This seems to me to be what happened in the Daniel Shaver case, who was drunk and in his pajamas when police (responding to a report of a brandished gun being spotted in his motel room window) confronted him. He was facedown and yelled at for ~4 minutes before being shot when officers mistook him pulling up his waistband for reaching for a weapon:
The officer who shot him was exonerated but IMO, the officer belligerently shouting confusing instructions at him should have faced scrutiny. Instead, he got to retire with a full pension while testifying on behalf of the officer who did pull the trigger.
if i recall correctly Shaver was not wearing pjs, he was wearing shorts. but yes, he appeared to pull up his shorts which were being dragged down because he was being forced to crawl on his hands and knees.
i would bet that almost everyone being in such a position, or standing at their front door in front of their neighbors, who felt their bottom falling down, would instinctively reach down without thinking.
some points to note about that incident -
a) he had the pellet gun as part of his job as an exterminator, even if he was careless in demonstrating how he used it to shoot birds for pest control
b) think about how easily the officers could have gone to the wrong hotel room; you, me or anyone random could've been in the room next door to Shaver and been treated the same (and probably wouldve reacted the same), even if we'd just poked out head outside our room to see what the heck was going on
How was he “careless” in any way? Was it not completely legal for him to own it, and completely legal for him to show it to other people, especially in the privacy of a hotel room?
I thought the right to do this was for many the single most important principle of your country, shouldn’t the police have responded to reports of somebody with a gun with “Well this is the USA, nothing to see here?”
it was called in because he was pointing the rifle out of his hotel room window.
i guess it's up to you to decide for yourself whether or not that could be called "careless". or whether it would be reasonable for a passerby to call in a report of someone pointing a rifle outside of a hotel room window, a couple months after Las Vegas.
ah thanks for that bit of info. still, even pre-Vegas, i think it is reasonable to label pointing a rifle outside a hotel room window as "careless", which is the point i was responding to.
the commentor seemed to conflate the questions of "was it not completely legal for him to possess that item?" and "was it careless (legal or not) to show it off in that manner?"
this particular situation was not Life:Death. Which is the important thing to remember when the media becomes complicit in the coverup of police brutality.
Technically not murder, as that requires premeditation. However it is apparent that this is a no-win situation for the victim, the officer is clearly intent on creating a situation for a "justifiable" homicide.
What's just as horrifying is that the jury acquitted.
a bit further, you're absolutely correct; it seems the US has a more nuanced definition of murder, for which any of the three definitions of second degree murder could potentially apply in this case[1]:
- A killing done impulsively without premeditation, but with malice aforethought
- A killing that results from an act intended to cause serious bodily harm
- A killing that results from an act that demonstrates the perpetrators depraved indifference to human life
As for my original point, that just makes the aquittal even more shocking!
Note that the US does not have a single definition of murder; there are loose common guidelines, but each jurisdiction within the U.S. has its own, slightly different, definition of each form of murder. The specific statutes matter a lot in actual cases even if they get ignored in general discussion, as do the actual charges filed. The fact that another form of murder exists that could have been supported based on the trial evidence will not save a conviction on appeal if the appellate court feels the evidence cannot reasonably support a conviction for the specific form of murder actually charged.
I have seen use-of-force training exercises that look very similar except there is actually a weapon being drawn. I don't think it makes the officer who pulled the trigger innocent, but I believe he behaved exactly the way he was trained, and holding him personally responsible would not prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
Note in particular it is a different officer who is talking in the video and created the whole situation.
Fair enough. The horrifying part to me was not the moment the shots were fired, but the escalation and screaming of inconsistent instructions by an unmistakably bloodthirsty officer to a man who was clearly scared out of his mind and literally begging for his life.
One thing that gets overlooked in police shootings is innocent bystanders as an aside to the people getting shot by police, justified or not.
Imagine the person that called the police to investigate someone with a possible weapon in a hotel, moments later police show up in SWAT gear with AR-15s and discharge them in the hallway, with many other rooms around, and kill an innocent man. Worse, bullets could have gone into rooms or out the window into the parking lot and who knows where else. Why not rubber bullets, why not a taser, why an AR-15 in a hotel hallway?
Next time you see one of these shootings, watch the disregard in some for who is behind the person the police are shooting at [1][2][3] whether justified or not, it is a bit scary. It is getting to the point that maybe it is safer to not call police, what if you were robbed and they come in and shoot the guy in front or you house, bullets everywhere?
That happened in New Zealand a few years ago. The police missed their target (an actual active shooter running on foot) and instead killed the driver of a nearby van. I don't know how you can be trained to use a gun and not learn about looking at what you're shooting it at.
Handguns are difficult to use. Moving targets are hard to hit. Extensive training helps, but many people who have found them in situations where they need to use that training have found their performance suffers.
I also don't get why they said he should move to them. instead another police officer could've just came from the back and searched him for potential weapons. but well the video shows that the police basically was harmful.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/police-shooting-vid...
The officer who shot him was exonerated but IMO, the officer belligerently shouting confusing instructions at him should have faced scrutiny. Instead, he got to retire with a full pension while testifying on behalf of the officer who did pull the trigger.