I hope these fuckers have a miserable, broken-hearted Christmas, and an empty grieving life forevermore.
The cops are rotten, corrupt, and murderous.
Los Angeles police have fatally shot a 14-year-old girl who was in the dressing room of a clothing store when officers fired at an assault suspect and a bullet went through the wall, hitting the girl, authorities have said.
Officers also fatally shot the suspect on Thursday morning at a Burlington store in the North Hollywood area of the San Fernando valley, police said.
Witnesses told KCBS-TV that a man began acting erratically, threatening to throw items from the upper floor, and attacked a woman with a bicycle lock shortly before noon as the store was crowded with holiday shoppers.
Since when is opening fire a reasonable response to a guy with a bike lock? So here’s a man going nuts in a crowded store, and the chickenshit police decide that the best way to handle it is a volley of gunfire, killing two people.
Here’s a Christmas short story for you: “Police found her dead in a changing room with her mother.” Jesus christ. 14. Christmas shopping with her mom. Blown away by a cop doing what, apparently, we expect cops to do.
There will be no reform of the police because we can’t have happy endings anymore.
Damn. I can’t even think of that mom without tears starting to well up.
Next we’ll be told that that 14-year-old girl was “no angel”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country
The USA have the statistics of a third world country…
(NB Luxembourg and Malta are really too small for their ranking to make sense)
And gun ownership is not even the issue : Swiss have almost no police killings, and they have a lot of guns too
It’s like when the co(p)wards shot a mentally ill woman with a kitchen knife. There were multiple cops, they had nightsticks, and they were too spineless to surround her and hit her arm. Nightsticks were longer than the knife. Unless she had a problem with blood coagulation, a broken arm wouldn’t be a fatal injury.
The same goes for that store. They could have disarmed the man but were too lazy and gutless to make the effort. Their reckless gunfire would land anyone else in prison, but not cops.
Let’s hope Newsom’s new bill put those blues into orange permanently.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/30/governor-newsom-signs-policing-reform-legislation/
Hey cops, why was lethal force even required in this situation? Was your taser malfunctioning? The store was crowded…did it not occur to you that maybe stray bullets might be a problem? FFS!!! Tiy’re supposed to be trained professionals, maybe try USING some of that training someday!
Minor correction, the shooting happened outside the store, and the bullet went through the wall into the dressing room. But yes, there does not seem to have been any reason to open fire in this situation.
And gun ownership is not even the issue : Swiss have almost no police killings, and they have a lot of guns too
They have a citizen army. It’s sort of like what was envisioned with the 2nd amendment except without the implicit racism.There is no comparison to be made here.
re 6:
I bet the Swiss also have a rigidly instituted set of qualifications to certify permission for gun ownership. I hope
RE 6 & 7:
I bet the Swiss also lack a delusional glorification of a gun-toting Wild West that never existed.
Comment #4 mamba already said it.
What about those tasers they are supposed to have?
And forget nightsticks.
The cops always seem to have plenty of riot shields and batons these days as well as an endless supply of rubber bullets.
And BTW, they probably outnumbered the dead bicycle lock guy by a lot.
In some jurisdictions like Eugene, Oregon or as PZ mentioned, Alexandria, Minnesota, the police might have called in… a Cahoots style mental health de-escalator first.
Alternative weapon — wheelie bin
Almost as bad as a banana.
I am a Canadian and I have friends in the LGBTQ+ community so I am not a fan of the cops but, holy mackerel, are Ameriacan cops trigger happy gun nuts. I can only hope that, one day, they will have their comeuppance…
Canada isn’t a paradise, and we have our awful lunatics, but it seems to be 100^3 times worse in the US… I don’t understand why.
Nonexistent god dammit… I meant American… Sorry I cannot spell.
I read this story elsewhere, and they only described the attacker as “armed,” leading the reader to believe he had a gun too. Finding out it was a bike lock that precipitated this hail of deadly, indiscriminate gunfire makes it so much worse.
I was reading yesterday about a fellow from my home town, Jacksonville, Florida, who spent years doing undercover investigations of the Klan for the FBI. It’s no surprise that the Klan has a years-long program to recruit cops, so that the police force is packed with white supremest gun nuts. That’s probably not limited to the South.
Looking at this, and many similar police shootings, the question I find myself asking is whether it was matter of malice or cowardice. Faced with a fearsome bicycle-lock-armed adversary, did they actively wish him dead (and didn’t care who else got shot in the process), or were they so scared for their hides that they were compelled to lash out at the threat (and didn’t care who else got shot in the process)? It may well be both, of course- that bullies are cowards is a stereotype, but one that often contains a kernel of truth.
angoratrilobite @11
It’s the training (and the insular culture reinforced by police unions, and the history starting while slavery was legal). But importantly, American police have been militarized, and basically bring a battlefield, hair trigger, overwhelming force mentality onto the streets.
I’m afraid this is going to be a bit long, so please bear with me…
It has the intersection of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA…you can look it up), an organization that does Medieval recreation activities, specifically armed hand-to-hand combat with real armor and fake–rattan–weapons. It’s full contact and without the armor would involve lethal force. And the police.
We now switch you to a brand new Los Angeles police officer, who happens to be pretty good at SCA combat. He’s checking an alley and some guy pops out of a doorway, brandishing a knife and swearing blue streak. The cop pulls out his night stick, disarms the guy, subdues him and arrests him.
The cop is brought up on department disciplinary charges for failing to follow proper protocol. Said protocol being that he was supposed to pull his gun and shoot the guy. The idea being that, as a cop, you escalate to an unacceptable (to the other party) level, so the response to a knife is supposed to be a gun.
He got off the charges by explaining that (a) he belonged to a club (the SCA) that practiced fighting with sticks, (b) he was confident that he could take the guy using a stick, and (c) he was good enough with a stick to have won two regional championships. (For those familiar with the SCA, he was a duke.)
@16: Agreed, it’s the training and attitude from day one — the myth of the warrior cop.
I was watching Bosch on Amazon the other day and there was a scene at the funeral of a cop who died in the line of duty — it was basically a full military ceremony, with flag folding, gun salutes, the works.
They want to be treated like the military, but unlike the military, there’s no acceptable level of casualties other than zero, resulting in the shoot first ask questions later training and attitude.
50 years ago I took hunter’s safety training (from the NRA, I think, back when they were not terribly looney). They had some basic rules: 1. NEVER point the muzzle of your gun at anyone. 2. ALWAYS assume your gun is loaded. and 3. ALWAYS know what is beyond your target BEFORE shooting because you may miss and your bullet is flying at a rate that it may pass through your game animal and keep going. That’s basic stuff they thought a 14 year old kid could understand. Now, that’s for hunting, but it seems that the basic idea applies to law enforcement, too.
Now, I imagine that the officer who ended up killing that girl days before Christmas feels wretched. He is responsible, but a victim of terrible training practices. Senseless, needless and, sadly, practically predictable in the United States of America.
Police are a lawless, autonomous force, answerable to no one. And it’s gotten that way generationally. Father to son, veteran to rookie, old chief to new chief.
It’s not going to change, the way it stands. You can’t “train” a racist cop to be a non-racist cop. Or train a murdering cop to be a decent human being. Or change someone turned on by the unquestioned power of a uniform and a gun, into a helpful, caring person.
The only way toward change, is a total elimination and restructuring of police departments and unions. Eliminate the military, chain-of-command structure, and replace with a social worker-type organization. And a new mission statement, maybe: “To Help People and Society.”
And screen and recruit the right kind of people. People who want to be police for the right reasons.
@ 11 angoratrilobite
Fellow Canadian here. You might find this interesting
Andersen, Kurt. (2017). Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. Random House
It helps give a context to a lot we do not understand. It also emphasizes just how culturally different we really are, something i had not realised before.
@ 17 whheydt
Police officer fired for not shooting black suspect wins $175,000
British police run into weirdos with knives all the time, and they can disarm them without calling in armed police.
On the few times armed police have been called in, it is usually some suspect believed to carry a gun or a suicide bomb.
However, the sociopaths in charge of Britain right now are seeking to emulate the American template.
stroppy @16
Its such a culture clash, seeing how miliarized the cops are in the US. It is so strange. I find Canadian cops untrustworthy but it must be terrifying for anyone who is POC or LGBTQ+. The cops in the US are so wanton, careless and scary.
jrkrideau @21
Thank you for the reference. :) It just plain shocks me… It is so hard to wrap my head around.
Joyeux Noël Everyone!!
tacitus @18: They want to be the military while having far less training and standards of behavior than the actual military. In fact, people who couldn’t pass the military’s enlistment requirements regularly go into law enforcement as an alternative.
Christ. As a seasoned gun fanatic you should believe me when I say that the idea of firing a gun in a populated environment scares the sh*t out of me. Any amount of exposure to firearms should tell you to control your background. It’s not like in the movies, a 9mm can go clean through a residential home with a bit of luck.
Erlend, as a non-gun fanatic I am aware of the existence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet
I’ll admit that I haven’t tried them, but I’ve done a fair amount of “tests” when it comes to penetration and bullet designs. This has taught me that and all designs are fallible and powerful enough to kill. Firearms should be considered an absolute last-ditch effort at the best of times. Focusing on non-lethal tactics would save lives on all sides. A win-win-win. Win. Win. . . Win.
I’ll admit to a fair amount of “horsing around” with guns, but always on a voluntary basis among peers with no risk to others. We never put anyone else at risk, and we always took lesson from the few lucky escapes we had. Why wouldn’t we? We were adults and took the responsibility as a matter of pride.
Re: Erlend Meyer @ #27…
There was the incident some years ago when an actor put a gun to his head and fired a blank. The wadding penetrated his skull and killed him. So it doesn’t even take a bullet…
@19
This was, when my brother was trained, and later became a Sheriff deputy, this was bloody standard as well – you make f-ing sure that there is a solid object between your target and you, like a light pole, a solid car, or believably solid wall (not some crap one that stores use, or a glass window, etc.) How the hell this, and other standards, have been allowed to slip this f-ing badly, such that its now standard practice, not “bad departments”, or single idiots who haven’t been fired for it yet, is.. incomprehensible.
Neither. It’s power tripping. He denied their authority. That is an unacceptable insult. He must be put in his place. — American Cop Think.
Rule of law, Gerrard. Your own stated predilection, no?
Fuck you John.
@GerrardOfTitanServer: I’d file that under malice, myself.
felixmagister
mmm