This sounds like a war zone, but it is happening in America.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

... she was alive yesterday, 7 years old. she went to bed on a couch in a first floor room with her grandmother last night. The early in morning, they raided her house. A man outside the house shouted that there were kids inside. But, a man on the second floor of the house was the one they were after. They threw a “flash bang” through the front window. It blinded everyone inside and it lit the girl on fire. Then the young girl was shot, by accident, though the stories differ...

This sounds like a war zone, but it is happening in America.

The presence of a reality TV show crew makes the whole thing more suspect. Was this child shot due to police incompetence and the careless way they so often quickly, and recklessly, resort to violence especially when in low-income, minority neighborhoods?

Were the cops emboldened by the prospect of being reality TV heroes, bravely walking the "perps" to the car in cuffs... Rounding up the "bad boys" on television for "America's" amusement? Hurling smoke bombs through windows to "smoke 'em out"?

Will, media find this child cute enough ... "all American" enough... to get this story the attention it deserves? Or will most of the coverage spend time splitting hairs about why this is somehow her families fault for one BS reason or another?

The answers will come in time... but nothing will bring Aiyana back. She was just a child and she was shot in her own home by the very people who were supposed to be protecting her. This did not have to happen. This could have been avoided-- if we have sense sense of responsibility someone will be held accountable.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The presence of the reality TV crew isn't necessary to cause them to do these sorts of ridiculous things, as we've seen on too many (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/91097/92_year_old_woman_killed_by_the_police.html) other occasions (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476). The idea of these quasi-militarized police forces is terrifying, though I recognize that there are some situations in which they're necessary. But really, a flashbang entry for a no-knock warrant on a home in which they knew there was a child? Show some fucking discretion.

That said, I fully expect the cop whose weapon did this to walk away "clean" in the eyes of the law. Disgusting.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Maybe we should ask, if this is what they do on camera... what do they do when no one is watching...

[readherring.livejournal.com]

Police forces that feel that they are somehow above the law are a pet issue of my housemate. I'm always hearing about wrongful shootings where the cops always get away clean, procedural gunning down of family dogs for minor house visits, police that refer to non-police officers as 'civilians', etc.

He's right - something unhealthy has crept into the psyche of many of our police.

[lordtwinkie.livejournal.com]

i'm glad the cameras were there to catch these assholes in the act and to disprove the made up bullshit lies they were going to tell.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

People generally fail to understand that when you train somebody in something, they are going to use it. Tazers, for instance, are now simply easy-button replacements for actual work. Tazers were introduced as a less-lethal alternative to firearms and were not intended as a general purpose arresting tool. But hey, give a man a hammer, and he's gonna fucking use it.

So you give the cops some flash-bangs, show them how to use it, and now everything becomes a "Can I use it boss, huh, can I? Can I? Huh? Please? Please?"

So now incidents which never had an overtly tactical nature before all of a sudden become "tactical", because you've got neat fucking gear burning a hole in your trunk and training to go with it.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

And this is bad because cops don't fight enemies. They arrest citizens. When cops start viewing their quarry as combatants, you've turned the civil sphere in a battlefield.

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

The transition from "peace officer" to "Law Enforcement Officer" is a depressing one.


now that I think of it, only old people even remember "peace officers"...

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Agreed, and that's probably the worst thing for law enforcement. Sadly, it's most comparable to Iraq or Vietnam: if you're constantly suspicious of everyone around you, armed to the teeth, and told "this is a war," bad things are going to happen.

How many people are going to be less likely to consent to a warranted search of their homes, knowing what happened to this girl? That's the worst outcome for law enforcement: a loss of legitimacy.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

While I'm not defending the police in this event at all, I have to say that when the citizens that police are trying to arrest start viewing themselves as combatants, and acting as such, I don't see what alternative the cops have.

Even if we believe the official version...

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

Police have said officers threw a flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home, and that an officer's gun discharged, killing the girl, during a struggle or after colliding with the girl's grandmother inside the home.

The phrase "the officer's gun discharged" reeks of responsibility-dodging.

Ages ago, I took a "combat pistol" class taught by a former Navy SEAL. Reading the paragraph above made me hear his voice: "Keep your fucking finger off the trigger until you have a target in your sight!"

Just to refresh my own memory, I googled the phrase "negligent discharge" and these came up:


A negligent discharge (ND) is a discharge of a firearm involving culpable carelessness. In judicial and military technical terms, a negligent discharge is a chargeable offence. A number of armed forces automatically consider any accidental discharge to be negligent discharge, under the assumption that a trained soldier has control of his weapon at all times. This is the case notably in the United States Army, Canadian Army, the Royal Air Force and the British Army.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligent_discharge)



What I mean by the term negligent discharge (ND) is, a round fired from an officer’s weapon that they didn’t intend to fire. Several factors can enter into the causation of a ND, but they almost invariably involve mishandling on the officer’s part.
...
The rule here is a very simple one - NEVER put your hands on a suspect with a gun in your hand! Holster the weapon! Luckily, this unarmed suspect wasn’t hit.
...
Society has every reason to expect safe gun handling from professional peace officers.
(http://www.policeone.com/police-products/firearms/articles/1354124-Causes-and-cures-for-the-negligent-discharge/)


So, the official reduces to, "Our officers aren't bad fellows; they're just poorly trained."

Re: Even if we believe the official version...

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

which is, in some ways, even more frightening.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Not surprised at all. Cop's job ought to be to serve and protect. Instead all incentive is to make arrests and kill bad guys. Freedom ain't so free.

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. The U.S. incarceration rate on December 31, 2008 was 754 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. The USA also has the highest total documented prison and jail population in the world.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): "In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States)

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

So are you arguing they shouldn't have attempted to incarcerate the man they were searching for? He was a murder suspect, not a street level drug dealer. Shouldn't we want to have folks like that arrested? Doesn't that serve and protect the public to have a man who killed someone in an apparently very brutal and senseless way, off the streets?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Innocent until proven guilty in court of law doesn't make cops judge, jury and reckless executioner. Seems that is modus operendi. Shoot first, shoot anyone and everyone and ask questions later. It's straight out of Charles Bronson's DeathWish movies.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

Cop's job ought to be to serve and protect. Instead all incentive is to make arrests and kill bad guys.

Those are the same things. You do see how the one leads to the other, yes?

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

In fact, cops should not "kill bad guys" punishment, (if we are to have a death penalty) is handled by the courts. Cops should make arrests-- but they should also listen, investigate and otherwise aid the communities they serve.

Arresting people is one tool cops have probably a very important tool but there are many way to keep the peace without arresting anyone.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

Of course I wasn't referring to police passing that kind of judgement on the street; I should've made that clearer. My fault for quoting a tinfoil-hat comment in a reply. :)

But I'm perfectly okay with them killing bad guys who pose an immediate threat to them or to other people. And that's part of their job. So in that sense, "kill bad guys" is more than acceptable, it's to be encouraged.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

No.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

I encourage you to explain the distinction you see to the officer arresting the armed burglar apprehended in your home.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I'm with futurebird above. Arrest is simply one tool in cops arsenal. Arrest should never be the first resort and shooting should always be the last. Unfortunately it's hollywood justice instead. I find it really hard to understand why a kid caught with weed in his pocket is considered worthy of arrest. This is neither serving or protecting the publics best interest. Arguably speeders endanger the public good with greater severity yet are let off with fines for disobedience. Of course burglar caught in act is in the publc interest to warrant arrest. But shooting fleeing burglar is not.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

'm with futurebird above. Arrest is simply one tool in cops arsenal. Arrest should never be the first resort and shooting should always be the last.

I never said otherwise.

Unfortunately it's hollywood justice instead.

It's really not. You might be watching too much TV.

I find it really hard to understand why a kid caught with weed in his pocket is considered worthy of arrest.

Well, it's currently a crime in most jurisdictions, so, y'know, criticize the law and not the police on that subject. Unless you'd like to advocate that the police actually should have some discretion in their behavior. That said, possession alone can, in many cases, be handled with a ticket and / or confiscation, if in fact it's illegal at all. So there you go.

Speeders should be punished more severely in some circumstances, I agree. But again, that's the legislative / judicial aspect you should be criticizing, not the police.

Who said anything about shooting a fleeing burglar?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Cops always have discretion by very nature of their job. They are always discerning the danger they are in, just as they discern the severity of crime, you know, since they are not judge and jury and everyone's innocence until proven guilty in court of law. While it's good to err on the side of caution, there is such a thing as erring on the side of paranoia.

[headhouse.livejournal.com]

Your initial phrasing here

Cop's job ought to be to serve and protect. Instead all incentive is to make arrests and kill bad guys.

made it seem that you judged the two things to be mutually exclusive. They are not.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Another example involving the *mayor* of a small town in my county.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299.html

The friggin' mayor! The family was victimized twice, once by drug dealers and again by the police.

If it happens to a white public official, how often does it go unreported in black neighborhoods? People wonder why minorities do not trust police...

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The better question is why does anyone trust them?

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Don't you have to trust the police to some extend? The other option is pretty uncomprehendable. It's like eracerhead said, "The family was victimized twice, once by drug dealers and again by the police." If you absolutely don't trust the police that leaves you completely without an ally.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

they were without an ally before. They just didn't know it.

I don't trust the police, not even a little bit. Get them out of revenue generation, and we'll talk.

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

Holy shit I agree with you.

I think I may have just suffered a cerebral hemorrhage right there.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Broken clock...

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Trust is earned. Trust is not automatically granted. This isn't personal. This is the public trust. If the public doesn't trust them, and many don't, there is reason for this. Probably good reason.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

False choices. Law enforcement is given latitude to take law into their own hands. That's no longer enforcement at that point, hence the uproar.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

"The videotape shows clearly that the assistant police chief and the officers on the scene are engaging in an intentional cover up of the events"

That pretty much closes the case for me right there. How aweful.

I don't think that the reality show had any affect on the police officers actions. There are plenty of news stories of raids gone bad without the cameras there. In fact perhaps we should always have an independant camera crew along on raids. I'm not willing to fund it. I think an on going reality show would pay for itself.

[rev-proffessor.livejournal.com]

I think the whole COPS phenomenon has made us accept that police can abuse people, tackle them, rough them up for suspicion and resisting arrest. Also, the idea that preemptive violence is acceptable. That leads to preemptive violence on the suspicion of resisting arrest, standard operating procedure.

How is it that the police can not surround a house with all exits covered and simply open up with a bull horn? Tom Jones, we have a warrant for your arrest. Make it very clear that violence by the suspect is not an option and take them into custody. I understand it may not work for every situation but, I think it would have been better in this instance.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Tom Jones, we have a warrant for your arrest.

Tom Jones wasn't involved in bank fraud. He was suspected of a very brutal murder. The legitimate fear was that he would take someone like Aiyana hostage and perhaps kill her or others. This doesn't excuse what went on here, because it seems that the police were pretty incompetent, but it wasn't prima facie unreasonable.

[rev-proffessor.livejournal.com]

"but it wasn't prima facie unreasonable."

Perhaps in your opinion. I do not agree.