I hate dirty cops.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/10/police.shooting.ap/index.html

Do you have any idea what would happen to the average citizen if they shot someone that was threatening them with a HAMMER!? They would be in jail for life. But when cops do it, it's all okay somehow. *sigh*

Shot 12 times? Wow!!

THEY ARE ALL CORRUPT! I'M THE VICTIM HERE!!!!!!
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Hmmmmm...
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and shall be shot 12 times.....

To my understanding, cops are allowed to pull a gun only if they are threatened with a weapon (other than fists).

Though sometimes they pull guns on speeders (in police chase videos) and such.... I guess it must be a guideline then.

I'm really glad they told me that the hammer guy was a mentally disturbed 31-year-old Hasidic Jew...You know, because it just seems so important. I mean I already knew all the cops look for Jews with hammers to kill, but Hasidic Jews? I did not know that.

12 times? How can they even pretend that was justified?

Even at worst, a man with a hammer would need 1 shot to the leg,to stop him..or better yet how about some mace, or a stun gun

now what gets me is that one of the shots was in the back. wtf, was he running backwards at them or something?? totally unjustified IMO. mace or at least hitting him with that baton that cops have. but no, they shoot him 12 f***ing times

I hate pigs.

I guess they wanted to make sure he was dead, unlike that kidnapper in China who was still alive after being shot in the head and fallen off a 5 story building. Maybe they were rookie cops who were freightened because they never met a guy crazy enough to attack them with a hammer. Either that or they're the typically cops who don't play by the rules.

Don't be ignorant.

It's not ignorance, it's the truth. There's tons of cops out there that have gone power crazy just because they're an authority figure.

Depending on location the police are trained to kill, and are also trained to empty their clips. 12 shots is actually far too few. If someone threatened me with a weapon and I had a gun, I would shoot them. Yes, defending himself against a mentally disturbed person with a weapon sure makes him a crooked pig.

[Edit: I sure wouldn't want to risk having a hammer thrown at me because I just shot him in the leg.]

I'm sorry, have you met every cop in your state? Have you met more then 50%? 40%? 30%?! "All cops are crooked, they camp out and give me speeding tickets" Hey, well don't speed morons. I hate people that blame the cops for their breaking the law. There are a few cops out their that just go power crazy, but you can't judge the entire police force because a cop caught you on a speed trap or something. You hear about maybe 1 or 2 stories a year about a cop that shot so and so or did this to that person and it was soooo wrong and unjust. WHAT YOU SAY?! I read about 5 dirty cops in the papers they must all suck!

I wasn't there, so I can't make an honest, objective assessment of this situation.

12 shots from 5 officers will go down in less than a second. Once the first shot goes, they are all going to fire. To tell you all the truth, 12 shots, given the number officers there is not overkill. They are trained to fire two rounds then reassess the situation. There were only two extra rounds fired here.

You have to ask yourself these questions when it comes to police shooting someone to determine if it was a justified shooting. Were the officers' lives in danger? Was a member of the public in danger of being harmed or killed? If the answer either of those questions is yes, using deadly force is justified.

Reading some of these responses, I know that none of you have any idea what you are talking about and are making some pretty big assumptions about the situation. The fact that there were five officers there is a pretty good indication that the guy was causing a big stir. The fact that they had their guns drawn points to the fact that the guy was not responding to the officers' orders. There is after all, an escalation of force that police use. Furthermore, the officers' lives and the lives of the public come first. Sayng that they should have done it differently now, is all fine and dandy, but hind site is always 20/20.

If the guy had been taken down with pepper spray and batons, the cops would be in the same hot water because someone would be screaming "Police Brutality". Cops get a bad rap these days and more often than not they are starting in a hole dug by the public that they will never get out of.

Again, there is not enough information for me, or anyone here, to be making such snap jusdgements about this case. Maybe the shooting wasn't jsutified for all I know, but that's the thing, I don't know.

I really suggest you at least have an idea of what police policy and procedure is before assuming you know what you're talking about. I grew up with a dad and n older brother who were police officers so we talked about this sort of thing. I'm by know means an expert, but I at least have some idea of how it all works.

Um, actually, yes, I have met every cop pretty much in my city. I live in a small *** city called Peterborough, in Ontario Canada.

And yeah, each and every single one of them is a either power crazed, or a total *******.


How are cops *******s? Well, how about the fact that they single out people in a specific group, i.e a black male? Hmm yeah, he's black, he MUST be a croook. I've witnessed my black male friends specifically picked out by security guards and policemen in Toronto for no reason, questioned, searched, then let go. When they were with a group of white people.....And guess what, not one of the white people got searched.

In my city, it's more biased towards ANY young teen male.

They talk down to anyone lower than their authority.
They talk town on teenage males, or show them little to no respect, then expect the respect to be returned.

I'm not blaming all cops, as sure, there are good cops out there. However, from my experience's with cops, I've come to judge them in the way they have pre-judged me with no reason.....And that conclusion, is that I hate them, and most of them, are in fact, *******s.

I'm not sayin I am right, and I'm not saying that all cops are bad. I'm just saying that in my experience, I've experienced nothing but bad with police.

Have you ever considered that maybe they dont respect teenage males because teenage males dont respect them? I'm not saying you have done anything yourself, but think about the general attitude of the average teenage male towards police officers. They'll go out of their way to give policemen a tough time.

I know it shouldnt work this way (and its sad that it does), but if you want to be treated with respect, you might just have to actually do something to show that you are better than what they think of you. An ocasional "please" and "thank you" and politeness the next time you deal with a police officer I bet will surprise them, and they may just end up treating you with a little more respect as well.

Every time I have ever had to interact with a police officer, I have always been very polite and courteous. Twice I have been pulled over for moving traffic violations, and both times I did not get a ticket. I have been stopped by the police for trespassing (I was not aware at the time that I was trespassing), and I did not get ticketed. When I was younger, I had the police called on my friends and I several times because we were setting off fireworks (we were setting them off in a yard, not doing anything stupid like putting them in peoples mailboxes), and I did not get ticketed then either. And I lived in a suburban town, where nearly every teenage male is, like yourself, convinced that the police have a personal vendetta against young males, and are power crazy with their authority. I hear it all the time from every male I know that is under the age of 20.


As for the original post, I agree that 12 shots is way over the top. Also, they apparently lied during testimony, which is also in-excusable, especially for a police officer. But you have to remember, that Police Officers are trained protect themselves with whatever means neccessary. They don't always have the luxary of a lot of time to consider how to react to each situation, a lot of times they have to rely on instinct, and yes, they can make mistakes, just like the rest of us.

I've been polite to them. Still nothin

I certainly cannot talk bad about all police officers. Last week my car broke down in the middle of the road and no less than three separate cruisers stopped to help me. Generally, they tend to be pretty helpful and professional. But yes, I’ve met a few whackos too.

Doesnt everybody hate them.:D

I have to agree with Avenger here.

Police officers are trained to use a use of force "continum" (this is the way I've been taught anyway)

If a police officer is faced with a situation where harm will come to themselves or a member of the public they are allowed to take their level of force one step higher then the threat. Since a hammer can cause serious injury, and mentally ill people can be unpredictable, drawing their weapons was justified.

Plus like Avenger said, Police officers are trained to fire two rounds not just one because the possiblity to miss the first shot is very high. So one or two of the officers fired one too many times.

I'm not saying that they should get away with what they did, but they were reacting the way they were trained to. Not to mention they are still only human and when a gun fires it can still cause panic in anyone, including a trained police officer and might pull the trigger out of reaction from hearing other gun shots.

There were 5 fit policemen, trained in self-defence/close combat, vs one guy with a hammer.

Seriously, even without guns, would either of you put money on that guy with the hammer!?!?

What are you talking about? Statistics? I wouldn't want to be the one policeman who meets the hammer with his head while the four other tame the loony. They are all individual persons, not numbers in statistics, which say five men will easily overcome one man.

Yet, still I believe if they all had shot two times at the man's legs, he would have been down quite fast.

Police are not allowed to shoot people in the legs or whatever. If they shoot someone, they have to try to kill them, cause if they just maim them, they could get sued. It's a liability thing.

Dead men don't sue.

Yea, it's your opinion and all, but you guys can't reall judge if what they did was justified. If it was you on the receiving end of the hammer, then I'm sure you would act just like that.

I've had some very bad experiences with the police myself, all in which there was some strange aggressive dynamic going on... you could call me biased on this one, but I think this is going on in a lot of institutions with obvious authority.

>:

Well unless he sticks his head out and asks for it....

I dunno, it just doesn't seem to make much sense to me, "we might have got hurt, so we shot this guy 12 twelve times"

Are your cops sissies over there or something? Because I'd take the odds of 4 mates in a fight, over having a hammer any day of the week.

See, I've had the opposite. I've had my car break down, in the middle of a busy road, and had three or four cruisers each go by, look directly at me pointing and waving to them to come help, and continue to drive on.

I've even gotten into an accident almost with a female cop, to which right after the accident ALMOST happened, the male cop passenger turned and laughed at me. So I put my middle finger up and drove away.

I don't see why people hate cops, has a whole I mean.

Cops are just people to, and there are some(maybe lots) of people that don't do that well with that kind of power, or are just jerks..

For every bad cops there most be atleast 10 good ones(or I hoping there is), But those guys normaly don't git noticed.

The point is that policemen shouldn't be "normal people". When you're in a burning building, you don't expect some fat stupid clutz to be bumbling around trying to rescue you. Firemen are something different, something special. They are not normal people, normal people cannot be firemen. Normal people can be fat, normal people can be stupid, but firemen can't.

The same goes for police officers. They are not supposed to be normal people. Police offiers must be something special, something different. You can't just walk into a station and do some training and then be awarded a gun and a badge. The average person cannot be a police officer.
Police officers must be exceptionally calm, patient, level-headed and sensible, much moreso than you or I. Can that come with training? Possibly, but it is unlikely. Yes, in any other job, you get nice people and you get idiots. But you shouldn't find idiots as police officers.

Perhaps the psychological screening in recruitment for the police should be stricter, to avoid events like this.

It is no good for police officers to make mistakes, and then be punished for those afterwards. No, the initiative must be to prevent the mistakes from ever occurring.

Pff, 'dirty cops,' you haven't had a SWAT patrol try and arrest you on terrorism charges at an airport when all you've done is ask where you luggage is at...

(True story)

a hells angels member stated that they are unjustly persecuted by the toronto police considering there are well over 100 toronto police officers up on criminal charges right this minute and there are no hells angels members (toronto chapter) being charged right now.

in general, i've grown to dislike most cops. most of them are petty criminals.

That might not mean he was shot from trying to run, or that he was shot from the ground. He might have just be spun around from the force of the first several shots, then hit once in the back. Getting shot will do that. A Washington State Patrol agent was telling me once about how his partner was shot and killed, even though wearing a bullet-proof vest. The way it happened was he got shot once in the chest. The vest stopped the bullet, and he'd have come out of it with merely a bruise, but the force of the first shot caused the officer to throw his arms up and be spun around, and he was hit with a second shot just under his right armpit (where there was no protection from the vest).

Also, there's a greater chance, that they'll miss, and a chance that the person will still be able to fight and cause harm.

Sure they could have. But why take the risk? There's a very good chance that if they'd tried to aprehend him with using their guns, he'd have killed one of them with the hammer. (Imagine getting hit in the head full force with a hammer, and tell me it wouldn't hurt) If the guy's threatening them, they have every right to use their guns. That's why we give them guns.

But Avenger's right. We don't have all the details to make an informed decision, but at this point, I'd side with the police.

Oh, and Evad, did you consider that might be in part the result of an occupational hazard? Because the police deal with issues of legality every day, they would likely be under greater risk of being accused of something.

I'm not talking about anything over here. If that had happened over here, the cops would most probably get serious sentences. Our society is not some Judge Dredd society where the police act as law enforcement, prosecutor, judge, and jury at the same time condemning people to die. Here, if they shoot, they must try to shoot in such a way that the victim wouldn't die. Otherwise, it means big troubles.

And I find moldy_hair's post very hard to believe. If that's the official truth, it's very sad.

Whenever a member of the police force kills someone, they must explain why they were forced to do so.
Yes, police get away with killing people more then anyone else, because it;s an occupational hazard.
Their still expected to try and apprehend people as non-violently as possible, and are taught the best spots to shoot someone in order to bring them down without killing them.
I also find Moldy-hairs post hard to beleive, it sounds more to me like the post of someone who merely assumes thats the truth rather then someone who's checked the facts.

Well, see the guy's luggage was vibrating. Now, throwers don't worry about ticking because modern bombs don't tick. Nine times out of ten, it's an electric razor. But sometimes...

*looks around*

...it's a [censored]. Of course, it's company policy to always use the indefinite article a [censored], not...your [censored].