I'm curious if anyone has changed their minds about other police shootings.

[marym625]

More than a few people here had voiced their belief that some of the recent homicides by police were justified when there was no video.

In light of: a video of a cop shooting someone in the back multiple times and planting a taser next to him; unquestioned police reports, that are less than complete by both Darren Wilson and the Ferguson Department and the North Charleston PD; and the statistics on the number of people killed by cops in the US, 111 in March alone, I wonder if anyone has changed their minds about some shootings being justified.

Vonderrit Myers was on surveillance camera 6 minutes prior to being killed. He had no weapon on him and was purchasing a sandwich. The timing of the account by the officer doesn't mesh with the surveillance video. The facts that the kind of gun "found" was changed from the initial account, no one backed the officer's story and the SLCPD were caught on tape threatening to plant a piece on someone, should at least cause pause.

Kajieme Powell was obviously mentally disturbed. He was armed with a knife but he also backed away and turned at least once. The police did not try to intervene at any time. They did not wait for backup, they shot 12 times in seconds and, obviously, didn't try to do anything but kill him.

Tamir Rice was gunned down in cold blood. They gave him no chance to survive. They didn't even try to help once he was down. And they attacked, cuffed and threw his 14 year old sister in the back of the squad car while she watched her little brother die.

Since we have now witnessed another shooting, this time with proof of the lies, and and we know that McCulloch allowed false testimony in Grand Jury testimony, I believe that Michael Brown's murder should be reevaluated.

I know that what one person does isn't indication of what all people would do. But I also know that some of the arguments were that cops wouldn't do that.

So, has anyone changed their mind about any of these shootings being justified?

[GoneFishin]

1. To NOT reconsider the others would be to assert that it is merely a coincidence that the only

bad shoot which occurred, beyond all fantastical odds, also happens to be the only one with a crystal clear video.

[marym625]

3. my thoughts exactly

Thank you. I hope that some that were so sure these things almost never happen, respond.

I have not heard about a single shooting that I believed to be justified, since last July. It may be I just don't recall any at the moment, but I don't. And even if they seem justified on the surface, I question the automatic response with deadly force. We're not supposed to give the death penalty because a cop is too inept, too racist, too inexperienced, or not trained properly, to at least try some other means of controlling a situation.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. I haven't changed my mind

Even before the high-profile shootings of late, I was sure that the police were getting away with murder. From top to bottom, the justice system likes a stacked deck.

[marym625]

4. Same here.

I think this just proves we're right. But I hope it at least causes those that were sure that the cops were right, to question that conclusion

[brush]

5. I wonder about that also

If the killing in Ferguson had been recorded would we have seen something very similar?

Sure seems like it — the shooting at the retreating black man and all.

This cop in South Carolina seems to have been a better shot than that killer cop Wilson though as he hit his victim in the back.

Wilson missed the shots to the back and didn't kill Brown until he'd turned around to surrender (or charged towards someone firing live bullets if you believe Wilson's absurd story).

I'm pretty sure both killer cops had like mindsets of being the one "in charge" and certainly no one, epecially a black guy was going to challenge that authority— who thus had to be punished and put back in his place — and he, Wilson, had the gun and the authority to do it and knew if the guy was dead his version would be the only version and would of course be backed by his department/criminal justice system.

Wilson was lucky that no one got a video of his crime. This newest killer cop wasn't so fortunate as he was recorded and his made up story and evidence planting was shown to be nothing but pure cover-his-own-murderous-ass lies.

And back to your point, my mind hasn't been changed as I've always felt that these police killings of black males primarily have been going on for, dare I say it, centuries but now, with the advent of ubiquitous cell phones with video capability, they are being exposed to the eyes of the world and killer cops, not being the sharpest knives in the drawer, haven't caught on to this new reality yet.

The South Carolina incident should make even the dullest, itchy trigger finger cop think twice before opening fire at unarmed, non-threatening victims though — at least when they're out in public. No telling what they'll do when they've got their victims inside and out of view of video cameras.

[marym625]

6. I agree with everything you said.

I would add that one of the shots in Michael Brown's arm could have come from behind. The one coroner stated that since he couldn't tell the position of the arm when shot, he couldn't definitively say if it was the front of back.

But yeah, he was a lousy shot. He hit a home and the people are just lucky he didn't hit someone inside.

This still makes me so very angry

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Nope. None of them were justified to begin with.

[marym625]

8. completely agree

I know this post sunk like a lead balloon but it still seems odd none of those that believed these were justified have commented. They sure had no problem commenting on post about each of the cases I mentioned.

Thanks for the reply

[Stardust]

9. As a child of the sixties, I learned to mistrust LEOs early and having later served on juries where

I heard them testify over and over from a suspiciouly memorized script only increased my mistrust. Encounters though the years have been mostly unpleasant, more so as time goes on. Being white, I haven't felt I was in danger, per se, but I'm scared of them anyway.

To be honest, I wouldn't trust any LEO's account of what happened during these incidents. For years, the African American community has been telling these horrific stories but our nation collectively looked away. It makes me heartsick and I dearly hope that things will begin to change.

[marym625]

11. Same here, but the 70s.

Never trusted them. Always found them to be extremely arrogant if nothing else.

I hope things will change as well, but I won't hold my breath.

[uppityperson]

10. I did, changed my mind from the first reports of Tamir when photos of his "gun" were shown

The story sounded reasonable, then the vid was released and I changed my mind to hell no wtf did they do assholes.

I have also changed my mind over the last 25 years as to whether or not cops came be trusted from they are my employees and helpers to extreme distrust, not only from these videos but from real life experiences.

[marym625]

12. I'm sorry you have suffered at their hands

I have had some not great experiences, but absolutely nothing close to what many have suffered. Especially, people of color.

The story about Tamir Rice struck me as off before the video came out. Just could not picture a 12 year old acting like that. Not unless he was mentally disturbed. And when they started going after his parents, I was positive the cops were lying. Just was too calculated and too quick.

[sabrina 1]

13. I haven't changed my mind because in nearly all the high profile cases (just the ones that got

coverage) I didn't see one where the killing was justified.

If Michael Brown's killing had been videotaped, I feel certain we would see something different from what Wilson had to say.

Cops lie, they lie all the time. Courts let them lie, DA's want them to lie to bolster their cases.

They lied about a tragedy in our family.

I am sure there are some good cops, and for them to speak out would be dangerous. Which means things are even worse than we know.

And we know how dangerous it is for a good cop to speak out because we have evidence from the NYPD case where a cop recorded corrupt cops engaging in ticket fixing, lying about quotas, ignoring real crimes in order to meet quotas among other things.

When he reported, AND RECORDED what he had witnessed, a police 'unit' was sent to his home at night to take him to a Mental Hospital for 'evaluation'. Airc, at that time they did not know he had recorded everything.

He did lose his job, and suffered six days in a mental hospital before getting out.

And that's just one case.

Maybe they should start a 'good cop' organization since there is strength in numbers.

The entire system is corrupted. So putting a few bandaids on it when they are exposed, won't do much good.

It has taken almost daily protests, finally some media coverage, an attitude finally of 'ENOUGH' among enough people to even get to the point where a cop is arrested and charged.

Even video doesn't help. See Erik Garner. I still can't watch that murder in progress.

And then see what happened to the videographer.

The corruption and brutality is too ingrained, the cult like 'us against them' attitude too deep to change.

The entire system needs to be overturned and replaced with a Civilian Police Force that understands their job is to PROTECT and SERVE, not to brutalize and kill.

We saw thousands of cases dismissed after OWS, still ongoing, where police lied about why the protesters were arrested and then lied again on the stand. Still, even though video in every case proved they lied, all that happened was cases were dismissed, with no consequences for the lying cops.

[marym625]

14. Great post +1000

You said that very well. Thank you

I am sorry about whatever happened in your family. I hope you received some justice.

They are nothing short of despicable. I don't know if you saw this but the Cleveland PD blamed Tamir for his own death

city officials accuse Tamir of “failure…to exercise due care to avoid injury.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/03/02/its-tamir-rices-fault/

I still can't believe that the cops, and frankly the paramedics, that killed Eric Garner weren't charged.

This is just all so very, very wrong

[mythology]

15. I try to approach each one with an open mind and let the facts come out

There were lots of initial reports in the Brown shooting and the Rice shooting that were inaccurate.

In the Brown shooting, the initial witness reports that he was shot from behind and surrendering weren't supported by the forensic evidence.

In the Rice shooting, the initial police report said that they stopped, asked the kid to put the gun down and when he refused they shot him. The video evidence showed that wasn't the case.

So I believe in a legal sense that the Brown shooting was justified, but in the Rice case it wasn't.

That is a different question as to the moral justification. I don't entirely know how I feel about the Brown shooting morally as there's not enough evidence about what exactly happened up to and at the moment of the shooting for me to make up my mind. The Rice case wasn't morally justified as the cops just pulled up and started shooting.

But I don't know that one cop lying in one case is enough evidence to assume that all/most cops lie in all/most cases in any meaningful way. There have been bad cops for as long as there have been cops.

What I think is a reason to consider cops more questionable is the increased militarization that includes the idea that the public is indistinguishable from the criminals and so all should be approached the same way. It fosters the "us against them" mentality behind cops not wanting civilian oversight boards. Additionally all of that expensive hardware sort of cries out to be used so it can be justified to get more. Kind of like how departments at a previous job would look to spend every bit of their budgets because if they didn't, the budget would be shrunk by the unused amount the next year.

[marym625]

16. I understand what you are saying

But I don't agree. The one shot in Michael Brown's arm could have come from the front or the back. And the prosecutor allowed testimony he knew to be lies in the Grand Jury and hos instructions were incorrect. Because of that, and other things, to say that Michael Brown's murder was justified is, IMHO, a huge leap. The findings of justified is unjustifiable.

The thing with believing in the legal system is that, without a tape of what happened, you have the cops word which is golden. Look at Chicago and how many innocent people that were tortured into confession and incarcerated for decades. Or worse yet, put to death.

As I stated in the OP, I don't believe that one person being caught doing wrong means everyone has done wrong. But the absolute belief in something cops say should surely be questioned. The same stories have been told to us for years, especially by black men, in how they were treated. And we are seeing that their stories are true. The cops and departments are racist, the prosecutors are in bed with the cops and the jury system is, usually stacked against them.

Two things I didn't mention in the OP are the John Crawford case, where we again have on tape, a young black man shot down in cold blood, and the Eric Garner case, where we watched that man being murdered. Both cases that, minimally, should have gone to court. And in both cases, the cops walked away scott free.

Absolutely the militarization of the cops is part of the problem. As is the SCOTUS decision that cops are to protect property over care for human life. But they are far from the only problems.

I appreciate your response. I just don't agree with it or see that the legal system works.