I also wanted to say, that you aren't confronting an enemy soldier on the battlefield, you are confronting a student as a campus cop. Shooting to kill is the worst possible logic to have with an unarmed student. Eliminating the enemy, if this is an enemy, should not cross your mind if you are pulling someone over for speeding and they are unarmed. You might as well give every person that feels threatened a gun and let them shoot who they want.
It is beyond stupid to fight with a police officer and then take his baton away from him. It's sad the result of this, but I think the officer is justified in this scenario. Wish it wouldn't have to come to this so often, but people do need to realize that officers are doing their job for a reason and it is not up to you to decide to take matters into your own hands during the moment if you feel like you are being wronged. That is what the justice system is for. Sure it has flaws, many flaws, but when your alternative is to resist and then get shot as a result, what is the better option?
I'm going by your own summary of events in post #7: Did the kid drop the baton before angrily approaching the cop?
If you read the accompanying article, it says he took the baton from the cop and hit the cop with it a couple of times. The cop wrestled the baton back from him. The student then broke free (to run away?) and the cop told him to stop or he'd shoot. The student charged him (unarmed at this point) and got shot. It sounds like people who want to blame the cops have not much to go on then "this kid was just a student, not any kind of real threat; he's a nice guy, very mild-mannered, normally." 99% of offenders have some friend who will say what a nice guy he is (the other 1% are the psychos who have neighbors who say he was very quiet and kept to himself). Taking a baton from a cop and hitting him with it is not a mild-mannered thing to do at all. I don't know why he was being cuffed, or why he was hit with a baton. I don't know why the cop didn't meet the charge with his baton instead of his gun. That might have been abuse of power by the cop. But that the student took a baton from a cop and hit him with it and then charged him despite a warning he'd be shot suggests to me that he may not have been reasonable and rational in his other actions either. I'd leave this to internal affairs to figure it out. It doesn't look necessarily unjustified on the face of it.
I guess the Cop didn't trust his self defense training. Had to take the easiest way out. Guns should be last resort for Police, not a crutch to use when you don't know what to do. Bad training.
It's not supposed to be an even fight. Why do people assume a cop isn't supposed to have any advantage when someone attacks him?
Doesn't matter anyway, justified or not, very small percentage anything happens to the cop if warranted. Maybe suspended with pay? LOL...what a punishment.
The Law covered this one According to chapter 9 of the penal code, an officer shall "manifest his purpose" when slapping cuffs on you. If he doesn't do that, it's an assault. And by "manifest his purpose" (legal wording in the penal code) he or she has to tell you, "You're under arrest" or "I'm detaining you." How's this for jumping to conclusions? Jesus. Timothy McVeigh was stopped for not having a license plate. What DAFUQ does the offense he was stopped for have anything to do with what happened as the results of the suspect's deranged actions? Carrying pepper spray isn't a mandatory item for an officer's gun belt. Police agencies have Standard Operating Procedures and General Orders that outline what intermediate weapon(s) shall be carried. Most of them just list a number of intermediate weapons you should have available. Luckily grand jurys (at least in Harris Co) go through scenarios where they are put into split second life or death situations which allows them to get a glimpse of what it's like to be in something similar. Most people have never even been in a fight. It's made clear to them that they don't have the leisure to sit in a controlled environment and think about their actions while someone is charging hard at them. Hey ThatSimpleMindedBoyNick, you're allowed to protect yourself against an assault. An officer has to abide by the same laws as everyone else. You should look them up some time. Also, I'm willing to bet you've never been in a situation where someone wants to kill you, with mere seconds to react. Would you pull a "b**** move" if someone you're fighting with shows no signs of giving up, and has already demonstrated a lack of concern by hitting you with a knight stick. This is America. We can defend ourselves against serious bodily injury using up to and including deadly force. If you pull a gun on someone (deadly force) you better be prepared to stop the threat and the situation, from a legal standpoint, must be one where serious bodily injury is being imposed upon you. If an officer could just shoot at will, there'd be a lot of stupid MF'ers getting shot in the foot/leg as they were running from the police. What happens when the ****bag knocks the officer out and then takes his gun? *** yes you would be allowed to shoot someone in that situation. Beating your ass with a knight stick is more than enough justification for the use of deadly force. What happends when the cop is knocked out and his gun is taken? If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck. Do you know how many officers are killed by gun fire each year? The American streets are dangerous and some people are just our of their deranged minds. Again, the logic of "he was pulled over for speeding" is invalid and WEAK sauce. Every person should have a gun, and be prepared to use it when serious bodily harm is being or is about to be inflicted. if you're in a fair fight, your tactics suck. Officers don't get paid to fight fair. Plus, if an officer doesn't over come force he's faced with, his competence will be questions by his supervisors and admin. and he needs to find another line of work. He will be cleared by the grand jury after being out on administrative leave for a few weeks. Suspensions don't happen in situations like this.
The thing about your "Why didn't he shoot him in the leg" is this. If the cop is in a situation where he can think, "Oh, I'll just put one bullet in the kid's leg...." he has no business using the gun at all. Guns are used to kill people. That is their purpose. They are absolutely last resort weapons, and when you pull that trigger, you better understand that if you did it right, someone will die. Not to mention that most people are not trained to hit limbs - hitting limbs, which flail around a lot, is hard. Really hard.
I don't know the full story. But I do know that if you take an officer's baton away from him and come at him with it, you will definetly be shot. Prob 99.9% of the time.
IMO, even if the kid did resist, he didn't deserve to die, because he didn't pose a direct threat to the officer's life. There must be a better way to resolve this situation.
Started of with a cheap **** joke, nice. Yes i agree everybody's allowed to protect them selves, 6 shots to a unarmed student who was pulled over for speeding isn't exactly self protection. You're assuming i'v never been in a situation were someone wanted to kill me, that's irrelevant. It seems your suggesting though, that the student wanted to kill the cop, and the cop only had "mere seconds" to react from a attempted murder attack by a unarmed 23 year old. Keep in mind, this is a armed cop, who had a gun, most likely a tazer, pepper spray and training in combat for situations like these. If you really think 6 gun shots, 2 or 3 being head shots, was his only option, a acceptable reaction, when this cop had at least 10 other MUCH MUCH better options that didn't lead to this student being killed then you're beyond ridiculous. This is america, where people are insanely out of touch with whats right and wrong. **** laws and legalities, i'm talking about whats right, and wrong. I would like to see you defend the cop if it was a close family member or friend of yours.
What does an officer do when he's knocked out? If one of my family members pulled a baton from an officer and swung it at him, their dumb ass had it coming. One quick question. What kind of traffic violations do homicidal people commit?
Trooper Vetter, if he were still alive, would say guys that don't wear their seatbelt can kill you. http://youtu.be/-GMCfxezdfE
I think that when someone attacks someone (cop) who they know has a gun, they have just placed an extremely small value on their own life. It's on them. I've never put myself in a situation where an officer needed to unholster his weapon toward me. It's pretty simple.
I do hope they probe HPD. http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Group-Calls-for-Justice-Dept-Probe-of-HPD-235472211.html
I don't understand how any of you can judge who's right without at least seeing the tape. Where did this happen, does anyone know the location? Is it possible a camera on campus caught what happened (I know campus parking lots and entrances have cameras everywhere).
