Ferguson Riots
- Thread starter SwadianJedi
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Kobrag said:
The main issues at hand is whether the officer is in the right by responding with force, and whether it was right for the officer to give chase. For both of these situations, a violent confrontation, even if there was no intention to kill nor to take a weapon from the officer, is enough. police officer, or anyone else is justified in responding with force should they believe that their lives are in danger. And when someone has been involved with making a police officer fear for his life and retaliate, this person is probably going to be a priority for detainment and will not be let away.
It doesn't have to be death to justify using force. If Brown was going to poke the officer's eye out, out crush one of his tracheal rings, or twist one of his fingers out of its socket, that officer is justified with responding to force, and most assuredly should give chase if able.
The use of force opened the door for force to be used in turn. There was simply no way a police officer would let someone get away after being assaulted if able bodied. Brown was not "recklessly pursued" by officer Wilson nor was it based on scant reason as you have suggested. He was pursued because he was involved in a violent confrontation with a police officer after being intercepted for a minor traffic violation.
Wilson claimed that he did not know it was Michael Brown that he pulled up next to. The time interval between the robbery and the reported violation likely wasn't enough to send a specialist to access the video recording on a private surveillance system, upload it to the police database, get lawyers and judges to sign off on it for dissemination, and then disseminate it to all cruisers in patrol.
It is my understanding that, in most jurisdictions in the U.S. if a person (civilian or police citizen, resident, visitor or even alien of illegal or otherwise undocumented nature) is a victim of assault and perceives that they are in danger of death or serious bodily harm, then there is a basis to argue that the use of lethal force in self-defense is warranted. This is why George Zimmerman was acquitted. He and his counsel were able to convince the court that the threat posed by Martin's assault and battery of Zimmerman was reasonably perceived by Zimmerman to be an 'existential' threat. If Martin had been armed, then even simply brandishing the weapon (assault without battery as I understand it) might be successfully argued to justify the use of lethal force.
And just to be clear, firing a firearm at someone is "lethal force" no matter where you point it or what you intend to do with the shot. It has the capacity to cause death. The justification to use it does not mean that you are justified to try to or intend to kill them. For example, if Zimmerman's first shot had not penetrated Martin's heart and set in motion his death immediately, but instead had penetrated him in a non-vital region of the chest causing great pain, and leading Martin to collapse to the ground writhing in pain and clearly no longer causing a threat to Zimmerman, Zimmerman would NOT have been justified to shoot him again in the head or other vital area based on the initial justification to use lethal force.
Basically, you do not have to accept a potential threat to your life or body, you can use any means available to you to try to stop such a threat and (if charges are brought up) if a court believes your claimed bases for perceiving such a threat when you later recount it, you were justified. But apart from executions of condemned prisoners, I do not believe that intentionally killing someone is ever specifically warranted. Moreover, if alternative means to evading or neutralizing such a threat are readily at hand, then a court may nonetheless find someone claiming self-defense to have been guilty of murder or manslaughter. The justification always hinges on the removing, evading or neutralizing the threat, not on killing the other person nor necessarily even causing them harm.
It is also worth noting that, civilians who have not taken a law enforcement or military oath of service, are NOT obliged to intervene to protect others in the event that a third party is posing an existential threat to them. Police officers (possibly even when off duty, that I'm not sure of) on the other had are bound by oath to ALWAYS intervene to protect those whom they perceive to be under existential threat by a third party, unless of course tactical consideration would make such intervention unlikely to accomplish any protective value and/or likely to result in harm or death to the officer. Within the range of contexts where intervening is 'reasonable' officers are required to intervene to protect others (which is why it isn't hard to imagine the argument that an officer like Wilson was obliged to apprehend Brown), but they are not required to make suicide attacks in situations where intervening would be ridiculous.
And just to be clear, firing a firearm at someone is "lethal force" no matter where you point it or what you intend to do with the shot. It has the capacity to cause death. The justification to use it does not mean that you are justified to try to or intend to kill them. For example, if Zimmerman's first shot had not penetrated Martin's heart and set in motion his death immediately, but instead had penetrated him in a non-vital region of the chest causing great pain, and leading Martin to collapse to the ground writhing in pain and clearly no longer causing a threat to Zimmerman, Zimmerman would NOT have been justified to shoot him again in the head or other vital area based on the initial justification to use lethal force.
Basically, you do not have to accept a potential threat to your life or body, you can use any means available to you to try to stop such a threat and (if charges are brought up) if a court believes your claimed bases for perceiving such a threat when you later recount it, you were justified. But apart from executions of condemned prisoners, I do not believe that intentionally killing someone is ever specifically warranted. Moreover, if alternative means to evading or neutralizing such a threat are readily at hand, then a court may nonetheless find someone claiming self-defense to have been guilty of murder or manslaughter. The justification always hinges on the removing, evading or neutralizing the threat, not on killing the other person nor necessarily even causing them harm.
It is also worth noting that, civilians who have not taken a law enforcement or military oath of service, are NOT obliged to intervene to protect others in the event that a third party is posing an existential threat to them. Police officers (possibly even when off duty, that I'm not sure of) on the other had are bound by oath to ALWAYS intervene to protect those whom they perceive to be under existential threat by a third party, unless of course tactical consideration would make such intervention unlikely to accomplish any protective value and/or likely to result in harm or death to the officer. Within the range of contexts where intervening is 'reasonable' officers are required to intervene to protect others (which is why it isn't hard to imagine the argument that an officer like Wilson was obliged to apprehend Brown), but they are not required to make suicide attacks in situations where intervening would be ridiculous.
rebelsquirrell
Grandmaster Knight
Anthropoid said:
Actually the supreme court shot that idea down after some man had to fight off a psycho with a knife whilst armed officers hid in a near by room.
PinCussion
rebelsquirrell said:
Mind elaborating a bit? Any cop/soldier should know that one or several firearms will pretty much allways win over one knife.
Unless it's Crocodile Dundee
Guy was attacking subway passengers with a knife, two armed cops were there but chose not to intervene because they were afraid for their own safety.
One of the attacked passengers sued them for failing to do their job, the courts decided that was not fair and ruled in favor of the cops.
So tl;dr, cops in the US don't have to help you if they are scared.
One of the attacked passengers sued them for failing to do their job, the courts decided that was not fair and ruled in favor of the cops.
So tl;dr, cops in the US don't have to help you if they are scared.
I've always understood police in the US at least as being more for investigation and enforcement after the fact, not prevention, and they only carry for their own protection. Overall safety is a side effect of what they do, but your safety isn't guaranteed by their presence.
Mage246
I hope they were at least disciplined for not intervening.
Victim strangles knife man to death and gets arrested for killing without the use of a firearm because it is unpatriotic not to use guns- true story!
(probably
)
(probably
)PinCussion
Úlfheðinn said:
......I hope that wouldn't happen in Sweden, not that I would be suprised if it did happen.
Hell, it probably allready have happened a couple of times allready.
rebelsquirrell said:
Without knowing the details of the case (as the other guys have elaborated above), I'd have to say: if it does in fact represent a reversal of what I understood to be the standard for municipal police, i.e., that they make an oath to protect and serve, except under conditions in which their efforts are likely to be unsuccessful or disastrous, then I find it alarming.
However, without know why the judgement was made, it may in fact not represent a new precedent at all.
Perhaps the officers were quite aware that, had they attempted to intercede they would have been more likely to become victims than to have accomplished any actual protection of the would-be victim. It is hard to imagine that to be the case, but it may be. Like I said, cops even if they have taken an oath to protect, are not expected to charge into tactical situations that effectively amount to suicide on their part. If they were able to convince the courts that that is what they faced, the the case doesn't actually represent a new precedent; although it may represent a new example of the caveats to the oath.
Damn, I really should've been an attorney, I can this **** out my ass like a pro!
This.Anthropoid said:rebelsquirrell said:
Without knowing the details of the case (as the other guys have elaborated above), I'd have to say: if it does in fact represent a reversal of what I understood to be the standard for municipal police, i.e., that they make an oath to protect and serve, except under conditions in which their efforts are likely to be unsuccessful or disastrous, then I find it alarming.
However, without know why the judgement was made, it may in fact not represent a new precedent at all.
Perhaps the officers were quite aware that, had they attempted to intercede they would have been more likely to become victims than to have accomplished any actual protection of the would-be victim. It is hard to imagine that to be the case, but it may be. Like I said, cops even if they have taken an oath to protect, are not expected to charge into tactical situations that effectively amount to suicide on their part. If they were able to convince the courts that that is what they faced, the the case doesn't actually represent a new precedent; although it may represent a new example of the caveats to the oath.
Damn, I really should've been an attorney, I can this **** out my ass like a pro!
Also, you have to account that even with a firearm, you have a potentially fast moving target in close quarters with other people.PinCushion said:
We don't have guided bullets yet.
pentagathus
Baron
Maybe they were worried about accidentally shooting the victim rather than the attacker, that would actually be pretty reasonable if the guy was grappling with him.
On the contrary, he wrote exactly what you had written. 
Have you even read any of the DOJ report regarding the incident? The entire thing is freely available: http://cloudfront-assets.reason.com/assets/db/14259125335940.pdf - surely you can at least read the "Summary of the Evidence" starting on page 5?Barky said:
While there's plenty of room to criticize police departments (including Ferguson PD), policies, etc...Michael Brown is by no means a good poster boy for the causes of accountability or reform. The evidence actually points to this being a legally - and morally - justified shooting. I know that some people immediately accepted the, "evil racist white cop guns down innocent black teenage boy(!!!) in cold blood" narrative, but that doesn't mean that it's actually true.
A 20 year old man named Jeffrey Williams has been arrested and charged in the shooting, but details are still murky. According to a Bishop who spoke to him in jail, Williams claimed he fired his pistol into the air in anger at having been robbed earlier in the protest. Prosecutors are saying that he confessed to firing the shots, but that he claims the police officers weren't his intended target. From what I've read, it wasn't clear if the prosecutors were saying that he confessed to firing the shots at someone (just not police), or if he told them the same thing that he told the Bishop.Austupaio said:
