Comments

1

Why are the only choices US cops use limited to the use of deadly force?

In most countries, you don't have people running around with military weapons (pistols, pretty much any semi-automatic), so there are many less lethal choices one can make.

2

The reason they didn’t shoot him was pretty clear, actually. The guy crashed a car and was hurt so severely that he couldn’t even walk away from the scene; they moved him into an ambulance straight away, with a heavy police escort.

3

@2:

If you had read the accompanying article and the police report, it was made quite clear that Officer Alpaugh encountered the suspect BEFORE he sped off and collided with the other vehicle whose driver he killed. So, there was a window in which he could have been shot - or shot at (whatever happened to the notion of shooting out tires?) - as by his statement the officer seemed fairly confident he was in fact the shooter. As Charles correctly points out, if it had been a POC behind the wheel in similar circumstances, the likelihood of the officer hesitating to shoot would have gone down my several orders of magnitude.

4

No good policing goes unpunished, I guess.

5

We see Chuck has finally come around to our view that anyone and everyone who flee the police should be shot down in the street....

6

@3 - "If it had been a POC behind the wheel in similar circumstances, the likelihood of the officer hesitating to shoot would have gone down my several orders of magnitude."

Given statistics only, you and Charles are correct.

But let's tackle another permutation in this silly exercise:

If Tad-Michael Norman were black, and the police could have spared another life by killing him, would Charles be making a post that the police acted correctly?

There are no answers that leave anyone satisfied so is another annoying deliberately divisive stab at our common growth and healing towards an objective reality.

7

However, 6000 Black men murder each year (6X the rate of other demographics) and few of them end up dead at the hands of police so Chuck's feigned surprise is fueled either by ignorance or hate-mongering bigotry.
But Black murder rates are up sharply in recent years;
Chuck should look into the “Ferguson effect”;
it seems when police coddle the predators as The Left demands Black Americans pay with their lives.

8

We wonder how many lives the brave Seattle officers who killed Che Taylor saved?

Chuck should look into it.

9

Pathetic, Charles.

Look yourself in the mirror and say "I support more police violence" three times and maybe Harriet Beacher-Stowe will smile in her grave.

10

Like, seriously. Show this article to your parents, I hope they spit in your face.

11

You make this far more complicated than is necessary Charles.
Watch this two minute video:

https://komonews.com/news/local/lake-city-gunman-has-no-job-appeared-intoxicated-during-spree-police-say

At times 0:27, 0:34, and 0:51 in the video you see one of the gunman's hands disappear out of sight either under his body and/or toward his mid-section/waist. While the perspective is from above, certainly this failure to "show us your hands" was as apparent to the cops converging on him.

If this person got blasted by the cops there would be no discussion and no concern. I am all for police showing restraint, but why it was shown in this instance -- given what cops on the scene knew and could reasonably fear -- is inexplicable without understanding the role that race plays.

12

The officer arrived at an exceptionally chaotic scene, and saw someone he thought MIGHT be the suspect driving away. He could've easily been mistaken, and he was absolutely right to hold his fire. Does anyone really believe we should be calling for more police violence ("but please try and distribute it equitably")? Would the holocaust have been better if they'd expanded it to more ethnic/religious/social groups?

13

Finally Chuckles is right about something, they should have gunned him down like the dog he is.

Mind you, the suspect is a UW sociology major so maybe he can blame society ?

14

A world where white Americans were shot by police officers at the same rates that black Americans are might be a more fair world, but it would not be a more just world.

15

@14 It would also require white people committing crime at the same rates as black people.

18

@17 Luckily I have FBI statistics to back me up.

You have whatever you pull out of your ass.

19

@3 I think the tire-shooting thing exists only in old A-Team reruns.

20

I guess I’ll wade into this hornet’s nest. Even if the suspect had been black, it’s very, very unlikely he would have been shot in the circumstances described.

The suspect was in a vehicle when the officer spotted him, and a high-risk stop (we called them “felony stops” whether known felony or not) means he would not have approached the suspect’s car. He would have shouted or used a PA to order the suspect out with hands visible. This suspect refused and sped away.

The layout of most felony stops makes trigger-happy shooting a lot less likely. You’re well behind the car and can only see back of suspect’s head. Cops know shooting from that distance into the rear of a vehicle is a low-probability shot.

Don’t get me wrong, if the suspect whips out a gun and starts shooting out his window or even through the back window, the cop(s) will unload on him. But barring that, not being 100% sure this is the guy when stopping him and not seeing a weapon, no, this would have panned out the same way regardless of the demographic of the driver/suspect.

Of course, an idiot or coward cop could go rogue and immediately shoot once the car stops no matter what, but that truly is a rarity. We did felony stops routinely, and I never saw or even heard of that happening. I’m sure the same is true with SPD. Bad shooting are usually face-to-face, not usually in these circumstances.

21

@20 You're talking to the "cops are pigs" crowd here.

22

@19 - Mostly. Some state troopers and more rural county sheriff’s departments will shoot at tires with a shotgun, but every city I’m aware of bans the practice. It works, but too much danger of hitting pedestrian/bystander or other vehicle in built-up areas, so city/town departments ban it altogether. We used spike-strips but getting in front of the fleeing suspect with time to deploy them without spiking an innocent car is the devil’s own work and not often accomplished before the suspect wrecks out on his own.

@21 - Meh, I’m pretty thick-skinned. Besides, from my long-term first-hand observation, I can say that unfortunately, some cops are indeed pigs.

23

Charles, you do realize that according to FBI statistics, in examining all citizen police encounters, whites are no more or less proportionally likely to be shot by the police than blacks, don't you?

24

Yes, the cops shoulda shot this freakin insane murderer.

26

Easier to prosecute cops in WA state now right? Nothing mentioned about this in the article?

27

@7 @15 @18 @23

Your “stats” mean nothing without a link or even telling us what they were in 2018.

If the only stat covering your ass is those FBI stats, try harder. We can see cheeks and more.

(And yes, if y’all can’t or won’t post in the next Googlesec, I may be forced to. Again. Sigh.)


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