Turn on cable news, as they are about to show the bodycam video.
The cop has been indicted for murder.
This post is in: #BLM #M4BL, Shitty Cops
Turn on cable news, as they are about to show the bodycam video.
The cop has been indicted for murder.
Comments are closed.
Jeffro
about to be a busy news day…
http://www.msnbc.com/newsnation/watch/reports-of-plane-wreckage-near-french-island-493427779627
Dan
Prosecutor Deters: “This office has probably reviewed upwards of hundreds of police shootings, and this is the first time that we’ve thought this is without question a murder.”
so yeah, I’m prepared for the video to be *real* bad.
Karen in GA
@Jeffro: CNN will be all over that.
I don’t have it in me to watch the bodycam video. I just don’t.
muddy
CNN is talking about Iran. MSNBC has the prosecutor speaking, he seems good.
Elizabelle
@Karen in GA: Yup. CNN is all about the plane debris, Iran deal, and Mullah Omar, he dead.
Haven’t seen any mention of Cincy and Tensing. Don’t know why not …
oldster
I am very happy they got an indictment.
I would like to think that this reflects a broader shift away from unthinking deference to uniformed men with guns. Let’s hope.
But isn’t this itself a sign of something really messed up?
“This office has probably reviewed upwards of hundreds of police shootings”
Upwards of hundreds, just in one mid-size midwestern town. That’s the real problem. Hundreds and hundreds of police shootings.
Maybe a lot more murder indictments, over time, will start to bring that down.
Elizabelle
@Karen in GA: Yup. CNN is all about the plane debris, Iran deal, and Mullah Omar, he dead.
Haven’t seen any mention of Cincy and Tensing. Don’t know why not …
ETA: Oh, and some dude was arrested for ISIS ISIS ISIS. That’s way more important …
Another Holocene Human
@muddy: this msnbc streaming is working for me, no cable company footsie:
http://www.hulkusc.com/watch-msnbc-live-streaming/
(chrome with ghostery and yes some bad add-ins are blocked)
flukebucket
I guess we have heard the last of Cecil and the dentist for a while.
JPL
This is chicken shit stuff, wow. The Prosecutor really doesn’t like campus police.
Jeffro
@JPL: Yeah, I wish he would not do that…that and the comment (to a reporter) about “You know how there are people in every profession who just shouldn’t be there?” I don’t want this cop getting off due to the prosecutors prejudicing the jury or anything like that. I know it is tough but just recite the facts and end the conference.
MattF
@oldster: Well, there was a bodycam. My guess is that some things become obvious when you see them with your own lyin’ eyes.
Another Holocene Human
The prosecutor was really interesting. Said a lot of good things.
Jeffro
Whew…and w/ a shot at “goofy judges” (in regards to lesser included offenses)…he’s out of there.
MobiusKlein
@oldster: hundreds of shootings does not mean hundreds of deaths.
I would hope that every time a cop shoots at a suspect, there would be a review of the action to understand what happened.
JPL
@Jeffro: I was texting my son and mentioned that I have never watched a news conference like this.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: Yeah, that was pretty glaring.
Of course I don’t like them either … yet to interact with campus police who weren’t contemptible.
Laertes
@Jeffro:
He’s the prosecutor, not a judge. Are you sure it’s inappropriate for him to say mean things about the defendant?
Another Holocene Human
@oldster: I thought that was the whole state?
No doubt, American cops shoot too many people.
Amir Khalid
@flukebucket:
Not quite, I think. While it doesn’t quite have the enormity of a white policeman gratuitously killing an unarmed black man, the similarly gratuitous killing of Cecil the lion is not a trivial matter.
lol
@Laertes:
Saw a lot of that in Baltimore about Mosby. “She’s biased against the defendants!” Well, no shit. It’s her fucking job. They’re really just upset that they’re being treated like any other murderer and not getting special treatment.
Elizabelle
NY Times just sent out a news alert re the Cincy indictment.
No idea what CNN is doing. It’s “Wolf”, and that’s must dodge TV for me. Enough to send me back to Fox watching (kidding).
ETA: CNN covering Cincy video now.
kc
Oh, Lord.
Another Holocene Human
@lol: Maybe it was a concern about tainting the juror pool, which is important because they can make these cases drag out for years with changes of venue and mistrials and appeals and shit.
I don’t know what the answer is.
But, yeah, what you said, statewide and federal prosecutors always hit the cameras and talk about how the person they indicted is a terrible person and a menace to society.
EBT
So the prosecution is going after the cop that stated he saw Tensing being dragged right? Lying like that to cover a murder sure sounds like accessory after the fact.
Laertes
NYTimes: “A third officer, he wrote, said he had seen Officer Tensing being dragged.”
If the body camera video doesn’t back him up, third officer needs to be facing charges himself.
celticdragonchick
So how long before Officer Tensing is on Hannity getting groomed to be the 17th GOP candidate for the Presdiency?
I say 3 days.
kindness
Is there a Listserve right wing cops can view to coordinate the killing of minorities?
Sure seems like it.
Gravenstone
@Karen in GA:
You’re not kidding. Just popped by CNN.com and no mention of the Cincy situation. The plane parts discovery, on the other hand – BANNER HEADLINE!!!
celticdragonchick
@Laertes:
That thin blue line just keeps going.
Another Holocene Human
MSNBC has moved on to Fattah. It’s annoying for our party but unfortunately this kind of corruption happens when you have gerrymandered 80%+ districts. Your dem incumbent has to be the darling of bosses and there is no serious challenge, so you get machine corruption.
I think PA was like FL in sending more R’s to DC than the popular vote would indicate, due to gerrymandering.
celticdragonchick
@kindness:
It’s called Policeone.com…now off limits to “civilians”.
Another Holocene Human
@kindness: PoliceOne, I think it is called.
Kathleen
@JPL: A Channel 5 News anchor said in 27 years of covering Cincinnati she’s never seen Joe Deters this mad. He’s always seemed to me to be a hard ass right winger. I was shocked at the news conference. I could not watch the video (nor did the anchor I just quoted).
Also, too, as side note, I knew UC cops had another questionable incident and Deters referred to it – a UC cop tasered a UC student who then died.
Jeffro
@Laertes: @lol: I’m no expert here, it just seems to me that I’d want to avoid saying qualitative things like “it was a chicken-sh!t stop” so that the defense won’t be able to use my own words against me when this thing goes to court. The facts here are certainly damning enough.
Prosecutor did make a good point about body cams: you’d think police would be all for them, since “9 times out of 10” (probably more than that) the footage clears the officer of any wrongdoing.
Zandar
The video shows Tensing pursuing DuBose, stopping him, asking a couple of questions, becoming more agitated, and then just immediately drawing his gun and killing Sam DuBose, point blank, dead, at the traffic stop.
DuBose did nothing. There was no “dragging”.
It was murder.
Another Holocene Human
@Laertes: They should have his job for lying, just like those cops in Seattle who lied on a transit operator who was, guess what, wearing a bodycam.
Another Holocene Human
oops, back to Tensing presser on MSNBC
Laertes
@Jeffro:
Seems to me there’s nothing new about prosecutors using rough language to describe defendants. This guy could dial it up several notches and still be nowhere near the treatment that defendants without badges get.
Laertes
is there a link yet to that bodycam video?
the Conster
Fucking lying cops. That’s why there’s no such thing as good cops.
NonyNony
@Zandar: Murder, and then an attempt to cover it up. I read a few things about other cops corroborating his story – if so they should also be up on some charges for the cover up.
Amir Khalid
@Gravenstone:
Boeing will know as soon as they see the photos if those wing parts are from a 777.
muddy
@Laertes: I read the whole video was not going to be released until tomorrow. Don’t know why.
The part they are showing on tv doesn’t show much.
ETA: Now I read it did all come out today, but they are not showing much of it of it due to “upsetting viewers”.
cintibud
@Zandar: Don’t have time to watch at work, sounds worse then the cop who shot the guy running away then planted evidence – is it?
(Feel dirty trying to compare one horrible situation with another)
Botsplainer
Something struck me about the surreality of all this – the victim was calmly interacting with Tensing, and had both hands in the window, visible. Tensing’ position was optimized for safety, about two feet behind the driver. When Officer Soggypanty shot him, it appeared to me that the car must’ve been in gear and running, and simply idled forward when the poor guy died.
Also, I hope there are real consequences for the fuckface that corroborated Officer Soggypanty’s lie.
And good on Deters for calling it a chickenshit stop. We need more honesty like that.
Another Holocene Human
@Kathleen:
Reminds me of a GOP pol in my town. Still trying to figure him out (but he’s a decent guy, for certain values of decent guy).
jon
What are the juries like in Cincinnatti? I just watched the bodycam footage and thought I spotted plenty of excuses for those not inclined to convict to see cause. I also saw a black man who knew damn well he wasn’t going to reach for his wallet with that cracker cop holding his gun, holstered or not. I’m white, and if I don’t have my ID and proof of insurance out by the time I’m pulled over, I would probably say I left it at home. Better to have to mail copies in than worry about reaching for something when the police are watching me.
cintibud
@Kathleen: I always thought Deters was a right wing nutcase, but isn’t he pushing for the pot legalization bill in Ohio?
ETA – my view of Deters had already softened over the past couple years
Another Holocene Human
Audrey Dubose live.
Laertes
This comment has been overtaken by events.
Jeffro
@Laertes: Didn’t say it was a new thing – I’m sure it happens all the time. Also not arguing with you about how some defendants without badges get treated, although that’s not what we were talking about here.
I was mentioning my surprise at the prosecutor’s comments and hoping they don’t adversely affect the cop getting put away to the fullest extent. I’m pretty sure we’re on the same side here, hm?
Zandar
@cintibud: He was shot without provocation whatsoever. Tensing just drew his gun and blasted him.
No warning. No reason. Just slaughter.
Elizabelle
Wish someone would ask Attorney Meara (?) if he feels he helped secure justice for Trayvon Martin.
I guess he gets a do over here.
muddy
@Laertes: I updated my post. I don’t know where one can see a longer version than they have shown on tv.
patrick II
Back when I went to college, our campus police did not carry guns. They mostly gave out parking tickets and quieted down overly boisterous parties. Of course back then (early seventies) people in general could not get gun permits and the campus cops weren’t worried some nineteen year old was going do draw down on them.
Kathleen
@muddy: No. Deters said rest of the video consisted of cops talking amongst themselves.
ruemara
You know, I’m not inclined to go anywhere without a custodial white person for every police encounter. What the fuck are you supposed to do? You can’t reach for a wallet or registration papers, put a car in gear, smoke, not without risking being shot.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: I always figured the parts would wash up in Western Australia.
scav
@Kathleen: “cops talking amongst themselves”? That could very well be most interesting. Esp. given the “collaboration” of “imagination”.
Kathleen
@cintibud: That I did not know (marijuana). Thanks for perspective. I need to do more research on my perceptions (just read a great piece on that linked on LGM).
The Moar You Know
CNN has a “breaking news” link that goes to CNNgo. For subscribers only.
Yeah, they’re Fox Part II. Not FoxLite.
Redshift
@Another Holocene Human: And Virginia, and…
One of the fascinating things about Virginia gerrymandering (don’t know about other states) is that the “safe” Dem districts are also the result of GOP gerrymandering – because the only way you can get more districts than your share of the vote justifies is by packing the opposition votes into a few districts.
To the “both sides do it” crowd, this is taken as evidence that Dem incumbents made a deal to keep their seats safe. It can be pretty infuriating to try to convince them otherwise.
Kathleen
@ruemara: Kay made some excellent points about that dynamic a few days ago. It amounts to expecting citizens to be able to micromanage a cop’s behavior like abused spouses have to do. That fear and uncertainty has to suck so much energy out of people. It’s evil and unnecessary.
cintibud
@Kathleen: @Kathleen: I always thought Deters was a right wing nutcase, but isn’t he pushing for the pot legalization bill in Ohio?
Of course, what we thought were right wing nut cases 10 years ago now are the “reasonable” republicans.
Another Holocene Human
@Redshift: We have one who really does do that in Florida. She thinks it’s necessary and I kind of understand where she’s coming from, but that messed up district is wrong.
celticdragonchick
The uniformed murderers of Tamir Rice still walk free.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, since that’s the nearest coastline. That the wing parts showed up off the coast of Africa makes me wonder if they really are from MH370.
Bill
Does anyone have a link for the actual body cam footage? I can’t find it online.
cmm
I’ve had a car pull off from me twice while I was on a traffic stop and at the window. The most terrifying one was when we got a call of a guy unconscious at the wheel at a stop sign. Car running, foot on brake, leaning in the window trying to get the key when he started awake and took his foot off the brake. I pulled back and jumped clear but the tire actually scuffed the toe of my boot. The other time the guy deliberately pulled off but I wasn’t leaning in quite so much so it was more off-pissing than pants-pissing. I’ve also seen other officers hanging on to cars trying to drive off, which is also terrifying. I was afraid in all the cases I was about to see a friend and colleague run over. One officer had major injuries to the leg when he was able to jump free, the others were okay.
You do have a very strong reaction to that. It is very scary and very infuriating. I certainly *wanted* to shoot at all those cars, because when you are started, scared, and pissed, you want to lash out. But I didn’t. And drive-offs happen fairly frequently; we don’t shoot at the cars. For one thing it’s against SOP unless it is very specific circumstances; for another we have that reinforced in training every year that we don’t shoot at moving vehicles except in very specific situations. After all, shooting the driver doesn’t stop the car so you haven’t changed the potentially lethal situation the way shooting a gunman would. The only situation I can see justifying shooting the driver through the window rather than letting go or jumping free is if the driver was somehow trying to hold you or prevent you from jumping loose or going so fast that you are going to be seriously injured or killed (though shooting the driver may not change that calculus), or maybe if some piece of equipment or something was stuck and the officer CAN’T jump free and the driver is not stopping the car or yielding to verbal commands.
Mr. Dubose should be alive; driving off from a traffic stop is not a death penalty offense. I know many of my fellow officers will be screaming about it but I’m glad the office was indicted. Shooting people is the last thing you try, not the first thing, unless you are clear and imminent danger of serious injury or death yourself, or you are protecting someone who is.
I’m just so tired of this y’all. I’m tired of bad cops. I’m tired of the racism. I’m tired of trying to change the world. I’m tired of the comments that assume that all officers are like this (though god knows it has to feel that way with all the news stories right now–it feels that way to ME and I have personal experience that I know says otherwise), that officers are all thugs, bullies, authoritarians. I kind of want to stop following these stories online, but it’s important to know what’s going on out there, and what is affecting how people are going to see and interact with me. And it’s important to listen to and understand the fears and angers out there in the public. I just don’t know how much longer I can do this. I’m on one side of the line, and I know what it’s like for us and the risks and dangers we are always up against (2 cops shot this week by people during traffic stops — no scratch that, 2 cops killed this week being shot by people during traffic stops. There could have been others injured but not killed that didn’t make the news). But I hear the anguish and anger and fear from the parents I know, from my friends and neighbors in my community, from the activists online and…I just don’t know.
I’m just tired.
jl
@Amir Khalid: Would go to W Australia only if the plane crashed very close to shore. Further out, would be caught in Indian Ocean current that would flow counterclockwise north, then west, then turn south towards Madagascar. So, could be from the plane.
Re the police murder, which looks like is what it was, sounds horrible. The poor guy did not even move and the campus cop just lost it and shot him? Why? That is horrible.
Edit: not clear to me whether car moved because cop shot the guy, or cop shot because the care moved. I guess I’ll read a reliable story, like others, not eager to watch the video, tough eventually I break down and watch them…
JPL
@cmm: The prosecutor today made a step in the right direction, when he said that the person should not have been a police officer.
kc
@Bill:
Here it is.
I actually can’t tell what happens at the moment of the shooting.
inkadu
The press doesn’t cover it until there’s a riot. Then they ask why people riot.
I wonder if Wolf Blitzer is going to be shocked again.
Redshift
@Another Holocene Human: There’s some horse trading between incumbents during redistricting here in VA, but it’s around the margins, not over the major composition of the districts.
Another Holocene Human
The case is so fucked up. Pinhead cop gets pissed off and murders somebody.
Elizabelle
@cmm: Hard job, and some people who don’t belong in it are making life harder for you.
Appears CNN about to run “graphic, difficult to watch” footage.
Last, am glad Samuel’s sister spoke out on the character assassination of her brother that preceded today’s indictment.
Reminds me anew of Ferguson and thug Michael Brown.
Hard to watch the footage, knowing it’s the last moments of Mr. DuBose’s life.
Another Holocene Human
@Redshift: Ours joined lawsuits over the districting. Yeah. It’s Florida.
Bill
@kc: @kc:
Thanks for the link. I actually found it myself too: http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/watch-body-cam-video-released-in-sam-dubose-shooting
Wow is that hard to watch. It looks like the guy starts his car and tries to drive away, and the cop responds by shooting him in the head.
Another Holocene Human
Fourth Black woman found dead in jail cell.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/07/28/3685435/fourth-black-woman-found-dead-jail-cell-since-mid-july/
inkadu
@cmm: I get the exhaustion… but I can change the channel or stop checking facebook or not visit balloon juice. And thereby I don’t have to deal with it. That’s a privilege not everyone shares.
Not to tire you out even more, I don’t think people think all cops are bad, but perhaps the institution of policing is bad; that there is something about it that leads to power trips and ethical corruption. Just going by the reports of the other officers, there was no murder committed. How many of these incidents come to light because an officer steps forward? I think the number is pretty close to zero.
different-church-lady
@Laertes:
I prefer my prosecutors play it sober. It’s a huge-but-unspoken part of the reason we’re not talking about Senator Martha Coakley today.
lamh36
Kathleen
@cintibud: Ha! That is true. Although Deters was State Treasurer for awhile and his office was investigated for something I don’t remember (campaign finances?).
Botsplainer
Rewatched, larger format. Without blurring.
That was some shitty damn policing, even though DuBose wasn’t totally cooperative.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human: Holy shit, are they trying to get as many in as they can before their jig is up or something?
gelfling545
I can’t imagine that every person in a supervisory position in police/security agencies is not telling his/her people “Don’t you dare come back & tell me somebody’s dead & you can’t show me a clear reason why.” Whether they care about the well being of the populace or not they can’t be really wanting to go through this every week or so. At the very, very least it gets expensive. It seems like lots of officers have not heard this from their superiors yet and never pick up a newspaper or watch the news and think “Wow, it would suck to be that cop.”
MomSense
@Zandar:
Wow. Horrific.
rikyrah
I can’t watch the video.
Glad for the indictment.
different-church-lady
@lamh36: Because reporters are fucking stupid. SATSQ.
Humboldtblue
@Karen in GA: I am with you, I clicked on another link and just could not press play.
celticdragonchick
@cmm:
It starts with cops refusing to cover for bad behavior of others.
Retired Baltimore detective Michael Wood noted that when he was in the Marines, he was trained and expected to hold integrity over peer loyalty. He also said that was not at all the expectation when he joined the Baltimore PD. He listed a number of illegal things he witnessed or actually particpated in as an officer in Baltimore, including beatings, perjury and even defecating on furniture and clothing in suspects homes.
We need officers to be loyal to integrity and not to the department. Until that dynamic changes…nothing else can be changed.
Kathleen
@patrick II: When I was in college in Oregon (back in the 60’s/early 70’s) our campus police kept track of the head of the Black Student Union. Now my school was a conservative Catholic university. It’s where wealthy parents sent their kids to keep them safe from commie influences. We had about oh, 20 African American students who boarded. The sinister BSU president turned out to become a lawyer for a Beverly Hills Bank.
Betty Cracker
@cmm: You sound like a good cop. We need more like you, not fewer. For what it’s worth, I do think of you and your contributions here over the years when people bash all cops.
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: /She was awesome. Loved how she called out the media.
kc
@Bill:
Yeah, I can’t tell if he tries to drive off or the car just lurches. Then all of a sudden there’s a gun …
Germy Shoemangler
@Kathleen: 20 years ago SUNY Oneonta had a black list
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/27/nyregion/college-town-in-uproar-over-black-list-search.html
A list of all black and hispanic students they gave to the state police.
different-church-lady
(redacted due to reading comprehension fail)
kc
@lamh36:
Christ, that’s obnoxious. If she wants to forgive, that’s her business, but for a reporter to ask her that, on the heels of her son’s death . . . “Why can’t you be like those people in Charleston?”
What an asshole reporter.
Kathleen
@cmm: Glad you are on the job. Take care of yourself.
Bitter Scribe
Damn. I didn’t even know about this one (or forgot about it if I did).
Apparently that scumbag cop tried to say that the car was “dragging” him when he shot. I hope he has fun in prison.
Germy Shoemangler
@Kathleen:
Getting their stories straight?
chopper
@cmm:
if i were a cop i would probably find all the talk about cops being a bunch of pushy authoritarians tiring.
of course, what i’d find even more tiring is the fact that those people more often than not have a real good fuckin point.
it’s gotta be hard to be a decent cop. it’s like you’re trying really hard to be what cops are supposed to be and meanwhile all these roided-up shooty assholes are constantly making you hate your decision to go into that line of work.
Another Holocene Human
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/07/20/3682407/trans-prisoner-raped-request-transfer-denied/
Why is a trans woman in the men’s prison? Even in countries we think are beneath us they actually segregate sexual minorities in their own units. That might not be politically correct but it’s better than this.
different-church-lady
@ruemara:
One of the best bits of advice I ever read was, when stopped don’t do anything with your hands. Just keep ’em in view on the steering wheel until asked to present something. Don’t go for the glove box the moment you pull over. After thinking about it I unilaterally added that I’ll announce what I’m reaching for before I do it: “The registration is in the glove box. I’m going to get it now.”
And I do that even though I don’t have a realistic fear of getting shot at a traffic stop.
inkadu
@cmm: I said “I get the exhaustion.” I can’t edit, but I’d like to amend it to say the exhaustion you and I have is very different — you do have to face it every day when you go into work. I’m glad you’re out there, doing a responsible job of policing; and that’s all I think anyone’s asking of the police; no need to save the world all on your lonesome.
jl
Watched the video. Looks like the cop just suddenly freaked out and shot the guy. Horrible.
ruemara
@cmm: I’m sorry you’re tired, but remember, a lot of people are dead. What you and fellow good cops need to do is start banding together to push police unions & PBAs to stop defending bad guys. It’s not gonna stop without you.
Another Holocene Human
@different-church-lady: oh come on. there was also that little matter of who she chose to persecute.
not a typo.
ruemara
@different-church-lady: people are getting shot after going to get their requested id. I’m not just saying things, I’m referrin to actual incidents. Don’t mean to be sharp, but your statement carried an assumption.
jl
@different-church-lady: I’m a white guy and have only been stopped once or twice in last ten years. But I put my hands on the wheel and don’t move a muscle until the officer asks me to do something, and then if I need to get something, I say where it is before I reach for it.
But, as a recent shooting in South Carolina, where some black guy was pulled over for a very bogus reason, that did not help him. Hew was guilty of ‘ attempting to obey an officer’s request while black’ and shot. Luckily he survived and officer faced consequences.
Another Holocene Human
@ruemara: Blaming the union is overly simplistic even though many of their union leaders are scum too.
Look at Adrian Schoolcraft, what his commanders did to him. The culture is broken.
The union is just doing their job taking termination cases. It’s the arbitrators who keep giving them their jobs back.
different-church-lady
@ruemara: No assumption intended, sorry about leaving that impression.
Obviously no bit of advice would have saved DuBose from Tensing.
GxB
FWIW, just got back from lunch at a local bar. Good food, but meat-headed regular clientele, thus Fox noise was on. All they are talking about is the dead lion. Fortunately the volume was down and the subs were off, but I’ll assume they’re defending Palmer. As for this case, what is it now, one or two trials out of at least several dozen incidents in the last 12 months – still and appalling average, but baby steps I guess.
Paul in KY
@cmm: You have a tough job, that’s for sure.
If someone is pointing a gun at you, then shoot them. However, you must wait that extra time to ensure it really is a gun. Also, don’t shoot people that are far away & are holding a knife. I know a police officer was probably killed somewhere when it was thrown like a ninja, but that was just bad luck there & you need to try & disarm the person without shooting them.
If you are in close combat & they have a knife, shoot away.
Of course, you sound like a great cop & probably already follow these suggestions.
bemused
@lamh36:
That reporter needs to get some pushback on that bs.
Kathleen
@Germy Shoemangler: For crying out loud.
Bill
@different-church-lady:
I take this a step further and ask permission. “Is it ok if I get it?”
I am the whitest white guy you will ever meet. I was pulled over a few years ago for talking on my cell phone in a state where that’s apparently not allowed. (Obviously not the one I live in.) I was wearing a suit and tie at the time, and driving a completely non-threatening “Dadmobile.” Even under those circumstances I asked if it was ok if I reached in to my backseat to get my briefcase because my wallet/license was there.
It’s ridiculous that it comes to that, but I don’t want my kids having to hear from a cop who’s terrified of the 300 million guns we have floating around: “I’m sorry but I thought I saw a flash of metal.”
I can’t even imagine how much worse the fear is for someone who doesn’t enjoy all the cultural advantages I do.
Kathleen
@kc: We have quite a few of those in Cincinnati. That’s why I watch channel 5. (Broken record).
Kathleen
@Germy Shoemangler: Probably. Media is getting full video, so I’m assuming they’ll play the whole thing. I still can’t watch any of it.
Paul in KY
@Kathleen: Buwahahahhaha, now our BSU operative has them right where he wants them!!! Our 25 year plan has almost come to fruition! If only the campus police had investigated him more!!
chopper
@different-church-lady:
as soon as i get pulled over before officer friendly walks up i make sure the window is down, hands are at 10 and 2 and i have my license and registration in one hand. so i don’t have to make any moves at all.
a bit silly since i’m white but no use fucking around.
Kathleen
@Paul in KY: Yes! He’s probably now sneaking financial information to Putin from a Goldman Sachs.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
I have seen cops swear up and down on the message boards that a guy with a knife within 30 feet of you can kill you before you can shoot.
Maybe that guy is also a fucking ex-SpecOps operator with super skills…but the discussion always goes towards “How can I legally justify shooting” instead of “Did I need to draw my gun in the first place”.
hamletta
@kc: From what the news anchors have been saying, he didn’t drive off, he was already shot and his foot came off the brake.
lucslawyer
A question…do police have the right to open a car door and attempt to pull the driver from the vehicle if there is no immediate threat to the cop’s safety?
different-church-lady
@chopper:
The point the article was making was don’t move around the car before the cop gets to the window, as he/she doesn’t know what you’re reaching for.
The normal impulse would be to signal cooperation by having all expected items ready to go. What the advice was getting at was even though it’s counter-intuitive, that’s not a good thing from the cop’s point of view. The cop doesn’t know if it’s a registration or a gun coming out of that glove box.
celticdragonchick
The fucking sociopaths at Officer.com are on the case.
http://forums.officer.com/t200986/
dmbeaster
Here is the video.
Cop pulls over DuBose for missing front license plate. He may have suspected something more so it could be pretextual. Asks for license – DuBose says he does not have it on him. DuBose hands over a bottle of Gin that he had with him. Officer asks him to remove seat belt and starts to open door himself (suspicion of drinking and driving, open container – who knows what he is thinking, but he is obviously changing situation). DuBose grabs door and pulls it shut, and revs car and starts to drive off. Cop immediately reacts by pulling weapon and firing, hitting him in the head (though thankfully you cannot see it as video is jerky at that point). Cars moves off, but runs off road a short distance later as DuBose is dead. Video shows cop running up to crashed car.
Zandar’s description is not accurate. DuBose was clearing acting wrongfully (driving off in middle of stop), but shooting him in the head immediately in response is hardly right. I wonder how much the official response has to do with two things. Cop clearly lied in his report about being dragged as a reason to shoot him. At best, he had his hand on the door when it started to go down, but immediately pulled his weapon and fired as DuBose tried to drive off. Second, the local DA apparently hates the campus police, who universally seem to be subpar cops outside the normal thin blue line routine. So no reason to act protectful of them.
Shooting is a hasty reaction to DuBose doing something crazy. Its a homicide.
Another Holocene Human
I’m not a college administrator. But I thought closing the campus was just sad.
Another Holocene Human
@dmbeaster: The DA said basically who gives a fuck if he drove off over a chickenshit violation like that.
(If they had proof DuBose was drinking and driving they would have been crowing that to the rafters. Also.)
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: Unfortunately, especially for good guys like cmm, that shows the mentality right there.
Another Holocene Human
@different-church-lady: That’s ridiculous. I don’t keep my wallet in my back pocket because it hurts (and it’s supposed to be bad for you) so it might be in a bag in the back seats. And I’ve never been able to put my hands on my registration–in the glove box TYVM–by the time the cop got to my window.
dmbeaster
@jl: That South Carolina case was crazy. Black guy is out of the car at a gas station to get gas, and cop asks him to get his ID and registration. Guy makes a move to the car obviously to comply, and cop immediately shot him.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Hey, different Malaysian plane now, but Red Star TV (the Russian Army network) is now reporting that MH17 was shot down by a CIA agent named David L Stern, working as a reporter for the BBC.
The possible career change concerned me for a moment, until I remembered that the former NBA commissioner is David J Stern, not David L.
dmbeaster
@Another Holocene Human: The statements by the DA are odd. Its a chickenshit stop, but when the guy has a bottle of gin sitting by him in the car and cannot produce a license, that is weird. The stop changed character right away. DuBose fled in response, but you dont use deadly force when that happens.
cmm
Thanks. I don’t need the kudos, seriously. I’m just grateful to have a place where I can let this out when it gets too much.
Watched the video. A justifiable shooting COULD happen just that fast, IF an officer saw a gun in the dude’s hand. But he had his gun out and trigger pulled before you could even really register that the car was moving, let alone whether he himself was being dragged or was in danger. It looks to me like seeing him start the car and put it in gear was the shoot/don’t shoot moment.
That suggests to me that he was concerned that things were heading that way (and I would be too, because the guy was being evasive about his license). At that point he should have asked him to step out of the car or at least remove the keys from the ignition.
Now this is a sticky bit. I totally understand that people are nervous about being told to get out of the car and want to ask questions about whether they are being arrested etc. I 100% get that, and if I was a black driver, I would be too. But if an officer is wanting a person out of the car to forestall escape/fight options and for safety concerns, arguing and resisting getting out adds to the impression the officer has that the person is actually thinking about driving off and is stalling for time, which leads to the officer taking more aggressive control of the situation.
I’m not saying that’s what was going on here. I’m sort of thinking aloud based on my reaction being, yeah the driver was being squirrely about the situation, and I also would have been thinking that he is weighing the possibility of trying to drive off, so my response would have been ask him to take out the keys or step out to prevent a drive off. Or stop going on about the license; he doesn’t have it or won’t show it, so kill some time and get backup on scene by writing down whatever he gives as his name/dob etc. Or, in our state, attempting to conceal ID of a vehicle (as in using a tag that isn’t registered to the vehicle because the vehicle isn’t register, expired, or stolen) is a violation that can justify impounding the vehicle. Get him to step out because you are going to impound the vehicle. If there’s a legit reason for the tag you can always back off impounding, or cut him a break and let him park the car and walk away from it after you give him the ticket. At the end of the day, it’s a non-moving traffic violation–even if he does drive off, you have the rear tag (presumably which was correct?) and can probably track the guy down later, or he’ll get caught doing the same thing another day. It’s not the end of the world, though gung ho young cops act like it is and want to chase down every damn thing. ( I have an advantage in coming into this at age 37, I was already past the point where it was easier to see what was worth going all out for and what was an “eh, he’ll be out here on the same corner tomorrow” situation).
Point is, there were a lot of better ways to handle this. And while I do NOT think Mr.DuBose deserved to die for attempting to drive off, and while I absolutely do recognize the fears that many, many people have about interacting with the police as well as the anger at having to — there hasn’t been any disagreement that the stop itself was for an actual violation and it certainly does appear that he WAS attempting to drive off from the stop, which is another offense (in our jurisdiction it would be obstruction and fleeing/eluding). NONE of which justified shooting him, but damn I wish he had not opted to drive without his car and license being straight, and that he had not tried to drive off.
Though I absolutely recognize that plenty of people of color have cooperated 100% or did not resist in illegal ways (Sandra Bland) and have still ended up degraded, injured or dead. All I can do is make damn sure I don’t add to the numbers, and be as sure as I can that officers I supervise don’t either.
I do know that when I do get out of this line of work, I’m looking to get involved in some way to bring what I know and have experienced to some kind of work that helps bring about reform. I’m thinking that, like IA within departments or calling in another agency to work a wreck involving an officer, there needs to be an authority outside the individual departments that investigates police shootings and deaths in custody. Some places require it and some don’t, either at an agency (as part of SOP) level or by state law, but I think that it might need to become a standard state level agency requirement across the country, perhaps with automatic federal involvement (though that gets sticky, so does the increased possibility of good-ol-boys influence the more local such investigations stay). And though civilian review boards get a lot of side eye from cops (sometimes with justification), I think review boards made of a mix of active and retired officers, and non law enforcement civilians could help.
The vast majority of cops see things like the North Charleston shooting or this and think (of the officer) “Oh f- that guy. He’s going down and he should.” They may not say it to you, and too many of them go too far giving the benefit of the doubt in situations that are at all ambiguous — I’m appalled at how many continue to defend the officer who shot Mike Brown as doing *nothing wrong*. A review organization at one or more removes from the involved agency and officer would allow officers to express honest evaluations of interactions, particularly as cameras become more widespread.
cmm
Wow that was huge. Sorry for the blurt. Thanks for listening.
Meepers
@celticdragonchick: Sounds like we should arm cops with knives, then.
celticdragonchick
@Gin & Tonic:
Is that an SA-11 tracked SAM system in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Christ on a crutch. They aren’t even trying at this point. Sure, the CIA has fucking high altitude capable Russian tracked SAM launch vehicles and the associated radar search platform just waiting around to fucking use and pin on Putin.
scav
@Another Holocene Human: Students can be viewed as just as dangerously “riot” prone as the other “others” by the all-knowing authorities. Remember the pepper-spraying? (so don’t even have to go back to ’68 etc.) Silly peoples, believing the justice process working as described on the tin, that sort of thing.
kc
@hamletta:
I don’t understand why the cop’s hand would even be near his gun at this point.
Frankensteinbeck
@dmbeaster:
While you are technically correct, shooting someone in the head is a ‘hasty reaction’ of such outrageous, disgustingly incorrect scale that using that description offers him a fig leaf he does not deserve. In terms of justification of murder, attempting to drive off and sitting still doing nothing are equally insignificant.
Cluttered Mind
@different-church-lady: Even that might not work. Remember the guy who was stopped for DWB, then the officer asks him to get his license out, and proceeds to shoot him when he reaches into his pocket?
You can’t really win here no matter what you do. It seems like the moment an interaction with the police starts, the only question is how bad it’s going to be.
cmm
@ruemara: Unions are a northeastern and big city thing. I work in the deep south. We don’t have unions, contracts, or any kind of effective PBA organization. We do have a “union” that we can join and they are good for providing legal defense if needed, or assisting when there’s an internal affairs situation like a reprimand or a suspension. But they don’t get out and speak to the press or have pre-negotiated protections for all officers or anything like that. I’m torn on the unions because on one hand, those agencies that have the traditional unions do have a lot more protection for the grunts from the vagaries of administration politics, but OTOH their blustering in situations like Baltimore or Staten Island has been detrimental.
I know too many people are dead. That’s why I keep listening and caring and paying attention to Black Lives Matter and people like @deray on Twitter. And I mostly bite my tongue and try to avoid yelling “notallcops!” all the time. And when I can’t stand it anymore I whine here a little and appreciate that you guys give me a polite listen.
Paul in KY
@cmm: Another interesting post. Speaking as a civilian, I would never want my police officers to pull someone over solely for not having a front license plate (in a state where one is required). Getting someone for jaywalking would be a better use of time, IMO.
celticdragonchick
@cmm:
That’s a wild understatment.
Dr.McCoy
test
Had a VPN on, sorry.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
Speaking as a former soldier…civilian cops are still civilians. That’s why we call them “civilian law enforcement”.
I have no idea when and where this whole meme on cops calling everybody else ‘civilians’ except themselves started…but it’s a bad habit and it blurs the distinction between military and civilian peacetime law enforcement.
Wearing cammie BDU’s and “tacti-cool” body armor while pointing a tricked out AR10 sniper rifle at protesters DOES NOT MAKE A COP INTO A COIN SPECIALIST OPERATOR IN THE US ARMY.
Rant over.
dmbeaster
@Frankensteinbeck: Hasty reaction pretty much describes what happened. The consequence was horrific – but it stemmed from a split second reaction to the driver fleeing. Point and shoot, and hit him in the head as a result. Could have missed or only wounded him given the hastiness of the shoot. Its not a fig leaf but an accurate description of how it went down.
cmm
I can’t stand the loudmouth commenters on police news sites. PoliceOne is locked down to civilians for a legitimate reason, there are a lot of articles (not discussion boards but articles from trainers and specialists) on tactics and strategies for various situations that I sure don’t want the bad guys reading and planning for; they already learn way too much from all the police and forensic shows. But the commenters there are unbearable, though it always seems to be the same 15 or 20 guys on every article, and a lot of them are retired dinosaurs and it shows. And they all are right wing nutjobs when it comes to politics.
So I read the articles and stay far away from the comments. Those guys definitely reflect what a segment of the law enforcement population thinks but even a lot of cops can’t stand them.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Not even remotely credible, except maybe to our long-lost friend in Portland.
PaulW
they’re talking on Twitter about putting bodycams on EVERY cop now.
Problem is, this cop WAS wearing a bodycam and DuBose is STILL shot dead through the head, unarmed and in his car.
It’s not the bodycams that can solve this problem we are having NATIONWIDE of questionable arrests, bullsh-t jailings, and growing body count of mostly minority men AND women.
This is a problem of trigger-happy cops, lack of accountability and training, and an overeagerness by law enforcement to behave like bullies and murderers towards individuals and groups who are clearly no physical threat to anyone.
We are at the point where we can’t trust COPS with guns. How f-cked up are we a nation that’s already having a problem with heavily-armed gun nuts running around to where the “responsible” gun-carriers are getting worse?
shell
cmm,
Even the police say he didnt try to drive off in the middle of the stop, let alone ‘fleeing’. He was shot and then the car lurched forward.
lucslawyer
@cmm…does a police officer have the right to attempt to open a car door and physically remove a driver from the car if there is no present threat to his or her safety from the driver?
celticdragonchick
@cmm:
Civilian law enforcement officers are still civilians
If you are not a member of the 7 uniformed branches of federal service…YOU ARE A CIVILIAN.
By the by, the public was banned from Policeone because of trial sanctions against a female officer in Washington State who posted inflammatory media that was backtracked to her during a criminal case.
Policeone didn’t want defense attornies digging through comment databases. The ban happen within a week of the Washington State case.
Elizabelle
@cmm: Do police ever discuss among themselves the fear of policing a heavily armed population? Would seem to me that’s what’s behind a lot of these shootings. (That and DWB.)
300 million guns. That’s lunacy. What do police say, in private?
jl
@PaulW: I think you are too pessimistic. Most cops do not need body cams to keep their work high quality and careful. Some police who act badly will have enough presence of mind, through training, to change their behavior knowing there will be body cam evidence.
Some will only learn by example. The example here is that this malicious, or mentally unfit, or incompetent, cop is charged with murder.
That does not help the victim, and it is sad commentary on humanity, but the effect of body cams will work through that last sad channel too.
And a few police are so unsuited for their jobs, even this example will not work. But that is the case in any profression: some of the people should be in another line of work.
But, I do think body cams alone are not magic, also need better psychological screening and better training, and change in philosophy of policing in this country.
Gravenstone
@PaulW: The bodycam didn’t prevent the shooting, but it certainly seems to be a key in obtaining the indictment for murder. Knowing that there will be severe repercussions for official misbehavior can go a long way (in the long run, not likely to be a quick fix) in reining in the mindset that promotes that misbehavior.
dogwood
@shell:
I didn’t watch the video , but I did watch the prosecutor’s press conference. What pleased me the most about his statement was that he didn’t play the game of pointing out all the “mistakes” that Mr. Dubose made, which will be hashed over on cable news and blog sites. He was calm, clear and unequivocal that this was murder. He also urged the press to look at the video in slow motion where they will be able to see that the officer wasn’t dragged , and was never in any danger.
cmm
WRT knives, standard training is the 21 foot rule — someone can run at you and stab you from 21 feet or less, before you can draw and fire your gun. So if someone has a knife, I’m gonna at least have the gun out and be covering them while telling them to drop it. I’m willing to have a stand off til we can figure out how to get him/her to put the knife down or get someone close enough to tase or otherwise get them down, but if they start toward me, finger’s going to the trigger.
People scoff at knives compared to guns, and it is much less prevalent that officers killed in the line of duty here are stabbed — but that’s mainly because guns are so freely available. In other countries, line of duty deaths are usually from being stabbed, and the vests you see on UK cops are stab vests, not bulletproof ones like we have here. I and most cops are very careful about knives because 1) the Kevlar vests are overlays of many layers of mesh which stop (or at least slow down to the point of preventing serious injury) bullets, but a sharp knife can cut right through them and 2) a LOT of officers have had career-ending knife injuries because you tend to get cut on the hands or forearms, damaging nerves and tendons and destroying fine motor coordination to the point where you can no longer shoot a gun (or a taser, or operate pepper spray, or manipulate handcuffs). One of those things civiilians don’t hear about because they tend to be “treated and released” injuries that don’t even make the news — but we do.
So tell me what you think of this one: the most recent use of force incident that I was involved in was last Christmas Eve. If I had had to shoot the guy, the story would have been “officer shot unarmed man”. But this is what happened: I’m the first officer on scene, backup is on the way, and teenage daughter runs out of townhouse apartment screaming that guy is killing her mom. Daughter is freaked out and panicked but says that he’s been drinking all day and is in the upstairs bathroom beating the tar out of mom. I can hear noises and mom screaming in the house, and a male voice yelling. I go in with my gun drawn but held down by my leg, and get about a third of the way up the steps where I can see that the door is busted down and the guy is pulling the woman around the bathroom by her hair. I yell, police, let her go, and he looks and sees me. Drops her and comes to the top of the steps where I can see the wheels turning — he’s thinking about rushing me down the steps and trying to get past me to the open outside door at the bottom of the steps. I point the gun at him and tell him to sit the fuck down and not to move. He hesitates for a long long second, then sits. I keep him covered til the other officers get there a few seconds later and can handcuff him.
Now, if he had rushed me, what would have been the correct thing to do?
On one hand, I was correct in having gun out rather than taser (which I don’t carry anyway at this point because I am not certified for it) or pepper spray because given the totality of the circumstances (what the daughter told me, what I could hear) suggested that it was a potentially life threatening situation for the mom as well as for me, and you don’t want to need the time to swap out a lower level force for a higher level one. If he did rush me, there wasn’t room to step aside; the stairs were too narrow. If he hit me we would both fall down the steps; most likely I would be bruised but okay however …people do die from falling down stairs, especially if someone else is riding them down. I could also be knocked for a loop long enough for him to get my gun and shoot mom, the daughter, me or the other cops about to arrive on scene, or simply lose grip on the gun long enough for him to grab it. If I’m holding the gun there’s also a chance that I’ll pull the trigger while falling and shoot mom, the daughter, one of the other cops, or through the walls hitting someone asleep in the next apartment. And frankly, if he started to rush me and I pulled the trigger, forward momentum would take us both for the stairs ride anyway.
At the end of the day, I’m really, really glad he decided to sit down.
But that’s the kind of thing we deal with on the daily. That’s the kind of thing that I wake up from dreams about, or torture myself with when I have insomnia. Seven months later, and that was just one of those typical calls you don’t even tell war stories about later.
But what would you do differently (not become a cop isn’t an answer here)? And what would you think when you saw “white cop shoots unarmed black man in his own home on Christmas Eve” on the news?
different-church-lady
@PaulW: Multi-pronged problem. Body cams only address one prong, but that prong is still worth addressing.
As you’ve pointed out, body cams do not solve the problem of hair-trigger or racist cops. But they do give us a kind of recourse after the fact that we’ve not had in the past. In addition, they have an influence that might reduce (but by no means eliminate) the number of incidents.
The problem of hair-triggers and racism requires a different, concurrent solution, one based in biology rather than technology.
Complex problems are sometimes more easily solved by breaking them down into their constituent parts.
BobS
@Amir Khalid: It’s almost like they’re pulling this stuff out of their ass — unlike the convincing evidence the US government has produced.
BobS
@cmm: Would it have been possible to get yourself in a better position at the bottom of the steps while you waited for back-up?
cmm
Shell: he started the car and put it in gear. No he didn’t actually get to flee, but can you think of any other reason why he would do those two things?
I’m not gonna get into the whole civilians thing–that is linguistics. There is a difference between public safety (firefighters and EMTs use the civilian term too) and the rest of the population. I think the paramilitary aspect of policing is way overdone and when I use the term civilian I don’t mean to identify as military, or anything like the military. Just like people say to me, I could never do what you do, that’s how I feel about “real” military.
I get the distinction. But at the same time, sorry, y’all are civilians. If I’m at a traffic accident and someone who is an EMT, firefighter or military (active or retired, on or off duty) (or in that situation, doctor or nurse) approaches and offers to help, I’m gonna say, yeah, do X. If a well meaning anyone else does, I’m going to say thank, no, could you step back over there please? That’s what I mean by civilian. It also means that I’m not going to discuss how I will go into a school or movie theater in an active shooter situation with you, and I don’t want you or your gun nut third cousin who thinks Obama is coming for his AK reading the articles where we talk about how to handle that situation.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human:
You have to see the neighborhoods surrounding the college to understand the necessity for closure.
dmbeaster
@shell: Watch the video – he is clearly driving off when the incident happens. His right hand is turning the ignition to start the car. He is shot just as the car starts to move. It all happens in literally 2 or 3 seconds.
David in NY
@celticdragonchick:
There was some BS “study” 20 or 30 years ago that came to that “conclusion,” and they’ve been taught that ever since, even though it’s obviously nuts. I think that part of the idea is that you don’t have your gun out already, it may take a bit of time to get it out. But what if you have already taken it out (which you certainly will have done in the case that you ended up shooting the guy)? It takes no time at all to pull the trigger.
Ol'Froth
I’ve been in law enforcement for 23 years, and the worst thing DuBose seemed to do was refuse to get out of the car. Which is no reason to shoot him. I fail to see how Tensing thought he was going to be run over when he had good positioning, behind the driver’s side door. Its a car, not a hovercraft, and is incapable of pivoting over 90 degrees to the left while stationary in order to “run him over.” It looks like the car only speeds off after the shot is fired, which if its not in park is gonna happen once the dead man’s foot comes off the brake.
apocalipstick
@oldster: Cincinnati proper has a population of 300,000. It’s metro area is 2.2 million. That’s not mid-sized. Population is like wealth. Just because New York has 10 million doesn’t make 2 million mid-sized. Not really germane to the topic at hand, but as someone who lives in a truly rural area this annoys me for some reason.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: Since the US government wasn’t involved, why should it be producing evidence? Why would Russia be the only member of the UNSC to veto the resolution calling for an independent tribunal?
cmm
Bob S: Possibly but it would require walking down the steps backward while keeping him covered. That has its own risks, like maybe I won’t have to wait for him to knock me down the steps when I can fall down on my own! Plus — you are drunk, pissed, don’t want to go to jail, and don’t have a whole lot of respect for women, as you have just demonstrated by beating your girlfriend, and you see a female cop backing away from you — what are you likely to do?
I tell the officers I supervise all the time that there are definitely times to back away, buy time, or let it go til tomorrow (and Mr. Dubose and the officer in Cincinnati would be in better shape if that officer had decided to do any of those) but sometimes that is not the best option.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@cmm:
It becomes a vicious circle — bad cops shoot or abuse people during traffic stops, so citizens become convinced they need to defend themselves from bad cops during traffic stops, which means decent cops become afraid of citizens overreacting, so they overreact themselves, and around and around we go. I honestly don’t know how we stop the cycle, but having fewer guns on the street couldn’t hurt.
Kerry Reid
@cmm: No, thanks for sharing that.
Ol'Froth
@David in NY: You’re right that police are taught that, and its based on the time it takes the brain to recognize a leathal threat, draw the weapon, and fire. 30′ is ten yards. Go to your local football field, ten yards is a very short distance. That said, I’m shocked at how quickly a “routine” stop went to a killing. The officer and DuBois appear to be interacting normally, before Tensing tries to get him out of the car. Why try to get him out? He says he doesn’t have his license. I run into people who forget their license all the time. Just go back and run the name. If it comes back that he has a license, just tell him to remember it when he drives, makes things easier. If he’s suspended, cite for the violation and move on.
chopper
@different-church-lady:
depends i guess. last time i got pulled over i was in a moving truck with no rear window so it’s not like the cop could see me grabbing shit in the front seat before he sauntered up to the window.
pretty much every time i’ve got pulled over it’s taken like 2 minutes for the cop to walk up. radioing in i guess.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@cmm:
Okay, here’s what may be a silly question — why not shoot the tire, especially since the guy hadn’t even really taken his foot off the brake?
chopper
@dmbeaster:
yeah, that’s putting it mildly, innit?
cmm
Ol’ Froth: well hey, represent! I agree that if the officer isn’t standing close or leaning in, he’s fine and had no reason to shoot (and that looks like the case here). Sideswiping or running over the officer’s foot, or dragging him if he’s hanging on (and he should let go unless he can’t because he’s stuck somehow) is still a danger. But none of those things appeared to be in play.
I think the absolute best case scenario for the officer is that based on how evasive DuBose was with cooperating with the stop and the questions, the officer was over-anticipating something jumping off, and reacted without thinking when DuBose started the car and put it in gear. He’s still way wrong and his agency has a serious problem with either hiring or training or both in that case, and it would probably be manslaughter or negligent homicide and a large civil suit. And that’s the best case scenario. Otherwise he’s just a psycho who took the opportunity to kill someone he didn’t see as fully human, or has serious anger management issues, and shouldn’t have been anywhere near police work.
Cops like to say they would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6. That officer gets to have his chance. DuBose should have had the same.
celticdragonchick
@BobS:
That is what I was thinking. Back up to a better spot where the guy won’t have the degree of downward momentum advantage.
Bill
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
This has to be the answer.
If cops aren’t worried that every stop for speeding might result in a shooting, it has to reduce the tension between police and the public.
David in NY
@Ol’Froth: I didn’t see it at first, but I think @dmbeaster: is right, the driver puts his left hand on the door and starts the ignition with his right (he had turned the car off earlier). And as soon as he does that the officer yells something and shoots him and the car must go ahead until his foot comes off the gas, hard to tell anything but the officer is running after him.
I always think that some form of manslaughter is a more appropriate charge than murder in cases like this, the intent is a little muddier and the circumstances a bit confusing. But I’m hard put in this case (I’m a defense attorney) to come up with some belief that could have been reasonable on the part of the officer that would justify shooting the guy in the head. He pretty clearly knew the guy wasn’t reaching for a gun, because he obviously started the car with his right hand while his left was in sight. And the officer couldn’t think of what to say, because all he could come up with was that he’d been “dragged.” So this one looks like an intentional murder without any justification. Maybe I’d argue he didn’t mean to kill him, only to stop him, and the killing wasn’t intentional, so it’s only some lesser crime, manslaughter or aggravated assault, but at that point we’re just arguing about the sentence.
celticdragonchick
@cmm:
Then that’s your position. I still call it bullshit. If you didn’t do the time with me in Tongducheon, whatever…you don’t get to make like you have the same cache.
Ol'Froth
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Mostly for the same reason police are generally prohibited from shooting at moving vehicles. An out of control car has a pretty good chance of hitting and injuring or killing a bystander.
Betty Cracker
@Ol’Froth: I don’t fault Tensing for trying to get Dubose out of the car — Dubose had just handed the cop a bottle of gin that was on the floor of the car and was being sketchy about his license. But there was no reason to shoot the guy in the head. After having watched the video, it sure looks to me like the cop fully deserves the charge.
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: As you know, the US government almost immediately attributed blame despite the lack of any probative evidence — a lack of evidence that persists over a year later. What do you mean when you write “the US government wasn’t involved”? In the shoot-down? In the coup? In subsequent events?
cmm
Our training says you don’t shoot at tires or anything else trying to stop a car by damaging it. (Our SOP also doesn’t allow for vehicle pursuits except for forcible felony situations, and we don’t use PIT maneuvers or stop sticks either, but we are in an urban area and different departments have different policies).
I would not shoot out a tire for a couple of reasons — it’s a poor target and easy to miss, and if you hit it its’ not going to stop the car, just make it hard to control and unlikely to get too far. but it also increases the chance that the driver will lose control and wreck, hurting or killing himself and perhaps innocent bystanders.
In that situation, given the lack of seriousness of the offense, the best thing would have been to jump back, put out a description and see if another officer can pull him over, try to pursue him for 10 seconds til his supervisor cancelled him (that’s how it would go down in our department anyway!) and use whatever information he had to try to track the guy down and get a warrant for him later.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: In the shoot-down.
Serious question for you. Since there is an objective truth in this case, as to what caused MH17 to crash, do you believe that the findings of the Dutch-led international investigative body will represent that truth? Are you prepared to accept their report as “probative”? If not, what process do you believe will be probative?
apocalipstick
@celticdragonchick: It’s called the 21 Foot Rule. It seems that an assailant already armed with a knife can cover 21 feet before a person can draw a gun and bring it to bear.
Ol'Froth
@cmm: Watching the video, I’m struck by several things: Tensing and DuBois are interacting cordially. DuBois is being somewhat evasive, but not overly so. If that’s my stop, I’d suspect he was suspended as well. But why keep badgering him for his license? He says its not on him, Ok fine. Its really easy to determine if he’s got a license or not by running his name and DOB, and DuBois even offers to write his name for Tensing. Not sure what the law is in Ohio, but in Pennsylvania where I work, that’s all the driver is required to do, truthfully state his name and DoB when requested, and write his name as well if requested. Again, this stop doesn’t go south until DuBois refuses to exit the vehicle and attempts to drive off. That’s not a capital offense. You got the car, you have the tag, you have a description. In an urban/suburban setting, when you call out a traffic stop, you know other nearby officers starting towards your location (see how quickly backup was on scene, a matter of seconds). So what if he drives off? 99% of the time, you’re going to get him. Its not worth anyone’s life.
Bill
It seems we’ve drawn a few officers to this thread. Very interesting perspective. Thanks.
Serious question. In this case, why would the cop’s gun be drawn at all? I’ve been pulled over, and not once has the cop had his gun out while dealing with my traffic infraction. Is it now SOP for police to pull their weapon any time they approach a car? If so, why is that?
David in NY
@apocalipstick:
Yeah, but if the guy with the knife is dead, it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t going to make it to the cop before he got shot. And if, as seems to be the case sometimes, he’s still 21 (or 30) feet away from the cop when he’s dead, he never was going to make it to him.
So in short, the rule seems stupid in cases where it’s sometimes said to apply, when the person with a knife is 20 or 30 feet away from the cop, and the cop has already drawn his gun.
I have also read other criticisms of the “study” that came up with the rule, but I do not recall them off the top of my head.
bupalos
@cmm:
“but damn I wish he had not opted to drive without his car and license being straight, and that he had not tried to drive off.”
Is his car and license really not straight? I mean, I think the front plate thing is fairly new in Ohio and most people will still tell you you don’t have to have one. The guy clearly thought that was the case. Maybe he was being “squirrelly” about his license, or maybe he was a little confused between “license plate” and “license,” that’s what it seemed like at first. Do we know there was something wrong with his DL? I could totally see where this guy thought he just got pulled over on a completely fake violation, had the cop confiscate his (unopened) bottle of spirits with no justification (why was that bottle removed from the car again?), and now this cop is (in what seems like very weird protocol to me) himself opening the door to drag him out before even giving him a chance to step out voluntarily. He doesn’t even say “step out of the vehicle” he just says take off your belt and starts opening the door himself. While the whole thing is going down in a calm voice, the actions are oddly invasive. Cops need to realize that through a combination of bad behavior and modern media, it’s now just as rational for poor minorities to be paranoid and panic at odd police behavior as it is for suburban mothers to fear child abductors.
I think the guy was much more justified in thinking he was in a dangerous situation than the cop. And so he was closing his door and firing up the engine and being ready to flee in reaction to that- an armed, untrustworthy, aggressive person seemingly going outside the bounds. And I’m still not sure he’s actually fleeing before the angry cop is well into the act of blowing his head off for being frightened.
Definitely appreciate your perspective here though.
Mendo
@cmm: Thank you for your comments; they’re very informative. (And thanks to Ol’Froth, too.)
What do you think about the way things are done in the UK? My understanding is that most officers do not carry firearms. Is that even remotely feasible in the US? (Apart from the politics, of course. I’m sure it’s a non-starter.) Or does the prevalence of firearms among the population change the picture too dramatically?
In the Christmas Eve example you gave, I can certainly see why having a firearm would make an officer feel more secure than having a taser and/or pepper spray. But how would such a situation be handled in the UK? Does backup arrive rapidly, including backup armed with firearms?
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: As I pointed out to you in a previous thread, I prefer to place my confidence in those whose past performance has earned them my trust — the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (a group whose members include Ray McGovern, Daniel Ellsberg, and Coleen Rowley, among others) has raised doubts about the Dutch investigation and have called instead for an Interagency Intelligence Assessment. I’m inclined to defer to their judgement.
celticdragonchick
@apocalipstick:
Strangely enough, I kept hearing that cited over the video from last summer during the Fergusen protests when an obviously mentally ill African American man with a knife wandered out of a convenience store (accused of petty theft) and was quickly gunned down on the street.
The officers went out of their way to enter the 21 foot zone instead of putting their car between the man and themselves.
Voila!
I can legally shoot the guy even though I did several things of my own volition to make that possible, including entering that 21 foot zone even though I had no particular need to do so.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cops-man-brandishing-knife-shot-dead-by-st-louis-police/
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/20/6051431/did-the-st-louis-police-have-to-shoot-kajieme-powell
Mendo
@David in NY: An ex-officer acquaintance once explained to me that the 21-foot rule has to do with unholstering one’s firearm. It actually takes more time than you would think to do so, since holsters are designed in such a way that the gun can’t be easily pulled out by an assailant.
celticdragonchick
@cmm:
True.
David in NY
@Ol’Froth: We’re in agreement about the rule, I think, to the extent it says that a guy 30 feet away with a knife drawn is a potential danger to an officer or anyone. And that applies to an officer who has not drawn his gun.
But I don’t think that a guy who is 30 feet away holding a knife is a danger to a cop whose gun is already drawn, unless he is already running at the cop. So once the gun is out, if the guy is just standing and cursing and waving the gun around, there’s no necessity to shoot him.
See, also, @celticdragonchick:
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: I am unfamiliar with this Interagency Intelligence Assessment. Who would be members, and how would it conduct its work? Don’t hesitate to provide a link.
The UN, it appears, would be unacceptable as a forum to conduct this investigation, and the Dutch are now apparently also unacceptable. It’s a shame.
celticdragonchick
@bupalos:
This. Abso-fuckingly-lutely.
When I was at Ft Stewart in 3/7 Cav, an African American E-5 (a sergeant) in my outfit was pulled over by civilian LE off post for something or other. I think it was north of the post towards Savannah on a long stretch of dark road (Hinesville, the town just outside the main gates has a predatory relationship with the soldiers in the worst possible way…but that’s another story)
The sergeant put on his hazards and drove slowly until he came to a lit gas station and then put both his hands outside the window. The officer was a bit nonplussed and asked what the hell was the matter with him. The sergeant said something to the effect of “I’m black and this is the south!”
The officer told him he was over reacting (this was 1995).
I thought it was funny at the time. I’m not laughing now.
apocalipstick
@cmm: Aren’t modern radial tires also notoriously difficult to “shoot out”? Between tire construction and the fact that the tire is spinning, which changes the physics, it appears that TV and movies have lied to us yet again.
apocalipstick
@David in NY: The study stipulated that the gun was holstered at the beginning of the exercise. Recognition of threat, drawing the gun, and acquiring the target were what allowed the assailant to cover the ground. If the gun is already drawn, then that would invalidate the circumstances.
daverave
The number of police-related fatalities in the U.S, reached 664 in 2015, making the country’s police forces one of the deadliest in the world, according to The Guardian.
Robert Sneddon
Ummm, from a British perspective both Celticdragonchick and cmm are portraying themselves as somehow “different” to their fellow citizens. How does that work?
Is a veteran in the US, an ex-serviceman or servicewoman, really an exalted special snowflake citizen ranked above all others because they chose to and were chosen to serve? If so, what does that make the other lesser human beings with their degraded “non-veteran” version of citizenship? My friend Sammy is an American citizen, born in Indiana. She might have gone on to apply to become a member of the armed services when she was out of high school but for that pesky little “catching polio at eighteen months of age” thing that happened to her. No special snowflake status for her and for the millions who either do not choose to or are refused the chance to serve in the armed forces.
There are no “veterans” in Britain. There are ex-servicemen and women, people who have served but are no longer under the obligations of their oath to Queen and Country. There are organisations that help them after they complete their service, with jobs, with healthcare, relocation, finances and other assistance but they are almost all privately funded, charities and the like because we don’t treat them as special snowflakes in the way the US does. It helps, perhaps, that we don’t regard military service as a benefit when choosing politicians (derived from the word “polity”) to serve us the way the US does.
And commentator cmm, you’re not a despised “civilian”, you’re a police officer, a member of the polity (wherefrom comes the name “police”, see “politician” earlier) and a citizen given temporary powers within that polity to serve and protect it. Us and Them is the furthest thing from the idea of real policing but separating yourself from the people you serve starts with labelling them as Not Us. Us and Them is how an occupying force thinks.
celticdragonchick
oops. Seeing on the twitters that an idiot on I-10 in Casa Grande did, in fact, try to grab a trooper’s gun.
Unfortunately, the officer was hurt as well as the idiot.
O/T
I have some 15 bean soup with ham on right now. Smells amazing.
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: The Dutch you’re referring to, they would be the same Dutch that are a NATO member?
I believe they are endorsing a cooperative effort among some of the intelligence agencies likely to have relevant information, including but not limited to American and Russian agencies.
celticdragonchick
@Robert Sneddon:
Actually, since I am no longer in the sevice…I’m a civilian. Nothing at all remotely wrong with that. It really does rub me (and others I have seen from time to time) the wrong way when other civilians pretend they are something that they are not. If you are not in the military or one of the other uniformed services…then you are a civilian. There are no gradations or in-between states of being.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_United_States
For much of the rest of your comments, I heartly agree that making a distinction that does not exist puts additional barriers in place bewteen LE and the public, and encourages a siege mentality.
FWIW, I am also not a fan of the “warrior ethos” that you see on the cop comment boards these days. If you want to be a warrior, the Army and Marines can help you out. Society needs protectors on the streets, not Rambo.
Cool to get input from England (even if I am an irascible Scot!) . Thanks.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: If I’m not mistaken the US was entirely prepared to engage in a “cooperative effort” with the Russians under the auspices of the UN Security Council, but for some reason the Russians vetoed that. If they are confident in the evidence they have, I’d think that would be a slam-dunk “yes” for them. So what other avenues for “cooperative effort” are there in this world? A forum where they have veto power seems like the most amenable possible forum for them.
Robert Sneddon
@celticdragonchick: I really REALLY hope the US military forces don’t want “warriors” or indeed are willing accept them into their ranks. The British Army does have Warriors but they’re armoured vehicles, light recon tanks. The human part of the Army is made up of soldiers, not warriors. There is a difference, and discipline under a command structure answerable to civilian oversight is only part of it.
Oh, and I’m a Scot, living in Edinburgh. Americans often conflate the term “British” with being “English”.
celticdragonchick
@Gin & Tonic:
Published pictures of wreckage from the front left lower cockpit region of MH17 showed the shrapnel holes from a close proximity warhead detonation. Just on that it was possible to reconstruct the angle and probable distance of the explosion. The Russian claims I have seen translated insist the damage may have been from a Ukrainian Sukhoi 25 using the onboard gun (yeah, lol)…but still no attempt to let anyone else look at the wreckage.
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: If I’m not mistaken, the Russians objected to the tribunal called for by the UN resolution — I believe they felt that was somewhat premature.
celticdragonchick
@Robert Sneddon:
I remember when couple of Warrior IFV’s got shot up by our own Air Force in Gulf War 1.
Really pissed me off. I taught threat identification for NATO and Warsaw Pact AFV’s and combat aircraft. The Warrior does not look like anything that Saddam had in the arsenal. It does not look like a BMP-1 or a BMP-2, and some goddamned throttle jockies shot the shit out of our own friends.
Still makes me mad remembering it.
celticdragonchick
@Robert Sneddon:
Ceud Mile Failte! :)
The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in NC were just a couple weeks ago. I ran the Clan Douglas tent all weekend. Had a fantastic time.
blueskies
@Betty Cracker: BBC reports (FWIW) that the bottle of gin was unopened.
Gin & Tonic
@celticdragonchick: I know. I’ve been following this closely for some time.
I apply Occam’s Razor, it’s a lot simpler. Option 1: the separatists have a SAM system they’re not that experienced with, Ukraine has air power in the region, so they think they’re shooting at the Ukrainians but miss and hit MH17. Option 2: the Ukrainians have a SAM system they’re not that experienced with, they know the separatists have no air support, so they think they’re shooting at — what? Shooting at a Russian Air Force plane they know is political and maybe military suicide, so then they’re intentionally downing a civilian plane? That would require orders from general staff; given that MH17 was on a known transport route I find that impossible to believe — it’s not KAL007. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: A year after the incident is premature?
blueskies
@bupalos: Completely agree based on watching the video and on what’s been reported in the press (both imperfect, admittedly). As with many of the cases we’re seeing on video, at the end of the day, the police are much more in control of the situation that the citizen, and IN THEORY, are trained. They bear much, MUCH more responsibility for the outcome — not vice versa.
Cmm
re: civilian.
I don’t use the term or understand it as something that means someone is lower somehow, any more than I think that military personnel are more exalted. To me it has the meaning of – a group of people who have a particular set of insider knowledge that everyone else doesn’t. On a movie set, in an ER, in a restaurant kitchen, I’m a civilian as compared to the people who are working there and know what they are doing. Even if I’m there in uniform as a police officer. However, if there is a dead body on the floor of the movie set or restaurant kitchen, the people who were working there are civilians. It’s not a cachet thing, it’s contextual.
And according to dictionary.com I’m correct in my usage according to either of the 2 definitions, so all due respect to celticdragonchick, Imma keep on using it.
I do agree that the whole warrior ethos thing is overblown and can affect police thinking about who they are in relation to everyone else. I think it originated in a positive place in trying to build up the ability to survive on the job, physically and emotionally (the book/guru everyone talks about in this respect is On Killing by Dave Grossman) and there are a few important things to take from it–be ready to deal if a situation goes bad, do what you have to to leave the shift in the same condition you started it, if in a fight, never surrender, never give up,etc. But the sheepdog mentality means you see everyone else as sheep, which has negative connotations as well.
Personally I think officers need to study the other key police tome, Verbal Judo, a lot more and Grossman a lot less. I don’t think I’m special. I think of myself as a public servant, not a warrior. And I’d just as soon not be thanked for my service unless you are in the habit of thanking the electrical workers and the EMTs and the 911 operators too.
Thanks again y’all. I’m heading offline for the night. Time to hang with my sweetie and my dogs.
Ohio Mom
@bupalos: “Cops need to realize that through a combination of bad behavior and modern media, it’s now just as rational for poor minorities to be paranoid and panic at odd police behavior as it is for suburban mothers to fear child abductors.”
I’m a (white) suburban mom. I suppose some of my peers may fear child abductors but it is not at all rational to do so. The vast majority of abductions have to do with custody disputes, not psychopaths. You might as well worry about a meteor hitting your kid while they sleep (well, unless you are involved in a nasty divorce).
In contrast, if you are a person of color, poor or not, and you are NOT paranoid about the cops, I think you have to be missing a few marbles.
Re: the bottle of gin. It sure looked completely full in the videotape. The cop did not give the cap a test twist to see if it opened easily — that is to say, that it had been previously opened. He just put it on the car’s roof, so we can safely assume it is now shards all over the street.
celticdragonchick
@Cmm:
Thanks for the perpesctive, even if I disagree. We still need more like you.
White Trash Liberal
I’m with bupalos on this one. This cop, by beginning to apprehend without warning or cause, freaked DuBose out. If a cop started opening my door, I’d panic. Cops always order you, and you obey according to your rights. He should have been ordered out of his car. And if DuBose drove away, then apprehend.
The cop crossed a line and escalated to deadly force without cause.
Ol'Froth
@Mendo: Well, from my perspective, in 23 years, I’ve only had to point my weapon at a human being once, and that was a homicide suspect who nearly ran over one of our officers and lead us on a 7 mile high-speed chase, and I still didn’t pull the trigger, because when he abandoned the vehicle, he fled on foot and I didn’t see a weapon. He was arrested a week later in New York on our charges. That said, I’ve also been behind a desk for the last 15 years as a supervisor/district commander, so I’m rarely “out on the street” anymore. That said, some of the best training I ever received was Verbal Judo, which cmm mentioned earlier, its all about de-escalation. Many times, especially on traffic stops, the driver has no idea why he’s been pulled over. Calmly intoducing yourself and explaining the WHY of the stop usually eliminates much of the fear in the driver, and when responding to a disturbance call, patiently listening to each sides’ story goes a long way too. Of course, if two people are beating the shit out of each other on the street, you don’t have that option; you break it up, and seperate the combatants. THEN its time to de-escalate and be the neutral aribitor.
Ol'Froth
@Cmm: AGree with you on Verbal Judo. I attened Col. Grossman’s “on Killing” lecture, and even had lunch with him, and while he makes some very valid points, I agree that relying too much on him (I think he greatly overstates the threat, but that’s my opinion) leads to an “Us vrs. Them” mentality. We’re here to SERVE the public, not to control them.
Kerry Reid
@Ohio Mom: And he didn’t ask Dubose if he’d been drinking, so he didn’t seem to think the booze was relevant either. Just kept on about whether he had a license or not, even after Dubose said he could run his name to see if his license was suspended. If he wanted to issue a citation for missing the front plates and not having his license on him, he could have done that without escalating.
mclaren
@Ol’Froth:
There, fixed that for ya. Gotta get with the modern policing of 2015. A police sees someone threatening suicide? Shoot him to death.
Only way to police. GO AMERICA! NUMBER ONE!!!
chris9059
@Bill:
If a cop is “terrified” of the possibility everyone he pulls over might have a gun he shouldn’t be a cop.
I’m tired of cops trying to excuse their incompetence and cowardice by whining about how dangerous their job is. The fact of the matter is there are many far more dangerous jobs (cops aren’t even in the top ten) and we don’t excuse negligence by those workers because their job is dangerous.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: I meant colloquially :-)
Nice rant!
Paul in KY
@cmm: He didn’t have a knife, but you can’t let him get control of your gun. Understand you had to pull your gun at first, because you didn’t know what was going on up there. Once you realized he was unarmed, if your gun is out of the picture, you can attempt to subdue him with asp or nightstick. You can definitely beat him down with one of those.
As I said before, you have a very tough job to do.
Paul in KY
@apocalipstick: If the shot missed the tire & ricocheted off the ground, it could kill a bystander.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: Would have hoped the flyboys were disciplined severely for this.