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19 Yr Old Hostage Gunned Down By Police While Escaping Captor

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posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 01:57 PM
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Originally posted by DerekJR321
If a cop kills someone, such as in this situation... people say "hey the kid should have listened"... or "they want to make it home at the end of the day". And its basically swept under the rug. They fired because they feared for their lives and the person didn't comply. And they get off. No charges.

Let's reverse the situation. You have a cop being very aggressive towards you. He pulls his gun on you and he isn't listening to your side of the situation. You fear for your life and you too have a gun. You kill the cop.

Why is that homicide? Why is this any different?

The difference between 'legal' and 'illegal' = A badge.

Welcome to America.


Your facts aren't complete, nor are they all accurate. Cops are indicted all the time for misuse of their powers. Many are sent to prison for it. Prison is even less fun for cops than it is for ordinary mortals.

In your scenario, you will inevitably be charged with homicide, as you should be. You will have a trial. You will have the opportunity to present your side of the case before a jury. They will probably decide your fate, and in most cases they tend to side with the police. There are some good reasons for that.

First, the abuses by the police are the exception, not the rule. Most people outside of ATS know this. A jury of rational people will figure that cops don't just pull out their guns and kill people for no reason, and will tend to reject your self-defense plea.

Second, they will be thinking that since you were armed, the cop was defending himself but you beat him to the draw.

Third, they'll figure the cop would have been smarter than to just shoot you dead without making sure fellow officers would be there to confirm whatever excuse he was going to use. And we know there weren't any fellow officers, because you just killed a cop and lived to tell of it.

No, the kid can't be blamed. He was scared and running for his life. It's likely he never heard or understood the instructions from the cops. The cops should have held their fire until they could determine whether the kid was armed. They made a tragic mistake, but I don't believe they are the mad dogs people here think they are. They're just guys trying to do their job, fearing for their lives like anyone would (training be damned, it doesn't trump instinct), and killing someone they might have saved.

The kid was killed, not for disobedience, but because he appeared to be a potential, deadly threat to the officers and possibly to others in the area.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:00 PM
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reply to post by Dragoon01
 


The one flaw I see in your argument is that you fail to apply these symptoms to the police, as well as to the criminals and victims. *Everyone* under severe stress is prone to these symptoms. Training doesn't eliminate them.

This is a tragedy, not a crime.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:07 PM
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Originally posted by ImaFungi

Why didnt the police kill all the hostages/victims to get the situation over with quicker and capture the bad guy?


Hey, did anyone notice that they *didn't* kill the suspect? You'd think that mindless, fascist, killing-machine pigs would at least shoot the guy who made all this trouble for them. I wonder how they overlooked him...

Kinda makes you wonder. Guess they don't make mindless, fascist, killing-machine pigs like they used to. Back in my day any self-respecting cop would have just said, "Kill them all; let God sort them out" and proceeded to mow down everyone in sight. If he got a few fellow-officers, it would be sad, but it's "collateral damage." Blame it on the insurgents.

Seriously, ATS is sounding just like the "revolutionaries" of my day - kill the pigs, they're all lackeys for the fascist Establishment, yadda-yadda-yadda. I bought into that BS back in the day, but not so much any more.

Things are never this black and white, where all the X are good, and all the Y are bad. I'm thinking that if the cops really were as bad as this thread suggests, we'd all be dead.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:20 PM
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Originally posted by felixjames20
They did know what the perp looked like, as when they turned up they where greeted with a guy with a gun. Surly when another guy came out not matching the description of the guy they seen when they arrived, then they shouldnt have gunned him down.


Not so. They knew what *a* suspect (note the correct word) looked like. They could not know whether he had accomplices. Moreover, the only cops who could know even that much were the one or two who answered the original call and saw the suspect. The other cops wouldn't have a clue who this guy was.

See, this is what bothers me when we talk about "they" as though it's one person. "They" saw the suspect with the gun. No, some of them did - one or two, however many responded to the initial call. And yet, "they" all should know what the suspect looked like, because of the couple who saw him. Kind of like the hive mind or something.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:21 PM
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Originally posted by baruch60610
reply to post by Dragoon01
 


The one flaw I see in your argument is that you fail to apply these symptoms to the police, as well as to the criminals and victims. *Everyone* under severe stress is prone to these symptoms. Training doesn't eliminate them.

This is a tragedy, not a crime.


And yet if roles were reversed it would be a crime and a tragedy. The officer would get a parade and I'd get a prison sentence, regardless if "*Everyone* under severe stress is prone to these symptoms."

That is the main issue I have with current law enforcement. Society allows them to indiscriminately shoot to kill anyone at anytime and simply chalk up their mistakes as hazards of the job. Society has allowed citizens to become acceptable collateral damage. And the longer we allow law enforcement to do as they please with little to no consequences, the worse things will get. Situations like this one will become more regular and the body count will rise.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:28 PM
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Originally posted by yourignoranceisbliss
Simple. Simple common sense apparently both you and those police lack. If you don't see a weapon you don't start shooting. It's called return fire. Saying they 'heard a shot' doesn't excuse them for not actually looking for a gun, especially when hostages are involved. The police are negligent in this case and should be held accountable.

That's not correct. There are times when you simply can't see the weapon that is being fired at you. If you wait for the muzzle flash to clue you in, it may be the last thing you ever see.

But as I pointed out elsewhere, we weren't there. We didn't see what went down. All we have is the report of a paper that is clearly biased against the police, trying to present a "human interest" story of a family mourning the loss of a loved one, cut down by mad-dog vicious killer cops. It's a great way to sell papers. With the Internet becoming everyone's preferred way of getting the news, you can expect more BS articles like this.

This is a tragedy. The cops *may* have violated procedure - or maybe not. In either event, they had a legitimate reason to be concerned for their lives. They may also have feared for others in the area. They had a split second to decide. We, in our omniscience, don't like their decision; but no one of us knows what these officers were facing.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:35 PM
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Originally posted by buddha
This did not happen in the good old days!



You must not be as old as I am; or maybe you just never lived in Chicago. Yes, this *did* happen in the good old days, quite often. Except back then they weren't as fussy; they'd kill hippies as well as other minorities.

It's just that no one ever thought much about it. It was only a damned hippie. Not even worth the paperwork.

Even then, though, it was only a tiny fraction that were the bad apples. Most of the cops were OK, if not exactly angels.

If anything, it's much, MUCH better than the good old days.



the police need to stop hireing kids who traind on a play station.
kill ever thing you can see.


Right - the police shouldn't hire them. Those we should send to Afghanistan (just kidding - please don't beat me).



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:36 PM
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Originally posted by Kastogere
reply to post by Unity_99
 


IIRC the incident happend at night...in the dark.....no clear certainty if a weapon was present, hence they fired.


Almost right. They knew that at least one person had a weapon. The presence of a weapon tends to change everything.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 02:49 PM
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Originally posted by morningeagle

Also, why do the police have to shoot to kill? Why couldn't they just put one is his leg if they felt threatened? He was carrying no weapon.


They shoot to kill for a variety of reasons. First, when you're firing a pistol, your ability to pick out targets at a distance is limited. Beyond a few yards, it's hard to hit anyone, much less try to take out a limb. I know Annie Oakley (or someone) could shoot out the Ace of Spades while riding on a horse standing up, but the cops never get a chance to practice that.

Second, they had some reason (justified or not) to think that he *was* armed; otherwise, there was no justification at all for shooting him. If they just shot the guy in his leg, he could still fire at them.

But really, at any serious distance they're lucky to even hit the guy, much less choose exactly where they hit him. I would guess they aimed for the center of body mass, since that way you're more likely to actually hit *something*.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 03:16 PM
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Originally posted by FraggleRock
That is the main issue I have with current law enforcement. Society allows them to indiscriminately shoot to kill anyone at anytime and simply chalk up their mistakes as hazards of the job. Society has allowed citizens to become acceptable collateral damage. And the longer we allow law enforcement to do as they please with little to no consequences, the worse things will get. Situations like this one will become more regular and the body count will rise.


I agree. I place the responsibility squarely on our own shoulders - because you and I, my friend, are society, as are all the other ATS posters. We are society, whether we choose to participate in it or not. And we get exactly what we choose, whether we chose it actively or by letting others speak for us.

Society wants to abdicate responsibility for its security to others - to the police, the army, the "government." We are so afraid of "terrorists" that we willingly submit to humiliating searches at our airports lest, God forbid, someone should smuggle in an extra ounce or two of Mountain Dew. We are so afraid of drugs that we submit to humiliating urine tests at our jobs. We're so afraid for our kids' safety that we submit them to humiliating searches as they go to school, and allow them to be taught in a fascist environment where asking questions is punished. We're so afraid of "gangs" that we submit to humiliating and occasionally deadly treatment at the hands of the police.

And yet, what kills us? What are the main causes of death? Not terrorism. Counting all the casualties in the so-called "wars on terror" as well as the 9/11 atrocity, we've lost maybe 100,000 people to terror since 2001. If you think my estimate is low, double it. Double it again, if you feel like it. We lose maybe 25,000 people a year to gun violence. Perhaps another few thousands to illicit drug use. How may to gangs? A few thousands? These are bad numbers. Any deaths are unacceptable. But let's keep things in perspective.

In the time since we've lost tens of millions to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, smoking, alcohol, and other diseases, much of which could have been prevented with proper health care, changes in our lifestyles, better education about the risks of smoking, alcohol, and other hazards. We lost more people to flu in this time, than to terror, gangs, and illicit drug us combined. Each year we lose about the same number to flu as to gun violence. We lose more people every year to cane sugar (ordinary table sugar) than to illicit drugs.

And what do we worry about? Muslims. Gangs. Drugs. Firearms. So we pass absolutely batsh*t crazy, draconian laws trying to protect us against the things that kill thousands of us, while blissfully ignoring the things that kill tens of millions of us.

Even so, the cops don't take out as many people each year as does eating too much sugar.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 03:30 PM
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Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by baruch60610
 



No one here seemed to find it important.

Cops take the job with it's inherent risks. Then when they are killed, they get a parade. Their victims don't.

What person of a racial or ethnic minority signs a deal saying that they expect to encounter danger?


What you say is true, but irrelevant. I wasn't discussing the police or the victims. I was discussing the reaction among ATS members to the item.

The victim in this case (the 19-year-old) was with the suspect, and he knew the suspect carried a gun. He was hanging around guys who had done time in reform school. That's similar to signing a deal saying he expects to encounter danger. At the very least, it's exposing himself to avoidable risk. He gambled. He lost.

That doesn't get the cops off the hook. It just means that there's more to this than just some evil killer cops who decided to mow down a Black guy just for fun.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 03:44 PM
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reply to post by baruch60610
 
Some people on this thread, though it may surprise you, are talking about the police and their victim,

This thread is about the police (3) that killed their victim. If one of the cops had been killed there, they would get a parade. No parades for their victim.

You may view their victim as irrelevant, but not all of us do.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 04:02 PM
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Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by baruch60610
 


ETA: You should be sorry, you don't have a clue where I live, where I have lived or what I have dealt with in my life.

Granted. I don't have that knowledge. Still, there are very few situations outside of law enforcement or the military where you run into that sort of thing. Maybe the ER of a hospital... welfare caseworker, that sort of thing...


Anyone that lives in the inner city experiences just as bad or worse than the cops that work there and go home to their quiet suburban neighborhoods to finish out their day.
I have never been arrested or incarcerated.

My knowledge of cops comes from my experience with them on the 'right side' of the law.


If I sounded like I was accusing you of being a criminal, I apologize. I put that in to try to lighten the mood a little. I certainly wasn't trying to paint you as a criminal.

For the record, much of my experience with police comes from being on the 'wrong side' of the law, so I'm not about to point my finger at anyone else.

In Chicago, the cops are required to live within the city limits.



Doesn't really sound like you live in the inner city. Do you think that you have to be a cop to have a gun pointed at you? No, you don't. Most cities restrictive gun laws make it so that the criminal is the one that is armed in a confrontation with a typical, law-abiding city dweller..... Not the same for cops.... is it?

edit on 5-9-2012 by butcherguy because: (no reason given)


You're right. I don't live in the inner city now, though I have. You don't have to live in the inner city to have a gun pointed at you. In fact, I was *safer* in the inner city because the gang members there knew me and had my back. Don't get me wrong - these were vicious, dangerous men who would have killed me if I had dissed them. But I respected them, and they looked after me.

I've had guns pointed at me; never in the inner city, though. It doesn't seem that in the inner city they show guns much. Keep them hidden, or use them, but they don't seem to flash them around.

The only time I was much worried was when I had someone pointing a shotgun at me. He was a little twitchy. The other times, it was all bluster and I knew it. Of course, I did what they told me to, because... well, you just never know.

These incidents were *all* in lily-white suburbs, BTW, by lily-white psychotics (I hang with the wrong crowd, apparently). To my knowledge, they all had these weapons legally, too. I don't think I've ever had a criminal aim a weapon at me.

So OK, maybe it's true that in cities, only the criminals have guns. Well, no "maybe" about it, actually... Even so, the honest citizens aren't the ones the cops have to worry are going to shoot them. So yeah, it pretty much is the same for the cops, because only the criminals are going to be shooting them anyway.

The thing is, criminals don't wear uniforms that clearly identify them. I really don't want to hear any BS about their skin color being a "uniform" either; most (the overwhelming majority) cops aren't like that. They don't just shoot someone because he's Black or Latino or whatever.

But still, bottom line (in my opinion): Police academy doesn't create saints. At best it takes carefully selected people and teaches them how to handle various dangerous situations. The training is imperfect and inadequate. The humans are imperfect and inadequate. Their reactions under stress will be imperfect and inadequate. That will always be so.

It's just not always cops shooting down minorities just for entertainment. Lots of times - probably almost all of the time - it's just a tragic outcome of fear compounding errors until someone dies.
edit on 9/5/2012 by baruch60610 because: Fixed quoting.



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 07:20 PM
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Originally posted by Kastogere
If the guy didnt comply to police orders...then yes they will shoot you in those circumstances....they heard a gun shot, the door opened....and without knowing what the perp looked like they shot him.

Im surprised it doesnt happen more often.

Honestly I dont see how the police are at fault for this...granted they should have hesitated....yet when gun fire is involved would you expect any less of a reaction?


Why would they need to shot him promply without checking first he had a gun.. ?



posted on Sep, 5 2012 @ 09:04 PM
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Originally posted by FraggleRock
reply to post by r2d246
 


So the victim should have weighed his options carefully but the police get a free pass? The victim wasn't a trained hostage. He saw freedom and ran for it. The police however, are supposed to be trained to deal with situations just like the one that was presented here. And clearly they didn't weigh their options beyond pulling the trigger.


Yes in the land of the sleeping that makes sense. Then you wake up one day and you realize that TPTB basic goal is to rape and pilliage society. They're basically criminals. No difference what so ever. It's just a different brand of criminality. So what I'm saying is this. the victim didn't know any better; understood, but running from the arms of one criminal into the arms of another? Like really? come one wake up. They don't see the big picture. No one working for an instituation does. But they're training involves harm in one way or another. You make some crazy move toward a cop what do you think there trained to do? They're gonna FYUp!



posted on Sep, 6 2012 @ 05:01 AM
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reply to post by butcherguy
 


I never said the game was fair....unfortunately we still have to play it while the current structure is in place.



posted on Sep, 6 2012 @ 05:05 AM
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Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by baruch60610
 
Some people on this thread, though it may surprise you, are talking about the police and their victim,

This thread is about the police (3) that killed their victim. If one of the cops had been killed there, they would get a parade. No parades for their victim.

You may view their victim as irrelevant, but not all of us do.



Just like war no? You kill a thousand people with a bomb and your a hero, you kill one person in self defense and youre a murderer.



posted on Sep, 6 2012 @ 05:07 AM
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reply to post by Apleness
 


They were instinctively reacting to the fact that shots had been fired...and because they were not sure 100% about where it came from, it put them on red alert defensively...thus leading to the thread at hand







 
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