Protestors vs. Rioters

[TheDeamon]

It's not entirely clear to me that the police had cause to arrest him, since he was parked at the time and he had not (apparently) failed a breathalizer test. It didn't look like he failed the sobriety test, either, but he did admit to having (I think) one drink.  That's why I asked earlier when it was done, since the portion of the video I was able to watch before it froze didn't show them performing the test.

DUI laws allow for cops to be complete bastards on this front. Parked or not doesn't matter.

Keys in the ignition are sufficient for a DUI conviction, even if he wasn't in the driver's seat. As "keys in the ignition" meet the legal criteria to demonstrate intent to drive.

I'm at 1 remove from a guy who received a DUI for being drunk in the sleeper cab of his truck while 16 hours into a "34 hour restart" for his hours of service. But because he needed to have the keys in the ignition in order to run the Air Conditioning in the truck...

[yossarian22c]

This is a death fully caused by officers carrying weapons on their person all the time. The man was already able to get a taser away from an officer. If he incapacitates an officer with the taser and takes his gun then the result is the officer could be the one getting shot.

We need to understand this, as long as the police carry a gun on their hip all of the time the police will treat every physical altercation as a life and death struggle. Because someone getting the upper hand on them for a second and taking their weapon could rapidly lead to their death. That's how police have to approach fights.

Yes and no. There were at least two officers present. Until he somehow managed to incapacitate one of the two and started moving towards the incapacitated cop, there was no reason to consider escalation to deadly force(shooting) in that specific circumstance.

At least, as per what I recall of my own training for (general) security watches. "Deadly force" was only (unconditionally) authorized when somebody was under threat of loss of life, or "national security" was at risk. (And "national security" in that context basically meant that someone was about to potentially gain access to an armory of one kind or another) Of course, there were some other conditionals in play, but none are applicable to that situation.

I see your point. However, I think its asking too much of a cop who was just in the middle of a fight and had his tazer forcibly taken from him to allow himself to get tazed because there is still another officer on the scene. I think there probably was a resolution to this that resulted in an arrest and no one being tazed or shot but this isn't a case where I want to Monday morning quarterback every decision the cop made amped up on adrenaline in the heat of the moment. The cops should have done better but IMO they didn't behave in a way that rises to the level of criminality.

Sitting here on Monday morning I recognize:
1) It is improbable that running away, shooting over the shoulder with a tazer of anyone actually being hit by the tazer.
2) Even if he had been struck by the tazer that other than being embarrassed by being shot by his own tazer he likely wouldn't have received any serious injury and the man would likely have continued running away.
3) Things the cop might have been thinking in the moment. A skull fracture from falling down after being tazed is a possibility. Its also possible, but exceedingly unlikely, he tries and succeeds in firing a second round at his partner and proceeds to take their guns and kill them both.

This isn't a case I'm outraged about. I think it is a case that can instruct us on better police training and tactics but not one that revels something rotten in the system where cops like Chauvin are out to humiliate, dominate, and abuse the people they're arresting.

I think cops should receive more hand to hand combat training. MMA/Judo style training along with weight training and how to effectively fight as a team so they can safely subdue one unarmed man without pulling guns. This is something they should paid to do everyday, 30 minutes of fitness per day and a 1 hour class per week on self defense, hand to hand combat, and effective team restraint tactics.

I also think there should be a shift to keeping guns locked in squad cars, maybe put the gun on your hip to do an initial search but once they knew the person is unarmed they could place the gun back in a gun safe to lower the threat of deadly violence. This also requires police always be in pairs. Without more training and specifically training that reduces their dependence on guns progress is going to be slow. There are a whole host of other police reforms that could be on the table as well, but these are the ones I think would have helped in this specific case.

[Kasandra]

The cops should have done better but IMO they didn't behave in a way that rises to the level of criminality.

Shooting a suspect at the scene is supposed to be a response to a direct threat to the officer(s) or bystanders, which can't ever be the case when the suspect is not armed with a lethal weapon and is running away.  There was no excuse to shoot him in the back. 

The shooting raises two other points.  First, officers should not find themselves in a situation where their lethal reactions are driven by "the heat of the moment."  Training should teach them how to overcome their emotions and how to look for alternative solutions to shooting.  The other is that the officer fired at least two shots at a fleeing suspect.  Who or what was beyond the suspect who might have been hit by bullets that either missed him or passed through him?  This was a somewhat busy restaurant, so we can't see cars or walkers who might have been in the line of fire. 

Bottom line, this was a total cluster*censored*.  Firing and arresting the officer who shot his gun is not only appropriate, but a necessary response.

[NobleHunter]

I can't tell if it's just because we're on the outside but I get the impression that cops tend to see shootings as unfortunately inevitable or at least there's nothing they can do to prevent shootings. Do you know how many plane crashes we'd have if the aviation industry had the same attitude?

[Fenring]

I can't tell if it's just because we're on the outside but I get the impression that cops tend to see shootings as unfortunately inevitable or at least there's nothing they can do to prevent shootings.

That's a charitable interpretation. I'm sure there are some who feel legitimately grieved, others who feel "hey that's what happens", and yet others who feel like "it'll cause a ruckus but the good folks can know there's one less scumbag on the street." There are probably also wackos enjoy outright enjoy it, but let's put them aside for now.

[yossarian22c]

The cops should have done better but IMO they didn't behave in a way that rises to the level of criminality.

Shooting a suspect at the scene is supposed to be a response to a direct threat to the officer(s) or bystanders, which can't ever be the case when the suspect is not armed with a lethal weapon and is running away.  There was no excuse to shoot him in the back. 

If the officer shot him in the back while he was fleeing then you have a point. However if the videos show, as the npr write up indicated, that he was aiming the tazer at the officer then the calculus changes somewhat.

I fell while running at full speed a couple of years ago. I landed okay, distributed the impact over most of my right side, but I still broke my wrist in the fall. Same situation if someone tazed me running that fast and I fall uncontrolled forward and strike my head instead of my knee, hip, and wrist then I could easily have ended up with more serious head injuries. This goes to another point about police and tazer's as well, while they are typically non-lethal it doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Officers overuse tazer's as well, that just doesn't get as much attention because the person usually only has minor injuries. But I bet if we dig into deaths at the hands of police we can find a significant (more than 10) were a direct or indirect result of a tazer.

Firing this cop is probably justified because of the other reasons you pointed out about the dangers of firing a gun in a crowded area.

Criminal charges probably is a waste of money. A jury isn't going to convict unless the review of the tapes I read is inaccurate. If he's aiming a dangerous weapon, even a non-lethal one, at the officer at the time of the shooting after overpowering the officers physically then its a tough sale that the officer was committing a criminal act. I think it is pretty unfair to say an officer must allow himself to get tazered, because at that point he is incapacitated and mostly defenseless. The reports indicate it was only two officers on the scene. 10 cops there and one gets tazered it probably isn't a big deal, with only two that's shifting the balance of power considerably. Cops are human, we should expect more of them in so many ways, and we should demand the sadists, like Chauvin, get cleaned out of policing. But doing more than firing this cop who had just been assaulted and was about to be tazed is swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction.

[yossarian22c]

I can't tell if it's just because we're on the outside but I get the impression that cops tend to see shootings as unfortunately inevitable or at least there's nothing they can do to prevent shootings. Do you know how many plane crashes we'd have if the aviation industry had the same attitude?

Absolutely. The problem in this situation is training, equipment, and what happened in the 10 minutes leading up to the struggle, pursuit, and shooting. This looks to be a case where better training, better communication, better laws, and less reliance on weapons could have prevented the situation where any weapons were drawn, much less a shot fired.

[Kasandra]

Two black women protesters in Florida have been murdered in the past week, one after being raped.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/15/oluwatoyin-salau-found-dead-tallahassee-black-lives-matter-protest-missing/3190606001/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/12/black-lives-matter-protester-reported-missing-florida-after-tweet/3174915001/

[TheDrake]

Of course a taser only has about a 15-25 foot maximum range. So the officer most likely could have stayed out of range while he waited for backup. An ultimate solution would be to make it impossible for anyone other than the officer to fire their weapon, but the tech isn't quite there yet.

[DonaldD]

If the officer shot him in the back while he was fleeing then you have a point. However if the videos show, as the npr write up indicated, that he was aiming the tazer at the officer then the calculus changes somewhat.

If it's the video I saw, he was running away, seemed to turn partially/briefly back towards the police, turned away from the police again, then continued running, at which point he was shot.  It would seem he may have discharged the stun gun while turning (which may be why he turned briefly). It should also be noted that his momentum during the 1.5 second video clip was consistently away from the police.  He wasn't advancing towards them.

[TheDeamon]

Yes and no. There were at least two officers present. Until he somehow managed to incapacitate one of the two and started moving towards the incapacitated cop, there was no reason to consider escalation to deadly force(shooting) in that specific circumstance.

At least, as per what I recall of my own training for (general) security watches. "Deadly force" was only (unconditionally) authorized when somebody was under threat of loss of life, or "national security" was at risk. (And "national security" in that context basically meant that someone was about to potentially gain access to an armory of one kind or another) Of course, there were some other conditionals in play, but none are applicable to that situation.

I see your point. However, I think its asking too much of a cop who was just in the middle of a fight and had his tazer forcibly taken from him to allow himself to get tazed because there is still another officer on the scene. I think there probably was a resolution to this that resulted in an arrest and no one being tazed or shot but this isn't a case where I want to Monday morning quarterback every decision the cop made amped up on adrenaline in the heat of the moment. The cops should have done better but IMO they didn't behave in a way that rises to the level of criminality.

This comes back to a refrain I've had with prior service military types who served on the ground war side of things. If the police officer had been trained as part of a squad, that wouldn't have any kind of meaningful "ask" to make on his part. He's supposed to trust that his squad has his back. In this case, he should have trusted that the other officer had his back. He didn't. He was obviously still operating in "lone wolf" mode.

Sitting here on Monday morning I recognize:
1) It is improbable that running away, shooting over the shoulder with a tazer of anyone actually being hit by the tazer.
2) Even if he had been struck by the tazer that other than being embarrassed by being shot by his own tazer he likely wouldn't have received any serious injury and the man would likely have continued running away.
3) Things the cop might have been thinking in the moment. A skull fracture from falling down after being tazed is a possibility. Its also possible, but exceedingly unlikely, he tries and succeeds in firing a second round at his partner and proceeds to take their guns and kill them both.

I'm kind of curious as to how effective a tazer would even be through body armor. That aside, I do fully agree with one soundbite that either NBC of ABC had the other night on the matter. "It's hard to take seriously a claim of mortal peril against a tazer when the same law enforcement agency routinely claims tazers are non-lethal weapons."

Item number 1 can be rightfully called a monday morning quarterback call.
Item number 2 goes back to the earlier point about not trusting the other officer to have his back. If he had (somehow) been successfully tazed, the other Officer would be entirely in his rights to open fire on the suspect if the suspect starts moving towards the downed officer.
Item number 3 also comes back to "didn't trust the other officer." For the suspect to get his hands on the other(tazed) officer's gun, he'd have to get to it before the other officer could either secure it, or kick it away to somewhere else. He'd also have to not get shot while attempting to get the gun.

Risk of bodily harm from a potentially uncontrolled fall is somewhat valid, but not grounds to claim fear of loss of life, and gets back to the problem of how tazer use is commonly described by law enforcement. If it's "safe enough" for police to consider it non-lethal when tazing an upright person, they're going to have a hard sell on suddenly being lethal when its turned on a cop.

I think cops should receive more hand to hand combat training. MMA/Judo style training along with weight training and how to effectively fight as a team so they can safely subdue one unarmed man without pulling guns. This is something they should paid to do everyday, 30 minutes of fitness per day and a 1 hour class per week on self defense, hand to hand combat, and effective team restraint tactics.

I also think there should be a shift to keeping guns locked in squad cars, maybe put the gun on your hip to do an initial search but once they knew the person is unarmed they could place the gun back in a gun safe to lower the threat of deadly violence. This also requires police always be in pairs. Without more training and specifically training that reduces their dependence on guns progress is going to be slow. There are a whole host of other police reforms that could be on the table as well, but these are the ones I think would have helped in this specific case.

You don't even have to go quite that far in some respects. If they're working in pairs, one is always armed while the other shifts between armed/unarmed states as needed. You just make sure that after initial contact has established the suspect is unarmed, the unarmed officer takes over interactions from there.

[DonaldD]

Risk of bodily harm from a potentially uncontrolled fall is somewhat valid, but not grounds to claim fear of loss of life, and gets back to the problem of how tazer use is commonly described by law enforcement. If it's "safe enough" for police to consider it non-lethal when tazing an upright person, they're going to have a hard sell on suddenly being lethal when its turned on a cop.

Plus, firing the gun after the stun gun has already been discharged will have zero effect, unless the police officer manages to fire his gun after the stun gun has been discharged but before the electrodes reach him and successfully incapacitate him.

[Kasandra]

Criminal charges probably is a waste of money. A jury isn't going to convict unless the review of the tapes I read is inaccurate. If he's aiming a dangerous weapon, even a non-lethal one, at the officer at the time of the shooting after overpowering the officers physically then its a tough sale that the officer was committing a criminal act.

Yeah, but it's already been "determined" to be a homicide.  They will have to arrest the officer, and suffer the consequences if they withdraw the charges before trial.

[TheDeamon]

The shooting raises two other points.  First, officers should not find themselves in a situation where their lethal reactions are driven by "the heat of the moment."  Training should teach them how to overcome their emotions and how to look for alternative solutions to shooting.  The other is that the officer fired at least two shots at a fleeing suspect.  Who or what was beyond the suspect who might have been hit by bullets that either missed him or passed through him?  This was a somewhat busy restaurant, so we can't see cars or walkers who might have been in the line of fire.

From what I recall, police initiated contact around 10:30pm with the suspect as he was sleeeping while parked in the drive thru.

It varies from location to location but in many areas, it is not uncommon for Wendy's stores to be shut down by 10 PM. Given he was sleeping in the drive thru lane, I'd lay odds the store was closed. There may have still been some workers present doing cleanup/post-shift work getting things ready for the morning crew, but that would have only been a very small number of people.

[Kasandra]

I don't generally like speculating on things for which we don't have direct evidence, but I agree with pretty much everyone's assessments of this situation.  Gosh, when does that ever happen on Ornery???

[Lloyd Perna]

From what I recall, police initiated contact around 10:30pm with the suspect as he was sleeeping while parked in the drive thru.

It varies from location to location but in many areas, it is not uncommon for Wendy's stores to be shut down by 10 PM. Given he was sleeping in the drive thru lane, I'd lay odds the store was closed. There may have still been some workers present doing cleanup/post-shift work getting things ready for the morning crew, but that would have only been a very small number of people.

The bodycam video has been released  You can see that the drive through is open and busy.  His car is stopped right in the middle of the line and he is asleep in it.  He also administers the breathalyzer on camera.  I was surprised at how dangerous the physical scuffle looked to me.  The officers were being careful not to be overly rough, no strikes thrown just trying to restrain him. Even 2 on one they were not able to control him and he was able to get a tazer away from one of them.

[Fenring]

The bodycam video has been released  You can see that the drive through is open and busy.  His car is stopped right in the middle of the line and he is asleep in it.  He also administers the breathalyzer on camera.  I was surprised at how dangerous the physical scuffle looked to me.  The officers were being careful not to be overly rough, no strikes thrown just trying to restrain him. Even 2 on one they were not able to control him and he was able to get a tazer away from one of them.

Thanks for the link. I have a few comments about this:

1) The ground game of the cop on top of him is weak. It should not be that hard to sustain control of a struggling person if you have full top control of them. Sure, they can manage to get away, but the cop couldn't even sustain it for more than a few seconds and was thrown off easily. So this is pretty sad wrestling/jiu jitsu skills.

2) Although he was resisting fully, none of that looked like "fighting back." It much more closely resembles an animal panicking and trying to escape. This is no different from an animal rescue situation when they're cornered in their cage and getting anxious and going into fight or flight. Yes, that does then require forcible actions for sure. But he was not out to hurt anyone, and I don't believe for a second he was trying to threaten anyone. He was just wriggling to get out like a rabbit does from the mouth of a bird of prey.

3) When they shot him in the back the main threat he posed consisted of "he's getting away!" That is no grounds for lethal force. This is no different from a car chase; cops on foot, in car, or any other mode should follow in pursuit until he could be rounded up and captured. He was not running toward anyone, nor did he fit the profile of some kind of dangerous criminal about to go take hostages or something.

Now (1) is more an observation than a criticism, in the sense that I can't expect good ground fighting skills when they're not focusing on that in training. But given how many of these altercations take place in all the various cam footages over the years, *clearly* ground fighting should be a primary focus of police training, as restraining someone non-lethally should be their primary tool. After that should maybe be track and field, since the only reason to shoot this guy was to avoid breaking a sweat running after him calling for backup.

(2) is a classic case of cops mistaking panic or (sometimes) mental illness for a threat against them. They need to know that if they are creating the hostile condition (i.e. by being present as a police officer) this will put people on edge, and people already on the edge will freak out sometimes. If they can't handle that they have no business being on the scene and are unqualified.

(3) is the main problem, where "he's unruly" creates a bee-line in their brains to "shoot him!" If this is all they're capable of then I sorta must admit there is some sense to what another poster wrote about how maybe the police should not be allowed to have guns any more. We recently tried giving my baby some new toys like a little xylophone, but unfortunately he's too young to understand commands and doesn't understand that he can't hurl it to the ground (it's heavy and will break the floor). He can't handle it yet so we have to take it away for now, which makes him sad. Even sadder would be breaking the floor, where "floor" means the lives of civilians.

[yossarian22c]

If the shots in the back were multiple seconds after he had turned back around and continued running away  with the taser I could be persuaded that criminal charges could be warranted. My earlier analysis was based on the fact that the man was turning and aiming the taser at him at the time he was shot. Those are different scenarios.

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

[Aris Katsaris]

If the shots in the back were multiple seconds after he had turned back around and continued running away  with the taser I could be persuaded that criminal charges could be warranted. My earlier analysis was based on the fact that the man was turning and aiming the taser at him at the time he was shot. Those are different scenarios.

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

Why is an aimed taser sufficient justification for shooting with a gun?

[TheDeamon]

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

Why is an aimed taser sufficient justification for shooting with a gun?

I don't think that even really qualified as an aimed taser. That said, juries have evidently cleared police officers of murder charges in even less ambiguous situations where the deceased was white. So I'd agree with the likely outcome being a hung jury.

The only other way to address the "limited immunity" thing the courts have foisted on the legal system is to change the laws to codify into law situations which the respective states or cities(for their own officers) do not desire limited immunity to apply. At the state level they can go one step further and potentially enhance the penalties.

Part of the problem most of these cases with Law Enforcement involvement is you either run up against Limited Immunity, or the situation the officer was involved in doesn't "translate well" to the relevant statute when compared against their job. The only way to address that is to adjust the laws to so they can translate more effectively.

I guess the other option is to put them on another legal track entirely and subject them to something comparable to the Military's Court Martial system. But people on both sides of things probably wouldn't like that option very much, for wildly different reasons.

[msquared]

Chris Rock had a piece on the cops and being black.  You laugh now but it resonates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8

msquared

[yossarian22c]

If the shots in the back were multiple seconds after he had turned back around and continued running away  with the taser I could be persuaded that criminal charges could be warranted. My earlier analysis was based on the fact that the man was turning and aiming the taser at him at the time he was shot. Those are different scenarios.

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

Why is an aimed taser sufficient justification for shooting with a gun?

In this case, I still think the gun is an overreaction but given the laws that generally apply to police it probably isn't a criminal act. Ideally the police would respond to a "non-lethal" weapon in kind. But I'm not sure that this officer had his taser available at this point.

As to why this would ever be the case. Imagine a kidnapper who uses a taser to abduct people. Your options are shooting him or becoming a captive. This scenerio isn't close to the one shown by the officer here, his best defense for lethal force would be fear of serious injury as a result of falling while being tased. And I'm sure if you just look the lists of people seriously injured or killed by police tasers the point could be made to a jury that the officer had a reasonable fear of serious bodily harm. And that is the standard police are judged by.

[yossarian22c]

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

Why is an aimed taser sufficient justification for shooting with a gun?

I don't think that even really qualified as an aimed taser. That said, juries have evidently cleared police officers of murder charges in even less ambiguous situations where the deceased was white. So I'd agree with the likely outcome being a hung jury.

And I think any criminal penalties of this case come down to that fact. If the man just looked over his shoulder while running away and then turned and kept running then a serious case could be made for criminal charges. On the other hand if the shots were fired while he was trying to aim a taser over his should based on the "reasonable fear" doctrine the police operate under the officer likely isn't guilty of the laws as written. Also being tased while holding a pistil is probably pretty dangerous for yourself and those around you.

Either we have to accept this state of affairs or change the laws and remove guns from the hips of officers. This is why I would never regularly carry a firearm. Any physical altercation immediately becomes a life or death struggle when a handgun is within reach.

[rightleft22]

If the shots in the back were multiple seconds after he had turned back around and continued running away  with the taser I could be persuaded that criminal charges could be warranted. My earlier analysis was based on the fact that the man was turning and aiming the taser at him at the time he was shot. Those are different scenarios.

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

Why is an aimed taser sufficient justification for shooting with a gun?

In this case, I still think the gun is an overreaction but given the laws that generally apply to police it probably isn't a criminal act. Ideally the police would respond to a "non-lethal" weapon in kind. But I'm not sure that this officer had his taser available at this point.

As to why this would ever be the case. Imagine a kidnapper who uses a taser to abduct people. Your options are shooting him or becoming a captive. This scenerio isn't close to the one shown by the officer here, his best defense for lethal force would be fear of serious injury as a result of falling while being tased. And I'm sure if you just look the lists of people seriously injured or killed by police tasers the point could be made to a jury that the officer had a reasonable fear of serious bodily harm. And that is the standard police are judged by.

With the current laws and defense based on how they are trained the officers are unlikely to be held convicted of a crime.

I think this case demonstrates the systemic problem within policing as it regards training. The grounds for when deadly force can be deployed are too broad

[ScottF]

I wonder how the "defund the police" team would have seen this unfold in that new model.

You've got a highly inebriated individual who's unresponsive and then physically resists. How would the trained counselor manage that situation?

[Pete at Home]

It's not entirely clear to me that the police had cause to arrest him, since he was parked at the time and he had not (apparently) failed a breathalizer test. It didn't look like he failed the sobriety test, either, but he did admit to having (I think) one drink.  That's why I asked earlier when it was done, since the portion of the video I was able to watch before it froze didn't show them performing the test.

DUI laws allow for cops to be complete bastards on this front. Parked or not doesn't matter.

Keys in the ignition are sufficient for a DUI conviction, even if he wasn't in the driver's seat. As "keys in the ignition" meet the legal criteria to demonstrate intent to drive.

I'm at 1 remove from a guy who received a DUI for being drunk in the sleeper cab of his truck while 16 hours into a "34 hour restart" for his hours of service. But because he needed to have the keys in the ignition in order to run the Air Conditioning in the truck...

I have a DUI from Vegas for pushing a car down the street while intoxicated.  Apparently, when asked by police why I was pushing my car, I said "because I'm too drunk to drive, Officer."

[TheDrake]

There are probably several factors in play. First off, most models still call cops when there is a suspected crime involving public safety, like DUI. But let's hypothetically say that somehow a counselor is going to approach him sleeping in his car. The first thing is, he doesn't immediately get triggered like when he stares disoriented into the cops maglite. He doesn't feel threatened at the presence of armed individuals. He probably doesn't panic and try to flee. In other words, less likely to escalate. The counselor also isn't using this as an opportunity to search his car for contraband, so if he did have a bag of weed he's got nothing to worry about.

Then there's the question - how does every other profession deal with someone who physically resists and is unarmed? Like the often mentioned ER doctors, orderlies, and nurses? There's also the possibility of just letting someone go when they physically resist. That dude, should he have lurched out of his car, probably staggers a half block and falls down. Even if he escaped into the wilderness, you have his car. You know where he lives. Would it be so terrible if he "got away" briefly?

[ScottF]

It's not entirely clear to me that the police had cause to arrest him, since he was parked at the time and he had not (apparently) failed a breathalizer test. It didn't look like he failed the sobriety test, either, but he did admit to having (I think) one drink.  That's why I asked earlier when it was done, since the portion of the video I was able to watch before it froze didn't show them performing the test.

DUI laws allow for cops to be complete bastards on this front. Parked or not doesn't matter.

Keys in the ignition are sufficient for a DUI conviction, even if he wasn't in the driver's seat. As "keys in the ignition" meet the legal criteria to demonstrate intent to drive.

I'm at 1 remove from a guy who received a DUI for being drunk in the sleeper cab of his truck while 16 hours into a "34 hour restart" for his hours of service. But because he needed to have the keys in the ignition in order to run the Air Conditioning in the truck...

I have a DUI from Vegas for pushing a car down the street while intoxicated.  Apparently, when asked by police why I was pushing my car, I said "because I'm too drunk to drive, Officer."

That's pretty funny.

[ScottF]

There are probably several factors in play. First off, most models still call cops when there is a suspected crime involving public safety, like DUI. But let's hypothetically say that somehow a counselor is going to approach him sleeping in his car. The first thing is, he doesn't immediately get triggered like when he stares disoriented into the cops maglite. He doesn't feel threatened at the presence of armed individuals. He probably doesn't panic and try to flee. In other words, less likely to escalate. The counselor also isn't using this as an opportunity to search his car for contraband, so if he did have a bag of weed he's got nothing to worry about.

Then there's the question - how does every other profession deal with someone who physically resists and is unarmed? Like the often mentioned ER doctors, orderlies, and nurses? There's also the possibility of just letting someone go when they physically resist. That dude, should he have lurched out of his car, probably staggers a half block and falls down. Even if he escaped into the wilderness, you have his car. You know where he lives. Would it be so terrible if he "got away" briefly?

That's one potential outcome, and I agree with you in principle. Another outcome is he knows that a counselor isn't likely to compel him to do a damn thing and, being drunk as a skunk, he decides to just leave in his car and kills someone down the street.

[TheDeamon]

Keys in the ignition are sufficient for a DUI conviction, even if he wasn't in the driver's seat. As "keys in the ignition" meet the legal criteria to demonstrate intent to drive.

I'm at 1 remove from a guy who received a DUI for being drunk in the sleeper cab of his truck while 16 hours into a "34 hour restart" for his hours of service. But because he needed to have the keys in the ignition in order to run the Air Conditioning in the truck...

I have a DUI from Vegas for pushing a car down the street while intoxicated.  Apparently, when asked by police why I was pushing my car, I said "because I'm too drunk to drive, Officer."

Which would be consistent with "keys in the ignition indicates intent to drive" despite any other evidence to the contrary. Although in your case you were clearly "operating a motor vehicle" even if the car was in neutral and the engine was shut off. In order to steer, you needed to have key in the ignition to disengage the interlock on the steering wheel.

I'm still slightly confused as to the legal basis that they managed to construct for the DUI for bicyclists and the guy on a horse.

[Pete at Home]

If the shots in the back were multiple seconds after he had turned back around and continued running away  with the taser I could be persuaded that criminal charges could be warranted. My earlier analysis was based on the fact that the man was turning and aiming the taser at him at the time he was shot. Those are different scenarios.

I still think it ends in a hung jury but not a clear not guilty verdict that would have come if the taser was being pointed at the time the shots were fired.

Why is an aimed taser sufficient justification for shooting with a gun?

In this case, I still think the gun is an overreaction but given the laws that generally apply to police it probably isn't a criminal act. Ideally the police would respond to a "non-lethal" weapon in kind. But I'm not sure that this officer had his taser available at this point.

As to why this would ever be the case. Imagine a kidnapper who uses a taser to abduct people. Your options are shooting him or becoming a captive. This scenerio isn't close to the one shown by the officer here, his best defense for lethal force would be fear of serious injury as a result of falling while being tased. And I'm sure if you just look the lists of people seriously injured or killed by police tasers the point could be made to a jury that the officer had a reasonable fear of serious bodily harm. And that is the standard police are judged by.

With the current laws and defense based on how they are trained the officers are unlikely to be held convicted of a crime.

I think this case demonstrates the systemic problem within policing as it regards training. The grounds for when deadly force can be deployed are too broad

The actual standard is "reasonable fear" not just actual fear.  The officers would have needed to fear for their lives and this fear must be demonstrably reasonable under the circumstances known to the officer at the time of the decision.

[yossarian22c]

There are probably several factors in play. First off, most models still call cops when there is a suspected crime involving public safety, like DUI. But let's hypothetically say that somehow a counselor is going to approach him sleeping in his car. The first thing is, he doesn't immediately get triggered like when he stares disoriented into the cops maglite. He doesn't feel threatened at the presence of armed individuals. He probably doesn't panic and try to flee. In other words, less likely to escalate. The counselor also isn't using this as an opportunity to search his car for contraband, so if he did have a bag of weed he's got nothing to worry about.

Then there's the question - how does every other profession deal with someone who physically resists and is unarmed? Like the often mentioned ER doctors, orderlies, and nurses? There's also the possibility of just letting someone go when they physically resist. That dude, should he have lurched out of his car, probably staggers a half block and falls down. Even if he escaped into the wilderness, you have his car. You know where he lives. Would it be so terrible if he "got away" briefly?

There is also the chance he tells a councilor to take a hike and speeds off drunk in his car and goes onto kill someone in a car crash. We can't know every possible outcome, cops are probably going to be the ones dealing with drunk drivers for a while. I just think we need to retrain police away from their reliance on guns when confronting unarmed people. But maybe I've just seen too many Andy Griffith shows to think that a modern police force could function without a gun on their hip.

[TheDeamon]

Then there's the question - how does every other profession deal with someone who physically resists and is unarmed? Like the often mentioned ER doctors, orderlies, and nurses? There's also the possibility of just letting someone go when they physically resist. That dude, should he have lurched out of his car, probably staggers a half block and falls down. Even if he escaped into the wilderness, you have his car. You know where he lives. Would it be so terrible if he "got away" briefly?

That is the other problem in play here, although a case could be made that he posed a danger as he was technically armed so long as he had possession of the taser. But as soon as he drops the taser(which hadn't happened when he was shot), he wouldn't be a threat to public safety in general. Even if he may be a threat to himself.

[yossarian22c]

The actual standard is "reasonable fear" not just actual fear.  The officers would have needed to fear for their lives and this fear must be demonstrably reasonable under the circumstances known to the officer at the time of the decision.

While their intended purpose is to avoid the use of lethal force (firearms), 180 deaths were reported to have been associated with Tasers in the US by 2006. By 2019 that figure had increased to over 1,000[31][32] It is unclear in each case whether the Taser was the cause of death, but several legislators in the U.S. have filed bills clamping down on them and requesting more studies on their effects.[33] A study led by William Bozeman of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center of nearly 1,000 persons subjected to Taser use concluded that 99.7% of the subjects had suffered no injuries, or minor ones such as scrapes and bruises, while three persons suffered injuries severe enough to need hospital admission, and two died.

A good defense lawyer could probably make a case for "reasonable fear" from being tasered. Highlight the deaths and more serious injuries from falling while running on asphalt.

[TheDrake]

There are probably several factors in play. First off, most models still call cops when there is a suspected crime involving public safety, like DUI. But let's hypothetically say that somehow a counselor is going to approach him sleeping in his car. The first thing is, he doesn't immediately get triggered like when he stares disoriented into the cops maglite. He doesn't feel threatened at the presence of armed individuals. He probably doesn't panic and try to flee. In other words, less likely to escalate. The counselor also isn't using this as an opportunity to search his car for contraband, so if he did have a bag of weed he's got nothing to worry about.

Then there's the question - how does every other profession deal with someone who physically resists and is unarmed? Like the often mentioned ER doctors, orderlies, and nurses? There's also the possibility of just letting someone go when they physically resist. That dude, should he have lurched out of his car, probably staggers a half block and falls down. Even if he escaped into the wilderness, you have his car. You know where he lives. Would it be so terrible if he "got away" briefly?

That's one potential outcome, and I agree with you in principle. Another outcome is he knows that a counselor isn't likely to compel him to do a damn thing and, being drunk as a skunk, he decides to just leave in his car and kills someone down the street.

They could bring a parking enforcement individual and boot the car. That prevents your terrible outcome without violent confrontation. Maybe in the future, cops will have the ability to disable cars remotely. Maybe we'll outlaw all but self-driving cars. Maybe you don't think that's likely, but my point is that as a society we should figure out strategy and tactics to avoid physical confrontation.

Anyway, I already stipulated that this isn't a case for alternate methods, just exploring the possibility. If it helps to focus, consider a publicly intoxicated guy who's passed out in the street and doesn't have a car instead.

[TheDeamon]

There is also the chance he tells a councilor to take a hike and speeds off drunk in his car and goes onto kill someone in a car crash. We can't know every possible outcome, cops are probably going to be the ones dealing with drunk drivers for a while. I just think we need to retrain police away from their reliance on guns when confronting unarmed people. But maybe I've just seen too many Andy Griffith shows to think that a modern police force could function without a gun on their hip.

It would be a strong case for a "rule of two" for many situations. You go through the process previously outlined. Two officers involved, both armed until its demonstrated the person isn't a threat, then one of them continues the interaction while unarmed from that point forward if the person is being cooperative, then if things "head south" it isn't immediate life or death for that officer as the suspect has no gun to grab from the officer. From there it's up to the second officer to maintain an over-watch on the situation, and either disarm and join in the physical fight, or stay back and let the two fight it out until/unless it looks like the other officer is in mortal peril.

They may not be great fans of having to stand back and watch their buddies get roughed up, but that also makes for a strong incentive for all of them to take lessons on grappling and unarmed combat in general.

[fizz]

I had a similar experience when I was younger: when i was a student at University, I was a volunteer stretch bearer for the Red Cross.

One time, we were called to take care of a drunk person. When we arrived, the drunk had just woke up and was feeling decidedly uncooperative... now, we couldn't obviously force him to climb on the ambulance, but leaving him be without him signing a paper where he assumed full responsibility would not have been allowed out of us, we could have had troubles, so we contacted our equivalent of 911 (118, for the curious) and asked instructions.

Shortly after a patrol car of Carabinieri arrived on the spot (one of the 3 police corps we've, it's a military corp and usually don't take care of low-level disturbances, but evidently they were the ones available that evening).

An officer dismounted the car, very calmly watched the situation, advanced up to the drunk yelling man and without warning quickly slapped him two times. Not very strongly, but neither a light tap.
He then quite gently but still very confidently stated "you're going with them".
From what I remember, the officer was not armed. The other officer, younger, that was near the car instead was.

At that point anyway the drunk man, quite surprised and suddenly silent, thought for a moment about it, and answered "I think I'm going with them".

As the drunk man seemed more cooperative, they let us do our things and only followed the ambulance up to the hospital.

Now, i don't think they exactly acted according to protocol, but I've to say that it worked quite well...

[Kasandra]

An officer dismounted the car, very calmly watched the situation, advanced up to the drunk yelling man and without warning quickly slapped him two times. Not very strongly, but neither a light tap.
He then quite gently but still very confidently stated "you're going with them".
From what I remember, the officer was not armed. The other officer, younger, that was near the car instead was.

At that point anyway the drunk man, quite surprised and suddenly silent, thought for a moment about it, and answered "I think I'm going with them".

As the drunk man seemed more cooperative, they let us do our things and only followed the ambulance up to the hospital.

Now, i don't think they exactly acted according to protocol, but I've to say that it worked quite well...

That reminds me of a story in the news a couple of years ago when a man in London was threatening people with a sword.  The police came and a phalanx held up glass shields and basically boxed him in until he dropped the sword and was taken to a hospital.  There was a story on the news yesterday about a policeman who was shot in the hand in St. Cloud Minnesota.  The injured policeman and his partner disarmed the suspect and arrested him without drawing their weapons.  So it can happen here, but doesn't nearly as often as it should.

[fizz]

Well, in London the basic policy is still the Peelian principles of policing by consent, although I hear in recent years it was weakened a bit.
Of course, they like most of Europe are helped by a decidedly smaller percentage of firearms in circulation, outside organized crime.

[Kasandra]

In my mind, "policing by consent" is the only way to police a free society.  In the US the model has closer affinity to "policing by authority," one step (albeit a large one) short of requiring a compliant population.

[DonaldD]

Remember Martin Gugino, the elderly AntiFa agitator who fell to the ground when pushed back by the police?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaGb35_X0AAKo48.jpg

That pool of blood was evidently produced by a bag either in his mouth or under the mask. Premeditated all the way.

Gugino has fractured skull and cannot walk

Good thing Gugino had that hidden bag of blood to cushion his fall....

[TheDeamon]

In my mind, "policing by consent" is the only way to police a free society.  In the US the model has closer affinity to "policing by authority," one step (albeit a large one) short of requiring a compliant population.

Now you're starting to sound like an arch-libertarian on this matter.

[DonaldD]

You sure he's not an anarcho-syndicalist?

Fox reports Monty Python joke as real news

[rightleft22]

Fox News ran Photo-shopped images in coverage of Seattle’s protests
Huge breach in ethics... I wonder if anyone will get fired.  Not going to bet on it

[DonaldD]

They're also running pictures of Minneapolis fires from May for stories and chyrons about Atlanta and Seattle weeks later... it's not like it's ever been a real news organization, but now it's just getting silly.

Fox uses Minneapolis fire footage for Atlanta police shooting story

[Kasandra]

In my mind, "policing by consent" is the only way to police a free society.  In the US the model has closer affinity to "policing by authority," one step (albeit a large one) short of requiring a compliant population.

Now you're starting to sound like an arch-libertarian on this matter.

Odd that one can believe in a specific and strong set of laws and still believe they are supposed to reflect a higher set of rights rather than controls over behavior.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be confused with a libertarian if we spent more than 5 minutes chatting, although some might think I tend to be arch at times.  If I had even a glimmer of what "anarcho-syndacalist" means, I might be able to figure out if I am one, but I do lean toward Monty Python.

[Fenring]

Fox News ran Photo-shopped images in coverage of Seattle’s protests
Huge breach in ethics... I wonder if anyone will get fired.  Not going to bet on it

I have seen so many articles and exhibits of various news stations doing this that I consider it standard at this point. They fake footage, coverage, even setting up stages and effects.

[TheDrake]

Video is so easily manipulated, I ignore it unless it is raw and uncut. I prefer the written word.

[Kasandra]

I don't gather statistics on how often FOX manipulates photo, video and chyron images, but for the amount of time I watch FOX (which I do occasionally) vs. other networks, they do that far more often than any other network.  Every once in a while I tune into FOX on a perverse impulse to see if they will label a Republican legislator outed in an affair or as being gay with a (D) in the chyron, or follow up a Republican arrested for financial misconduct with a story about George Soros, even though he rarely does anything newsworthy.  The next time one of those things happens, bet a friend and you'll stand a decent chance of winning a beer.

[DonaldD]

Remember Martin Gugino, the elderly AntiFa agitator who fell to the ground when pushed back by the police?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaGb35_X0AAKo48.jpg

That pool of blood was evidently produced by a bag either in his mouth or under the mask. Premeditated all the way.

Gugino has fractured skull and cannot walk

Good thing Gugino had that hidden bag of blood to cushion his fall....

And now, because he was old and weak enough to allow himself to be pushed over and have his skull fractured (and maybe more because irresponsible people like wmLambert repost libelous and easily disproven conspiracy theories) Mr Gugino will not be able to return home due to receiving death threats