09:39 – There was a follow-up article in the paper this morning about a disturbing incident that occurred in Charlotte a month ago. A young man crashed his car at 2:30 in the morning. It was not a minor crash. He had to kick out the rear window of the car to get out. He headed to a cluster of homes and pounded on the door seeking help. The woman whose door he was pounding on called 911. Three Charlotte police officers responded. When they arrived, the man ran toward them. They tried unsuccessfully to stop him with Taser fire. One of the officers then fired 12 shots from his pistol, hitting the man 10 times and killing him.
What’s extremely unusual about this case is what happened next. Ordinarily, one would expect a full investigation of the shooting before the police made any public comment. The NC SBI and other neutral investigators would be involved, and it would be at least several days, if not weeks or months, before a formal conclusion was released. Instead, the Charlotte police department announced that same day that the shooting was not justified and charged the officer with voluntary manslaughter. Neither of the other two officers fired, and a dashcam apparently recorded the whole incident, although the footage has not been made public. On that basis, I assumed this was pretty much an open-and-shut case of an inexperienced cop who panicked and used excessive force.
Unfortunately, the cop is white and the dead man was black, which raises the race issue. Did the cop shoot this guy because he felt more threatened than he would have had the man been white? Did the other officers not fire because they didn’t think the threat level warranted use of deadly force, did they not fire because they froze, did they not fire because they didn’t have a clear field of fire, or what? Why did the cop in question fire 12 times, hitting the guy 10 times? Was the guy still on his feet after being hit nine times, or did the cop continue shooting him after he was down? Did the Charlotte PD rush to judgment trying to avoid another public spectacle like the Trayvon Martin case?
10 out of 12? I didn’t know cops were such good shots.
The race aspect of this is going to be a bit tricky.
Yes, the cop’s hit percentage is one thing that leads me to believe he might have been justified, i.e., that the guy was close and getting closer when the cop fired the first round. I would really like to see that video. One has to wonder why it hasn’t been released. I would also like to know what if any drugs were present in the dead guy, and at what levels. Some street drugs almost literally turn criminals into Python’s Black Knight. They don’t even notice being shot.
The cop will be able to use the 21 foot rule to defend himself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill
And if NC has a castle law, the cop will be able to invoke that also. I wonder what the video looks like though and did it get the audio? The cop’s attorney will be able to get it though … unless it was accidentally erased.
I would not be a police officer in any large city now. Including Houston. The odds of getting prosecuted by your own police department in the interest of “fairness” are just too high.
“When countries go broke”
http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/when-countries-go-broke-12850/
“It’s become almost cliche these days to point out how many governments are broke beyond belief.”
“In Japan, where the country’s debt level already exceeds 200% of GDP, the government has to finance 46% of its budget by issuing more debt.”
“In the United States, the governments add a trillion dollars each year to the already unsustainable debt, and fails to collect enough tax revenue to cover mandatory entitlement spending and interest payments on the debt.”
“The theater playing out in the US right now is irrelevant. America’s debt challenge is not a political problem. It’s an arithmetic problem. Same in Japan and most of Europe. ”
Excellent article. The only solution that I have is to raise some taxes and cut spending drastically. Leave Iraq. Leave Afghanistan. Leave Germany. Leave Japan. Downsize everything. Get rid of 2/3 of the EPA. Get rid of the bunny inspectors.
Hard to know the truth of the matter. Someone knocks on your door at 02:30am, you look out and see a stranger, possibly incoherent from trauma, panic and call 911. Race probably plays a role here.
The police come, find a disoriented guy, again race may play a factor, the police panic. And it almost certainly was panic: The guy was unarmed, he was probably running towards them because he was glad some help had finally arrived, he was almost certainly still disoriented from being in shock. The cop had no reason to use deadly force, because he had no legitimate reason to think his life was in danger.
The cop’s attorney will likely want the video to be erased, because it might just convict his client all by itself.
I also assume that with two colleagues with him, who didn’t fire, that if they thought there was reason to use force they would be screaming bloody murder (even if just to the city/state attorneys). My guess is actually that it is open and shut against the guy. I’ve yet to see a police force that will hang a fellow officer out to dry just to avoid some bad press. If the chief, who has seen the footage, and the two cops that were with him are onboard the charge, then I’m assuming it’s solid.
No idea. Have to see the vid. Bob has all good questions. Maybe one or two will be answered, who knows. Also, what was the deal with the taser? Didn’t work at all, missed him, or had no effect? Three guys can’t handle one guy running at them who has not, so far as has been reported, exhibited or brandished a weapon??? Long ago and more than once I had multiple assailants coming at me and no taser; they weren’t armed so I couldn’t shoot them back then; had to use training, the baton and maybe the Mace. I had pretty good training with the Monadnock PR-24 baton when they first came out; three solid days from an Army spec ops guy that left us black and blue. In several incidents all I had to do was slide it out of its metal ring and the shit ceased immediately; you can get it going like a helicopter blade and if you hit someone in the head with force it’s like hitting a tomato. Also great for come-along holds.
Anyway, I would think three armed and trained cops could defend themselves from an unarmed guy running at them without riddling him like a Swiss cheese, which of course again brings up the shitty crunchenticker semi-auto ammo issue. One .45 ACP slug would have dropped him like yesterday’s newspapers, DOA.
Considering that most stupid pigs can’t hit what they’re aiming at, I’d prefer they were carrying .22 shorts. Maybe .38 wadcutters if they’ve managed not to shoot up a street in the past year.
Well, as I said to Kim, “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.” I get tired of saying that, but only a fool would depend on news reports to be factual, or even court testimony.
Of course, even video isn’t trustworthy, particularly after a month has passed and who knows who might have spent that time editing/altering it.