Here’s the Guardian’s live blog of the aftermath of a St Louis County Police officer shooting a black teenager:
- A 34 year old white officer, who had six years experience, encountered two suspects at the Mobile [sic] gas station after responding to report of a theft. He didn’t know that one of the men was armed. The officer fired three shots after the victim raised a pistol at arm’s length. Surveillance video from Mobile station appears to support the police version of events. Only one of the shots hit the victim. No shots were fired by the victim’s “defaced” 9mm pistol.
- Belmar said the shooting was a tragedy for the victim’s family and for police officer involved. The officer will “carry the weight” of this for the rest of his life, Belmar. He said the incident underscores the pressures police officers face.
- Two witnesses have given statements to the police. The police are looking for the friend of the victim who fled the scene.
- A crowd of up 300 protesters gathered at the Mobile gas station after the shooting and four arrests were made after police officers were assaulted. Several bricks were thrown at police officers and three “explosive devices” thought to be fireworks bound together were set off. One police officer was hurt in the leg from one of the explosions another was injured by a brick. Belmar said it was “disturbing” that protests came armed with bricks and explosives.
The officer had a body cam but it was turned off. It’s not clear if his car’s dashcam was on. The gas station had video surveillance, available at the link.
Lavocat
That’s what a shitload of bad faith will buy you:
zattarra
According to the article at ThinkProgress the dashcam was also turned off. Maybe departments need a rule – if you have a body cam or dash cam and they are turned off you are fired.
Lolis
Other news sources were saying this was just a routine check on a business. It also said no dashcam was on because the siren lights were not turned on.
Comrade Dread
And now we see the problem with the police and politicians letting cases of illegitimate use of force get off without repercussions: now the community automatically assumes the cops are lying and has no faith in their word in cases where there initially appears to be a legitimate use of force.
(I say initially because, come on, having your badge cam and your dash cam off during an encounter does raise some legitimate doubts.)
Shakezula
Apparently the dashcam is connected to the emergency lights. The lights weren’t on, so no dashcam.
Amir Khalid
Maybe the briefing at the start of the media conference will explain the turned-off body cam. (Or maybe it won’t, which would look pretty bad.)
Shakezula
@Comrade Dread:
One problem. The other, bigger problem is if you repeatedly demonstrate to a group of people there will be no repercussions when they kill, they will act accordingly.
D58826
Coul;d you really tell anything from the video? It was kinda long range
scottinnj
And another refreshing reminder of TEAM AMERICA F**K YEAH WE ARE AWESOME IN OUR AWESOMENESS:
No Way Out for Iraqis Who Helped U.S. in War
Iraqi Colleagues of U.S. Troops Are Marked for Death by Islamic State
http://www.wsj.com/articles/no-way-out-for-iraqis-who-helped-u-s-in-war-1419378170?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
John Cole +0
It sure looked like he pointed a gun. No excuse for the body cam and dashcam, though.
mai naem mobile
I’m sure we’re going to find out the guy who was shot, overgrazed at the local Kroeger and also stole an ipod from a pawn shop when he was 11. Also too, he had two of four traffic tickets that he didn’t take care of in time.
Mandalay
In Houston yesterday:
There is so much wrong and evil going on in this story:
First, just as with Michael Brown, the murderer’s claim is that an unarmed black man decided to charge a person pointing a gun at them. And then there is the familiar “he-was-going-for-his-gun-so-I-had-to-shoot-him” justification. How plausible is it that an unarmed person would put their hand in their waistband and charge a person pointing a gun at hem?
And then there are the systemic issues that allow this scenario to replay time after time:
The entire system is rotten to the core. It is carefully designed to guarantee that Houston cops can murder black people with impunity.
D58826
It almost sounds like they have a prepared script to work from. The same sequence of actions over and over again.
Cacti
@Lavocat:
That’s what a shitload of bad faith will buy you:
When you brutalize peaceful protests, you make the other kind inevitable.
beergoggles
I’m surprised they couldn’t find any crack to sprinkle all over him while he was bleeding out.
And what’s with these people never calling EMS after they shoot someone and letting them bleed out? At that point it goes from self-defense to murder.
BruinKid
From the Post-Dispatch story:
I’m trying to reconcile his record of multiple assaults, armed robbery, weapons charges, and whatever “armed criminal action” means, with his dad saying he wasn’t violent at all, and that they didn’t have any guns around. And then the grandmother’s statement seems to imply she knew he did own a gun. Otherwise shouldn’t she be more surprised that the police said he even had a gun to draw on them in the first place?
Or maybe I’ve just been watching too many TV mystery shows.
ET
Something police don’t seem to understand is by blindly supporting bad actors they get no room in cases where they do need to use force.
Shalimar
Cops need to be suspended without pay when there is an incident and their body cam is turned off. If it turns out to be true that the surveillance footage supports his story, this can be a teaching tool for training. “You got lucky this time that the gas station has footage. As long as your decisions are reasonable, having the body cam is backup to support what you say. That way, we aren’t dealing with riots every time we kill someone. Turn it off, and citizens won’t believe us ever and we won’t be able to do our jobs properly without killing people. Which is not a valid option in every situation. I see your mind considering it. We can’t kill every single poor person. We don’t have a budget for that many bullets.”
Brendan in Charlotte
I’ve got no real problem with the dashcam being off – have several policemen in my family who confirm that the light bar has to be on for it to come on. But the bodycam being off bothers me to no end. If we can create a watch that keeps running using light and/or motion, we can create a bodycam that won’t need batteries. It needs to be recording from the time it’s taken out of the charger, until it’s placed back in it. Perhaps if they know that EVERYTHING they do will be filmed, they’ll stop doing it.
ETA: Shalimar above is spot on…
AndoChronic
@Comrade Dread: Agreed. If the account is truthful and accurate justifiable uses of force are going to be scrutinized more closely, which should happen. However, if a civilian uses justifiable lethal force in a similar situation what could they expect from bystanders in the current climate? I think this is just going to lead to people carrying more firepower/ammo to ward off more potentially violent people.
Mike in NC
2014: Year of the Shitty Cop
Cacti
@Mandalay:
The entire system is rotten to the core. It is carefully designed to guarantee that Houston cops can murder black people with impunity.
Then there’s the fact that American cops are trained to reflexively respond with lethal force as a first resort.
The entire nation of Germany, population 80.4 million, averages about 7 fatal police shootings annually. Harris County, TX, population 4.3 million, averages about 30.
The “Killed by Police” facebook page, that only went up in May 2013, has counted 1,450 suspect killings by US police in the past 19 months, and that’s just the ones that could be confirmed by independent news sources.
Mandalay
@BruinKid:
No, that’s not what he said. From your own post, he said “He was not a violent person, to our knowledge”.
Complete bullshit. Her statement didn’t imply that at all.
I think so.
PD IT
As someone who is currently reviewing body cams for our local PD, I can tell you that most body cams are poorly designed. Either they take 5 seconds to turn on and only have 2-3 hours of battery life / recording life ( thus cannot be left on) or cost about 45-60 grand per unit, making them out of reach for most departments. There desperately needs to be a cost effective, secure, easy to use, middle of the road tech solution.
Gravenstone
@beergoggles: Sorry, but the officer just shot one guy who he believed pointed a weapon at him, and had the second one take off. Not knowing whether the second guy was 1) armed or 2) still in the area, police are not going to call in EMS until the scene is secured, for the safety of the responding medics. Yeah, it sucks for the guy who got shot, but that’s the thinking here.
Butch
The entire attack on Eric Garner was caught on video. Why do we think cams are the magic answer?
Amir Khalid
Interesting, this: Per the latest post on the Guardian’s liveblog, the police officer who shot Antonio Martin wasn’t even wearing his body cam at the time. It was in the patrol car.
Villago Delenda Est
@Butch: Good point.
The entire gang culture of the “law enforcement officers” has to be destroyed.
BD of MN
My company’s trucks (semis) have a video system that records the road in front of the truck, it’s always on, recording a 30 second period, it’s triggered by a sensor so if there’s any sudden braking or over X g’s in a turn, it saves the video and automatically sends it to the safety department. I get videos emailed to me almost every day of idiots pulling in front of our trucks, and of my idiot drivers fading off the lane and jerking it back (just like South Dakota). We’ve had this system installed for a couple of years already.
So the technology already exists to just leave the damn cameras on and record a couple of minutes of video all the time. Why doesn’t it get used this way? I can only wonder….
Cacti
@Butch:
Video isn’t a cure all, but it most definitely can help exonerate the innocent.
I can’t link right now, but look up the case Marcus Jeter, a black man from New Jersey who would otherwise be sitting in prison if it weren’t for video showing that he didn’t resist arrest, assault an officer, or attempt to elude the two crooked Bloomfield, NJ cops who tried to frame him.
J.D. Rhoades
@BruinKid:
This happens all the time. I’ve had clients with a record of violent crime as long as your arm, and their families will swear up and down how peaceful they are.
Kylroy
@Cacti: And if the cop actually had a good reason to shoot somebody, it’ll show that too. But that would imply cops don’t have carte blanche to blow away any black man they want, and they really don’t want that.
Mandalay
@Butch:
I’m not sure that is a widely held view, and it is unfortunate that some are being defeatist about the idea simply because of Eric Garner’s death. My concern is that the wider use of cams will cause all the other institutional issues that also need to be addressed being ignored.
The use of cams will make an awful situation better, but is only one change of many required to reduce cop-on-citizen violence.
Unabogie
@Lavocat:
I was just going to say the same thing, but with more words.
J.D. Rhoades
@Cacti:
OTOH, a friend of mine, who I know from his days in animal control, is a retired German cop who used to work in Frankfurt. I asked him the biggest difference between American and German policing, and he said “In Germany, if they run, we can shoot them.”
Mandalay
This police killing in SD last Friday is a good example of where a body cam would be useful:
Yet another example of someone allegedly charging a cop who was pointing a gun at them. Cams won’t resolve everything, but they should be pretty useful in resolving whether someone actually charged a cop or not.
KG
for what it’s worth, it appears that the officer didn’t actually have a body cam.
@Mandalay:
Well, it is entirely plausible that an unarmed person would reach for their waistband because that is close to a pocket, which is where people tend to keep ID. As for charging a person who is pointing a gun at them, much less likely. Of course, walking towards a cop while reaching for your ID is something that might seem reasonable if you’re not expecting to be shot.
KG
@Butch: in theory, it is the observer effect. people tend to modify or improve their actions when they are aware they are being observed. in practice? who knows. if nothing else, it serves as evidence that can (and should) be used to remove cops illegally acting under color of law or color of authority.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shalimar: Unfortunately, the training scenario you describe is what a reasonable, professional police department would do with such material.
There is little evidence that there are many reasonable, professional police departments in this country at this point in time.
Armed gangs of enforcers for the 1%. That’s what they are.
Fergus Wooster
@Mandalay: Yeah. . . Houston is worse than some (most?).
Anecdotally, I had a killer Houston cop marry into my family some time ago (long since divorced out, thank FSM).
He had killed a black male at a traffic stop. Turned out to be his third “questionable” shooting (all similar demographically), but this guy’s family was connected in the local church and raised hell. He was pushed out of the force, but no charges, and I think he won the civil suit.
Worst part: It was his favorite thing to talk about. He’d joke about it. At Thanksgiving, a relative mentions his car breaking down at a certain intersection – which was apparently the crime scene. Ex-cop pipes up: “Hey, is my cross still there??”
Still makes my skin crawl.
lamh36
Off Duty Black Officers In New York Say They Fear Fellow Cops http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/off-duty-black-cops-nypd_n_6373496.html via @HuffPostCrime
lamh36
From the article I believe they are looking to see if anyone who is currently on the force was there. LAPD we know has a history si I can see them trying to get ahead of the story here
.
LAPD launches investigation into “Dead, Dead Michael Brown” song sung at retired cop’s party: http://t.co/WkFQPVuE2F http://t.co/mBH0bOgBCy
kc
@Butch:
They’re not a “magic answer.” Otoh, it was dashcam video that showed what really happened in a recent incident in SC, where a trooper shot an unarmed man. The video showed that the trooper’s story was … embellished.
Gindy51
@AndoChronic: And the NRA and gun industry rejoices yet again.
lamh36
I guses the underlying question I’m hearing from people is not the fact he had a gun, but the comparison to cases where white assailants are opening pointing guns and in some cases actyall shooting or assaulting police or authority figures and not being automatically shot to death.
I mean the question can be asked does a cop automatically feel more threatened by a Black man with a gun or a white man with a gun?
You may have already guessed my answer?
Mandalay
@KG:
I don’t think that is “entirely plausible” at all in that particular story; the victim had already struggled with the cop, run away, and had a gun pointed at him.
Regardless of who was right and who was wrong, once the situation had escalated that far there is no way that the cop or the victim gave a flying fuck about ID, and anyone reaching for their waistband or pocket while a cop’s gun is pointed at them is courting disaster.
D58826
@KG: I realize that the amount of training that cops get is open to question. I have wondered for awhile do cops ever get training in what it is like to be on the other end of the encounter. In other words reaching for your id and walking toward the cop might be a very natural thing to do but if the cop is trained to view that as a threat then you have a shooting. When confronted with a cop and a gun, esp. if the cop is in plainclothes, a person is not always going to react they way they do on TV, i.e. instantly freeze or drop to the ground.
Mnemosyne
@Gravenstone:
I can’t figure out where this report came from, but a news anchor on the radio this morning said that the family is saying that the “second man” was Martin’s girlfriend.
KG
@Mandalay:@D58826: I was speaking more generally rather than about a particular situation. it’s not hard to envision a situation where someone going for ID meets a cop with an itchy trigger finger. Unfortunately, logic and reason don’t seem to apply, evidenced (in part) by the default cop response of “do what I tell you and you won’t get shot”.
ETA: as for training, there’s this hopeful story. something similar in Philly too.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Well, those cops are certainly trained and observant. Now I’m sure he had a gun.
BTW, I sent you an email at your blog.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Awesome, thanks! I can’t check it at work, but I’ll check it when I get home tonight.
samiam
Jesus on a stick there are a lot of reactionary morons in this thread. I bet they sure feel like idiots now that the video is out and clearly shows this was justified. At least Markymux showed some restraint in his post. The college student (or high school?) is growing up and might even manage to be credible some day.
No worries, the angry reactionary mob will just move on to the next shiny object.
samiam
Jesus on a stick there are a lot of reactionary mor0ns in this thread. I bet they sure feel like idiots now that the video is out and clearly shows this was justified. At least Markymux showed some restraint in his post. The college student (or high school?) is growing up and might even manage to be credible some day.
No worries, the angry reactionary mob will just move on to the next shiny object.
Unabogie
@samiam:
Jesus on a stick you are a flaming asshole.
Mandalay
@KG:
That’s good to know. Things are looking up in SC as well:
As individual communities nationwide create success stories from their revised policies, the pressure will grow on the communities that continue to allow cops to murder.
Southern Beale
Some jackasses with Occupy Wall Street are posting on FB that the officer “shot an unarmed black teenager.” When clearly that’s not what happened.
Ilya
@lamh36: I’m pretty sure if you pull out a gun and point it at a cop, as the man clearly did in the gas station video, you’ll get shot dead regardless of race. Hell, if you do that in front of anyone, you may get shot dead if they’re packing and nobody would blame the shooter.
BruinKid
@Ilya: Yeah, other than the Bundy Ranch standoff. Of course, the Tea Party nutjobs there also had the high ground, thick concrete barriers protecting them so they couldn’t get shot back at easily, and well over 1,000 armed supporters there, vastly outnumbering the police. And quite a few of those supporters were former police and military, so they also had at least some training in police tactics.
Shalimar
@samiam: You mean the video that is referred to in the excerpt and in MisterMix’s comment, and is available to view at the link? Thanks. If not for you, we never would have known what fools we were for not noticing the surveillance video.
Dumbass.
Gian
@BruinKid:
I’m not sure about their numbers, but the political fallout from sending in tanks would’ve been a disaster, and it’s important to remember that the Bundy supporters were using human shields in the form of women and children. I do wish that the Feds had identified some of them and waited a couple months and arrested them by surprise for using a gun to obstruct federal officers attempting to perform their duties, or whatever the statute would be for it.
Last week a CHP officer shot and killed a teen in Humboldt Co.
http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/chp-officer-involved-in-humboldt-co-shooting-identified/30360560
but that one seems pretty well justified as the kid hacked the cop with a machete.
http://www.times-standard.com/general-news/20141219/chp-officer-attacked-with-machete-before-fatal-shooting/1?source=most_viewed
El Cruzado
@Cacti: Battery life is the biggest problem left unsolved. A camera attached to a truck can just use the truck battery’s juice. A commercial pocket-sized camera that can record for more than a couple hours at a time for a reasonable price is current bleeding edge technology, with poor battery life and lousy software.
Mnemosyne
@El Cruzado:
I wonder if there’s a way to incorporate a battery pack into a bulletproof vest. At the back would probably be safest, for obvious reasons.
brantl
There are a whole bunch of circumstances for it to be desirable for the dash camera to be on, when the light bar is off. That’s bullshit. The best way to have the thing activated is either when the light bar is on, or the car is stopped, but left on, which would mean that they knew they wanted the camera on, because they were doing something that required the camera. That video doesn’t show me shit, I don’t know about the rest of you.
Ilya
@BruinKid: Are you being stupid on purpose? There’s a big difference between pulling a gun out on a cop who is questioning you, as the gas station video clearly shows, and standing around with a gun at a demonstration trying to look intimidating. I have the right to be naked in a parade. I do not have the right to flash people in the street.
Fred
Just read a post by Digby at Hullabaloo. “More Police Professionalism” It’s worth checking out.
I’m rereading “Schindler’s Ark”, the book that was made into the movie “Schindler’s List”. Reading about the self righteousness of the SS is chilling. Certainly the NYPD are no SS but the attitude of infallibility against all moral argument to the contrary runs in the same vein. The boys in blue are on the side of the angels so anything they do must be right so no one has the right to question their actions or motives.
And then there is the racial component and the political power the police wield.
Check out the Digby piece.