NY Teen With Hairbrush Shot by Police

[devilgrrl]

Source: Associated Press

By TOM HAYS (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
November 13, 2007 12:11 PM EST

NEW YORK - A teenager died in a hail of 20 bullets fired by police officers who thought he was holding a gun, authorities said Tuesday. The object turned out to be a hairbrush.

A 911 operator heard the teen yelling that he had a gun, police said.

But the case nonetheless evoked painful memories of previous police shootings: the November 2006, 50-bullet barrage that killed the unarmed Sean Bell on his wedding day, and the 1999 killing of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was hit by 19 of the 41 shots fired by police in the Bronx.

"The circumstances of how it occurred at this point is under investigation and you can rest assured that we will take this very seriously," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Officers received the 911 call from the teen's mother around 7 p.m. Monday, police spokesman Paul Browne said. The 911 operator could hear the teen yelling in the background, claiming he had a gun, Browne said.

Read more: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20071113/47392f50_3ca6_1552620071113-543657423

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:popcorn:

[Alter Ego]

1. Where's the part about the tasering?

Oh, right, this is NY, not Florida.

Seriously, though, what the fuck.

[aquart]

7. The TV report said HIS MOTHER told the police he had a gun.

[SyntaxError]

16. Someone says that someone else has a gun so they get shot?

That doesn't sound good to me.

[Cronus Protagonist]

17. She'll be weeping for the rest of her life

Poor soul. A difficult burden to bear.

[leftynyc]

32. Local news in New York played the 911 tape

this morning where the victim clearly kept repeating he had a gun (he was in the background of his mother's call to 911). His mother called 911 to get him some help but when the police asked him to stop (and stop moving towards them), he didn't and they shot him. It was later said the mother told the police he did not have a gun. There is still more to shake out about this tragedy but suicide by cop is not out of the question. I think we need to wait for all the details.

[Beerboy]

34. Had it been a tasering, there'd be video;

there might be video of the fatal shooting, but it hasn't been leaked so far. There will be a lawsuit and the PD will fight tooth and nail to classify it during discovery.

[qanda]

2. Moral of the story:

Don't bring a hairbrush to a gun fight.

I guess the police believed the kid when he said he had a gun. There's obviously a lot more to this story, which will be interesting to find out.

[bdamomma]

3. he had history of mental illness

also his mother was going to take him to the hospital, unfortunate how cases such as these falls through the cracks, and cost this individual his life.

[EFerrari]

29. There but for the grace of God. Doug could have been this man

about ten times. After days of dealing with him, eventually the police would be called by someone and I used to have to remind the responding guys over and over "this is a mental health call, not a crime scene!" because I was scared to death they'd shoot him. And this was a case were the person was 100% cooperative with his treatment.

It's not just the police. Nobody takes this stuff seriously enough.

[closeupready]

4. Not defending this at all, but there is a lot of gun violence in that area.

Very sad. :(

[liberalhistorian]

5. Yeah, but you'd think the police

would have been able to tell the difference between a gun and a fucking hairbrush, for Christ's sake! I mean, it ain't as if they look exactly alike, it's not as if he had a real-looking toy gun (it's amazing how real those look nowadays), or a BB gun or something like that. I'd have some serious doubts about any policeman who couldn't tell the difference between a gun and a hairbrush.

Or maybe, and this is even a more sickening thought, they just didn't care and automatically assumed that he had a gun without really paying attention. It's been known to happen before.

And waiting for the cops-can-do-no-wrong-whatever-they-do-it's-to-protect-us-against-the-idiots-they-kill-no-matter-what-the-circumstances crowd to start piling on in three, two, one...............

[closeupready]

10. I don't disagree, but maybe they couldn't see it precisely and were

going on what he allegedly said, that he had a gun. Cops see a lot of guns floating around in Bed-Stuy. So while it doesn't excuse what happened, it was maybe reasonable to believe that their lives were being threatened?

[NYVet]

11. From a distance of over 15 feet, it is hard to tell sometimes

if someone has a handgun or a handsaw, much less a hairbrush.




As a former cop, I would like to know more about the situation before I pile on the dead teen or the cops involved in the shooting.

[SyntaxError]

15. Even if it was a gun, it shouldn't matter anyways...

Unless the person is shooting the gun at innocent people then the cops need to stand the fuck down... It's their job to protect the people, not to instigate gun fights.

[Thothmes]

30. I disagree

A police officer has the right to defend himself or his partner if confronted by an armed suspect.

[SyntaxError]

35. Well it depends...

If they confronted with an armed suspect then they shouldn't do anything that would provoke that suspect into shooting. Obviously if the suspect starts shooting people around them then the police have to take action. However, if there is an armed suspect and there is no one in harms ways, then the police should back off and get the guy when he isn't armed. There is no need to provoke a fight.

[420inTN]

40. By that reasoning...

no one should receive a DUI unless they hurt or kill someone while driving drunk.

[SyntaxError]

14. Does anyone actually believe the cops thought a hairbrush was really a gun?

If so, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell ya.

[Fredda Weinberg]

37. It was two hours after sundown and our bridge is not for sale n/t

[Purveyor]

6. "died in a hail of 20 bullets fired by police ". How many police did it take to get off 20 rounds

I ponder?

[NYVet]

8. Considering that the Glock and S & W handguns that are issued

hold between 12 and 15 rounds in the magazine?

1, maybe 2 is the minimum necessary to fire that many rounds. I would have to assume that there were 4 or 5 officers on scene and when one fired, the others fired in response to their fellow officer's actions.

The same thing happened in the NYC Diallo case. One officer slipped and went down, a second officer fired when he saw his partner go down, and the other officers assumed the worst and opend fire as well.




Edited to add the name, since there are s may shootings by cops in NYC.

[slackmaster]

9. I'd like to know how many hits and how many misses they made

:shrug:

[abmand]

12. 5-6 hits thats my guess

...cmon, its the NYPD, they couldnt hit a barn door at 10 yards

[Thothmes]

31. Many police cant hit a barn door at 10 yards with a hand gun

Particularly if they are under duress, and firing rapidly. Even very well trained police officers will spray lead in a real gun fight.

[ManiacJoe]

19. CNN: 8 hits.

[slackmaster]

38. That's beyond piss-poor shooting

It's pathetic.

[Paladin]

41. Aw, Cheer Up Slack

Not enough bullets in that poor kid for you and the rest of your fellow Gungeon technocrats? Why don't you guys send a note to the grieving mother, and tell her that her boy succumbed to "pathetic" shooting? Ought to perk her right up, and make you feel a lot better, as well.

God love you people, you never, ever learn, do you?

[slackmaster]

42. I think the story shows the grieving mother to be partly to blame

:shrug:

[Pavulon]

18. With a duty weapon

you and another could fire 20 aimed shots in 3 - 4 seconds or less.

With a select fire rifle/smg, 2 seconds.

Twenty would indicate they did not empty the 12 - 18 round magazine in each sidearm.

[DLnyc]

13. After repeated cases where mentally disturbed persons have been blown

to bits in a hail of police gunfire, a reasonable person might think the NYPD would come up with a better strategy for dealing with mental patients than arriving with a large group of trigger happy macho cops. That reasonable person would be dead wrong, though. The NYPD has their 'culture' and no reasonableness has intruded on that culture in decades.

I know being a cop in NYC is a tough job. Actually, being a cop is a tough job all over the world. Why does that tough job lead to disproportionate number of innocent lives lost in NYC and not elsewhere? As a long time NYer, I can tell you there is a deep split here between the 'police culture' here and the 'civilian culture'. This leads inevitably to tragedy in tense situations.

One solution might be hire more cops from local groups, not from outlying suburbs and to have the cops actually patrol their areas on foot, getting to know the community they work for, instead of driving around in their patrol cars. But the police culture in NYC has actively resisted proposals like these over the years. My opinion? It's a macho, racist us-against-them attitude that would require federal intervention to break down.

[Pavulon]

21. My opinion

if you are ordered at gunpoint to do something. Producing a gun shaped object is a bad idea. How can we say race when you do not know the race of the dead man or the officer(s) who shot him.

[DLnyc]

26. I will certainly take your advice.

However, I am (currently) more or less sane. As another opinion:

When you are responding to a call to deal with a mentally unstable person
1) Bring along a psychiatrist skilled at 'talking people down'
2) Since crazy suicidal persons have been know to threatan cops in the past, have a sharpshooter posted to immobilize the person, in case of an ambiguous situation, without the need for an all-out fusillade coming from a large number of paniced and unprepared cops.

I don't know that race was a factor, but since the event took place in Bed-Stuy, which is a very poor and very segregated area of Brooklyn, it is reasonable to suspect that race might have been a factor. For example, cops from (mostly white) suburbs tend to have a very fearful and mistrusting attitude toward the inner-city, poor, mostly non-white neighborhoods they might be patrolling.

I'm sure there are many possible explanations of what happened and why. I just feel a little bitter because it seems like I've been watching this movie play over and over for several decades now. I really feel, subjectively, that a cultural feeling of separateness, distrust, superiourity and hostility within the NYPD fuels the problem. Objective studies, I think, have tended to confirm these ideas.

Not all, in fact probably very few, New Yorkers get a warm secure feeling in their stomach when they see a patrol car go by.

[EFerrari]

28. The Consensus Project, which was put together by cops in the first place

to minimize or stop exactly the shooting of mentally ill peoople, has offices in NYC and offers training for those situations.

I think your idea of getting cops from the immediate community is a good one. It works pretty well in our neighborhood anyway.

[ManiacJoe]

20. A CNN report is suggesting suicide-by-cop.

[Xenotime]

22. NYPD seems to have a problem with this sort of stuff.

[ecstatic]

23. Don't bother with the popcorn. The story doesn't involve tasers, kittens, or wounded puppies

So most of DU won't be bothered. :mad:

RIP Khiel Coppin :cry:

Hopefully this incident is addressed this Friday in the March on USDOJ.

[Deja Q]

25. Or God killing kittens...

:hide:

[Deja Q]

24. Talk about a 'bad hair day'...

:hide:

Still, if you're screaming you have a gun and somebody gets freaked out and calls 911, NOBODY AT ALL is going to take the time to verify if it's a gun, hairbrush, or if you sawed off your willy and used it as a makeshift substitute for a magnum .357.

I mean, if it WAS a gun, there'd be a lot more dead people.

[DLnyc]

27. As has happened before, contradictions and conflicting versions multiply

As a local, I would say this is the first report I've seen that 'rings true' (to my subjective ears).

Tuesday New York Times story by Bruce Lambert::
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/nyregion/13domestic.html?em&ex=1195189200&en=16c3ff357a880166&ei=5087%0A

(snip)
Mr. Sanchez said that just before the shooting, he went outside and saw several officers there with guns drawn. Mr. Coppin approached the window, backed away, then returned and stood on the sill, Mr. Sanchez said. When an officer told him to get down, he jumped to the ground and started to go through a gate in the fence in front of the building, Mr. Sanchez said.

An officer told Mr. Coppin to put up his hands, and when he did he dropped the hairbrush and the shooting began, although one officer called out to stop the gunfire, Mr. Sanchez said.

Officers started chasing Mr. Sanchez and knocked him to the ground after, he said, he protested: “Why you got to shoot him like that, for nothing?”

A similar description of the shooting was given by Precious Blood, 16, who said she heard about 10 shots fired, most if not all by one officer. Another officer called out: “Stop, stop, stop shooting — he’s down,” she said, but the shooter kept firing, “like he was playing with a toy.”
(snip)

I know being a cop in NYC is a tough job. Some people over the years have said hiring more city residents and using more foot patrols would decrease the tension and lessen the likelihood of tragedies. The NYPD has a pretty insular culture, though, that seems to resist change.

[Naipes]

33. 20 bullets is ridiculous...

Like the time the NYPD unloaded 50 bullets at the guy in Queens. It's fucking ridiculous. Can you imagine? BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! 20 or more times? I don't care what anyone says, that's fucking nuts and there's no defending it. PERIOD. The End.

[Exultant Democracy]

36. Micheal Moore already solved this problem, if your black walk with your hands up

and never never hold anything in your hands, because cops don't see keys, candy bars, wallets or hairbrushes, they only see guns.

[Scurrilous]

39. And watch out for the ride..

...cops don't take it too kindly if you bash into their car:

2 shot dead in Little Haiti traffic stop

http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/307026.html

Police officers shot and killed two men they say rammed their patrol car during a traffic stop in Little Haiti.

<snip>

"Two Miami-Dade officers shot and killed two men they say rammed their police car in Little Haiti late Monday.

They were pulling over a silver Cadillac sports utility vehicle for running a red light at North Miami Court and 68th Street just before 11 p.m.

After a brief pursuit, the car stopped at a small dead-end on Northwest 65th Street.

The officers got out of their marked patrol car and ordered the men out of the Cadillac, said Cristina Escobar, an attorney with the Police Benevolent Association, Miami-Dade's police union.

The Cadillac suddenly reversed and smashed into the police car, Escobar said.

"They had to shoot in self-defense," Escobar said."