Fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks

[GUBU]

It means fuck all...

It might work with butterflies and unicorns - but enforcing laws on humans who are not cooperative requires force - sometimes deadly.

It’s worked in the UK (with a few admitted bobbles) for more than 150 years. You seem unwilling to look it up, so allow me to be of service.

The basic idea of policing with consent is that cops behave in a manner that makes people want to have them around. It means behaving with professionalism, restraint, integrity and accountability. 

What it does NOT mean is that cops are prohibited from using force or deadly force, that they should stand idly by while you are playing out your rape and murder fantasies. Force is not only sometimes an option, sometimes it is the only option.

If Brooks had been passed out drunk in a drive-through in the UK, the most likely outcome is that the cops would have driven him home to sleep it off. 

You’d do well to look up ‘Peelian Principles’ to get a better idea of policing by consent.

Boru

Hell, it worked in Ireland in the middle of a civil war, and later when at least five terrorist organisations were operating in the state during the Troubles.

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DUIs are INVARIABLY arrested in the UK, these days anyway. Driven home to sleep it off....highly doubtful. Officers are not routinely armed with guns which rather levels the playing field and friendlies things up compared to the situation in the states.

He wasn'd driving, nor was he drunk in charge. He was sleeping off a session in his car. Big difference.

[The Grand Nudger]

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks the difference is. The police dept in question is currently defending itself against allegations that officers are threatening the lives of citizens with tazers by stating that tazers are not lethal weapons, and therefore present no legally actionable or credibly arguable threat to life.

They cannot demand such statements made against them be dismissed with prejudice, but refer to such statements when justifying a murder. The attorney for the family has invited the police dept to decide which side of their bad faith argument it would like to proceed with. Full stop.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks the difference is.  The police dept in question is currently defending itself against allegations that officers are threatening the lives of citizens with tazers by stating that tazers are not lethal weapons, and therefore present no legally actionable or credibly arguable threat to life.  

They cannot demand such statements made against them be dismissed with prejudice, but refer to such statements when justifying a murder.  Full stop.

Then they’re in one helluva bind. If tasers don’t present a credible threat to life, there was no justification for shooting Brooks when he pointed the taser. If tasers DO present such a threat, then Brooks was fully justified in running off when they threatened to taser him, and the cops had no justification for shooting him.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

-and they'll have an entire mess of civil and criminal complaints boosted in the process. In neither scenario is a person allowed to run from the police, but that's small potatoes compared to what's at stake on the issue of tazers. Cops are absolutely empowered to threaten life, with guns or with tazers. However, tazers are commonly employed when shooting someone would not be justifiable.

If it turns out that the police would like to save a murderer-in-blue by claiming that the use of a tazer and the use of a firearm are equivalent examples of force - they're shooting their own dicks off.

They're going to go with Brick Hands McHostage Taker The Dangerous Drunk who got what was coming - because they don't want to have to stop tazing the shit out of people. They would prefer to lie, and peddle racist tropes in the process, than stop tazing people, or, for that matter, stop shooting people.

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This is a good time to pause and explain institutional and systemic racism, with the example above. Individual racism, if the cop in question had a hood in his closet, is overt and easily recognized. Institutional racism is subtle and often an artifact of some other respectable process or force, particularly in social or political institutions.

The racism involved here is not the point, not the end goal. It is not overt. It's just an instrument through which law enforcement can maintain some tool it finds useful in it's duties. In that law enforcement finds it useful in so many ways and so many contexts, despite it (allegedly) never being the point, it becomes systemic.

That's why it's pointless on the one hand to look for a klan hood in the officers closet - he's not personally doing all that shit...and otoh, why the system the officer works for literally is the hood in his closet. That system has to kill a man twice, first in body, and then in character - in order to maintain the status quo.

[onlinebiker]

Nit picking -

Welcome to the wonderful world defined by lawyers.....

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Nit picking -

Welcome to the wonderful world defined by lawyers.....

I notice you haven't explained the difference between 'less than lethal' and 'non-lethal'. Is that because there isn't one?

Boru

I have a fucking life ya know. I do not sit on my ass all day monitoring this forum.


Each state has it's own classifications of weapons.

HERE IN MICHIGAN - tasers got stuck sort of in their own class for classification within the concealed carry laws. The legislators couldn't justify requiring special training for non-lethal self defense - so "less than lethal". Sort of like rubber bullets - not intended to kill when used properly (shot low) - but a head shot can kill. Only when they came up with that did they allow CCW holders to take the training and carry a tas.er.

Since then - they have muddied the waters by trying to legalize the use of stun guns. (A taser works at a distance - a stun gun has to make direct contact) The legislation called stun guns as non-lethal as well as tasers. 

Is there a difference?

Probably - they charge extra for whichever one you want... 

But realistically - no.

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He wasn'd driving, nor was he drunk in charge.  He was sleeping off a session in his car.  Big difference.

The guy was in a drive thru lane in a fast food joint with the engine running.

By your logic if a guy gets shitfaced and passes out driving and kills someone - he isn't guilty of anything - because he wasn't driving - he was just sleeping it off...

[The Grand Nudger]

Brooks had bricks for hands, he's a hostage taker, might have shot up a school, and now we hear that he plowed his car into someone while drunk.

[Cecelia]

I didn't realize we live in Minority Report, where precogs knew what was going to happen, and therefore justifies the murder of a man who was drunk.

[The Grand Nudger]

Law enforcement already uses predictive analysis, best believe they'd use a precog, even if the precog wasn't actually precognitive.

OFC they would. It's a tough job and the stakes are high. As an institution, they will aggressively pursue and fight to maintain the use of anything they deem useful, for any reason.

...but it wouldn't be a lone cop from within the institution on a frantic crusade to clear his own name that toppled it. It would be a mound of dead bodies and incarcerated pre-crimers. So, pretty much what we're looking at today.

[onlinebiker]

I didn't realize we live in Minority Report, where precogs knew what was going to happen, and therefore justifies the murder of a man who was drunk.

Why do you think it was murder?

[The Architect Of Fate]

So let me get this straight Brooks gets gunned down like a dog .But look how reluctant they are too shoot this guy .