The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

This conversation is serving as a solid demonstration of how "officer had a reasonable belief that his life was in danger" is a meaningless go-to defense to allow cops to shoot at people with impunity.

If these officers "did nothing wrong", if this is actually their job, then the job should not exist. We should not be hiring people to shoot guns at whatever loud noises are nearby.

Either these officers belong in jail or the concept of policing is irreparably corrupt. (Or both; Both things can be true, but at least one must be.)

I believe the exact crime in Florida would be “written or electronic threats”, a second-degree felony. The picture of the gun was accompanied by messages containing violent threats against the suspect’s girlfriend. I don’t think the second amendment covers that sort of thing.

Perhaps my wording is making it unclear: when I say difficult, I mean that it’s all but impossible for a human being to determine the direction of a gunshot simply by hearing it. Due to the way sound waves propagate from modern ammunition, two people standing in the same location could potentially perceive a gunshot as coming from two different directions. Locating a gunshot by sound requires large microphone arrays, and even that isn’t always accurate.

For certain things it does, but for any kind of use of force whether lethal or nonlethal the standard is that it be judged based on the facts available to the officer at the time the force was used. Take the toy gun example again: if someone points a realistic toy gun at an officer, and that officer uses any kind of force on them, the officer would not be held criminally liable unless it could be shown that they knew in advance the gun wasn’t real. If they discovered the gun was real after using force, that discovery would not be relevant to the judgement on whether or not the force was appropriate.

In effect, what this means is that if a police officer perceives a threat to be legitimate then they can act upon it.

Only about 42% of households in the US own a gun. Should officers be required to check every window and door nearby if they’re shot at? The state has a vested interest in officers staying alive, they aren’t free to replace.

Are you really arguing that police should take into account only the things directly in front of them and not act on advanced knowledge whatsoever? If I recall from previous discussions, a common issue people have is police arriving on scene with inadequate advanced knowledge about the situation. Should police only be disregarding advanced knowledge of weapons, perhaps?

This is a frankly absurd stance to take. Should officers be charged with kidnapping or illegal restraint every time they arrest someone? Civillians aren’t expected to carry a gun everywhere they go or insert themselves into violent situations. Outside of a few states, this standard would make almost any use of police deadly force illegal as most states have a “duty to retreat” requirement for civilians. Do you think that police officers should be required to run away when deadly force is about to be used?

The toy gun example is not at all the same to what happened here. He heard a noise, that is all. That noise caused him to A) jump to the conclusion it was a gunshot B) Somehow imagine that he was shot and C) Fire off repeatedly in a suburban neighborhood

"In effect, what this means is that if a police officer perceives a threat to be legitimate then they can act upon it."

But that isn't true. Not completely. Even the report you linked to earlier states his actions were "not objectively reasonable". He perceived it was a legitimate threat but the final report said that he did not act appropriately, so he resigned (I'm not sure if that was voluntary or not). He inappropriately used lethal force, not just in the public perception but by the policies and procedures he was supposed to follow.

Given how frequently they arrest people who aren't doing anything wrong and are ultimately released with no charges filed? I wouldn't mind being allowed to press charges against the officers in those instances.

It should be a crime to arrest someone who isn't committing any sort of crime.

And while I gave some credit for him resigning, it still means he avoided any official punishment for fucking up.

And I'll rescind that credit if he only resigned to avoid suffering such consequences.

Sure, it is difficult to find the direction of a gunshot, but I can damn well tell if one was fired right behind you vs far away.

Edited by minseok42 on Feb 19th 2024 at 11:44:01 AM

You should also be able to tell the difference between being shot and not being shot. Somehow he thought he was shot despite nothing actually hitting him.

I recall a time in my youth — I think I was like 12 — when I heard a car backfire near me. I was freaked out for a second, then realized I was fine and it was just a car backfiring.

Edited by M84 on Feb 20th 2024 at 2:46:27 AM

You’ve bought this up a couple times so can you explain why the fact that the suspect had been checked and found to not have a gun and the fact that the suspect was handcuffed are not important facts available to the officer at the time that should have been considered by the officer?

Because I could see your argument applying if we were talking about a third officer who got a call of “potentially armed suspect [description]” and turned up at the scene to shouts of “I’m hit” and then fired upon the individual matching the description they’d been given. But officer two had the critical information of the suspect having been both searched and handcuffed.

If they cannot visually identify where the shots are coming from and have not received specific statments from other officers as to the source of gunfire? Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and say they should keep checking before they open fire.

Sure but the state has (to my mind at least) a greater interest in protecting the public. The state has a vested interest in keeping officers alive because they are (meant to be) the tool which the state uses for the overall goal of keeping the public safe. Officers who cannot differentiate between acorns and gunfire or who refuse to confirm the hostility of a target before deploying deadly force are not conductive to the goal, they actually harmful to it.

Not every time. But if they do it due an unreasonable fear, without due care, or through a level of legal ignorance we would not tolerate in regular citizens there should certainly be consequences, ranging from retraining all the way to criminal charges.

I’ll also note that a citizen can arrest someone, citizens arrest is a thing.

You’re right, we generally expect teachers, medical staff and a host of other civilians to insert themselves into violent situations unarmed.

A requirement to make reasonable attempts to deescalate would go a long way to reducing the violence levels in the US, it’s what many police forces in other developed nations train for.

Edited by Silasw on Feb 20th 2024 at 8:54:40 PM

Besides, we know police are more than willing to back away when fearing for their lives. Remember Uvalde?

You used the word brandishing. That quoted item's particular statute falls under written or electronic threats to kill, which wouldn't fall under brandishing a weapon. Brandishing specifically is written as exhibit done in someone's presence. He at the time, displayed no weapon, and the weapon he sent the text message with was miles away, not within the immediate vicinity. And this seems like it would fall under non-protected speech which is first amendment coverage, not second amendment.

The thing about this entire thing is, with regards specifically to the interaction, the suspect did nothing wrong. He wasn't being belligerent, he was cooperating, subjected himself to a search and willfully got detained in the car without any noted resistance. He didn't hide a weapon on him that could pose a danger, because he didn't have it with him at the time. What more could you want from a suspect for a crime? And yet he still got shot at. If the suspect could do everything reasonably right when interacting with law enforcement, and still get shot at, it basically legalized screwups for law enforcement. Apparently suspects don't have any right to life anymore. That's what's being implied if this doesn't fall under legally culpability for the officer. And apparently the only reason the sheriffs weren't legally culpable is that the suspect didn't get hit. Are we seriously saying this is reasonable for officers to "No harm, No foul" this, with regards to the law? If the actions taken with regards to deadly force are legally culpable in the case of injury or death, they should be legally culpable even when they miss. For civilians, attempted homicide is still a crime, even if it fails. But for officers, when it's found unambiguously unreasonable (and we all agree that it was unambiguously unreasonable), it's "my bad".

Edited by HeyMikey on Feb 20th 2024 at 6:49:09 AM

Officer two didn’t participate in the initial search of the suspect. They directed the first officer to place the handcuffed suspect in their vehicle, then were speaking to the suspect’s girlfriend out of view of the first officer’s vehicle when they saw the first officer fall to the ground and call out that he’d been shot.

For clarity, I’m not arguing the first officer’s actions were in any way appropriate. I’m arguing that the findings of the agency, which are that the first officer acted inappropriately and should resign, and that the second officer acted appropriately, are adequate.

Legally speaking, at least, this is indisputable. You might argue that the law should be changed, but I’m additionally arguing that any changes to the law that would allow the second officer to be prosecuted would alter use of force doctrine in a way that would be completely inappropriate, both from a police perspective and from the perspective of a broader goal of having functional, equitable police departments.

Citizens arrests can typically only be made when a felony has been committed that a civilian directly witnessed. Applying this standard to police arrests would preclude the possibility of criminal investigation, among other things.

Are you arguing that teachers and medical staff encounter violent situations as often as police, or in the same context?

Applying the same standard as civilian “duty to retreat” laws to police would in most cases prevent de-escalation of any kind, as those laws typically require the civilian to fully remove themselves from the situation. De-escalation requires, at a minimum, remaining in the situation and talking to the people involved. Obviously I agree that police should make greater use of de-escalation tactics, my point in the section you’re responding to here is that the logic of “if civilians can’t do it police shouldn’t do it” is nonsensical. Even in a hypothetical scenario where police departments are fully reformed and only act appropriately, police will still be called on to do things that a civilian might not be permitted to do. Adopting that stance is counterproductive to any discussion of police reform because it rejects the idea that there should be separate legal standards for police action, and the conversation that we need to have is about what the separate standards for police action should be.

See above.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 20th 2024 at 9:22:46 AM

If we're defining "functional, equitable police departments" as officers emptying clips at innocent people over misbehaving trees then they're something I could certainly do without.

Changing the law might be "inappropriate" from a cop's perspective, but in my opinion, letting cops shoot people for no reason is already inappropriate.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 20th 2024 at 9:32:48 AM

I'm pretty sure most people are arguing the first deputy should be charged. Or that if both should be charged, that he would be held more accountable.

Edited by Hawkeye86 on Feb 20th 2024 at 12:37:36 PM

That’s valuable additional context, though I remain of the view that officers should have an individual responsibility to validly identity their target when using deadly force, with the only exception being when literally shooting under direction.

I don’t agree with putting all culpability of officer one, but I agree with your sentiment that that’s where the majority of the culpability should sit.

We still however are left with the situation where officer one has faced no substantive punishment. I don’t believe he’s even banned from working for the police in the future. Resignation strikes me as a very minor punishment for false deployment of deadly force and requesting others deploy deadly force on false reasoning to support you.

Is there not a crime in the US which is committed if a person shoots at someone on unreasonable grounds but fails to hit? If not (which I could buy) should there not? Do you really think it’s a good idea for the law’s position on shooting people to be “as long as there’s no malice or physical damage and the cause is just stupidity/paranoia it’s fine”?

Also is there really not a criminal offence committed if a person goes out in public and (without malice or medically accredited psychological incident) claims to be shot and causes the police to shoot a person?

A police force that does not seriously punish officers who shoot at unarmed individuals is not one I would describe as “functional”.

Depending on the school or medical unit a person is on I’m pretty sure they encounter violent situations more often than many police. Plenty of teachers and nurses deal with violent students/patients daily.

The context is different but often to the detriment of the civilians, they will have no weapons, be more outnumbered and have less legal support.

I don’t disagree, but I find your assertion that police should not be held to such basic standards as “know that you’re shooting at something that should be shot at” similarly nonsensical.

"Hearing an acorn falling onto a car and not only believing that it's a gunshot but believing that you have been shot and falling to the ground as a result"

This sort of thing happens more often than you think. Shooting like this is a result of poor stress management in the face of risk. Basically, this has all the signs of someone in a hyper-alert state of mind not taking the time to identify his target before firing.

You can manage this sort of thing, but it takes a considerable amount of training. So the question becomes did this police agency provide sufficient training to give their officers the ability to manage their own stress, even under what they think is fire? If they did, then he deserves punishment (and so does the second officer). If they weren't adequately trained, then resignation was the appropriate outcome.

Well at least police being idiots recently is a one time thi-

Rookie Tennessee Cop was Texting Wife, Bragging About First Arrest When He Crashed into River with Mother-of-Two.

New Yorkers Have Thoughts About the NYPD Having a Dance Team Amid Budget Cuts to Schools, Libraries, and More.

...nevermind.

That first case is particularly bad since the deputy got himself and the woman he had just arrested killed.

I disagree there. If we’re going to blame insufficient training then the people who should be resigning are the supervisors and the training team. I’d also personally include whoever was responsible for recruitment based on the logic that they should be filtering out people who are this jumpy at the recruiting stage.

Police run physical fitness, psychological profiling, eyesight and drug tests as part of recruitment, why not run stress reaction testing as well?

Edited by Silasw on Feb 20th 2024 at 11:43:28 AM

Thats gonna be hard.

How do you test how someone will react to being shot at (especially if they know it wouldn't be real during the test).

You don’t have to test specifically being shot at, but you can test their reaction to sudden loud noises that are only semi-expected. It’s about reactions under stress, not gunfire specifically.

You can also do what the military aparently do where they test your ability to not panic while being subject to chemical weapon attack by putting you in protective gear them pumping a room full of semi-harmful gas, if you panic and pull your gear off you fail, while if you trust the gear you’ll be fine.

Though I’d argue that a final part of training for a firearms role should involve running the office through a few mock scenarios, with one involving simulated gunfire and another involving things that could be mistaken for simulated gunfire. I hold that belife by the way not just for the safety of the public but so that officers are themselves properly prepared for the situations they could end up in for their own well-being.

That’s my serious answer, the glib answer?

Aparently we could just throw some fucking acorns at them.

Edited by Silasw on Feb 20th 2024 at 12:09:24 PM

Now, given that nobody was actually hurt, I don't think severe legal action is necessary. Having said that, I also think that it should seriously call into question the Officer's fitness for the position.

Just to use an example, let's say an officer does something similar, but is kept on The Force. Then, later on, they shoot and kill somebody. Now, the Police Department is going to look pretty bad. It's just too much of a liability there.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Feb 20th 2024 at 4:12:24 AM

I really don’t see why they should get a free pass just because they failed in their attempt to kill an unarmed and handcuffed man.

Either what they did was within the law/procedure and they shouldn’t be facing punishment even if they had killed him, or what they did was out of line and they should be facing legal consequences (which being told to resign is not).

Officer one should never be allowed a gun again, or even to work in an unarmed policing role. I think there’s honestly an argument that he should be placed under mandatory psychiatric care, considering that his inability to properly perceive reality almost got someone killed.

Edited by Silasw on Feb 20th 2024 at 12:31:54 PM

Oh yeah. There needs to be the maximum punishment.

That I've never disagreed with.

Honestly, him just resigning ain't enough.

But then again, my empathy for police (despite my early post) is drier than all the deserts on earth right now.

@Silasw

There are situations where a crime is punished less severely in the event that nobody gets hurt. In fact, murder is an example: Attempted Murder is a crime, obviously, but it's still punished less severely than if you had actually succeeded.

It's not like those who want officer one to be charged are asking for homicide charges. In terms of suggestions we have culpable negligence, reckless endangerment, discharging a weapon publicly in a residential area, probably add in aggravated assault. I think the worst suggested was attempted homicide. Those who are suggesting officer two be held responsible are probably putting in a parallel to the officers who let Derek Chauvin kneel on George Floyd when he murdered him. They didn't get homicide charges like Derek Chauvin, but they were held culpable as accomplices. Officer one bears the brunt of it, but officer two fired without verifying a target or direct instruction.