Police shoot an "armed" middle school student

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Riddle78

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The police were in the right. The kid was waving around an object that was difficult to tell between a fake and the genuine article. In a situation like that,you can't afford to make mistakes. The police erred on the side of caution.

People kick up a stink when the police,people who protect us,do their job in any manner besides love n' peace. Taze them with a nonlethal takedown? POLICE BRUTALITY! Another jolt because he didn't go down from the first jolt? EXCESSIVE FORCE! Tackle the suspect to the ground and wrestle them into submission? UNESCESSARY ROUGHNESS (slightly justified claim,but...Whatever gets the job done)!

People don't seem to understand that force is often needed to pacify a situation before it goes too far. There's a REASON police officers are issued sidearms.
 

ace_of_something

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MASTACHIEFPWN said:
Let me just start by saying there are ways of disarming someone, there are ways of warning the kid to "Put the gun down, or get shot"
Aren't cops supposed to do that in every situation,
don't they do that in like every situation?

I swear, I want to move to Europe.
So when someone points a gun at you. You know a thing that can kill you in the blink of an eye. You're going to say "Hey put that down!" first? Guess what would happen?
You'd say "H-" now you're dead.

You watch too much TV if you think a negotiations are a good idea when someone's got a bead on you.

I'm seeing a lot of people talking about tasers, rubber bullets and less than lethal items.
Police don't use those when someone has a gun because a lot of times, in my experience, if you hit someone with a LTL weapon when they have a gun...

They might recover, and now they're PISSED OFF and have a gun.

LTL weapons are great, they're fantastic, you will find no-one in my department who beats that drum harder than I.
Some situations, especially rapidly unfolding ones like that here, they are simply not an option.

edit: also I just would like to point out this article is on the very very left (see anti-gun, anti-police) webbensite that is the huffington post.
 

Peteron

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Kenbo Slice said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/police-kill-armed-8thgrad_n_1183517.html?icid=maing-grid7|aim|dl1|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D124955

I put quotations on the word armed because the kid only had a pellet gun.

What are your guys's take on this?

I think it's excessive, I understand the cops were just doing their jobs but Jesus there had to have been another way.
How exactly is this excessive? If the police believed it was a real gun it would be only natural to defend themselves before he hurts someone. The kid was pointing it at police! What did he think was going to happen? The police responded in an understandable manner, given the circumstances.
 

Azure-Supernova

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Aug 5, 2009
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senordesol said:
Azure-Supernova said:
senordesol said:
A law defeated with but a can of spray paint. Given the kid knowingly removed what imitation identifiers did exist, I don't think that law will really do anything other than give him another rule to break.
Yeah but at least then it's all on the kid.
How is it not 'all on the kid' now? He DELIBERATELY modified his weapon to look real.
As far as I'm aware there aren't any laws forbidding the removal of the orange cap.
 

Rabid Toilet

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Robert Ewing said:
And to put the icing on the cake, he didn't whack out his desert eagle to blow the kids head off, he smartly taze'd him. It's not SUPPOSED to be fatal, it's just purely bad luck that it was. I'm trying to paint a picture of the situation, did the kid seriously expect anything different? I assume he was waving the gun around with the cop in the same hallway, and I did a little digging on the school, apparently it's a tad on the rough side. Go figure.

Cut some slack to the police officer, anybody would of done what he did in his situation, maybe even worse than he did. He followed all the right paths, and took all the right measures, it's just a shame things ended up the way they did.
The police didn't taze him, he was shot twice with a pistol. That's why people are saying that less lethal options should have been used.

Personally, I'd say as soon as you threaten the life of an innocent, you've lost the right to your own. In a situation like that, other options would have given the kid the chance to kill someone. Who would you rather be shot to death, the guy waving the gun around or the kid cowering in the corner?
 

ace_of_something

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MASTACHIEFPWN said:
LastGreatBlasphemer said:
Shavon513 said:
What gets me is the firing of *3* bullets. Use one to disable the target, not 3 to risk killing. Especially a child. It's a little uncalled for.
1 shot to disable is non existent. if the person is still alive they can and will pull the trigger. Congratulations, rather than saving an innocent and condemning a guilty, you condemned an innocent to save a guilty.
There is no such thing as a disabling shot. Never. Any gunshot wound on the body can result in death from massive blood loss, but never before they have the chance to return fire.
Most humans don't have the willpower to fire back after they've had a bullet rip through there cheast.
Most of the disable comes from shock, and you'd expect that from a 13 year old kid. 3 bullets was overkill.
I'd go out on a limb and say I'm the only person in this thread who has been in this situation.

I try not to be aggressive in my arguments but that "that's too many shots" thing is a steaming hot pile of bullshit.

First of all how many officers do you think fired a gun?
Of course he'll be hit with more bullets we don't have a psychic mindlink letting us know who has fired a gun in .1 seconds it takes to decided to defend yourself.
Also you don't get a pop-up in your sunglasses that says "KILL CONFIRMED" after you've shot the guy.
You keep shooting till he goes down. You don't shoot to wound. You shoot to kill.

Secondly I have seen the aftermath of many many gun fights. If your theory of 'people drop the gun' held water I wouldn't see so many where two guys get shot or the angle of gunfire changing as one guy hits the ground and... just no.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Real life is not movies or video games.
 

Jake0fTrades

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This is most certainly a tragedy, but the only real person to blame is the kid who brought the pellet gun in the first place.

The police only followed their training, the police can't armor themselves everywhere, they protected themselves as they saw necessary. I guarantee you, none of those officers went back to HQ high-fiving and joking once they realized it was just a pellet gun.

It definitely sucks, but it's just a horrible coincidence.

"...because if this happened once, kids imitate."

That's just insulting. I'm 17 and I'd like to think my judgement is beyond something so ludicrous.
 

Riddle78

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ace_of_something said:
MASTACHIEFPWN said:
LastGreatBlasphemer said:
Shavon513 said:
What gets me is the firing of *3* bullets. Use one to disable the target, not 3 to risk killing. Especially a child. It's a little uncalled for.
1 shot to disable is non existent. if the person is still alive they can and will pull the trigger. Congratulations, rather than saving an innocent and condemning a guilty, you condemned an innocent to save a guilty.
There is no such thing as a disabling shot. Never. Any gunshot wound on the body can result in death from massive blood loss, but never before they have the chance to return fire.
Most humans don't have the willpower to fire back after they've had a bullet rip through there cheast.
Most of the disable comes from shock, and you'd expect that from a 13 year old kid. 3 bullets was overkill.
I'd go out on a limb and say I'm the only person in this thread who has been in this situation.

I try not to be aggressive in my arguments but that "that's too many shots" thing is a steaming hot pile of bullshit.

First of all how many officers do you think fired a gun?
Of course he'll be hit with more bullets we don't have a psychic mindlink letting us know who has fired a gun in .1 seconds it takes to decided to defend yourself.
Also you don't get a pop-up in your sunglasses that says "KILL CONFIRMED" after you've shot the guy.
You keep shooting till he goes down. You don't shoot to wound. You shoot to kill.

Secondly I have seen the aftermath of many many gun fights. If your theory of 'people drop the gun' held water I wouldn't see so many where two guys get shot or the angle of gunfire changing as one guy hits the ground and... just no.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Real life is not movies or video games.
You're making the most sense here,man. As a civilian I'm saying that you're the only one here who isn't on some perfect world fiction delusion. When will the general public realize that when the suspect has a firearm,the officer can;t take any chances? If a gun is in play,it's "End one life to save dozens,or save one life to end dozens".

Peaceful solutions have their place,but not when the suspect has a gun.
 

Headdrivehardscrew

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Scaring people "accidentally" by brandishing a gun, which might or might not be real, is stupid.

Refusing to lower or drop the gun when police officers who point their - real - guns at you is either very, very disturbed or suicidal. I have no way of knowing what went through the kids mind that day, but I don't think it was any good.

It's been reported that the kid threatened to "kill everyone", and his parents claimed to have had no clue he had that "toy" gun. There was definitely something wrong with him, but as long as police officers have to assume that there's someone going bonkers, waving a gun, refusing to just drop it - I really don't see what else they could have done in that situation.
 

jimbob123432

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Apr 8, 2011
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How can people be complaining about this? A kid brought what looked like a gun to a PUBLIC school and POINTED it at cops. Personally, I feel bad for the cop(s) who shot him because they're going to go through emotional hell for this.
And for those people who are talking about this as an overreaction, read the following article to see what a real overreaction looks like (albeit a small one):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/12/20/mb-anti-theft-club-gun-mistake-winnipeg.html
 

jimbob123432

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Abandon4093 said:
LastGreatBlasphemer said:
Abandon4093 said:
I don't agree with that either. The judge should just reply with 'be thankful you're not dead.' Obviously a drastic change like the one I'm talking about would require a change to legislation. Unless the person shot was found to be completely innocent in the situation, they shouldn't have the right sue.

And a real rubber round, not a riot round. Is going to incapacitate as quickly as a normal gun. Because it fires with practically the same muzzle velocity. Not to mention the round is bigger. It does move slower but the impact is just as devastating. It only doesn't penetrate.

It's just as effective as handgun but with the chance it doesn't kill. With live ammo it's the shock of the impact that takes the person down. Not the fact it blew a hole in them. Two or three shots with large rubber rounds (as is standard practice with normal rounds) is going to put anybody down. I don't care if your name is Arnold Bruce Stalone. You're not posing a threat.

A semi-automatic pistol is a low level threat in comparison to gang armed with fully automatic rifles and pistols. Which is what we were talking about. And as I said, a rubber round hand gun is just as effective as a normal one when it comes to taking people down. There is nomore gambling with lives that there is now with live ammo.
No, we're not talking about a gang with fully automatic pistols. We're talking about a kid waving a gun in school. And rubber rounds, yeah, have a very small chance of killing. But what happens when you fire it at 8 meters away? That's a little over 25 feet, not far at all. They break bones, they shatter skulls, they collapse lungs at that distance. The last two end in death. Shock and adrenaline are funny things, a hit to the torso could definitely knock them down, but they could remain conscious, and now your bullet did nothing but get him to pull the trigger.

And yes, I agree in cases of police being sued for taking down someone the judge should always tell the person to eff off. But that's not the case.
Jesus christ I've already fucking said that. My point isn't that they're a completely safe and idealistic alternative. It's that they're better than live ammo.

For fucks sake, I've been repeating myself all night. But that's the first time someones told me something I've already written as if it's an argument against what I'm saying.

Fuck.

Also 3 rounds to the chest (as is standard practice). Unless he has like 5 adrenal glands. He isn't getting up. Let alone going to have the wherewithal to aim and fire.

And my point is, the same can be said for live rounds. Like I said, the shock is what downs people. Not the hole or the bloodloss. It can take 15 minutes for the bloodloss from a normal bullet wound to seriously effect someone. The shock of the impact is what causes the immediate damage. The same shock a rubbercoated round gives.
Not to stir up anything more on this topic, but I just have a point to make. If I was a cop, I would much prefer to have live ammo in my sidearm over rubber bullet just in case the guy I was shooting at didn't go down (ie: a perp who is drunk/high on PCP). If the adrenaline kicks in and they do shrug off the first 2-3 shots, what's 5 or 6 more rounds going to do? At least with live ammo, you can put a round in the heart or the head to ensure a kill.

Also, "a semi-auto pistol is not as big a threat as a full-auto rifle"? Ummm... Last time I checked, a .223 (a round a lot of recreated rifles use) is smaller than a .45 round (a standard pistol round). Sure, the distance the rifle can cover is larger, but at the point that that will matter, the cops won't be using pistols.
 

Skandis

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Personally I feel sorry for the police officer(s).

Murdering a teenager is never any fun. Add the added joy of being called an incompetent psycho by peers, daily, for possibly the rest of your life.

You people discuss whenever or not we should feel sympathy for the dead teenager who thought waving a gun replica in the faces of officers were a good idea.

Instead, maybe you should focus on the guys who just got up in the morning to do their jobs.