Police shoot unarmed guy
 

Anyone else catch this? Just terrible. Luckily he was not hurt too seriously.


One thing I appreciate about the USA. In 20 days from the incident occurring, the officer was fired, charged, and is now held on $75,000 bond.

Canada? The RCMP would say "no comment" for 16 months until the media finally manages to leak something.

May want to shed a little light on the video.

This guy was pulled over for "no seat belt" at a gas station. He was in the process of getting out of the truck when the cop stopped him. He was asked to provide his drivers license (see video of him patting his back pocket). He did not have his wallet so went into his vehicle to get the wallet and was shot when doing so.

He was shot because he did as the officer asked of him......

related article:

You must not read a lot of news from US. You're better off finding that needle in the haystack than seeing an officer charged or even disciplined in, the US. Ferguson is still fresh. Of most recent, there was the cop that murderd a black guy that was carrying BB-gun, for purchase, in a Walmart. Ohio is an open-carry state.

Charges should not be assault, rather attempted murder or equivalent charges like anyone else would get if they shot at another person for no reason.

Certainly the US is far from perfect. The point I was trying to make is that, for the most part, there is more openness, speed and transparancy in the US justice system when it involves alleged misconduct by law enforcement. In Canada, we have nothing but the opposite.

What about all the other police shootings in the US where nothing happens?

Lucky the guy survived or the cop would have probably gotten away with it.

So he gets shot for doing what the officer said twice...

The officer wanted his license, so he went to get it.
Then the officer asked him to get out of the car, so he comes out of the car...
Then shots are fired? wtf?

I understand that the cop was concerned for his own safety, but anyone who rushes for their gun and fires that fast should not be a cop. I hope he gets a huge lawsuit coming his way.

Waiting for Charles in charge to chime in.

What are you basing this on? I don't have facts, just some things i've seen in the news and it seems very contrary to what you just said. Not that the news itself is a credible source..

there's a lot of The Blue Wall of Silence going on in the Canadian criminal justice system

Cop was just a wee bit trigger happy

He's lucky that cop wasn't a better shot. I'm usually against pile on the police in a shooting thread but this cop is clearly an idiot. The guy who got shot also just won the lottery when he sues the city and the police dept, he won't need to deliver medical supplies anymore.

saw this on the news earlier tonight its said the shooter is a "hero cop" for taking out a shooter earlier in his career and getting a medal of valor for it :suspicious:

also his lawyer had this to say

lol what the fuck... that cop should NOT be serving the people holy... not only does he shoot people for following orders, but he has a horrible fucking shot.

Jesus Christ it's sad knowing that there are actual cops on the road like this. Apparently you don't even need to see a weapon anymore just the faint chance that there might be a gun within a country mile of the scene and you're justified to shoot someone.

This is why when you are pulled over I try to do the following:

-I try to pull over where the cop knows I'm not just going to speed away, AKA I park up against a curb, or a wall.

-I turn the car off

-When the cop walks up to the car I have my hands where he can see them, and I don't make any sudden movements.

-When the cop asks me for my license and registration I describe where they are and I tell him I am going to reach for them. This way he understands what I am doing and has no reason to panic.

-I also make sure to let them know that I have a dash camera, and that it is recording, both video and audio.

Needless to say, I have had no problems ever, and I get pulled over quite a bit (I don't know what it is, i'm just a sketchy person I guess).

Either way though, cop is clearly not qualified and this should not have been the end result of this scenario. I mean come on "Aggressively reaching for his license"? :seriously:

The people and the authorities are no longer on the same side

I want to see the judge's reaction when the defendant says "I shot Jones because he was reaching for his license aggressively." :rolleyes:

RCMP is quite violent police force. I've heard of too many stories about it.
BC was trying to create its own BC Police Force but for some strange reason(political pressure?) they decided to make another 20 year contract with RCMP.

I would be questioning if the officer was properly assessed after that incident, something like that will change a person and could easily make them unfit for duty as a police officer.

While the officer is in the wrong here (he should have drawn, but not fired), imo reaching into the truck like that is a very bad idea, especially since the US has such a high rate of gun ownership the officer really has no way to know what you're reaching for and anyone making a move like that shouldn't be surprised to turn around and find a gun drawn on them.

IMO it's the officers responsibility to talk him through it. Simply asking "where's your license, and slowly go get it" would have made it a much different situation. If the cops going to be that trigger happy who's to say the guy reaching in his back pocket to get his wallet wouldn't have made the officer think he was reaching for a gun back there as well?

Thankfully the camera caught it all. You know damn well that if there was no video, the cop would have claimed: "The suspect aggressively dove for a weapon I thought I saw in his vehicle." He even claimed the guy dove into his vehicle in the tape.

Makes me wonder how many cop shootings not caught on tape were like this incident while they claimed the victim acted aggressively or made a move for a weapon that was never there.

I'm going to have to lay down a big fat "wat" on this. Misconduct by cops is swept under the rug far more than in Canada. Police unions push back hard against proposals for an IIO-style civilian police watchdog. Good ol'boy networks in the US, especially in the southern states, run deep. The chief of police is the brother of the courthouse judge, who plays golf with the lieutenant governor at the country club, whose son is the county DA, who's friends with the cop.

Remember the guy who was found dead handcuffed in the back of a cruiser? No biggie, just a suicide. The family's word against the cop--in rural America, the cop almost always wins, unless CNN or the ACLU get wind of it--or, in this case, there is video evidence. And even then, cops will often smash cameras or order the filmer to wipe the evidence. They'll even go as far as to get filming of police banned by state law (the courts have overturned these laws multiple times).

Not to mention Chris Dorner's case, where they just lit the house on fire and left him inside and burnt alive.

I could understand that cops in the US is more likely to use excessive force because the crime down there are much worst, but even when police brutality is caught on video, officers would be put on administration leave with pay.

There needs to be an internal internal affair that investigate these officers and put them to the test if they abide by the law themselves. I say internal internal because there are already internal affair in the states, but they are just as bad as police officers who doesn't follow the rules.

I'm so glad this officer got 20 years.

Sometimes, it's even worse. The cop just gets put on desk duty. There was one officer with the Milwaukee Police who dropped the ball with one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims, who is now the chief.

That is supposed to be what civilian watchdogs are for. In B.C. it's called the IIO. In Ontario it's called the SIU. In Alberta there's the ASIRT (but they've come under scandal).

Down in one of the suburbs of Seattle, someone anonymously created animated videos illustrating police misconduct among the force. The force responded by filing a search warrant to find out who made those videos. Kind of a "stays within the family" approach.

Steubenville, Maryville, Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner...and these are just the major ones that got media attention. Imagine the incidents that got swept under the rug. The blue code of silence is very real. That's why I don't totally write off people with a "fuck da cops" mentality.