18 yr old shoots at off-duty St. Louis cop, gets killed

[Bezkoshtovnya]

I really distrust the St. Louis police lately. They're very race-baity and balantly lied in a press conference and claimed Brown robbed someone when no robbery took place and no robbery was called in. Almost certainly a fabricated story by kill happy pigs.

Correct, all of the SLPD and surrounding counties have come down with a case of racist blood lust. Not one can be trusted.

[Holyrood]

I really distrust the St. Louis police lately. They're very race-baity and balantly lied in a press conference and claimed Brown robbed someone when no robbery took place and no robbery was called in. Almost certainly a fabricated story by kill happy pigs.

Correct, all of the SLPD and surrounding counties have come down with a case of racist blood lust. Not one can be trusted.

Might as well have. They have the duty to rein in those who go too far, they refused to before so I doubt they will now. They are, at the very least, equally responsible for the riots as of late

[Bezkoshtovnya]

Correct, all of the SLPD and surrounding counties have come down with a case of racist blood lust. Not one can be trusted.

Might as well have. They have the duty to rein in those who go too far, they refused to before so I doubt they will now. They are, at the very least, equally responsible for the riots as of late

Of course it is. Sure, I agree that the legal handling of the cops who have done wrong could go better, but all this "damn murderous pigs" BS is getting old. Really old. Because one officer commits a shameful act, let us all just treat them all as bloodthirsty mercenaries with no more regard for human life or protecting the citizens. Best to assume that all cops are like that.

Not sure why I even keep coming back to this topic. Just filled with edgy people eager to hate on the SLPD or Police in general, because I don't get enough of that in RL with the vandalism of my car and home because my father happens to be an officer for SLPD.

[Susurruses]

Might as well have. They have the duty to rein in those who go too far, they refused to before so I doubt they will now. They are, at the very least, equally responsible for the riots as of late

Of course it is. Sure, I agree that the legal handling of the cops who have done wrong could go better, but all this "damn murderous pigs" BS is getting old. Really old. Because one officer commits a shameful act, let us all just treat them all as bloodthirsty mercenaries with no more regard for human life or protecting the citizens. Best to assume that all cops are like that.

Not sure why I even keep coming back to this topic. Just filled with edgy people eager to hate on the SLPD or Police in general, because I don't get enough of that in RL with the vandalism of my car and home because my father happens to be an officer for SLPD.

Considering the statistics available, it seems eminently reasonable to at least assume all LEOs are a potential threat and harbour at the very least implicit racial biases if not explicit racist ideology.
Given that U.S.A. LEOs in particular are quick to violence (incl. lethal violence), it also does not seem unreasonable to consider them to be dangerous armed thugs.
Many of them are.
It really is "best to assume", because if one does not do that then one is liable to wind up dead or with severe injuries or otherwise the victim of unlawful actions that will be a struggle to acquire justice for.

Whilst it's unfortunate that you are suffering due to the effects of police culture and well-publicised corruption/injustice, it seems like something that could be mitigated by say.. your father actually interacting with the community.
ie: Speaking to them and supporting them and generally proving himself someone that really is there to serve and protect civilians.
That way the local community might actually trust him, which will help him do his job as well as prevent or at least inhibit backlash against him specifically.

Seriously, what happened to the days when officers would actually know the people they were supposed to be helping and made the effort to remember that helping people is supposed to be a key part of their job description?
As opposed to kitting themselves out in military equipment and assaulting people and murdering people.
It shouldn't be so difficult.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Of course it is. Sure, I agree that the legal handling of the cops who have done wrong could go better, but all this "damn murderous pigs" BS is getting old. Really old. Because one officer commits a shameful act, let us all just treat them all as bloodthirsty mercenaries with no more regard for human life or protecting the citizens. Best to assume that all cops are like that.

Not sure why I even keep coming back to this topic. Just filled with edgy people eager to hate on the SLPD or Police in general, because I don't get enough of that in RL with the vandalism of my car and home because my father happens to be an officer for SLPD.

Considering the statistics available, it seems eminently reasonable to at least assume all LEOs are a potential threat and harbour at the very least implicit racial biases if not explicit racist ideology.
Given that U.S.A. LEOs in particular are quick to violence (incl. lethal violence), it also does not seem unreasonable to consider them to be dangerous armed thugs.
Many of them are.
It really is "best to assume", because if one does not do that then one is liable to wind up dead or with severe injuries or otherwise the victim of unlawful actions that will be a struggle to acquire justice for.

Whilst it's unfortunate that you are suffering due to the effects of police culture and well-publicised corruption/injustice, it seems like something that could be mitigated by say.. your father actually interacting with the community.
ie: Speaking to them and supporting them and generally proving himself someone that really is there to serve and protect civilians.
That way the local community might actually trust him, which will help him do his job as well as prevent or at least inhibit backlash against him specifically.

Seriously, what happened to the days when officers would actually know the people they were supposed to be helping and made the effort to remember that helping people is supposed to be a key part of their job description?
As opposed to kitting themselves out in military equipment and assaulting people and murdering people.
It shouldn't be so difficult.

Yeah this is just a BS rant where you generalize and act as if the US is the "exception".

You said it's not unreasonable to call US cops dangerous armed thugs, and said that all US cops hold an implicit racial bias, for fuck's sake.

Everything and everyone is a "potential threat". Your neighbor is a potential threat. Your doctor is a potential threat. Heck, even your dog is a potential threat if one day he goes apeshit and bites your head off when you sleep.

Instead of treating police officers like "dangerous armed thugs" , perhaps you should actually treat them with some dignity if not respect, and act civilly around them. I'm able to bet that 99.9% of all cases of police brutality start with a combative suspect. I'm not saying that this justifies anything, but acting up in the middle of the incident is simply stupid. Record the matter the best you can and then make complaints or take it to court.

The best example of this is the dude who intentionally stole something for the police to get called in, and then provoked them by heading towards them, supposedly with a knife, shouting "SHOOT ME!", after being clearly asked to stop and drop the weapon. Low and behold, he got shot. Again, I'm not saying that protesting the actions of cops in the middle of an incident justifies getting shot, but, don't be surprised when you get force used on you for being combative/violent/threatening and/or provoking the cops.

[Susurruses]

Considering the statistics available, it seems eminently reasonable to at least assume all LEOs are a potential threat and harbour at the very least implicit racial biases if not explicit racist ideology.
Given that U.S.A. LEOs in particular are quick to violence (incl. lethal violence), it also does not seem unreasonable to consider them to be dangerous armed thugs.
Many of them are.
It really is "best to assume", because if one does not do that then one is liable to wind up dead or with severe injuries or otherwise the victim of unlawful actions that will be a struggle to acquire justice for.

Whilst it's unfortunate that you are suffering due to the effects of police culture and well-publicised corruption/injustice, it seems like something that could be mitigated by say.. your father actually interacting with the community.
ie: Speaking to them and supporting them and generally proving himself someone that really is there to serve and protect civilians.
That way the local community might actually trust him, which will help him do his job as well as prevent or at least inhibit backlash against him specifically.

Seriously, what happened to the days when officers would actually know the people they were supposed to be helping and made the effort to remember that helping people is supposed to be a key part of their job description?
As opposed to kitting themselves out in military equipment and assaulting people and murdering people.
It shouldn't be so difficult.

Yeah this is just a BS rant where you generalize and act as if the US is the "exception".

You said it's not unreasonable to call US cops dangerous armed thugs, and said that all US cops hold an implicit racial bias, for fuck's sake.

Everything and everyone is a "potential threat". Your neighbor is a potential threat. Your doctor is a potential threat. Heck, even your dog is a potential threat if one day he goes apeshit and bites your head off when you sleep.

Instead of treating police officers like "dangerous armed thugs" , perhaps you should actually treat them with some dignity if not respect, and act civilly around them. I'm able to bet that 99.9% of all cases of police brutality start with a combative suspect. I'm not saying that this justifies anything, but acting up in the middle of the incident is simply stupid. Record the matter the best you can and then make complaints or take it to court.

The best example of this is the dude who intentionally stole something for the police to get called in, and then provoked them by heading towards them, supposedly with a knife, shouting "SHOOT ME!", after being clearly asked to stop and drop the weapon. Low and behold, he got shot. Again, I'm not saying that protesting the actions of cops in the middle of an incident justifies getting shot, but, don't be surprised when you get force used on you for being combative/violent/threatening and/or provoking the cops.

Nah.

Considering you've already made clear that you're adamant LEOs can do no wrong, & considering this was specifically about an incident within the U.S.A. , and considering that studies & statistics & testimonies by LEOs themselves that police officers harbour racial biases and engage in violence more quickly and excessively towards racial minorities...

Nah.

(... also you mean "Lo' and behold" ; it's an abbreviation of "Look". )

Also I have absolutely zero obligation to respect anyone that has not earned it; LEOs have a greater responsibility and duty to be morally upstanding than a civilian, not lesser.

Not to mention your "example" (that is allegedly the best you have to offer) is ridiculous.
Multiple officers cannot safely take down an assailant armed with a knife, and they absolutely had to fire upon him?
Yeah, like that shows them in a flattering light.

Did I mention already? The short version of my response to your drivel?

"Nah."

[Glorious Freedonia]

The story said that some punk tried to shoot a cop and paid the price for it. What is your problem?

Maybe when you finish masturbating to the death of a "punk" you could maybe consider the possibility that the police were in the wrong while you wash your hands. Sure, they say that the deceased opened fire first, but what if they're lying? What if this officer killed a young man for no good reason and the police force is helping him get away with it?

Why do you think that the cops are lying. They are the good guys.

[Ifreann]

Maybe when you finish masturbating to the death of a "punk" you could maybe consider the possibility that the police were in the wrong while you wash your hands. Sure, they say that the deceased opened fire first, but what if they're lying? What if this officer killed a young man for no good reason and the police force is helping him get away with it?

Why do you think that the cops are lying. They are the good guys.

Are you 8 years old or something?

[New Chalcedon]

Maybe when you finish masturbating to the death of a "punk" you could maybe consider the possibility that the police were in the wrong while you wash your hands. Sure, they say that the deceased opened fire first, but what if they're lying? What if this officer killed a young man for no good reason and the police force is helping him get away with it?

Why do you think that the cops are lying. They are the good guys.

Are they? Why?

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Yeah this is just a BS rant where you generalize and act as if the US is the "exception".

You said it's not unreasonable to call US cops dangerous armed thugs, and said that all US cops hold an implicit racial bias, for fuck's sake.

Everything and everyone is a "potential threat". Your neighbor is a potential threat. Your doctor is a potential threat. Heck, even your dog is a potential threat if one day he goes apeshit and bites your head off when you sleep.

Instead of treating police officers like "dangerous armed thugs" , perhaps you should actually treat them with some dignity if not respect, and act civilly around them. I'm able to bet that 99.9% of all cases of police brutality start with a combative suspect. I'm not saying that this justifies anything, but acting up in the middle of the incident is simply stupid. Record the matter the best you can and then make complaints or take it to court.

The best example of this is the dude who intentionally stole something for the police to get called in, and then provoked them by heading towards them, supposedly with a knife, shouting "SHOOT ME!", after being clearly asked to stop and drop the weapon. Low and behold, he got shot. Again, I'm not saying that protesting the actions of cops in the middle of an incident justifies getting shot, but, don't be surprised when you get force used on you for being combative/violent/threatening and/or provoking the cops.

Nah.

Considering you've already made clear that you're adamant LEOs can do no wrong,

Yeah I've never done that, stop putting words in my mouth thank you.

& considering this was specifically about an incident within the U.S.A.

Stop denying your obvious exceptionalism.

, and considering that studies & statistics & testimonies by LEOs themselves that police officers harbour racial biases and engage in violence more quickly and excessively towards racial minorities...

Yeah, that does not equate to "all US cops hold a racial bias" & "it is not unreasonable to consider them dangerous armed thugs" , thank you for your false equivalency.

Nah.

(... also you mean "Lo' and behold" ; it's an abbreviation of "Look". )

and in your grammar-Nazi-ish attempt to correct me you fail to observe obvious sarcasm.

Also I have absolutely zero obligation to respect anyone that has not earned it; LEOs have a greater responsibility and duty to be morally upstanding than a civilian, not lesser.

And this combined with the the fact that they put themselves at risk for the benefit of the general population should earn them some respect.

Not to mention your "example" (that is allegedly the best you have to offer) is ridiculous.

It''s not the best example for the point I was making, indeed, because the situation was violent from the very beginning, because that is how the man intended it to be. What I was trying to say was that protesting the actions of the police should be done in a peaceful manner, regardless of whether we're talking about mass rallies or protesting the actions as they are happening (e.g. during a stop etc.) . I'm able to bet that the vast majority of victims of police brutality that turned out to be innocent are partly to blame because they made the police officers interacting with them feel threatened. I'm not saying that being confrontational with a cop justifies any use of force or any sort of action for that matter (e.g. getting arrested), but assert your rights civilly not violently. Sure, you're free to shove them, talk shit to them, or whatever, but don't expect my sympathy when you get your ass whopped for being an asshole. Again, if you feel that talking isn't doing it, record the incident the best you can and make a complaint or take it to court. Just cooperate, do as they say, whilst making your opinion known civilly. This will hold up much better in court, especially if you were capable to properly record the matter, than if they can prove that you were even partly aggressive or threatening.

Multiple officers cannot safely take down an assailant armed with a knife, and they absolutely had to fire upon him?

Define safely. Safely for them, or safely for the assailant, or both? The only way you will ever safely take down an armed assailant, regardless of whether if it's a gun or melee weapon, is by using a ranged weapon. Fists do not qualify. Batons do not qualify. Pepper spray does not offer the required efficacy, is easily influenced by wind, and offers limited range. The only remaining options are a)Tasers and b)less-lethal projectiles. Let's talk about Tasers. The problem with Tasers is that they too have a limited range. The most common cartridge is 15' , and there exist cartridges up to 35', but I don't know to what extent these latter ones are used by the police.

To put this in perspective, there exists a commonly cited "rule" called the 21 feet rule. It states that for the average officer to be able to draw his weapon (handgun) and fire at center mass, the average running assailant must be no closer than 21 feet.

Another interesting resource is this video, in which it is stated that "for the average officer to deliver 2 rounds against an attacker that starts running at 10 feet, the sidearm must be already drawn and ready to shoot". As you can see, the officer barely makes it at that distance. This is anything but safe. The video shows some other stuff including an attack from 21 feet.

And, remember, that all of this has been experimentally established. I'm not saying that you can claim self defense when shooting a knife-armed assailant at a hundred feet, no, but the point is that 1) this stuff isn't to be taken as a hard and fast rule 2) some "slack" needs to exist to make it work (as I mentioned before, at 10 feet the officer barely made it, and "barely" isn't particularly safe) AND 3) officers in the field in a real and dangerous situation may perceive distance differently as they do not have the luxury that you and I have right now to thorough, objective analysis of the circumstances.

Also, in this particular case, the officers had nowhere to know whether or not the assailant only had a knife on him, or if he might have had a gun as well. He obviously either had an axe to grind with the cops, was suicidal, or mentally ill, or a combination of the above, meaning very unpredictable.

Another thing to take into consideration is the limited capacity of Tasers: the most common ones hold only one cartridge, the Taser X2 holds 2 and the Taser X3 holds 3. AFAIK the Taser X2 isn't really too popular and I don't know whether the X3 has even been released yet and even if it has I suspect few officers are armed with it. You NEED multiple shots for a number of reasons, the two main ones being that you may encounter multiple attackers and/or you might miss. "Stopping power" doesn't really apply here because Tasers are capable of producing multiple shocks from the same cartridge, so if the prongs met their target, even if you may need to re-shock the target you do not need to fire another round into them.

One more thing: your run-off-the-mill Taser (X26) costs $ 1k. Compare that to around half for your typical police handgun, add to the fact the reasons presented above, and you'll see why Tasers aren't favored over guns and/or why the officers that do have them might not be fully confident in them.

In light of all this, a solution that I would support would be to arm all officers with Tasers capable of firing multiple cartridges (as soon as the technology becomes affordable) and issue them with the longest-range available cartridges (35' ER) and to train them with this setup. Also, ideally all officers should deploy in teams of 2 at the very minimum with no exceptions (for a number of reasons), but this obviously is not viable in the US for all departments because of budget constraints and seeing how many are already undermanned, underfunded and overworked (especially the ones that have to cover large areas with few officers) . Then, once (or realistically, if) you have these 2 officers responding to a call, train them so that in situations where lethal force is expected to be deployed, have one of them pull out their Taser and the other their gun, so that if force does need to be deployed, you first attempt a less-lethal solution, and then if it does not work or it misses and the attacker closes the gap you have the other officer shoot.

Yeah, like that shows them in a flattering light.

Did I mention already? The short version of my response to your drivel?

"Nah."

Yeah, it hasn't been any more qualitative than your last one.