tvc184

  The police only review the police internally to see if policy is violated. The police don't decide who to take charges on even for normal non-police criminal cases. Those decisions are reserved for the District Attorney, US Attorney, City Prosecutor, etc.    In civil cases, a jury does that. You can sue anytime you wish.    As far as the criminal charges that "clearly shows" the officers went to far, which cases? Name a case that is clear cut that everyone knows the officer is guilty and yet no charges were brought? Even in cases where charges are taken against an officer, the officers are often found not guilty by a jury when the facts of the case come out and the jury is read the law by the judge.    In the US Supreme Court under Graham v. Connor, they said that to view if an officer is wrong you have to view it from "objective reasonableness" as seen through the eyes of the officer that has to make (in the SC's own words) "split second" decisions. The Graham case is significant in my opinion because Graham had not committed any crime however he suffered injuries at the hands of officers during a detention for a crime that never happened. An officer saw a guy run into a store and run out, jumped into a passenger's side of a car and left in a hurry. The officer thought that he had witnessed an armed robbery and stop the car and called for backup. In truth Graham was having a diabetic crisis and needed some sugar and when he saw a long line at the checkout counter, he ran out of the store to head to the next one. When stopped Graham was acting irrationally and did not cooperate with the officers and he was put in handcuffs and pretty much thrashed. The officers did not know that it was not a robbery and thought that Graham was resisting them after a felony. Looking at the facts after the incident, the officers were completely wrong however there was no intent or wilful misconduct. It was a mistake for sure. This is part of the synopsis of that case from the Supreme Court: All claims that law enforcement officials have used excessive force -- deadly or not -- in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other "seizure" of a free citizen are properly analyzed under the Fourth Amendment's "objective reasonableness" standard, rather than under a substantive due process standard.   By the way, the Supreme Court ruling was unanimous.    From this year alone, the Supreme Court in Plumhoff v. Rickard upheld Graham. In that case officers fired a dozen rounds into a car that had fled from them and presented a danger to them and the public. Not only was the driver killed but so was the passenger that was likely not a willing participant in the fleeing and had not committed any crime. Again, the SC upheld the officers acting in a tense situation under a split second decision to use deadly force even when an innocent party in the car was killed. And yet again, the ruling was unanimous.    So as far saying there was more force than was necessary, under both state and federal law that is not enough alone to prove a crime. In the heat of battle in I hit a guy 6 times and a video later shows that 4 hits may have been enough, it does not prove any illegal act.    Under Texas law for Official Oppression, the required culpable mental state is "intentionally" violating someone's rights. That means the officer was fully aware that he was going too far and did it anyway. It other words he had to have the "intent" to violate someone's rights, not have made a mistake.    Sec. 39.03. OFFICIAL OPPRESSION (a) A public servant acting under color of his office or employment commits an offense if he: (1) intentionally subjects another to mistreatment or to arrest, detention, search, seizure, dispossession, assessment, or lien that he knows is unlawful; (2) intentionally denies or impedes another in the exercise or enjoyment of any right, privilege, power, or immunity, knowing his conduct is unlawful; or (3) intentionally subjects another to sexual harassment.     Under federal law and a USC 1983 civil rights violation, they state that the officer had to act "wilfully" to violate someone's rights. Merely making a mistake is not such a violation. I copied this from one of the probably hundreds of websites on civil rights violations. "In fact, police are immune from suit for the performance of their jobs unless willful, unreasonable conduct is demonstrated. Mere negligence, the failure to exercise due care, is not enough to create liability. Immunity therefore means that in the typical police-suspect interaction, the suspect cannot sue the police. Civil rights remedies come into play for willful police conduct that violates an individual's constitutional rights."  This section is about lawsuits which requires a lesser degree of proof than a criminal charge. A lawsuit only requires a preponderance of evidence when criminal requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. You can see that the police are immune from misconduct charges unless it is a wilful violation. Things simply move too fast that someone else can look at months later to decide if the officer did something wrong. That is the basis of Graham v. Connor.    In fact the same website that talks about civil rights starts of with this statement: "Police officers generally have broad powers to carry out their duties." I think those "broad powers" is what irks a lot of people and causes a lot of people to resist thinking that if they don't agree with an officer, they can contest it on the side of the street.    [Hidden Content]   Uses of force are never pretty. I have seen what I think is clearly unlawful force such as a recent case in CA where an officer beat a women several times in the face when she was offering no resistance. We don't know what preceded the video and I can see that if she came at him he might have knocked her down but this was excessive in my opinion past the point of a split second decision.   [Hidden Content]     Even then, ponder this. When a doctor is accused of using a wrong procedure or not following protocol, who reviews the case, a plumber? 

    Oops!!   Don't bring that up again!!

  Let's look at resisting arrest or fleeing. From my experience about 1 in 15 arrests requires the officer(s) to chase or fight with a suspect.    The FBI reports about 14 million arrests a year. That means that officers have to chase and/or fight with a suspect close to a million times a year. Like I said previously, the officer involved fatalities is between 400-600 times a year. That comes out to 1 officer involved shooting for every 1,500 people that resist arrest.    That isn't the people that submit to an arrest which is about 13 million taken into custody without incident. That is from the people actively resisting trying to be taken into custody.    And no matter how people spin it, most of the cases of officer involved shootings is fairly clear cut with a person firing at officers or coming at them with a knife, club or other weapon. The ones that people claim as questionable (not counting the family who always questions it), it probably is somewhere in the area of 1 in 10,000 arrests resisting cases.   Where is the claimed epidemic (not from you but the national media)?  

  .......... depending on how they are resisting. 

    It is all wrong. The one difference I see is whether it is on a national scale or a single person and/or local station.    In the Zimmerman case (which big girl seems fixated with) CNN admitted that they put out false information about a racial slur that was claimed to be made by Zimmerman, NBC altered the 911 tapes to make it sound like he was calling because Martin was black and ABC altered the video and photos of his head to make it look like there were no injuries when he was brought to the police station. CNN came out and admitted their mistake, NBC fired the person that put out the false 911 recording and ABC only claimed that they had accidentally adjusted the lighting in the photo and video wrongly.    This was claimed to be Fox News when in fact it was nothing but a local station. The person responsible should be terminated as untrustworthy in reporting news. 

  Let's see, he has the internet, global warming, the hanging chad...... he might soon be up there with Thomas Edison. 

  Out of the approximately 14 million arrests each year, neither were millions of blacks.    The odds of being killed by the police in an arrest is about 20,000+ to 1. If people would quit fighting and comply with arrest, it would go down to almost zero.    I have no clue what George Zimmerman has to do with the millions of other arrests that year that didn't end in a fatal incident but apparently it makes some sense to you. 

    Let's see, in the video John Crawford appears to be carrying an AR15 or similar rifle. A person calls 911 and tells the dispatcher that a man is in the store with a rifle and waving it around. The police then arrive thinking that they may be walking into an active shooter situation.    They spot a guy with a rifle just as the caller said. The police naturally point their weapons at the person and challenge him. What comments or questions should they make or ask?   A. DROP THE WEAPON!   B. Time out sir. Sir, is that a real weapon? If it is in fact a real weapon, do you intend to use it or are you simply scaring people? Please let us know and can you please not do move or we will have to challenge you louder.    All the while the officers know that it takes about one second for the person to bring the rifle up and fire at them. I am assuming that the responding officers should have simply waited to see if one of them got shot first. If the guy did actually kill an officer, it would then be acceptable for the other officers to return fire.    In fact this guy on the video appeared to be acting strange. He was seen pointing the rifle and ducking around the corner of an aisle. Sometimes he looked like he was shouldering the weapon and going to attention like he was in the military. No one will ever know why he was doing that but in fact he was acting strangely. After the police entered, he fled around the corner and then came back and appeared to lunge at the rifle.    It is easy to look back on it and see it as a tragedy although Crawford acted in a manner that brought attention to himself. The officers are faced with making a decision that may cost their lives if they hesitate. It is an unfortunate problem of the world we live in today. In this year alone officers murdered in the line of duty are up 50% from the previous year. Officers seriously injured are at an all time high and the only reason that more officers are not killed is from modern life saving techniques and responding officers saving their partner's lives with tourniquets and other things that were not done or taught in the past.    Yet again, there is a way to stop the violent encounters..... stop resisting and fleeing.   

  "I heard"? There is ironclad innuendo and speculation.    No matter, that guy had a gun that looked real. Your silly "if it would have been a black guy" doesn't seem to bear out that millions of blacks are arrested each year and not shot. How did they manage to go to jail without being shot and without needing to be treated at the hospital for a violent arrest?   Oh, I know. They complied when told that they were under arrest. Amazing how that works. 

No.

  I know that facts and reality have no basis in your opinions and rants but look at this.   From wikipedia:   Police arrived within 90 seconds and found at least three .40-caliber handgun magazines, a shotgun and a large drum magazine on the floor of the theater.   police apprehended Holmes behind the cinema, next to his car, without resistance.   He left his guns in the theater and the police found him behind the theater. He was not running away and was not charging them. According to the article they did not even know that he was the actor at first (since he wasn't acting crazy) and he did not resist.     I have said it before and I will stick with it. All of these claimed police abuses are the result of the suspect resisting or attacking officers. There is a very easy way to stop them. Quit resisting.    If you want to contest your case, the lawful way is in court, not at the roadside where the laws and Supreme Court decisions clearly are in favor of the police using force to protect themselves and others from what the officers "reasonably believe". 

I read it. It was not Fox News but a local Fox affiliate in Somewhere, USA. 

  Why change spots now?

LOL is right. WOW, the UN doesn't like something that the US does.    I'm glad I read this thread, I would have never known any of this............  :D

The Ice Age is upon us.

  Except for the other family.................... 

  It is not an unusually long time. Trials normally get put on a docket and then get reset and reset and............   This has a lot to do with the legal maneuvering that the defense is putting up on sanity issues. It is not because the DA wants to wait two years for a trial but there is no need to hurry when he is still locked away. 

Awaiting a trial seeking the death penalty.

Victim. He was a victim of his own choosing by robbing a store, attacking an officer and trying to take his duty weapon and finally being a victim of his own demise by not continuing to run away or submitting to a lawful arrest but instead again attacking the officer.

  Well, considering that it started crashing when the Republicans lost Congress................ 

The stock market is doing great.    I am not sure how that helps the people that need help but after 6 years, people finally have to buy big tickets items. No matter how bad the economy gets, it will always recover and things have to be replaced. This isn't Cuba where those big items have to last 40 years. 

  Maybe... but does it really matter? What does a pattern prove?   There is a reason that you can't bring up prior history in a criminal trial. Because you were speeding several times in the past and paid for citations (admission of guilt) so I can give you a speeding ticket today solely on history. If a guy is a convicted felon that doesn't mean an officer can shoot him without further cause because of prior history shows that he had a violent demeanor. An officer that was punished internally doesn't mean that he can't lawfully use force to defend himself.    What matters is what happened at the moment in question. Prior history might tend to show cause for people looking for a "reason" that something happened but it doesn't mean that a person is always right or wrong. That is also a reason that criminal charges do not require a "motive". The only issue is that the crime was committed and why is not an issue except at the punishment phase of a trial after guilt is established.     What about from the opposing viewpoint? Most often brought up is bad history but if an officer or anyone else shoots someone and he has no history, does that then mean that he is right? I have 31 years in law enforcement and haven't had any disciplinary suspensions for any cause much less use of force. Does that mean that if I kill someone that is a two time convicted violent felon that I am automatically right because I have a "good history" and he has a "bad" one?   That is why I could care less what Trayvon Martin had for a history. What I cared about was proof that Zimmerman killed him without cause. There was none.    Whether this officer had a checkered past or not does not mean that he is guilty of anything. What if the kid was a habitual criminal even at that young age and was accused of several crimes and convicted in juvenile court? Is that evidence that the officer is justified?    About the only thing I care about in the area of history is a possible understanding of the person's thought process because we like to speculate on those kinds of things. In my opinion it is meaningless at the moment in question however it might give us that "ahhhh...." moment later.    Ahhhhh... THAT'S why he did that crime.    EDIT: "haven't had any disciplinary suspensions"

I notice that the mother made the routine statement in many of these incidents, he "was trying to get his life back together".    Of course this was after he was expelled from school and she was "urging him" to join the Job Corps. 

  I am sure they will but I highly doubt it will add anything. Eye witness testimony is some of the worst evidence out there. That is especially true on cases where shots are being fired and people are generally getting the heck out of the area. Many times they think they see something but the physical evidence does not match the testimony.