CO - Jessica Hernandez, 17, killed by police after LEO struck by stolen car

[katydid23]

Unarmed, nonviolent juvenile delinquents who don't want to be arrested, apparently.
The report contains this exchange between one of the passengers and an investigator:

But the cops don't know that.

 

[katydid23]

What if I didn't draw until the car started to move? If the simple fact of the car being in motion poses a threat to the life of a police officer, surely it would threaten mine too? Would I not have the justification to then draw and fire into the car? All this is hypothetical of course, as I don't own a gun

No, it is not the same thing unless you could show a reason the driver might want to kill you. The cops were attempting to arrest the driver for stolen car. So the court is going to accept that the cop felt his own life was in danger because of that adversarial position.

But if you were just standing there and the car came at you, it would not be the same thing at all. You were not their'enemy' nor trying to detain them, nor giving them orders. So NO. sorry.:wink:

 

[katydid23]

I can agree with this for sure. I think there are better ways to handle these situations. Sometimes I wonder if these days out of fear for LE safety (or maybe even other nefarious reasons), Academies are teaching militaryesque escalation techniques to take immediate control of possible dangerous situations. It does seem their reaction times are getting much, much quicker with regards to using deadly force. Maybe they are just on edge, generally speaking.

They are teaching them in the academies to take immediate control of dangerous situations. They were losing too many cops in avoidable situations.I don't think they are quicker to use deadly force, but they are quicker to be able to do so, if need be. JMO

 

[Fred Hall]

No, it is not the same thing unless you could show a reason the driver might want to kill you. The cops were attempting to arrest the driver for stolen car. So the court is going to accept that the cop felt his own life was in danger because of that adversarial position.

But if you were just standing there and the car came at you, it would not be the same thing at all. You were not their'enemy' nor trying to detain them, nor giving them orders. So NO. sorry.:wink:

But in my hypothetical situation my car is being stolen in front of me — an adversarial position. I confront the thief without drawing my gun and order him out of the car. He refuses and begins to drive off, putting me in exactly the same location relative to the car as the first officer that fired was in. If that officer was justified in fearing for his life, I am too. And even "civilians",as you call them, can use lethal force in defense of their lives.

 

[Fred Hall]

the court is going to accept that the cop felt his own life was in danger because of that adversarial position.

sbm
The officer claimed to have feared for his life due to the movement of the car, and if that movement threatened his life, it would have threatened mine.

 

[Fred Hall]

But if you were just standing there and the car came at you, it would not be the same thing at all.

sbm
If the car struck me, I would not be injured? The officers claimed that they opened fire solely out of fear that the car would strike one of them.

 

[katydid23]

But in my hypothetical situation my car is being stolen in front of me — an adversarial position. I confront the thief without drawing my gun and order him out of the car. He refuses and begins to drive off, putting me in exactly the same location relative to the car as the first officer that fired was in. If that officer was justified in fearing for his life, I am too. And even "civilians",as you call them, can use lethal force in defense of their lives.

So would you be afraid for your life in the exact same situation?

 

[al66pine]

Practicallythey have more leeway, but I think that Police Officers are technically subject to the same laws that everyone else is. But I can't be sure — I'm not a lawyer. Surely if these officers were acting in defense of their own lives, I would be able to claim the same legal justification for firing the same shots in the same situation. Or doesn't it work that way?

bbm
Fred Hall -
bbm1
Yes, LEOs are generally subject to same laws as everyone else but w. some exceptions, like LEO use of force.

bbm2
Not necessarily.

Use of force & self defense Colorado statutes have been posted in their entirety multiple times here as well as summaries and links. There's one for LE in line of duty and one for non-LEOs. Not jmo, imo, or moo. 2 diff statutes. If they were the same, there w/not be 2 diff statutes.(says Captain Obvious :gaah No time ATM for me to go back & pull them. Maybe later tdy.

If ppl want to think ^ CO. laws are the same for LEOs & non-LEOs, well, they are most certainly free to think that. Free to say it. Over and over. Free to post it. Over and over. Does. Not. Make. It. True.

If ppl want to read CO statute re LEO use of force and discuss their interp's about the actual statute and this actual situation, then this thread is the place for it.

If ppl want to talk about what they think 'the law should be' or other cases, other st laws, etc, there are plenty of threads for that.

 

[Fred Hall]

So would you be afraid for your life in the exact same situation?

I'll say that I did. I'll swear to investigators that I feared for my life when I shot the car thief as he drove past me. Would they buy it? Would a prosecutor, when faced with these exact same shot directions, find that I had a reasonable fear of death or injury? I doubt it.

 

[Fred Hall]

bbm
Fred Hall -
bbm1
Yes, LEOs are generally subject to same laws as everyone else but w. some exceptions, like LEO use of force.

bbm2
Not necessarily.

Use of force & self defense Colorado statutes have been posted in their entirety multiple times here as well as summaries and links. There's one for LE in line of duty and one for non-LEOs. Not jmo, imo, or moo. 2 diff statutes. If they were the same, there w/not be 2 diff statutes.(says Captain Obvious :gaah No time ATM for me to go back & pull them. Maybe later tdy.

If ppl want to think ^ CO. laws are the same for LEOs & non-LEOs, well, they are most certainly free to think that. Free to say it. Over and over. Free to post it. Over and over. Does. Not. Make. It. True.

If ppl want to read CO statute re LEO use of force and discuss their interp's about the actual statute and this actual situation, then this thread is the place for it.

If ppl want to talk about what they think 'the law should be' or other cases, other st laws, etc, there are plenty of threads for that.

I am not going to attempt to interpret legislation, but I'm sure that Colorado law allows private citizens to use lethal force in defense of their own lives. If the physical situation threatened the officer's life, wouldn't it have threatened mine if I were standing in his shoes?

 

[Fred Hall]

In the past months the media repeated ad nauseam the DPD lie that an officer was struck and had his leg broken, but now they seem to have mass amnesia about it. The discovery that the claims were untrue should be headline news, but I don't think I've seen an explicit admission that those reports were false anywhere. I suspect that most people will glance at the headlines and continue to think that an officer was struck and suffered a broken leg.

 

[Fred Hall]

I will also say, I can see this from the other side as well. If my child was in that car, and I saw it riddled with bullets like that I may have a different opinion. It is a tragic case all around and yet extremely fortunate non of the other passengers were killed.

You are implying that anyone who has a problem with this shooting is merely sentimental. I have a problem with it because the officers shot the driver when they were not physically threatened. The DPD then quashed public concern about the shooting by claiming that an officer was struck and suffered a broken leg. The media was complicit in this deception, even now failing to directly admit that those claims were false.

 

[KaaBoom]

If someone is gunning their engine, coming toward you, and you have a brick wall behind you, you would be scared too.

Why do you have to keep exaggerating to try to justify this? First you said she was out on bail for car theft, she wasn't. Now you say she was driving at high speed. With all due respect, that is just laughable. If she had driven away at the speed, using police terminology, that would have been a low speed chase, if there ever was one. And again, she was not driving toward them. All evidence suggests that she was trying to drive away.

So, no, most people would not be scared in that situation, and I don't believe those cops were scared either. They were just looking for an excuse to administer some street justice.

 

[KaaBoom]

LOOK AT THE SITUATION^^^^^^ He is facing danger of the unknown...are they gangmembers? CAR JACKERS? Are they armed? Why are they driving at me? We are pointing guns at them and they are coming at me...

Here is a clue. If you are pointing your gun through the driver's side window, the car is not driving at you.

 

[Fred Hall]

Here Chief White says this:

. . . the driver of the vehicle struck one of the officers in the leg . . .

And elsewhere he says this:

. . . the original officer received a, fractured by the way, a broken fracture, a fracture to his leg as a result of the incident.

The headline of this Denver Post article is "Denver police fatally shoot teen girl suspect; officer hit by car" and the first paragraph reads thus: "Denver police shot and killed a teenage girl early Monday who they say drove a stolen car at two officers in a dark alley, hitting one of them in the leg." Will Chief White admit now that he gave the media false information? Will the Denver Post publish a retraction?

 

[CoolJ]

You are implying that anyone who has a problem with this shooting is merely sentimental. I have a problem with it because the officers shot the driver when they were not physically threatened. The DPD then quashed public concern about the shooting by claiming that an officer was struck and suffered a broken leg. The media was complicit in this deception, even now failing to directly admit that those claims were false.

No, I'm not implying that at all. I am just saying people react differently to a situation depending on how they are associated with it.
I don't have a problem with the shooting because don't not feel they were threatened.

I agree completely with the rest if your post, the DPD was dishonest and the media was complicit with that as far as I can tell.

 

[Fred Hall]

No, I'm not implying that at all.

sbm
You're right — I read that into your statement, and I shouldn't have tried to put words in your mouth. I'm just dismayed that there is so much emotive discourse and so little discussion of the physical evidence going on in the media and elsewhere. I find it a little disconcerting that this non-violent car thief who had an attack of the stupid is going to be remembered as a deranged murderer who tried to kill two cops. The only positive thing from this affair is the fact that it has been over four months and no one else has been killed in similar circumstances. This is telling, as I'd wager that every few weeks in Denver a suspect refuses to get out of a vehicle and instead drives away past pedestrian officers. Perhaps the Hernandez case has put the fear of god into the DPD.

 

[Fred Hall]

. . . people react differently to a situation depending on how they are associated with it.

sbm
Yes, that principle has been amply demonstrated over the course of this case As an aside, Hernandez's supporters don't seem to have caught on to the revelation that she did not strike an officer and break his leg. I am beginning to suspect that, out of hundreds of her friends and relatives, not one is capable of reading and comprehending a 44 page document.

 

[Montjoy]

I am beginning to suspect that, out of hundreds of her friends and relatives, not one is capable of reading and comprehending a 44 page document.

rsbm --

Aside from her family and friends, and I'm not referring to anyone in particular here, but I think that it's really hard for some people to be objective about possible LE abuses of force. And I understand that.

 

[katydid23]

I'll say that I did. I'll swear to investigators that I feared for my life when I shot the car thief as he drove past me. Would they buy it? Would a prosecutor, when faced with these exact same shot directions, find that I had a reasonable fear of death or injury? I doubt it.

And he might doubt it because you would not be a likely target, as a cop usually is. Cops are often targeted by the perps they try to arrest. That's why they get the benefit of the doubt. JMO