and being woken in the middle of the night, wearing boxers or pajamas with hands in the air, better pray that they don't happen to slip down causing you to instinctively "reach for your waistband" in order to hitch them up
This seems to me to be what happened in the Daniel Shaver case, who was drunk and in his pajamas when police (responding to a report of a brandished gun being spotted in his motel room window) confronted him. He was facedown and yelled at for ~4 minutes before being shot when officers mistook him pulling up his waistband for reaching for a weapon:
The officer who shot him was exonerated but IMO, the officer belligerently shouting confusing instructions at him should have faced scrutiny. Instead, he got to retire with a full pension while testifying on behalf of the officer who did pull the trigger.
if i recall correctly Shaver was not wearing pjs, he was wearing shorts. but yes, he appeared to pull up his shorts which were being dragged down because he was being forced to crawl on his hands and knees.
i would bet that almost everyone being in such a position, or standing at their front door in front of their neighbors, who felt their bottom falling down, would instinctively reach down without thinking.
some points to note about that incident -
a) he had the pellet gun as part of his job as an exterminator, even if he was careless in demonstrating how he used it to shoot birds for pest control
b) think about how easily the officers could have gone to the wrong hotel room; you, me or anyone random could've been in the room next door to Shaver and been treated the same (and probably wouldve reacted the same), even if we'd just poked out head outside our room to see what the heck was going on
How was he “careless” in any way? Was it not completely legal for him to own it, and completely legal for him to show it to other people, especially in the privacy of a hotel room?
I thought the right to do this was for many the single most important principle of your country, shouldn’t the police have responded to reports of somebody with a gun with “Well this is the USA, nothing to see here?”
it was called in because he was pointing the rifle out of his hotel room window.
i guess it's up to you to decide for yourself whether or not that could be called "careless". or whether it would be reasonable for a passerby to call in a report of someone pointing a rifle outside of a hotel room window, a couple months after Las Vegas.
ah thanks for that bit of info. still, even pre-Vegas, i think it is reasonable to label pointing a rifle outside a hotel room window as "careless", which is the point i was responding to.
the commentor seemed to conflate the questions of "was it not completely legal for him to possess that item?" and "was it careless (legal or not) to show it off in that manner?"
this particular situation was not Life:Death. Which is the important thing to remember when the media becomes complicit in the coverup of police brutality.
Technically not murder, as that requires premeditation. However it is apparent that this is a no-win situation for the victim, the officer is clearly intent on creating a situation for a "justifiable" homicide.
What's just as horrifying is that the jury acquitted.
a bit further, you're absolutely correct; it seems the US has a more nuanced definition of murder, for which any of the three definitions of second degree murder could potentially apply in this case[1]:
- A killing done impulsively without premeditation, but with malice aforethought
- A killing that results from an act intended to cause serious bodily harm
- A killing that results from an act that demonstrates the perpetrators depraved indifference to human life
As for my original point, that just makes the aquittal even more shocking!
Note that the US does not have a single definition of murder; there are loose common guidelines, but each jurisdiction within the U.S. has its own, slightly different, definition of each form of murder. The specific statutes matter a lot in actual cases even if they get ignored in general discussion, as do the actual charges filed. The fact that another form of murder exists that could have been supported based on the trial evidence will not save a conviction on appeal if the appellate court feels the evidence cannot reasonably support a conviction for the specific form of murder actually charged.
I have seen use-of-force training exercises that look very similar except there is actually a weapon being drawn. I don't think it makes the officer who pulled the trigger innocent, but I believe he behaved exactly the way he was trained, and holding him personally responsible would not prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
Note in particular it is a different officer who is talking in the video and created the whole situation.
Fair enough. The horrifying part to me was not the moment the shots were fired, but the escalation and screaming of inconsistent instructions by an unmistakably bloodthirsty officer to a man who was clearly scared out of his mind and literally begging for his life.
One thing that gets overlooked in police shootings is innocent bystanders as an aside to the people getting shot by police, justified or not.
Imagine the person that called the police to investigate someone with a possible weapon in a hotel, moments later police show up in SWAT gear with AR-15s and discharge them in the hallway, with many other rooms around, and kill an innocent man. Worse, bullets could have gone into rooms or out the window into the parking lot and who knows where else. Why not rubber bullets, why not a taser, why an AR-15 in a hotel hallway?
Next time you see one of these shootings, watch the disregard in some for who is behind the person the police are shooting at [1][2][3] whether justified or not, it is a bit scary. It is getting to the point that maybe it is safer to not call police, what if you were robbed and they come in and shoot the guy in front or you house, bullets everywhere?
That happened in New Zealand a few years ago. The police missed their target (an actual active shooter running on foot) and instead killed the driver of a nearby van. I don't know how you can be trained to use a gun and not learn about looking at what you're shooting it at.
Handguns are difficult to use. Moving targets are hard to hit. Extensive training helps, but many people who have found them in situations where they need to use that training have found their performance suffers.
I also don't get why they said he should move to them. instead another police officer could've just came from the back and searched him for potential weapons. but well the video shows that the police basically was harmful.
This happened to me on Wednesday about 5:00am. My wife and I had gotten into a terrible fight. She suffers from terrible alcoholism. This week of Christmas has been absolutely horrible as demons resurface. She awoke me from my sleep about 4am, drunk and outraged because I asked if she was wearing a robe in bed. Things spiraled very quickly out of control, my wife was out of control, and so was I. We both said terrible things and made unwanted body contact. The fight made its way to the driveway and a neighbor called in the disturbance.
About 30 minutes later I was awoken by the doorbell. I knew who it was. I threw on my PJ pants and a hoodie. Fifteen minutes later I was in handcuffs heading to the county jail.
I could have easily been in a very very bad situation if I hadn't followed orders to the letter.
My wife and I are in therapy and she will be entering detox this next week. I hope this event turns into the wake up call that helps her beat this disease with my help all along the way.
So sorry to hear your story. As an alcoholic though (currently 1.5 bottles of wine down, and wishing I had another to hand), I find it hard to reconcile your situation. Your wife was drunk, you were not, but both lost control? Not judging, just asking.
The reason I ask is that only situation in which my alcohol abuse has triggered any kind of verbal exchange is where (unaware of my situation) my partner has been snappy about something, and due to lack of sleep (staying up late, secretly drinking), I've responded less diplomatically than I would have liked. Never abusive, never physical by either party, and only a small number of times.
Under no circumstance has either of us become physical. That's a totally different problem, and I'd encourage you to seek help for your wife (If I'm understanding correctly that she was the one that became aggressive, or both of you otherwise) It's probably also the time to consider what's best for you both in the long term.
Unrelated to that, but apropos your comment and the OP, I had a cop pull a gun on me when I was 19. I naively, but quite literally laughed it off, as I was doing my job and had no idea the risk I was in from his overreaction.
I was in college, but working a night security job. I had to check the premises set the internal alarm, then check the outside doors. Unfortunately a (really stupid) design flaw in the alarm system resulted in the occasional false silent alarm.
On this occasion, as I was checking the outside doors, a cruiser rolled up, the cop saying they'd received an alarm call.
I identified myself, invited him in (first mistake), then said I'd switch off the alarm (second mistake - why I don't know - it was a silent alarm!)
Switching off the alarm with a key switch required reaching around a door in to a closet where the alarm system was.
I turned around to discover the now less-than-friendly looking cop pointing his gun at me.
I laughed instinctively, as to my innocent mind it seemed absurd. Thankfully, that seemed to drop his guard. He was 6 feet away, and my hands were now clearly empty.
I wasn't asked to follow Simon-says "crawl towards me with your left foot over your right, and your hands straight in the in the air, or we will shoot you type instructions, and shortly after, the dispatcher ID'd me as being a registered person for the property.
Now that I think about it, I had several negative experiences with the cops in a 2 year period. (Broke into my residence in the middle of the night for no reason - I was more embarrassed that it was untidy!; gatecrashed a party because they "didn't like the music" (no neighbours, no disturbance), probably looking for underage alcohol; stopped for speeding on a bicycle!!!
I read your comment, kept going with my morning, but then felt compelled to come back. You might not see this given it’s a throw away, but I hope you do.
As someone who has lost family members to alcohol (both figuratively while they were living, and now literally as they have passed away), I’m always prone to respond to opening sentences like yours with “today is a great day to get sober.”
If you’re looking for some inspiration from another addict, I always recommend Bob Forest. You can hear him on the This Life podcast with Drew Pinsky http://drdrew.com/thislife/.
In general so many things can be misunderstood. E.g. when Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by anti-terror police in London who mistook him for a potential suicide bomber, one of the things brought up was how he got up from his seat in a rapid motion by lifting his arms in front of him to shift his point of gravity.
It stands out to me because they thought it was weird, but to me it's just the easiest way to get up when you're on a crowded train and there's no space to your sides to support you on.
But to a stressed out, scared armed response team even that made him seem scarier.
To this date, almost ten years later, I think of that case ever time I get up from a seat that way. Not that I expect to be mistaken for a terrorist, but because it underlines just how bad people are at interpreting body language, and how dangerous that can be when combined with stressed out armed police.
The initial claims made about Jean Charles de Menezes included that he ran, he jumped the barrier, he did not buy a ticket, he was wearing a thick jacket. In reality he walked, bought a ticket, used the barrier normally and was wearing a t-shirt. This is visible on the cctv footage.
Yes, but the part I'm specifically talking about was how he got up from the seat on the tube when confronted in a way the officer in question thought was aggressive, but that in reality is something you often see on the tube. There's no doubt there was lots of bullshit coming from the police over it too, but that he stood up was one of the few claims the jury in the inquest agree was proven, an it stands out because the testimony relating to it as far as I remember made the officer seem genuinely to not realize why someone might get up that way, which is quite unlike their other excuses in that it exposes ignorance compared to the other attempts to describe things in a way that could have actually contributed to giving them an excuse.
The video leaked online. He is not even trying to reach for his pajamas or something. A cop asks him to move towards them and the next second you hear the shot. It's crazy.
He definitely reached for his shorts. It's a reflex that comes from a whole lifetime of being able to pull up your pants without risk of being shot.
But that's all irrelevant. If the cops were only interested in securing him, they would've made him lie down like a starfish and have someone approach him instead of letting Jigsaw make him play Twister.
Since we just told you we'd ban the account if you kept breaking the guidelines with unsubstantive comments, we've banned the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll start posting civilly and substantively.
