Monday, December 03, 2007
Gunning Down the Mentally Ill
According to the October 2007 edition of JET, a mentally ill 18-year from New York City was gunned down by local police. The boy was yelling out that he had a gun. Although the boy's mom told police that he did not have a gun, police proceeded to gun down the teen that was actually only holding a hairbrush. Incidents like these should be avoided at ALL costs. If policeman make simple mistakes like these, then how efficient can they actually be? Before any action is made, I provisions should be made to make sure that the situation is indeed what it seems.
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6 comments:
They should have just shot him with a tazer or rubber bullets. Or if they know their going to shoot him, why not in the leg or something?
It seems to me they did nothing wrong. Perhaps as harris_zac said, "They should have just shot him with a tazer or rubber bullets." People shouldn't be allowed to walk around saying I have a gun. Whether they have one or not it puts fear upon other people which infringes on their freedoms.
What type of proviciens would you say they use? i would brother be safe then sorry. If the child was mentaly ill then the mother should have taken care of him better.
I believe police officers should stop, "shooting to kill" and aim for a leg or shoulder. How can you mistake a hairbrush for a gun? This person did not deserve to die even if he was yelling I have a gun. If anything, you would think he may have been sucidal.
I have come to conclude that the American public simply does not understand law enforcement in this country. Not only do we not understand why they do what they do, or what they are allowed to do, but we make decisions about what we think they should have done when we know nothing about the circumstances surrounding the events. We don't understand use of force policies or a grand jury but we always think the cops should have done something different than what they did.
First of all let's consider the source of the original post. The October 2007 edition of JET magazine. Hardly a credible source. Second, if it was dark out and the boy was holding a black hairbrush that looked like it could have been a pistol, one would have to assume that it was a pistol, if he was telling you it was a pistol.
Asking a cop to just shoot someone in the leg or arm would be great in a perfect world. Daylight, the person was standing perfectly still and the officer was a good shot. The reality is that an arm shot will not stop a determined attacker. So the cops train to aim at the biggest part of the body which is the torso. If a cop shoots at someone it is considered deadly force whether they shoot them in the arm or the head. So where is the incentive to wound someone? It is still deadly force.
Unfortunate things like this happen however the cops do place a value on people's lives. The victim always gets highest priority. Next is an innocent bystander, then the cop, then the suspect or bad guy.
Everyone is more important than the bad guy. Moral of the story is don't be the bad guy or pretend to be the bad guy.
>First of all let's consider the source of the original post. The October 2007 edition of JET magazine. Hardly a credible source.
Actually there is a lot of credible information to come out of jet. Jet is not some gossip magazine like stars or okay magazine. However You were correct by saying we don't know the whole story. I do however agree that if the boys death could have been avoided by shooting him in the arm or leg then it should have been done. It's not fair to say that we don't know the whole story, and not take that in to account yourself. Although it may have been dark police are trained to handle things like this all the time. They could have waited until they got a clear shoot at him as long as there was no one in danger.
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