Aftermath of Atlanta "Drug Raid" Killing of 92-Year Old

depends which drugs are legal.

weed is the most obvious one. i hope i live to see the day and am not too old.

 

This is a reasonable statement. I find the righteous missionary zeal of some of the other statements in this thread to be as disturbing as some of T_J’s brand of self-righteousness.

For instance, I think one needs to be careful in comparing situations in other countries to the US. This relates to another discussion recently about firearms. The negligible effects of legalized cocaine in South America can not be used with any certainty to predict that it would have negligible effect on the US, any more than the fact that every Swiss citizen has an machine gun and the country has a low murder rate can be used to predict the effect that legalizing machine guns would reduce the murder rate in the US. (BTW, in South American countries it is still illegal to have processed cocaine; it is only leagal to have unprocessed coca leaf which is very different).

I appreciate and agree that we should explore other options. But if we agree that the current system doesn't work, which I think is where your position comes from, that does not mean that inverting the situation will necessarily work either.

 

That is an excellent question it would also be good to know if she had a hearing problem and how much time passed between them entering and her firing.

 

Not to pick on you Otto but in the other threads you did compare murder rates in the UK before and after their handgun ban as an example for why banning guns might not lead to reduced murders.

 

I wonder if they identified themselves when planting drugs in her basement.

if the allegations are true, trying to justify the shooting is a moot point by now. a 92 year old woman who isn't involved in criminal activity should be given some leeway if a bunch of cops bust into her home on a search warrant gained by lying.

 

Actually, I compared before and after rates within the same 'system'. Not comparing and contrasting two different systems as per my example of comparing the current status of firearms in Switzerland with the current status of firearms in the United States. I also several times made it clear that the more a country diverges in disposition from the United States, the less valid those statistics were.

I believe that my position is consistent across threads. If you would like me to find the posts (which were mostly in response to Sam Fisher and New Yorker) I will do so.

 

They are facing life imprisonment. I would hardly say it is a moot point if they properly identified themselves, where subsequently shot at, and then returned fire.

 

how many elderly have been murdered by cops and had the cops plant drugs on them afterwards?

 

they pleaded guilty.

 

The charges they plead guilty to aren't the ones that carry the possibility of life imprisonment.

They should be tried for lying on a warrant application. I don't think the penalty for that is life imprisonment. To me it seems like these cops, who certainly screwed up, are being railroaded because the woman who shot at them happened to be really old. If the cops identified themselves, and the woman still shot at them, then they were justified in shooting back, even though she was not guilty of any other crime. Don't shoot at cops. Do what they tell you. I don't know why in every thread about cops, this is such an alien concept to everyone.

 

i dont know how you can defend these cops.

maybe you didnt read the article, so lets review the facts again stupid.

they pleaded guilty to manslaughter. they used a "no knock warrant" which means that they did NOT identify themselves before busting in. if that happened to me i would have done the same thing as that woman - except im 32 and ill assume alot quicker than the 92 year old.

the cops were dressed in plain clothes and did not identify themselves. the woman fired one shot and they fired 39. the woman did not hit any cops.

the cops lied on the warrant, planted drugs on her after murdering her and after the murder, got a false witness to falsely testify that he bought drugs at the house.

3 officers were indicted for murder.

i dont know how you can try and defend this.

 

I'll try to enlighten you.

I did, actually.

Can do.

Granted, I think the penalty for that charge is ten years. Not really in dispute.

Not at all what I asked. I asked if they identified themseles before they were shot at. Presumably there was some time between their ram hitting the door and the old lady opening fire. People don't generally sit around all day pointing their gun at the front door on the off chance that someone is going to break in.

This necessitates verbally identifying themselves.

So they didn't identify themselves after entering? That is unusual and certainly breaks with procedure, at least in the departments where I know people. Has this been reported somewhere, or are you inferring this from "no knock raid"?

Irrelevent. When someone shoots at the cops they are supposed to return fire until the threat is eliminated, not fire the same number of shots that are fired at them. This number of bullets theory sounds good but it is weak every time it is used.

Are they supposed to wait until one of them is hit/killed before shooting back? That seems like it would be a bad idea.

All of these things are crimes. There is no excuse for the cover-up. It was a stupid thing to do.

It all depends on how you look at it. Try looking at it this way. The cops got a tip from an informant that this was a drug dealers house. The informant was trying to get a deal, so the cops figure they are giving up someone else tosave their own ass. They go to the suspects house and break down the door. The run in (probably yelling that they are the police and are engaged in a raid) and someone shoots at them. They return fire and kill their assailant, only to find out that it is an old woman and that there are no drugs in her home. They freak out and try to cover it up by planting drugs and getting a witness to lie about buying drugs at that house, which is a stupid thing to do, a result of their panic over screwing up.

Changing no facts, that narrative certainly doesn't sound like the cops deserve life imprisonment, more like 10-15 years.

 

I will agree that you did compare before and after the same system but you were doing so to show that murder rates aren't really affected by gun ownership in an argument about gun ownership in the US.

The crux of your argument was that murder rates in the US might not be affected very much by gun ownership and the example you cited was that murder rates didn't change that much in the UK when handgun ownership was banned.

 

So somebody in plain clothes breaks down you door comes in with guns and says "I'm a police officer" and you will just take their word on it?

give it up dude.

 

Ah... My intended argument was primarily in response to the argument that the UK has banned handguns, and their murder rate was much lower. Therefore making guns illegal will result in a murder rate relatively equal to that of the UK. My reason for presenting that fact was that the evidence in the UK actually implies the opposite from what was being argued. I did not intend to present it as being final and absolute evidence that conclusively reducing guns would not reduce the murder rate.

I haven't re-read the thread, but in retrospect it was somewhat heated so it is possible that I may have overstated my position at some point, though I do remember a couple of times specifically saying that if evidence could be produced that showed a relationship between availability of guns and murder rates in the USA, I would be willing to consider that evidence.

I also supported Sam Fisher's assertion that comparing murder rates in, for example, Russia and the USA and trying to extrapolate changes in the murder rate based on the presence or absence of guns in each country was not valid.

My intended point in this thread, also, was not to say that evidence from other countries was not absolutely irrelevant, just that as you alter the nature of society, the results become less valid. Specifically, I think that countries like Bolivia, where people have no disposable income and a much lower level of technology; the effects of legal coca leaf are much different than what would happen in the USA. I think the Netherlands comparison is much more valid, and I did not particularly take exception to it.

 

^ To be fair to you then the V-Tech shooting gun debate was getting pretty convuluted.