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10th December 2017, 01:41 PM | #321 |
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Yet he waited until he had started to crawl, as instructed, towards him.
I have no issue about American's who try and justify this and other cop murders and who pretend they were not murders. I primarily debate with Holocaust deniers (which I do, a lot, on a different forum). There is no point in trying to convince them they are wrong. Instead, I debate with them so that they increasingly reveal just how appalling their beliefs are. I get them to make increasingly stupid and outrageous claims that just cannot, to any reasonable person, be justified. By getting Americans to justify what took place, here and with other police murders, it lays bare just how broken policing and attitudes to firearms in the USA has become. If this incident had happened in the UK, the reaction would have been universal horror and no one would try and justify it. Just like children shooting their parents, parents shooting their children, children shooting other children, there is no no line to cross in the USA when it comes to a shooting. There will be Americans who justify it and the shooter is innocent. |
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10th December 2017, 02:19 PM | #322 |
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10th December 2017, 02:27 PM | #323 |
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That the US legal system decided the cop was not guilty is a reflection on juries and courts as much as the law. Despite some dodgy shootings by the UK police, no UK police officer has been convicted of murder. But none have been anything as blatant as filming the execution of someone who was unarmed and doing his untmost to cooperate whilst under enormous stress.
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10th December 2017, 02:51 PM | #324 |
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10th December 2017, 03:17 PM | #325 |
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10th December 2017, 03:30 PM | #326 |
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10th December 2017, 03:34 PM | #327 |
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10th December 2017, 03:37 PM | #328 |
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox...-daniel-shaver
Quote:
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10th December 2017, 03:48 PM | #329 |
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Why is it I never hear this kind of talk when the UK police murder one of their residents? Jean Charles de Menezes was completely innocent of anything other than leaving an address that was being watched and not being white enough (he had Mongolian eyes?) to avoid being targeted by armed law enforcement. No one was arrested, fined or demoted over their involvement with his death.
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10th December 2017, 03:50 PM | #330 |
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10th December 2017, 04:26 PM | #331 |
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You bring up this one, particular case, each time the topic arises. It was explained to you in some detail in another thread, it was a terrible mistake, no doubt about it, but I'm sure you remember.
But plenty of info here - it was investigated, there were protests, and it even went to the European Court of Human Rights. Including why no individuals were charged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_...les_de_Menezes Perhaps the main difference is, that whilst this is a pretty rare occurrence here, it seems to be rather common over there. It seems that a total of 48 people have been killed by police here since 2000, not all by fire arms. Including a couple of high profile terrorist type attacks, that's less than 3 per year. And most appear quite justified (I'd agree not all.) Allowing for population differences, how many have been killed in the US? I don't think we have a major problem, even with your pet example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...United_Kingdom |
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10th December 2017, 04:36 PM | #332 |
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There are no official statistics in the US because many police forces don't report it. However the Washington Post tries to keep track. The answer is just under a thousand per year at minimum.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...hootings-2017/ Given our difference in population that would be around 200 a year in the UK. |
10th December 2017, 04:38 PM | #333 |
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I bring it up because people complain about the USA and say it doesn't happen "here" where ever that is. But it does happen in the UK and the authorities are just as loathe to punish one of their own even after they purposely kill a person they had no rational reason to believe was a threat.
With Shaver the police were responding to a man pointing a rifle out of a hotel window In the US Shaver's killer was put on trial; in the UK they never even identified de Menezes's killers. Some of those who were responsible for the actions in the UK that day were eventually promoted. |
10th December 2017, 04:41 PM | #334 |
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10th December 2017, 04:43 PM | #335 |
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10th December 2017, 04:48 PM | #336 |
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To further reply to your previous post... Fatal police shootings happen at a rate (adjusted for population) approximately 66 TIMES more often in the USA than in the UK. Even if somehow every single shoot was a bad one over there the odds of it happening to you at random would be miniscule.
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10th December 2017, 04:56 PM | #337 |
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Partly true. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police resigned. The police were prosecuted under health and safety legislation and fined. The family did receive compensation. No individual was considered culpable.
Enough - probably not, but it was investigated, and that was the outcome. |
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10th December 2017, 04:57 PM | #338 |
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10th December 2017, 05:12 PM | #339 |
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Nice bit of whatabootery. The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was appalling and heads should have rolled. However, it wasn't particularly comparable to this incident, being a case of mistaken identity.
It doesn't make this incident one iota better. |
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10th December 2017, 05:13 PM | #340 |
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If I could only be punished like that. He resigned a year later with a pension and later received a peerage.
A fine paid by who? Not by those who ordered the man's death. Not paid by those who killed their son.
Quote:
The same thing happens in the USA. |
10th December 2017, 05:20 PM | #341 |
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But the authorities didn't even pretend to try and hold anyone accountable for the death.
How does that make any sense at all? de Menezes was spotted leaving a flat then tailed to the train. The police killed him, not someone else. I was referring to how his death was justified by failing to hold anyone personally accountable for their actions. |
10th December 2017, 05:55 PM | #342 |
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And it's still whatabootery.
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10th December 2017, 07:20 PM | #343 |
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This is exactly my point, though. Wouldn't you be careful in the extreme so as not to make any of those reflexive actions? Did they say how intoxicated (%) the man and woman were? Because he seems rather more loosey-goosey than she does. I just really don't understand his actions under these circumstances.
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10th December 2017, 07:30 PM | #344 |
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10th December 2017, 09:56 PM | #345 |
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Quote:
This. People make the absolute worst decisions when they're terrified, leading to the very outcome they're most afraid of. I can certainly understand LEO making terrible decisions because they're afraid. The problem is: those who are that terrified should never be allowed to become LEO. They should be washed out in the first week of training. |
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11th December 2017, 01:45 AM | #346 |
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11th December 2017, 01:47 AM | #347 |
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11th December 2017, 01:48 AM | #348 |
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11th December 2017, 01:49 AM | #349 |
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11th December 2017, 02:51 AM | #350 |
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11th December 2017, 03:09 AM | #351 |
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I disagree but I think that's because we see the problem in a slightly different place. Humans should be terrified in life and death situations, but we can be trained to deal with those instinctual reactions, no one should be given by the state the power of life and death over another unless they have undergone appropriate training. And in regards to the police that doesn't just mean shooting accuracy.
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11th December 2017, 03:17 AM | #352 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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11th December 2017, 03:21 AM | #353 |
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Possibly because you're not listening for it. Possibly because it happens so much more rarely.
True, and the whole thing was a horrifying screw-up. The fact that it happened at a time when the whole country was in a state of high alert and stress following the 7/7 tube bombings is a mitigation but not an excuse, and it's something we should rightly be ashamed of. That was twelve years ago. We've managed to avoid a repetition since then. How's that going on the other side of the pond? Dave |
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11th December 2017, 03:29 AM | #354 |
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Whatabootery. Oh look, some other country had a very bad incident over ten years ago, let's start talking about that instead of this one. As if that makes it any better.
I can think of two other bad police shooting incidents in England. James Ashley, almost 20 years ago, and Harry Stanley, 18 years ago. If there has been anything else comparable I'm not aware of it. The absence of more recent incidents may suggest that some lessons have been learned. James Ashley was a bad guy, and police raided his flat in the middle of the night. He heard noises, got up to investigate, and was shot dead while stark naked. Harry Stanley was a Scot living in London. He was also a bad guy, at least in the past, but this doesn't seem to have been a factor in his killing as the police who shot him had no idea who he was. He went into a pub for a drink (of lemonade!) while carrying a chair leg in a plastic bag. Another customer heard his Scottish accent and called the police claiming there was an Irishman with a gun in the pub. Stanley was shot as he was walking along the pavement after leaving the pub. In both cases there was an outcry, and prosecutions, and in the end nobody was found guilty of anything and a lot of people were very unhappy about that. In both cases there was evidence that the police involved had been allowed to collude and concoct stories together where they corroborated each other in a narrative that would exonerate them. But the three incidents have one thing in common. In each case the shooting happened very quickly, before the police involved had had a chance to clock that the victim wasn't a threat. Ashley came towards police in a dark room, Stanley turned towards the police who were challenging him, and de Menezes was rushed by a pack of police and shot practically before he could react. The really chilling thing about this present incident is that it played out over several minutes. The victim was complying with police instructions. He was obviously terrified. He was crawling on the floor sobbing and begging for his life. As someone said up-thread, if this had been a military situation the soldier who shot him would have been guilty of the war crime of shooting a surrendering enemy. It was utterly horrific, at a completely different level to the sudden over-reaction in the three English incidents. How can any policeman, paid to serve the public, shoot a citizen who is crawling at his feet, crying and begging for his life? (It's not even as if there had been a report of a crime. deMenezes was mistaken for a terrorist. If Stanley had had a gun in that bag, that would probably have been criminal as you're not allowed to walk around carrying guns in London. Ashley was a violent criminal who was suspected of involvement in drug dealing. All these policemen had was a report of someone handling a gun in a hotel room, in a jurisdiction where handling guns in hotel rooms is entirely legal.) |
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11th December 2017, 04:18 AM | #355 |
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11th December 2017, 04:29 AM | #356 |
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They do so much less of it for one, even on a per capita basis. Here you are always right to kill someone even when they are obeying orders given to them. Because police are expected to panic and shoot in every situation. That is why it is always far more remarkable when an officer gets convicted no matter what the situation of the shooting is.
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11th December 2017, 04:32 AM | #357 |
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11th December 2017, 06:15 AM | #358 |
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Nobody is saying anything about there having been no crime committed and no report of a crime or even a possible crime committed. Someone was seen handling a gun in a hotel room. No shots were fired or reported to have been fired. Why were the police so fired up?
Americans go on and on about the importance of their freedom to own and carry weapons. All this guy had was a couple of pellet guns used for shooting rodents, but it wouldn't have been any different if it had been his prized personal weapon. He was allowed to have it and he was allowed to take it out in a hotel room and show it to someone. It seems to be perfectly normal behaviour for Americans. In what universe is it reasonable for police to go in like that over no more than a report that someone has been seen doing something that's perfectly legal and normal? How do you go from "someone is handling a gun in this hotel room, we better check that everything is OK" to screaming at an innocent law-abiding citizen that he has to play your sadistic game of Twister or you'll shoot him, and then you shoot him anyway? |
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11th December 2017, 06:42 AM | #359 |
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11th December 2017, 08:08 AM | #360 |
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