<p>… (supposedly) brandishing a real-looking toy gun.</p>
<p>Perhaps some officers are already primed to have itchy trigger fingers upon encountering black people. But anything that looks like a real gun would probably make any officer’s trigger finger itchy.</p>
<p>But that does not necessarily mean that shooting first was the correct choice*, if the apparent gun was not yet being aimed at the officer or someone else.</p>
<p>*Obviously not in hindsight, but this refers to being in the situation without benefit of hindsight.</p>
<p>“And in the Brooklyn case, I am beyond appalled that the officer texted his union rather than radio for help–while the victim was bleeding to death.”</p>
<p>OMG - I didn’t know that! Beyond appalling for sure. </p>
<p>And that poor Tamir. He was probably just pulling the gun out to show the officer it wasn’t real. I honestly don’t think he thought about the consequences of his action at all - because he was 12 year old. </p>
<p>Correct. Again, it is their job to be able to make quick judgments about real versus imagined threats. Really, looking at the video it is pretty chilling. It’s as if they were called on scene to shoot a rabid coyote or something. There was no approaching from a safe distance, assessing the situation, trying to interact with the “suspect.” The boy was dead MOMENTS after they arrived.</p>
<p>So - on another thread someone asked about whether it is PC for kids to play cops and robbers anymore. I don’t think we have to worry about the PC issue. We need to be concerned about their safety from police.</p>
<p>Tamir Rice wasn’t brandishing the gun. He never even got it out of his waistband. The cops claim that the gun didn’t have the orange safety tip that would have branded it a toy, but the officers never saw the tip of the gun anyway to determine whether it was orange.</p>
<p>I bet no bill for Tamir Rice’s murder. I bet no bill for Akai Gurley’s copy. No matter how blatant we think the police misconduct is, I’ll bet no bill.</p>
<p>So one disturbing trend I am seeing in these recent cases is what I would call the “othering” of the victims. Tamir Rice “looked 20” (as if). Michael Brown and Eric Garner were “scary” because they were 300 pounds. It’s almost as though by continuing to define “those people” as different from themselves, they should get a pass for reacting the way they did.</p>
<p>I’m not really surprised you have zeroed in on that as a trend as you call it but you couldn’t really be more wrong again and the cases couldn’t really be more different either.</p>
<p>Pulling what appears to be a real gun from one’s waistband is a really bad idea in front of a police officer. That seems to be a sure way to be looking down the barrel of the officer’s gun, although it could still be more reasonable for the officer to yell to raise hands or drop the gun, rather than just shooting immediately.</p>
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<p>The “pulling the gun out of one’s waistband” situation actually makes the orange safety tip both irrelevant and ineffective – would any officer wait until s/he sees the end of the barrel of what appears to be a real gun before taking some sort of action (not necessarily shooting immediately, of course)?</p>
<p>You know what’s a bad idea? Hiring onto your police force a guy who was fired for incompetence as a police officer at his last job, especially if his former employers said he was dangerous with guns. You know why? Because he might end up shooting a child who wasn’t committing any crime.</p>
<p>A pair of cops who were competent at policing probably would have had a better idea about handling the situation than a drive-by shooting.</p>
<p>It shouldn’t be, and better police officers would likely have averted the death in this case.</p>
<p>However, playing with a real-looking toy gun in public, while not illegal, is still very dangerous in that it can cause someone (police or otherwise) to have to make a quick decision that could very easily be the wrong one in hindsight. Just because something is legal to do does not mean that it is safe or a good idea.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the thread, so forgive if this has already been said.</p>
<p>I actually have some hope of a prosecution in this case, only because DOJ just took over the Cleveland PD, basically. It’s not going to be left up to the local DA and one of those magical grand juries which cannot seem to see even video evidence.</p>
<p>Since when has it been unusual in this country for a boy to possess a toy gun and to play with said toy? I wonder how many 12 yr olds in the Hollers of West Virginia receive not just toy guns as gifts each year, but real ones as well…If one of these country boys is playing alone in a local park with his toy gun, I wonder how many people would call the police or county Sheriff alarmed that some kid was “brandishing” a gun around. </p>
<p>Context matters. If it’s a neighborhood where young black men are shooting at each other such as happens in gangs where 14 is around the median age then that would probably affect the way police are conditioned to respond to such a report and factor into who may or may not be frightened and call the cops when someone is pointing an extremely real looking weapon at people for entertainment. That is not to justify, but maybe explain the since when question because it has been quite a while now but these stories don’t get much news coverage.</p>
<p>Also, according to the Nationwide Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation, officers killed on the job is up nearly 50 percent in 2014 so that is another likely contributing issue.</p>