Careful out there

[texshooter]

A conundrum.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

A conundrum...

[John Camp]

Now a smartphone in hand is seen as a gun so I'ld like to see what gun design looks like that.

Ask, and you shall receive.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/21/news/gun-smartphone-ideal-conceal-carry/index.html

[Tim Lookingbill]

Ask, and you shall receive.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/21/news/gun-smartphone-ideal-conceal-carry/index.html

OMG! That's hilarious and frightening at the same time! I guess cops REALLY KNOW their guns. At least we know they're trained well in spotting a gun.

Thanks for posting that, John.

[Farmer]

...when I'm stopped by the cops (in the past I've been a little heavy on the gas pedal) I keep my hands on top of the steering wheel until they ask me for my driver's license, and then I say, "It's in my wallet" so they know what I'm doing when I go after it.

I've been pulled over just once by a cop in the US.  I was driving in Nevada and he noticed a super tiny crack in the windscreen and so turned around and pulled us (myself and a mate of mine I was travelling with) over.  Even down here, we're well acquainted with the need in the US to do exactly as you did.  We had the windows down before he got to us and kept hands in plain view and didn't eyeball him.  As soon as we spoke he asked where we were from and once he realised we were no threat he absolutely changed his demeanour.  We were mid 20s, we had a car we'd bought because it was cheaper than renting for a few months, and we were backpacking and travelling around.

He ended up giving us a notice to fix the windscreen which he said meant no one could ticket us for the next 90 days, by which time we would have sold the car and gone home.  But you could absolutely see the change between actively ready to defend himself and being totally relaxed.  That was in the mid 90s.

In Australia, you just stay in the car and then it's all pretty casual.  In fact, it was around the mid 90s that the police told motorists to stay in their cars - it was a safety issue.  Before that it was considered disrespectful to stay in your car instead of getting out and standing to talk to the cop (unless it was a Random Breath Test stop which were done as lines of cars from traffic).

[Rand47]

I have a hard time imagining that a tripod would look like a gun to someone who is close enough to be able to use a handgun.

I respect what police officers have to contend with on a day to day basis.  But I’ve worked with many many of them, and have observed that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  A weird occupational hazard that needs constant training to counter appropriately.


Rand

[PeterAit]

A conundrum.

I can't draw a cartoon, but here's another conundrum:

1) Cops shoot and kill unarmed black men and get off without consequences.
2) Cops shoot and kill unarmed black men and get off without consequences.

[JoeKitchen]

What are the stats on the amount of corrupt cops in law enforcement when most protect and conceal corruption with that thin blue line? Since there's no stats for that because it's impossible to count, what is the chance an African American who as you say are seen to have a gun and pose a threat aren't just shot on sight and a throw down weapon provided. There's actual video evidence that happens.

I actually encountered a corrupt cop in my fast growing small town when I called the police on a neighbor's harassing behavior who was a recovering meth addict and now employed as a maintenance man where I told dispatch not to have the cop knock on my door and point me out as the caller.

The cop did it anyway and now my life turned to sh*t afterward. However, since this was the first time I called the cops on anyone I got to see a strange and scary dynamic facing me as it was just me and the cop and no witnesses. He could've shot me with the neighbor backing his story up because the cop happened to be a buddy of his. It's a small town you see.

If you lived in those kind of conditions would you push the situation and demand the cop do his job and start arguing with him or run away to get out of that situation? You don't know it until you live it. I got a glimpse of what African Americans must feel when they encounter police where there are no witnesses.

So just to clarify, you made a complaint against your neighbor and asked the cops to keep it anonymous, while completely ignoring the fact that by law a person has the right to know his accusers.  (Note this is different then making an anonymous tip to help catch a fugitive, whom you would not be accusing of anything, only notifying the police of his location.)  Then, you thought up this hypothetical situation where the cop would shoot you dead and your neighbor would back up any story he thought of saying, which did not come close to happening. 

And you claim this makes the cop corrupt? 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I can't draw a cartoon, but here's another conundrum:...

This isn't even "are you smarter than a 5th-grader" level, this is dumb below a kindergarten level.

[Robert Roaldi]

So just to clarify, you made a complaint against your neighbor and asked the cops to keep it anonymous, while completely ignoring the fact that by law a person has the right to know his accusers.  (Note this is different then making an anonymous tip to help catch a fugitive, whom you would not be accusing of anything, only notifying the police of his location.) 

I'm not a lawyer but I was under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that the right to confront an accuser is only relevant in court not while an incident is under investigation. Else I.D. line-ups would not be anonymous.

[JoeKitchen]

I'm not a lawyer but I was under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that the right to confront an accuser is only relevant in court not while an incident is under investigation. Else I.D. line-ups would not be anonymous.

Good point, perhaps I am wrong here.  Although my insinuation still stands, this is a far cry for corruptness. 

[BernardLanguillier]

I worked as a street reporter on major metro papers for more than twenty years, and did a lot of police reporting. In the past couple of decades I have on occasion given speeches to police groups, and have said without much objection that I thought perhaps a third of cops shouldn't be on the street. They have issues with what they see as their own authority, they may be bigots, they are poorly trained, they are not bright enough to be out there, they are burned out, they are very often frightened. When you actually deal with cops on a daily basis, and hear some of the sh*t that some of them actually believe, there is good reason to be nervous around them. I'm a tall white-haired white guy and I drive expensive cars but when I'm stopped by the cops (in the past I've been a little heavy on the gas pedal) I keep my hands on top of the steering wheel until they ask me for my driver's license, and then I say, "It's in my wallet" so they know what I'm doing when I go after it. When you are stopped by a cop, you are in serious danger. And when the cop realizes he's dealing with somebody who poses no danger, they often show signs of relief: even a routine traffic stop heavily stresses them.

Give all of that, I have to say in this instance that the tripod could have been mistaken for a gun at a glance -- especially a high tech black rifle of the kind used in recent massacres. And a cop might believe he has only a second or two to decide what to do. A more famous version of this incident took place in Iraq where a well-known television (video) photographer raced up to a combat scene, jumped out of his car with a large TV camera, pointed it at a helicopter, and was quickly killed by a helicopter door gunner (IIRC). The TV camera didn't look exactly like, but looked somewhat like, an RPG launcher. The door gunner felt he had about 1 second to make the call. The photographer was incredibly stupid to do what he did, and he died for it.

I often get tired of these news stories about how awful the cops are when people shot by cops were actually fleeing after a crime, they have something in their hands, and it's dark. The cops are scared, too. God knows enough of them killed. So don't run. You're running because you think they are going to put you in jail? Then go to jail -- its better than getting killed. Obviously, young black men are in more danger from the cops than tall white-haired white guys -- it goes back to the bigotry, the poor training, the fear, the burn-out -- but the rule still stands: give up. Hands over your head, nothing in them.

We're living in a time of increasing international and domestic terrorism, and the cops are getting it from all directions -- if they over-react, they're vilified. If they under-react, they're vilified. If they react properly, but something goes wrong, they're vilified. So they're on edge, all the time. I can only repeat was the OP said: Be careful out there.

Yep, understandable.

Not an easy job for sure, but then again, the fact remains that this cop messed up.

So I don't think it is sending the right message to the society to say that he has basically not done anything wrong. He made a very bad mistake that could have costed somebody's life.

We could of course connect this back to the weapon topic also, because the fact is that in most countries where access to weapon is more controlled, 99.9% of cops would not even image that a tripod could be a weapon. So it seems fair to argue that this incident should be counted among those resulting from the easy access to guns.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Robert Roaldi]

The widespread ownership and willingness to use firearms in the US puts law enforcement official there in an untenable position, it seems to me. They pretty much have to approach every single citizen interaction through that lens. I don't think it's fair to them. And it's dangerous for everyone. It is not a good thing. The country is not better off because of this.

Naturally, given the reality of human error and occasional bad behaviour, bad things happen. John Camp, in one early entry (not sure if it was in this thread), mentions how sick he is of police being criticized when they face armed criminals and judged badly when shootings occur. I get that. But surely it must raise some alarms how often unarmed citizens who were not committing crimes are gunned down. I can't believe that people would accept that as a reasonable societal compromise.

A few years ago, the Canadian federal government passed particularly bad legislation to do with registering long guns, and the law was later repealed. But I remember at that time that police forces across the country here were in favour of it. The police don't want a lot of guns out there and I don't blame them. How do American police forces feel about some form of gun control?

[Robert Roaldi]

Follow-up report: https://www.dpreview.com/news/6568028059/sheriff-s-deputy-who-shot-photographer-won-t-face-criminal-charges.

[RSL]

The widespread ownership and willingness to use firearms in the US puts law enforcement official there in an untenable position, it seems to me. They pretty much have to approach every single citizen interaction through that lens. I don't think it's fair to them. And it's dangerous for everyone. It is not a good thing. The country is not better off because of this.

Naturally, given the reality of human error and occasional bad behaviour, bad things happen. John Camp, in one early entry (not sure if it was in this thread), mentions how sick he is of police being criticized when they face armed criminals and judged badly when shootings occur. I get that. But surely it must raise some alarms how often unarmed citizens who were not committing crimes are gunned down. I can't believe that people would accept that as a reasonable societal compromise.

A few years ago, the Canadian federal government passed particularly bad legislation to do with registering long guns, and the law was later repealed. But I remember at that time that police forces across the country here were in favour of it. The police don't want a lot of guns out there and I don't blame them. How do American police forces feel about some form of gun control?

Most intelligent cops understand that when politicians talk about "gun control" they're talking about controlling guns available to law-abiding folks. Folks who aren't law-abiding don't give a damn about "gun control," and they always can get guns. In the end, all you do is disarm the good guys, leaving them at the mercy of the bad guys.

[LesPalenik]

Another similar case:

An astrophotographer in Ireland recently caused a strange scare: he was mistaken for a “sniper,” and it resulted in an armed police manhunt. The night sky photographer was setting up his camera and tripod on a beach at south Kerry bay on March 18th at around 6:30 p.m. when a passerby on the dunes spotted him. The walker thought the photographer was carrying a rifle around on the beach, so they called the national police force (known as the Gardaí) and reported that a dangerous “sniper” was roaming the area. Authorities reacted to the alarming report with a dramatic response: armed police offers immediately rushed to the scene, set up roadblocks, and began searching the area for the gunman.

Full story:
https://petapixel.com/2018/04/02/photographer-mistaken-for-sniper-sparks-armed-police-manhunt/

[Farmer]

Most intelligent cops understand that when politicians talk about "gun control" they're talking about controlling guns available to law-abiding folks. Folks who aren't law-abiding don't give a damn about "gun control," and they always can get guns. In the end, all you do is disarm the good guys, leaving them at the mercy of the bad guys.

If you reduce the total number of weapons and if you have more stringent controls on their storage, registration, sale, and so on, you reduce the avenues for illegally obtaining them (less/harder to steal, harder to "wash" them through a legitimate initial sale, and so on).

Criminals break the law, yes.  But if you think that's a valid reason for not having laws, then why have any? Because there is a sliding scale - a certain level of risk that people, including criminals, are willing to take.  Make it riskier, fewer take the risk.  Make the supply lower and harder to obtain, fewer take the risk.

You can try to argue against that if you like, but you'll be wrong.  Criminals take weapons from people who obtained them legally.  If there are less legal weapons stored more securely, there are less for them to take.  Weather or not you decide to take that option or not is up to the population at large, of course, but the argument that laws about gun control can't stop criminals is a silly one with no basis in fact.

[RSL]

. . .the argument that laws about gun control can't stop criminals is a silly one with no basis in fact.

Hi Phil, I guess that since you're Australian you don't know about Chicago, which has extremely tight gun control.

[texshooter]

Was it reckless and racist for the cops to assume this black man's pipe was a gun?  Be careful what you point at people, my mama always said.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/05/us/nypd-police-shoot-man-metal-pipe/index.html

[Robert Roaldi]

Was it reckless and racist for the cops to assume this black man's pipe was a gun?  Be careful what you point at people, my mama always said.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/05/us/nypd-police-shoot-man-metal-pipe/index.html

Well fair enough in this case, assuming that this one still isn't taken out of context.

All the examples of cases where there is ambiguity or real danger to law enforcement or civilians, or criminal flight, are beside the point. My guess is that not many people have a problem with those cases, once the details are known. The cases that need explanation are the ones where there is no crime being committed, no weapon, no immediate danger and total cooperation on the part of the person who was randomly stopped and subsequently shot. Those require explanation. It's not good enough to automatically make excuses for the officer involved in cases like that. How many of you would put up with it if your kids were shot in that manner?

Incidentally, because it's potentially relevant, have there been many unarmed white guys who were randomly stopped for no reason while not committing a crime who were shot? I never hear of any, but that could be because they have not been publicized.