10-02-2016, 05:39 PM
Would you agree, Cars, that if...
--there are no people surrounding the person who's holding a gun (whether it turns out to be real or realistic toy),
--the cops aren't responding to an active shooter call, but only a 911 call where the caller clearly states they're concerned but not certain about the person or the gun and think a PO should come to check it out...
...the cops should absolutely NOT come barreling in or roll right up on the child or adult and shoot within seconds? Do you think it makes more sense for POs to instead follow protocol and issue commands from a distance so the person (child or adult) has a chance to process WTF is going on and be given a chance to respond accordingly before they're shot dead?
In the cases of 15-year-old Andy Lopez, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, 22-year-old Johnny Crawford (and several others), that's exactly what happened (all had toy guns and didn't pull them on cops, they just moved). The cops were found to have wrongly approached in the first two, and the 911 caller in Crawford's case was charged with falsely exaggerating the situation (so he was deemed responsible for the cops' wrongful approach). In all three example cases, since the cops wrongly put themselves in a situation but were then reasonably in fear for their lives in their minds, they weren't held criminally liable.
I understand your point about making toy guns look less realistic and I agree. But, toy guns can and are altered to look realistic by people who have no intention of committing a crime with them, and altering toy guns is not a crime. I think better training and enforcement in de-escalation and non-lethal police practices would go a lot further in reducing unnecessary deaths at the hands of police than anything else. That would help save the lives of citizens who weren't intending to harm anyone when confronted by POs and help POs avoid having to live with killing someone unnecessarily, regardless of whether the person they killed turned out to be unarmed, carrying a toy gun, or legally and responsibly carrying a real gun.
--there are no people surrounding the person who's holding a gun (whether it turns out to be real or realistic toy),
--the cops aren't responding to an active shooter call, but only a 911 call where the caller clearly states they're concerned but not certain about the person or the gun and think a PO should come to check it out...
...the cops should absolutely NOT come barreling in or roll right up on the child or adult and shoot within seconds? Do you think it makes more sense for POs to instead follow protocol and issue commands from a distance so the person (child or adult) has a chance to process WTF is going on and be given a chance to respond accordingly before they're shot dead?
In the cases of 15-year-old Andy Lopez, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, 22-year-old Johnny Crawford (and several others), that's exactly what happened (all had toy guns and didn't pull them on cops, they just moved). The cops were found to have wrongly approached in the first two, and the 911 caller in Crawford's case was charged with falsely exaggerating the situation (so he was deemed responsible for the cops' wrongful approach). In all three example cases, since the cops wrongly put themselves in a situation but were then reasonably in fear for their lives in their minds, they weren't held criminally liable.
I understand your point about making toy guns look less realistic and I agree. But, toy guns can and are altered to look realistic by people who have no intention of committing a crime with them, and altering toy guns is not a crime. I think better training and enforcement in de-escalation and non-lethal police practices would go a lot further in reducing unnecessary deaths at the hands of police than anything else. That would help save the lives of citizens who weren't intending to harm anyone when confronted by POs and help POs avoid having to live with killing someone unnecessarily, regardless of whether the person they killed turned out to be unarmed, carrying a toy gun, or legally and responsibly carrying a real gun.