Thursday, July 14, 2016

Dumb Lives Matter?

What is often being portrayed as police brutality against unarmed blacks is more likely police shooting those who are offering some kind of resistance.

As I have written before (See: How To Really Deal With Police When You Are Confronted By Them)
What needs to be understood is that the police, when it comes down to it, are concerned about two things: 1. Not getting killed  and 2. Collecting their paychecks.
If you don't fully comply with police orders, there is a chance you are going to get plugged.

A video has just been released of the Fresno police shooting of Dylan Noble, a white guy. The police shot him four times, twice as he approached coppers, twice while he was on the ground, still moving.

He was unarmed.

His family thinks Fresno police didn't need to use deadly force but this was an intense situation.

CNN has a blow by blow:
The chief said police originally responded to the area June 25 after a report of a man carrying a rifle while walking down the street. The two officers were riding together. One was a reserve officer.
They were stopped at a red light when a black pickup truck made a right turn onto the road in front of them and with screeching tires, appeared to speed away. The officers followed and after catching up to the truck, attempted to pull the vehicle over. The pickup driver kept going for another half mile.
The officer, Dyer said, began to suspect the driver was the man with a rifle call. He drew his handgun as he followed the pickup, just as it turned into a gas station and parked.
Both officers came out of the car with weapons drawn. Video shows Noble putting his left hand out the window. An officer yells at him to put both arms out.
During the next one minute, 17 seconds, Noble is in the vehicle but doesn't fully comply with officers' commands, the chief said. Officers get closer to the truck.
At one point, Noble climbs out of the pickup and an officer yells that he didn't tell Noble to get out of the vehicle. Noble gets back in the truck, leaving the door open. The officers move back to their car.
"Let me see your hands," an officer says repeatedly.
Noble gets out of the truck again and walks away from the officers, who tell him to get on the ground. He walks several more steps then turns around.
Dyer pointed out that at this point Noble has his right hand behind his back. He continues toward the officers then backs up. An officer yells for him to get down but instead he walks back toward the officers.
"What do you have in your hand?" one asks. The he warns Noble he's going to get shot.
As Noble walks toward the officers, he hears another command to get on the ground. And Noble says, "I (expletive) hate my life."
The officer with a handgun, a veteran of 20 years, fires twice. Noble goes down and rolls onto his back.
Dyer said when he reaches for his waistband the officer fires again.
Noble squirms while he is told to not to put his hands up. About 14 seconds later, the reserve officer, who has 17 years of service, fires once.
Noble didn't have a gun; he had what Dyer described as a piece of clear plastic, 4 inches by 4 inches, that contained moldable clay.
"We don't know what that is," Dyer said.

Watch the video at CNN, here.

I am not a big fan of government police but it is difficult to understand what coppers could have done in this situation other than what they did. He appeared to be a very real threat. Noble was either really dumb or he wanted to commit suicide by cop.

The lesson remains, black or white, comply with a copper's orders, don't make any moves a copper(s) would consider threatening. Battle coppers in the courts, not in the streets. You might lose in court but for sure you are going to lose on the street.

-RW

14 comments:

  1. Oh no. Say it ain't so RW. His family thinks the cops didn't need to use deadly force, but you do? Now Target Liberty's making excuses for cops gunning down citizens? What's next, the white supremacy commenter crowd?

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    1. I'm pretty Robert hasn't all of a sudden turned in a cop worshiper like majority of conservatives are. One can still dole out good advice on how to interact with the thugs of the state and still be against government violence.

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    2. @NY Cynic: So, in other words, "cut him some slack." That's the 2016 "hardcore" libertarian catchphrase it seems.

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    3. @Hollow Daze July 15, 2016 at 8:50 AM: I interpret what RW is saying as the equivalent of "Know the likely outcome of your actions, and choose your battles." Which is good advice for even the most radical among us, I think.

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    4. @JdL: I don't need a blogger to tell me that. That's known as common sense. What I do find unseemly from a "hardcore" libertarian blogger is the subtle, yet firm, reinforcement of the comply or die mantra so prevalent today in the US. Yes, that is the unfortunate state of affairs in America today for those not named Hillary Clinton. IMO, calling the unfortunate human being who got shot in this unnecessary escalation of State violence "dumb" implicitly puts the blame on the wrong party, almost like, he got what he "deserved." I notice this kind of attitude permeating comment threads (if they can be believed as real, I'm not sure) across the internet lately. This, along with a crazy, synthetic white "rayciss-ness" that comes off as almost cartoonish. Guess whose agenda that serves?

      I sometimes wonder if certain "alternative" bloggers/web personalities have been threatened, or are just scared of that possibility, so they've toned down the anti-state rhetoric, especially the rhetoric that questions the gratuitous violence of the State's enforcers, in order to protect their "paychecks." Some other "alternative" sites I visit seem to have morphed into clones of FoxNews. FoxNews does make a lot of money, though, I guess...

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  2. Your advice is 100% correct. But I would add that the situation is at least as stressful for the non-cop. Cops are armed, yelling, the person is likely in some trouble, often has a low IQ, often intoxicated, sometimes mental illness, and other factors that lead to confusion and really stupid behavior.

    The dynamic is bound to yield the occasional tragic outcome even with good intent by the cops. However, adding to the risk is officer-safety-first training/priority that tips the scales to the dark side.

    The cop-first training/priorities deliver tragic outcomes in other ways too, such as the multi-hour wait before action at the Orlando gay club and Columbine during which time the killers executed unabated.

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  3. Watching the video, it's easy to understand the officer's actions. What is tough to understand, is why this vehicle "caught their attention" in the first place. They claim they were responding to claim of a man carrying a rifle while walking down the street. Who called this in? Was this a real concern, or just cover for their actions? Seems like if there actually was a threat from someone walking down the street with a rifle, that would be in the report. Too many times the genesis of these incidents are busy-body citizens looking to the government to "protect" them.

    I remember one day last year when my wife called me on a Saturday morning on her way to town saying she saw some guy laying in a ditch in the side of a road, moving around with a long gun in his hands. We live a rural area and she was driving down a two-lane highway. Her question for me was should she call the cops and report it. I told her not to, because this is how people get killed. Some excited cop will respond and someone will get shot and/or killed. And it won't be the cops.

    We never heard anything else about my wife's sighting (no additional reports of it and no one hurt). So I conclude two things: either my wife was mistaken about what she saw, or it wasn't a threat to anyone. There are lots of guns around here and I can't remember a single issue of someone using one to hurt another person.

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  4. If you train soldiers, you get a war zone. If you train andy griffith's you get mayberry. The problem is the training. In high violence areas you may need the soldier style training but not all areas need a special ops style police force.

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  5. This is what psychologists call "learned helplessness".

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  6. I've heard claims that while they were looking for a guy with camo pants and a rifle this guy had neither.

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  7. More importantly stay away from coppers as much as possible. Don't call them, don't interact with them. If you see, hear or know they are coming, try and get away without making it look like you are purposely running.

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  8. "The lesson remains, black or white, comply with a copper's orders, don't make any moves a copper(s) would consider threatening. Battle coppers in the courts, not in the streets. You might lose in court but for sure you are going to lose on the street."

    That's good practical advice but it won't fix the problem. The institution of policing in America is rotten from top to bottom, and cops have pretty well proven that they're immune to words, either polite or otherwise. I am becoming more convinced with each passing day that the only thing that will check cops' gratuitously murderous behavior is for courageous citizens to defend themselves by whatever means prove necessary. I speak only of immediate self-defense, not going out looking to make trouble.

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    1. Except for the fact that it's practically illegal to defend yourself from the police.

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  9. It's not just practically illegal to defend yourself from killer cops, it's flat out illegal. Your duty is to die like the mundane that you are.
    While suggestions on how to survive a cop stop may be good, anything, flat anything, that gives them any legitimacy at all is BS.
    "But this was an intense situation". Why?
    Why do we have armed thugs running around in intense situations? His parents are right that he was killed unjustly. The State is NEVER justified or legitimate in any situation. And that's all these murderers are, illegitimate State thugs.

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