No indictment for officer who shot Tamir Rice; reasonable to assume officer was threatened

Well they did pull up too close, but that's irrelevant really. There were many many factors that led to the kid getting himself shot. Basically everything went as poorly as it possibly could have.

The idea that it was intentional is flat out pants on head r****ded and quite frankly, not worthy of a response.

 

Maybe they were idiots, but I'm sure those cops wish they had made different decisions just like anyone who isn't a psychopath does.

Everyone in this situation loses but at least we didn't see our legal system try and lynch mob anyone to appease some political narrative.

 

Yet in the civilian world of not having the privilege of being a LEO, when your idiocy explicitly results in the death of another individual you are going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter through criminal negligence.

Being an idiot is not an excuse for your idiot actions killing a 12 year old.

And if your entire counter-argument is "but the grand jury disagrees with you" then you are going for the low hanging fruit and implicitly implying that a grand jury is infallible and any counter-argument is invalid nor sound.

I'm sure you aren't a hypocrite and never disagreed with a grand jury decision in a high profile case... right?

 

There's lots of "if's" in this incident, none of them criminal.

If the kid's parents had been watching him

If the dispatcher relayed the call accurately

If the kid didn't grab for the gun

If the cops didn't pull up so close

If the neighbor didn't call the cops

If the kid didn't have a super realistic looking gun

All of those things could have prevented the tragic accident that happened, but again, none of them are criminal acts. This was a justifiable use of force despite the fact that there wasn't actually any real danger. A reasonable person would have felt that the officers were in danger with someone grabbing for what they had to assume was a real gun during a stop.

We can mourn the death of the kid without having to string anyone up unjustly.

 

We all played with toy guns as kids most of which didn't have orange markers on them.They pulled up and within 3 seconds fired they didn't give themselves any chance let alone that kid it wasn't a justifiable shooting.I have many friends that are in LE and all feel the same poor training is what caused the main factor in this shooting.

 

Most toy guns didn't look identical to the real thing when I was a kid. Also, if they did look identical to a real gun, I'm sure none of us reached for one while a cop was a few feet from them trying to stop them.

As to justification, YOU might not think so, but according to the law, it was. Also, I don't mean that in an "OJ wasn't a murderer because he was acquitted" sort of way, I mean that the facts of the case dictate that the shooting was legally justified based on the laws on the books.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">LeBron James on Tamir Rice: &quot;Issue is bigger than me.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/WQBtOBTKvv">https://t.co/WQBtOBTKvv</a></p>&mdash; NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNNBA/status/682323692416839680">December 30, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Cops shoot far and away more black people than whites when you look at the per capita numbers. Why would you look at absolute numbers given that whites out number blacks what 7 to 1?

Because race wasn't a factor in his death. Race is presumed to be a factor in Tamir Rice - the idea that a cop is more prone to assume that someone is dangerous and because they are black. This is what many, including myself believe. There is data to back this up. You have a right to disagree with it, but to dismiss it casually without analysis or even consideration that it might be true shows a lack of open-mindedness. Can you at least entertain the possibility that there is racial bias going on here?

The facts are that blacks get worse punishments for the same crime, are more likely to be shot, are less likely to have their resumes picked-up, and so on and so forth. The fact is that the vast majority of whites show at least a slight bias against whites according to a harvard inherent bias study. The fact is this country has a race problem.

The reason this case is getting attention now is because it is newsworthy at the moment, I think a 12 year old boy being shot by a cop should get a lot of attention. More or less isn't the issue here - we as a society need to really ask ourselves and question our systems when a kid ends up dead like this - that's a good thing, not a bad one.

 

This essay contains lots to think about... best to read it in its entirety, but here are interesting excerpts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/magazine/tamir-rice-and-the-color-of-fear.html

 

Yet the numbers are consistent with the rate of violent crime in that demographic....but sure, let's blame it on racism.

That just shows your bias, how do you know race wasn't a factor in that other case? Simply because it was a white victim and a black cop? Your mentality of automatically assuming that race is a factor when the shooter is white and the person shot is black is a huge part of the problem.

Perhaps that bias is just too ingrained in your mind to be able to look at cases like this objectively. Your assumptions about people based solely on the color of their skin IS racism....you have to realize that.

 

"cops shoot more black people per capita than whites"

right and blacks commit an abhorrent amount of violent disgusting crime compared to whites per capita. To the point where only 30 million of the total 300 million strong american population commit nearly half of the murders.

SHOCKING that cops are shooting so many blacks when they are quite literally going out of their way to act like ****ing morons in a pandemic fashion.

 

Of course not.

Bigger question.....Why do we, as a society, allow toy guns to exist. They are dangerous because they look too much like the real thing. Also, they serve no practical purpose.

This incident could have been prevented on many levels. Society, Community, Parents, etc.

 

Kid pulled out a pretty real looking gun... While the cop drove right up. Average Cop vehicles don't even have the bullet proof glass. It was do or die in that situation based on the footage. It's a bit of the fault of the dispatcher not describing the suspect as a juvenile and that of the cop driving up right to the suspect rather than keep a distance and order some commands. But ultimately, in these times, how could a parent let their child play with such a bb-gun toy out in public like that? Parents should also be charged of some kind of negligence if they knew about the toy gun and allowed him to play with it in public like that.

 

Because we are a gun happy society that encourages the use of firearms at every turn.

 

The cynical side of me is starting to believe this.

When I was in the army, I was always taught that weapons were not toys. Therefore I can't understand why we make toys in the shape of weapons.

 

Say what you will but I'm not giving up my Dragon Dagger.

 

Here's to hoping that 2016 provides society with intelligent,qualified police officers who choose to use alternative methods to stop young children without using lethal force.

Here's to hoping that the the same people supporting this type of law enforcement foolishness learn the value of common decency and admit that there is still a terrible fear of "the young, black man" by the police and the public.

Here's to hoping that all of the families who have had to deal with the murders of family members by the hands of incompetent officers receive some sort of justice.

This thread is sick, like the 8th floor I go to every other day for treatment.

I know, deep down, we're better than this. Some of you in this thread are better than this twisted baiting game you like to play.

New Year, New You. Find some love and tolerance for those who may be categorically different than you are. These deaths didn't have to happen and these officers could have responded more appropriately.

And, yeah, there are countless of us who still think of Trayvon and Sean Bell every time another African American male is murdered by the men we pay to serve and protect.

Happy New Year and shout out to the leaders educating the youth who feel alienated by law enforcement. My brother, another former teacher in my family, is doing outreach as we speak. That's for you, "big" fella

Good night.

I'd take that bullet and my radiation for Tamir if I could.

 

Same old ****. Same old arguments.

We don't need another year for change. We need another ten.