Video of Unarmed Black Man Lying on the Ground With His Hands Up and Shot By The Police

[DonFerrari]

Hiku said:

DonFerrari said:

You were already answered on the why the person was handcuffed (he could for example try to get vengeance due to heightned emotions), so while it isn't pleasant to handcuff an innocent person that is bleading because of a mistake you done, if that is the protocol you need to follow it.

How was the therapist protecting his patient while laying in the ground? I would wait more time before given certanty on facts that are already changing.

Handcuffing in this situation is a judgement call. They don't always handcuff everyone. These are the rules they follow:

• There must be a lawful arrest and an order of the court of law, magistrate or justice of peace; or
• There is reasonable apprehension of violence; or
• There is an attempt to escape by an arrested person; or
• The restraint is necessary for the safety of the arrested person or other person or property.

"If any police officer uses handcuffs outside the above situations, and related ones, his action may amount to unnecessary use of force. Police officers should always learn the necessary conditions when the uses of handcuffs are expected. More so, apart from knowing the circumstances in which the uses of handcuffs are allowed, the police or other law enforcement agencies making use of the handcuffs should be prepared to justify the period of time the handcuffs were applied before their eventual removal."

In this case, it's the fourth point that applies. However, I really don't think ignoring his pleas for help with the wound after being handcuffed and shot by the police is standard. And certainly not for as long as 30 minutes. They should have been able to realize that there was no need for the handcuffs long before that. Especially under these circumstances where he is bleeding and needs attention.

Also, not sure what you mean about "How was the therapist protecting his patient while laying in the ground?"?
I didn't say anything about that. I only talked about how the cop claims that he was trying to protect the therapist and still hit him with a bullet. But to answer your question, the therapist was trying to protect his patient by telling the police not to shoot, and that he has a toy truck in his hand.

DonFerrari said:
Anyone should or can handle a gun, that is a right unless you believe in the bullshit that guns are the cause of death and not criminals using gun (but who also use anything and everything they can get their hands on... and guess what, even if not allowed they still find guns to use).

Definitely not. I don't think people with certain mental illness for example should be allowed to handle guns. And I don't think a 7 year old should be allowed to buy a long rifle from a private seller. (But they can because that's federal law in the USA. There is no age limit.) And I also don't think a person who is twice suspected of affiliations with a terrorist group (the Florida gay club shooter) to the point where he is put on a no-fly list should be able to buy an assault rifle. Unfortunately those things are allowed in the US.
I think everyone who wants to own one should be required to do proper training every year, just like how they implemented this in Australia and all the gun voilence and suicides dropped massively, not to mention they never had another massacre again in the 20 years since they implemented this reform. It may happen at some point, but making things more difficult for people with bad intentions doesn't hurt, and neither does more training and education of gun safety for private owners.

As for "criminals getting their hands on anything and everything", when it comes to countries where guns are illegal, they generally don't. When they break into a home for example they don't bring guns because they know there isn't a gun inside the house. If anything goes wrong, all they have to do is run away. They can't get shot in the back while running away after all. That's not the case in the US. They have to expect that there may be a gun in the house, and they can be lawfully shot in the back while running away. And so, to be safe they may want to bring a gun as well.
Anyway, that's a whole other discussion, and we can go on and on about that. But that's more suitted for another topic. Right here we're talking about police, and just like in any other profession, there are unqualified people in the force as well.

You have to ask yourself how terrifiyingly bad this cop's aim is that he accidentally shot the person he supposedly was trying to protect, who was lying still on the ground? Even if your only experience with a gun is the light zapper in Duck Hunt, you'd know to avoid firing at the area where the person you're trying to protect is in.

DonFerrari said:
When you are in the same situation then you can say it's fast to realize. If the therapist was having problems to bring the boy back it was possible that the patient was disturbed, violent or any other situation that wouldn't be safe to just release.

You don't have to be there to know that it wouldn't take long to realize that the boy had a toy truck, and that there was no gun. If they suspected that the patient may be violent, they could ask the therapist if that was the case.
But in this case it was the other guy who was handcuffed. The man who was bleeding and asking for help, but was ignored. With several officers there.

DonFerrari said:
Yes I need investigation before forming opinion,

If we waited for further investigations to every piece of info we discuss here on the forums, whether about games or whatnot, there wouldn't be much discussion going on at all. If Shuhei Yoshida reveals the release date for Last Guardian, I'm going to go ahead and form an opinion on that, and not hold off and not form an opinion just in case someone hacked his account. Even though that can, and has happened. Because it's very unlikely.

In this case, I feel we already had adequate information to safely assume that that the cop in question acted incompetently, no matter what his excuse was.
Because I could not, and still do not, see any plausible scenario where the man lying on the ground like that should have been shot by the police in a way that's excusable. The only reasons I can think of are very farfetched. Currently, the cop's aim, vision, hearing and judgement are very much in question. And rightfully so, there is an internal investigation currently underway.
There's nothing wrong with sharing your opinion on a matter, as long as you follow up on the story if there's more relevant information. Especially because if no one reacts, there may not even be a response from the police. And for that matter, gaining access to internal police investigations is not an easy thing in the USA. So we may wait forever and never hear the details of the investigation.

First point...

Yes I agree that it's the fourth point. What we don't fully know because we weren't there and there isn't enough evidence yet, is how long it would be acceptable ot not to have the guy handcuffed. And I hope the investigation clarifies that. If the guy was totally calm, composed and posing no risk of fleeing or fighting back then sure 30 min was too much. But he could have been agitated, throwing insults or other behavior that would make it hard to justifiy uncuffing (and you are right that the officer will have to justify why he done it for so long).

Second point...

I'm not sure if you didn't understand my generalization (of course I'm not saying criminals, mentally ill or children should carry loaded guns around). When I say everyone, I'm talking about people without issues that should prevent them from handling guns, and shure if necessary we could verify their mental and phisical capacity to carry and use a gun.

But about places where gun is forbidden robbers not using guns that is totally false... Brazil is basically forbidden to buy a gun (you need a looooot of paperwork just to buy one, and another bunch to carry one) and we have record numbers of homicide during robbery (either home breaks or on car) so no, gun control laws don't exactly make the place safer. But I do agree with requiring periodic training (and the evaluation done at the place) to keep gun carry, but to have gun at home, only background check.

I sustain that criminals will get guns independent of the law, and if there weren't guns in the world they would use any other tool to kill.

Third point...

I didn't say we need investigation to discuss (it's free). But a lot of people are jumping the gun and condening the police officer as a criminal because he shoot someone laying with his arms showing no menace. And we already saw conflicting reports of it and even the video don't show that... and unless we have full investigation we can't be sure of how much of a mistake, lack of ability it was.

CosmicSex said:

DonFerrari said:

Yes I need investigation before forming opinion, I do believe in "inocent until proven contrary".

Yes officers aren't executioners, but they also aren't villain. So before considering then guilty or saying "it wasn't anything" I preffer to wait. And just so you see, there were an update on the case and the victm wasn't laying. So there may be a lot more information we don't know that can make it more towards an acceptable mistake (that needs retrain and sanctions) or imprudence or crime (and acting accordingly).

If the authistic boy would be presenting risk to others or himself it would be the duty of the officer to protect all (even if it means shooting someone). Authistic and psycopats are both mentally ill in some manner (I'm not comparing their diseases or intentions) so being ill shouldn't prevent an officer to act as needed.

Okay so this story has evolved and not multiple officers have been suspended for conflicting stories and falsifying a police report.  I wasn't trying to convince you that cops are villians. I was trying to get you to see that clearly this situation did not call for shooting unarmed people.  Its about you being able to judge a situation.  Its about the cop being able to judge a situation.  We need people with deadly weapons to think.  Without video footage had someone died, it would have been an absolute tragic situation. 

I wanted you to respect the gravity of the situation,  that a life was put at risk because of poor judgement. I have police in my family and as good friends. We know the importance of respecting your power to end life. We also refuse to not defend ourself against potential danger.  Its not a joke.  

I dont mean to come off as judgemental but i was shocked that you made it sound like an investigation needed to be done to prove that somehow its okay to shoot unarmed people.  I am telling you its not.  This should be self evident.

Police officers shouldn't shoot unarmed people. But without investigation we won't know what aggravating or mitigating conditions there was to decide if it was a honest error, dumb mistake, criminal lack of ability, etc.

I'm not able to judge a situation constructed on poor, constructed, misleading information done for clickbaits. When we have more disclosure sure I'll be more confortable saying what I think of his action (that again, it's not ok to shoot someone that doesn't present a risk).

I do respect the gravity of the situation, my uncle was murdered at home by criminals.

We will only know how poor the judgement was, or how confusing the situation was when we have investigation. Jumping to say the police officer shoot a laid guy isn't the way to do it. Even more when we have contradicting evidence and statements.

I didn't say it's ok to shoot unarmed people, what I said is that we don't know what happened.