This is pretty messed up, The police here in the states are really... aggressive per say, and its horrible. Honestly, there should be some sort of crackdown on cops like these. Then again, I don't know much so don't trust me...

I'm baffled anyone could think this shooting was justified.

 

The dude had his pants down. Please explain to me how he was any kind of threat to the officer. He couldn't even run towards him without tripping over his own pants for eff sake. In no way he could have been fast enough to stab the officer like that. He was showing no sign of aggressivity. He wasn't attenting to the officer's life whatsoever. Taser, paper spray, tonfa were the way to go. Yes, taser has a small chance of not working. Same for paper spray. But then again, so what? Plenty of officers use them on a daily basis against much more dangerous targets, and you're going to tell me pulling a gun at this guy was legit? The dude was showing no sign of aggressivity, it wasn't a moment of rush. The officer just decided to go for the lethal way out right away rather than trying a non-lethal solution beforehand, or even to just talk the dude out of it. You know, de-escalating rather than drawing the gun on the first opportunity.

 

The lack of empathy is sickening. "Society will move on without him". "Another POS taken care of". The only thing that comes to me when I read that is "wtf", especially since you know nothing about the guy. But I'll use an argument I've seen in another thread (wink wink nudge nudge): wait until it happens to someone close to you, and we'll see how you feel about it then.

Edited March 30, 20188 yr by Hystery

12 hours ago, TheDivineHustle said:

Well, obviously it's not a win for him because he's dead. That's his own problem, society will continue to move forward without him. I'm just glad that the officer is safe and no other innocent person was harmed.

 
Oh. So as long as the cop isn't put in a dangerous position, it's all good to shoot him or something?  He had is pants around his ankle, was visibly unarmed and the cop decided the best course of action was to shoot him, that seems like some pretty poor police work to me. 

This article has a video with a better angle https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Sister-of-man-shot-by-deputy-says-he-was-never-12786380.php

 

Unfortunately a truck is blocking during the actual shooting, but it does seem the deputy and the suspect were just walking in circles when he fired. He also didn't attempt any first aid.

On 3/29/2018 at 7:30 AM, Giordano said:

 

What is with a lot of LEOs nowadays rushing to only lethal force?  You had a fucking taser, I almost guarantee that would've subdued him.  (It says nothing about him being on drugs, so I'm assuming he wasn't)

Or a good old nightstick and fists... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, lawsuits, liability, no one knows if the suspect's an undercover ninja and so on, but in my neck of the woods the majority of encounters of unruly subjects with the cops result in bruises which keep suspects awake at night and give them time to think of their sins. 

 

Why not simplify the procedure and shoot everyone who fails to comply with two warnings? This way it would be even more easy to justify a shooting. 

 

Local Constable shoots at  fleeing suspect, Clean shoot or not?. Let the debate continue.

Edited March 30, 20188 yr by LCPD McGee

1 hour ago, LCPD McGee said:

 

Local Constable shoots at  fleeing suspect, Clean shoot or not?. Let the debate continue.

 

Or let's keep this on the topic of the shooting in Houston, and not some other random one please.

11 minutes ago, willpv23 said:

 

Or let's keep this on the topic of the shooting in Houston, and not some other random one please.

 

Multiple OIS shooting threads?, you got it chief.

On 3/29/2018 at 2:40 PM, Giordano said:

 

So ignoring commands from an officer and walking towards him unarmed is justified?  There are SEVERAL factors to take into this, one of which is mental state.  It's almost 100% this guy was going for suicide by cop. Not only is that common, from what I've read, Houston has a huge problem with ignoring and treating the mentally ill like garbage. Regardless if he was walking towards the officer, he was unarmed.  There is zero justification in shooting him.  Now if he was CHARGING towards the officer, that might be a different story entirely, but it's not the case.  WALKING towards one, menacingly or not, it not justified. There was PLENTY of time for the deputy to get his taser, or take out his baton.  You know, the thing LEOs are given as self defense? 

 

You know what?  Lets forget tasers, batons, mace, etc.  Just give'em a gun and tell them to shoot at the first sign of resisting arrest. 

 

Houston LEO here. Can confirm, the city does frequently treat the mentally ill and homeless community with a cruelty which I find appalling. There are a lot here, and most of them are actually good people but catch the rap for a lot of things that they probably didn't do. I do my best to be different, but you're correct, sir. 

1 hour ago, Deputy813 said:

 

Houston LEO here. Can confirm, the city does frequently treat the mentally ill and homeless community with a cruelty which I find appalling. There are a lot here, and most of them are actually good people but catch the rap for a lot of things that they probably didn't do. I do my best to be different, but you're correct, sir. 

 

If it makes you feel any better, while Houston is singled out in this article, it's the entire country that mistreats the mentally ill. There are plenty of people who still don't understand or care about those with mental illness.

1 hour ago, Giordano said:

 

If it makes you feel any better, while Houston is singled out in this article, it's the entire country that mistreats the mentally ill. There are plenty of people who still don't understand or care about those with mental illness.

 

That's pretty true as well. In Texas, they're mostly fined or told to leave where ever they've set up, and orders are given to destroy the myriad of admittedly fairly complex shelters they build under overpasses (anyone who's driven Katy Freeway past Gessner and Addicks y'all know exactly what I'm talking about). 

Edited April 1, 20188 yr by Deputy813

Alright, let us look at the facts here:

- The purpose of police is to preserve life, protect and serve the public, make arrests and uphold the law and bring justice.

- The video does not show much after the man walks out of the frame, but he was quite aggressive to the two people in the beginning, and aggressively approached the police officer despite numerous commands to get down on the floor.

- He had his pants down, and if I was the officer who showed up on the scene with no context on what happened, I'd think that the man was trying to rape someone, considering the man was walking after two people aggressively with his pants down.

- The man was allegedly suffering from depression due to the murder of his 2 children by his partner.

- The officer did not attempt to deploy a taser, which he could've, but in this situation, a man aggressively walking towards me would warrant me drawing my firearm.

 

I believe that the footage and evidence presented so far is inconclusive due to the lack of evidence and context which has been presented. We need to wait for the official investigation before we draw definite conclusions, then we can make informed conclusions.

On a side note, I am disgusted at how the media and spokespeople, whether his family or lawyers keeping calling this a shooting of another unarmed black man, black man this, black man, that which I find disrespectful because at the end of the day we are all human, we all bleed red, not black or white, but red, why can't we see this as a shooting of another person?

Edited April 2, 20188 yr by TheLoneRanger

On 3/29/2018 at 4:15 AM, Illusionyary said:

Seems cops in the States are too eager to go to deadly force right away these days. There was absolutely no need for it, this guy was unarmed and non-combative towards the officer, he could have been subdued with a nightstick, pepper spray or a taser, but no, now he's dead.

It's incidents like these that only lead to more mistrust of law enforcement.

I'm not saying it was completely justified, but you can't based your view off of a few incidents that are highly publicized, they don't speak for hundreds of thousands of people. 

1 hour ago, SpikeTerm said:

I'm not saying it was completely justified, but you can't based your view off of a few incidents that are highly publicized, they don't speak for hundreds of thousands of people. 

 

It's not just a few incidents, and it's not only recent.  This stuff has been happening for decades, but it's more publicized now due to how the world is.  A good majority of society has a camera phone, and those people whip it out as soon as something looks juicy.    I know a lot of people would love to believe all cops are amazing people who can do no wrong, but that just isn't the case. Yes, there are plenty of good cops, but cops doing their job and not being assholes  isn't news worthy, nor is it something that should be a headline.

It strikes me how some people in here think shooting an unarmed man is a fine thing to do. This situation would be good for pepperspray or taser. Even baton or with your own fists. You took the wrong job if you will do anything to make sure you're not getting hurt. Being a police officer, you're gonna have to fight. Fighting hurts. That's how it is, and if you're willing to get hurt from a fight, don't become a police officer. Of course, don't go recklessly fighting, get proper fighting training. I very much doubt US police really trains in that. I mean, when your academy is running for 6 or 12 or 15 or idk how many weeks, you just don't get a lot of training. Your FTO's probably not gonna train you either, because there's no practice target whatsoever. Compared to being at least 3-4 years in academy here... they'll teach you how to fight here.

 

By the way, the force spectrum is applied at a way that you attempt the steps before you move on to the next level. So first pepperspray. Doesn't work? Taser. Doesn't work? If colleague arrived, hands. If not, draw firearm, warning shots, then aim for legs. Yes, you can still hit the legs if you have got the proper training to do so, even when you're under adrenaline. The training is exactly what worries me though...

Edited April 23, 20188 yr by Antia

4 hours ago, Antia said:

It strikes me how some people in here think shooting an unarmed man is a fine thing to do. This situation would be good for pepperspray or taser. Even baton or with your own fists. You took the wrong job if you will do anything to make sure you're not getting hurt. Being a police officer, you're gonna have to fight. Fighting hurts. That's how it is, and if you're willing to get hurt from a fight, don't become a police officer. Of course, don't go recklessly fighting, get proper fighting training. I very much doubt US police really trains in that. I mean, when your academy is running for 6 or 12 or 15 or idk how many weeks, you just don't get a lot of training. Your FTO's probably not gonna train you either, because there's no practice target whatsoever. Compared to being at least 3-4 years in academy here... they'll teach you how to fight here.

 

By the way, the force spectrum is applied at a way that you attempt the steps before you move on to the next level. So first pepperspray. Doesn't work? Taser. Doesn't work? If colleague arrived, hands. If not, draw firearm, warning shots, then aim for legs. Yes, you can still hit the legs if you have got the proper training to do so, even when you're under adrenaline. The training is exactly what worries me though...

Interesting that Europeans more or less agree on the use of force tactics, even people from so different places like you or me (hey, my place is at least partially in Europe!).

 

However I believe the majority of American cops have solid training and good judgement. It's those 0.2 or 0.3% that make case law and cause media shitstorms, and in my opinion (again, that's just an opinion, no facts or research attached) they are encouraged by the 'taking care of our own' mentality. What I mean is an incompetent officer may be despised by its peers, badly thought of by the supervisors, but in the end of the day he knows that the department would protect him. Otherwise it would harm their public face (bad personnel = bad training, this suggests systematic flaws withing the department and this could mean many ugly questions for the management).

 

Of course I realise perfectly you can't dissect a couple-age-old problem in a forum post. Nevertheless I believe that's a contributing part.

 

1 hour ago, Hastings said:

Interesting that Europeans more or less agree on the use of force tactics, even people from so different places like you or me (hey, my place is at least partially in Europe!).

 

However I believe the majority of American cops have solid training and good judgement.

Last time I checked, Mozambique was not in Europe, but somewhere in Africa 

 

I won't say anything about judgement, but training? Like, how can you train to shoot or train to fight in that little time? 6/12/20 weeks could get you far, but considering a big chunk of academy is case law and all other kinds of theoretic stuff, I don't think the academy is capable of actually teaching you in terms of fighting something that will stick. Which is why police officers jump so quick to a high level in the force spectrum.

Edited April 23, 20188 yr by Antia

1 hour ago, Antia said:

Last time I checked, Mozambique was not in Europe, but somewhere in Africa 

 

I won't say anything about judgement, but training? Like, how can you train to shoot or train to fight in that little time? 6/12/20 weeks could get you far, but considering a big chunk of academy is case law and all other kinds of theoretic stuff, I don't think the academy is capable of actually teaching you in terms of fighting something that will stick. Which is why police officers jump so quick to a high level in the force spectrum.

We call our country The Northern Zimbabwe sometimes

 

Can't say anything about training as I'm completely unfamiliar with it (the Police Academy hardly counts). Out here training lasts for six months in general plus field training, however to become an officer (we have that dumb Soviet system when cops have military ranks) you need a 4-year degree (usually a law degree). That helps you a bit, but doesn't really make you a good police officer. How long are they trained in your place?

12 hours ago, Giordano said:

 

It's not just a few incidents, and it's not only recent.  This stuff has been happening for decades, but it's more publicized now due to how the world is.  A good majority of society has a camera phone, and those people whip it out as soon as something looks juicy.    I know a lot of people would love to believe all cops are amazing people who can do no wrong, but that just isn't the case. Yes, there are plenty of good cops, but cops doing their job and not being assholes  isn't news worthy, nor is it something that should be a headline.

Oh please, I'm so sick of hearing "People no days have cameras". Most of the people now days who 'whip' out their cameras are just waiting for a law suit or to become famous for taking a police situation out of context.  The majority of police are good, if the majority or even half were bad there would be thousands upon thousands killed by police annually yet there isn't. 

Ha, I know exactly what you mean. Same here 

 

Is that like a bachelors degree that you're referring to? Out here, it really depends on what rank you're going for.

1. Our lowest rank (surveillant) will make you do a lot of jailshifts (booking prisoners, giving them food, looking after them) and a lot of working at reception. Also a lot of traffic control. That'll be a total of 2.5 years. 

2. Then we have the rank of officer, mainly 112 calls, but not really highly ranked, so I suppose they get the shittiest jobs. 3 years of academy

3. Then we have the rank of officer first class, working 112 calls all the way. I guess this is very similar to the usual US cop. 3.5 years of academy

4. Last ones are the "brigadier" (is that a word in english?). They are also working 112 calls, but are trained to also look at the bigger picture. So if in 1 week at the same intersection 11 collisions happen, he'll  be getting in contact with the city and try to make the intersection safer, where 1,2,3 will only be giving help, towing cars and creating a safe space at the scene. This one is 4 years

 

Now within all these years are a lot of practical parts. Like first you get 6 months academy, then 3 month on the street with an FTO, then another 6 months at the academy, 6 months street etc.