Fenian420

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24326126


Your opinions/views?

Fair justice?

TheSkudDestroyer

"Slaying"?

Biased.

But seriously... If you have to reload to kill someone it's police brutality in the most extreme sense. 50 shots?

Hang em.

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CingularDuality

From everything I've heard, it's absolutely fair. These officers were trying to do their job and they made a tragic mistake. They weren't there to try to kill someone. And looking at the victims, it's obvious that when confronted by the police that they weren't interested in cooperating, so that added to the drama.

I'm not as familiar with this case as I was with the Diallo case, but it sure looks like this one is less tragic, as the victims are not nearly as innocent as Amadou was...

The civic trial will be interesting. Despite their acquittal, it remains to be seen how their department will stand behind them when millions of dollars are on the line.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

CingularDuality

Since it's obvious that you've never shot a gun under stress, nor know the details of this case, I wonder why you're expressing such an opinion.

I would agree that if you're trying to kill someone that 50 shots would be a bit ridiculous. But isn't that a bit different from trying to protect yourself from what you believe to be an armed man that isn't doing what you, as a police officer, are telling him to do, and even after drawing your weapon and shooting at him he won't stop his threatening actions?

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

TheSkudDestroyer

I'm just saying...

From the article, I get the impression that he was shot 50 times. It was a bit of sarcasm.

However, the article does touch on the 1999 shooting of a black man 31 times.

I know exactly what you're saying. But if the suspect is down, and they're still firing? Mutilation, IMO. It's still a human you're shooting at.

The less bullets the better...

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CingularDuality

What makes you think the suspect is "down"? And if someone dies, what does it matter if it took 1 bullet or 50 bullets to kill him, really?

Sarcasm intending to lampoon the bias of the article? The article doesn't directly say that he wasn't shot 50 times, but it does say that there were 50 shots and that his two buddies were each shot at least once each, so Bell could only have been shot 48 times according to the article.

This only serves to illustrate the fact that you and I simply don't know what happened out there. Heck, we don't even have the benefit of all of the evidence and testimony presented in the trial. So, to attempt to figure out whether a judge is fair or not based on news articles is a bit asinine. If the trial was unfair, there would be serious people speaking out about it, instead of some slimeball racists again trying to whip up riots in the streets.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

TheSkudDestroyer

Well...yeah. It's sensationalist media. It's just stirring things up by mentioning 50 rounds but not actually stating what HIT the target.

I don't think we should have to argue over it when the article itself is just the media doing what it does best: BS.

I'm just an idealist: I wish we didn't have to shoot people to begin with. But that's easily unrealistic. Yes, people get shot in these situations. But shooting after 30 shots, why fire that 31st shot? If any man is still able to move after being shot 30 times I doubt he'd be able to move himself in a position to stand/Fire a weapon.

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Fenian420

Thats kinda like saying if you slit someones throat whats the difference between doing that and dismembering his body. The use of .50 cals is illegal in warfare against the use on humans in a particular way for a reason.

CingularDuality

No, it's not. I've seen videos of people that have been shot 18 times that continue to walk towards cops. My point was that if that's how many bullets it takes, whether it's because of stress or bad aim, or because the guy just didn't want to stop after being shot the first 20 or so times, what difference does it make? Do you honestly think that a cop wants to go through the hell that those cops are going through? Do you think they want to intentionally mutilate someone? They want to stop the threat and they're going to do whatever it takes to do exactly that.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Magnum50

justified... imo

I'm just glad it was 2 black cops (and 1 white), if they were all white, there would be more of an outcry.

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Bc2ID

I also think it was justified. The last thing a police officer wants to do is fire their weapon. This was a last resort type of response and the amount of shots that were fired is irrelevant. Police officers are taught to discharge their weapon until the threat is stopped...how many shots that is, is unknown. Hopfeully this thread will not turn into a police officer bash session.

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Hambergler

This is the verdict statement:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...l?link=rssfeed

I have not read one news column that is consistent with the verdict statement.

People are upset by racial profiling which has been simmering for a long time. If you take a snapshot of this incident. Then the cops are innocent IMO, but the snapshot doesn't show whats been going on outside the picture. Unfortunately the people of the city are using this tragedy as indisputable evidence of racial profiling. The city has a big problem with it, but this example is hurting that cause. By their argument it would be a normal occurrence for a young black male to say "I'm going to get my gun". The mistake the cops made was not identifying themselves immediately and before the victims got into their car. Although once Bell starts smashing everything, hits the officer and his buddy reaches for a gun that they threatened they had, it has escalated into an entirely diffrent incident. And the officers prior mistake is nullified. At that point deadly force had to be answered with deadly force.

My guess is that they were all drunk including the undercover and that is why they didn't identify himself right away. Can't prove it, wasn't their, just smells like alcohol would glue these events together perfectly.

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Fenian420

I've never heard of that unless its either 400 pound guys getting hit with 22s or Afghani/Palestinian Fighters on drugs that make the body feel no pain and get immense adrenaline rushes so they do have to get hit in the head to go out.
A cop definitely doesnt wanna have to go through that but your saying that that amount of force 50 shots directed at 3 people isnt a bit excessive? Cops are trained to shoot pretty deadly accurately, shooting off 2 clips +5/6 extra shots seems a little more like just spraying them out.

tHa_KhAn

If you honestly believe your life or someone you are protecting is threatened, you are going to use whatever is necessary to stop the threat. If it is a person who you believe is armed, then it does make sense to keep firing until they stop moving because not much movement is needed to pull a trigger. This isn't a video game with kill indicators, even one of the survivors was struck multiple times. Would there been as many rounds fired if there was a single suspect, in broad daylight, without any kind of concealment or cover? Probably not.

Also, there are plenty of instances where people are not on drugs or overly large and it takes more than 1 bullet to stop them. Most people would have their adrenaline pumping if they get shot at, especially if they get hit.

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Kerostasis

Just as a minor point of clarification: The "50 rounds" does not refer to one guy with a 12-round magazine who fired, reloaded, etc to empty out 4 consecutive clips into his target. There were around 6 different police officers in the area who each used only a single clip in the grand total space of about 3-4 seconds. They were shooting at 3 different people plus a car (the guy who died was inside the car at the time), and accuracy was pretty low, and the "50 rounds" includes all of the shots that missed.

Does that change your idea of excessive force any?

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