Why is it that police are allowed to kill an innocent person, get away with it?

[Dawson Leery]

However, should one kill police they are automatically charged with first degree murder?
Even if it is in one the infamous botched raids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Frederick
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2008/feb/09/residents_rallying_around_swat_r

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upNSUZpTSZo

I am tired of hearing the excuse, 'we were just following orders'.
Also tired of hearing the excuse about breaking the law (when the offense is but marijuana possession).
And of the blind deference society gives authority. They work for us and should not be complaining when
we tell them how to do their job, as they are being paid by us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upNSUZpTSZo

Officer suspended for refusing taser use.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A432110

[midnight]

1. Good question.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Police are not allowed to get away with killing innocent people.

They sometimes get reprimands for doing that.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. You're right. They get the meanest tongue-lashings known to mankind.

[saigon68]

10. LOL

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. lol. Sometimes they get a few days off with pay

[Dawson Leery]

4. True.

They do get a month's suspension with pay.

[unblock]

7. damn, who do i have to kill around here to get a month of pay without work?

:sarcasm:

[Clintonista2]

15. Those "suspension with pay" punishments must hurt

[HardWorkingDem]

17. Oh, good...another broad based "hate" all police thread...

Do these things here ever end?

[Occulus]

19. Oh God, another botched police raid thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police taser death thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police suspect beating thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police unjustified shooting thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police lying on the stand thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police high speed chase tragedy thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police minority profiling thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police beating peaceful protesters thread. Do these things here ever end?

Oh God, another police getting a paid vacation after one of the above threads. Do these things here ever end?

(I can post these all day long.)

[Dawson Leery]

22. Thank you for your support.

[HardWorkingDem]

23. And not to play tit for tat, but...

I can start posting items from the Officer Down Memorial Page or videos from Youtube or countless other places showing all sorts of things.

My point is the broad base stereotypes plays both ways and not only does it get tiresome and old, but it's quite misleading.

For example, while no one likes when things go wrong, the links of the OP are to inmates who are dope dealers. Now, unfortunately, when someone decides to make a living dealing dope, well, they know it's illegal and what comes along with that.

And I could probably make additions to your own little list, but it would obviously be a moot point.


I'm more then happy to discuss individual incidents and things like that, but the blanket threads are ridiculous and like I posted in another thread, if someone do that here to a different group, the poster would be tombstoned or called a racist, sexist, homophobe, anti-Semite or any other name.

[Speck Tater]

5. Since the dawn of history, the people with the most weapons make all the rules. nt

[conspirator]

24. +1000. They are the praetorian guard for rich people.

Rich people will not prosecute the thugs that keep their privilege and property safe.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. The answer? Derrick Jensen's 4th Premise

(italics are mine)

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

From Endgame

[jp11]

8. I think it has to do with how the laws/codes are setup to protect

police and others in professions where such things can happen. In order to provide a shield for them to do their jobs they are given 'special powers' and consideration when it gets to court the case is painted with enough doubt and there is inherit public 'trust' on the side of law enforcement that they were just doing their jobs and it was an 'accident'.

I think police and those we afford such powers should be held to higher standards, breaking laws or violating citizens rights should result in termination and prevent them from ever occupying that position in any other law enforcement agency should it be proved they are repeat offenders for 'lesser violations'. I want police to do their jobs and not be so scared of getting fired they feel they can't or feel they are restrained from doing it properly but at the same time I don't give them license to trample on citizens rights or abuse the power they have been trusted with.

[happyslug]

9. One aspect of being a member of Society, is we can NOT use violence against another member.

Since we can NOT use violence against another member of out society, what happens when violence is needed? In our society that power was transferred to the Courts and the Police. Since the Police have the sole right to use violence in out society, whatever they do is viewed as correct unless it can be clearly shown not to have been correct. At the same time any use of violence against the Police is viewed as the illegal use of violence against another member of our society and that is illegal UNLESS the user of violence can show his use of violence comes under one of the narrow exceptions to the ban on the use of violence.

Now, in the real world, the above means who has the duty to show that the act was illegal. In the case of the Police, the victim has the duty to show what the Police did was illegal. If that can not be shown, the law presumes what the police did was right. On the other hand when someone else uses violence, that person has the burden to show that he or she had the right to use Violence he or she did. If he or she can NOT show that the use of violence was permitted by law, they are guilty of using violence illegally.

With Police, if you kill an officer, they have the right to bring charges. The person who shot the officer will have to show three things, first that the Officer was acting illegally and then that the use of Violence was the only way to end the illegal act and Third, someone would have ended up dead or with serious bodily injury if the Officer had not been shot. All three are hard to prove but it can be done AND if all three things had occurred the killer has carried his burden of proof that the shooting was justified.

As to Officers, shooting someone, the Officer only has to show he thought he was in danger and the only way to make sure no harm or body injury would occur to him or others was to shoot the victim. That the officer was acting illegally is NOT a factor if it can be shown that the victim could have avoided having to shoot the officer by simply submitting to be arrested by the officer.

The key word here is "Peace". Police keep the "King's Peace" and as such can use violence to keep the "King's Peace" (The Term "king's Peace" is an old term that pops up even today, more then 220 years after we declared ourselves a Republic, for it is a term of art within the law that points out the primary purpose of police is to keep the peace NOT enforce the laws). One can NOT claim legal right if that right harms the "King's Peace". On the other hand, the police main duty is to keep the "King's Peace" and thus the law presumes whatever they do is to keep the "King's Peace".

Thus the difference in treatment of someone who shoots at a Police Officer and someone who shoots at a Police Officer. The law assumes what the Police Officer did was to keep the peace and it is up to others to show it was NOT. The law also assumes if you shoot at a Police Officer you were violating the "King's Peace" and the burden is on the shooter that he or she was NOT.

[JoeyT]

11. Yeah, except it doesn't exactly work out that way.

It's a lot more common for police to get a commendation for killing an innocent person than to actually be punished. And the only reason people that shoot a cop in self defense and get away with it is such huge news is because it almost never happens.
Not even when they can prove they're totally innocent by any reasonable standard. (Which is the polar opposite of how our court is supposed to work: Innocent until proven guilty.)

[HardWorkingDem]

16. Oh, BS....

What a completely offensive comment...

"a lot more common for police to get a commendation for killing an innocent person"....

I would like you to show me an example of a clear cut example of this.

[Occulus]

26. It took Google 0.30 seconds to find not one but TWO in the same article

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/07/30/botched-raid-on-innocent-family-earns-cops-merit-badges/

Last December, I posted about a botched SWAT raid on an innocent Minnesota family. Acting on bad information from an informant, the police threw flash grenades though the family’s windows, then exchanged gunfire with Vang Khang, who mistook the police for criminal intruders. Seven months later, no one in the police department has been held accountable for the mistakes leading up to the raid.

However, this week Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan and Mayor R.T. Rybak did give the raiding officers medals and commendations for their bravery in nearly killing Vang Khang, his wife, and their six children.

Oh, sorry. They were only almost killed. But later in the article:

It’s not the first time this kind of thing has happened, either. In November 2006, a Baltimore County, Maryland police officer was given an award for shooting Cheryl Lynn Noel, a mother of two gunned down in her nightgown when she grabbed a gun after mistaking the raiding police officers for criminal intruders. The officer then shot Noel a second time from point blank range. That award came shortly after the Noel family filed a civil suit against Baltimore County.

Then there's the famous case of the southern small-town mayor whose wife took a package delivered to their home into her house. It turned out to be a drug sting operation, again, gone horribly wrong. The family dog was shot; IIRC, one family member was forced to lay in a pool of the dog's blood, again, BY POLICE.

Would you like to play some more? As I said upthread, I can post these things all day long. All night, now. Probably all month, if you're game for it, and I'm dead certain I can do it all year long. I'll win that "game", too, because one innocent civilian dead by police hands is worth more to me than all police lives everywhere that have ever been lost in the line of duty over the past 250+ years.

It's kind of like how executing one single demonstrably innocent person for a crime they did not commit permanently and irrevocably invalidates the death penalty for any reason. The loss of trust, the wrongness, the general evil of the thing is so immense as to fundamentally taint the subject as a whole forever.

[HardWorkingDem]

28. Evidently you and I have a different definiton of "clear cut"...

I'm not going to get into a spitting match with you because it would obviously go no where, especially with your comments in your latest posts.

I'm also not sure of your source material from "The Agitator." I did look at your linked to news sites, but then again, this brings up the issues of what are these people to do when fired upon when following a legal search warrant?


No one wants terrible things like these to happen, however, to portray them as cops with great intent to murder people for the hell of it is ridiculous.

As for the awarding of citations and medals, certainly not the most courteous or polite thing to do, again, portraying these incidents as some sort of murder spree is misleading.

[bigmonkey]

18. Move along, citizen.

Or we'll hurt you too, and there's not a thing you can do about it.

-------------------------------------------

Your story is really the icing on the cake, that authority naturally is untouchable, and there's nothing to be done about it. Unfortunately, that philosophy would support any authoritarian hierarchy, from the mildest to the most oppressive. The myth you're telling leaves nothing for the individual at all. I think it's shameful to propagate such a negation of the value of the regular person.

Do you really think that the difference between the generic "secret state police" and the traditional bobby can't be addressed by the citizenry in any way? That police behavior is totally up to the police officer, who should have perpetual life-and-death powers over anyone he encounters? The police officer should never be held accountable, as long as he tells the right story about what he did?

[Robert DAH Bruce]

12. Ice T, in his rapper days,

referred to the police as "the ultimate gang" in an interview, because they could kill without repercussions.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. Because doing their job means that occasionally they will.

Anyone - not just the police - can get away with killing an innocent person, provided (I think - it's a while since I read up on this, and it's British law, not American) that they can show that a) they did not intend to kill an innocent person (if they did, it's murder), and b) they were not grossly negligent (if they were, it can be one of a variety of offences, including murder, IIRC).

The police, to do their jobs, are placed in situations where even a genuine mistake, not just a grossly negligent one, can result in them killing an innocent person far more often than most people are.

Doctors similarly kill innocent people more often than the populace as a whole, for exactly the same reason, and again usually are not prosecuted (although America does have a regretable culture of suing doctors who make mistakes, which is one of the main reasons its healthcare expenses are so high).




As to the other half of your question: criminals are very often placed in situations where their options are "kill a policeman" or "get arrested"; as such, I think it makes sense to discourage the former option even more heavily than other kinds of murder.

[Cleobulus]

14. How could you fit so much bullshit in one post?

Yes, police are put in situations where a "simple mistake" can involve killing innocent people, hence the reason why they are supposed to be trained about proper use of force. Quite a few have been shown to be completely, not only negligent, but malicious in, in some cases, outright extrajudicial execution, and for some reason the badge becomes a get out of jail free card.

Also, I have no idea what the hell you are going on about with Americans suing doctors, nor why you a perpetuating the myth that its a significant reason why health care is so high, in reality its not, it barely registers on health care costs.

[Dawson Leery]

20. I was thinking about the Diallo case when I wrote OP.

[Occulus]

27. Doctors are not authorized to TAKE a life if the conditions warrant that

Their job is to do everything they can to SAVE lives, and even in cases where they have to end life support, it is a decision reached primarily by next-of-kin.

That comparison was a massive, EPIC fail on your part.

[Dawson Leery]

25. kick