Leaderboard

MODERATOR NOTE: OK, enough about the police video. Please move on to something else. Thanks!

Bitch about it online.

If you watch the longer video available online you'll see why the guy is 'allowed' to get out of his car. The video posted here makes it look like it just picks up the action after the officer initiated a traffic stop but that's not the case. The longer video shows the officer finishing up a previous contact in the parking lot and as he's leaving the gas station lot, the guy that was to become his victim of a botched attempt at manslaughter pulls into the gas station to buy his Funyuns. The officer saw something he didn't like and turned around to contact the victim. As the victim is getting out of his car to go about his business the officer pulls up. Part of the reason the victim made some bad moves (bad from a purely self-preservation standpoint on the assumption that he might be dealing with a maniac with a gun, not 'wrong' moves) is probably due to the fact that he was surprised to see the officer when he got out of the car and probably didn't have the time to calmly say to himself, 'okay, if he asks you to retrieve your license, don't comply because it could be misconstrued as reaching for a weapon, just verbalize that it's in the car and that you don't want to reach for it." The victim literally did nothing wrong. Makes it that much harder to watch. Jesus Christ. Are there any more hoops you want me to jump through officer? How 'bout this. We all know that this policy is going to exist right up until the point that a driver wanders into traffic on the way back to your vehicle and gets hit (if it's caught on the dashcam and the public can see it, otherwise it'll just get swept under the rug), so why don't you do your job and come to me. I've fulfilled my legal requirement to stop, and I'm too ######ing scared that if I exit the vehicle you might misinterpret that as a threat and gun me down in cold blood, so my hands are vice-gripped to my steering wheel and I'm not moving a ######ing muscle on your accord. Isn't it nice the level of trust law enforcement has managed to foster with the community they're supposed to serve.

Strange...they've always been so dependable up until this point. Must be a misprint.

The ANG guys out of Moffet are now "paramilitary" according to Vice Link Worn down describes a lot more than the paint job

I went to post this a couple days ago but couldn't find the original 'Liberty,Rights and the Constitution' thread where we were discussing similar egregious police actions, and gave up on it. But I think the 'WTF' thread is an appropriate place for it. At the same time I know the response I'm going to get to this and don't really want to rehash my background that was laid out in the old thread, so I don't know why I'm spending the time, but: The cop needs to do serious jail time. Whatever a citizen would get for 'attempted negligent homicide' (yeah, I know, not a real charge) It's unfortunate because this is a direct result of the training that he and hundreds of thousands of other cops have and plenty of others would find themselves in the same position for acting similarly (unjustifiably). Sadly, nobody will call into question the mentality that all cops are taught to have while they're on the street as a cause for this disastrous excuse for police work. It'll just be chalked up to a failure of this particular individual cop and the status quo will remain. M2 is right, cops face more risk on a daily basis than almost any other profession. And guess what? They knew it when they signed up and still agreed to serve and protect (the citizens, not themselves). It should be a selfless endeavor and yet as a result of what the academy teaches they treat everybody from law abiding citizens to hardcore felons as if they are just waiting for an opportunity to kill them. 'Action before reaction', 'don't expose your gun to anybody you're in contact with', 'approach in their blind spot' and on and on and on and on. Always on the defensive because something is bound to go down. And it affects their response to the 99.999% of cases where something doesn't go down. A cop ends up dead in the .001% of cases where it goes down because he didn't approach the wheelchair-bound grandfather with the assumption that he'd shoot him between the eyes? Sorry, that sucks, but it's the nature of the business. Can't accept that? Fine, don't take the job. Does that sound callous? Too bad. This guy shot an innocent human being in a benign circumstance (where the guy was actually complying too well) and got lucky to have not killed him because he assumed that this, along with every other citizen encounter he's had since he graduated from the academy, was the .001% as he was taught to do. And the frequency with which this happens (usually with a dead person on the other end instead of just wounded) as M2 indicated, is frighteningly often. Do you get more dead innocent civilians in the cases where cops assume the worst under benign circumstances, or dead cops in the cases where officers approached the .001% while not assuming it was the .001%? Bogus question. The cops voluntarily signed on for the risk. The guy pulling up to the gas station to buy some Funyuns did not. If changing the mindset of cops in the country to one of actually protecting and serving results in more officer deaths, then it's unfortunate, but still the correct decision. The training fosters a toxic mentality among the police force that permeates all of their interactions with citizens, to include the routine ones, and it's disgusting. Day 1 of the academy should run down all the ways that you may die in the line of duty, require that you re-affirm your desire to take on the selfless service, and then move on to how to be a decent cop. Instead, it's all about how to keep your thumb on your contacts so that they never get the chance to kill you. I hate to say it because sentencing this cop to serious time doesn't really serve a purpose if you're going to remove his right to practice law enforcement regardless, but nothing will change if nothing changes. Of course we all know he'll get a slap on the wrist, the academy will continue to teach a mentality that results in egregious over-application of force, and more innocent people will be killed and not be able to go home to their families in order to ensure that the public servant who accepted the risk of death can go home to his. Disgusting.

Fair answer. The other 21 pages have a lot of guys who've never worked for the airlines telling other guys who've never worked for the airlines what they need. Then again, I've never worked for the airlines...that's why I asked. Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!

I don't know what's more amazing - The cop asks for his license, dude goes to get it, and the cop starts shooting - The cop shot four times at virtually point blank range and only grazed him once - The victim is still being extremely civil (calling the cop "Sir") after being shot for complying with the cop's orders. This guy is the reason people hate cops. Fortunately, he is no longer a cop.

Spend some time on patrol with a police officer and you might understand the situation better. There is no other profession, even being in the military, that puts people at personal risk as much as law enforcement. It's an everyday thing. Not saying that the shooting was justified, but I do understand both sides of the equation. I help train police officers, from cadets to personal protection details, and have learned a lot about police tactics. It's been a real eye-opener, and I realize that while such a response may seem excessive to most civilians; the reaction was one of personal survival more than anything. Hesitation will get you killed in that line of work faster than anything, and there is a mantra in law enforcement that goes "action before reaction." I am also not saying the civilian's move to his vehicle should have been cause for the shooting, but it was sudden and just exactly how was the officer suppose to know he was going for his license and not a weapon? Trust me, there have been numerous examples of the latter, as some of the videos posted have shown. Cops are people too, people who want to go home to their families and children at the end of their shifts the same way we in the military want to go home after a deployment. They also make honest mistakes, like many in the military have done; but not for nefarious reasons. I think that is the case here, and as sad as it is; such incidents occur and will continue to occur on a regular basis. I strongly advise everyone to think about their actions during a police stop, I doubt the civilian who was shot every considered that such a drastic move could be interpreted as a threat but from the officer's perspective it was. It is like one aspect of having a concealed carry license, the law in Texas states that CHL holders have to inform a police officer that they are carrying if asked for ID; but one thing several officers have suggested to me was never to use the word "gun" because that is what officers are trained to yell when they discover a firearm. If a second officer is present, and hears that word; he/she may not realize who said it and react as if it was a warning. I was actually pulled over for speeding in the Jeep (as ridiculous of a concept that is!) a few weeks ago and I simply told the constable I was carrying when I handed him my CHL. I also had my hands on the steering wheel and made no sudden moves during the stop (I did find it odd in the above video that the officer allowed the individual to exit his vehicle, that is not normal procedure). If it had been at night, I would have turned on the dome light as well. These are small things that make a bit difference, as an officer never knows what situation they are walking in to during a traffic stop; and if you honestly put yourselves in their shoes you might understand why they are so defensive to such sudden actions by people!