Police Kill Man Attempting to "Open Carry" ..wait for it...

[marc]

he saw a guy with an assault rifle in a crowded Walmart,

A crowded Walmart in which none of the people in that crowd were in panic, or showing any sign that there was something wrong. Not what you would expect if there were a maniac threatening people with a gun.

 

[PyramidHead]

Ignorance is not an excuse for rash decision-making. There are a million ways the police could have acted in accordance with the uncertainty about what type of weapon he had, without gunning him down.



In the state where this took place, there is nothing illegal about openly carrying an assault rifle in a crowded Walmart. The police officer should have taken that fact into account.

It's an argument against open carry of assault rifles and a great argument against the open sale and carry of anything that looks like one.

I agree. But both of these behaviors are currently 100% legal in Ohio. The job of law enforcement must be related in some way to the actual law. Thus, I don't think your dismissal of Toni's questions is justified.

You seem to have a very strange and contradictory definition of what constitutes rash decision making. Decisions are made based on an evaluation of information. The information that a man was holding a gun, ready to fire, in a crowded venue, the right decision is to tell someone to drop it, and if they don't, shoot them.

There is nothing 'rash' about acting on information. 'Rash' is hearing someone knock on your door and immediately opening it only long enough to shoot their face off. Rash is slitting a dog's throat because you feel threatened. Pulling out a gun and shooting a kid as he is running away, or chasing someone because they're wearing a hoodie.

Being ignorant about something like whether a thing is a prop or a weapon, the fault lies on the source of the ignorance. In this case, manufacturers of gun toys.

Your view is not consistent with the fact that "holding a gun, ready to fire, in a crowded venue" is legal in the state of Ohio. I don't agree with that law, but the cop's job is to enforce it.

Also, "shoot them" is not synonymous with "kill them." Ever heard of a taser? How about a warning shot? How about aiming for the legs?

Let's look at the availability of information... the suspect was in a location that sold air guns, which look like real guns, in a state that allows people to openly carry around either one. Nobody appears to be in any kind of danger or panic. Equipped with these facts, the officer should have exercised two kinds of caution: (1) be ready to incapacitate the suspect if he acts in a threatening manner --and no, turning toward the source of a shouting voice while talking on the phone does not count-- or (2) prepare for the much more likely scenario that this is a false alarm and temper any judgement calls accordingly.

 

[Jarhyn]

he saw a guy with an assault rifle in a crowded Walmart,

A crowded Walmart in which none of the people in that crowd were in panic, or showing any sign that there was something wrong. Not what you would expect if there were a maniac threatening people with a gun.

That really isn't all that important. The rash decision was a guy not dropping an assault rifle. In any shooting spree, there is a time before shots are fired, and sight lines in a shopping area are restricted by lanes.

You want someone to blame, and it's Neither the guy or the cop, it's Walmart for selling the damn things, and the manufacturer for making them. It is the manager's fault for not insisting they go behind a counter.

Quit blaming a guy who was doing his job. If you want police to be pissed off at, look to The situation in Ferguson. a cop shot a kid running away, after harassing him over waking in the street, then antagonizing protestors by donning hard gear.

 

[Jarhyn]

Ignorance is not an excuse for rash decision-making. There are a million ways the police could have acted in accordance with the uncertainty about what type of weapon he had, without gunning him down.



In the state where this took place, there is nothing illegal about openly carrying an assault rifle in a crowded Walmart. The police officer should have taken that fact into account.

It's an argument against open carry of assault rifles and a great argument against the open sale and carry of anything that looks like one.

I agree. But both of these behaviors are currently 100% legal in Ohio. The job of law enforcement must be related in some way to the actual law. Thus, I don't think your dismissal of Toni's questions is justified.

You seem to have a very strange and contradictory definition of what constitutes rash decision making. Decisions are made based on an evaluation of information. The information that a man was holding a gun, ready to fire, in a crowded venue, the right decision is to tell someone to drop it, and if they don't, shoot them.

There is nothing 'rash' about acting on information. 'Rash' is hearing someone knock on your door and immediately opening it only long enough to shoot their face off. Rash is slitting a dog's throat because you feel threatened. Pulling out a gun and shooting a kid as he is running away, or chasing someone because they're wearing a hoodie.

Being ignorant about something like whether a thing is a prop or a weapon, the fault lies on the source of the ignorance. In this case, manufacturers of gun toys.

Your view is not consistent with the fact that "holding a gun, ready to fire, in a crowded venue" is legal in the state of Ohio. I don't agree with that law, but the cop's job is to enforce it.

Also, "shoot them" is not synonymous with "kill them." Ever heard of a taser? How about a warning shot? How about aiming for the legs?

Let's look at the availability of information... the suspect was in a location that sold air guns, which look like real guns, in a state that allows people to openly carry around either one. Nobody appears to be in any kind of danger or panic. Equipped with these facts, the officer should have exercised two kinds of caution: (1) be ready to incapacitate the suspect if he acts in a threatening manner --and no, turning toward the source of a shouting voice while talking on the phone does not count-- or (2) prepare for the much more likely scenario that this is a false alarm and temper any judgement calls accordingly.

When you shoot an armed person, you shoot to kill. Period. With a handgun outside a range, most trained officers are about 50% hit rate. That's if they hit at all. Where they hit is anybody's guess. In a situation like that you aim center mass. And when they have a rifle, you use a gun, because as much as a leg shot or even a body shot sucks, being shot in an extremity doesn't disable a shooter. A taser might work, but good luck when his hand contracts and he starts firing random shots. In a crowded store.

Also consider the halting problem: an officer can't stop time and have a meander around the scene, or sit back in a computer chair for hours thinking up reasons an active shooter might just be a guy with a toy. He has a 3-5 seconds.

 

[PyramidHead]

Ignorance is not an excuse for rash decision-making. There are a million ways the police could have acted in accordance with the uncertainty about what type of weapon he had, without gunning him down.



In the state where this took place, there is nothing illegal about openly carrying an assault rifle in a crowded Walmart. The police officer should have taken that fact into account.

It's an argument against open carry of assault rifles and a great argument against the open sale and carry of anything that looks like one.

I agree. But both of these behaviors are currently 100% legal in Ohio. The job of law enforcement must be related in some way to the actual law. Thus, I don't think your dismissal of Toni's questions is justified.

You seem to have a very strange and contradictory definition of what constitutes rash decision making. Decisions are made based on an evaluation of information. The information that a man was holding a gun, ready to fire, in a crowded venue, the right decision is to tell someone to drop it, and if they don't, shoot them.

There is nothing 'rash' about acting on information. 'Rash' is hearing someone knock on your door and immediately opening it only long enough to shoot their face off. Rash is slitting a dog's throat because you feel threatened. Pulling out a gun and shooting a kid as he is running away, or chasing someone because they're wearing a hoodie.

Being ignorant about something like whether a thing is a prop or a weapon, the fault lies on the source of the ignorance. In this case, manufacturers of gun toys.

Your view is not consistent with the fact that "holding a gun, ready to fire, in a crowded venue" is legal in the state of Ohio. I don't agree with that law, but the cop's job is to enforce it.

Also, "shoot them" is not synonymous with "kill them." Ever heard of a taser? How about a warning shot? How about aiming for the legs?

Let's look at the availability of information... the suspect was in a location that sold air guns, which look like real guns, in a state that allows people to openly carry around either one. Nobody appears to be in any kind of danger or panic. Equipped with these facts, the officer should have exercised two kinds of caution: (1) be ready to incapacitate the suspect if he acts in a threatening manner --and no, turning toward the source of a shouting voice while talking on the phone does not count-- or (2) prepare for the much more likely scenario that this is a false alarm and temper any judgement calls accordingly.

When you shoot an armed person, you shoot to kill. Period. With a handgun outside a range, most trained officers are about 50% hit rate. That's if they hit at all. Where they hit is anybody's guess. In a situation like that you aim center mass. And when they have a rifle, you use a gun, because as much as a leg shot or even a body shot sucks, being shot in an extremity doesn't disable a shooter. A taser might work, but good luck when his hand contracts and he starts firing random shots. In a crowded store.

Also consider the halting problem: an officer can't stop time and have a meander around the scene, or sit back in a computer chair for hours thinking up reasons an active shooter might just be a guy with a toy. He has a 3-5 seconds.

Yes, but WHY do you shoot an armed person when you are an officer of the law, and the law says being armed is not by itself illegal?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Come on.People die every day because they do stupid things. Did he not know that having a gun in a mall could be a problem?

1. He didn't have "a gun"
2. He wasn't at "a mall"
3. Ohio is an "open carry" state. Many many "open carry" advocates are making it a point of carrying actual guns in actual malls... & not being shot/killed for it.

Open carry does not give you the right to go around pointing a gun at people.

Being black is no excuse for being stupid.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Come on.People die every day because they do stupid things. Did he not know that having a gun in a mall could be a problem?

I'll wager a lot more people do not die because they do stupid things than do die from doing stupid things.

And most people who play Russian Roulette don't die, either.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Open carry does not give you the right to go around pointing a gun at people.

Did you read the part where he wasn't pointing the toy gun... at anyone? At the very least, there is no indication that he was pointing it. I'll ignore your other statement because it's completely irrelevant.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, but WHY do you shoot an armed person when you are an officer of the law, and the law says being armed is not by itself illegal?

The law lets you open carry an assault rifle. It does *NOT* allow you to go around pointing it at people. Thus the guy was out of line.

Even if the cop knows it's a pellet gun look upthread--they can maim and kill. He's going to treat it as a serious threat.

When you pick up a gun or a gun-like object the obligation is on you not to threaten anyone with it. Break that and if something bad happens it was your fault.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Yes, but WHY do you shoot an armed person when you are an officer of the law, and the law says being armed is not by itself illegal?

The law lets you open carry an assault rifle. It does *NOT* allow you to go around pointing it at people. Thus the guy was out of line.

Even if the cop knows it's a pellet gun look upthread--they can maim and kill. He's going to treat it as a serious threat.

When you pick up a gun or a gun-like object the obligation is on you not to threaten anyone with it. Break that and if something bad happens it was your fault.

at whom did he point the gun?

 

[marc]

That really isn't all that important. The rash decision was a guy not dropping an assault rifle. In any shooting spree, there is a time before shots are fired, and sight lines in a shopping area are restricted by lanes.

But was it a rash decision? In a Howie Mandell show he asks an audience member "What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? I asked you three fucking times!" all said in about 2.5 seconds. Was the guy given enough time to realize what was going on, and put it down before the cop opened fire? We can't know without video, which is not likely to appear.

As for the shooting spree example, this alleged shooter took long enough for someone to call the cops, and them to show up and find the guy before any shooting, which one would figure might be enough time for people to notice the guy with the gun.

You want someone to blame, and it's Neither the guy or the cop, it's Walmart for selling the damn things, and the manufacturer for making them. It is the manager's fault for not insisting they go behind a counter.

I'm not looking for someone to blame. I'm trying to figure what was likely to have happened. My guess is that the people that called the police grossly overstated what was happening. Maybe because of racial bias, maybe because they are just very fearful, I don't know. The police, expecting a violent shooter, did not give the situation enough investigation and jumped too quickly to lethal force, while the guy was a bit slow to realize what was going on and what he should do. What the guy was doing before might not have helped the situation, like if he was the type to talk with his hands even while holding the air gun, but the ones using lethal force bear more responsibility for the consequences of that force. Especially since this is a state where open carry is legal.

I still question how the guy was holding the air gun. There are a few problems with the story depending on how it was held.



A similar situation happened to some of my friends. They were by a movie theater with a squirt gun shaped like an Uzi. Someone called the police reporting a man being taken to a jeep at gunpoint. A little later Tom was wondering what all the sirens were about, just as he was putting the water clip into the squirt gun. That is when he heard someone yell "Put down the gun or I'll blow your head off!" Thankfully he had the presence of mind to drop it, rather than see who was yelling first.

 

[Deepak]

I agree with your assessment.

The questions remaining are:

1. Did the scooter woman and her husband perceive Crawford to be threatening because of the color of his skin? Would they have been as alarmed if it had been some blonde kid dressed in jeans and a t shirt?

2. Did the police react, in part, because of the color of Crawford's skin? Would they have immediately seen any person of any color holding a bb gun as a threat? Even that blonde kid?

Both of you are dead wrong. Please tell me how a cop is supposed to know it's a pellet gun. Or that it's not loaded. Did they start installing Star Trek style scanners in police officers? Or start training them in some newly verified form of ESP? An action is right or wrong when it is taken, not when the results are known. From the perspective of the officer, he saw a guy with an assault rifle in a crowded Walmart, and the guy refused to drop it. That's all there is to it. It's an argument against open carry of assault rifles and a great argument against the open sale and carry of anything that looks like one.

Too many cops fancy themselves as Robocop but really embody ED-209. There's a reason that police training is by a large margin regarding information gathering and less so about firearms training.

An assessment of the situation is a core function of their job. I could see if there were kids behind the store lighting off fireworks, and that sounded like gunshots, or if the people in the Walmart were panicked and hiding where they would view it as a high threat situation, but considering the reality that open carry is allowed and that the store in question sells both real and fake guns my expectation is that the cops would treat the situation as an investigation and not the showdown at the OK Corral without evidence to the contrary. Individuals who are not LEOs should not be expected to have ESP or magical technology, and actually most don't have the training to react quickly to heated situations.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

To what... paper targets?

No. It is routinely lethal to small animals but can also kill humans in some cases.

So can chainsaws, but nobody's ever been shot and killed for carrying one around in a hardware store.

- - - Updated - - -

Both of you are dead wrong. Please tell me how a cop is supposed to know it's a pellet gun.

The shopper -- in the sporting goods section, no less -- with a cell phone on his neck turning to him and saying "It's not real" should have been his first clue.

More importantly, as others have pointed out, it's not even illegal to carry REAL guns in Walmart, Ohio being an open-carry state and all. As far as the state of Ohio is concerned, he might as well have been carrying a 5-iron.

 

[RavenSky]

1. He didn't have "a gun"
2. He wasn't at "a mall"
3. Ohio is an "open carry" state. Many many "open carry" advocates are making it a point of carrying actual guns in actual malls... & not being shot/killed for it.

Open carry does not give you the right to go around pointing a gun at people.

Being black is no excuse for being stupid.

I am really tired of saying this: YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT CRAWFORD WAS "POINTING" THE FAKE GUN AT ANYONE SO STOP SAYING IT!!!!

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Open carry does not give you the right to go around pointing a gun at people.

Being black is no excuse for being stupid.

I am really tired of saying this: YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT CRAWFORD WAS "POINTING" THE FAKE GUN AT ANYONE SO STOP SAYING IT!!!!

he can't
He physically is unable to
An authority figure shot someone and authority figures are ALWAYS right, therefore there must be something the dead guy did that got him killed.
Otherwise...
Does...not...compute
Does...not...compute
Does...not...compute

 

[OLDMAN]

The gun was not fake, toy guns have red caps on the end of them. It is a real gun, and other than looking at the end closely, you cannot tell the caliber of any gun. So stop say it.

 

[Toni]

The gun was not fake, toy guns have red caps on the end of them. It is a real gun, and other than looking at the end closely, you cannot tell the caliber of any gun. So stop say it.

Ohio is an open carry state. It would have been legal for Crawford to have carried a loaded weapon around Walmart, but he did not do that. He picked up a bb gun and someone got scared and erroneously called the police that there was a shooter in Walmart, which was not true.

The police arrived and instead of assessing the situation, killed Crawford who had no idea and no reason to know that he was suspected of being a shooter in Walmart. Because Crawford had no idea and no reason to know he was under any kind of suspicion, he was not as quick to assess his own situation as the police, quickly mis-assessing the situation--were to kill him.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The gun was not fake, toy guns have red caps on the end of them. It is a real gun, and other than looking at the end closely, you cannot tell the caliber of any gun. So stop say it.

Irrelevant. Ohio is an open-carry state; he had as much right to carry that pellet gun as he did to carry a baseball bat.

 

[doubtingt]

The gun was not fake, toy guns have red caps on the end of them. It is a real gun, and other than looking at the end closely, you cannot tell the caliber of any gun. So stop say it.

Ohio is an open carry state. It would have been legal for Crawford to have carried a loaded weapon around Walmart, but he did not do that. He picked up a bb gun and someone got scared and erroneously called the police that there was a shooter in Walmart, which was not true.

The police arrived and instead of assessing the situation, killed Crawford who had no idea and no reason to know that he was suspected of being a shooter in Walmart. Because Crawford had no idea and no reason to know he was under any kind of suspicion, he was not as quick to assess his own situation as the police, quickly mis-assessing the situation--were to kill him.

How often do you suspect that people in Ohio walk around department stores with a gun that looks like that in their hand? We aren't talking standing there in the bb gun aisle next to the box, inspecting it for a few minutes, but rather roaming around the store for 20 minutes with the gun. Unless the answer is "somewhat often" to "all the time", then the open carry law is irrelevant to the other shoppers' reaction, and largely irrelevant to the cops' state of mind when the enter the situation.

IT is extremely reckless for Walmart to sell such deadly looking bb guns in the first place, let alone to have them sitting on the shelf for anyone to grab and take out of the box. If on a jury I'd find them culpable for many millions in damages, and convict their CEOs of involuntary manslaughter.
This case also shows the absurdity of open carry laws and the unreasonable position it places cops if people were actually doing what the law allows and just waltzing around public places with assault rifles in their hand, far from any legal shooting range.

However, unless a shopper was acutely aware that Walmart sold such a gun, the perfectly rational response to seeing someone walking around the store with it is "That guy (not "boy" but very full grown man who looks old for his age of 22) is about to go on a killing spree!" That would be the reasonable fear no matter his race and whether he was age 15 to 90.
When the cops get a "Guy walking around with an assault rifle at Walmart" call and they walk in and see just that, their rational response to presume the guy is a deadly threat. The fact that in hypothetical theory a person could legally do what he is doing, even though no one ever does, wouldn't enter into it. It is this that makes the callers and the cops not look racist, but at the same time makes Walmart liable and the open carry law recklessly dangerous.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Ohio is an open carry state. It would have been legal for Crawford to have carried a loaded weapon around Walmart, but he did not do that. He picked up a bb gun and someone got scared and erroneously called the police that there was a shooter in Walmart, which was not true.

The police arrived and instead of assessing the situation, killed Crawford who had no idea and no reason to know that he was suspected of being a shooter in Walmart. Because Crawford had no idea and no reason to know he was under any kind of suspicion, he was not as quick to assess his own situation as the police, quickly mis-assessing the situation--were to kill him.

How often do you suspect that people in Ohio walk around department stores with a gun that looks like that in their hand?

Irrelevant. It is perfectly lawful to do so, therefore it wouldn't matter if he's the only one who ever did it or if everyone in the state did it all the time. He was shot and killed because the officer believed he was doing something that wasn't even illegal (and even then, he was mistaken).