My opinion is that you would rather waste your life on tabloid journalism than do something useful.

^My opinion is that's a +1seeking comment from someone who regularly posts on my threads JUST to piss on me before pissing off himself...

You're one to talk about wasting one's life.

(But please, continue with your witticisms...just a man shot dead in the streets, after all, fiedler, don't let that get in the way of your smarmy tone there...)

ACAB

This is why the Black Lives Matter movement exists.

"ACAB"

and you accuse the conservatives/right-wing parties for pigeonholing.

Hey luvvie, you asked for my opinion and I gave it. Sorry you don't like it. Please continue you charity work regardless.

1. Fuck off with that, mendax...

Plenty of good cops out there. There's no question that police departments need to really, REALLY work on their relationships with the black and Latino communities and that there are racist cops out there (there's racists in every field) but really? ALL Cops Are Bastards?

Yeah, see, generalizations like that? Kinda sorta more of the problem than the solution?

2. That was a black cop that shot the guy, so...while yes, the Black Lives Matter movement's hugely important...um...it's a black police officer who's responsible for the death of that homeless man, so...where are you going with this?

I asked everyone's opinion on the incident, fiedler, not everyone's opinion on me or my posts.

Nice try, though. Stay classy, sir.

I was right there on being outraged until I watched it again. If you listen closely just before they fire as they are cuffing the kid and the homeless man is on the ground. You can hear, at least I'm pretty sure "Drop the gun drop the gun.". If they reasonably thought he was going to turn it and fire at them that isn't all that unreasonable of a response from them.

Cops and the government aren't great but you have to be fair when its time to be guys.

Very well, obiwan, you have clearly won this round, obiwan. Thank you for your good work, obiwan, in bringing this important matter to attention. You, obiwan, are a living saint. If only you'd been there to stop the bullet.

@Holen:

I didn't hear the cop say "drop the gun," I couldn't really hear anything like that, it sounded like a muddled scuffle of noise to me.

If the homeless man really was actively brandishing a gun, then yes, I'd agree with you--firing then would be self-defense.

There was also a clear tazer sound, so the gun wasn't the first line of defense.

@fiedler: what are you genuinely hoping to accomplish? There's no need to come to a thread and begin attacking people.

As for the "drop the gun", I agree. At least on youtube you can clearly hear someone shout that a couple of time right before the shot. I don't know, man. This looks pretty normal to me, a struggle between a furious guy and policeman, they think you have a gun, they can shoot. In my opinion it's justified, if you get into a fight with a policeman this kinds of things just happen, and sure, sometimes the homeless guy doesn't have a gun and then it's a total shitstorm, but then again, I'd rather it's him who get shot then a policeman or an onlooker.

"There was also a clear tazer sound, so the gun wasn't the first line of defense."

That I heard, but it looked to me like the guy was already on the ground as a result of the tazing...so unless it's true that the homeless guy did have a gun and was using it...

He seemed to be on the ground anyway, so why shoot, let alone shoot as many times as the cop did (he shoots like 4 or 5 times? That seems pretty excessive for a guy who's been tazed and is on the ground...again, unless he was pointing a gun.)

"they think you have a gun, they can shoot."

Even then, why 4 or 5 times, ESPECIALLY at that range? It's not as if the homeless guy was far away and it was a firefight, or he had to worry about getting the guy down...

He was literally on the ground a few feet away--surely after a fight and a tazing the cop didn't need 4+ shots at point-blank range "to be sure" he was "subdued?"

I understand that that's how cops are trained, but maybe that needs to be rethought a bit in light of the recent events across the nation.

I mean, if you're that close to a suspect that's been tazed already, surely you can shoot to wound, hit him (he's on the ground, just a couple feet away) and stop firing, as quite frankly, after being SHOT, chances are he's not gonna be a threat anymore?

And I get that it's easy to second-guess when it's not yourself in that situation, I'm again just saying that maybe it's more something that needs to be reviewed nationwide, rather than pertaining just to this one specific incident alone, since similar things seem to keep happening.

Oh, I watched for a second time, and this time the whole movie. I think the policemen deserve an award for not shooting anyone from the crowd. "That man is deeeeaaaaad now, that man is deeeeaaaaaad. That man is deeeeaaaad, man. That man if fucking dead". So annoying.

Actually, now that I read it it makes for a nice poem.

there is a chance he didnt actually tazer the homeless guy. if it were a stun gun (hand-held) he could of just been priming it without actually hitting the guy on his skin or loose clothing. Just because you here a tazer sound doesn't mean the man is incapacitated

""It's clear there was a struggle for the officer's gun," Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Andrew Smith said. No other gun was found at the scene.

Five shots can be heard on the video. Two officers and a sergeant fired their weapons, Smith said."

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lapd-shooting-20150302-story.html#page=1

Assuming that's true, that on the one hand would seem to indicate the homeless guy didn't have a gun of his own, and if it was a struggle for the gun, or the LAPD reports that as the case, then this could well be shades of the Ferguson case again, as that's what Darren Wilson said of Michael Brown during that incident...

After which people ALSO asked why, if he was that close, he was shot so many times. 5 shots by the officer here...unless all but the last one or two hit...explain to me why, if they're close enough to struggle for the gun, so many were fired? I have to imagine that if someone's struggling for a gun and is SHOT, he's not gonna be getting that gun?

"At one point during the confrontation a non-lethal Taser had been deployed, but Smith said it was "ineffective.""

So it looks like that was deployed.

In addition...

"One witness can be heard complaining that there had been at least six officers to handle the situation, and that the mortally wounded man had been unarmed."

^Another fair point...at least in the Darren Wilson case, that was one on one.

There were SIX officers there...and it wasn't six on six by any means...

They REALLY couldn't have subdued what by all accounts (thus far) was an unarmed homeless man without shooting at him five times when they had SIX cops there? From the video, it seems like one other suspect was being arrested...

So surely some of those cops were free to help assist the officer engaged with the homeless man and thus help subdue him in a non-lethal manner?

Ok, I honestly don't know what you want us to say. It is absolutely clear that you made your mind about this being an execution, so, to be honest, why start the thread? Are you hoping someone else will agree with you and you're gonna have a nice, ass-licking thread about how you agree this was an execution?

I mean, it's fine by me, I did the same thing 2 weeks ago about Ukraine, I just want to know whether to treat this thread seriously or not.

At this point, you have to be a bastard to survive as a police officer in any major city in the USA. The UK cops aren't much better, but they don't have guns so it's harder for them to randomly murder people.

randomly 'kill' Mendax, let's try to stay objective

You don't pull a gun out and shoot an unarmed man on the floor 4 or 5 times without intending to kill him. That intent makes it murder.

no, you could intend to shoot a guy in self defense, but that is not murder.

murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

unlawful is yet to be decided, and premeditated twas not

also it wasn't one guy. 3 officers shot 4or5 total bullets, and the police are trained to pull the trigger twice fast. The question that decided it for me: was the guy subdued from the Tazer or not? that is the only factor left that needs to be determined in my book

"2. That was a black cop that shot the guy, so...while yes, the Black Lives Matter movement's hugely important...um...it's a black police officer who's responsible for the death of that homeless man, so...where are you going with this?"

Ice Cube has this covered:
"But don't let it be a black and a white one
Cause they'll slam ya down to the street top
Black police showing out for the white cop"

"If you hurt some, you damn better make sure they have the same color skin as you"
-South Park

The number of shots is irrelevant. Once the officer makes a decision that he needs to use lethal force, he is trained to use lethal force until the threat is neutralized. He doesn't aim for the hand; he aims for critical hits. He doesn't fire once and then see if that stopped the guy with the gun; he makes definitively sure the threat is dead.

The question is whether the decision to use lethal force was correct. Tased or not, if the guy was just swinging punches, that's not enough. If the officers believed the guy had gotten ahold of one of the officer's guns, that probably suffices.

It appears to me the officers were justified. You can see by the actions of the enraged man he was out to do as much damage as possible to the officers. If he had the chance, he clearly would have killed all six police. He likely got his hand on one of the officer's holstered weapons. I would have shot him too.

The level of his rage is what caused this death, IMO.

Police lives matter.

Excellent point, THM

There is no such thing as "shooting to wound". That's what the taser is for. No one (snipers/marksmen excepted, of course) is trained to shoot "to wound" or to shoot "only once". Anyone who carries a gun for a living is trained to aim for center-of-mass and keep firing until the target is both horizontal and stationary. The only thing worse than an armed bad guy is an armed *and* wounded bad guy.

As THM pointed out, the only question here is whether or not the use of lethal force is justified. To that end, the real question is A) Was the homeless man armed? and B) If not, was the homeless man actively attempting to disarm an officer?

There's a fine line between a flailing hand accidentally bumping into a holster and a firm grasp on the grip of the officer's pistol, but in either case it's hard to side with the homeless man because he continued to violently and actively resist long after the outcome was decided. A lot of homeless people have mental disorders; it's quite possible that the man was acting on a hallucination or delusion.

In conclusion: The matter should be investigated, but in light of the video, I see no reason to pursue charges against the officers involved, unless it is shown that the homeless man was unarmed *and* did not attempt to disarm any of the officers.

If he *did* attempt to disarm an officer, I'll say the same thing that I said about Michael Brown: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Bounce

The homeless man was paid a month beforehand. The witness with the camera works for the federal government. The police were informed of what was happening. All witnesses were offered a non-negotiable settlement and governmental NDA form within two days.

This happened 14 days ago.

... What?

The headline could also read, "Homeless Man Killed After Attempting to Disarm LAPD Officer."

Really?
4 Officiers on top of 1 unarmed guy and they can't avoid a "disarm attempt" without killing him.

100% of the time, every time?

No.

@ JPS

It doesn't matter if they had a dozen policemen trying to control him; they can't be blamed if he managed to wrap his hand around someone's pistol.