What does it take to convict an American policeman?

[Blind groper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/invest ... rosecuted/

In the USA, the police shoot and kill two people per day on average. Most are black. Many are unarmed, unthreatening, or even running away. Out of all those roughly 7000 killings in the last ten years, only 54 policemen were even charged with an offense, and most of them got off the charge, or received a punishment equivalent to a slap on the wrist.

What does it take?

[Seth]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/invest ... rosecuted/

In the USA, the police shoot and kill two people per day on average. Most are black. Many are unarmed, unthreatening, or even running away. Out of all those roughly 7000 killings in the last ten years, only 54 policemen were even charged with an offense, and most of them got off the charge, or received a punishment equivalent to a slap on the wrist.

What does it take?

Good question. Let's look at what happens when someone does charge and prosecute police officers: The murder rate in Baltimore, after the indictment of six officers for the in-custody death of a black man, has more than doubled in the last 30 days. The police are choosing not to take actions that might end up with them being indicted and the (illegally) armed criminals and thugs of Baltimore are taking advantage of that power vacuum and are killing each other left and right.

So. do more black people die due to police action or due to a lack of police action?

That being said, I'm appalled by the ease with which police officers literally get away with murder these days.

[Blind groper]

According to the Wasington Post, a few of the cases that actually got to court involved the policeman being released after a claim that he 'felt threatened'. In some cases this defense was enough to get him off after shooting an unarmed person in the back.

So what constitutes a valid self defense case?

In my view, simply feeling threatened is far from being enough. If someone, policemen or civilian, shoots a person dead because of a feeling, that is still murder.

Here is my view.

If a person is holding a knife, or even using it to threaten, that is not enough to justify shooting him. Only if that person is making a positive and aggressive move towards the policeman or someone else, can a shooting be justified. If the person is running away and the policeman shoots him dead, that is automatically murder.

However, I suspect that the courts will continue to let genuine murderers off the hook.

[Seth]

According to the Wasington Post, a few of the cases that actually got to court involved the policeman being released after a claim that he 'felt threatened'. In some cases this defense was enough to get him off after shooting an unarmed person in the back.

So what constitutes a valid self defense case?

In my view, simply feeling threatened is far from being enough. If someone, policemen or civilian, shoots a person dead because of a feeling, that is still murder.

It depends on the level of the threat. "Feeling" threatened isn't and shouldn't be enough. On must be able to articulate why one felt threatened to the degree that one reasonably believed that his life, or the life of another, was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm. And the "reasonable man" test is applied by the jury, not by the prosecutor. The problem is that prosecutors have a very cozy relationship with police and they are highly reluctant to charge police officers even when it appears to be a clear violation of the law because they have to work with the police in the future. I think all decisions about charging police officers should be made by an independent prosecutor not connected with the local DA so that there is no taint of favoritism, which does seem to be the case quite often.

Here is my view.

If a person is holding a knife, or even using it to threaten, that is not enough to justify shooting him. Only if that person is making a positive and aggressive move towards the policeman or someone else, can a shooting be justified. If the person is running away and the policeman shoots him dead, that is automatically murder.

Should be. The "fleeing felon" laws that allowed police to shoot anyone running away from them were ruled unconstitutional in the 70s.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

I think all decisions about charging police officers should be made by an independent prosecutor not connected with the local DA so that there is no taint of favoritism, which does seem to be the case quite often.

Seems like a very sensible suggestion to me...

[Blind groper]

I agree.

Here in NZ, we have an independent Police Complaints Tribunal, that investigates possible misbehaviour by police. They are automatically called in every time a policeperson kills someone.

[mistermack]

We have that in theory. The IPCC.

In practice, the IPCC bends every fibre of truth to absolve the police.

How do you get an ''independent'' complaints body? First you need to want one.
The UK clearly doesn't.

It's there to manage public outrage, by the pretence of an independent investigation.
And then quietly bury it, when the heat has gone out of it all.

[Blind groper]

Of course, it is not all shootings. Eric Garner died while telling the police he could not breath, while the cop holding him kept tightening a chokehold. Freddie Gray died of a spinal injury while restrained in a police van.

One of the things that helps keep the police from being too violent is on body video cameras. One third of all American police departments now require their police to use them, and police brutality has dropped substantially in those places.

[mistermack]

I've wondered for years why they didn't put cameras on cops. You would think it would be great for evidence.
Maybe this was why.

[Seth]

Of course, it is not all shootings. Eric Garner died while telling the police he could not breath, while the cop holding him kept tightening a chokehold. Freddie Gray died of a spinal injury while restrained in a police van.

Eric Garner had other medical problems, but his death was triggered by two things: a stupid fucking law making it a crime to sell "loosie" cigarettes merely because the transaction cannot be taxed effectively, and a bunch of cops jumping on him after the takedown. Many, many people die from "positional asphyxia" in police custody. It's a very well-known and understood phenomenon. It occurs when the cops make an arrest on an uncooperative person. They dog-pile him and cuff him, often doing things like kneeling on the subject's back or even neck. They keep shouting for him to "stop resisting" as they struggle with him, but he can't hear them because he's actually struggling to keep from dying of asphyxiation. It's perfectly normal for a person who is having the breath driven out of him to struggle to breathe and survive, and the harder he struggles, the more cops jump on him, creating a vicious circle that ends up with him dead and the cops saying "He wouldn't stop fighting us so we had to use more force." In point of legal fact THEY were illegally assaulting the suspect to the point that he believed he was dying, which fully justifies his struggling with the police as they slowly kill him. Another little twist with positional asphyxia is that obese persons, when laid on their stomachs, as is usual for a handcuffed subject while the police wait for the paddy wagon or whatever, have their chest compressed by their own weight so that they cannot breathe, and they quietly die face down on the ground as the cops stand around making jokes as he wriggles and writhes. It's a horrible death and it's unconscionable that it happens literally every single day somewhere. The police, and the prosecutors, and the MEs all know about this and are perfectly aware of the dangers, but they, and the police unions, work overtime to keep "positional asphyxia" out of the autopsy reports and the papers because they kind of like being able to kill some scumbag largely without risk and with a plausible excuse: "He wouldn't stop resisting."

Freddy Gray was murdered, and it's right that they indicted the cops. They handcuffed him, threw him in the transport van and DELIBERATELY did not strap him in his seat with seat belts, which is mandatory, because they wanted to administer a little "street justice" to him by giving him a "screen test" and beating the crap out of him not by striking him, but by driving the van in such a way that he was helplessly tossed about. They do it ALL THE TIME with people who piss them off just to "teach them a lesson." In this case the victim struck his C-spine on a protruding bolt, which killed him, a rare but not unique event.

One of the things that helps keep the police from being too violent is on body video cameras. One third of all American police departments now require their police to use them, and police brutality has dropped substantially in those places.

The problem is the zillion and one ways that dirty cops will figure out how to screw up the video so it's useless or doesn't get turned on in the first place. And then there's the cost of storing all that digital video, which costs, literally, millions of dollars a year for major police departments.

It's a great thing, but it's not going to stop police abuse. It does reduce it, and it also protects officers against false allegations, but there's lots of room for error and deliberate malfeasance.