LA - Officer fatally shoots Alton Sterling outside store, Baton Rouge, 2016

[Irish_Eyes]

I'm sorry for all this confusion. I'll try to clear it up:

Yes, they claim that. Yes, they shoot people and say the person was going for a gun or lunging, or whatever, and sometimes the person isn't even armed or we see video and it's obvious the person wasn't reaching for a weapon or lunging for the officer's weapon. Why do they shoot? Who knows. We only know the reasons they give us and those can vary.

If you are going to claim they don't do this - I would suggest researching a few more cases. "Often" is subjective... I would say it happens too often, others might say different.

I am more than happy to share some research with you. The Washington Post, Guardian, and others compiled news reports of all reported death-by-police scenarios over the course of a year. They did this to account for the fact that there was not a consistent method and pattern of agency reporting to the federal gov't. Roughly 1000 individual cases were reported. There are 1.1 MILLION police officers in America. Even one unjust death is one too many, but even if every single case on that list was unjust, it would still be false and recklessly irresponsible to take that one tenth of one percent of all officers and pretend they represent all officers, as opposed to the other 99.9% more accurately representing all officers. What other group in America do we feel should be judged as a whole based on how less than .01% of them behave? That's not a road I think most of us wish to go down - it doesn't lead anywhere good.

Of course, in reality, those were not all unjust deaths by officers looking for an opportunity to commit violence. According to the Post, 75% of those deaths occurred when officers were directly under attack or were defending someone else who was. A while ago I read through the cases when they had them all listed out. At least two that I can recall were deaths that occurred when police officers vehicles collided with other vehicles or with pedestrians. Another was a man shot in an airport while brandishing a knife who had already stabbed several people inside the terminal. Another was a case of a man shot in the street while straddling the body of his girlfriend and violently strangling her. Despite the officer's attempts to save her, she did not survive. There are many such cases like these. There were also cases of course where shootings were ruled unjustified, or where even if they had not yet been fully investigated a reasonable person reading might question whether the shooting really was just, and/or the encounter really handled in the most appropriate manner, as we are discussing now with this case. But no reasonable person could conclude that police officers as a group are violent or liars or anything else from data like this.

 

[drjones]

With all due respect you are stating he was resisting and pulling a gun in the same statement. Do you have a link for that? If so, a link to what he may have been aware of would be equally helpful. Tia.

clearly i pose those two points as questions, questions people might ask after hearing about this case, i did not state them as fact.

but i will go ahead and state right now that FACT this man was resisting, i dont need a link to prove it, anyone that watches that video can see it, he did not comply with officers and struggled with them.

the other point i thought it was quite clear that it is a claim being made by police, so yes it is a FACT that police claim that he was reaching for his pocket, where they believed he had a gun.

edit - i missed your last point, please provide me with the exact quote from TOS that states i must have a link to support my opinion that it is reasonable to speculate about something.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

i cant say, i think it is just as likely that it was involuntary movement.

I agree. Clearly it must have looked that way from the officer's perspective but with the videos we've seen I really can't say that.

 

[bluesneakers]

I am more than happy to share some research with you. The Washington Post, Guardian, and others compiled news reports of all reported death-by-police scenarios over the course of a year. They did this to account for the fact that there was not a consistent method and pattern of agency reporting to the federal gov't. Roughly 1000 individual cases were reported. There are 1.1 MILLION police officers in America. Even one unjust death is one too many, but even if every single case on that list was unjust, it would still be false and recklessly irresponsible to take that one tenth of one percent of all officers and pretend they represent all officers, as opposed to the other 99.9% more accurately representing all officers. What other group in America do we feel should be judged as a whole based on how less than .01% of them behave? That's not a road I think most of us wish to go down - it doesn't lead anywhere good.

Of course, in reality, those were not all unjust deaths by officers looking for an opportunity to commit violence. According to the Post, 75% of those deaths occurred when officers were directly under attack or were defending someone else who was. A while ago I read through the cases when they had them all listed out. At least two that I can recall were deaths that occurred when police officers vehicles collided with other vehicles or with pedestrians. Another was a man shot in an airport while brandishing a knife who had already stabbed several people inside the terminal. Another was a case of a man shot in the street while straddling the body of his girlfriend and violently strangling her. Despite the officer's attempts to save her, she did not survive. There are many such cases like these. There were also cases of course where shootings were ruled unjustified, or where even if they had not yet been fully investigated a reasonable person reading might question whether the shooting really was just, and/or the encounter really handled in the most appropriate manner, as we are discussing now with this case. But no reasonable person could conclude that police officers as a group are violent or liars or anything else from data like this.

Okay, so in your opinion law enforcement officers never lie and the suspects/victims are always reaching for weapons that always exist. Cool. Thanks.

Let's agree to disagree.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

Okay, so in your opinion law enforcement officers never lie and the suspects/victims are always reaching for weapons that always exist. Cool. Thanks.

Let's agree to disagree.

Move the goalposts as you wish but I think my actual opinion is more than clear, and thus I will agree to leave it where it is if you have no desire to engage further.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

bbm

In Louisiana, about 160 habitual offenders whose most recent crime involved nothing more harmful than marijuana are serving 20 years or more.



http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/tough_sentencing_laws_keep_lou.html


RS 14:95.1
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/law.aspx?d=78740

I am not sure why he (alton) wasn't in jail.

If you are talking about habitual offenders then my guess would be that those were cases where marijuana possession and/or distribution was a violation of their parole, and the sentence they are serving is actually the sentence from a more serious prior offense.

We have no evidence that Alton was on restrictions of any kind. His most serious brushes with the law seem to have mostly occurred prior to 2009.

 

[al66pine]

one other way that it is legitimate to bring up his criminal history after the fact is because it addresses the question "why would he resist? why would he try to pull a gun?"
it is reasonable to speculate that because he has a long criminal history, and had been in jail before, that he may have been aware he was going to be going back to jail, and possibly for a long time, if he was arrested? he would have been facing multiple felonies...

Agree w your gen thoughts expressed here ^ but am inclined to split hairs about 'speculating.'

Not speculating that AS has a long history of arrests. <--- Verified by ct records cited by ElleyMae.
Speculating that he had been in jail before. Or st. or fed prison. <---Can be verified as accurate or not but imo a probability.
Speculating about whether /predicting he would be going back to jail. <--- Who knows, until later, but imo, a probability.
Speculating about his state of mind/awareness, he may have been aware he was going to be going back to jail, possibly for a long time.

Again, agreeing w gist of your post. As I posted earlier, list of AS' arrests, may be relevant to LEO's st of mind, if aware, esp firearms offenses & resisting arrest.

Some posters (not you, just jumping off your post) make statements-as-fact about LEO's state of mind, when they are only speculating. JMO.

 

[kimlynn]

clearly i pose those two points as questions, questions people might ask after hearing about this case, i did not state them as fact.

but i will go ahead and state right now that FACT this man was resisting, i dont need a link to prove it, anyone that watches that video can see it, he did not comply with officers and struggled with them.

the other point i thought it was quite clear that it is a claim being made by police, so yes it is a FACT that police claim that he was reaching for his pocket, where they believed he had a gun.

edit - i missed your last point, please provide me with the exact quote from TOS that states i must have a link to support my opinion that it is reasonable to speculate about something.

Did the police actually say that he was reaching into his pocket for a gun? I heard 'gun' 'he has a gun'. Was this just a warning to his partner that a gun was in his (AS) pocket and partner took it to mean that a gun was pulled?
Store owner said that police later removed gun from the pocket of AS.

 

[drjones]

Agree w your gen thoughts expressed here ^ but am inclined to split hairs about 'speculating.'

Not speculating that AS has a long history of arrests. <--- Verified by ct records cited by ElleyMae.
Speculating that he had been in jail before. Or st. or fed prison. <---Can be verified as accurate or not but imo a probability.
Speculating about whether /predicting he would be going back to jail. <--- Who knows, until later, but imo, a probability.
Speculating about his state of mind/awareness, he may have been aware he was going to be going back to jail, possibly for a long time.

Again, agreeing w gist of your post. As I posted earlier, list of AS' arrests, may be relevant to LEO's st of mind, if aware, esp firearms offenses & resisting arrest.

Some posters (not you, just jumping off your post) make statements-as-fact about LEO's state of mind, when they are only speculating. JMO.

good point, i suppose we have to consider it speculation right now that he has been in jail, i can only say i consider it to be a fact and proven to my satisfaction.

the other two points yes, they are absolutely me speculating and giving my opinion, as i said.

 

[bwt42]

Did both officers fire their guns?

 

[al66pine]

Okay, so in your opinion law enforcement officers never lie and the suspects/victims are always reaching for weapons that always exist. Cool. Thanks.
Let's agree to disagree.

bluesneakers

I'm not Irish_Eyes but am trying to understand your ^ post. Is it your opinion law enforcement officers always lie about fear for safety of selves or others when using firearms? If so, we can agree to disagree.

 

[al66pine]

good point, i suppose we have to consider it speculation right now that he has been in jail, i can only say i consider it to be a fact and proven to my satisfaction.
the other two points yes, they are absolutely me speculating and giving my opinion, as i said.

Sorry, again, was not trying to admonish you or your post, just splitting hairs.

My comments were really more directed to commenters critical of officers-involved shootings as being trigger happy or lying/deceitful about their state of mind about need for use of firearms. It's pure speculation on part of those posters..

 

[drjones]

np al, i got it and you made good points!

 

[bluesneakers]

bluesneakers

I'm not Irish_Eyes but am trying to understand your ^ post. Is it your opinion law enforcement officers always lie about fear for safety of selves or others when using firearms? If so, we can agree to disagree.

No, that's not my position at all.

This is what I said:

Yes, they claim that. Yes, they shoot people and say the person was going for a gun or lunging, or whatever, and sometimes the person isn't even armed or we see video and it's obvious the person wasn't reaching for a weapon or lunging for the officer's weapon. Why do they shoot? Who knows. We only know the reasons they give us and those can vary.

Maybe this will help:

Yes, sometimes they claim that. Yes, sometimes they shoot people and say the person was going for a gun or lunging, or whatever, and sometimes the person isn't even armed or we see video and it's obvious the person wasn't reaching for a weapon or lunging for the officer's weapon. Why do they shoot in those cases? Who knows. We only know the reasons they give us and those can vary.

Not mindreading, no blanket statements, no saying LE always lie, no saying suspects are never armed, no saying LE should never fear for their own safety, no saying shootings are never justified... etc.

The original question I was answering was "Why would they shoot him if he wasn't reaching for a gun?" There are many reasons they might shoot. I speculated on what some of them might be and apparently people read more into my comment than was there.

 

[Woodland]

clearly i pose those two points as questions, questions people might ask after hearing about this case, i did not state them as fact.

but i will go ahead and state right now that FACT this man was resisting, i dont need a link to prove it, anyone that watches that video can see it, he did not comply with officers and struggled with them.

the other point i thought it was quite clear that it is a claim being made by police, so yes it is a FACT that police claim that he was reaching for his pocket, where they believed he had a gun.

edit - i missed your last point, please provide me with the exact quote from TOS that states i must have a link to support my opinion that it is reasonable to speculate about something.

UBM

Do you have a link to the claim that is underlined? Have not seen that claim by LE. Local LE have handed the investigation over to others with no facts given other than an anonymous phone call to 911.

 

[drjones]

UBM

Do you have a link to the claim that is underlined? Have not seen that claim by LE. Local LE have handed the investigation over to others with no facts given other than an anonymous phone call to 911.

its in the video, if you disagree alert a mod to my posts, i will not be addressing any more of your link requests. cheers.

 

[katydid23]

UBM

Imo, that was the first stupid move. My life experience is, once something starts out bad or poorly or stupid, it continues that way until someone takes charge and starts back at the beginning to do it right.

So what is your suggestion? They already asked politely yet sternly. They already tried the taser on him. They gave him direct orders....than what? How do you detain an armed suspect?

 

[katydid23]

UBM

Sure we do - a number of citizens have said the shooting victim did not try to retrieve it. See the links so far.

Let's respect WS and get what is written correct, discuss that and use links in our 'fact reporting'? TOS.

No, we cannot know if he was trying for the gun. Because one cop was on top of him. No one else could see what his hand was doing.

 

[Woodland]

So what is your suggestion? They already asked politely yet sternly. They already tried the taser on him. They gave him direct orders....than what? How do you detain an armed suspect?

This reply is out of context to the original post, so unable to respond.

 

[katydid23]

Doesn't change that LE rushed in to confront someone, up close and personal, they thought was armed - why would anyone put themselves in that position until they could assess the situation? If they could use a taser - there was no gun visible in my mind.

What do you mean by 'assess' the situation? They were sent to detain and question this man. They gave direct orders, he would not comply. They assessed the situation, knew he was not going to follow their orders, so they had to physically restrain him. That is what they were sent to do.