Jul 6, 2016 the point is that with two people restraining him, theres no way they should have killed him instead of detaining him properly. And theres certainly no evidence in that video that he clearly went for his gun. The gun was in his pocket the entire time. So it doesnt matter if he was going for the gun or not. They were on top of him FFS, they should have stopped him from reaching for the gun if that was the case, instead of shooting him
Jul 6, 2016 Oh well looks like we failed in restraining a fat guy with one arm, guess that justifes lethal force. Look at the f---ing positioning here and tell me if Alton was right on the cusp of fighting back.
Jul 6, 2016 This is an insane, fascist thing to think. Even if Sterling were physically capable of reaching his pocket, he had absolutely no leverage to do so with any speed or force; the second officer could have simply mimicked his partner and he would have been completely, irreversibly neutralized. Here's the fundamental flaw in what you're saying: You're arguing as if the mere intent, the thought of reaching for your gun justifies a cop in murdering you. That's not the law. The law protects police officers in using deadly force if they reasonably believe a suspect is endangering lives. There is no way you can watch that video, ambiguity with Sterling's right arm and all, and say that there was a reasonable belief Sterling could POTENTIALLY become a threat. And I say potentially because, as @Lamont (another person who does not share my general political outlook) points out, the gun was recovered from the dead man's pocket.
Jul 6, 2016 I'm still not seeing an conclusive evidence beyond "my speculation on what occurred is correct". Even if they both f----- up in restraining him, that doesn't mean you're allowed to reach for your gun which at this point is completely indiscernible unless you're an expert on debunking the Zapruder tape. I'm not an expert in deadly force law, but I'm pretty sure we're missing the important pieces here. I think that's a very reasonable opinion.
Jul 6, 2016 See there you go again talking about not being "allowed" to reach for your gun as if it's some moral dilemma that triggers a license to k---. Watching that video, you can conclusively see that Sterling was never in a position to threaten either officer's life--something confirmed by the location of the recovered gun. Instead of further restraining Sterling when (if) he reached for his weapon, they murdered him.
Jul 6, 2016 Just spoke with my buddy who does pa for taser. as many of you may know, officers are trained to unload their weapon until a suspect is subdued so unless that officer is extremely cautious/disciplined, its VERY rare for a shooting officer to fire less than three bullets at one time. at the same time, the tasers were discharged - supposedly - but it's possible alton didn't experience muscle paralysis bc of some kind of malfunction. (~2% of tasers don't work effective, so it's odd it didnt happen in this case frankly... could be the discharge hit his clothing, implying the cops didn't tase him properly imo... either way, tasing shouldve been a preventive measure here and wasnt) so again, this is likely a preventable death. once again gets down to training. imo if theyd approached him from 10-15 ft and used their tasers then (assuming he was belligerent), he likely would be alive today @WPG
Jul 6, 2016 The odds that he could have gotten his gun which was in a pocket and lined up a shot, h--- even raised it, are astronomically low. The key argument here is that nothing here justifies killing Alton, and until they can somehow present us with evidence that it was justified, I think they're guilty as s---.
Jul 6, 2016 The Department of Justice has now formally opened a civil rights investigation, but maybe Charlie's insistence that the racial context doesn't matter will sway them.
Jul 6, 2016 You know, I'm leaning towards stupidity being the cause if this if CA's post is true, because it seems to accurately sum it up to me. Wouldn't be surprised if it was racism but eh, gut feeling is it was cops who haven't been in a fight in their lives dealing with a partially subdued suspect and panicking horribly, and that's no excuse.
Jul 6, 2016 Really hope they put these two f---s through the ringer and make an example out of them so departments raise their standards.
Jul 6, 2016 Right but those things are not mutually exclusive--in fact, I'd go so far as to say they're inextricable. It's totally possible that the root cause of the murder here was the officers' ineptitude, but even given that, it's overwhelmingly likely (given the national numbers, the Baton Rouge numbers, the video footage and how it diverges from police best practices) that this played out differently than it would with a white suspect.
Jul 6, 2016 It doesn't matter in regards to my hang ups with this particular case. These dudes could both be white supremacists, but that doesn't change the footage and my problem how much I think you can extrapolate from it. You're smarter than to think I'm hand waving an entire f----- up reality of police discrimination, but posturing after a pretty reasonable back and forth is just how forums work I guess.
Jul 6, 2016 We don't know if it's race motivated yet so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. Killing him was extremely unnecessary and should be treated as a homicide. I wouldn't go as far as to say they are racists yet. Some outside indicators like the stats for Baton Rouge don't paint a pretty picture though.
Jul 6, 2016 No arguments there. I think it's unreasonable to "give them the benefit of the doubt" given the decades overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Jul 6, 2016 @WPG Well, that's a dangerous precedent to set too, every case should be treated individually, all we known so far is he was killed for no reason.
