Put another "X" on the cops' guns

[Blarg]

Those two situations are not connected at all eric. Not at all.

How not? 13 year old has pistol and it could have been a replica, a non leathal attempt was made and the guy gets killed.

Oh yeah, the difference is the gun was not a replica but how do you really know, right?

Edited October 24, 2013 by Eric Notti

[arch stanton]

You would like to usenon leathal force against someone holding an AK47? Good luck with that.

But anecdotal story, a cousin in law that lived in Long Beach was waving a shotgun around in a drunk rage and the LBPD took him down without firing a shot. He was jailed and did time. No real hapoy ending, the sob was an abusive alcoholic that eventually commited suicide but at least the police didn't help him.

Yes. I don't believe it's a capital offense to hold an AK 47 is it? I wasn't there. I don't know all the details but obviously the kid never fired a shot. He didn't have any hostages. Is pumping him full of bullets the only possible way to handle this? 

[Lifetime]

When you have a gun pointed at you and the person refuses to put it down, you absolutely do not wait for him to fire the first shot. 

[Blarg]

I can see the stone wall you and MT are standing behind but mass shootings start with someone just wandering through with a rifle and a handgun in their waisteband. Also it is against California law for teenagers to posses firearms without adult supervision.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Eric Notti

[Taylor]

When you have a gun pointed at you and the person refuses to put it down, you absolutely do not wait for him to fire the first shot. 

 

Instead, you fire 20+ bullets into him.

[Lifetime]

I haven't read much on this case Taylor, I don't know how many fired at him or how many shots were fired but it only takes a couple seconds to fire 20 shots from multiple weapons. 

[Blarg]

I belive the article listed seven shots fired not 20.

[saangels]

It was a 13 year old that killed a math teacher that tried to reason with him to put down a gun in Spaks Nevada this week. That math teacher served two campaigns in Afghanistan only to be blown away by a kid so to act as though it is unreasonable to treat a teenager with a weapon as a serious threat is plain stupid. There is not age limit on dangerous individuals.

Uhhh, the cops are in a different position than the math teacher: they have weapons to defend themselves; I'm also assuming that they weren't standing point blank in front of the kid, like the math teacher was...they were probably wielding a shield of some sort.   So why couldn't they have shot the kid in the leg?  

 

Let's not get carried away by all this yellow journalism swirling around trying to paint pictures of homicidal adolescent boys running amuck in our communities.  Just because it's all they talk about on the "news," that doesn't necessarily mean that this stuff is going on all around us.   It's this type of over-sensitivity to fear mongering that's going to wind up placing shotguns in the hands of school security guards.  

 

When will people realize that this is just the media's way of distracting people from the real issues, e.g., the Wall Street takeover, money in politics, the findings of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, etc?

 

Congress is working day and night to uproot and destroy the constitutional framework set up by our founding fathers.  And here we are worried about a Children of the Corn sequel.   

Edited October 24, 2013 by saangels

[Tank]

Does the kid bear any responsibility here for not dropping the weapon when ordered to by police? Seems like that point is being too quickly dismissed here.

[HaloMagic]

LOL at shooting a 13 year old in the leg. That's really not how guns work. Not in the real world. Maybe if he was a stationary target that was perceived as not posing a threat and they were practicing their aim.

[arch stanton]

I don't think anyone has enough details to assign blame I'm just wondering if they get trained to do anything besides shoot. It's something I'd really like to know for my personal info.

[Jay]

If the kid had a real AK-47 with no bullets, would he still be unarmed?

[mtangelsfan]

It's amazing to me that some of you guys are just taking the police at their word.  That is all we have right now.

 

But of course, we know for a fact the police never, ever lie to protect themselves or to further an agenda or to put money in their pockets.

[mtangelsfan]

Tank, to answer your question, of course if the kid refused to put the fake gun down and he refused he has some culpability.  But let me ask you a couple of questions.

 

1.  Do you think a 13 year old kid is going to always act correctly when confronted by police with guns pointed at him? 

2.  Do you think the responsibilty he has should have cost him his life?

[Lifetime]

It's amazing to me that some of you guys are just taking the police at their word.  That is all we have right now.

 

But of course, we know for a fact the police never, ever lie to protect themselves or to further an agenda or to put money in their pockets.

It's amazing to me that you just assume that the police are lying and are calling them out as muderers without knowing the facts. We know for a fact that replica guns are hard to distinguish and we know for a fact that 13 year old boys are quite capable of violent crime with a gun. But of course all police are corrupt scumbags so obviously they are murderers here. 

[mtangelsfan]

We have one side of the story and we will only ever have one side of the story.  You can't take back dead

[Lifetime]

So let's assume then, despite not having any corroborating evidence, that the cops are lying murderers. Face it MT, you hate cops in general and start from a position of assuming all cops are corrupt, lying murderers. 

[mtangelsfan]

You would be incorrect.  I don't trust police any more than I trust anyone else.  A badge means nothing.  What I do know is that power corrupts.

 

I also know that this kid is dead.  "D" "E" "A" "D". dead.  That can't or wont ever change.  He will never be able to tell his side of the story.  He will never be able to explain why he had the fake gun.  He will never be able to explain why he didn't immediately put the gun down (was he scared?)  Was he just being an idiot?

[TobiasFunke]

Since pretty much every cop now is mic'd up or the camera is on their squad car, I'm interested to see if any of this was recorded.

[Lifetime]

And yet each and every time you choose to assume that the police are corrupt in these kind of stories. It is your first and adamant position. 

 

Yes, the kid is dead and that's a horrible tragedy, there is no question about that. Why he had the replica gun and why he didn't respond to police commands doesn't change that. If you're a police officer faced with a person with a deadly weapon, especially in a public place, your focus is disarming the person and eliminating the threat. If that doesn't happen, you don't wait for the person to shoot first, you take them out. There is no way they could distinguish the gun was a replica. There is no way they could distinguish the person was non-respomsive due to fear as opposed to just being defiant. Why in hell would any cop shoot someone if either of those things were distinguishable? Just to get their murderous rocks off? 

[Blarg]

It's amazing to me that some of you guys are just taking the police at their word.  That is all we have right now.

 

But of course, we know for a fact the police never, ever lie to protect themselves or to further an agenda or to put money in their pockets.

 

I think we can pretty much turn the tables and say you never believe the police and are willing to fabricate any theory to say they are never justified to cover your agenda.

[mtangelsfan]

Unfortunatey Eric, there is no other story to hear is there?  The police took care of that.

[mtangelsfan]

And yet each and every time you choose to assume that the police are corrupt in these kind of stories. It is your first and adamant position. 

 

Yes, the kid is dead and that's a horrible tragedy, there is no question about that. Why he had the replica gun and why he didn't respond to police commands doesn't change that. If you're a police officer faced with a person with a deadly weapon, especially in a public place, your focus is disarming the person and eliminating the threat. If that doesn't happen, you don't wait for the person to shoot first, you take them out. There is no way they could distinguish the gun was a replica. There is no way they could distinguish the person was non-respomsive due to fear as opposed to just being defiant. Why in hell would any cop shoot someone if either of those things were distinguishable? Just to get their murderous rocks off? 

 

I don't know, why did the shoot the lady delivering newspapers in LA?  Perhaps they were amped up after the school shooting and overreacted?  I never argued they set out to kill a kid, but they did kill a kid. 

[Blarg]

Unfortunately, MT, you always start these threads the exact same way and proceed the exact same way with your head down charging.

 

It was a replica of a real gun, not a toy. That is not a situation where there is much leeway for the police and would have been handled the same if the kid was 20,30 or 50. Drop the weapon or be dropped, there is no middle ground because even if the trigger is pulled and no cop is hit the neighboring area is and that could be an innocent person in their house.

 

Take a watermelon out to the range and shoot it with an AK47 and see what happens. That is what happens to someone's head, not the stupid shit you see on tv. No police officer wants to be victim of that.

 

You want to talk about stupid police that need to be suspended then read this. My kids went to lower grade school in Chino.

 

http://ktla.com/2013/10/23/3-students-hurt-when-cops-gun-discharges-at-school-safety-demo/#axzz2iekgsAB8

[Lifetime]

LOL, Ya this is the same kind of situation. 

 

They killed someone who they believed, based on circumstances at the time, had a deadly weapon (visible) and was not complying with a police order to release the weapon. They couldn't distinguish the weapon was a replica and there was no way to distinguish why he was not compliant. So they responded to eliminate the threat before it could cause harm or kill someone. Yes MT, it is a horrible tragedy but the police officerd responded appropriately based on the circumstances.