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But I will comment on a sentiment that has been posted here several times. I cannot understand why anyone would find cold-blooded murder (if the person was truly only running away and presented no danger) to drug-dealing simply because of who was involved.
If we decide as a society that the police officer is always "doing his job" if s/he kills someone who has a history of crime or is suspected of crime, we are saying that we do not value our Constitution.
Because that person is you or me. I don't understand why you would give no care to one person breaking the law, but seem to give another person a free pass? If the guy was running away, he was not an imenant threat. If the police officer used deadly force for a bad reason, then he is just as guilty for his crime as the perp was for his.
Why is it so hard to understand that living in a police state, where officers can shoot and kill with no consequences is no better than living in a criminal state, where dealers and gangsters can rule the street.
Why do you condemn one crime, and blindly accept the other? Until we have facts, we don't even know who is in the wrong, yet you've written the death sentence to one and pardoned the other.... Way to crap all over our constitution.
I love how you made up things I never said or wrote lol but thanks I think!
Is running away from a cop wrong? Sure, but if the person is not armed and/or a threat to others how is acceptable to kill them? “Oh, he broke the law,” doesn’t cut it.
When did an affront to a cop’s authority become justification for deadly force?
But I will comment on a sentiment that has been posted here several times. I cannot understand why anyone would find cold-blooded murder (if the person was truly only running away and presented no danger) to drug-dealing simply because of who was involved.
If we decide as a society that the police officer is always "doing his job" if s/he kills someone who has a history of crime or is suspected of crime, we are saying that we do not value our Constitution.
Why did he run? Just stop and face the consequences. Simple solution.
It doesn't matter why he was running, that's the point. I don't care why he was running. Simply running from the cops doesn't justify him being killed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SVTLightning
I don't understand why people care so much about other people they don't know...
"When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out"
That's why. When something wrong happens in our society, it's up to all of us to speak out and say that it's wrong or more wrong things will keep happening. I don't know either the cop or the alleged victim, but I do know when something isn't right, and this isn't right by any measure of our legal system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SVTLightning
...when those people decide they don't want to follow the rules of society.If he had simply stopped he would not have been chased and shot. Not too difficult to grasp that concept.
The rules of society (our laws) also dictate that just running from the cops isn't an offence that gets you killed. That's not how our society works. Even a convicted criminal can run from the cops and the "rules of society" say that the appropriate punishment is not death.
Why did he run? Just stop and face the consequences. Simple solution.
I don't understand why people care so much about other people they don't know, when those people decide they don't want to follow the rules of society. If he had simply stopped he would not have been chased and shot. Not too difficult to grasp that concept.
Which is to say that the police officer had every right to use deadly force because a suspected criminal refused to obey his/her commands. That's insane.
What I care about, and what I suspect most people expressing concern within this thread care about, is that the loss of life is tragic no matter the circumstances. There needs to be a legitimate reason to accept why it occurred beyond someone failing to be obedient.
I was once pulled over and had a police officer draw his gun on me because I was driving a car with a broken window and he assumed I had stolen the car (it's a New York City thing). In barking instructions at me he gave me clearly conflicting instructions ("keep your hands where I can see them" followed by "turn off the car", I clearly couldn't comply with the former command if I obliged the latter). I could easily see where things could have escalated quickly to the point where I might have been shot, and I had done absolutely nothing wrong.
This isn't the Wild West and we aren't supposed to operate as such.
You've got to be kidding. Or sarcasm? Please tell me this is sarcasm.
If not, this is terribly disturbing. "It's too expensive to keep him alive" is an appalling argument. Why don't we just have the death penalty for everything then? Destroy all the jails and just have firing squads. Don't pay child support? Death. Caught with 1/2 a gram of cocaine? Death. Too many speeding tickets? Death. Steal a bike? Death. Get in a bar brawl? Death. Bamboozle people out of money? Death.
I can agree with most of the points made in this thread. The big mystery is whether or not the fleeing criminal pointed or raised the firearm to this police officer. If he did, then there's your justification of deadly force. Since they found a firearm near the suspect (assuming he was carrying it), it's going to be hard to indite this officer for anything. It's basically the officers word against a witness that may or may not have been anywhere close to what was happening at the time.
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