WHAT. THE. FUCK.

[wufwugy]

speechless

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKKQ-gzc_Yw

[Ragnar4]

wow.. I haven't heard a word about this.

[Jack Sawyer]

its an execution. is this recent?

[bikes]

WTF?????

[wufwugy]

its like 72 hours old or something i think

cop has yet to submit a statement

[wufwugy]

i think it was new years eve actually

[givememyleg]

yikes

[kmind]

WOW

[euphoricism]

Holy shit.

Seems pretty clear that he meant to pull and fire his taser and pulled and fired the wrong gun. I can't imagine he meant to execute the guy, but that takes an EPIC lack of competence to pull a handgun rather than a taser out of your belt.

If it was a mistake, and I really think it was by the "OMG WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST DO!?" look on his face he should definitely face involuntary manslaughter charges.

[Monsieur_chat]

He'll be lucky to get involuntary, I don't see being a retard as a defense.

[kb coolman]

Holy crap. I can't even put words to that. WTF sums it up about as good as anything.

[Chelle]

Wow.

[yourfather]

So fucked up. What/where is BART?

[Galapogos]

So fucked up. What/where is BART?

Bay Area Rapid Transit.

[spoonitnow]

Cue all of the gun control idiots in 5...4...3....

[Warpe]

Cue all of the gun control idiots in 5...4...3....

hardly relevant in the case of an armed police officer

[euphoricism]

He'll be lucky to get involuntary, I don't see being a retard as a defense.

"Involuntary manslaughter ... occurs where there's no intention to kill or cause serious injury, but death is due to recklessness or criminal negligence."

I'd say that pretty much sums it up, but what do I know, I only have a bachelors in this shit.

[boost]

He'll be lucky to get involuntary, I don't see being a retard as a defense.

hes a cop, I doubt he gets convicted of anything. Theyll settle for a huge amount in the civil case though.

[chardrian]

He'll be lucky to get involuntary, I don't see being a retard as a defense.

hes a cop, I doubt he gets convicted of anything. Theyll settle for a huge amount in the civil case though.

it's the bay area, which is basically the hotbed of liberalism in what is generally considered a pretty liberal state. there would need to be some sort of unseen evidence that the victim had a gun or was trying to pull a gun for him not to get tried. If he is tried, I would find it hard to believe that he would be acquitted in S.F.

[Galapogos]

He'll be lucky to get involuntary, I don't see being a retard as a defense.

"Involuntary manslaughter ... occurs where there's no intention to kill or cause serious injury, but death is due to recklessness or criminal negligence."

I'd say that pretty much sums it up, but what do I know, I only have a bachelors in this shit.

Yeah, come back to us when you have your masters.

We internet folk don't take kindly to baseless claims from guys without the proper credentials to back it up.

[wesrman]

Holy shit.

Seems pretty clear that he meant to pull and fire his taser and pulled and fired the wrong gun.

What???

[always2away]

I am an old guy...I remember when we had Peace Officers (POs) and not Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs).

Peace Officers were expected to remain calm and exhibit a wide latitude in judgement in the interest of protecting the public first and foremost. This meant that they were not required to uphold the law at any cost, in contrast to the modern LEO.

LEOs are quasi-military trained (look it up). They are required to contain and control every situation first and foremost, even if this means hurting the public.

When I was a kid, if we were in trouble we were taught by our parents to seek out an adult or police officer to help us. My kids today are afraid of the cops, along with all their friends, because of incidents they have witnessed.

I am wildly curious what the guys were being detained about and was it worth tazing someone over (if in fact the officer just grabbed the wrong gun butt), as tazing can seriously injure and has killed at least 167 people, according to The Arizona Republic.

Granted, this is not a huge number, but I would want to know that I posed a serious enough threat of bodily injury to the officer or that I was guilty of something serious enough to warrant employing something that might kill me.

And no...I am not anti-gun or anti-cop or into anarchy, etc...I am anti-stupid.

And speaking of stupid. I remember a lawsuit that was filed somewhere on the East coast a few years ago by a guy who was fairly high IQ, scored high on all of his tests, physical and mental/psychological and was denied employment as a LEO.

Apparently no satisfactory explanation was offered, so he filed suit. In discovery, it was made public that he was too smart to be a LEO. They preferred hiring folks of average to a little below average intelligence...hmmmmm

[boost]

I am an old guy...I remember when we had Peace Officers (POs) and not Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs).

Peace Officers were expected to remain calm and exhibit a wide latitude in judgement in the interest of protecting the public first and foremost. This meant that they were not required to uphold the law at any cost, in contrast to the modern LEO.

LEOs are quasi-military trained (look it up). They are required to contain and control every situation first and foremost, even if this means hurting the public.

When I was a kid, if we were in trouble we were taught by our parents to seek out an adult or police officer to help us. My kids today are afraid of the cops, along with all their friends, because of incidents they have witnessed.

I am wildly curious what the guys were being detained about and was it worth tazing someone over (if in fact the officer just grabbed the wrong gun butt), as tazing can seriously injure and has killed at least 167 people, according to The Arizona Republic.

Granted, this is not a huge number, but I would want to know that I posed a serious enough threat of bodily injury to the officer or that I was guilty of something serious enough to warrant employing something that might kill me.

And no...I am not anti-gun or anti-cop or into anarchy, etc...I am anti-stupid.

And speaking of stupid. I remember a lawsuit that was filed somewhere on the East coast a few years ago by a guy who was fairly high IQ, scored high on all of his tests, physical and mental/psychological and was denied employment as a LEO.

Apparently no satisfactory explanation was offered, so he filed suit. In discovery, it was made public that he was too smart to be a LEO. They preferred hiring folks of average to a little below average intelligence...hmmmmm

is this you first post on the forum? If so, this is possibly the best content of a first post ever.

[wufwugy]

Apparently no satisfactory explanation was offered, so he filed suit. In discovery, it was made public that he was too smart to be a LEO. They preferred hiring folks of average to a little below average intelligence...hmmmmm

if you could find some documentation of this type of thing that would be amazing

as to the topic at hand, im dubious of the tazer explanation. in one of the vids you see that the officer calmly pulls his gun then somewhat stands up and shoots while the victim is prone and doing nothing. i guess some or a lot of tazers can be shot (instead of 'stabbed'), but more to the point, he had zero reason to taze, it was a coherent action, and what baffles me is that somebody could confuse a handgun for a tazer. honestly i will not buy that if the cop claims it.

what i think the most likely explanation (whether or not it will be used) is that the officer is somewhat mentally handicapped, yet due to school and cop standards being so low it hasn't been noticed or if it had been noticed it was pushed aside or swept under the rug all his life. if thats the case then the cop could easily have thought that he had good reason to shoot the guy for whatever reason a handicapped mind can conjure.

[boost]

why he pulled his gun? I have no idea, it didnt seem like the situation warranted it. But It seems he was just trying to hold the suspect at gunpoint, and the gun went off. Ive seen another vid where a female cop is doing a similar thing. Her partner is pinning a guy to the ground and she is holding him at gunpoint. Somehow she manages to accidentally pull the trigger, I dont rmember if the guy got hit or not though.

[ProZachNation]

I just find it almost unfathomable to pull a gun and flick the safety off (most likely) and then pull the trigger all while thinking you have a tazer in your hand...... and why would he taze him.

[euphoricism]

The use of a taser in this situation would be incredibly standard. The officers told everyone to stay sitting down. This guy refused that lawful order. They have the right to force him to sit down. He refused, they had to go "hands on". Standard procedure when you go "hands on" is to have the guy who is *not* hands on retrieve his taser and be at the ready to fire it should the person become too much for the "hands on" officer to handle.

So yes, in truth, the most logical thing that happened is this guy grabbed the wrong gun and fired.

It seems he was just trying to hold the suspect at gunpoint, and the gun went off. Ive seen another vid where a female cop is doing a similar thing. Her partner is pinning a guy to the ground and she is holding him at gunpoint.

This situation doesn't seem even a little bit similar. The situations in which you're holding someone at gunpoint are when they appear to have immediate capability to cause bodily injury to the officer, or when they have made overt actions to do so previously (which is why you'll most often see it after car-chases). This doesn't seem like the same type of situation.

i guess some or a lot of tazers can be shot (instead of 'stabbed'), but more to the point, he had zero reason to taze, it was a coherent action, and what baffles me is that somebody could confuse a handgun for a tazer. honestly i will not buy that if the cop claims it.

You're wrong in at least two places in this one sentence, so it's not a stretch to assume the third.

ALL police issue tasers are the "shoot" kind, and deploying a taser in this situation is standard as mentioned above. So yeah I'm still going with heat of the moment, adrenaline going, not thinking clearly, pulled wrong gun.

LEOs are quasi-military trained (look it up). They are required to contain and control every situation first and foremost, even if this means hurting the public.

This is bullshit. Is being trained in a quasi-military way a bad thing? What does it even mean? Means they wake up at 6 am to go jogging at the Academy? They... live in dorms? Hint: The vast majority of academies don't do any of this. Most of them are way more like a college classroom setting with what you would call "labs" where you learn driving, weapons handling, etc.

In fact of the several I'm applying to only one has mandatory dorm-style "quasi-military" training regimen, and that's the Florida Highway Patrol.

Apparently no satisfactory explanation was offered, so he filed suit. In discovery, it was made public that he was too smart to be a LEO. They preferred hiring folks of average to a little below average intelligence...hmmmmm

And this is just random bullshit you heard from a friend of friend of an uncles cousin. The truth is that it's very difficult to get a job in law enforcement anymore without a college degree.

Granted, this is not a huge number, but I would want to know that I posed a serious enough threat of bodily injury to the officer or that I was guilty of something serious enough to warrant employing something that might kill me.

This line of thinking is fallacious as hell.

Basically until the Taser came into being the police had two options:
1) The pistol
2) The expandable baton. Not the wooden piece of shit you see on TV -- a front weighted, metal expanding baton. Kind of like your cars antenna but way more deadly.

So you either got beat to shit by a weapon which was created specifically to break bones but actually often killed people by a blow to the chest or head, or you got shot.

Now we have a 3rd option which in 99.99999999999% (rough estimate.) of cases causes absolutely no adverse side effects other than roughly 5 seconds of pain.

I'd rather be tased, thanks.

what i think the most likely explanation (whether or not it will be used) is that the officer is somewhat mentally handicapped, yet due to school and cop standards being so low it hasn't been noticed or if it had been noticed it was pushed aside or swept under the rug all his life. if thats the case then the cop could easily have thought that he had good reason to shoot the guy for whatever reason a handicapped mind can conjure.

Are you fucking serious? THIS is the most likely scenario you can come up with? More likely than confusing the handle of

THIS


with

THIS



And keep in mind he's not LOOKING at what he's drawing. He's doing this BY TOUCH in the heat of the moment with adrenaline and people yelling and shit.

You still think the most logical thing that happened is he's mentally handicapped and because the standards are so low for the police now-a-days that NO ONE FUCKING NOTICED?!

No, he made a big fucking boneheaded mistake, and thats not excusable. He fucked up BIG TIME and he should absolutely face invol. manslaughter charges.

[euphoricism]

Oh and prozach the safety is not engaged on a cops weapon. You know the holster they wear? It has a special latch -- I know it looks like you can just pop the thing right out, but you can't. It takes several hundred repetitions to get the thing out of the holster in one move, and tons of time is spent at the academy practicing it.

One of our professors let us try (with an empty gun obv). He could pop that thing out in the blink of an eye, but none of us could get even close. I don't even really know how to explain it, it's a multi-faceted latch.

So thats their safety - hundreds of repetitions on that latch. The main reason it was created was that officers were getting killed by their own guns when wrestling a suspect. They'd reach down while fighting on the floor, grab his gun, and kill the cop.

[euphoricism]

He'll be lucky to get involuntary, I don't see being a retard as a defense.

"Involuntary manslaughter ... occurs where there's no intention to kill or cause serious injury, but death is due to recklessness or criminal negligence."

I'd say that pretty much sums it up, but what do I know, I only have a bachelors in this shit.

Yeah, come back to us when you have your masters.

We internet folk don't take kindly to baseless claims from guys without the proper credentials to back it up.

Yeah most agencies will now pay for a few credit hours of schooling a semester, which is how a lot of LEOs are getting their masters. It's win-win -- the officers get free education (which leads to pay increases) and the agencies get a better educated officer corp.

I think it'd surprise a lot of these guys just how many officers have significantly higher levels of education than themselves.

[ProZachNation]

Oh and prozach the safety is not engaged on a cops weapon. You know the holster they wear? It has a special latch -- I know it looks like you can just pop the thing right out, but you can't. It takes several hundred repetitions to get the thing out of the holster in one move, and tons of time is spent at the academy practicing it.

Yeah I wasn't sure on that.
My Uncle is a state trooper and when they upgraded from 9mm he got my dad a 9mm Sig Sauer P226. It doesn't even have a safety on it.
and god is that think amazing to put rounds through


So cops carry chambered w/o a safety on?

[wufwugy]

eupho, its nice to see some knowledge on the subject

how do you explain confusing a tazer with handgun? besides the possible facts that they may feel different or be of different weight, how do you explain confusing the two given the the holster/latch stuff you just explained? are tazer latches the same as handgun? if they are, how do you explain confusing where on the body the holsters are located? hundreds of repetitions sounds a whole lot like it would be extremely hard for an officer to accidently pull his handgun when he meant tazer, or vise versa

[Jack Sawyer]

someone brilliant must have come up with the most simple way to recognize a tazer from a handgun.

its..... DIFFERENT COLORS OMG so simplay!

make it, I dunno, bright orange, and he would never ever ever mistake these unless coppah was colorblind.

You could also design them differently, with a taser looking more like some of those all-in-one devices from startrek

I dunno, just some suggestions

Of course, it could have never been that the guy just got pissed off and shot the dude that was pissing him off. Cops are not people, they are robots that were made for our protection.

[Galapogos]

This article has a little to say about how a taser can be mistaken for a hand gun.

http://www.policeone.com/officer-sho...SER-confusion/

[chardrian]

cops have a super tough job. For every video we see of police brutality there are many instances of drunks/druggies/dumbasses resisting arrest and trying to grab the cops gun or pulling out their own gun. The Andy Griffith style cop makes a lot of sense when your town drunk puts himself in the slammer. It doesn't make as much sense when the drunk is stupid enough to try to get away by any means necessary.

All that being said - this copper made one major booboo and he should be punished for it just as someone who "accidentally" kills someone by reckless driving does.

[Monsieur_chat]

My apologies Euphoricism. This is a hazy area in UK law (indeed our government are currently trying to overhaul our IM laws) hence my confusion. I wasn't in any way trying to question your credentials, I was just making a rather flippant point that when an individual is handcuffed and in your custody and that individual has somehow ended up getting shot then it seems to me that simply looking dimly around at everybody afterwards is not firm proof that you didn't mean to do it...
Over here police yell "Tazer tazer tazer" before they deploy a tazer, I would take that as proof of an accident.


There also seem to be a good number of experts coming out in the press saying they don't see how someone can mistake one for the other.

[thizzSantaCruz]

Yea this happened really close to where I live and has been all over the news. I was completely outraged by the video and it just shows why a lot of people hate police officers. I have been witness to one case of extreme police brutality here in Santa Cruz and I think its disgusting. The man that was shot was on the ground face down, there was no need to tase anybody (and I highly doubt he pulled out the wrong gun). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the cop was drinking that night and decided to have a little fun.

The woman who video taped the incident ran back into BART after the man was shot and a police woman ran after her. The doors shut right when the officer was close and the officer started banging on the doors demanding the woman to step out and hand over the camera.

People with authority should be held more accountable for their actions with harsher punishment in situations like this. It is a blatant misuse of the power given to them.

In my opinion this guy should get thrown in a maximum security prison and the guards should all look away. I know it will never happen but this guy deserves the worst.

[XTR1000]

Friend of mine just became police officer in one of our larger cities. Everytime someone is killed by a cops gun, they´re automatically getting a trial for manslaughter/homicide, so for a cop here it´s more or less "guilty until proven otherwise". Not a bad thing to prevent them from "accidentially" killing people who lay on the ground face down.

[euphoricism]

My apologies Euphoricism. This is a hazy area in UK law (indeed our government are currently trying to overhaul our IM laws) hence my confusion. I wasn't in any way trying to question your credentials, I was just making a rather flippant point that when an individual is handcuffed and in your custody and that individual has somehow ended up getting shot then it seems to me that simply looking dimly around at everybody afterwards is not firm proof that you didn't mean to do it...
Over here police yell "Tazer tazer tazer" before they deploy a tazer, I would take that as proof of an accident.


There also seem to be a good number of experts coming out in the press saying they don't see how someone can mistake one for the other.

[ ] handcuffed
[ ] in custody
[x] fail

Also, there are a good number of experts saying they don't see how global warming exists, so that means precisely fuck all.

Look there are only two logical things here
1) It was an accident
2) It was a purposeful execution. In front of a crowd of about 30 people.

Oh and I guess there is a third.
3) He's mentally retarded and no one noticed.


So IDK. Put villain on a range.

[jo]

The "too smart to be a cop" story is true. It happened in Connecticut a few years back. I remember the story, as I was living in Boston at the time.

I live in the East Bay now, and people are mad as hell about this. We had riots last night. The fact that the cop hasn't been interviewed about the events a week after they occured is disgusting.

And yes, it may be possible to confuse Tasers and handguns. But isn't that a little disturbing? Should we not be thinking about ways to make them a little more discriminable in the heat of the moment?

Here's what I dug up on the too smart to be a cop story:

" The Associated Press reported the following case from New London, Connecticut: "A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

"The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test."

In 1996, Jordan scored 33 points on the police exam which is the equivalent of an IQ of 125 (well above average, but 15 points short of the traditional "genius" cutoff of 140).

"But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training."

Associated Press reports that the national average for police officers is an IQ of 104, or slightly above average.

The U.S. District Court ruled the New London police had a reasonable explanation for their policy of rejecting applicants who were too intelligent -- they might get easily bored and leave the job after receiving costly training. On August 23, 2000 the Second Circuit Court agreed.

Robert Jordan has been working as a prison guard since his rejection by New London police. Apparently prison authorities don't care of Jordan is too intelligent for the guard job; or maybe prison guards have to be smarter than police recruits.

(Based on the Associated Press story published by ABC News 09/08/00)
"

[BennyLaRue]

Genius is only 140?

[jo]

IQ is not a linear scale, but a distribution. At 125 the cop was in about the top 5% of the population. At 140 ("genius" level) you are in the top 0.5%. 150+ you're in about the top 0.05%.

[euphoricism]

And yes, it may be possible to confuse Tasers and handguns. But isn't that a little disturbing? Should we not be thinking about ways to make them a little more discriminable in the heat of the moment?

Most departments require them to be on opposite hips with the taser on the 'weak side'. I don't know for sure, but from reading comments on another site it appears that BART does not (well up until new years day anyway ;p) have such a requirement.

[wufwugy]

Genius is only 140?

only? dude thats high as shit

stop taking online 'iq' tests, and take a real one and realize that you're close to 100

[BennyLaRue]

Genius is only 140?

only? dude thats high as shit

[ ] Sarcasm detector on

[wufwugy]

Genius is only 140?

only? dude thats high as shit

[ ] Sarcasm detector on

o shit ofc thats sarcasm u has magnum pi avatar

and u forgot that sarcasm is only allowed if u spell and punctuate poorly

[boost]

euph did a good job of bringing the other side to this thread. Honestly after letting it all sink in, I actually feel bad for this cop as it is clearly a huge huge mistake. Like... the cop that we need to be judging is the one that is overtly rough with people he deals with. Or even the one that is just on a life long power trip and is verbally or mentally abusive.

[jo]

The fault lies in poor policy decisions, and a lot of the anger is also directed at the way that BART has dealt with the situation and continues to deal with the situation. To not have interviewed the officer 8 days afer the event smacks of a cover-up and everyone trying to cover their ass, rather than figuring how it happened and how to avoid it happening again.

[flomo]

gonna go punch a cop right now

[thizzSantaCruz]

euph did a good job of bringing the other side to this thread. Honestly after letting it all sink in, I actually feel bad for this cop as it is clearly a huge huge mistake. Like... the cop that we need to be judging is the one that is overtly rough with people he deals with. Or even the one that is just on a life long power trip and is verbally or mentally abusive.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. You feel bad for the cop? What about the guys 4 year old daughter that has to grow up without a dad. I feel bad for the guys family, his life was taken away for no reason.

[bigspenda73]

euph did a good job of bringing the other side to this thread. Honestly after letting it all sink in, I actually feel bad for this cop as it is clearly a huge huge mistake. Like... the cop that we need to be judging is the one that is overtly rough with people he deals with. Or even the one that is just on a life long power trip and is verbally or mentally abusive.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. You feel bad for the cop? What about the guys 4 year old daughter that has to grow up without a dad. I feel bad for the guys family, his life was taken away for no reason.

you're allowed to feel bad for both, obviously the cop is going to have to life with this shit the rest of his life while the victim's family is obviously going to suffer.

[a500lbgorilla]

This is seriously just the shittiest situation ever. I seriously feel bad for everyone involved including the witnesses.

[jyms]

I feel less bad for the guy that wouldn't shut his fucking mouth and sit down like the rest of them

[boost]

You feel bad for the cop? I feel bad for the guys family

why are these two things mutually exclusive?

, his life was taken away for no reason.

This is true, but it was almost certainly an accident. Dont you feel bad for a truck driver who is in an accident where he [do I really need to say accidentally?] tbones his semi truck into a family filled mini van?

I know this analogy is not perfect, so please dont be a nit picking douche.

[thizzSantaCruz]

You feel bad for the cop? I feel bad for the guys family

why are these two things mutually exclusive?

, his life was taken away for no reason.

This is true, but it was almost certainly an accident. Dont you feel bad for a truck driver who is in an accident where he [do I really need to say accidentally?] tbones his semi truck into a family filled mini van?

I know this analogy is not perfect, so please dont be a nit picking douche.

They aren't mutually exclusive. I just feel worse for the family of the person killed than for the cop. I'm biased as hell against cops but then again I've been arrested and jailed for no reason, forced to put up a ridiculous sum of money for bail and been harassed a couple times wrongfully.

And the times when I go to them for help they do nothing at all for me.

All my encounters with police have left me with an empty feeling that this is the best we can do to protect the public? Just my viewpoint. No need for the douchebag bullshit. I get your point.

[boost]

You feel bad for the cop? I feel bad for the guys family

why are these two things mutually exclusive?

, his life was taken away for no reason.

This is true, but it was almost certainly an accident. Dont you feel bad for a truck driver who is in an accident where he [do I really need to say accidentally?] tbones his semi truck into a family filled mini van?

I know this analogy is not perfect, so please dont be a nit picking douche.

They aren't mutually exclusive. I just feel worse for the family of the person killed than for the cop. I'm biased as hell against cops but then again I've been arrested and jailed for no reason, forced to put up a ridiculous sum of money for bail and been harassed a couple times wrongfully.

And the times when I go to them for help they do nothing at all for me.

All my encounters with police have left me with an empty feeling that this is the best we can do to protect the public? Just my viewpoint. No need for the douchebag bullshit. I get your point.

ha, the douche thing wasnt directed at you... people just always seem to like to be nits with analogies.

And I am biased against cops as well, and I feel worse for the dead guy and his family as well. All Im saying is that we dont need to lash out on this cop. The only reason we would, imo, is because he is a cop. What we do need to be upset about is the way that the situation has been handled. A person is dead, and no action has been taken for over a week. Thats unacceptable.