National case law is pretty fucked up, though. Those that killed Philando Castile and others walked away guilt-free because they could argue that it's reasonable for a cop to murder someone who looked scary during a 0.5-second window of time, regardless of whether the officer had made any attempt whatsoever to verify the report or de-escalate the situation in the time leading up to the use of force. We still have a lot of room for improvement.

This is a really good podcast on the current state of legal affairs: http://www.radiolab.org/story/radiolab-p…

Bub doesn't get harassed by the cops so he doesn't see why people want to curtail cops

@3 In the event you’re not trolling, look up John T Williams, Charleena Lyles, or Leonard Thomas. Those are just a few from recent memory.

The Leonard Thomas murder didn't get enough coverage IMO. That was some thug cop bullshit.

Not sure about Charleena Lyles on this one. 940 doesn't tell officers to avoid blundering into dangerous situations where they'll be at real risk but not nearly as much risk as the person who literally brought a knife to a gun fight. The cops fucked that up early on.

Add Tommy Le, whose killing has been part of driving this effort.

Add Giovonn Joseph-McDade probably, I haven't heard a lot of details.

Further back, add Otto Zehm, blindsided clubbed and killed by a cop who thought he looked like somebody else. This was so bad the killer got federal civil rights charges, but Washington prosecutors' hands were tied by the weak law.

Add Niles Meservey, whose killing was so bad that the officer was the one guy ever charged even under the impossible standard -- but got off under it.

Add Zambrano-Montes in Pasco.

Sufficiently advanced trolling is indistinguishable from dumbass.

The reason the cops are behind it is because a State Representative raised the question of legality. Reading from the State Constitution in part...The the kind of law that the current one is. Cannot be amended by the State Legislature. So if it passes and gets signed. it will be challenged right away.

@3, it’s an actual problem that has now found a solution. The parties in recent discussions identified the killing of John T Williams as an example of how the new law likely would have led to a different outcome. That was a case of unjustified use of deadly force (SPD found that officer Ian Birk was outside of policy when he shot Mr. Williams—a reasonable similarly situated officer would not have made the same choice to shoot), but he could not be charged with any crime under current law. At the time, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg and City Attorney Pete Holmes both wrote illuminating memos about how the present law made criminal charges against Ian Birk impossible. They would not be similarly precluded from prosecution under the anticipated new law. The present effort to change WA’s impossible standard for prosecution of officers who unlawfully use deadly force dates from that case.

Let's back up @12. To you *should* a law be written so as to make Ian Birk a reasonable target of charges, given the known facts?

Yes, and you're trying to help lawyer to that goal? Or no?

So the goal is to protect the officer not to protect the public from racist Klansman shooting people with the backing of state law? I have a question. What should a "reasonable" black person do, when white cops approach him for nothing? What should people who are legally armed and witnessing what usually happens in this type of situation, do? Given the thousands of black lives taken under theses legal-lynching statutes, when is deadly prevention "justified". If they have deadly force, the black and brown should have "deadly prevention" of that force to save our loved ones and friends. Really, given the current statistics, every "reasonable black person" should fear for their lives.