Ferguson, MO

Wiki Sammy Yatim.

Long story short, he exposed to genitals, then pulled out a knife, then tried to keep hostages, then let them go, police boarded the streetcar. Officer told him to put his weapon down and not take another step, he stepped towards the officer with a knife, officer fired 3 rounds, then emptied the clip on the allegedly fallen over suspect. All of this was caught on tape. Someone even tasered the allegedly deceased suspect after the clip was emptied.

Not sure if this makes a diff but he was of middle eastern descent.

Family says there is no history of mental illness. Cop’s life is over because some kid got high/drunk and made stupid choices.

I’m not saying they need to enforce everything, I’m saying the time to discuss the matter is in court and not with the officer. Disagree with your speeding ticket? Discuss it with a judge, not escalate with the cop. Their role and training isn’t in debating laws. Its in enforcement through physical force. You’re going to lose that battle 99.9/100. And this is the way it should be. I don’t want thousands of lawyers out there enforcing laws and debating the philosophical premise of what jaywalking is 24 hours a day

The police have been out of control for way too long. They hurt and kill innocent people, then cover up the mess to protect other cops. They “lose” dash cam footage and write police reports that lie to protect their criminal buddies. It says a lot that hackers have to be the ones to release the 911 calls, identities of the officers involced, etc.

The situation in Ferguson is terrible. Militant police arresting journalists is not ok in this country. I’m tired of the “but they put their lives on the line everyday” crap. When suburbia cops writing speeding tickets have better equipment than actual marines in actual war zones, something is seriously wrong.

I’m glad this is happening in Ferguson because people are finally realizing just how bad the situation has gotten. Shooting unarmed civilians is not ok. Cops work for civilians. They are public SERVANTS.

Before the police turned the situation into a war zone, it wasn’t people rioting, it was people protesting, which they have the right to do without being threatened.

I think you missed my point. If law enforcement tried to enforce every law, they would literally have no time to patrol. They would spend all their time writing tickets and going to court to testify. And the courts would be clogged too. Its not possible to enforce all laws. Why do you think we have the highest incarceration rate in the world? Which we are paying for as tax payers. 5 times higher than UK which is the highest in EU. The only other reason would be that we are just horrible people.

Wouldn’t it be funny if the cop who shot Brown is black?

No, and he’s not.

Did they release his details yet?

Cop’s life is over because he watched one too many Dirty Harry movies.

Yes, Sammy threatened the passengers but he let them all go. He was the only one inside the streetcar when police arrived. Every officer was outside the streetcar the whole time. They never boarded. Officer James Forcillo could have waited until the situation calmed down but chose to shoot. And 9 times including a taser is a bit excessive, no?

A kid in a streetcar only with a knife is not much of a threat as long as he remains inside.

Since when is an 18 year old a “kid”?

A cop has a license to kill. If I was a cop, I would be lighting some fools up!

Police think they’re above the law.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. I’ve never been roughed up by the police while modeling a deal at work. I’m just saying.

On the question of why unarmed people sometimes get shot, here’s what a police officer/redditor had to say on the issue. Yes, it’s a wall of text but read it. It provides some good perspective.

At about 01:30 in the morning, I pulled up in my cruiser to a medical office building to follow up on a theft case I was working on. The parking lot is not very well lit. As I step out of my cruiser, a man runs towards me, holding something in his right hand. It’s dark, and all I can make out is that it’s thin, about 6" long, and one half is wrapped in cloth. He starts swinging it around, yelling "I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll eat you! I’ll fuck you!"

I draw my firearm, point it at him, and start giving loud verbal commands. At the same time, I radio dispatch for help. He’s not responding to my commands. He’s still yelling, swinging the item, making stabbing motions, making threats. He starts approaching slowly, I back off to keep distance. We start moving into the street. About that time my backup shows up. Other officers draw down on the man, start giving verbal commands. He’s still not responding.

At this point, it would have been prudent to tase him, but my department doesn’t equip us with tasers.

We finally end up in a well lit area across from a restaurant (and boy oh boy, were the cell phones out.) As we’re continuing to go back and forth with this guy, one of my backup units gets in close enough to see that what he’s holding isn’t a knife, and doesn’t look like a shank, either. He hits the guy with OC spray to no effect, and then moves in with a baton, striking the hand holding the object. The guy finally drops the object, we all move in and take him down. Bonus: He’s covered in feces and urine.

So what was the object? All that time? A ninja turtles toothbrush.

Here’s the thing: At any time during that encounter, from the time he initially approached me aggressively to the time we were finally able to see what the item was, had he charged at me or another officer, or a bystander, I (we) would have shot and killed him. Now I did have the presence of mind during the encounter to wonder if the item was in fact a knife, because I’ve had similar experiences before. But given his behavior, and the way he was brandishing it, I had perfectly good reason to believe that it was a weapon. More importantly, I’m not going to let my own doubts get me killed.

So what if I had killed him?

Well, the cell phone videos would be out. The media would report, initially, the most simple version of the story:

_ Townsville Metro Police Kill Man Wielding Toothbrush. _

Reddit is pretty quick with things like this, so shortly thereafter on the front page:

_ Police officer MURDERS man over ninja turtles toothbrush. _

The initial news headline would play out for a bit, until they got a few more details.

_ Townsville Metro Police Shoot Young Black Man Wielding Toothbrush. _

Another media outlet, upset that they didn’t get the initial scoop, goes with something a bit more sensational to grab the media consumer’s attention:

_ Townsville Police Kill Unarmed Young Black Man. _

There you have it. The average media consumer’s opinion has already been formed by the headline - many won’t even bother to read the story. Even if they did, the story will contain the most basic of details. Cops shoot guy, guy only has toothbrush.

Here’s what the stories won’t contain: My thoughts and feelings upon the initial encounter. The things that I can (or can’t) see. My fear. My wondering if I’m about to kill a man, and how I’m going to deal with that. Am I going to break down like so many others? Become an alcoholic? What if it doesn’t stop him? What if he kills me? I need help. Where are they? What’s taking them so long? Who is this man? Why does he want to kill me? What if a bystander walks into this? I can’t let him take a hostage. Goddamnit where is my backup?!

And then later: My god, I almost killed a man over a toothbrush. Would it have been justified? Maybe the courts would have exonerated me, but would I still get fired? Could I forgive myself? Great, I’ve got someone else’s shit and piss all over me for the third time this week.

And then, much later…well, just imagine, after all that, how it feels to see someone watch a massively abbreviated news report on the incident, form an entire opinion based upon that miniscule amount of information (and their_complete lack of qualified expertise or experience_) and condemn me for my decisions. As weird as it sounds, this is my job - my expertise. Criticizing me for how I deal with a shit covered maniac is no different than you walking in on an open heart surgery and telling the surgeon he’s using the wrong scalpel.

Don’t let the media form your opinions. Understand that investigations can take a very long time. Most importantly, understand that these situations are often so massively complicated that no journalist could ever truly convey all of the details - especially what’s going on in my head when I have to make that critical, life altering decision.

EDIT: The overwhelming majority of replies I’m getting sound something like “But why couldn’t you just shoot him in the leg or something?” Though fairly long, this article does an excellent job of explaining why “shooting to wound” has never realistically been an option.

Without being too technical… My orignal point was that opening fire was unneccessary. Yatim was contained in the empty streetcar with threat to no one. Have you seen the video? It is absolutely clear. Not blurry. Not ambiguous. 9 shots. If it wasn’t taken, I bet Forcillo would get off without a scratch. But it was, and I think nothing less than 2nd degree murder is the correct decision.

Anyways, this situation is nothing like the Ferguson so until we get more details on what Michael Brown was doing, whether he was reaching for the officer’s gun, then I really don’t know what to think.

Regardless of the situation, the cops’ response has been inexcusable.

First Amendment to the Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I don’t get your point. You’re citing a shooting by a cop in a different country who was ultimately prosecuted for a wrongful shooting and convicted. Now you say it’s nothing like this Ferguson case. So why bring it up? To make the point that sometimes cops act inappropriately? Duh. That’s why they investigate *every single time* a cop shoots somebody in the US.

I think the point here is that nobody knows whether or not the shooting was appropriate because no investigation has been undertaken yet. Yet we have a bunch of hooligan losers predictably rioting. And, of course, Obama has to weigh in because the guy who was shot was black. And Holder has to send in his team of rabble rousers. And Al Sharpton has to show up.

My sympathies are with the cop at this point because I’ve seen this story told time and time again and it usually ends up with the same ending.

But but but they told us America was the land of opportunity and free of xenophobia. I suppose they forgot to add the disclaimer.

Nice article. I got this as a suggestion, great read too

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

In all seriousness this topic is pretty interesting though. One being are blacks knowingly / unnkowingly targeted? From all the way back to Rodney King to Troy Davis and the substantial portion of America’s jailed population the common denominator is they more often than not are black. Why is that? Is the justice system biased? A quick google search seems to say the majority think so especially in the case of Glenn Ford where he was wrongfully convicted by an all white jury.

Second why the fk is the police so militarized? It’s like a bloody police state. The culture of fear is ridiculous. Some fo the pics wouldn’t look out of place in a conflict zone.

And the fact that police departments and district attorneys don’t frequently take action against their own when their people are in the wrong, reinforces this view.

Here there was an issue, it was a minor traffic incident, but the city police chief hit a pedestrian with his city SUV. The pedestrian clearly had right of way (the whole thing was caught by a traffic camera). Instead of being cited like anybody else would have, he just had to take a traffic safety class and a day off work. just google “houston police chief hits pedestrian”

When I first heard about the shooting, my gut reaction was, “Cops don’t just shoot unarmed kids for minding their own business. There had to be some kind of reason.”

But now that I see the reaction from the cops/county/city, I’m wondering if there’s not some sort of cover-up or other foul play going on. Arresting journalists? Forcing them to turn their cameras off? Tear gas and rubber bullets on crowds that aren’t violent?

Something’s just not right about the whole thing.

You need to cite the 14th Amendment for that to make any sense in context.