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

[ksen]

If the guy was white, he may not have gotten shot, but that doesn't change the fact that he should have been.

jesus christ . . . oh, wait, it's Jarhyn.

Carry on.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The video changed my mind. I had tended to blame the caller giving bogus information, but now I place more blame on the police. Really, now, nobody checked the security cameras before storm-troopering in?

Because when someone has a rifle, ostensibly gearing up to commit a massacre, you have all the time in the world dallying and going through the store to the security room and browsing security tapes.

Good call. I'd rather see a guy who foolishly picked up an assault rifle (or something which is situationally indestinguishable from one) in a store get gunned down, than see someone who had an assault rifle in that same store empty a lot of rounds into the crowd.

You do realize those are not the only choices? You also realize that you have just said it is just fine and dandy for the police to shoot people without any due diligence to determine if the person is a threat.

The police were trained badly, but it's not their fault for getting bad training and information. Ultimately it is on the lying racist shithead, and the department management that makes officers paranoid about active shooters.

I would buy that except, where was the stampede? If Crawford had been a threat and threatening, why weren't people running from the store? IOW, the scene at the store didn't match the threat conveyed in the call and the police officers could see that immediately when they got there.

Delaying action given information that there's a brewing active shooter situation is the wrong decision.

Killing innocent citizens is the wrong decision.

If the guy was white, he may not have gotten shot, but that doesn't change the fact that he should have been.

An innocent person should have been killed?

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes. I think that if a cop has been told that the right action to take in an active shooter scenario is to shoot the guy with the assault rifle, and that this can save lives, then he has a responsibility to do that. There are many other problems in society which cause this situation in the first place: toys indistinguishable from guns, the culture of shoot-first ask-later that we allow our cops to be taught, allowing assault weapons to be bought, sold, owned and handled outside of tightly controlled recreation facilities, and a number of other cultural factors. But in this situation, with the information the cop had, he made a good decision.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Yes. I think that if a cop has been told that the right action to take in an active shooter scenario is to shoot the guy with the assault rifle, and that this can save lives, then he has a responsibility to do that.

That wasn't the scenario. There were no people running or cowering. Crawford was not menacing. one call from a busy store like a WalMart simply isn't enough on its own to raise the threat level.

There are many other problems in society which cause this situation in the first place: toys indistinguishable from guns, the culture of shoot-first ask-later that we allow our cops to be taught, allowing assault weapons to be bought, sold, owned and handled outside of tightly controlled recreation facilities, and a number of other cultural factors. But in this situation, with the information the cop had, he made a good decision.

They also had the actual situation which was not one of a store full of people frightened to death. The police were wrong. all the other things you have listed were contributing factors and so were the actions of the police.

 

[ksen]

Yes. I think that if a cop has been told that the right action to take in an active shooter scenario is to shoot the guy with the assault rifle, and that this can save lives, then he has a responsibility to do that. There are many other problems in society which cause this situation in the first place: toys indistinguishable from guns, the culture of shoot-first ask-later that we allow our cops to be taught, allowing assault weapons to be bought, sold, owned and handled outside of tightly controlled recreation facilities, and a number of other cultural factors. But in this situation, with the information the cop had, he made a good decision.

Sure, because trained police officers should only rely on anonymous dopes being hysterical over 911 to give an accurate description of what's going on.

I think I'll call the Burnsville, MN 911 line and tell them everyone in town are waving guns around getting ready to invade Apple Valley. The only sane response from the police ought to be to nuke Burnsville, MN off the map just to be safe.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact of the matter is, I don't want to see people gunned down, but shitty public policy makes shit like this inevitable. Punishing the officer won't HELP anyone. It won't help his family, or the community, or the family of the people he shot. There's still an entire office of officers trained to do the exact same thing, and a state where people with assault rifles walk around and where racist assholes live. When you have a shitty situation, shitty things happen. Cops aren't superhuman philosopher geniuses with time-stopping powers. They're people, hired by people (who are just as flawed as them), trained by people at the behest of people. They drink, eat, shit, and screw as much as anyone else when the day is done. They do all kinds of monkey-esque socially flawed bullshit. They are corrupt and selfish and as poorly educated as everyone else around here.

Your standards are too high for what you expect them to be able to do with your perfect hind-sight. The gun wasn't real (how could the cop know?) the guy on the phone lied (how could the cop know?) the guy who ran the active shooter training was full of shit (how could the cop know?). The problem was not the informed decision. The problem was the information. That some information existed at all is the fault of society, is the fault of assholes from the NRA, and people who fight sane firearm regulation is not explicitly on the cop. He was in the wrong places at the wrong times. It doesn't help that someone was being stupid and carrying around a rifle in a store (real or real-looking; doesn't matter which)

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes. I think that if a cop has been told that the right action to take in an active shooter scenario is to shoot the guy with the assault rifle, and that this can save lives, then he has a responsibility to do that. There are many other problems in society which cause this situation in the first place: toys indistinguishable from guns, the culture of shoot-first ask-later that we allow our cops to be taught, allowing assault weapons to be bought, sold, owned and handled outside of tightly controlled recreation facilities, and a number of other cultural factors. But in this situation, with the information the cop had, he made a good decision.

Sure, because trained police officers should only rely on anonymous dopes being hysterical over 911 to give an accurate description of what's going on.

I think I'll call the Burnsville, MN 911 line and tell them everyone in town are waving guns around getting ready to invade Apple Valley. The only sane response from the police ought to be to nuke Burnsville, MN off the map just to be safe.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Entire Townships going crazy is not an occurrence that can be rationally supported. One guy going off his nut with an assault rifle in a state full of assault rifles is depressingly common, and happens all the time. You'd probably be more successful claiming there was a kid with a SMG in a highschool. I'd bet the cops would show up and look for the guy and if they saw someone with something looking like an SMG they would get shot.

In your example, they'd probably laugh at you instead, even if it were really happening, and even if a nuke were actually called for.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just because he was the victim doesn't mean he didn't have a major role in causing the situation.

He didn't do anything to cause this situation other than be at Wal-Mart at the same time as that lying, racist, piece of shit that called 911 on him.

He was playing with a replica weapon.

Had it been real he would have been guilty of brandishing. It *LOOKS* like he's committing a felony.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Yes. I think that if a cop has been told that the right action to take in an active shooter scenario is to shoot the guy with the assault rifle, and that this can save lives, then he has a responsibility to do that.

Even if this is true, it is still the cop's responsibility to determine if there actually is "an active shooter scenario".

I would further claim that is is the cop's responsibility to risk harm to himself before risking harm to an innocent, but I realize that this is a very minority opinion around here.

 

[bilby]

He didn't do anything to cause this situation other than be at Wal-Mart at the same time as that lying, racist, piece of shit that called 911 on him.

He was playing with a replica weapon.

Had it been real he would have been guilty of brandishing. It *LOOKS* like he's committing a felony.

Ohio is an open carry state. As far as I could see when I browsed through their legal code online, there is no offence of 'brandishing' in Ohio; neither as a felony nor as a misdemeanour.

Indeed, Ohio law appears to have no rules at all about how a gun may be carried, other than prohibiting concealment without a permit.

Please either quote the relevant law, or retract this statement.

 

[Deepak]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Surely even ordinary claims require some shred of verified evidence - no?

Have you heard of swatting?

http://www.10tv.com/content/stories...-call-reported-in-central-ohio-this-year.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/plainfield/ct-swatting-video-games-met-20140912-story.html
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/201...tting-fake-9-1-1-calls-have-real-consequences

Should we conclude then that all of society with the exception of the police actually involved in these reckless shootings are really to blame? Will accountability only exist when propane and suicides are banned?

The problem was a misinformed decision based on a failure to seek information which was readily apparent to any of the shoppers in Walmart who had no training (with the exception of Ritchie). To wit - the family at the end of the aisle Crawford was standing in while making his phone call.

Apparently thinking that individuals who are empowered to deprive citizens of life and liberty should exercise a basic function of their job (that is to say exactly what they are trained to do) is to require them to be 'superhuman philosopher geniuses'.

I'll cry for them right after I finish crying for BP management - I mean those guys do all kinds of monkey-esque socially flawed bullshit. Our standards are simply much too high for what we'd expect them to be able to do with perfect hind-sight. All the evidence pointed to their policies not causing problems until they caused problems. We should blame society for using oil, and miners for digging up raw materials for machinery, and Ma Jun for inventing the differential, and their mothers for not hugging them enough. I mean, really, how much training were they provided?

 

[Derec]

A similar case happened ijust n Ohio. This time it was a 12 year old wielding a realistic looking (required orange tip was removed) Airsoft gun.
12-year-old boy shot by Cleveland police has died

 

[Nice Squirrel]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/16/justice/walmart-shooting-john-crawford/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

(CNN) -- After killing a man at an Ohio Walmart, police interrogated his girlfriend, accusing her of lying, threatening her with jail time and suggesting she could be on drugs, according to a video posted on The Guardian's website.
The man, John Crawford III, was holding an air rifle he had picked up off a store shelf when police shot him. A prosecutor called the case a "perfect storm" with "no bad guys," but the family has said police used excessive force

 

[RavenSky]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/16/justice/walmart-shooting-john-crawford/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

(CNN) -- After killing a man at an Ohio Walmart, police interrogated his girlfriend, accusing her of lying, threatening her with jail time and suggesting she could be on drugs, according to a video posted on The Guardian's website.
The man, John Crawford III, was holding an air rifle he had picked up off a store shelf when police shot him. A prosecutor called the case a "perfect storm" with "no bad guys," but the family has said police used excessive force

They also told her that John Crawford got the "gun" from her car for the purposes of robbing the pharmacy, and threatened her with being an accomplice.

They treated her like a criminal suspect instead of a victim's girlfriend.

I'm sure Loren will defend that too.

 

[repoman]

This is very sad news, but apparently Tasha Thomas has died from a high speed car crash into a pole:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/02/girlfriend-john-crawford-dies-car-crash-tasha-thomas

 

[Derec]

This is very sad news, but apparently Tasha Thomas has died from a high speed car crash into a pole:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/02/girlfriend-john-crawford-dies-car-crash-tasha-thomas

That's bad luck indeed. I wonder why they were speeding that much (90-100 mph is quite fast, especially for a residential area). See this article. The comments below are incredibly paranoid - they all seem to think that she was murdered by the police because she was Crawford's girlfriend. I do not know if I should laugh or cry.

 

[repoman]

I think that it is very likely to be unrelated to the shooting in any way.

I would say that the she didn't have the interest of the state directed at her like Michael Hastings did. Even for that case it stretches credulity (but is not completely impossible) that he was murdered.