Atlanta shooting

[Pixxie7]

I can’t believe another shooting, so soon. Will this exculpate the protest even more?

They didn't kill at the drop of a hat. The situation escalated quickly and violently. He used a weapon on them.
What do you think would happen if you fired a taser at someone in the street? Would the judge say it's ok it wasn't a gun, your free to go and try and not do it again? No you'd be jailed.

Do you not think that had he been able to grab the officers gun rather than his taser (as that was at hand) he wouldn't have equally done so? And fired it at the officers in the same way when running away? Damn right he would have. He maybe didn't even realise it was the taser he'd grabbed, he may have thought it was a gun and still attempted to use it against the officers.

He was being handled politely and safely untill he violently turned on the officers and used a weapon against them. The officer had split second decisions to make while in a dangerous situation - I would not like to be them.

If America was not awash with guns police would not have the same risks when facing criminals especially when things escalate.

Do as the officer tells you, don't be a dick and you won't get shot as you will not be a threat.
Intact, keep your nose clean and don't do stuff that brings you to police attention in the first place.

@user1471447863

How does "they should not have killed him" equate to "a judge should say you're free to go, its fine".

That's the second time on this thread that the response to "they should not kill people" has been "oh, so criminals should just get to go free". It makes you sound stupid. It's a completely non-sensical argument and you come off sounding stupid.

The choice is not either kill or set free. They need to be tried and found guilty or not guilty. That is how the justice system works.

When the police kill, they are declaring themselves judge, jury and executioner. They are not. They need to de-escalate, control the situation and arrest. They should not kill.

Unless there is an immediate DEADLY threat, they should not kill. When they do, they should be arrested and charged. And American juries need to start convicting their police. As senators in the US have discussed; the public still fear actually convicting police. The majority of juries are white, and they see police as protectors, no matter what.

@user1471447863

And it does not matter what he could have grabbed. It doesnt matter if he could have grabbed a gun and used it to shoot. He didnt.

We dont kill people in the street, without a trial, for what they could have done. They could have tried to make a case that he wanted thegun and attempted to commit murder and put him in court for it, but you do not kill someone and say "well, he grabbed the taser but I bet he wanted to gun so he deserved to die".

Yet another argument that makes you look stupid.

Did you watch the lengthy body cam footage of the guy being perfectly polite and reasonable with the police, apologising, acknowledging he was drunk, offering to leave his car and walk home? He took a breathalyser which he knew he was going to fail, it was then when the police tried to handcuff him that he panicked and fought, there was no need for any of it, they could have taken his details, let him lock his car and walk home then gone to his home next day to charge him. Totally over the top response and absolutely shocking to shoot to kill under these circumstances

Why do people keep saying they could have let him go home and the police should have dealt with it the next day? If a drink driver hits someone whilst driving and leaves the scene to drive off and pass out somewhere, would it still be okay just to let them walk home? You've probably lost a lot of your evidence in the process and then you actually have to find them the following day in order to charge them. You also delay or prevent other crimes from being dealt with in the process.

I think only the above poster said that, unless I did miss someone else saying it.

They didnt need to let him go home; we dont do that with criminals. But again, the choice was not either kill him or let him go. American police just do not understand de-escalation. That issue is not a new concept; it has been discussed widely for years.

But nice deflection away from your own ridiculous arguments.

Even listening to that YouTube clip is utterly insane.

The level to which guns = normal in America is inconceivable.

Drunk man falls asleep at drive thru = shot dead?

Never. Not ever!

Without the guns, i.e. as if he were in the UK, that would have been a minor scuffle and a night in the cells before seeing a magistrate.

What planet is that not the normal thing to expect?

Oh...

@thegreenlight

He stayed in the police for many years until retirement - he is a good man, but shouldn’t it be a requisite that ALL police officers have a strong moral compass? I don’t think we would be in this mess if they did.

No Thegreenlight morals isn’t high up on the police job description. Whilst it’s preferable they do - being prepared to do what the average joe public wouldnt Is what’s required.

These men and women put their lives on the line every day in order so that we can ( in the main) live with out fear of criminal offences committed against us.

If some one pulled a gun on my child ir a member of my family - wouldn’t want some police officer tearing him sent apart that it wasn’t morally right to kill another human being. Sometimes life saving action means making a choice in one second.

On this specific case - the man turned round and aimed the taser at the police officer. The police office did what he was trained to do.

If you raise a gun/taser to a police officer expect not to be alive at the end of it.

Two comments on the first page alone that you missed;

'They had his car and knew who he was. He was allegedly drunk. He'd have run out of steam pick him up later.'

'Why didn't they just lock his car, confiscate his keys, call his sister and drop him home.'

You know resorting to insults in a conversation doesn't make you right or strengthen your argument. In fact in some instances people will stop listening to what you're saying completely, which is a shame when it's something you feel passionate about.

I believe that the deceased was responsible for their situation. If you grab a policeman's weapon then point it at them, their instinct will be to neutralise the threat. Could the other officer have tasered them? Maybe, in hindsight, but in a live situation where you have a weapon pointed at you, it's likely you would grab the first means to defend yourself that you put your hand on.

To the people who say the policeman should have wounded him instead, that isn't always possible. If you shoot to the leg, there is a real danger the bullet will ricochet off the ground and could end up pretty much anywhere. Police shoot at the chest because it is a comparatively large target and the person is likely to go down.

The news reports about George Floyd stressed he was an unarmed black man, which was not the case here.

If you are stopped by the police who suspect you of being drunk in charge of a vehicle, here's a quick guide to not getting shot.

1. Don't drink drive in the first place.
2. Cooperate with the police.
3. Don't run away.
4. If you do run, don't take their weapon. 5) DO NOT POINT YOUR WEAPON AT AN ARMED OFFICER.

They had his car and knew who he was. He was allegedly drunk. He'd have run out of steam pick him up later.

They didn’t know if he was on drugs, had a gun on him he could have seriously hurt or killed some one on the way home.

Why didn't they just lock his car, confiscate his keys, call his sister and drop him home

Because he broke the law. Drink driving is serious. Arrests have to be immediate due to the severity of it. And plus they are not a fucking taxi service.

You drink drive - you take the arrest you don’t start fighting punching an officer in the face then steal a taser and then turn it on him. On this occasion it’s his own fault.

@ChibiTotoro

There isnt much point in debating with someone who thinks "they shouldn't kill unless the suspect is an immediate deadly threat" means the same as "the judges should tell them it's all fine and let them all go".

I mean.... really? Those sentences mean the same thing?

@Jkslays

Someone pointing a gun at your child would be an immediate deadly threat. These conversations are not about police killing suspects who pose a threat to life.

You are right about what they are trained to do. And that is exactly the issue at hand, and has been discussed for years. American police are trained to kill if someone poses even a minor threat. They are not trained in de-escalation, not as a main tactic. They should be.

If their training was different, then hundred of people every year who are killed by police whilst posing no immediate threat to life would be alive to face justice.

@Jkslays if your comments are aimed at me, I was (failing) to quote comments from the first page to back up my point that others were commenting on here that Rayshard should have been let go to be dealt with at another time, and why that would/should not happen.

@BobbieDraper that's okay I accept your apology.

Someone pointing a gun at your child would be an immediate deadly threat. These conversations are not about police killing suspects who pose a threat to life

The police officer was at threat. If he has off loaded the taser charge in to the officer and the officer had been debilitated - who says this man wouldn’t have gone over and stole the officers gun - went on to kill him or use the gun to kill some one else or sold the gun which went on to shoot someone else totally unconnected to the scene.

The police officer was only following training.

It's their training. Two double taps to the largest body mass - the chest. No negotiation, no man hunts.

@Jkslays
Ah yes, because the other officers would just stand there and let him walk over, remove the officers gun, turn off the safety and start shooting people.

@ChibiTotoro
Are you quite alright? You seem to struggle to understand the meaning of what people say quite a lot.

He was not an immediate threat to life. Lethal force was not justified.
One has been fired, one has been suspended and the chief has resigned.

The tide is turning against police using lethal force "just incase" when the suspects have no deadly weapons and are not immediately threatening any lives.

If there was no other way to handle people, like de-escalation tactics just didnt exist, then they might have a reason. But de-escalation training does exist and is effective. The UK police manage it.

Saying that police shouldn't murder suspects is not the same as saying they should let them walk away free.
What a suspect could possible have done (even when he did not) is not an excuse to kill them. If he grabbed the officers gun then he would have been a bigger threat. But he didnt... so that comment has no place in the debate.

The police in the U.S. need to review their training, and how they deal with highly tense situations. At the moment, they deal with it by killing but that culture is clearly no longer acceptable.

Let him lock his car and let him walk home
Are you stupid? He was arrested for drink driving, he was found at the wheel of a car while over the legal limit. You don't get to go home after that in most countries, you get arrested and get processed at the police station.
Here certainly the handheld breathalyser is what gets you arrested, the big machine at the station is what gives them the levels to take to prosecution.

@contrmary not only did he point the taser at the officer, he fired it. It certainly was only going to end one way.

Horrible that the situation ever got so out of hand that what starts out as being asleep in a car ends up with being shot dead

If I wrestled a tazer off a police and ran off with it though I'd expect to get shot. It doesn't seem much of a stretch

They.could have stopped Chasing him, they had his car and would know who he was.! He was allegedly drunk, he’d have run out of steam. Pick him up later.

Don't be so stupid, you can't just stop chasing a criminal when he is in full view.

[quote user1475869475]Maybe watch the video below before making a negative judgement. This man is a former cop and explains it all rather well.

[/quote] Pinkyyy? Or do you just have the same taste in alt right grifters?

Do as the officer tells you, don't be a dick and you won't get shot as you will not be a threat.

Breonna Taylor was sleeping.

@Paska
People are going to respond to that by saying that her boyfriend was shooting, so the officers fired back and she got hit.

They'll ignore the fact that the officers broke into the house (which was the wrong address) and the boyfriend thought they were intruders, so he was within his rights to shoot.

At least after that, they suspended no knock warrants so the police cannot break down doors in that way now (in that state at least).

I completely agree that police shouldn't be carrying firearms, but that can't change until the stop allowing their citizens to own them.