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3
The nonprofit Solid Ground owns the building where Lyles lived and says there are cameras in the hallway. A spokesperson for Solid Ground told Crosscut police have already taken footage from those cameras.


I really hope this means police have already taken copies of footage from those cameras. It'd be a shame if the original tapes ended up "disappearing from the evidence locker" an there were no backups.

Also, "Back up!" is the new "She's coming right for us!"
4
if someone's switching from giving me information to coming at me with a knife in very close quarters (this was indoors), I'm just going to want them to stop ASAP. Deadly weapon with intent out of the fucking blue is going to send anyone's adrenaline skyrocketing. Nobody is going to be methodically thinking of how to definitely not kill the person who's moving on me looking like they want to kill me.
Cops are people, why are we expecting them to act like fucking robots in these situations? This is clearly not a Philando Castille kneejerk fuckup.
5
Funny, you guys don't mention the part of the audio, near the end where the officers are telling her to "Get Back!" for 4-5 seconds where she says: "Are you ready, mother fu*kers?!"
6
This article is misleading: Most of Lyles says is clearly intelligible:

Cops: Get back, get back!
Lyles: Do it! Do it!
Cops: Get back! Get back! Get back!
Lyles: [unintelligible].. not going to do that either, Mother Fucker!

(shots fired)

The entire incident took 15 seconds. That's not enough time, given current policy, for "Crisis Intervention".

The only way out of this is to dearm the police, or at very worse, make tazers their only sidearm and require them to unlock a rifle/shotgun from their patrol vehicle for more serious incidents.
7
Whoa!
We don't know what happened yet unless you were there.
8
5 shots? Really?
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If someone is coming at you with a knife, shouting "Do it mother fu*kers!", and they refuse to back off after multiple requests, what would you do? Would you stand there and wait to get stabbed? Pepper spray and tasers are useless in situations like this.
10
@4: Good points. Especially if was a large knife. We don't know the size.

That she only weighs 100 lbs is immaterial.
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@9: I would probably "get back".
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@10 as material as Michael Brown's weight, or Trayvon Martin's height. Which is to say, an excuse for idiots to advance their agenda
13
It would be nice if one of these news orgs reporting on the audio provided a transcript instead of their own narrative. I can't listen to someone's death.
14
What's up with the dopes in this thread? You don't think there's a problem here? That maybe cops are supposed to be trained specifically to de-escalate in cases exactly like this? That risk for police is part of the job, and that minimizing that risk with a shoot-first approach is antithetical to serving the public? That race clearly and obviously plays a factor in the police shootings? I mean how can you possibly deny that at this point? Do you really believe that if a 100-pound white woman exhibited this exact same behavior, she'd still be alive?

Cops are people too, I get it. But there's a genuine, systemic problem here. It's not some leftist overreaction. Something needs to change.

Stop making excuses. Have higher standards.
15
I once served on an inquest (no prosecution, defense, or verdict) for an officer involved shooting. The main takeaway was that the police are trained to be (or to appear to be) very anxious about even very small knives.
17
I'm waiting for someone trained in hand-to-hand combat by the U.S. Armed Forces to weigh in here.
I suspect their perspective on de-escalation and neutralizing someone with a weapon will be very enlightening, and that it will not reflect well on the police.
20
Should read "Do you really NOT believe that if a 100-pound white woman..." But I think you got my point anyway. ;)
21
Everybody read what @14 said.
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@14 no amount of training in the world would have stopped this one. The most well-trained, well intentioned police officer in the country would have pulled the trigger. If Barack and Bernie were buddy cops, they'd have shot to kill. Everything happened within 15 seconds. The victim here went from 0 to 100 in, literally, 1 second; 13 seconds later she was dead. No time for deescalation, no time for calculation. The only way to solve this one is for the police not to have guns.
23
@18 That's the problem and what @14 was addressing. You say it is "standard law enforcement doctrine". Why? Why is it standard? Are you absolutely sure there are no alternatives to hot lead in these situations? If so, why are so many police forces around the world able to de-escalate, even in the presence of a knife, without resorting to hot lead?
24
Reminds me of when we lost out collective shit over this similar police shooting.

http://komonews.com/archive/police-offic…

Rose Namajunas is 100lbs dripping wet, and she could likely kill 95% of the SPD with a butter knife. Size makes no difference if you get stabbed in the neck - you'll bleed to death in a hospital if someone gets those vessels open.

Is there a problem with latent racist psychology in society and institutional racism in police departments? 100% for sure, no question.

Can one, from the sidelines, ascribe this specific shooting to racism? Not a chance. This is not to say that the cops might have acted differently if she was white, but you can't know this. There are plenty of not-racist cops, plenty of racist cops too. I'm no lover of police - have had my ass brutally kicked twice by shitty cops - but that doesn't make these cops those cops.

Awful outcome - I hope Charleena's family finds peace and that her children maybe benefit from some sort of silver lining and aren'the now fucked forever. There's a gofundme for them - if you ever do more than complain send them some cash

https://www.gofundme.com/bdgbc8pg
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@23 - what police forces are you referring to? In London, in a country that was nowhere near the prevalence of guns as we do, police several years back were confronted with men with knives who advanced on them. They did what the situation demanded and shot them to neutralize the threat.

https://youtu.be/HsEWgKttC9A

The problem is not one of doctrine. The doctrine is the same everywhere. If you advance on police while holding a knife, you are going to get shot. It's tragic, and very sad for everybody involved, but entirely preventable. Just don't come towards the cops with a weapon.
26
If they're all terrified of a 100# woman with a knife, why the fuck am i paying for all their expensive riot armor and shields?
28
@25

Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, etc etc, ad nauseam. Nary a weapon in sight.

But you did get part of that right: the doctrine *is* the same everywhere.
29
@17 I can't speak on the specifics of other branches, but in the Army we were taught:
1.)Shout: either of the cops yelling "get back" multiple times.
2.)Show: the cops either had their pistols drawn, or at least had them visible on their hips.
3.)Shove: if Lyles was charging at them with a lethal weapon in close quarters, they can't safely just push her away.
4.)Shoot: the last resort, to ensure you and/or your partner aren't killed.
If someone is charging at you murderous intent, how long do you think you have to run through all three steps before deciding if #4 is warranted? Keep in mind that it's happening in the most stressful of situations, as well.
Ultimately, we were taught that you have the right to defend your own life from imminent lethal threats, as long as you're willing to stand by your actions.

What happened with Charleena Lyles was definitely tragic, but after listening to the audio reading the information that's been published so far, it sounded unavoidable.
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And is it s.o.p. now to release evidence publicly in what is presumably an ongoing inquiry?
That just don't seem right.
32
Two things: if you have never been around a person who is in the throes of a psychotic episode, then you have no business making judgments that this woman couldn't hurt anyone. I have been in close contact with a small woman in a psychotic episode and trying to keep her from attacking me with a broom was surreal. Her strength was off the charts. I lost the battle. And I know how not strong she was because the woman is my mother who didn't possess that strength normally. People in psychotic episodes are terribly dangerous. Period.

Secondly, Solid Ground failed this woman and her children. The staff either are ill equipped to manage folks with mental illness or there was a deep disconnect in keeping her and her kids safe. Yes review the officers' actions AND someone review what if any problems exist with Solid Ground's capacity to manage housing for formerly homeless peoole who by virtue of their experience have ptsd at the least and most often women are domestic violence and sexual assault victims, who are dealing with deep trauma. Solid Ground has some accountability here too.
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@28 - the problem is that by conflating a shooting like this one with the ones that you mentioned you burn your credibility. One can -- and should -- think that those were unjustified shootings while simultaneously thinking that this shooting we're talking about is justified. The only way to broaden support for those trying to find ways to reduce unjustified law enforcement shootings is to push hard on the ones *that were actually unjustified,* not the ones that aren't. And that's where I think you, and others, are making a mistake.
34
@28 I love the amount of cognitive dissonance and basic outright stupidity. Sandra Bland is outright tinfoil territory, if you believe the police hung her , you probably believe Sandy Hook never happened, you probably believe Muslims celebrated on the rooftops on 9/11, and then 5 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton.
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@34
Lol. Wrong. Cool story, tho.

Or you could address my actual point, which was a response to @25's assertion that having weapons is the deciding factor in whether or not the cops will shoot you, when we all know that Existing While Black is far more likely to get you murdered by the Boys n Girls In Blue, WEAPONS OR NOT.
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@35 Neither Bland nor Garner were shot. 1 out of 3 ain't bad when trying to prove a point, great job!
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@36
If you can actually read, i said "murdered"; @25 said "shot".
Until you're ready to address my actual point, just stop.
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@37
... is the deciding factor in whether or not the cops will shoot you
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@38

You not only don't have an argument, you don't even have a point.
40
@39 You're someone who believes, with zero evidence other than friends saying "she wouldn't do that" that Sandra Bland was murdered. So... I'll have to assume at this point that you're lacking a 5th grade education.

Please wait...

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