There was a similar case here in Southern California last year or the year before. After a man was robbed on the street, he called 911 and reported (falsely) that his robbers had guns in order to get the police to actually show up in a reasonable amount of time. The cops then shot some random unarmed kid to death who vaguely fit the description of one of the robbers... then charged the original robbery victim with murder, saying that his embellished report forced them to kill someone. The original crime victim actually had to serve time and pay a fine to the very cops who killed the innocent third party (and, of course, faced no punishment for their murder, which was immediately declared "within policy").

A policy is more important than a life. Sounds like cops.

And yet there's still debate over whether the USA is a police state.

This is exactly like when my gf asks me a question, knowing I'll answer wrong, and yet somehow I'm always the one who ends up having to buy flowers.

Honestly, you can't judge the nation's police based on the actions of a few officers. NYPD has tens of thousands of police officers, so even if 1% were bad cops, that's still a couple hundred bad cops out there.

Stupid to have used a gun. Even stupider that the justice system is blaming that man. I mean, I would only agree to this punishment if the police faced punishment as well. Both are technically at fault, the police more so.

Goldfinger, you can. Iceland has had one suspect fatality in its police history (very recently, actually). And yes, I know, 300,000 versus 300,000,000. I get it. The point stands; our police policy and the extent that the departments - that's the key here - are going to extend their power in order to hold onto their power is ridiculous.

@bo - you have to look though, at the police departments causing problems. NYPD, LAPD are frequently in the news. London Metropolitan Police are also facing a lot of criticism recently. Perhaps rather than this being a country specific problem, its a problem endemic of large metropolitan police forces?

The UK and USA have a number of similar problems. And Iceland is awesome. Never forget.

I agree, large metropolitan police departments are the problem. Police departments without such heavy layers of organization, though, can be just as bad. The more anarchic the force is, the more likely a George Zimmerman is to show up too. (Yes, he wasn't on a police force, blah blah, I know. Not the point.)

I'm more concerned about the actual policies of the large metropolitan police forces than simply their existence. They can certainly coexist with their people with the thick book full of policies and whatever, it's what those policies actually are...

"NYPD, LAPD are frequently in the news."

That is because both are at the center of the two largest media markets and population concentrations in America, not because police there are any more abusive than anywhere else.