Your link doesn't seem to be working. The Wikipedia article can be found here. An article on the incident which was published by The Guardian can be found here. I've had my own dealings with police. Like folks in all walks of life, there are decent police and complete assholes who wear badges. Even being polite isn't enough, sometimes.
In New York I had friends who became cops and the ones who switched over to fire department stayed nice those who stayed as NYPD were changed into something else. My friends all said the job will change you. That is a big city environment. Here in my part of SWF, I am friends and friendly with many deputies. All of them are great but it is a different work environment in so many ways.
Thanks for adding a working link. I thought about adding other sources, but decided against it. It's an incredible story, one that doesn't make sense at first glance. If the man had just let the cops in when they first arrived, like any sane person would have, he'd probably be alive today. Instead, they were outside his door for an hour...getting angrier and angrier, I'm sure...until they decided enough was enough. I still have unanswered questions about what exactly happened. Although the wiki article says "He was unarmed, and did not resist." before being tasered and shot, I find that unlikely. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they thought he had went for a knife, or something similar, or had one in his hands when the tasered him. I haven't looked for the video of the taser-shot yet, apparently there is video somewhere, and that might clear up a question or two...like why shoot him after he was tasered? I know it can occasionally take two shots (or more) to bring someone into compliance...but that's pretty rare from what I hear, one shot usuallysubdues anyone. So, I guess I'll do some more research on this. If I find anything, I'll post it. I'll try to get the link right lol
I hear that. From what I can tell, that is spot-on true. Why that is, who knows. Maybe it's the size of the department, the number of officers in the department. Maybe it's the beat, or neighborhood. Maybe it's the old-timers teaching the new ones how to get away with stuff. It seems like the bigger cities have the biggest issues with that, but I'm thinking that's only because they get more attention, they have more newspeople on their cases about stuff. I know some local cops are decent people, and others....not so much. I used to work in a retail store with a local cop, who worked at the store as a second job. He brazenly told me how he liked to sleep in certain spots at night...after I joked about how all the cops used to be parked at a local Perkins at 4:30am (it was a semi-weekly occurance for about a year, then suddenly stopped) He seemed a bit too self-assured about himself, a bit too arrogant, and some of the stuff he said he had done rubbed me the wrong way, so when he had to sell his $45,000 vehicle...and was all sad about it... I kind of chuckled lol I have to work with the cops on occasion with my job. As long as they show me proper respect, I do the same. I only got mad at a cop once out of the last half-a-dozen encounters. He was kind enough to allow me to tell him to "get bent" ...in a more colorful manner, not allowed on this site...but over-all my dealings with them are positive.
Youtube has video of it, but I'm not sure about legalities for posting it so if you're interested it's easy enough to find there. I can't go frame by frame with youtube stuff...only second by second...so the best view I could see of the guy was as he was being tasered...and I couldn't see his right arm. Supposedly he had a weapon in his right hand...or so says the cops. From what I can tell from the video, which is 3 minutes of the cops tearing the door off it's hinges followed by half a minute of tasering, they immediately began tasering him as soon as the door was off. For some reason they shut the video off on the taser, then a couple minutes later they shot two rounds at him, one hit, one apparently missed. I still have a lot of questions about this shooting...it's just so surreal.
Then there's this story about a 54 year old woman, involved with church activities, being shot and killed in Virginia in February: http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/2...eper-Police-Officer-In-Shooting-Death-Of-Wife The woman's husband is suing. The officer claims his arm was stuck in her window as she rolled it up, but a witness says his left hand was on the door handle (attempting to open the door) and his right hand was on his gun. He apparently told her to obey his orders or be shot. She apparently was looking for her drivers license in her purse at the time, and he started shooting her. She put the vehicle in gear and he kept shooting. The car rolled some 75 yards. Again, this story is in dispute by the officer. Another case of someone refusing an officer's orders and getting shot for it. She should have complied, but I understand how people can get upset with being told what to do like that... most times it's legitimate, but sometimes it's harassment.
Here's another February shooting, and this is the one that got me looking into other incidents: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Unarmed_man_killed_by_narcotics_officer_in_The_Bronx A quote from the article: I find it somewhat odd for someone to not be able to see another person's hands when he is facing them...not that it's impossible. It just seems to me like the cop had a hair trigger. In any case, the kid (18 years old) was shot by plain cloths cops (wearing NYPD raid jackets? How is that "plain clothed"?) who chased him into his mother's home. He was attempting to flush a small amount of marijuana down the toilet at the time. Another case of failing to comply with an order from a cop. Again, there are lots of other articles about this that you can find on your own if you're curious, so I'll just post this one.
This story was a bit tough to track down. A 54 year old was visiting his nephew at the wronnng time. The police were conducting a "knock and announce" search warrant on the residence. Apparently, the man "made a threatening gesture" towards a female officer...who promptly pulled the trigger. read more: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/east-point-officer-involved-shooting/nFgXD/ I have to post this quote from the article...just for it's multiple use of the word "perpetrator": That taught that "perpetrator", now didn't it? No mention of any arrests made (though the video attached to the news story says seven people were detained) or of any drugs that may or may not have been found at the scene.
Ohhhh, no drugs were found because they executed the warrant at the wrong house...again: ...and the story is only begining to spread: This info came from coverage of an apparently annual "For the love of god, stop shooting our young black people!" protest in Atlanta. Ok, I admit, that was my title and not their's, but it shares the sentiment of the rally. http://atlanta.indymedia.org/local/reflections-326-rally-trayvon-atlanta The article/blog/whatever above was written by an Anonymous person, who at one point states this: ...in frustration at being unable to do anything to stop it from happening again. ********************************************** There were a few interesting comments to the article: Usually the authorities target people with cameras, but with everyone having cell phones they just can't do it anymore and get away with it.
