Another good story by Leon Neyfakh in Slate. This one with some legal analysis on the two reports that judged the shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland “reasonable.”
Here’s a link to the audio of the radio dispatch.
Tag: Tamir Rice
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Tamir Rice shooting “reasonable”
From when it happened I said the police shooting of Tamir Rice — though tactically shameful and morally tragic — was “reasonable.” That didn’t make me too many friends outside the police world. But “reasonableness” is judged from the perspective of a reasonable police officer. And now outside two reports have come to a similar conclusion. They “justify” the shooting (in a legal/constitutional sense at the “moment of threat,” not in a moral or good policing sense).
From the Times:
The reports released Saturday night — one written by a retired supervisory special agent with the F.B.I., the other by a Colorado prosecutor — examined the shooting’s legality under the United States Constitution, not Ohio law. But each reviewer found that Officer Loehmann had been placed in a volatile situation with minimal information and had acted reasonably in shooting Tamir.
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The decision to pull the cruiser so close to Tamir and the dispatcher’s failure to relay some of the caller’s caveats were worthy of further review and were potentially relevant in civil court, but should have no effect on the evaluation of whether Officer Loehmann was criminally culpable for shooting.
I wrote about it here, here, And here: “So this was bad policing. But that doesn’t make it a bad shooting.” Norm Stamper said pretty much the same thing: “A more mature, experienced, confident police officer would have better understood what he was facing…. [But] if you point a gun at a police officer, you have punched your ticket. I don’t care if it’s a toy gun.”
I also said this:
Here’s what you don’t do: drive right up to that person on muddy slippery ground to put your partner in an unprotected and defenseless position a few feet from the suspect.
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The problems here abound. The dispatcher didn’t relay information that the caller said the gun was “probably fake.” That could have have changed things. By my main problem with the police here is driving right up to an armed suspect. The only reason to do that is to drive into the armed suspect.
Why would you drive in a snowy park to put yourself on slippery turf within feet of an armed suspect?! It makes no sense. You should do everything you can so you do not put yourself in what James Fyfe called a “split-second decision.” Because that is when mistakes are made.
So you park your friggin’ car half a block away and approach on foot. Why? Because your aim is probably better than his. Why? Because you can suss the situation. Why? Because you can issue commands with distance on your side. Why? Because you might notice that it is a 12-year-old kid. And while that may mean nothing, it increases the chance you notice it’s a fake gun. Why? Because you shouldn’t be a lazy f*ck, you lazy f*ck!
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Police Shooting Kids
Here I am on NPR’s “Morning Edition” flapping my mouth about the shooting of Tamir Rice (Cleveland kid killed by police while holding a realistic-looking BB gun):
[Moskos] says mayors everywhere walk a tightrope between police and citizen outrage. He says the public needs to get more realistic about how the police work. And police need to be less tone deaf to how their actions can inflame the public. The fundamental challenge for mayors, Moskos says, is a willingness to make big changes when police shootings aren’t warranted.
This also applies to NYC, by the way. But I really don’t like hearing myself speak (seriously, I think my voice is kind of high and nasal). The voice I liked hearing came from the Cleveland mayor:
I do not want children to die at the hand of police officers. But at the same time, I don’t want a policeman killed on the street because he was hesitating because he didn’t know if he was going to be sued or fired. So I don’t want that either.
Who’s got a problem with that? [And yet I bet you — and I really have no idea about him or Cleveland — but I bet you that most Cleveland cops hate their mayor. Why? Because he’s a liberal black mayor of Cleveland. But I really have no idea if he’s hated, liberal, or even black. I can’t even guarantee he’s he mayor.] Now I was pretty clear about what I thought about the shooting of Tamir Rice (good shooting in the legal sense; horrible and shameful shooting in the I-live-in-America sense).
So if I had one word for police officers, who, for good reason, feel they need to defend officers in these situations (hell, I do), at least be enough of a human being to admit the obvious: “You know what, it’s really horrible that a 12-year-old kid holding a non-lethal gun got shot and killed in America.”
Just say what you’re feeling. It would go a long way. And it’s not anti-police to feel a bit for a 12-year-old shot dead by police.
And to those who can’t fathom how police could shoot and kill a 12-year-kid, consider that this kid was holding a fucking gun! (Or at least something that no reasonable person could distinguish from a real bullet-firing gun.) And then consider of the words of the honorable mayor of Cleveland: “I don’t want a policeman killed on the street because he was hesitating because he didn’t know if he was going to be sued or fired.”
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“If you point a gun at a police officer…”
I mention this article by Peter Katel in CQ Researcher (alas, behind a pay wall) because, along with lots of good stuff, there’s a quote I wasn’t expecting coming from my man Norm “a liberal critic of much police strategy” Stamper:
A video of the [Tamir Rice] shooting — showing a police car driving up next to the boy, who was shot two seconds later — demonstrates that the shooting never had to happen, Stamper concludes, saying the officer could have taken cover behind his car and evaluated the situation more calmly.
“A more mature, experienced, confident police officer would have better understood what he was facing,” Stamper says.
At the same time, he says Rice’s parents never should have let him outside with a replica pistol, and schools and police should ensure that children know an essential fact of life: No one seen to pose a mortal threat in the presence of police should expect to walk away, or even to survive.
“If you point a gun at a police officer, you have punched your ticket,” Stamper says. “I don’t care if it’s a toy gun.
Norm is right about a lot of things (like ending the drug war). Add this to the list.
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*Let’s* Monday Morning Quarterback
Imagine, say, you get a call for an armed person waving a gun in a park.
Here’s what you don’t do: drive right up to that person on muddy slippery ground to put your partner in an unprotected and defenseless position a few feet from the suspect.
I feel sad for the officer involved. He does have to live with shooting what turned out to be a non-lethally armed 12-year-old boy in Cleveland, Tamir Rice.
The problems here abound. The dispatcher didn’t relay information that the caller said the gun was “probably fake.” That could have have changed things. By my main problem with the police here is driving right up to an armed suspect. The only reason to do that is to drive into the armed suspect.
Why would you drive in a snowy park to put yourself on slippery turf within feet of an armed suspect?! It makes no sense. You should do everything you can so you do not put yourself in what James Fyfe called a “split-second decision.” Because that is when mistakes are made.
So you park your friggin’ car half a block away and approach on foot. Why? Because your aim is probably better than his. Why? Because you can suss the situation. Why? Because you can issue commands with distance on your side. Why? Because you might notice that it is a 12-year-old kid. And while that may mean nothing, it increases the chance you notice it’s a fake gun. Why? Because you shouldn’t be a lazy f*ck, you lazy f*ck!
So this was bad policing. But that doesn’t make it a bad shooting.
You wave a gun, you get shot. That is the way it works. Because you can’t — or at least I wouldn’t — roll the dice with your own life. You can’t give the person a chance to shoot you because then it’s too late.
Also, what the hell is a 12-year-old doing out alone on a cold day pointing an illegal fake gun at people?! (It’s illegal because the orange “safety” tip has been stripped off)?! Where did he get this gun? Could it be from his wife-beating father or drug-dealing mother? I don’t know. Hey, didn’t somebody ask: where’s junior?
Oh, he’s playing in the park.
I know it’s not politically correct to blame parents. But seriously, shouldn’t we blame these parents who did a lethally bad job supervising their son? Instead we blame the cop who had the bad luck to get a bad call and be riding shotgun with a another cop, the driver, who was pretty effing stupid. But the parents had far more time to make far different choices, you know, so their 12-year-old son wouldn’t be out in public on a cold day waving a gun around. Shame shame shame.
Some have criticized the officer for saying the guy he shot was around 20. It’s interesting to me that the 911 caller also never mentioned that the suspect was a kid. Here’s the 911 call.
The video can be seen here.
What the video won’t do is convince you how real a fake gun can look. But if it looks real. It needs to be treated as real. Not convinced, take a look at this gun. Real or toy?
Why it’s a plastic toy. Can’t you tell? No? Well, neither can cops.
That’s a replica of my service weapon. It’s probably pretty similar to what the kid had. And here’s real Glock 17.
Can’t tell the difference? Well, neither can cops!
So please do correct anybody who says this kid was shot while holding a “toy gun.” This is a toy gun.
Update: from Campbell’s comment, this is the gun that the kid had:
Except that keep in mind that part sticking up in back would be in the gun.
[Update: here’s a later poston this subject]