Another Black Man Shot By Cops... Florida

[Jermyn Davidson]

So I wish we could see the video and see if these officers' lives were legitimately in danger by a mentally ill man holding a broom.

Apparently there is a 19 minute video but it doesn't show where the cops had physical contact with the suspect.

It is as if they just got tired of dealing with this mentally ill man. So they killed him.

Yes, they knew ahead of time he wan mentally ill, due to previous calls.


http://news.yahoo.com/florida-office...124649418.html

[n david]

This is happening more and more. Mentally ill are being killed by cops who aren't truly in danger of their lives. It's sad.

[KeptByTheWord]

We had a situation here locally about six months ago where a homeless husband and wife showed up at the local ER. He went inside to report that his wife was in the car with a knife and she was suicidal. The cops were dispatched and when they arrived, the wife emerged from the car wielding a knife and running toward the cop. He could have tasered her, but he didn't. He shot and killed her. It was the saddest thing, and brought a lot of controversy into the community. However, the cop was not charged, because he feared for his life.

Another case in a nearby community happened just a month ago. After all the publicity with the first case mentioned, in a very similar scenario, the cops tasered the woman wielding the knife, saved her life, and she was taken to a mental health institution.

These are split second decisions that can change the course of your life forever.

[Jito463]

Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord

We had a situation here locally about six months ago where a homeless husband and wife showed up at the local ER. He went inside to report that his wife was in the car with a knife and she was suicidal. The cops were dispatched and when they arrived, the wife emerged from the car wielding a knife and running toward the cop. He could have tasered her, but he didn't. He shot and killed her. It was the saddest thing, and brought a lot of controversy into the community. However, the cop was not charged, because he feared for his life.

Another case in a nearby community happened just a month ago. After all the publicity with the first case mentioned, in a very similar scenario, the cops tasered the woman wielding the knife, saved her life, and she was taken to a mental health institution.

These are split second decisions that can change the course of your life forever.

To be fair to the cop in your first story, split-second decisions are hard to gauge. If you have someone running at you with a knife, you may not have time to consider whether to pull your taser or your pistol. It's a reaction. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.

[Jermyn Davidson]

Apparently, the mentally ill man with the broom never attacked the officer. This is why it is under investigation. 19 minutes of video and the officer's life was never in danger.

The guy was acting crazy with a broom and so the police killed him.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord

We had a situation here locally about six months ago where a homeless husband and wife showed up at the local ER. He went inside to report that his wife was in the car with a knife and she was suicidal. The cops were dispatched and when they arrived, the wife emerged from the car wielding a knife and running toward the cop. He could have tasered her, but he didn't. He shot and killed her. It was the saddest thing, and brought a lot of controversy into the community. However, the cop was not charged, because he feared for his life.

Another case in a nearby community happened just a month ago. After all the publicity with the first case mentioned, in a very similar scenario, the cops tasered the woman wielding the knife, saved her life, and she was taken to a mental health institution.

These are split second decisions that can change the course of your life forever.

there needs to be other methods developed other than the tazer. The Tazer just does not always work.

The problem with the TASER, however, is its effectiveness. In a Department of Justice-commissioned study by the Florida Gulf Coast University Research Institute the TASER was 69 percent effective the first time it was deployed. It became more effective in its second and third iteration.
There are a number of reasons for the TASER’s failure – the most common is that both probes do not make it directly into the subject’s skin.
This was the case in the Jan. 1, 2013, incident, where Farmington resident Mark Chavez was hit by one TASER probe when he was coming at Sgt. Shawn Scott with a metal pipe. The TASER did not stop Chavez.
Both probes did not make it into Chavez’s skin, according to Tracy. “He received a partial effect from the TASER but not a full effect.” Chavez was not subdued and deadly force, or firing a gun, was the only option.
In an April 4 case, drunken driver Ladell Light, 35, was struck by a TASER after he got out of his vehicle to pump gas in it. The TASER did not work.
“The officer then deployed his TASER in an attempt stop Light. However, the TASER was ineffective. Light was able to fight his way back into the driver seat of the vehicle and fled the scene west bound on Broadway,” a press release from the Farmington Police Department stated.

http://www.tricitytribuneusa.com/tas...ent-effective/

[Walks_in_islam]

23 people were killed in March by police officers. Do all lives matter? Why only highlight shootings of black people? How many were black? Do you know?

Better question, 456 homicides were committed in Chicago last year. 78.1% were black. Where is the outrage of the black community against black on black killings?

JD I like you and we agree on a lot of things. There is a problem in the Urban Black community in America. This problem is a culture of violence that is so pervasive that songs are written about it, videos are made about it, there are dances to it, and it is a source of pride in urban communities across the country.

Slur words are still openly used in our country. In songs, on twitter, on facebook and by who? These slur words that white Americans are sued for using are not used widely in the white community, but in the black community. Nobody reacts to it when they are. It is now and currently considered "mainstream" for the young people to use them.

Our country will be considered fully recovered from the ghosts of past racial issues when all Americans can and do apply the same equal standard to the treatment of black Americans by other black Americans as they do to the treatment of black Americans by white Americans - and vice versa.

Until then, outrage over the killing of a black American by a white policeman and silence over the killing of a black American by another black American is just a newer and different form of racial prejudice.

In this, because you yourself see these things differently on the basis of skin color alone, you and the white policemen are no different.

[aegsm76]

Wii - on this I totally agree with you. As someone who believed that myself and the country were now past racial issues, I am deeply troubled by not just the issues, but by those using these issues to divide us.

[Jermyn Davidson]

Originally Posted by Walks_in_islam

23 people were killed in March by police officers. Do all lives matter? Why only highlight shootings of black people? How many were black? Do you know?

Better question, 456 homicides were committed in Chicago last year. 78.1% were black. Where is the outrage of the black community against black on black killings?

JD I like you and we agree on a lot of things. There is a problem in the Urban Black community in America. This problem is a culture of violence that is so pervasive that songs are written about it, videos are made about it, there are dances to it, and it is a source of pride in urban communities across the country.

Slur words are still openly used in our country. In songs, on twitter, on facebook and by who? These slur words that white Americans are sued for using are not used widely in the white community, but in the black community. Nobody reacts to it when they are. It is now and currently considered "mainstream" for the young people to use them.

Our country will be considered fully recovered from the ghosts of past racial issues when all Americans can and do apply the same equal standard to the treatment of black Americans by other black Americans as they do to the treatment of black Americans by white Americans - and vice versa.

Until then, outrage over the killing of a black American by a white policeman and silence over the killing of a black American by another black American is just a newer and different form of racial prejudice.

In this, because you yourself see these things differently on the basis of skin color alone, you and the white policemen are no different.

While I agree with much of what you say, I don't agree with all. Neither do I think the statements above are pertinent to the situation at hand.


We are witnessing racial violence resulting in DEATH by POLICE OFFICERS in situations that are highly questionable and in situations where there are no question that an injustice has occurred.

The police officers have a high standard they MUST uphold or else our system of justice doesn't work. For many black Americans, the system does not work properly and that is because of individual racial prejudice in many instances. Still because these individuals are part of our national system of justice, the argument can be made that we are witnessing a form of INSTITUTIONAL RACISM.

It has been the opinion of many blacks that the justice system is flawed from the foundation for a very long time-- the foundation being the police forces that carry out justice and injustice at the local level.

My shock is not that the police killed a mentally ill black man that did not pose a threat to the life of any police officer. My shock is that it was recorded on camera and now we can say, "See I told you so-- but no one believed us."

In another situation, in South Carolina, as brazenly murderous as that police officer's actions were, the shock is that it was caught on camera and now we can say, "See, I told you so-- but no one believed us."

Too many Americans are in denial of that fact that police officers across this country treat their black citizens... differently. The same citizens they have sworn to protect are the citizens that they sometime betray and beat and shoot and sometimes kill in the name of justice and public safety.

Then the good and the bad police officers rally to protect each others back when someone dares question their actions.

Then good-hearted but naive Americans rush to defend the cops as our cops would never do anything wrong-- they have sworn to protect us.

Then the victims and their families are left without justice, lives torn upside down. Adding insult to injury, it is most often decided that it is the victim's fault that the victim was betrayed by the same people who are supposed to be protecting us.

There are some bad people-- but there are and have been over the years, SO MANY QUESTIONABLE AND EVEN UNQUESTIONABLE SITUATIONS WHERE INJUSTICE INSTEAD OF JUSTICE WAS THE FINAL OUTCOME. More often then not in these situations, the victims have been black-- not in all, but in the majority.

[Originalist]

Again, why is race always brought into these reports?