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It's unquestionably a tragedy but I think that you are happy
Posted on: September 21, 2016 at 08:14:37 CT
JeffB MU
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to jump to conclusions without knowing all of the facts.
It reminds me of some of the old cowboy flicks where some sheriff with moral character is trying to hold back a lynch mob. The people always had good reason to be very upset. Typically someone had been murdered, though it could even be someone accused of being a horse thief or whatever.
The sheriff needed to be a voice of reason and to hold back the emotional response and give the accused a fair trial rather than letting the mob mentality prevail. Emotionally everyone wanted to hang the SOB right then and there, but calmer and more reasonable heads were tasked with giving the accused a fair trial regardless of how bad the alleged crime was.
I think the same is true here. You were ready to hang the gal(?) who shot him even though you didn't have all of the facts and some of the ones you did have were flat out wrong. For instance you thought she had just stumbled upon the scene and that there were no 911 calls for assistance. In fact there had been at least 2 911 calls from people about this car, which was still running, abandoned on the road with the driver jumping out and the doors open. Per the callers he was acting erratically and had been yelling that the car was going to blow up as he ran away.
The policewoman said that when she got to the scene he acted erratically and irrationally and she thought that he was on drugs. He refused to obey her commands and continued acting erratically. She called for assistance and felt that he should be arrested based upon his behavior, feeling that he was a threat to himself and others.
I'm sure she felt that he was a threat to herself or she wouldn't have called for assistance. Given the news stories of people on drugs going completely nuts, including trying to rip people's faces off with their teeth, I don't blame her. Many seem to have super human strength at times and can die from the effects of the drugs which ramp their bodies into such high adrenalin mode and which scramble their brains to the point that they do not act at all rationally. Pepper spray and even tasers won't work on some of them and they can and do hurt people, including police officers, when they are in such a drug induced mania state.
In this case he was told to stay where he was but he refused, going back to his car instead. I personally haven't had to face such situations, thankfully, though we did have some derelict punch a hole through one of our walls at a high school party my hosted. Some of his friends hustled him out of the basement doors before I found out & got downstairs. I have no idea what happened to him after that. They said he was on PCP and had lost it. I don't know what police are trained to do in such a situation, but given the circumstances as we currently know them and that there have been instances of a person coming out of a car with guns blazing and killing cops or severely injuring them I can certainly see why their adrenalin would have been flowing as well.
meatiger: Meanwhile 2 kids are without a father, and everyone wants to blame the victim. It is not like any of you guys even show the least bit of remorse.
I think you have two false premises here so it doesn't surprise me that you come up with a faulty conclusion. You are once again jumping to conclusions about what others think and feel. I think that this indeed is a great tragedy. The man killed is a child of God and the loss of his life is certainly not in harmony with the life God had planned for him. But again, to me this feels like people having to hold back the lynch mob, with those in the mob screaming for blood and assuming that those trying to hold them back just don't care or don't care enough for the tragedy that they blame on the person they don't want to give a fair trial.
Your other false assumption/premise is that the police are the primary perpetrators of this tragedy and are guilty of a crime. You decry the fact that they are pointing out the culpability of the deceased and of his multiple poor decisions that are the direct and proximate cause of his own death. No one denies that this is a horrible tragedy for the victim's family and friends, but the question on the table is whether or not his stupidity was the only cause of his tragic death, or whether in addition to his own bad decisions the police compounded the error with unforced errors of their own.
To my mind anyone who knowingly takes dangerous drugs that destroy their mental capacity to the point that they put themselves and others in grave danger of physical injury or death have to bear the brunt of the blame for any such physical injury or death. That of course doesn't give police or anyone else carte blanche to use him for target practice as you seem to imply is the case... with little evidence and some of the "evidence" that you do have was clearly false.
As to any culpability of the police, I think a lot depends upon information that we just don't have at the moment. Exactly how wasted was this guy and how much of a danger was he to the police & others? Could they tell from their angle whether or not the car windows he was standing by were open or closed? What should their correct response have been had they "gone by the book" in this situation? among other things I'm sure.
Bottom line, is that I think it is prudent and reasonable to hold off on the emotional reactions, wait for more information and evidence to come in before jumping to conclusions and to let the justice system do its job.
If the justice system is flawed, the correct response would be to work to make it fair, not to bypass it completely with a lynch mob mentality.
It reminds me of some of the old cowboy flicks where some sheriff with moral character is trying to hold back a lynch mob. The people always had good reason to be very upset. Typically someone had been murdered, though it could even be someone accused of being a horse thief or whatever.
The sheriff needed to be a voice of reason and to hold back the emotional response and give the accused a fair trial rather than letting the mob mentality prevail. Emotionally everyone wanted to hang the SOB right then and there, but calmer and more reasonable heads were tasked with giving the accused a fair trial regardless of how bad the alleged crime was.
I think the same is true here. You were ready to hang the gal(?) who shot him even though you didn't have all of the facts and some of the ones you did have were flat out wrong. For instance you thought she had just stumbled upon the scene and that there were no 911 calls for assistance. In fact there had been at least 2 911 calls from people about this car, which was still running, abandoned on the road with the driver jumping out and the doors open. Per the callers he was acting erratically and had been yelling that the car was going to blow up as he ran away.
The policewoman said that when she got to the scene he acted erratically and irrationally and she thought that he was on drugs. He refused to obey her commands and continued acting erratically. She called for assistance and felt that he should be arrested based upon his behavior, feeling that he was a threat to himself and others.
I'm sure she felt that he was a threat to herself or she wouldn't have called for assistance. Given the news stories of people on drugs going completely nuts, including trying to rip people's faces off with their teeth, I don't blame her. Many seem to have super human strength at times and can die from the effects of the drugs which ramp their bodies into such high adrenalin mode and which scramble their brains to the point that they do not act at all rationally. Pepper spray and even tasers won't work on some of them and they can and do hurt people, including police officers, when they are in such a drug induced mania state.
In this case he was told to stay where he was but he refused, going back to his car instead. I personally haven't had to face such situations, thankfully, though we did have some derelict punch a hole through one of our walls at a high school party my hosted. Some of his friends hustled him out of the basement doors before I found out & got downstairs. I have no idea what happened to him after that. They said he was on PCP and had lost it. I don't know what police are trained to do in such a situation, but given the circumstances as we currently know them and that there have been instances of a person coming out of a car with guns blazing and killing cops or severely injuring them I can certainly see why their adrenalin would have been flowing as well.
meatiger: Meanwhile 2 kids are without a father, and everyone wants to blame the victim. It is not like any of you guys even show the least bit of remorse.
I think you have two false premises here so it doesn't surprise me that you come up with a faulty conclusion. You are once again jumping to conclusions about what others think and feel. I think that this indeed is a great tragedy. The man killed is a child of God and the loss of his life is certainly not in harmony with the life God had planned for him. But again, to me this feels like people having to hold back the lynch mob, with those in the mob screaming for blood and assuming that those trying to hold them back just don't care or don't care enough for the tragedy that they blame on the person they don't want to give a fair trial.
Your other false assumption/premise is that the police are the primary perpetrators of this tragedy and are guilty of a crime. You decry the fact that they are pointing out the culpability of the deceased and of his multiple poor decisions that are the direct and proximate cause of his own death. No one denies that this is a horrible tragedy for the victim's family and friends, but the question on the table is whether or not his stupidity was the only cause of his tragic death, or whether in addition to his own bad decisions the police compounded the error with unforced errors of their own.
To my mind anyone who knowingly takes dangerous drugs that destroy their mental capacity to the point that they put themselves and others in grave danger of physical injury or death have to bear the brunt of the blame for any such physical injury or death. That of course doesn't give police or anyone else carte blanche to use him for target practice as you seem to imply is the case... with little evidence and some of the "evidence" that you do have was clearly false.
As to any culpability of the police, I think a lot depends upon information that we just don't have at the moment. Exactly how wasted was this guy and how much of a danger was he to the police & others? Could they tell from their angle whether or not the car windows he was standing by were open or closed? What should their correct response have been had they "gone by the book" in this situation? among other things I'm sure.
Bottom line, is that I think it is prudent and reasonable to hold off on the emotional reactions, wait for more information and evidence to come in before jumping to conclusions and to let the justice system do its job.
If the justice system is flawed, the correct response would be to work to make it fair, not to bypass it completely with a lynch mob mentality.
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MESSAGE THREAD
It's unquestionably a tragedy but I think that you are happy - JeffB MU - 9/21 08:14:37