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Except it's not true. A long line of missteps by the police lead to his death. He was 12, a kid. All through the decades, kids have played with toy guns.
What lead to his death was incompetence in hiring a mentally unstable individual to be a police officer and a dispatcher omitting some very important information.
The really sad part is that these errors have not been fixed. The dispatcher did at least do the right thing and resigned. The officer still gets to live out his fantasies on the people.
This thread is not about the facts.
What do we notice in thread? Virtually every poster (if not every poster) justifying the killing of this 12 year old Black kid is white.
This is a good decision. I think that blacks need to look inward to how their very crime ridden culture makes cops and others look at them with the idea that they are committing a crime. When you have a culture that is full of crime, and anger issues and children using real guns, what choice does a cop have but to assume a black young adult pointing a gun at people that in fact looks identical to its real world counterpart is a danger? The cop did exactly what he should have done. You don't wait to see if you take a few bullets before you stop the potential danger. Where is the marching against the parents who were obviously scumbags for not watching their child? Its always the cop, white guys fault, anyone's fault but where the blame really lays.
I think you need to look inward to open your eyes to see that "Blacks" don't all live in the inner city, and that therefore anyone saying that "their...crime ridden culture" is making -- perhaps unintentionally...perhaps out of ignorance...a racist comment.
Exactly. When I was growing up, every kid had various toy guns. If the SRO of cops today was used back then, practically every boy in country would have been dead.
And interestingly, most of the posters supporting the police here WANT everyone to carry guns. So maybe we should do this -- everyone who "conceals carry" should have a bright orange sign they wear on the front and backs of their clothing, and when something goes down, the cops can shoot them (instead of 12 year old) because they might pose a danger.
I posted the same sentiment a few pages back. I'm 60 and spent many hours running in a public park with toy guns. Later I spent hours after high school playing with real guns (.22) . On one occasion the police pulled up to check on us boys and make sure we were ok. We waved. He waved. He drove off we went back to killing cans. California has changed for the worse since 1971.
It's too bad your son can't experience what thousands of us did as kids because your neighbors might pee their pants. (Cleveland was rougher in the 70's than now. I remember all the guys getting blown up)
All the same, this doesn't address my points. Should there be extensive background checks when police officer are hired and should 911 relay important information like the caller saying it's likely a toy?
If a mentally stable officer with proper training arrives with the knowledge of the gun likely being a toy I wonder how differently it would have been handled?
Those of our posters who agree that this cop was not really fit for service I'm sure would agree then that what we have here is official negligence.
Exactly. When I was growing up, every kid had various toy guns. If the SRO of cops today was used back then, practically every boy in country would have been dead.
When you were growing up did you take your toy guns (which didn't look anything like toy guns today do) out to a public park and wave them at people as they walked by?
The cops should be held responsible for negligence. Doesn't necessarily mean they should be charged with murder, but there could been some charge brought against them in my opinion. At the same time, there were many other factors here and I can see how they didn't bring upon a charge. Right or wrong, the officers get the benefit of the doubt in these cases it seems.
The fact that he was 12 has really nothing to do with anything. 12 year olds can shoot and have shot guns. 12 year olds should know not to point guns, even fake guns at strangers.
RubyTwo, I compliment you on being somewhat balanced on the issue.
What do we notice in thread? Virtually every poster (if not every poster) justifying the killing of this 12 year old Black kid is white.
People are justifying the killing of a 12 year old black kid, people are agreeing with the grand jury's decision not to prosecute these officers for shooting someone carrying a very realistic looking handgun after 911 got a call about a juvenile waving a gun at people in a public park.
You don't know the race of anyone on this board so I'm not sure why you would even try to make such an ignorant statement about race, as if it had anything to do with this in the first place.
I couldn't care less about this little thug in the making, I really couldn't. The FACTS are he went for the gun and got shot. Oh well, lessoned learned the hard way.
How do you know he would have grown up to be a thug?
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