this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024

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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

All this is a path to a police state.

In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

That's the solution.

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167

Police in New York shoot and kill 13-year-old holding a pellet gun, authorities say (www.pbs.org)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17056255

An officer in upstate New York shot and killed a teen fleeing while pointing a replica gun, police said Saturday.

all 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Nypd gang

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Officers later recovered a replica GLOCK 17 Gen 5 handgun with a detachable magazine from the scene, the statement said.

Just so everyone is clear this is what they're talking about. Without the orange tip--which is easily cut off--this is going to be indistinguishable from a gen 5 Glock 17 to an observer. Things like this are used in Airsoft games, are used for training indoors when you don't want to use a real gun (they operate on blowback like a real pistol, so you get simulated recoil)), and they're also modified and used by people that are committing armed robbery when they can't get a real firearm.

I'm quite familiar with firearms--I have a bunch, I compete--and I couldn't tell the difference between a replica like that that had had the orange tip removed and a real Glock without holding the item.

If all of the information that's currently being reported is accurate--and that is a very, very big "if"--then I don't know what people expect.

[+] [email protected] -34 points 4 months ago (15 children)

I said this when Tamir Rice was killed. I said it in the 90s when the California kid was killed. And I'll say it here too.

There's no one single person at fault, but the person at fault the most is the parents for not teaching their kid how not to be a dumbass.

"Hey, what'cha doin' Jimmy?"

"Just taking my toy gun out to play"

"Whoa there! That's a bad idea. If this gets mistaken for a real gun, somebody will call the cops on you, and they'll KILL you for real! Nope! You're not going out with this gun. Even if it is plastic, a bb gun, a pellet gun, or anything else that could easily be mistaken as the real thing."

And I've heard it before: "But cops are the ones KILLING the kid!"

Yes, and I do agree that a LOT of what the cops do is corrupt, this is the ONE CASE where you expect them to shoot to kill. When they are under the impression that you have an active shooter, you WANT them to shoot to kill.

"But it's NOT an active shooter! It's a toy gun!"

And how do the cops know that? They get a call that theres a kid with a gun. Have you SEEN how many kids get real guns and shoot up schools the last 20 years??? They have to treat these situations as real.

"But he's just a kid!"

And a kid with a gun is just as deadly as an adult with a gun.

The way to not have cops shoot you on the spot is to not appear like a deadly threat to society. Now we can sit around all day debating on how we got to this point, but the reality is we live in a world where kids shoot people with guns. If you have what looks to be a gun, you're gonna get shot. And the kid may not even know what he did wrong.....and thats the parents fault.

Because if cops wait around, and figure things out first, you have Uvalde all over again. People were pissed, as they should be, that police showed up, and DIDN'T shoot a kid.

I have no love for police in their current state. I'm even subscribed to a community on Lemmy called "the police problem".

However, this is like the ONE THING they're good for, is stopping active shooters. Don't want to get shot by police? Don't make yourself appear as an active shooter.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Shit, Americans are fucking wild...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

Yeah... Username checks out?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ehhh, you're dealing with an idiot kid (and all kids are idiots to some degree) and a supposedly trained professional.

I would place the weight of fault on the officer and/or whoever trained them.

Yeah, you should always teach your kids about firearm safety and drill into them to never, ever carry one at all until they're adults. And that includes anything that can propel a projectile that isn't obviously and visibly a toy.

But the truth is that a 13 year old was target that got shot. By an adult in body armor, with training. No shot had been fired because you can't mistake a bb gun sound for even a 22 going off. So there was no active shooter here.

It's another bad shooting that's going to get swept under the rug.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Because if cops wait around, and figure things out first, you have Uvalde all over again. People were pissed, as they should be, that police showed up, and DIDN’T shoot a kid.

I don't claim this is intentional on your part, but I believe you've created a false dichotomy. There is a spectrum of outcomes between what happened here and what happened in Uvalde.

(and again, I'll believe he was pointing it at them when I can see a video proving he did so)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yep, no way you can believe the police report at face value.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Body cam footage or the exact opposite happened.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's like accepting of the fact that your police is incompetent. They either shoot everyone or let someone else shoot everyone. That's not doing their job as police.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It's a common way people try to justify their actions. As if police are a force of nature. You wouldn't stand in the path of a tornado, why would you expect police to act on more than the most superficial analysis of the situation and with less than the most violence they can justify.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

someone having a gun is no reason to shoot them btw.. especially not if it's a kid. that the gun wasn't real isn't even relevant.

if you can't carry a gun in public, you effectively don't have the right to bear arms, but AFAIK NY law grants citizens that right.

however, even if guns were illegal in NY, police should still not shoot people just for having one or waving it around. they should carefully capture the person. if police isn't brave enough to do that, maybe you have the wrong persons for the job.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

if you can't carry a gun in public, you effectively don't have the right to bear arms, but AFAIK NY law grants citizens that right.

Nope. NY's laws prohibit having a gun anywhere outside of your home.

To make it even more ridiculous... this includes the pellet gun this kid had. In NY having a air gun is a felony weapons charge. (sections 265.01, 265.20, 265.01-a)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Wow, Americans are truly crazy

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Victim blaming. Classy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Strange. Doesn't the second amendment guarantee our right to keep and bear arms? But apparently the cops are allowed to murder us for it.

I wonder when it will be okay for them to kill us for exercising free speech.

🤔🤔

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

You can keep and bare arms.....but you can't point them at people. Cops or otherwise. First rule of owning a gun is you do not point the gun at anything unless you intend for it to die.

And also, with how many nut jobs are in this country, I'm thinking maybe we should revise the second amendment, or remove it completely.

You know how many public shootings Ireland had last time I looked? 13. In a year. And that included cops using their weapons. 13 total. Drunkest country on earth, but they got their shit together on guns.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

so is it okay to have people run around and have the authırity to kill you if they see you with a weapon? (or if they lie about it)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Pointing a percieved weapon at others? Yes. That's sort of their job to stop threats.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

representing the "what was she wearing?" gang

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

How can you mention Uvalde and say that the ONE thing cops are good for is stopping active shooters?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Y'know tasers exist right

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And tasers have an alarming failure rate. If someone was pointing a gun at you what would you do?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If a 13 year old was pointing what I thought was a gun at me? I would use the taser and try to get out of the way of where they were pointing.

I will say, I read the article and if what the cops say is true, there were a number of compounding unfortunate circumstances. It was late at night, the kids ran when they were approached, and the kid died from a single shot. The cops didn't pull up and unload their guns on the two kids.

ACAB, but I'm not saying they were malicious or grossly incompetent in this case. But I still think they're too quick to shoot first and ask questions later. I personally think they shouldn't shoot unless shot at, that would eliminate these cases that keep happening. Teaching kids to not play with toy guns would be great too, unfortunately guns are just so deeply engrained in every aspect of American culture

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It is harder to hit a moving target...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Everything looks like a weapon to a dipshit cop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Because what he was holding looks exactly like a weapon. And he was pointing it at cops.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And he was pointing it at cops.

Allegedly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Ok. Let the body cam sort that out then.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It did, and he didn't

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

My very first statement - I'll believe it when I see a video. Police don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Ok. Let the body cam sort that out then.

https://apnews.com/article/utica-police-shooting-nyah-mway-myanmar-835e5c29eed93dc109108f668323d9f4

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/crime/2024/06/30/utica-shooting-police-bodycam-footage-nyah-mway/74262307007/

Neither suggests anyuthing in the footage showing he pointed a gun at officers.

But second link does say this:

Patterson and Husnay ran after Nyah, with Patterson taking the teen down after a short chase as officers can be heard screaming “He’s got a gun.”

Husnay had his gun drawn and appeared to shoot Nyah when he was down on the ground, according to his released bodycam footage.

Please find me where either of these articles corroborates that the bodycam shows he pointed a gun at police.

Here's key bits of the video:

https://youtu.be/VpzfphvQIOA

Looks to me like he was trying to drop the gun, it's pointed at himself if anything. Still is as provided by the newsteam in the youtube link, and if you listen to the audio, they are clearly accepting the police story and not disagreeing - so this is the best they could do to make it look good for them.

This isn't even when they shot him!! They shot him ON THE GROUND.

edited - looks even worse for them here https://www.facebook.com/CBSEveningNews/videos/1188314849017274/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Like I said everything looks like a weapon to a cop, a cellphone, a walking stick of a blind man. Etc. even the sound of an acorn hitting the roof of a car sounds like a weapon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They recovered the gun that was pointed at him. It looks exactly like a gun. It's not a real gun, but you cant make that distinction in the time it takes to pull the trigger. You either shoot now, or potentially die. Those are the cops options.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

And that's what you get when the police have only six months training.

Shoot first, investigate themselves later.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And he was pointing it at cops.

Citation needed, and I won't accept the cop saying "trust me"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Cops these days all wear body cams. If he fails to submit one, I'm sure that'll be damning for his case.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

If this gets mistaken for a real gun, somebody will call the cops on you, and they'll KILL you for real!

That's absolutely insane, that us Americans have to think this way. Getting murdered by law enforcement shouldn't ever be a near-certainty.

Active shooter

You keep using that term, but I don't think you understand it. Unless someone has started shooting people, there's literally no active shooter. No one would call that in, and police officers arriving on scene would also determine there's no active shooter, if they're actually doing their job. People might call the cops on a child with a toy gun (don't do that), but the police officer is responsible for discerning the true situation before using lethal force.

And a kid with a gun is just as deadly as an adult with a gun.

I'm no gun nut, but just having a gun doesn't make someone a threat any more than having a knife, a vehicle, a frying pan, etc. It certainly doesn't make them an imminent threat that has to be killed immediately. The US has way too many guns, but still: just the existence of a gun doesn't make someone a danger worthy of killing.

#But.

With all that said, in this actual interaction, the police stopped the boys and one of them pointed what appeared to be a handgun at the officers. I've long since stopped giving cops the benefit of the doubt, but if it happened exactly like they said, legal force was absolutely justified in this case. It was later discovered that it was a replica GLOCK 17 Gen 5 handgun with a detachable magazine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

While you might be right, I am angry that you are right.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Lulz only on lemmy can the most rational and sane take be downvoted and most negatively commented on. To me you make absolute sense!