so. Tormented would be a word I would like to use in conjunction with this.

I come from a society where shooting somebody dead is the LAST option on the table for police - after all other options of conformity or being able to disable the suspect have been thoroughly explored. It's a shame the police in America take a pro-active 'shoot to kill' stance in situations that could have been dealt with in a non-lethal way.

Originally posted by sitchin
another tragic statistic with in the world we live in today...from what iv'e read,not all the facts have been released yet .. could the officer dealt with the situation differently?
.should the officer be charged with man slaughter?....was he alone? ...did he have access to a taser gun?

Well the Deputy's Boss, the Sheriff is investigating the incident. So..... I'm willing to bet no fault will be found.

Another unarmed man killed for what? what?

We all make mistakes at work. A lot of mistakes for most of us. I've seen mistakes made in my office that cost millions of dollars, and I've seen mistakes that no one ever had to know about.

For a cop, a mistake is life-threatening, for him, or a suspect, or a victim. They deal with things on a daily basis that have huge repercussions. If you don't shoot, maybe they shoot you, or maybe they escape and hurt someone else. If you do shoot, you might be wrong, you might go to jail, you might kill an innocent father.

Earlier this year, we lost two cops close to our family. Both were attempting to use a taser, when apparently they should have been using their gun.

If they put their hands on you, they face all kinds of brutality accusations and lawsuits and injury to their own person. If they use their taser, they risk it being ineffective. If they use their gun, they risk someone's life, plus their own, plus jail.

There are literally millions of interactions on a daily basis between cops and civilians. Most of them tense and confrontational, and all with the potential for armed escalation, yet we only get a half-dozen or so Youtube videos every couple of weeks, where the situation might have gone awry, and a cop might have done something inappropriately, and even then we don't have all the facts to be certain.

At my job, a 5.0% error rate is pretty dam acceptable. For a cop, a 0.00001% error rate is a tragedy that will make national news. And they make $40K a year to carry that burden and put their lives on the line? And we criticize them for it?

reply to post by Tw0Sides


i hear ya..in the UK we have an independent board of inquiries when a member of the public is gunned down by the police..the last unarmed person to be shot dead by our armed responses ended up causing the recent riots which went on for 3 days ..thankfully the majority of our police do not carry fire arms

I've said it before;

Why are police allowed to summarily execute people, unless they themselves are under direct threat?

Even then, the circumstances would have to be proven, unlike a case I read about where a man holding a rake was fired upon and killed, despite no other officers surrounding the man having had their weapons drawn.

www.i711.com...

In that particular case, police blatantly LIED to protect the offending officer, who was later found not guilty due to the PURGERY of his fellow officers, since the relatives standing nearby directly contradict the officers story.

I'm afraid what is going to happen here is another example of "the thin blue line". Police are the scum of the earth. Any group of public figures who conspire to lie and cover up their crimes should be taken to the nearest large tree and HUNG.

More bad apples:

Officer threatens to make up evidence after arrest of innocent men

www.komonews.com...