[HN Gopher] LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Inv...
___________________________________________________________________
LAPD Officer Killed During Training Exercise Was Investigating Cops
About Rape
Author : lend000
Score : 604 points
Date : 2022-10-04 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reason.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reason.com)
| wnevets wrote:
| I am 100% confident the LAPD will investigate themselves and find
| they did nothing wrong.
| woodruffw wrote:
| And so continues one of the oldest traditions in American
| policing: attempting[1] to drive out or kill any cop who doesn't
| comply with the wall of silence.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico
| int_19h wrote:
| A more recent example:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
|
| "Adrian Schoolcraft (born 1976) is a former New York City
| Police Department (NYPD) officer who secretly recorded police
| conversations from 2008 to 2009. He brought these tapes to NYPD
| investigators in October 2009 as evidence of corruption and
| wrongdoing within the department. The tapes were used as
| evidence of arrest quotas leading to police abuses such as
| wrongful arrests, and that emphasis on fighting crime sometimes
| resulted in under-reporting of crimes to artificially deflate
| CompStat numbers.
|
| After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was repeatedly harassed
| by members of the NYPD and reassigned to a desk job. After he
| left work early one day, an ESU unit illegally entered his
| apartment, physically abducted him and forcibly admitted him to
| a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for
| six days.
|
| Schoolcraft alleges in the lawsuit that NYPD spokesperson Paul
| Browne was present at the 31 October 2009 raid. Browne is a
| "top aide" to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. According to
| the Village Voice: "If proven true, Browne's presence at
| Schoolcraft's home on Oct. 31, 2009 suggests that Commissioner
| Kelly was aware of the decision by Deputy Chief Michael Marino
| to order Schoolcraft handcuffed and dragged from his own
| apartment just three weeks after he reported police misconduct
| to the unit which audits NYPD crime statistics."
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Whether murder or accidental, what kind of "bicycle training"
| exercise that includes grappling is designed in such a way that
| it may unintentionally result in the death of one of the
| trainees? So even if it wasn't intentional (and it's awful
| suspicious) the LAPD should be on the hook for running a training
| exercise that risky.
| hinkley wrote:
| In other words, if trainees are dying that means civilians will
| die as well.
| nullc wrote:
| It's difficult to restrain a healthy adult without
| simultaneously endangering his life especially without unduly
| risking your own, except where you have a significant size
| advantage.
|
| Consider it from an evolutionary perspective: a pinned animal
| is a dead animal. So we should expect animals to resist being
| trapped to the point of killing themselves / dying from the
| stress of fighting to break free. It's well known to be true
| for many animals and its also true for humans.
|
| Anytime a person is forcefully restrained there is a risk of
| death.
| balaksakrionon wrote:
| This is a good point and George Floyd is a sad example of
| this in action during a police encounter. He exerted
| himself tremendously for many minutes while under the
| influence of various drugs, and with a seriously
| compromised heart, and then succumbed while being
| restrained.
|
| Knowing that people get into this instinctual "fight" mode
| frequently during police encounters, to the point where
| they'll exert themselves to the point of exhaustion and
| beyond, I do wish police had a greater duty of care
| standard to check on people and assess for medical
| emergencies during such scuffles.
| nullc wrote:
| > Knowing that people get into this instinctual "fight"
| mode frequently during police encounters, to the point
| where they'll exert themselves to the point of exhaustion
| and beyond, I do wish police had a greater duty of care
| standard to check on people and assess for medical
| emergencies during such scuffles.
|
| Indeed. And we should treat forceful restraint as a
| potentially lethal move-- since we know from the
| statistics that it is-- and emphasize using other
| approaches where possible.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| in fact, it's plausible that civilians are _more_ likely to
| die than police trainees should such a simulated event take
| place in real life
| mikotodomo wrote:
| WTF. Police are supposed to be catching rapists. Not doing the
| rapes themselves!
| [deleted]
| maratbn wrote:
| So far arguments can be made that officer Tipping was not really
| murdered, or that the woman was not really raped, but it is known
| for sure from prior cases, including criminal convictions, that
| there are plenty of rapists and murderers and all sorts of sick
| individuals in the police, that obviously should not be in the
| police.
|
| Many articles and discussions on police criminal activity carry a
| tone of surprise, but in my view nothing here is surprising
| considering that large numbers of questionable individuals who
| passed some subjective selection process are armed with guns and
| placed into what are essentially life-long appointments where
| lots of money and power is at stake. In my mind it would be
| surprising had there been no criminal activity within the police
| under the current system. It would be just as surprising if
| dictators stayed benevolent and never abused their authority.
|
| I'd say the solution to this problem is to have the public
| democratically elect police just like politicians, and to also
| have them be subjected to term limits just like politicians.
|
| So far this system has successfully prevented most people who
| should not be politicians from becoming politicians or
| maintaining political power, and I argue that in the same way it
| would prevent lots of people who should not be in the police from
| becoming or remaining police officers.
| strager wrote:
| > also have [cops] be subjected to term limits just like
| politicians
|
| Why would we want cops to have _less_ experience on average?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Experience doesn't make cops good. A good cop with experience
| is better at being a good cop, but a bad cop with experience
| is better at being a bad cop.
|
| Furthermore, I think good cops may be corrupted with time,
| but bad cops are never redeemed with time. So all else being
| equal, I expect experienced cops to be more corrupt than
| novice cops, and more effective at being corrupt.
| maratbn wrote:
| And why would we want American Presidents to have less
| experience than Russian "Presidents" ??
| kjeetgill wrote:
| I hate how much this whole thread is just everyone dripping
| with sarcasm.
|
| The same reason we elect mayors but not every single single
| person who works in city call. Or cabinet members under an
| elected president.
|
| Effective governance and public and administration still
| require experience. Elections are great for changing
| leadership who set policy, agenda, and direction and term
| limits help there. But they can't replace people with
| experience. We typically do have some elected positions
| with oversight over police.
|
| This is NOT to say that there isn't a massive need for more
| accountability with police forces. But term limits ain't
| it.
| knome wrote:
| >the solution to this problem is to have the public
| democratically elect police just like politicians
|
| Doesn't seem to stop people from electing horrible sheriffs
| time and again.
|
| >So far this system has successfully prevented most people who
| should not be politicians from becoming politicians
|
| Is your comment satire?
| maratbn wrote:
| Generally public officials in countries with fair elections
| are an order of magnitude better than public officials in
| countries without fair elections. For example, compare Bush
| II with Ahmadinejad.
|
| > Doesn't seem to stop people from electing horrible sheriffs
| time and again.
|
| There are some problems with the current election system in
| the US in that many potential voters don't register to vote
| to not get summoned for jury duty and similar issues, while
| lots of police vote in blocks guided by powerful police
| unions. These problems can be fixed, and overall the US
| election system is better than in countries like Russia.
|
| > Is your comment satire?
|
| Even US politicians who are massively disliked are way better
| than their counterparts in countries without fair elections.
| Furthermore, these massively-disliked politicians get voted
| out at the end of term if a better politician runs against
| them. And even if they don't get voted out, they have to
| leave eventually due to hard term limits.
|
| I'm not saying that democratic elections with term limits for
| police will keep absolutely all bad people out of police, but
| what I am saying is that there will be an order of magnitude
| less bad people in the police, and they will also be an order
| of magnitude less bad than under the current traditional
| employment scheme.
| smt88 wrote:
| Bush II stole his first election from Gore and started a
| multi-trillion dollar war based on lies that ended up
| killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.
|
| Calling him a success story is completely insane.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Generally public officials in countries with fair
| elections are an order of magnitude better than public
| officials in countries without fair elections. For example,
| compare Bush II with Ahmadinejad._
|
| I agree with your general statement, but I think
| Ahmadinejad is a bad example. Ahmadinejad was voted into
| office, and a few years later was voted out of office.
| Ayatollah Khamenei is probably a better example.
| favorited wrote:
| Exactly. Sheriffs are just cops who can't be fired without a
| recall election.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| >I'd say the solution to this problem is to have the public
| democratically elect police just like politicians, and to also
| have them be subjected to term limits just like politicians.
|
| Are there not corrupt politicians?
| maratbn wrote:
| > Are there not corrupt politicians?
|
| There are, but there are a lot less of them in countries with
| fair democratic elections, and those who are corrupt are on
| average a lot milder than in countries without fair
| democratic elections. On average we're talking theft vs
| murder / genocide.
| strager wrote:
| > Are there not corrupt politicians?
|
| There are. And democracy makes politicians seem more
| legitimate. Democracy in the wrong place can make corruption
| worse.
|
| Hiring cops should not be a popularity contest (i.e.
| democratic) in my opinion.
| maratbn wrote:
| The US has in interesting system where new ideas are first
| tried on local levels like individual towns / counties /
| states, which all compete with each other. It would be
| interesting to see such a reform tried out somewhere small
| and if it works better than the current status quo.
|
| And since the current status quo involves rape and murder,
| I argue that even if it sucks it would still be a huge
| improvement.
| badinsie wrote:
| 3/5 cops take illegal steroids. 4/5 cops in LA are in a gang. i
| say just throw them all in prison.
| honkycat wrote:
| The scary question is: "why do they keep them employed?"
|
| The answer is: As long as they are busting the right heads, they
| are doing their jobs perfectly. It is not about protecting
| citizens. It is about corralling and controlling them.
|
| You will stew in your decaying cities full of people experiencing
| mental crisis and drug addicts, and you will not complain as we
| do nothing.
| alx__ wrote:
| Nothing the LAPD does shocks me anymore. They've normalized their
| awful behavior as the norm
| notch656a wrote:
| Remember when they were looking for Dorner and they just
| started shooting up pickup trucks that vaguely looked like
| Dorner's?
|
| "At about 5:30 am (PST), at least seven[98] LAPD officers on a
| protection detail of an unnamed LAPD official's residence in
| the 19500 block of Redbeam Street[99] in the Los Angeles County
| city of Torrance opened fire on the back of a light blue Toyota
| Tacoma and shot its two occupants, Emma Hernandez, 71, and her
| daughter, Margie Carranza, 47,[98][100] delivering newspapers
| for the Los Angeles Times.[10][101] The vehicle, according to
| officers, was spotted exiting a freeway and heading to the area
| of the residence that officers were protecting, was thought by
| police to match the description of Dorner's 2005 gray Nissan
| Titan and was moving without its headlights on.[97][102]
| Hernandez was shot in the back and Carranza received wounds to
| her hand. Their attorney claimed police "had no idea who was in
| that vehicle" when they opened fire, and that nothing about his
| clients or their vehicle matched the descriptions given of the
| suspect or his truck.[103] The two women stated that they were
| given no warning prior to being fired upon.[104]" -- wiki
|
| LAPD will happily attempt to kill anyone vaguely matching the
| description of someone they have beef with.
| oefrha wrote:
| They literally have gangs within named Executioners, Grim
| Reapers, and so on.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Wrong police department.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| >Their attorney claimed police "had no idea who was in that
| vehicle" when they opened fire
|
| No, but they knew that the truck contained a dangerous amount
| of paper with an informationally poisonous substance pressed
| into it. Who knows what kind of ideological damage could have
| happened if that stuff was released into the environment. The
| narrative could crumble!
| scottyah wrote:
| They fired 107 shots, some of which made it into my old
| teachers' house. Completely wild that none were charged as
| those actions were actually worse than a gang related drive
| by.
| Alupis wrote:
| > They fired 107 shots
|
| I don't know anything about this incident, and will not
| comment on such.
|
| I just wanted to point out the number of shots fired here
| from 7+ individuals is not unusual in the slightest, and is
| not an argument point that should be used to convince
| anyone of anything.
|
| Too often uninformed folks throw around the number of shots
| fired as-if it means incompetence/maleficence/or worse. It
| rarely if ever does.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Allow me to add an edit here since no one seems capable of
| understanding the nuance in my original post above.
|
| _DO NOT_ Use round count as an indicator of anything, or
| as a cornerstone for an argument. You will be trying to
| imply something that is just flatly wrong, and it will
| reduce your argument to being an uninformed person.
|
| _DO_ Focus on the facts of the events and ensure outrage
| is placed where it should be. Round count is not it.
|
| With that said - allow me to further clarify my original
| disclaimer. Should the events of that day taken place? From
| my uninformed opinion (having only read the above quote) -
| no, they should not have.
|
| In summary, don't quote round counts like it means
| something. It doesn't, and it only serves to make you look
| uninformed.
| fudgefactorfive wrote:
| I'm sorry but the American police and their training to
| "mag-dump" is something even an uninformed bystander
| could probably call excessive. A car with no weapons,
| hence no returning fire and 7 separate officers all but
| empty their clips until the smoke clears is a
| quintessential example of the criticisms of American
| police training.
|
| I spoke recently with a swiss police officer that
| complained they aren't even allowed to taze someone with
| a knife explicitly threatening life and instead must
| attempt to talk them down before even being allowed to
| put hands on the obvious perpetrator. One is training as
| an officer of the peace, the other is training for a
| soldier in a warlords personal hit squad. Even actual
| American soldiers are court-martialed if they even raise
| their weapon at an incoming hostile without several
| verbal warnings going unheeded and even then must fire a
| warning shot before they can engage.
| Alupis wrote:
| > even then must fire a warning shot before they can
| engage
|
| Calling BS on this story, sorry. No one in this world is
| training to fire a "warning shot". That is from the
| movies - full stop.
|
| A "warning shot" - where do you fire it? Into the road so
| it can ricochet and kill an innocent onlooker? Into the
| air so it can do the same? Into a building with an
| unknown backstop? This is beyond absurd.
|
| > Even actual American soldiers are court-martialed if
| they even raise their weapon at an incoming hostile
| without several verbal warnings going unheeded
|
| You have some fundamental facts wrong here.
| nkurz wrote:
| > No one in this world is training to fire a "warning
| shot".
|
| I'm not sure if you are correct. See this Wikipedia
| article and search for "warning": https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country
|
| It looks like several European countries have an
| established policy of firing warning shots. Denmark at
| least legally makes them required.
| Alupis wrote:
| Perhaps there is some police force that does this, but
| I'd really like to see how a "warning shot" is defined,
| because it's incredibly reckless and dangerous to fire a
| shot at anything, let alone a randomly chosen surface
| with people around.
|
| The bullet doesn't just stop... and firing at someone
| that also has a gun is a surefire way to get them to
| shoot back.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The UN lists warning shots as rules of engagement for
| some of their activities[1], same thing goes for the
| DHS[2] so there are obviously people in this world for
| whom warning shots are standard fare.
|
| Regarding rules of engagement, verbal warnings are
| sometimes first issued before use of deadly force, for
| example, by the US in Iraq[3].
|
| [1] https://www.unodc.org/documents/Maritime_crime/UNODC_
| GMCP_Ru...
|
| [2] https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/
| mgmt/la...
|
| [3] https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB140/a93.pdf
| Alupis wrote:
| Did you read the sources you linked to?
|
| The first is for Martime incidents, which means you can
| safely fire into the water (this cannot be done on land).
|
| The second source makes it completely clear "warning
| shots" are prohibited except for when at sea (martime law
| again), and under very specific cases while in the air.
|
| The third source explicitly states in all caps, "NO
| WARNING SHOTS" and says you're to "SHOOT: to remove the
| threat of death/serious bodily injury...".
|
| Further, all 3 documents provided are for military
| scenarios, not law enforcement.
|
| I do not understand where any one of these sources
| supports your argument.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| You said:
|
| > _No one in this world is training to fire a "warning
| shot". That is from the movies - full stop._
|
| That is clearly not true, as evidenced by the two sources
| I supplied.
|
| As for the third source, that has nothing to do with
| warning shots, but the fact that the military does
| prioritize things like verbal warnings before engagement.
|
| They clearly write on page 4 "when possible, use the
| following degrees of force against actors: 1) Shout 2)
| Shove 3) Show" with "4) Shoot" followed by several
| caveats.
| Alupis wrote:
| How about No Law Enforcement Entity then...?
|
| I'd still argue "no one" applies here because the listed
| acceptable cases is extremely small and specific to
| martime or aviation (both cases where other means of
| verbal communication can be difficult or impossible - as
| pointed out in both linked sources).
|
| So it is still true, no one land-based is training to
| fire warning shots. It's just not a thing people do
| because it, in itself, is extremely dangerous and
| negligent.
|
| That "warning shot" has to go somewhere... how can you be
| sure it won't injure or kill someone? How can you make
| sure the "bad guy" knows it's just a warning shot and not
| intended to be lethal? A warning shot does nothing but
| convince the "bad guy" they should return fire...
|
| Lastly, how do we know these LEO's didn't shout warnings
| at the vehicle? Anecdotally, every police encounter I've
| seen where force was applied started off with a massive
| array of verbal warnings. It's part of their training...
| fritztastic wrote:
| The regulations on the use of deadly force in the
| military are much more stringent and the escalation has
| to occur in a specific way to justify the use of deadly
| force, even when a person is being hostile. In an active
| war zone, the situation is different but it is a war zone
| (which is the exception, not the norm)- in most
| situations for most people trained in the military, the
| standard way to respond is much more reserved in terms of
| violence than how a lot of police behave domestically
| (maybe because of the context of preventing an
| international incident) and there are very strict rules
| and serious consequences to using a firearm- at least in
| most places/situations when servicemembers are issued a
| firearm.
| Alupis wrote:
| I think you might be stretching this a lot... try to
| drive past the front gate at your local military base and
| we can see just how reserved their use of force is.
|
| It is true, however, that the military has strict rules
| for when lethal force are permitted. I'm not sure how
| that counters anything said here, since LE also has very
| strict rules.
|
| In hindsight, we can all examine the facts and agree the
| force used in that situation was unwarranted. But that's
| the benefit of hindsight.
|
| Regardless, we should not focus on how many rounds were
| fired. We should instead focus on how the wrong decision
| was made in the first place.
|
| That is the point of this entire thread. Do not use round
| count to indicate anything. It just doesn't indicate
| anything...
| vkou wrote:
| > since LE also has very strict rules.
|
| Those strict rules boil down to 'whenever you _feel_
| threatened. '
|
| If it ever goes to court, the prosecution simply has to
| prove that the officer in question _was thinking the
| wrong thoughts_ when he pulled the trigger. Which is, of
| course, next-to-impossible.
| Alupis wrote:
| > the prosecution simply has to prove that the officer in
| question was thinking the wrong thoughts when he pulled
| the trigger.
|
| Close, but not quite. It's not about what the person was
| thinking, it's about what a "reasonable person" would
| think given the same situation.
|
| For what it's worth, this is how it works for civilians
| too.
|
| The only burden is to convince a jury a reasonable person
| would also believe there was a threat given the same
| situation. Reasonable meaning having the same information
| as the people involved, ie. without the benefit of
| hindsight or later discovered facts.
| vkou wrote:
| > it's about what a "reasonable person" would think given
| the same situation.
|
| Then why are the seven LAPD officers that shot at the
| pickup truck during their manhunt for Dorner not serving
| ten-to-twenty?
|
| Because if me and six of my closest friends shot up a
| random, non-threatening truck with two women in it,
| there's not a jury in the world who wouldn't convict us,
| and there's not a prosecutor in the world who would
| decline to press charges.
|
| They are only held to the same standards as the rest of
| us in theory. In practice, the bar is so low, it's
| practically nonexistant.
| Alupis wrote:
| I think you answered your own question. Because a
| "reasonable person", given all the same facts the
| officers had at the moment the shooting occurred, felt
| the use of force was justified.
|
| They did not just get together and shoot up a non-
| threatening truck with two women in it, as you say.
| That's what we would say in hindsight, given the facts
| as-discovered after the incident.
|
| The question you should be asking, but didn't, is why the
| first officer that opened fire is not in trouble for an
| obvious (in hindsight) wrong call. I would hazard to
| guess qualified immunity played into that officer's case.
| Perhaps that is where you should focus.... not on the
| number of rounds used.
| vkou wrote:
| > I think you answered your own question. Because a
| "reasonable person", given all the same facts the
| officers had at the moment the shooting occurred, felt
| the use of force was justified.
|
| In no universe were they justified in their manhunt for a
| 250lb man to open fire at a pickup truck of the wrong
| model and color, driven by two women.
|
| The first rule of using firearms, regardless of whether
| you shoot one round, or one hundred and five, is that you
| need to know what the hell you're shooting at before you
| do it. Are you saying that they opened fire without
| having any idea who they were shooting at? What kind of
| reasonable person would do so? One that is blind? One
| that has zero regard for human life?
|
| That's not a lapse in judgement, that's not a 'whoopsie
| daisies', that's not grounds for a civil suit, that's a
| felony if done by anyone without a badge. A hanging
| offense if someone were killed over it.
| Alupis wrote:
| What I'm saying is clearly a jury (if this went to court,
| I don't know and will not research further since it's
| irrelevant) had facts and knowledge that you do not.
| Specifically, the knowledge possessed by the officers at
| the moment this happened.
|
| We have the benefit of knowing all the facts now, after
| the event occurred. We are privy to information the
| officers did not have at that moment - specifically that
| it was an unarmed vehicle without the suspect inside.
|
| Very often the outrage from these events centers around
| post-event facts that were not known at the time the
| event happened. This is why it often appears like LEO's
| get "off" without punishment when the reality is they
| acted reasonably given the information they had at the
| moment.
|
| Perhaps it should be discussed if the call was actually
| reasonable or not. That's fine. What's not fine is
| pretending 107 rounds fired means anything at all... it
| doesn't.
|
| So no, despite what TV wants you to think, there are not
| gangs with badges driving around shooting up random
| trucks for funsies. That's just not reality.
|
| > The first rule of using firearms
|
| To be pedantic, this is not the first rule of firearms.
| vkou wrote:
| So, let me get this straight.
|
| If the police are looking for a dangerous suspect in my
| town, I, as a civilian, can feel free to start shooting
| up any vehicle that is of the same _type_ as that of the
| suspect?
|
| And I should be in the clear, as long as I can reasonably
| argue that I don't know who I was shooting at?
|
| Is this the society you think we live in? One where the
| prosecutor will not charge me, because, aw shucks, he
| can't prove that I _knew_ what I was doing when I started
| blasting?
| Alupis wrote:
| No, that is not even remotely close to what was said.
| Perhaps you should read it before responding further.
| fritztastic wrote:
| The active threat of someone intentionally driving
| through a security checkpoint at a military base is an
| entirely different context. At the point they're crossing
| the threshold they've already disregarded very obvious
| markings, signs, obstacles, and undobtedly commands from
| the sentries on post. There are a number of scenarios for
| which there are pre planned responses- deviating from
| those leaves you facing the UCMJ and you're expected to
| have a very solid justification for using deadly force.
|
| Shooting at a vehicle not actively causing harm due to a
| perceived threat because it _looks like_ the vehicle of
| someone you reasonably expect to be a threat is... well,
| _that 's_ a stretch.
|
| Anecdotally I can say from personal experience there is a
| lot more restraint being used when guarding people/places
| relating to national security in place where you can
| reasonably expect to encounter threats and terrorism than
| the amount of restraint police here use at civilians
| domestically.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I live in a residential area outside of a military base.
| Civilians accidentally drive into the base's properties
| and roads all the time. The most that happens is that
| someone in camo tells you that you're trespassing and to
| not do it again. Speaking from experience.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > the number of shots fired here from 7+ individuals is
| not unusual in the slightest
|
| That in and of itself is a problem.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| For reference, the LAPD standard issue pistol seems to be
| a FN 509 MRD-LE, with a magazine capacity of 17. Because
| police seem to be trained to empty their entire magazine
| any time they fire, that would be about in line with this
| number.
| Alupis wrote:
| > Because police seem to be trained to empty their entire
| magazine any time they fire
|
| That is not just police - that is firearms training 101.
| Even civilian training courses hammer this into you.
|
| You do not stop firing until it is absolutely clear there
| is no more threat.
|
| I realize a significant portion of HNers are not familiar
| with firearms and have had zero firearms training. You'll
| have to take my word, and that of any other brave voices
| that this is how it's suppose to work.
|
| The amount of rounds fired is quite literally the least
| concerning thing about the event. My original point was
| do not use round count as some sort of hammer to make a
| point - you only come off as uninformed and it diminishes
| your overall argument.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Emptying everything is a foolish action because it leaves
| you without any bullets where unregistered threats can
| emerge.
| Alupis wrote:
| Nobody carries only a single magazine...
| ipaddr wrote:
| Taking time and attention to reload means you are a
| sitting target. Whoever is teaching this assumes one
| threat and one exchange model which is foolish and fatal
| in real life. Anyone can take your money and call it a
| class but it is not what they teach you in the army or
| special ops. It might go over well with the soccer moms
| but it is not even a good strategy for paintball.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| For what it's worth, I was agreeing with you by posting
| their standard service pistol. However, I am also quite
| familiar with firearms, and strongly disagree with your
| belief that this is "the proper technique," it's just
| what police are currently (improperly, in my very strong
| opinion) trained to do.
| Alupis wrote:
| I'm not sure what training you've had, and don't care to
| get into some sort of measurement contest, but I can
| assure you anything beyond "Introductory"
| classes/training hammer this into you ad nauseum.
|
| The gun only comes out for one reason - that is to kill
| something that you perceive to pose an immediate danger
| to you or someone around you. The gun does not come out
| for funsies - if it's out, someone is getting shot until
| they're not a threat anymore (which can mean different
| things depending on the situation).
|
| It's not a "mag dump" as some have indicated, it's "fire
| until there's no more threat, reload and keep firing if
| there is still a threat".
|
| The gun is a tool for killing. It is that simple. The gun
| comes out, someone is dying. It's that cold.
|
| This isn't the movies. People don't get hit once and
| leave the fight... this is real life.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| As others have responded to you, and like you even said -
| "fire until there is no further threat" doesn't mean mag
| dump. However, that is what police do. This is a sign of
| very poor situational awareness, not "sticking to
| training." You wonder why others are arguing with you and
| downvoting you, you're speaking with authority on
| something, but you're at odds with yourself. You are
| correct that number of rounds fired is not a good
| indicator of the "intensity" of a firefight, you are
| incorrect that this is "normal" or "reasonable" behavior
| on the part of the police. Continuing to reply to
| everyone with "it's not a movie, I have training, the
| rest of you don't" etc doesn't aid your claims, it just
| makes you sound smug while.. still being wrong.
| Alupis wrote:
| I have not seen any officers training to literally "mag
| dump". We don't know what pistol (if it was even a
| pistol) was used nor it's magazine capacity, nor if this
| department allowed accessories like extensions, nor do we
| know if everyone fired the same amount. So no, nobody
| "mag dumped" here, and nobody is trained to "mag dump".
| That's quite a straw man...
|
| You are, however, trained to fire until there is no more
| threat (as repeated over and over). That's exactly what
| happened here. Turns out in hindsight they got the
| initial assessment very wrong... that should be the focus
| of the discussion, not rounds fired.
|
| > you're speaking with authority on something
|
| No, I just happen to be the only person here with
| firearms training that is brave enough to burn a bunch of
| points trying to help uninformed folks focus on what
| matters (hint, it's not round count).
| WaxProlix wrote:
| > No, I just happen to be the only person here with
| firearms training that is brave enough
|
| Very brave of you. I have some (mild, think seriousmode
| CCW class) training in the area too, and FWIW it doesn't
| exactly match your description.
|
| > trying to help uninformed folks focus on what matters
|
| But you're the one who's constantly muddying the waters
| and turning this into a flame war instead of
| conversation. Reread the article, then reread this
| thread. If you come to the conclusion that you're doing
| something constructive or helpful, rather than that you
| have ulterior motives or need to seriously improve your
| communication skills, there's probably no reconciling
| your POV with anyone else's.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Because police seem to be trained to empty their
| entire magazine any time they fire_
|
| > _You do not stop firing until it is absolutely clear
| there is no more threat._
|
| One does not mean or imply the other. "until there is no
| more threat" doesn't say anything about a magazine.
|
| The only relationship between the two is the presumption
| that while reloading you will have time to realize your
| target is already dead, while you might not have realized
| it a moment before in the haze of gunfire. But nobody is
| obliged to empty their entire magazine before evaluating
| the effect they had. Police are trained to stop shooting
| when the threat is gone and there are ample body camera
| videos showing police who stop shooting before their
| magazine is empty. This demonstrates that one is not
| necessarily synonymous with the other.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Maybe it is in the US that it's completely normal that 7
| or so individuals fire 10+ shots each, without any shots
| being fired back. I can tell you it's completely not
| normal in pretty much any other country in the world. If
| they teach people in gun classes to empty their clip
| "just in case" then maybe you should take a hard look at
| the gun classes (and the people we are talking about here
| are professionals supposedly).
|
| To put this in perspective in 2021 the German police
| fired 139 shots in total against people or things (this
| excludes shots fired against dangerous, sick or injured
| animals which is much higher), of which 60 were warning
| shots. [1]
|
| [1] https://fragdenstaat.de/dokumente/182399-falle-von-
| polizeili...
| Alupis wrote:
| This isn't a movie. 107 shots didn't take 30 minutes...
| this "firefight" was over in seconds.
|
| The fact that no shots were fired back is the only reason
| the round count is as low as it is.
|
| > If they teach people in gun classes to empty their clip
| "just in case" then maybe you should take a hard look at
| the gun classes
|
| This isn't a movie folks. If the gun comes out of it's
| holster, there is a non-trivial chance someone is about
| to die. We can all agree the events in the above story
| should not have taken place.
|
| I want to be _really_ clear here, uninformed folks
| passing judgement by number of rounds fired is about as
| absurd as it can be. It literally has no impact on the
| story, and it literally does not mean any of the things
| you might want it to mean.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I don't understand your point. The comment you answered
| points out that in other countries, the police firing 107
| shots is in fact, very not normal. Your comment doesn't
| attempt to explain why there is a difference between it
| being normal in the US and abnormal everywhere else,
| besides dismissing it as "uninformed folks passing
| judgement". I'd like to know your opinion on why you
| think the entire German police can get away with firing
| 137 shots in an entire year while the LA police fires 107
| in a single incident.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Thank you, for putting it more eloquently than me. I was
| completely baffled by that reply.
| evan_ wrote:
| > the number of shots fired here from 7+ individuals is
| not unusual in the slightest
|
| what's the normal number of shots one should expect to be
| fired at a completely uninvolved party for no reason by
| 7+ police officers? I've got a number in my head.
| Alupis wrote:
| I should have been prepared for the pushback I suppose.
|
| No, 107 shots is not unusual. The events under-which
| these shots were fired was unusual, but 107 shots being
| fired from 7+ individuals is not unusual.
|
| Averaging about 15 rounds per individual (if only 7 were
| present, the quote says at least 7), this "firefight" (I
| realize there was no return fire, just using generally
| accepted terms) was over in seconds.
|
| Anyone with any iota of firearms training can attest to
| this.
|
| If I had to guess, one individual initiated fire (jumpy,
| poor training, thought they saw something, who knows),
| and then the rest fell back into their training and
| opened fire as well. That is exactly how it is supposed
| to work, and not just for LE.
|
| In _all_ firearms training - be it military, law
| enforcement, and even civilian - you are trained to fire
| until you are certain there is no more threat. This isn
| 't the movies, you don't "just shoot them in the leg" or
| whatever uninformed slogan is popular these days.
|
| As I previously made a disclosure that I was not
| commenting on the events themselves, only the specific
| comment that sought to use the round count as some sort
| of outrage data point.
| bhk wrote:
| > then the rest fell back into their training and opened
| fire as well
|
| So what exactly are they trained to do? When you hear
| gunshots, start shooting at something?
| yellowapple wrote:
| > In all firearms training - be it military, law
| enforcement, and even civilian - you are trained to fire
| until you are certain there is no more threat.
|
| In any _competent_ firearms training you are trained to
| actually assess the threat first, and are absolutely
| _not_ trained to magdump at the first vaguely-scary-
| looking thing and then have no ammunition left for
| subsequent threats.
| Alupis wrote:
| > In any competent firearms training you are trained to
| actually assess the threat first
|
| Yes, this is true. I think it can be very easily assumed
| once a single officer opens fire at a moving vehicle the
| rest will assume a threat was assessed. The focus of this
| thread should clearly be on why the first officer
| perceived a threat this wrongly - not how many rounds
| were fired.
|
| > and are absolutely not trained to magdump at the first
| vaguely-scary-looking thing
|
| That's not what happened here.
|
| > and then have no ammunition left for subsequent
| threats.
|
| For anyone that has little or no firearms training -
| people almost never carry only a single magazine,
| particularly in a tactical environment (meaning you carry
| a gun for a living). These officers probably had 2 or 3
| spare magazines on their person.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > I think it can be very easily assumed once a single
| officer opens fire at a moving vehicle the rest will
| assume a threat was assessed.
|
| The flipside of that is that individual officers have
| greater opportunity to be more strategic and deliberate
| with their shots.
|
| > The focus of this thread should clearly be on why the
| first officer perceived a threat this wrongly - not how
| many rounds were fired.
|
| The number of rounds fired is itself a problem, _on top_
| of them being fired without anything vaguely resembling
| good cause. It suggests blind fear on the shooters ' part
| rather than actually assessing and verifying a threat.
|
| > That's not what happened here.
|
| That's _exactly_ what happened here. Cops got scared of a
| cop-killing rogue cop, said cops saw something that
| vaguely resembled said cop-killer 's vehicle, said cops
| immediately panicked and emptied their magazines at it.
|
| > These officers probably had 2 or 3 spare magazines on
| their person.
|
| Which one would then have to reload. Reload time might
| not seem like that big of a deal, but it still adds
| precious seconds that would mean the difference between
| life and death - you know, assuming this was an actual
| threat.
| evan_ wrote:
| > I realize there was no return fire
|
| > the rest fell back into their training and opened fire
|
| > That is exactly how it is supposed to work
|
| > you are trained to fire until you are certain there is
| no more threat
|
| This is very unusual! I don't give a single shit that
| they were trained to do it! If the training is to just
| start shooting and let God sort it out- THAT'S BAD!
|
| I find it very unusual that you can just randomly be
| annihilated by a death squad while driving to work!
| Alupis wrote:
| So we agree the events were unusual?
|
| Good because that's been my disclaimer all along.
|
| What is not unusual, is given that there was a shooting,
| 107 rounds from 7+ individual is completely normal.
|
| Do not use round count as a data point to attack events
| like this. It only diminishes your actual argument, which
| I assume is this event never should have happened in the
| first place.
| evan_ wrote:
| Here's what you sound like- "Yes obviously they were
| trained to shoot random bystanders as many times as
| possible, how else could they be sure that they killed
| the random bystanders? If they only shot THE RANDOM
| INNOCENT BYSTANDERS 14 times each instead of 15, there's
| a dangerous possibility that THE RANDOM INNOCENT
| BYSTANDERS will not be killed as completely as possible!"
|
| If this is how they're trained then it's bad training!
| Please kindly fuck all the way off!
| Alupis wrote:
| I'm unsure if you're being deliberately obtuse or if
| you're just trying to sensationalize what I've said.
| Neither are good... and this is quickly devolving from a
| discussion about being well-informed to a flame war.
| Let's not flame war please.
|
| Nothing I've said says anything about shooting
| bystanders.
|
| What I have said, over and over again, is using round
| count as some sort of point is very misguided. Given the
| events of that day already occurred, it is very
| unsurprising 107 rounds were fired. That does not make it
| right that any rounds were fired at all. I'm sorry if you
| cannot understand this nuance.
| evan_ wrote:
| > What I have said, over and over again, is using round
| count as some sort of point is very misguided.
|
| You have said that over and over again. You aren't
| supporting that point in any way though, you're just
| saying it over and over.
|
| You seem to think that "police training" or "firearms
| training 101" or whatever is a fundamental, unchangable
| law of the universe. "Of course they shot at a random
| bystander 107 times, gravity is 9.8m/s^2, what do you
| expect?"
|
| In reality this "training" was developed by psychopaths
| who want to ensure that cops are held to a different set
| of standards than the rest of us unwashed masses. It's
| not a natural rule of the universe! It can be questioned
| and changed!
|
| Imagine if after the single "jumpy" cop took one shot the
| other cops said "hey knock that off, there's no threat
| here." That seems to be wholly against this precious
| training you're willing to go to the mat for, but I'm
| expected to believe it would be a worse outcome than
| shooting innocent bystanders 107 times? Get the boot out
| of your mouth.
| Alupis wrote:
| The training is this way because if the gun comes out, it
| is being used. And guns don't give hugs and kisses...
|
| A gun is a tool, used to remove a threat. The best way to
| accomplish that is to use it until there is no more
| threat.
|
| There is no other possible training for this - so yes
| it's a lot like your gravity analogy, although much
| colder and unforgiving.
|
| This is not the movies. I can't say that enough. The
| movies have really warped people's perception of reality
| when it comes to firearms.
|
| Before you respond - consider this: Why are we focused on
| the round count and the possible implied lack of training
| that led to 107 rounds being fired _instead_ of focusing
| on the clear lack of training that led to the situation
| in the first place? The round count couldn 't literally
| matter any less...
| evan_ wrote:
| But the only gun that came out was from the cops! The
| only threat was from the cops! Why are you lying about
| this? You seem to understand that there was no other
| threat but you keep acting like there was!
|
| Maybe the other cops should have shot the first cop 92
| times, that would be OK I guess.
|
| EDIT:
|
| > The round count couldn't literally matter any less...
|
| Are you actually just stupid? Would you like to get shot
| at 1 time or 107 times?
| Alupis wrote:
| > The only threat was from the cops!
|
| We know that now, don't we. Which means your focus should
| be on _how_ this threat was perceived so incorrectly -
| not how the threat was ended.
|
| A threat is a term used to describe anything that you
| perceive (correctly or incorrectly) as an immediate
| danger to yourself or those around you.
|
| > Are you actually just stupid? Would you like to get
| shot at 1 time or 107 times?
|
| Clearly you are not interested in learning here... but
| I'll try again.
|
| The fact that these officers (likely a single officer
| actually) incorrectly identified this vehicle as a threat
| is where your energies should be placed. The round count
| is irrelevant, unless you assume the events of that day
| could not be avoided?
|
| Given the events happened, 107 rounds is not surprising.
| Do not use round count like it's some sort of indicator
| of anything other than the wielder's own uninformed
| opinions. Just don't do it... focus on what matters
| instead.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Ah so this is all just typical boring HN pendantry.
| [deleted]
| uoaei wrote:
| "Unusual" is a normative claim, and thus means precisely
| nothing in this analysis.
| microtherion wrote:
| Just to put this in context, 107 rounds is on the order
| of what police in all of Germany are firing at people IN
| A YEAR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_
| by_country#...
| bombcar wrote:
| If a shot is fired, you can basically assume a magdump.
|
| If a shot was fired, and the mag wasn't dumped, something
| is very suspicious.
| notch656a wrote:
| I read it as 7 x 15 round magazine emptied, with two
| officers carrying 15 + 1 in the chamber. Complete
| conjecture on my part.
| r00fus wrote:
| 107 shots randomly fired is complete negligence. Cops
| should be held to a higher standard than street thugs
| even though the results for bystanders may be the same.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Doesn't LAPD have gang infiltration? I think I heard that a
| few times.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Not so much gang infiltration, which implies existing
| gangs getting access to LAPD, but the harboring of deputy
| gangs, which are gangs created by police officers in the
| LAPD.
|
| More info:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-
| county-...
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| That story is about the LA Sheriffs, not the LAPD.
| They're different organizations.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It did NOT vaguely look like Dorner's truck, it was a
| completely different make and color! Literally the only
| similarities were having a pickup bed!
| asdff wrote:
| They blew up a neighborhood block last year, while ignoring
| their bomb technician:
|
| ""Based on my experience and everything, I said, uh, this is
| too much to do one shot, we're gonna break them up, right?" the
| technician recalled saying to a colleague.
|
| He said his colleagues and his supervisor told him that he was
| wrong and that he should "relax," and the fireworks were loaded
| into the vessel all at once anyway, the inspector general
| found. Later, he said, he told a colleague measuring out a
| counter-charge, "I have a bad feeling ... this is not good ...
| this is too big," and was again ignored.
|
| The subsequent blast, on June 30, ripped open the containment
| vessel and destroyed much of the surrounding neighborhood,
| damaging nearly 40 vehicles and 35 properties, injuring 17
| people and displacing dozens more residents -- many of whom
| have never returned."
|
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-25/lapd-bom...
| [deleted]
| fritztastic wrote:
| >Gage claims that Tipping wound up with three broken ribs, a
| lacerated liver, head injuries, and a broken neck. "His heart
| eventually stopped working because of his injuries" and "he was
| paralyzed....He had subdural hematomas at three places on the
| left side and three places on the right side. There is no way
| that grappling would have caused those injuries the way the LAPD
| portrayed it."
|
| Sure sounds less like a simulation and more like an actual event.
|
| It's really not easy to have someone die during an exercise with
| this many injuries caused by physical contact. Things like
| drownings, falls, and collisions can occur in a hugh risk
| training event- but this extent of injuries from falling on the
| ground seems real tough to spin as accidental or unintentional.
| At best you'd have to be extremely negligent, at worst this was a
| deliberate choice.
|
| You'd really think someone would notice the person they're
| training with is actually hurt and stop to check in on them,
| presumably there are measures in place to pause the exercise
| which people are aware of before starting- were these ignored? I
| guess we'd have to have a discussion on the intent of the
| exercise and the extent to which force is used with no regard for
| safety during training, which is a whole other issue.
| [deleted]
| philipov wrote:
| Eyyy, he just fell down the stairs. Don't worry about it!
| [deleted]
| Brybry wrote:
| Broken ribs are common from CPR. They even mention it during
| CPR training (and they told us to keep going anyway).
|
| I don't remember anything about liver lacerations but a quick
| google does say it happens: looks like the sternum can slice
| your liver during compressions[1] (warning: graphic).
|
| No idea on head injuries or a broken neck from "grappling"
| though.
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245224731...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Paramedic: if you're getting CPR, you're dead already.
| Doesn't get worse.
|
| It's not so much broken ribs (though those are possible), but
| separation from the sternum. Not pleasant, but not
| particularly problematic (people walk out of the hospital at
| times within 3-4 days of cardiac arrest as subsequent ROSC
| (return of spontaneous circulation) after CPR/defib.
|
| And if you survive to ROSC, you're getting a stay in ICU as
| it is, where things like internal lacerations, aspiration can
| be treated.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Does grappling include throws? Because people have been
| killed practising Judo by messing up their falls.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| Hello! I studied Judo for years.
|
| > Gage claims that Tipping wound up with three broken ribs,
| a lacerated liver, head injuries, and a broken neck. "His
| heart eventually stopped working because of his injuries"
| and "he was paralyzed....He had subdural hematomas at three
| places on the left side and three places on the right side.
| There is no way that grappling would have caused those
| injuries the way the LAPD portrayed it."
|
| This is not a failed breakfall. Any questions?
| tmtvl wrote:
| I shall defer to your expertise, it does quite look like
| malicious intent cost the unfortunate officer his life.
| Hopefully his next of kin can receive the closure they
| deserve.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| alach11 wrote:
| HN tends to have an interest in anti-authoritarian and anti-
| corruption stories.
| muaytimbo wrote:
| Are you suggesting these sorts of injuries are "run-of-the-
| mill" for bicycle training and that this is a non-story?
| tb_technical wrote:
| What a coincidence! /s
| akiselev wrote:
| This is a great reminder that the LAPD is largely a bunch of
| thugs with badges and guns. I don't mean that in a teenage angst
| "every cop is a thug" way, but in a "raining federal convictions"
| way. [1][2]
|
| The current sheriff was a member of the "Grim Reapers" [3] and
| the battle against the thugs has been on going for _fifty years_
| [4]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Baca
|
| [3] https://www.dailynews.com/2022/07/01/former-top-aide-to-
| vill...
|
| [4] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-
| county-...
| steve76 wrote:
| [deleted]
| president wrote:
| Throughout the years I'm learning that all of our leaders and
| major institutions are corrupt and flawed. We're just lucky
| that there was enough wealth to go around to placate people in
| the past few decades but now we're reaching a point where there
| isn't and people aren't happy and won't be happy until a major
| shift happens.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| There's an ancillary realization that comes with this, and
| that is the fact that many of us are actively building a
| security state via tech that will enforce the status quo more
| effectively than any other system in history has, and it
| won't matter how many people want change after that.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Of all the places with some background on the LAPD, "O.J.: Made
| in America" from 2016 covered the major race-relations problems
| the LAPD had in the 20th century. It was pretty eye-opening.
|
| I'd be interested to know if there are any documentaries
| focused purely on the LAPD, however.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| LAPD and LASD are different orgs, but yeah they are probably
| both corrupt to the core. I know for a fact that there was a
| LASD gang called the Compton Executioners that excluded women
| and people of color.
| akiselev wrote:
| Great catch! As a long time resident of LA, few people make
| the distinction (I surely didn't). The LAPD has its fair
| share of awfulness [1] but when the allegations are _this
| bad_ it's important not to paint every cop as guilty by
| association without evidence (and the evidence against the
| LASD is very strong)
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots
| weaksauce wrote:
| > paint every cop as guilty by association without evidence
|
| it was the LAPD that opened fire on two old ladies in a
| truck that was the wrong type and color in the middle of
| the day when they were trying to murder their colleague
| that put out a manifesto about how corrupt they were. Sure
| he was killing cops that he thought were corrupt but that's
| against the fold and a sign that they hold themselves to be
| unaccountable. dorner was the guy who they eventually
| burned to death in a cabin in the mountains.
|
| the old saying about the rotten apple is not that there is
| a rotten apple that is alone in the doings it's that the
| rotten apple spoils the barrel. you see one bad cop and if
| you don't have a system that stops that you will have a
| barrel full of rotten cops.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| I lived in the Lake Arrowhead area around that time.
| There were no shortage of people who said they'd let
| Dorner shack up with them if he stumbled in to their
| place.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _" [...] their colleague that put out a manifesto about
| how corrupt they were. Sure he was killing cops [...]"_
|
| Dorner didn't just publish a manifesto and kill corrupt
| cops. He also murdered Monica Quan who's only 'fault' was
| being the daughter of a retired LAPD cop, and he murdered
| Keith Lawrence who's only crime was being Monica's
| fiance, with her when she was murdered.
|
| Your whitewashing Dorner for rhetorical effect to make
| the LAPD look worse. Don't do that. The truth is bad
| enough, it doesn't need to be 'enhanced'.
| notch656a wrote:
| He published a manifesto and killed cops. These are
| incontrovertible facts. I see nothing "whitewashing"
| Dorner.
|
| It's utterly bizarre to see every time someone mentions
| Dorner's killings or manifesto, people come out of the
| woodwork to make sure we don't defend the honor or
| whitewash Dorner or whatever perceived sin you see of
| accidently somehow not saying enough bad things about
| Dorner.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The whitewashing is weaksauce's failure to mention that
| Dorner was also killing people who weren't police. This
| whitewashing was done for rhetorical effect, to make the
| LAPD seem worse by making Dorner seem better. This is
| completely unnecessary, because the facts of the case are
| already bad enough for the LAPD.
| donmaq wrote:
| Or notice how the core of his manifesto is ignored: that
| of all the police who horribly beat Rodney King & sent
| him to an early death, all were significantly rewarded in
| their careers and/or retirement. No lasting institutional
| changes were made.
| maratbn wrote:
| damn, with a name like "Compton Executioners" I would be
| proud to be excluded
| daveslash wrote:
| Regarding your link [3]...
|
| There's a paragraph that starts: " _"Why would a group of
| deputies who are charged with protecting people from violence
| and upholding the law choose a symbol of death?" he asked. Del
| Mese replied that he didn't know._ "
|
| Reminds me of: _" Have you looked at our caps lately? ....
| They've got _skulls_ on them. Are we the baddies?"_
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Also don't forget the recent-ish trend of "cops with Punisher
| logos."
| Kye wrote:
| It's like when fortunate sons play Fortunate Son at
| political rallies. Or when people get mad about Rage
| Against The Machine getting political. I'm not one to
| gatekeep comics, but they should at least skim the wiki to
| see the Punisher's origin story.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Granted, I'm not super into comic books. But the
| Pushisher is a vigilante that likes to solve crime in a
| pretty brutal way. And, IIRC, he doesn't necessarily care
| if the person is guilty, only that he thinks that they
| are "bad" in some way, and for that, they deserve
| whatever torture and brutality he dishes out. Cops flying
| a Punisher flag is not ironic, it's on the nose.
|
| Everyone gets that he represents the brutality of the
| justice system. It's just that most people in the justice
| system don't see his behavior as a fault or criticism;
| just reality.
| npteljes wrote:
| > don't see his behavior as a fault or criticism; just
| reality.
|
| I daresay "desirable".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line#Symbols_and_
| var...
| OOPMan wrote:
| No, if you've read the Garth Ennis run of The Punisher
| then you would know that cops wearing punisher shirts is
| completely misunderstanding the character.
|
| Like a lot of people, you have an idea of the character
| which is not the definitive version of the character.
|
| If you read the Punisher and you come away from it
| thinking that vigilantism, murder and so forth is good
| then there is probably something very wrong with you.
| Kye wrote:
| My main exposure is from his Netflix Marvel show
| appearances. It's been a while, but I do distinctly
| recall thinking he went easy on the people involved
| considering what they did.
| pugio wrote:
| Coincidentally, the latest episode of The Rookie (S05E02 - a
| show which portrays the LAPD as highly caring/moral) was
| partially about a group of dirty cops. Essentially the good
| cops were (sheriff plus deputies) like: "Cops can hang out
| together all they want, but as soon as they give themselves
| (their group) a name, they are destined for jail. 'Never
| fails'."
|
| Great show, funny how that works out. I'm sorry that it isn't
| remotely accurate it seems (when it comes to the rest of the
| cast).
| miguelazo wrote:
| Knock LA has done much of the original research and reporting
| on this issue.
|
| https://knock-la.com/tag/lasd/
|
| https://lasdgangs.knock-la.com/
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Anyone know what set the 4 alleged rapists are in, if any? Has
| there been any public speculation on the possibility of either
| the alleged rapists or the cops who beat this guy being in a
| gang?
| efficax wrote:
| i would definitely not put it past the lapd to murder their own
| but it seems like the guy was just a patrol cop who took a
| statement, not internal affairs or sex crimes detective who would
| actually make an arrest in a case like this, so why kill him?
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Lots of speculation and innuendo in that article.
|
| - Officer Tipping wasn't investigating rape, but simply took the
| victim statement.
|
| - The officer in the training exercise that killed Officer
| Tipping has the same name as the officer in Tipping's report, but
| they are not sure if it is the same person.
|
| - The medical examiner ruled the killing an accident. The article
| then quotes a tweet that says medical examiners undercount
| murders by police, implying collusion or coverup.
|
| - There is no recording of the training. The article states that
| often video recordings are made, implying a cover up.
|
| Abuse of power by the police is heinous. They are supposed to be
| our protectors, so I hate it as much as the next person.
|
| But we must be led by fact not belief or we are no better than
| those who believe the Big Lie.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I wonder how a medical examiner could possibly distinguish
| between bludgeoning injuries sustained as part of a simulated
| mob attack (accidental) and bludgeoning injuries sustained as
| part of a murder that took place during a simulated mob attack
| (not accidental).
| jaywalk wrote:
| I believe medical examiners make that determination based off
| the police report in cases like this. So if the cops said it
| was an accident, and the ME finds that the accidental injury
| was the cause of death, then it's an accidental death.
| mpalczewski wrote:
| What's the "Big Lie"?
| shredprez wrote:
| Donald Trump's claim that he won the 2020 election.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| Generally speaking, "the Big Lie" refers to the idea that the
| 2020 US presidential election's result was fraudulent and
| Donald Trump was the true winner.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's the most recent application; it comes more
| originally from one of the primary scapegoats used by the
| Nazis against the European Jews[1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
| danans wrote:
| The concept of a great lie or deception is really far
| older, present even in the biblical descriptions of Satan
| as the "Great Deceiver".
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's a term of art, referring to a specific kind of
| propaganda. I don't think it was inspired by that
| particular euphemism for Satan.
| danans wrote:
| > I don't think it was inspired by that particular
| euphemism for Satan.
|
| Agreed, just as the usage referring to denial of the 2020
| US presidential election was not inspired by its usage by
| the Nazis.
|
| My point is only that "Big Lie/Liar" or some variant
| thereof has been a phrase used rhetorically for
| millennia.
| rvz wrote:
| Exactly. Like the West's "Big Lie" on the whole 'War on
| Terror' operation justifying and using the media to fool
| the public with Iraq having possession of "Hidden WMDs in
| Iraq with Saddam Hussein about to launch them in
| minutes"; as a justification of invasion and repeating
| this lie when they knew it was false.
|
| A propaganda technique which fooled the world into a
| forever war that never should have happened in the first
| place which Wikipedia won't mention or tell you about.
| runesofdoom wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_Wa
| r
|
| "Accusations of faulty evidence and alleged shifting
| rationales became the focal point for critics of the war,
| who charge that the Bush administration purposely
| fabricated evidence to justify an invasion that it had
| long planned to launch."
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| True. I meant it in both senses. That is, if we don't
| actively examine our biases, we are susceptible to
| whatever big lie is the Big Lie of the time.
| jwilber wrote:
| Hard to take your views earnestly when you write:
|
| "The officer in the training exercise that killed Officer
| Tipping has the same name as the officer in Tipping's report,
| but they are not sure if it is the same person."
|
| Talk about grasping for incongruities... The article even
| mentioned it was, so why the misrepresentation from your end?
| Why present a view of moral skepticism for the accused on the
| one hand, while falsifying evidence for the accusers on the
| other?
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| "The name of one of the officers accused of rape 'seems to
| correlate with one of the officers that was at the bicycle
| training,' said Gage."
|
| "Gage could not confirm that the officer accused of rape was
| the officer directly engaged in the training exercise with
| Tipping. But he said 'our investigation indicates that yes,
| it was.' "
|
| "Seems to correlate" "Could not confirm" "Indicates"
|
| The two may indeed be the same person, but a fair reading is
| that they are presently unsure.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I agree that we shouldn't take this report to be dispositive.
| That is, we shouldn't just fling the cops at the training into
| prison. The issues raised in the article certainly seem
| suspicious and the thing to do with meaningful suspicions is
| investigate.
| wpietri wrote:
| > The article then quotes a tweet that says medical examiners
| undercount murders by police, implying collusion or coverup.
|
| Why do you believe this implies a cover-up? Could just be
| systemic bias, a big problem in the justice system.
| fundad wrote:
| systemic bias results in cover-up
| d23 wrote:
| I appreciate the nuance. These two comments summarize it for
| me:
|
| > "Officer Tipping did not sustain any laceration to the head"
| and "was also not struck or beaten during this training
| session," Police Chief Michel Moore told the LAPD Board of
| Police Commissioners in June. "He did grapple with another
| officer, and both fell to the ground, resulting in a
| catastrophic injury to his spinal cord."
|
| > Gage claims that Tipping wound up with three broken ribs, a
| lacerated liver, head injuries, and a broken neck. "His heart
| eventually stopped working because of his injuries" and "he was
| paralyzed....He had subdural hematomas at three places on the
| left side and three places on the right side. There is no way
| that grappling would have caused those injuries the way the
| LAPD portrayed it."
|
| Which is to say: I don't know. A thorough investigation by a
| competent expert with no conflicts of interest seems necessary.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > Gage claims that Tipping wound up with three broken ribs, a
| lacerated liver
|
| This is missing something.
|
| CPR often results in broken/cracked ribs and abdominal
| injuries.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266652042.
| ..
| samatman wrote:
| Giving someone with a neck injury CPR is a good way to make
| sure they stay dead, sure.
|
| Was that your point?
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| I agree that there's lots of unhelpful innuendo there. Though
| suffering _" three broken ribs, a lacerated liver, head
| injuries, and a broken neck...subdural hematomas at three
| places on the left side and three places on the right side"_
| accidentally, during a "grappling exercise", raises some
| eyebrows.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| As an amateur grappler, I don't find it plausible those
| injuries would be suffered accidentally.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| CPR causes injuries.
|
| Half of the injuries are likely tied to the CPR.
|
| The other half may or may not be related to the training
| event fall, or intentional violence.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Sure. There could be entirely 'reasonable' reasons for
| these injuries, but my smell test indicates that more
| questions are in order.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Half of the injuries are likely tied to the CPR.
|
| That's going to need some more review. As a paramedic,
| I've performed CPR more than 400+ times. In less than 5
| of them were any ribs broken. Usually on frail elderly
| people.
|
| Separation from the sternum is far more common, but will
| (apropos of other issues) cause bruising and a painful
| cough for a couple of weeks.
|
| Laceration of the liver? Only once. Also on someone more
| elderly.
|
| Certainly not impossible. But even with five or more
| firefighters pounding on someone's chest for 10-20
| minutes or more, these injuries are rare - let alone all
| of them in one patient. These cops must have been trying
| to drive his ribs through the floor with their
| compressions.
| treis wrote:
| It would be a freak accident for sure. But then a beating
| that breaks the spinal cord and other bones should leave
| many other obvious marks.
|
| And it doesn't sound like these were the only two cops
| there. I can see a wall of silence or a couple cops taking
| out another. But for random cops at a training exercise to
| sit there while one gets beaten to death seems to be quite
| a stretch.
| diordiderot wrote:
| I've broken a rib (tenth) from an over under head and arm
| toss thrown by a 220lb-er in practice.
|
| Broken rib to liver laceration makes sense.
|
| Even a broken neck is plausible, but everything together...
| I don't know
| [deleted]
| woodruffw wrote:
| Far be it from me to defend Reason, but I think you're
| overstating the degree of innuendo: the victim's statement
| _directly_ accused 4 LAPD officers of rape, meaning that
| Tipping 's conscience was the only thing between four men with
| guns and four potential, very long prison stays.
|
| Combine that with the attorney's claim that one of the accused
| officers was at the training, and you have ample motive, cause,
| and setting. A court case would reveal more details, and that's
| precisely what the Tipping's family appears to be seeking.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I don't get it. No side denies that there was some sort of
| struggle which resulted in his death - how can that be
| _accidental_? Why would a "medical examiner" make that
| judgement?
| teachrdan wrote:
| > - The officer in the training exercise that killed Officer
| Tipping has the same name as the officer in Tipping's report,
| but they are not sure if it is the same person.
|
| It appears you did not finish reading TFA. There was an
| investigation that confirmed the same officer was at the
| training:
|
| "Gage could not confirm that the officer accused of rape was
| the officer directly engaged in the training exercise with
| Tipping. But he said 'our investigation indicates that yes, it
| was.' "
|
| And frankly, if you don't think it's suspicious that an officer
| who investigated four LAPD officers raping a woman later
| getting killed in a freak bicycle training accident isn't
| suspicious, you may need to reset your baseline for what is
| "speculation and innuendo." What happened here was extremely
| suspicious. Even before considering that one of those officers
| charged was at the training.
|
| (One may even wonder why a police officer accused of rape was
| not only still on duty, but even training other officers.)
| tomcam wrote:
| > And frankly, if you don't think it's suspicious
|
| What? Mind reading. GP was mostly stating facts, not
| commenting about their own state of mind
|
| My personal thoughts are very closely aligned with yours, btw
| pessimizer wrote:
| "If" is a conditional. When I say "If you are happy about
| that..." I'm not reading your mind.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| First, my very point is that when you have only suspicion,
| you must be extra skeptical of speculation and innuendo, not
| less.
|
| Second, it is against the HN guidelines to accuse others of
| not reading the article.
|
| Because, third, I did read that your quoted paragraph. I took
| it to mean, they believe but are not sure. As in "[he] could
| not confirm..."
|
| Sadly, I struggle with your other points as they as suffer
| the same issues as the article. E.g., again, this was not a
| bicycle training, have the officers been formally charged?
| was the accused officer the trainer or a participant?
| newaccount74 wrote:
| If you just look at the facts quoted from the coroners
| report, without looking at the circumstances, it sure
| sounds like this person was beaten to death. It does not
| sound like a training accident.
| braingenious wrote:
| You'll notice that on HN it is pretty common to see
| people pop into the comments about anything police-
| related with "Well actually there is no empirical logical
| reason to disbelieve the notion that the police are the
| arbiters of truth. You sir are doing a fallacy of the
| most egregious degree! In fact you are violating the very
| covenant of the guidelines upon which this very website
| is founded by arguing in such a noxious manner! I know
| this because my herculean intellect tells me so, as I do
| not even have opinions but only the zen mastery of Truth
| Itself!"
|
| I haven't quite figured out why there are so many
| staunchly pro-police people on a site where a lot of
| posters seem to lean kind of libertarian, but it's an
| interesting and kind of amusing phenomenon.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > I haven't quite figured out why there are so many
| staunchly pro-police people on a site where a lot of
| posters seem to lean kind of libertarian
|
| An old joke: a libertarian is just a conservative who
| likes to smoke weed.
| rendall wrote:
| You don't think that a possible explanation for GP's post
| is principled disagreement that the article makes a good
| case, rather than necessarily ardent pro-cop bias?
| braingenious wrote:
| I did not make any comment about the GP's post in
| particular. I made a comment about a funny phenomenon of
| posting on HN in general. I specifically brought up
| posters using highfalutin' fancy speech to cover an
| ardent pro-cop bias.
|
| There are some posters that will use their perceived
| skill at language to do somersaults of logic in order to
| eventually land at "the police are the arbiters of truth"
| or something similar. The primary tactic is to use high
| school debate club language to put words in other
| people's mouths in an attempt to discredit _any_ view
| that doesn't align with their premise of "the police are
| arbiters of truth."
|
| Do you think that that phenomenon does not exist?
| rendall wrote:
| > _There are some posters that will use their perceived
| skill at language to do somersaults of logic..._
|
| I can agree that some people try to reason using language
| skills rather than reasoning from first principles
| jstarfish wrote:
| > One may even wonder why a police officer accused of rape
| was not only still on duty, but even training other officers.
|
| Because _accusations_ are cheap enough to be weaponizable as
| a denial-of-service attack.
|
| The penalty for false accusations is something pathetic, like
| 1 year.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Ancient cultures from 2000 years ago had the solution to
| this already. Make a false accusation, get the punishment
| you were trying to pin on someone.
|
| Simple as that. Even capital offences.
|
| This doesn't mean that if a jury can't convict, the
| prosecution gets the punishment. Still need to be legally
| proven to have made false accusations.
| uoaei wrote:
| Police officers are not held accountable commensurate to
| the incredible amount of power and influence they enjoy.
| They should be held to much _much_ higher standards if they
| want to carry a monopoly on violence (including a loaded
| gun) wherever they stand.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| I agree with the spirit of your comment, but I wonder how
| it could translate into practice. It seems like it would
| be quite the boon to organized crime if you could rid
| yourself of a meddlesome cop simply by way of accusation.
| markovbot wrote:
| Where do you see anyone saying anything about punishing
| people based just on accusations? That's not something
| anyone in this thread is advocating for.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| They don't carry a monopoly on violence though? In the
| US, at least, you have the right to defend yourself which
| can include killing or detaining a person inflicting harm
| on you or others. This is the same thing cops can do.
| notch656a wrote:
| It's a fair point, but they do have a _unique_ form of
| monopoly on violence. They can "legitimately" _initiate_
| violence.
|
| _Initiate the violence._
|
| Don't pay your property taxes, and ignore summons, etc?
| Eventually someone will show up at your door to toss you
| out of your house. If you just sit on your couch and say
| "nuh huh" eventually they will violently throw you out.
| If you use self defense to stop the violence, they'll
| simply kill you or incapacitate you.
|
| Grow a funny plant in the wrong state? Eventually, if
| they find out, men with guns will bust into your house.
| They won't be 'self-defending' you into your custody,
| they will be initiating the violence against you to take
| you.
|
| While self defense is 'violence' I think a lot of us just
| almost "don't count it." Self defense is more like
| stopping the violence, IMO.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Self defense can include stopping somebody from taking
| your property (maybe not every state?) This is comparable
| to not paying taxes. The taxes are legitimately owed to
| the government and so you have "stolen" from the
| government. Similar to stealing from an individual (in a
| sense).
|
| You may not be a fan of killing over stolen property, but
| depending on the situation and state it is completely
| allowed. I think some states even allow you to kill a
| person who stole something from you while they are
| running away.
|
| This means the initiation of physical violence can be
| initiated by you as well and be considered just.
|
| Laws regarding weed are more nuanced, but it doesn't
| change that individuals can under certain circumstances
| initiate physical violence towards somebody legitimately.
| notch656a wrote:
| I concede you're right. It's not a complete monopoly. My
| state would allow a citizen's arrest for felony theft,
| for instance. Generally killing someone over property is
| illegal, absent some unique circumstances (like breaking
| into an occupied structure).
|
| I'm not aware of any state that allows you to use
| violence to collect on a contract, however. IF you see
| taxes as satisfaction of the social contract or whatever.
| It's hard for me to argue failure to pay taxes as theft;
| I'd call it more of failure to pay for an involuntary
| contract. IMO it would be much more appropriately be
| classified as a civil offense than a criminal one.
| fundad wrote:
| whomst has right to defend themselves?
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Legally it depends on the jurisdiction. In my view
| everybody has the right though.
|
| Just to be clear you have the right to protect yourself
| or others from unjust violence not all violence. If you
| are about to murder somebody, another person does not
| have the right to stop a good Samaritan trying to stop
| the murder.
| int_19h wrote:
| Well, not quite. Cops can do this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBUUx0jUKxc
|
| And get away with it as a "justified" killing. Any
| regular person in the same situation would have been
| convicted of murder.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Maybe? The victim was reaching towards his back which
| complicates the situation. The police officer had already
| told him to not do that. This is almost certainly a
| twitchy cop who gave confusing commands like keep your
| hands up and also crawl and he probably should lose his
| job, but it isn't as easy as you seem to be conveying.
|
| If you are civilian and are detaining a person for a just
| cause like they were trying to kill you or something
| (Daniel had been pointing a gun out of a window so it is
| reasonable to think he may try to kill somebody) and the
| person reached to his back like that you might not be
| convicted if you shoot them.
|
| It seems to me like you are making the assumption that a
| civilian would be convicted. Do you have any examples for
| the same situation?
| [deleted]
| ipaddr wrote:
| Have you spent any time behind bars? A year of your life is
| not so laughable as to be pathetic.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > And frankly, if you don't think it's suspicious
|
| It's definitely suspicious. But it needs to be proved beyond
| a reasonable doubt.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Of course it does. But this is an article on an online news
| source, not a court.
| naikrovek wrote:
| why? it's an article on a webpage. why should cops get to
| profile us if we can't profile them when they "fit the
| description"?
| dantheman wrote:
| Not really, reasonable doubt should apply here. We should
| be holding our public servants to a much higher standard.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Personally, unless I see something with my own eyes, it is the
| same as Time Cube.
| uoaei wrote:
| Then it makes just as little sense to speculate on innocence
| as it does to speculate on guilt.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, yes, of course. In fact, come to think of it, is
| object permanence a reasonable concept? Once I am no longer
| perceiving an object aren't I just relying on a fallible
| memory of it?
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| Sounds like a typical murder -- like freddie gray, etc.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| It's worth mentioning - when officials commit crimes, early press
| reports usually reflect what the criminal wants.
|
| It's only after looking into it much deeper that it's clear the
| initial story was a "setup."
| unity1001 wrote:
| If this happened in any other country, the US media &
| establishment would be screaming at the top of its lungs about
| how brutal and evil that country was. But its happening in the
| US. So its 'okay'.
| xracy wrote:
| The detective work on this one must be difficult. Doesn't seem
| like the LAPD is up to the task.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| This should be investigated by the FBI in my opinion. Is it
| usually the FBI that investigstes police departments?
| NoGravitas wrote:
| I believe it's usually the state bureau of investigation,
| unless there's an interstate angle.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Yeah, IA isn't enough. We need the FBI to step in on all OI
| deaths.
| pstuart wrote:
| We need systemic outside oversite of the police. They are
| granted extraordinary powers and should have corresponding
| accountability.
| muaytimbo wrote:
| we have that, an "independent judiciary".
| 10g1k wrote:
| Nothing fishy going on at all.
| concordDance wrote:
| Why is this on Hacker News?
|
| Seems very non tech related and the type of article that
| generates heat rather than light.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| There are plenty of articles that make their way to HN that
| have nothing to do with anything technical.
| system2 wrote:
| Maybe it will inspire a hacker from HN to hack LAPD and we
| finally get some insights of what they are doing internally.
| SleepilyLimping wrote:
| I enjoy that there's just this demoralization of "yeah, I'm not
| surprised, and it's going to make me sadder to think about how
| little consequences are going to come of it."
| MisterTea wrote:
| The police departments attract the same kind of thuggish person
| who joins a gang. Someone hungry for power and respect. Many
| times there are people who have an axe to grind with society or
| were bullied so its time for payback
|
| I had a friend who became a cop and he changed in a bad way, the
| power went to his head. After two incidents, one involving him
| pulling out his off duty gun in a crowded bar I cut him off. I
| did not report him out of fear of retaliation.
|
| "Retaliation"? I talked to another friend, a former cop painted a
| hellish picture of the police: "Its a power struggle internally
| with everyone forming cliques and hierarchies trying to brown
| nose superiors to garner favors, overtime and promotions. Anyone
| who breaks rank will be targeted for harassment. If you report
| him there's a chance you'll be "randomly" pulled over one day and
| suddenly there's drugs and/or a gun in your car. They will ruin
| your life. Just keep your mouth shut."
|
| I am genuinely scared of cops.
| slaw wrote:
| Three broken ribs, a lacerated liver, head injuries, and a broken
| neck and finally death from 'bicycle' exercise.
| vkou wrote:
| This list of injuries seems consistent with falling out of a
| sixth-story window in Russia. I would have hoped that a sworn
| officer of the LAPD would have had more sense than that.
| kjeetgill wrote:
| There is no value to sarcasm and joking like this.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| The Onion has an amicus curiae brief that says otherwise.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I mean that specifically raises a very good question: are
| they the onion?
|
| When you see a legal document the onion made explicitly
| to make a point about legal documents, you know more or
| less what to expect, and how you are intended to
| interpret it.
|
| Is that true of a hacker news comment? Every hacker news
| comment?
| yellowapple wrote:
| Does one need to be the Onion for one's obvious sarcasm
| to be identified as such?
| vkou wrote:
| I'm inclined to disagree. We need to be reminded every once
| in a while that authoritarian and unaccountable
| institutions produce authoritarian outcomes, and that there
| are fewer institutions more authoritarian or unaccountable
| in this country than the precinct a few blocks up the
| street from my apartment.
|
| This community often directs its ire at abuses by the
| secret federal police, but as with many other political
| problems, the biggest problems in your life are often[1]
| not in Washington - but rather, next door.
|
| [1] But not always.
| kjeetgill wrote:
| That's fine, I agree, and your reminder is reasonable. I
| have no issue with what issues you've raised here
| plainly. I just feel that flippant sarcastic zingers are
| poor way to conduct that conversation as a metter of
| principle. It's shallow and allows everyone to read their
| own narratives in between the lines for and against the
| issues. Your point was not well made.
|
| Compare this to many other comments in this thread who
| delve into the story. What do we know happened? What
| makes this suspicious? What are the compounding concerns?
| What is only speculation thus far?
|
| It is unclear if you responding because you've
| familiarised yourself with the story? Or is it a simple
| dismissal because "Fuck LAPD"? A shallow quip directs the
| conversation to cheer around generic platitudes like this
| and everyone gets to go home with their own biases
| reaffirmed without any new knowledge gained.
|
| It's the worst of Twitter
|
| Edit: probably an unnecessary rant, but it's been on my
| mind a while.
| [deleted]
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| It was a grappling exercise meant to simulate a riot. The
| article unhelpfully offers no explanation for why the training
| schedule changed.
| slaw wrote:
| It looks like training schedule changed from bicycle to
| grappling after officer's neck was broken.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Where did you see that? Or are you just making that up to
| be funny?
| birdyrooster wrote:
| The author switches between a bicycle and grappling exercise
| and it makes it really confusing. Were they grappling people
| off of bicycles? Like why are people being thrown around and
| having their spinal cords broken from bicycle use?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| The author isn't doing the switching:
|
| > According to Gage [the family lawyer]...The training at
| which he sustained injuries "was supposed to be bicycle
| training," but somehow wound up entailing the "grappling
| exercise" that the LAPD says killed him.
|
| I think that they article shows that there's confusion as to
| how bicycle training lead to a grapple exercise. Even the
| Police Chief is reporting grappling:
|
| > "He did grapple with another officer, and both fell to the
| ground, resulting in a catastrophic injury to his spinal
| cord."
| godelski wrote:
| So... were the two cops just fighting?
| slaw wrote:
| Breaking someone's neck is not 'just' fighting, also when
| you look at injuries it doesn't look like it was one on
| one fight.
| PointA2B wrote:
| Just another extremely fortunate coincidence for people
| possessing lots of power, nothing to see here folks.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I'll point out another dimension to this: it can be entirely true
| that Tipping's death was an accident, because the other cops at
| the training exercise may have "merely" intended to beat him
| within an inch of his life for daring to break the wall of
| silence.
|
| In other words: defenses on the grounds of his death being an
| "accident" are not sufficient. What matters is the totality of
| circumstances, and those include the implicit threat of violence
| against any cop who dares to out the crimes of their peers.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| If they only intended to beat him up but accidentally killed
| him, that would be second degree murder.
|
| It could possibly be first degree murder, if California's
| felony murder rule were applied, maybe using the crime of
| torture as the felony.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's a good point; I forgot about felony murder.
| [deleted]
| samatman wrote:
| Witness intimidation is definitely a felony, even
| (especially) when the police do it.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| IANAL but I believe California's felony murder rule only
| applies to specific kinds of felonies, and I don't believe
| witness intimidation is included:
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySecti
| o...
|
| > _(a) All murder that is perpetrated by means of a
| destructive device or explosive, a weapon of mass
| destruction, knowing use of ammunition designed primarily
| to penetrate metal or armor, poison, lying in wait,
| torture, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate, and
| premeditated killing, or that is committed in the
| perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, arson, rape,
| carjacking, robbery, burglary, mayhem, kidnapping, train
| wrecking, or any act punishable under Section 206, 286,
| 287, 288, or 289, or former Section 288a, or murder that is
| perpetrated by means of discharging a firearm from a motor
| vehicle, intentionally at another person outside of the
| vehicle with the intent to inflict death, is murder of the
| first degree._
|
| Torture seems the most likely to apply in this situation:
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySecti
| o...
|
| > _Every person who, with the intent to cause cruel or
| extreme pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge,
| extortion, persuasion, or for any sadistic purpose,
| inflicts great bodily injury as defined in Section 12022.7
| upon the person of another, is guilty of torture._
|
| I think a revenge beating meets that definition of torture,
| and torture is one of the felonies specifically listed in
| California's felony murder rule.
| samatman wrote:
| Thanks for the added detail, I _did_ technically only
| make the claim that it 's a felony, but it was under the
| presumption that this felony would count for felony
| murder.
|
| Seems like an oversight, witness intimidation is exactly
| the kind of aggravating felony that the statute had in
| mind. But that's neither here nor there.
| advisedwang wrote:
| That's not an accident, that's manslaughter
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's both: it's involuntary manslaughter stemming directly
| from assault. The assault is intentional; the death is
| conceivably not.
|
| And remember: this is entirely speculation. It's entirely
| possible that they _did_ intend to kill him; the entire point
| of my comment was that you can 't wave the crime away by
| claiming that the death was an accident.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Well, guess we don't need to investigate anymore?
| c7b wrote:
| I happen to have seen a recording of a crowd control exercise
| including regular police, a riot control unit and even a SWAT-
| style unit, including "arrests" and "resistance", and it was a
| lot tamer than the description may make it sound.
|
| A bicycle exercise for regular police spontaneously morphed into
| a mob control exercise spontaneously morphed into a grappling
| match definitely sounds fishy on its own.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Wait. Do we know that bicycle training spontaneously morphed or
| was it a change on the schedule? Was it a grappling match or
| did grappling occur during the simulated riot? Was the riot
| training you've seen the same protocol used during the
| incident.
|
| I hate that I'm in the position of defending a possible cover
| up of a possible murder to cover up the possible rape by police
| officers. But damn people. Stick to verifiable facts.
| kbelder wrote:
| Don't be shy in your defense of truth, on whichever side it
| falls. It's noble.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| notch656a wrote:
| Not a single person here claimed anything resembling "Dorner
| was the good guy."
| devteambravo wrote:
| Oh? Please illustrate who the "good guy" was on that story
| then.
| lawn wrote:
| The innocent people driving a truck and got blasted with
| 107 bullets?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| > Misinformation like "it's bad to kill cops looking into
| malfeasance"
|
| Is there a mistake in this sentence?
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| No, you can trust the government. This kind of thing never
| happens.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Your trolling lacks subtlety.
| quantified wrote:
| > But a county medical examiner ruled Tipping's death an
| accident, saying the suspicious injuries revealed in the autopsy
| were sustained during attempts to save his life.
|
| If he sustained those injuries during an attempt to save his
| life, those officers definitely need to be taken off the street
| anyway. More dangerous "helping" people than just sitting in
| their cars.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _He did grapple with another officer, and both fell to the
| ground, resulting in a catastrophic injury to his spinal cord.
| " Gage claims that Tipping wound up with three broken ribs, a
| lacerated liver, head injuries, and a broken neck. "His heart
| eventually stopped working because of his injuries" and "he was
| paralyzed....He had subdural hematomas at three places on the
| left side and three places on the right side. There is no way
| that grappling would have caused those injuries the way the
| LAPD portrayed it."_
|
| Rib fractures occur during CPR if CPR is being done correctly.
| The rest sounds like it was caused by the "grappling", which I
| suspect is a euphemism for the other cops beating the life out
| of him.
| tyingq wrote:
| Broken ribs that lacerate your liver wouldn't be normal in
| CPR.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| "Chest compression is the most essential component of CPR
| and it is performed on the lower half of the sternum.
| During CPR, many complications may occur because of chest
| compressions, especially chest injuries including sternum
| and rib fractures. Rarely tracheal injury, rupture of the
| stomach, or liver or spleen injury may also occur as
| complications. In this study, we present two cases of liver
| injury caused by resuscitation. With this article, we want
| to emphasize the importance of making correct chest
| compressions. "[1]
|
| "In the general population, a well-described complication
| of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), liver laceration
| and injury, is reported at a rate of between 0.5-2.9% after
| CPR." [2]
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27896328/
|
| [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29097198/
|
| The ribs/liver is not the suspicious part to me. It's the
| multiple subdural hematomas on both sides of his head in
| addition to the spinal cord injury. Something about that
| doesn't sound right.
| [deleted]
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| My bet is that one of the cops tackled him off the bike,
| maybe breaking his neck in the process, and then probably
| a few other cops joined in kicking him. Any of the
| injuries might have been caused by the beating itself,
| but some of the injuries _might_ have been caused by CPR
| after the assailants realized they had killed him.
| tyingq wrote:
| I'd also wager that CPR done by trained first responders
| falls in the much lower-end percentage of injuries like
| liver lacerations. The generalized stats would include
| CPR performed by completely untrained people, etc.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I 'd also wager that CPR done by trained first
| responders falls in the much lower-end percentage of
| injuries like liver lacerations._
|
| Maybe, maybe not. Considering where human livers are
| located (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver#/media/File:
| Liver_01_ani...), any lower rib or sternum fracture
| probably has a risk of injuring the liver. Professional
| CPR training _might_ make this less likely, but I 'm far
| from convinced.
|
| Anyway, in the scenario I imagine, the 'first responders'
| who first did CPR are the cops who just beat this guy up
| and realized he stopped breathing. Technically trained as
| first responders, but certainly not level headed
| paramedics. So maybe CPR only lacerates livers when done
| incompetently, but maybe the first responders were less
| than competent.
| quantified wrote:
| If you wanted to finish someone off, smashing their
| broken ribs into their liver could work well, especially
| if they're still conscious.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| > Rib fractures occur during CPR if CPR is being done
| correctly.
|
| This is a common myth. They _can_ occur when CPR is being
| done, correctly or incorrectly, but do not occur in all cases
| and are not a good indicator of proper CPR technique. Sternal
| fractures or sternocostal separation may occur instead, and a
| small but significant part of the time, no injuries at all
| occur.
| lawn wrote:
| > He added that the LAPD said no video footage of the training
| exercise exists, even though these sorts of trainings are often
| recorded.
|
| That seems like standard procedure by now. When something
| happens, conveniently the video footage that should exist,
| magically doesn't.
| bawolff wrote:
| Seems like an easy solution would be auto update to cloud
| account controlled by a different group.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| >When something happens, conveniently the video footage that
| should exist, magically doesn't.
|
| IMO LAPD is actually pretty good about using body cams when
| they're supposed to. Way better than LASD and other law
| enforcement agencies in the area. In California they're
| required to release footage (if it exists) after every OIS
| (officer involved shooting) or LERI (law enforcement something
| injury, like if a cop hurts someone without shooting them via
| tazing/dog/baton/bean bag/punches).
|
| If you look at their Youtube channel [1] pretty much every OIS
| and LERI video does have body cam and/or dashcam footage. The
| events that don't are mostly compliant with their policy
| (although it sounds like their policy should be amended to
| include training activities. Both for safety and to make the
| training more realistic). When I looked at a sampling of 30
| LAPD incidents, 28 of them had body cam footage recording
| during the incident. The two that didn't involved off-duty
| officers[2]
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/c/LAPDONLINE1/videos
|
| [2]: Here's the videos if you want to see for yourself, but FYI
| the first one shows some unpleasant aftermath: Attempted car
| theft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgESIr-MIUg Cop shoots
| at someone after a drive-by on his neighbor:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXWJIX2rL4Y
| [deleted]
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Probably every law enforcement agency in a first-world nation
| looks good if you compare it to the LA County Sheriff's
| Department, seemingly best known for their gangs, my own
| crowning memories being the deputy assigned to my high school
| selling drugs to students and my dad once getting cited for
| parking more than 18 inches from the curb at the end of a
| cul-de-sac at which our house was the only one, so the only
| traffic we could have conceivably impeded was ourselves.
| ouid wrote:
| being good at using bodycams is damning if there is no
| footage.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I don't follow, or maybe I was unclear. I think LAPD is
| good about following their body cam policy in situations
| where they're required to use body cams (like when driving
| around town). Even in cases where the video makes LAPD look
| criminally bad (like the situation a year or two ago where
| a cop beat someone up in Boyle Heights for calling him
| names), the video doesn't "go missing" or "experience file
| corruption" or anything like that.
|
| However that doesn't imply anything about situations where
| they aren't required to use body cams.
| aqme28 wrote:
| > If you look at their Youtube channel [1] pretty much every
| OIS and LERI video does have body cam and/or dashcam footage.
|
| Am I reading this wrong or is this a very biased sample? Of
| course videos are more likely to have video.
| modriano wrote:
| In video footage that shows a lot of other officers, you
| can see if they're wearing BWCs. When there's an Officer
| Involved Shooting, all cops in the area are going to rush
| to the spot (as the shooting officer should have been in
| danger), so you should be able to see a lot of officers
| wearing BWCs.
|
| I don't know if LAPD releases much of that BWC footage in
| unedited form, but where I live (Chicago), a civilian
| oversight board reviews use-of-force incidents and makes
| BWC footage and other materials public [0], and in my
| experience as a homicide researcher for UChicago, officers
| were initially skeptical of BWCs, but now they consider
| them a valuable piece of personal protective equipment, as
| they are often exonerated by their BWC footage.
|
| [0] https://www.chicagocopa.org/data-cases/case-portal/
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but "critical incident videos"
| have a 1:1 relationship with critical incidents, not with
| body cam videos. Every critical incident has a video. Even
| if there's no body cam video of the actual shooting, police
| are still obligated to produce a video containing 911
| calls, radio calls, body cams from responding officers,
| etc.
|
| I do not know of a "critical incident" that doesn't have a
| corresponding video (except for deaths in prisons and
| negligent discharges that don't result in injury). If
| there's no actual media to go with it, they'll still show a
| talking head reading a statement listing off the address
| and police version of the narrative (you can see examples
| if you look at LASD, since they've halfassed their body cam
| deployment). I'm curious to hear if you know of any
| exceptions (excluding events within the last 45 days or so,
| before the deadline).
|
| LAPD releases a list of all of the critical incidents and
| the videos, so should be easy to cross reference and see if
| anything is missing.
| [deleted]
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| "Look all the videos they posted are, in fact, videos!"
|
| Doesn't say a lick about what they omitted from YouTube.
| Arrath wrote:
| Time to start prorating individual officer's salary for the %
| of their shift time that has extant video footage?
|
| These body cams are useless if the video can go conveniently
| missing whenever it needs to.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| Losing insurance is making a number of police departments
| actually make changes:
|
| > _Even departments with few problems are experiencing rate
| increases of 30 to 100 percent. Now, insurers also are
| telling departments that they must change the way they
| police._
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20.
| ..
| noboostforyou wrote:
| Get rid of Qualified Immunity for starters. Next should be
| some sort of malpractice insurance that police must carry
| themselves (none of this using our tax dollars to pay for
| their own crimes).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Although it gets misused, there is a very good reason for
| qualified immunity. Get rid of it and nobody will ever
| become a cop. And even if you could find people, you'd have
| to pay a pretty ridiculous salary, especially with an
| insurance requirement.
|
| Better to reform the official checks & balances on police
| power so they are more effective.
| nullc wrote:
| > and nobody will ever become a cop.
|
| Most (almost all?) police officers in the US have a union
| negotiated contract where the employing agency
| indemnifies them. Not only do you not need QI to avoid
| the liability you're concerned about, but the
| infrastructure is already in place.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Checks and balances don't work. Just look at the whole
| student debt issue. Someone sued and the Biden
| administration changed the rule so that the person suing
| no longer had standing, taking away access to the courts.
|
| Trying to sue the government from inside the prison
| system is just naive. And even when it works, it doesn't
| work. We sued because we were housed in inhuman
| conditions. Because only inmates in one wing of the
| prison sued, the ruling only applied to inmates housed in
| that wing, even though the rest of the prison was exactly
| the same as what the Court had just ruled inhumane and
| unconstitutional.
|
| Qualified immunity is a made up right by the courts (it
| doesn't exist in law) and places SOME animals above other
| animals when it comes to accountability. I thought we
| were all equal? All Americans should be responsible for
| their actions, government employees > accountability
| simply because they have a special 'job' should not be a
| thing.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Checks and balances don't work. Just look at the whole
| student debt issue. Someone sued and the Biden
| administration changed the rule so that the person suing
| no longer had standing, taking away access to the courts.
|
| This is because the standing they had was tenuous to
| begin with, his claim was that the issue was he'd be
| taxed on the 20K in cancelled debt and couldn't opt out.
| So it was clarified that he could, and suddenly he is no
| longer harmed. You don't have standing to sue if you
| aren't harmed.
|
| Student loan companies have a somewhat less tenuous
| argument, but the real issue is that Biden's actions were
| probably legal, and checks and balances don't exist to
| prevent the government from doing legal things.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| The police must follow all the same laws that we do.
| Giving any kind of immunity enables officers to be "above
| the law". If an officer gets accused of rights violations
| it should be settled in court, not dismissed out of hand.
| selectodude wrote:
| Pretty sure if you handcuffed somebody without their
| consent, regardless of what they were doing, you'd have
| to answer for it in court.
|
| Cops are above the law. They are the violence arm of the
| local government.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They aren't acting above the law, but within it. They are
| legally allowed to detain people in certain situations.
|
| It's perfectly fair for the law to allow certain groups
| to do something that's illegal for other groups to do.
| For example, illegal for people not sanctioned by the
| government to drive on public roads.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > Get rid of it and nobody will ever become a cop.
|
| Hello, I live in Europe. We don't have qualified immunity
| here, but we have police officers. How do you explain
| this?
|
| Germany is by the way far more litigious than the US, so
| no, don't go pulling this, "But we have more lawsuits"
| thing.
|
| ----
|
| Is there a way to stop you guys doing this? "It's
| impossible to do X" when in fact you are the only country
| that doesn't do X? It's simply embarrassing after decades
| and generations of this.
| mike_d wrote:
| Qualafied immunity is the cornerstone of a functioning
| democracy. People who advocate for its elimination only
| know about it from the negative context and don't fully
| understand its value.
|
| For example say a rich person murders their partner. The
| cops show up and the killer says "if you arrest me I will
| drag all of you into court personally for years to come and
| bankrupt your families." Without QI the officers need to
| make a decision if justice is worth the risk of personal
| loss.
|
| Or if a rich person wants to build a new deck which is
| denied a permit, QI is what prevents them from personally
| dragging everyone involved to court personally.
|
| QI does not eliminate personal liability when a crime has
| been committed. If an officer shoots someone and is charged
| criminally, they can then be sued personally.
| _jal wrote:
| > Qualafied immunity is the cornerstone of a functioning
| democracy.
|
| I take it you believe the US became a functioning
| democracy in 1967, then?
|
| That's when Pierson v. Ray was decided and QI was
| invented.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray
| mike_d wrote:
| Without getting into a longwinded discussion of
| specifics, QI as a concept within the legal system has
| existed for quite a long time. The case you cite is where
| it was codified into an explict short-circuit that
| prevented the cases from being filed in the first place.
| _jal wrote:
| No, please - name cases you're thinking of. I am
| extremely curious about what you'll cite.
|
| Because there was a specific reason QI came to be, and it
| was not a matter of a long-established doctrine being
| formalized.
|
| I'll wait.
| mike_d wrote:
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=36807
| 14# and then click on view PDF. I don't think I can deep
| link to it directly.
|
| Should give you a good context and background going back
| to the 1800s.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > QI is what prevents them from personally dragging
| everyone involved to court personally.
|
| No it doesn't. The case will get thrown out on some other
| grounds when the officials sends in their report on why
| the permit was denied. Likewise, not responding to the
| lawsuit could result in a default judgement regardless of
| QI.
|
| We can keep frivolous lawsuits by people pissed off with
| bureaucracy from happening while also allowing government
| officials to be sued for the actual economic damages they
| inflict on people.
| notch656a wrote:
| Ah yes, the classic _someone will abuse it, so we 'll
| make it illegal!_ By that same logic, we could just make
| it illegal to be rich, so no rich people are around to
| abuse the lawsuits -- checkmate!
| burkaman wrote:
| Why isn't this a major issue in any other functioning
| democracy?
| hanniabu wrote:
| Won't change a thing, they'd happily be paid 8hrs less if it
| means not going to jail
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It would have the same effect as this early american law:
|
| > There was little doubt that fence cutting would be
| criminalized, but what was to be done about ranchers who
| were fencing over public roads and lands? Here the Texas
| Legislature stood with the rich, making fence cutting a
| felony punishable by two to five years in prison, while for
| the cattle barons who encroached on public land, the
| punishment was a misdemeanor and a small fine of $10 to
| $100.
|
| ie levying a slight tax to enable it rampantly through
| surface-level law and order
| bee_rider wrote:
| Judges should start instructing juries make an adverse
| inference against the police, if bodycam footage is missing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yes and they likely will - but only in jurisdictions, where
| bodycams are mandatory to be always on.
| dirkg wrote:
| Theres no way any police reform will hapen as long as we have
| unions and qualified immunity
| orwin wrote:
| One thing i absolutely love and that police officers were not
| always aware off, is that initially their bodycam were always
| recording, and keeping the video they just recorded in a
| buffer (sadly, not often with audio). The buffer can change,
| but is a minimum of 30 second to up to 15 minutes, and some
| cops were busted by that. Now more often than not the
| configuration is 30s, so tape goes missing at a lower rate.
|
| I think their is another kind, used more in cities, with
| bodycam uploading the video directly, with 3 modes (low-res,
| lowframe, low-res, normal framerate + audio, and high res
| high framerate).
| edgyquant wrote:
| Nope time to throw cops and their supervisors in jail who
| lose or forget to record footage
| rightbyte wrote:
| Fun times when your body cam breaks.
|
| Just upload the video automatically to some central server.
| Then the corruption on police station level can't get to
| it.
|
| You could do the upload via mobile network if a "bang" is
| heard too.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Body camera systems are not sold to police departments as
| devices that are meant to keep cops honest, they're sold to
| police departments as devices that will keep the lying public
| honest and thus keep cops out of court and prison.
|
| They're meant for cops to turn them on when they feel like they
| need evidence against whoever they're detaining, arresting or
| otherwise dealing with.
|
| In this case, video surveillance was working as intended.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Well they're sold to whoever will buy them. While what is
| recorded depends on department policy which can vary, but
| clearly could be improved and of course if the policy is not
| enforced that's another big problem.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Your argument is not necessarily incorrect, but I do think
| it's important to understand that this attitude depends a lot
| on the specific implementation.
|
| In some police departments, there is a requirement that body
| camera (OBRD, BWC, different departments like to use
| different terms) footage be uploaded after every call for
| service or reported incident, officers are audited against
| this requirement, and missing footage is an infraction
| subject to suspension without pay. In some departments, there
| is no policy at all, and no interest in creating one.
|
| The biggest vendor, Axon, has a fairly well-designed system
| for video management where the auditing system makes it
| fairly easy to determine whether or not footage exists and
| why (e.g. cameras log all deletion of footage e.g. due to
| full storage and report it at the next upload, the management
| system reports on cameras that have not uploaded for more
| than two shifts, video once uploaded cannot be deleted until
| the end of routine retention even if not associated with any
| incident). This is not to portray Axon as a saint, because
| there are questions about the auditability of their
| evidence.com product specifically when it comes to
| preparation of video footage for court or public release, and
| this can be a material problem. But it also makes it even
| more troubling that some departments, district attorneys,
| etc. make no effort to use the auditability features that
| exist, or routinely accept sketchy excuses that are not
| consistent with the audit record.
| lazide wrote:
| I think you'll find it's rather 'the approved
| implementation follows the attitude' - of senior
| leadership+the unions anyway.
|
| These aren't technical limitations, and there are a lot of
| police agencies - a few who are on top of things and see it
| as a way of keeping their officers honest and getting to
| the truth, and a lot of them looking to CYA.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Or...no footage exists.
| evan_ wrote:
| if there was supposed to be video and there isn't... I don't
| know what you think your argument is exactly
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _if there was supposed to be video and there isn 't..._
|
| You're assuming that malice is the reason why there isn't
| video footage if there was supposed to be. I think that's a
| fair assumption, and I think that this is most likely the
| case.
|
| But it's not _necessarily_ the case. It is possible that
| negligence or incompetence is the reason the cameras weren
| 't recording. The whole thing sounds like a murder to me,
| and I assume the video footage was deliberately
| disabled/destroyed/lost/etc. But at this stage I don't
| think anybody can be certain of that. There is only
| circumstantial evidence for somebody preventing/destroying
| the video footage.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Circumstantial evidence is still evidence.
|
| Based on other comments here, there seems to be a
| plausible reason that this type of exercise might not
| normally be recorded.
|
| But if there's supposed to be a recording, and there
| isn't, then in the very least that's a plausible angle
| for investigation.
|
| Meanwhile if it really is the case that the exercise
| wouldn't normally be recorded, then there's also an open
| question as to why this guy was assigned to an unrecorded
| training with somebody he was investigating for rape.
|
| Police investigations and juries aren't logical proofs,
| that's why there are juries, character witnesses, etc.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I agree that circumstantial evidence is evidence and that
| this angle of the case should be investigated. My point
| is that circumstantial evidence doesn't rule out other
| possibilities, and if you forget that then you risk
| deceiving yourself.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _You 're assuming that malice is the reason why there
| isn't video footage if there was supposed to be_
|
| There doesn't have to be malice.
|
| There has to be accountability.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I share your desire for accountability, but I don't think
| that's what this remark was about:
|
| > _" When something happens, conveniently the video
| footage that should exist, magically doesn't."_
|
| Magic doesn't exist. When something is said to
| "magically" not exist, that is a sarcastic way of saying
| that somebody deliberately made it not exist. I believe
| that is the most likely explanation, but it's not
| _necessarily_ true.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Magic doesn't exist.
|
| I see sarcasm is one of your strong suits.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| You can plainly see that I recognize the magic remark as
| sarcastic, so what is the point of your response?
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Was there supposed to be video?
| _-david-_ wrote:
| The article says "these sorts of trainings are often
| recorded." Often being the keyword. It doesn't say that
| there is supposed to be a video.
| modriano wrote:
| Yeah. The article says this training was a "bicycle
| training exercise". I'm not sure exactly what that
| entails, but unless it's confined to a small area, it
| seems pretty plausible that it wouldn't be feasible to
| have camera coverage of the entire training space (say,
| if it occurred out in the world).
|
| Still, I don't know the facts, and if this "bicycle
| training exercise" was in a small yard of the police
| academy, and if "often" means "nearly always", then yeah,
| this would be pretty damning circumstantial evidence of
| malice.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| It looks like they changed from bicycle training to
| grappling. It is possible they would have had footage if
| it remained bicycle training. Not sure. My point is that
| we can't draw any conclusions yet. There could be malice
| or not. I think we need to understand why the training
| changed to get a better understanding of what happened.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| There is a difference between "I deleted the footage"
| (which would be "fixed" if it automatically upload to the
| cloud controlled by a 3rd party) and "I conveniently forgot
| to wear my body cam" (which having it upload to cloud does
| nothing to address).
| fzeroracer wrote:
| No footage exists, like many of other times officers claimed
| no footage exists or they didn't have their cameras on until
| it mysteriously appeared out of thin air.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| After Christopher Dorner nothing surprises me with LAPD. I don't
| think this was a training accident, the injuries are too severe,
| more akin to a beating.
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