Yet again a cop killed an innocent person because he was jumpy.
How many innocent people have to be slaughtered until something changes?
It’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer.
Heartbreaking.
I don’t think it is the criminals we need to take guns away from. 
We really need to give our police much better training in recognizing and dealing with people with disabilities and mental illness.
^ This is the problem. How on earth would a deaf person be recognizable? There are no physical markings that signal that you’re deaf and the last thing you want to do is start trying to communicate with cops in ASL. Could you imagine a deaf person trying to communicate that they’re deaf? Luckily the sign for “deaf” involves the hands going no lower than the face, but as soon as those arms start going down…
We need to train cops to be less trigger happy. Why was there a taser AND a gun discharged at the same time?!
Perhaps the apparent increased trigger happiness among police is a result of the general fear of crime that has remained high (or even increased) since the crime wave era, despite actual crime rates being much lower now than at the peak in 1991. If someone has internalized a high level of fear of crime from before s/he became a police officer, could that carry over into increased trigger happiness as a police officer?
@ucbalumnus doubtful. Cops have been violent for well over a century and the targets of their violence has remained relatively the same. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-painful-history-police-brutality-in-the-us-180964098/
The difference is that now they have easier access to more lethal weapons.
Oh, and the non-targeted communities have finally started LISTENING to the targeted communities because of video evidence.
Those who think police officers are just a bunch if violent killers should never call for help when they are robbed, threatened or need help. Better off to call your local gang banger or drug dealer, no doubt.
busdriver, if you’re telling us that we have to tolerate these killings of innocent people because cops will be cops, I do not accept that. Some cops, most cops, don’t shoot innocent people. Some cops, most cops, don’t panic and pull out their guns every time they see someone with a black or brown face. We can have better cops. We don’t have to put up with this.
The victim in this case was white. I’m not sure what the solution is. Would it even be feasible to train the entire police force in sign language?
I’m guessing from the name of the victim, Sanchez, that this man was brown.
Officers need to be trained to de-escalate situations, not escalate them to shootings. Unfortunately, it would appear that far too many of them are terrified and unstable, and have adopted a militarized stance.
Why they didn’t listen to the neighbors I do not know. But I do know that the ultimate problem was the murderer who shot him, not the officer who tasered him. The latter is certainly not desirable, but it is much less likely to be lethal.
This is very unfortunate of course. However, the deaf man knows well enough that those police officers don’t know that he’s deaf. I’m sure he saw them screaming and yelling at him. I think he was acting in a threatening way, y the way this article reads. I guess I don’t put total blame in the officers in shooting. Now, they could have shot him in the leg, if he didn’t have a gun…that’s where they need additional training.
The incident at Georgia Tech this weekend haunts me. Five trained cops with guns and pepper spray, and one scared and confused student. Shouldn’t have ended the way it did.
http://www.ajc.com/news/gbi-georgia-tech-student-called-911-before-shooting/WTH4NAGX30oJJEAEK98biN/
No, I’m not saying that. I don’t think anyone would say that.
I totally agree with this.
Along with that, I wish someone would develop effective non lethal weapons (apparently there are issues with tasers), so encounters that appear to be threatening don’t have to end with someone being dead. And training that focuses on learning how to shoot to stop someone as opposed to always shooting to kill. Better training in mental health and de-escalating situations, and getting ahold of loose guns that are so easy for criminals to get their hands on. Requirements for body cameras in all situations, less bulky bulletproof vests, and the list continues.
But people who demonize all police officers for the actions of a few, don’t have the right answer.
In my opinion, we need to increase the amount of training the police get and continuing education that doesn’t focus on self preservation. In my state the minimum required is an associates degree. The plumb jobs require a 4 year degree but that is not state wide.
The New York Times ran a piece a couple of days ago about police and autism. The incident described was bad but the story ended with hope - a training program designed by a police officer with kids on the spectrum.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/police-autism-understanding.html?mcubz=3
In Minnesota there is a 40 hour training available for crisis intervention with the mentally ill.
http://www.mncit.org/
A 2010 news article says that a quarter of the Minneapolis police force have received the training and are dispatched to calls that may be involve the mentally ill.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/06/11/schneider
edited to add: We as citizens need to advocate for the handicapped, mentally ill, autistic. Find out if your police department has training. Print out articles for the chief. They don’t want to shoot anyone or traumatize someone.
Was just going to post the sad Ga Tech situation. It sounds like “suicide by cop” and it could have been handled much better. He called the police to report himself, and had a small multi tool thing in his hand. So very sad.
When are bad cops going to be held accountable? I don’t want to criticize all cops, but when they stick up for the bad ones they stain their own credibility. Still waiting to see how the Justine Damond case turns out here in MN, where a completely innocent, nightgown wearing woman was shot dead by a cop , apparently because of a " loud noise" that startled him.
Regarding the Georgia Tech case- https://www.yahoo.com/news/georgia-tech-cop-shot-lgbt-160949566.html
"…The CIT training has become common in police departments across the nation. It gives officers the skills to deal with mentally ill and suicidal people before deadly force is used, teaching them basic methods for de-escalating encounters with emotionally disturbed people.
Powell said 22 of the Georgia Tech Police Department’s 89 police officers have gone through the training. …"
The police officer n this case was one that had not received the training.
Back to the topic of the thread.
For members with hearing impaired relatives, what approach would you think is the best to take? Obviously be in the line of sight. Obviously listen to family and friends when they tell you the person is hearing impaired. Should the police learn 5 basic sign language commands such as “Put that down please?”
The shoot to kill first training of police needs to be changed. If a suspect has a firearm aimed directly at an officer , I understand the quick trigger reaction. The officers that shoot to kill people holding a pipe, an unarmed person making a startling noise or a distraught student with an unopened multitool requesting suicide by cop, etc., that are many feet away, have other options that they should be trained in. I can’t believe that this Country still hasn’t fixed this. These are officers of the law caused homicides in just the few last months.