Austin Manning said:
Therumancer said:
As a general rule if a bunch of cops show up in tactical gear and tell you to disperse, that's not the point where you go "no, we're non-violent and we're leaving" or start throwing rocks and crap, that's the point where you leave. If you do not do so, then that's on you, and I can on some levels respect people who are willing to take this for a cause, but they have no right to be complaining about getting what they asked for. Basically if you decide to stare down a riot line, chain yourself to a fence or pole, or whatever else, more power to you, but don't go crying about it when you get your butt kicked. Most of the protestors I've actually respected understood this, and don't go crying like little babies when someone tear gasses them or knocks them on their ass, they know the price, and think it's worth paying.
I'm not sure how it works in the US (I'm Canadian) but here, if its a peaceful protest and the protesters have a legal permit, then it is illegal for the police to break it up. Doing so is a crime and no one is above the law, especially those who enforce it. That's the difference between lawful rule and tyranny.
Something you might also want to think about (and was mentioned earlier in the thread) is the potential for a heavy handed police response to actually escalate the situation; turning otherwise peaceful protests into full blown riots. Believe it or not, the presence of a heavily armed and organized group wearing gas-masks and threatening violence tends to trigger most people's fight or flight instincts. Had the situation been handled more delicately, more violence could probably have been prevented.
It's the same here, this however was done without a permit. For the most part the US doesn't care much if you want to show up for a protest as long as you aren't bothering anyone. The problem is when the protest starts causing chaos and inciting violence, or contributes to violence and chaos already going on.
In this case, the police didn't respond in force until after the riot broke out, then they brought out the tools to do it. Things have continued on into a second day as people have kept it going.
To be honest, I don't expect things are going to end well due to the intervention of people like Al Sharpton and the media keeping things stirred up. The autopsy was just concluded (with federal oversight) and it was found a lot of the witnesses lied, and Al Sharpton either lied to stir up trouble or had very bad information.
As initially reported this question revolved around whether the police officer shot the guy in the back of his head as he kneeled down and put his arms behind his head to surrender. Meaning a lot was going to come down to the behavior of other people at the scene. The guy had been confirmed (even by witnesses) to have tried to reach into the cop's car and take his firearm, where he was shot, before they claimed he tried to surrender (ie the cop got out of the car and continued firing at him as he was kneeling).
The autopsy however shows that the guy was at no point ever shot in the back, he was shot six times in various locations. This means that the witnesses who claimed he was shot in the back while running, or while in the process of surrendering, were lying about it. It also means Al Sharpton contributed to the problems by claiming the guy was shot in the back.
The nature of the wounds goes more along with what little we know of the police officer's story, we never had his full side disclosed which is part of why these demonstrations and riots were so stupid. An investigation was still ongoing. The cop claimed that the guy reached in to try and take the gun, and there was more of a close quarters battle over the gun. Apparently the thug in question took two to the arms, two to the chest, and two to the head. The head shots were fired at an upward angle to the front of the head, as opposed to downwards as would be expected towards someone who was kneeling down or trying to surrender. One of the few points of the cop's story was that he was punched in the head while the guy was trying to get the gun.
Right now there is some discussion over range, no GSR (Gun Shot Residue) was found on the body, but the clothes are being tested, which is where the GSR would be (which is actually kind of odd that the media would mention, since you generally do not find GSR on a body like this, and if they knew the clothes were still being tested, why mention there was none where you'd rarely find it?). Any way it goes, while many articles are spinning things different ways, your talking about shots that were made at pretty close range.
It's suspected that if the witnesses aren't lying that the guy might have staggered back after taking the bullets, and fell to his knees as he was dying.
Right now the biggest question seems to be whether the guy took all the bullets during the battle around the car door (and the erratic placement could be from grappling and getting punched in the head) or if some of them were taken in the close quarters battle, and as the cop got out the guy decided to charge.
A factor in this whole thing is that the young thug in question is 6' 4" tall 290 pounds, taller than the officer, which comes into the whole equasion of what position the shots were fired from and the likely situation. The bottom line here is that the guy was not on his knees when the bullets hit him, nor was his back turned. He was however likely stooped over, which could be from leaning into or out of the car, preparing to charge, or in the process of getting on his knees, but that seems increasingly unlikely.
*IF* they find GSR on the guy's clothes meaning the firearm was fired very close to him, that's pretty much an entire game over for any likelihood of the cop getting in any kind of trouble. That will mean the shots were all fired in close combat, and even the witnesses acknowledge what happened there. Even if the GSR mostly comes back showing some of them were fired at a longer range, it's still likely a sign the cop isn't going to get anything, after all the witnesses are now shown to have lied, and all the cop has to say is the guy was getting ready to charge when the cop got the door open. Given that everyone who said the cop shot him in the back or whatever is lying... and a lot are pointing this point out specifically in the media (he was not shot in the back), and this guy and his associates are thugs (his friend was an apparent accomplice in the robbery) and the cop in question is a decorated police officer who has been doing the job in this area for six years without incident despite the racial divide... well unless something changes it's pretty obvious which way this is going to go.
At any rate, the end result here is that right now we've got people like Al Sharpton and a few other politicians who have a stake in this, having backed things expecting a very different response. Some have even been promoting bad information, either intentionally, or going with whatever they were told that seemed the most sensational. Given the efforts by Al Sharpton in particular to plant seeds of doubt in how there was going to be a campaign to "demonize" the alleged victim and to expect biased evidence, I kind of expect it's going to be one of those cases where the mob is likely to be stirred up until this cop is hung out to dry, whether he did it or not. This means that in order to do the right thing as things seem *so far* your probably looking at more rioting in the near future, and a lot of political posturing due to certain people having a vested interest in the outcome now.
I'd like to think this would all end here, and the rioters and guys like Al Sharpton would just say "we're wrong" and the various politicians trying to spin a "police brutality" campaign out of it would just let it drop, but I somehow doubt that's going to happen.
At any rate, be glad Canada isn't dealing with a mess like this right now. If you've been "enjoying the show" so far, I expect it's about to get even more exciting.
I admit I didn't like the alleged victim because he was a thug (going by the video of the store robbery, which is why I say this with such conviction) but theft isn't a death penalty offense, and the cop didn't know about this at the time. As I said I was waiting for the results of the investigation, and well... a big part of that just came out, enough where I can say I'm likely to be on the Cop's side entirely now unless something else comes out, because the situation was apparently not even close to what it was being presented as. The killshot(s) were not aimed down at the victim, or in his back, so neither the execution or "flight" stories are true.
