The boy and his toy.
Unluckily for poor Tamir Rice, Cleveland, its police Department and Officer Timothy Loehmann, but luckily for the race-hucksters, activists and anti-police zealots determined to sell the position that white police have a secret hunting license for black kids, we have this latest tragedy, with another unarmed black child, this one just 12-years-old, killed by police.
Although it will doubtlessly not be portrayed that way in the media, there were many contributing factors to Tamir’s death. He was carrying a realistic pellet gun revolver in a park, and this is not a good idea. The guns are very realistic, especially from a distance. An observer called in a 911 alarm…I suppose the citizen can’t be blamed for being cautious, but in an earlier age, when toy guns looked like toy guns and the idea of a kid shooting anyone for real was unimaginable, this would have never happened.
Incredibly, the dispatcher didn’t relay to the officers the information from the caller that the gun was “probably fake.” The police excuse for that obviously crucial mistake was “We need to get that information to that zone car.” Get the information that someone is wielding a real gun when there is already reason to believe it might be fake? There is never a need to get bad and potentially deadly information out fast. If nothing else, this is negligence, and would fuel a powerful lawsuit.
Then the officers arrived, encountered the kid, and apparently shot him dead without using a megaphone to warn the boy to drop his pellet gun. Not only did they assume the gun was real, thanks to the incomplete dispatcher report, but the shooting officer was a rookie. Would a more experienced cop have kept a cooler head?
Finally, the child was black, and perhaps registered to the young cop as black man with a gun before he registered as a child. Do white cops view a black child with a gun as more threatening than a white child with a gun? Did this white cop? I think it is very possible. Does that make him a murderer?
There appear to be enough intangibles to lead a neutral investigator, or grand jury, to the conclusion that this was just a tragic accident, but this investigation is going to be politicized and polluted long before all the facts can be sorted. Based on what I know, which is not nearly enough, I think it may be negligent homicide at the very least. Again, racism will be presumed, without proof. With blood in the water after Ferguson, activists frustrated, the media hyped up, and, of course, Democrats seeing an opportunity to really scare up voters for the next election, the truth, whatever it is, won’t have much to do with what happens next. An unarmed black boy is dead, shot by a white cop, and that is just what the Hate Doctor ordered.
Perfect.
___________________
Source:The Guardian, Mediaite
Ethics Alarms 
Nope. Still 30 Oct 2015 plus or minus one month.
This one isn’t it.
That’s my sister’s birthday.
On lighter note, reports on the ground in Ferguson have protesters breaking out in jubilant patriotic songs of frustration and pride.
Barricades have been thrown up around town.
And potential juvenile clandestine romances about to broken up by overbearing fathers.
But even worse, is if negligent homicide at the least is a warranted charge, any crowd DEMANDING that before any investigation will automatically muddy the process.
This time there’s video. Watch the video, and compare it to what the police said.
You decide.
Lose the condescension, again.
So you’re saying nearly indisputable evidence? Ok, so you are saying a mob demanding an outcome is not necessary. Perfect.
texagg, that’s three assertions in one short post about what you claim I said. I said none of those things.
I’ll repeat: I made a SUGGESTION, namely that YOU watch the video, YOU read what the police said, and YOU tell us what YOU think.
Again, a suggestion: not a statement. I’m interested in YOUR statement.
3 assertions?
1) “This time there’s video” laid alongside the context that you believe the video is solid enough to make a decision from (if you’ll recall you said “You decide”), that seems pretty close to asserting there is “nearly indisputable evidence”.
Cool, I’m vindicated there.
2) I assumed that your response to me, attached to this specific comment of mine, must be related to that same comment. Surely it must then relate to my commentary about the healthy societal belief that emotional mobs shouldn’t pressure judicial decisions (although it doesn’t appear you hold this belief, I extended the benefit of the doubt). Therefore the logical conclusion is that if there is indisputable evidence in the form of the video in the context of not needing a virulent mob demanding an outcome before an investigation, it would be safe to assume the assertion “a mob demanding an outcome is not necessary”, follows. You are correct you didn’t directly say it, but logic, assuming you are being rational and start from solid premises, would extend that way.
So, you are right, put words in your mouth after good faith assumptions. Sorry, I take back any logical conclusions I extended to your commentary.
3) Not sure what the 3rd one was.
4) Based on you most recent response to my response to you seems to imply that your first comment wasn’t even directed to my comment, I suppose I must then assume it was irrelevant to the comment and meant for general consumption. Ok, next time give a guy a heads up with “hey, this is a side topic, but here” then I won’t try to engage you in further exposition of my original assertions.
If however it was related directly to my first comment, then I must assume I was wrong when I believed you would also hold the healthy societal view that a frenzied mob shouldn’t demand a certain outcome, that perhaps watching the video would somehow spur me into joining a mob crying for blood in this instance. Well, it wouldn’t. If I concluded without a doubt from the video that the police officer were completely in the wrong, I’d be content to let the investigation proceed, if however a miscarriage of justice occurred, then I’d have recourse to protest…I have no reason to pre-protest an assumed miscarriage of justice that hasn’t even occurred yet. This is the mess we are in in Ferguson.
Don’t you see that?
Oh, the police account was false, no doubt about it. That doesn’t change the facts, though. (I meant to mention that the cops lied about warning the kid—thanks.) The fact that someone lies because they are afraid of being prosecuted doesn’t mean that what really happened is worse than it was, or necessarily was a crime.
“The fact that someone lies because they are afraid of being prosecuted doesn’t mean that what really happened is worse than it was, or necessarily was a crime.”
Yes, this was a huge hurdle for me when it came to Zimmerman because I felt his account was embellished in some strategic areas. I am having the same issue with Wilson’s grand jury testimony. Some of it strikes me as very unlikely and quite odd. I have to hold myself back from the idea that embellishments, oddities and even lies in themselves are not proof of a crime.
It’s like with the Brown case… there were four or five ‘witnesses’ who swore that Brown had been shot in the back. When the autopsy came back, there was this AHA! Moment, where some people said “Well, they lied about this, so obviously Wilson was innocent.” That wasn’t obvious, to me at least, all it meant was that THOSE witnesses lied.
It’s like all eye-witness and defendant statements – highly suspect. It’s true of Brown’s witnesses, it was probably true of Zimmerman, I also am suspicious about the sound of some of Wilson’s statements, and the Cleveland case is an outstanding example. Eye witnesses can easily be confused, and defendants have a built-in conflict of interest bias.
Plus, with the passage of time, we are all pretty good about convincing ourselves of what we want to think we saw, or heard, or said.
Forensics, as Jack says, can be much clearer. And video clears up an awful lot of confusion. The contrast in Cleveland is quite remarkable. All of which suggests that one of the best possible outcomes from all this horrific stuff might be mandatory body cameras on all cops. It would just clarify a whole lot of things.
Jack, I find the fact that “the police account was false” (your words) to be of more significance than I think you do.
You point out that lies by a defendant have nothing to do per se with whether whatever was done was illegal. And indeed, the truth of a fact is independent of what someone says about it – in that you’re quite right. But lying is not inconsequential either.
It begs what I find a glaring question: this was the person who did the shooting, and you have to ask – why was he lying? Most people lie because they don’t want the truth known, guilty conscience and all that.
If this case were to play out like Ferguson, these two cops would be the only ones testifying. That’s what happened in the 2001 Jack in the Box case in St. Louis, where it was proven forensically AFTER the trial that the police had lied (not spoken the truth, if you prefer) about a critical fact. For right now, there is no competing forensic or video evidence to counter Officer Wilson’s testimony in Ferguson. But we’ve already got conflicting video evidence in Cleveland.
That’s two out of three high profile cases where the facts seem to be at odds with police officers’ statements, that much is incontrovertible. The question is, what is to be made of that fact?
I think we’re all trying to figure that one out, and there are lots of answers, but mandatory body videocams seems like a no-brainer. It would settle a lot of arguments instantly, and may even have a salutary effect on behavior before it gets recorded. Better yet, the idea doesn’t seem to have enemies on either the right or the left. So far.
I think that if person A did X, and X was perfectly legal, but could get them in trouble at work for not following procedure, then it’s reasonable to assume they’ll lie to get out of trouble, if they think they can get away with it. That doesn’t make X less legal. And for the record, I think this is a stellar situation to use in the argument for body cams on policemen, which I wholeheartedly agree with you on.
As to the Jack in the Box scenario. I think that if the forensic evidence disproved the witness testimony, but wasn’t available until after the trial was done, then the prosecutor jumped the gun. And perhaps it’s also an argument for allowing the process enough time to actually function, as opposed to the mad dash to a conviction that the protestors and rioters seemed to want in Ferguson.
Tex…what is the date you are referencing…other than Jack’s sister’s birthday?
A wild hypothesis that I can’t test for a little less than a year.
So we have to wait in suspense to know what your wild hypothesis is?
Just a hunch, because sad episodes like this happen more frequently than the Media & the Race Hustlers seem to get up in arms. I think they know that focusing on an additional occurrence while blood is already boiling doesn’t add any more fervor to their cause. I think they know that more fervor is added to the cause when seemingly new instances arise right when everything seems to calm down. I do believe they want to INCREASE this fervor, which means they do need to increase the frequency of times they suddenly “care” about a particular occurrence. Trayvon Martin, shot 26 February 2012; Michael Brown, shot 9 August 2014. That’s a little under 2 and a half years between “outrages”. Since they, in my opinion would rather increase the outrage, I’d guess the next time they contrive an outrage, will be a little over a year since the last one…
Yeah, wild, I know. But the race hucksters don’t care about anything else and the media is all to ready to oblige.
Of course there were other factors that mattered during those years that could push or pull my guess, like elections, etc, so I gave a window…
And why I don’t think this one will get much attention at all.
But of course, whereas I may be spot-on on current event analysis, my guessing of the future is closer to 25-33%….
I was kinda afraid that was what you were hinting. So what things would need to change to derail that date? And I don’t think either extremes or all guns or no guns should be required. What could ratchet the violence down, and leave less people killed by officers of the law. Are the police feeling under siege, are the poor or black? It’s taken more than the last eight years to reach this point.
Of course a simple thing is to not wave any gun around or not to charge with an itchy trigger finger in before the situation is clear, but I think there’s more underlying issues than that.
I get you…and this is just me talking with no proof whatsoever…but I wonder how much attention they can “afford” to give another case right now. With no indictment on Wilson it is going to be much harder to get a payout and I don’t think they are going to just walk away from Ferguson without getting paid. Doesn’t Sharpton owe some taxes? I keep reading they might file a civil suit on Wilson. Yeah, I bet. All of Wilson’s wordly assets probably wouldn’t cover an hour in the day of the life of a Sharpton. I think they can’t move on to the Cleveland case because they have to keep national attention on Ferguson until they can find an entity or agency that will provide a big enough payout for them to take their circus somewhere else. Also, I was very, very surprised to see that Wilson gave an interview. Why in the world would his attorney or anyone tell him that giving an interview was probably one of the worst things he can do right now?
Sorry…I was trying to say that it was a horrible idea for Wilson to give an interview right now.
Wow
Infind white people like hou…quite amusing. Irnorant, racist, and very amusing.
Its kind of like watching the gorillas in the zoo… exept instead of wondering what they are thinging, you wonder how they manage to not hear themselves. I also wonder.. how crack heads and derelicts not see themselves.
Youre deluded on that kind of level.
The best part…is how you all talk like youre intelligent, with your in-depth analysis of the “facts”.
The only thing that isn’t amusing…is that youre trying to jusyify this. A kid dying.
Pretty twisted there fella.
I have always believed that there is an inherient good in all people, yet time and time again, I am proven wrong.
Case and point here.
If there was a way to rid this planet of all people like you..no matter what color they are… the world will be a better place. Thats a certainty.
Keep it up.
…we’re watching
I would normally take the time to clean up all the misspellings and careless writing, but a minimum requirement when a commenter calls me as idiot is that he avoid looking like one himself while doing so. I’ll also be so unkind as to point out that a barage of insults isn’t an argument or an explanation, which makes it so easy for people like you—emotion, viscera-driven, self-righteous ignoramuses, I mean— to demonize those who actually think.
But he had me convinced of the error of my ways.
I feel bad for Bruce. But as Popeye used to say, and maybe still does, “That’s all I can stand, ’cause I can’t stand no more!”
And the fact that the thug cop was in the process of being fired from his previous police job because he was a hothead means nothing huh?
Just learned about that: he was worse than a hothead. He was a menace who freaked out under stress. From the NYT:
So in addition to the cop, we have an incompetent HR department, a dispatcher who didn’t relay key information, and a kid who panicked, it appears, after making a mistake of judgment (you don’t play with airsoft pistols in public.) What a horrible chain of events.