<p>What the dispatcher told the cops skipped the important parts about the probably fake and the juvenile. Personally, I think the dispatcher sounds like she’s having a very off day or is just not very good at her job. I wonder what happened to her. The 911 caller did say he was pointing the gun at people and frightening them, though. But, I’m not arguing that it was fine and dandy for them to kill him just that it is probably not usually going to be ruled criminal if an officer makes this sort of judgment error in the line of duty. That would go for whether it was a black or white suspect reaching into his waistband with a couple of jittery cops. The EMT’s are just going to try to get an alive patient to the hospital because they really can’t diagnose a heart attack either. If they start shocking him it’s usually already too late. That’s desperation.</p>
<p>marie, seriously. You made this untrue claim:</p>
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<p>All I did was point out that, in fact, the question of Tamir’s race was asked by the dispatcher and answered by the caller.</p>
<p>I agree with you that the dispatcher made critical errors, as did the cops. My problem with the cops, though, as I (and others) have stated before–they didn’t try AT ALL to defuse the situation. They raced up to the scene and–even without an imminent threat–shot a 12-year-old to death within seconds.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I am not holding my breath on an indictment on this one either.</p>
<p>^ which is why it seems to many of us non-cops that when they drove up and saw that the kid was alone and therefore no one was in imminent danger, common sense would dictate they should have stopped further away to assess what they were dealing with. </p>
<p>By the way, anyone wonder why the shooter’s personnel file ended up in the press almost immediately after the shooting of Tamir Rice? That had to have been released by the police department he worked for before. They must really have thought the shooter was a really bad cop. Most personnel evaluations understate the case rather than overstate it. </p>
<p>Just as people say Michael Brown was not a poster boy for police brutality, so this cop doesn’t look like the poster boy for good cops who end up in bad situations. </p>
<p>IRO our previous thread: many posters made a lot about the testimony of Witness 40 in the Wilson / Brown matter. This was the witness who testified that Brown turned on Wilson and rushed him like a bull. Many people, including the prosecutor, mentioned that testimony as evidence that Wilson acted in self defense. </p>
<p>Last night I saw some of the transcript of the police questioning (not the grand jury, where witness 40 was treated gently). Witness 40 admitted that he/she frequently made racist comments. When asked what kind of comments, he said, things like all the f’ing n-words should be killed, and the country was an “ape-fest”. (I need to keep re,I f’ing myself the Supreme Court thinks there’s no racism anymore.)</p>
<p>The police further questioned how Witness 40 got to Ferguson and why he happened to be right there at the time of the shooting. He didn’t live anywhere nearby, and didn’t have much of an explanation about why he was there. The police asked him, if he were standing on the sidewalk right where the the shooting occurred, why neither he nor his car appear in any of the videos. And why his story about how he drove out of town didn’t match up with reality. </p>
<p>And this was the ONLY witness that said Brown charged Wilson, which figured so prominently in McCullough’s reasoning for agreeing with the no bill. </p>
<p>Unbelievable. </p>
<p>wow . . . do you have a link? Did this person just come forward as a witness?</p>
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<p>If Tamir pulled anything, it was * toy * gun. Slight difference there. </p>
<p>And it is not the role of police to just take the word of the 911 caller. It’s their job to respond and assess what’s actually going on. In other words, the officer’s actions should have been based on reality.</p>
<p>Here’s a piece on Witness #40 from Chris Hayes’ show last night.</p>
<p><a href=“Ferguson: Was 'Witness 40' even there?”>http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/ferguson--was-witness-40-even-there--369446467820</a></p>
<p>“But, it was a gang hang-out and although not an all black neighborhood it is an infamously dangerous area.”</p>
<p>It was also directly across the street from his house. It is not supposed to be a crime to live in a bad neighborhood. </p>
<p>This crime sickens me so much, as did the guy getting shot down in a Wal-Mart with an air rifle that he intended to purchase. That also happened in Ohio. </p>
<p><a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>^^^ that! People who live in “bad” neighborhoods are not automatically guilty</p>
<p>Guilty of what? This was an accidental shooting and a tragedy. The cops made a mistake.</p>
<p>accidental shooting ???</p>
<p>No, it wasn’t accidental. It was horrible policing and negligent. </p>
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<p>Seriously??? accidental??? Given the officer’s prior history, no this was not accidental. He overreacted, which honestly is the basis of most of these shootings. The problem is cops seem to overreact more frequently with Blacks, especially males. However, there are other cases, and the victims were White, and it seems excessive force was used, if you believe eyewitness accounts.</p>
<p>Girl shot while leaving party</p>
<p><a href=“Kentucky community outraged after 19-year-old woman shot by deputy outside field party – New York Daily News”>http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/kentucky-community-outraged-19-year-old-shot-deputy-field-gathering-article-1.1771525</a></p>
<p>Man with Downs Syndrome</p>
<p><a href=“Down Syndrome Man Goes to Movies, Ends up in Morgue Over $12 Ticket - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/Health/syndrome-man-movies-ends-morgue/story?id=20046376</a></p>
<h1>-o</h1>
<p>The cops made a mistake in the case of Tamir Rice, in the sense that they didn’t deliberately set out to kill a child with a toy gun. The mistake of recklessly killing a child because you didn’t bother to take precautions to make sure that the person you were shooting at was a public danger, or an adult, or armed with a true gun-- that mistake is called manslaughter.</p>
<p>Again with the “he’s fat so it’s all right that the police killed him” defense. Ethan Saylor, who had Downs syndrome, was choked to death by sheriff’s deputies because he didn’t want to buy a second ticket to see a movie again at a movie theater. But hey, it’s OK because his weight might have made him more vulnerable to being choked to death.</p>
<p>The above post seems to belong on the E Garner thread.</p>
<p>On this case I completely agree the cop likely overreacted which is not intentional and that’s what I meant by accidental, not criminal. Negligence is a possibility but if they thought the gun was real which they did since they had no reason not to since no-one ever raised that possibility with them meaning the dispatcher, then when the suspect reached into his waistband shooting is what cops would be expected do at that point. I’m not sure that the cops over-react more with blacks but they definitely over-react more in high-crime areas mostly because that’s where they tend to be more often since that’s where the crime is located and that’s where their job put’s them for that reason every day and it’s dangerous. My guilty of what question is being taken out of context. It was a response to a poster suggesting the cops declared the child guilty of something which they didn’t. They shot in self-defense because he was reaching for something after they ordered him to freeze and and normally I doubt they would be prosecuted for a bad judgment call but in the current climate, I’m not so sure. </p>
<p>Anyway, this is interesting.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/opinion/sanders-police-officer-ferguson-garner-protests/index.html”>http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/opinion/sanders-police-officer-ferguson-garner-protests/index.html</a></p>
<p>The above post seems to belong on the E Garner thread.</p>
<p>On this case I completely agree the cop likely overreacted which is not intentional and that’s what I meant by accidental, not criminal. Negligence is a possibility but if they thought the gun was real which they did since they had no reason not to since no-one ever raised that possibility with them meaning the dispatcher, then when the suspect reached into his waistband shooting is what cops would be expected do at that point. I’m not sure that the cops over-react more with blacks but they definitely over-react more in high-crime areas mostly because that’s where they tend to be more often since that’s where the crime is located and that’s where their job put’s them for that reason every day and it’s dangerous. My guilty of what question is being taken out of context. It was a response to a poster suggesting the cops declared the child guilty of something which they didn’t. They shot in self-defense because he was reaching for something after they ordered him to freeze and and normally I doubt they would be prosecuted for a bad judgment call but in the current climate, I’m not so sure. </p>
<p>Anyway, this is interesting.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/opinion/sanders-police-officer-ferguson-garner-protests/index.html”>http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/11/opinion/sanders-police-officer-ferguson-garner-protests/index.html</a></p>
<p>I have watched that video countless times, and I do not believe that they even had time to tell him to freeze. He certainly was shot within two seconds and their stories have been inconsistent (more like outright lies) from the beginning. The “rookie” was not in imminent danger. He could have even stayed in the car and assessed the situation. I have spoken to a state trooper and a sheriff and both of them said it was not procedure to react in that manner. He may have not been a racist cop, but he did not follow his training. </p>
<p>MizzBee, not following training was the norm for this particular cop. He was dismissed from his previous department for exactly that, among other disturbing problems. </p>
<p>Marie, what makes you think the officer told the boy to freeze? </p>