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flb_78 wrote:

mgood wrote: (Does it bother you that you're supposed to shoot everyone with a gun, even though few, if any, of them are pointing it at you? Fun game, but I think there's a bit of the "only bad guys have guns" attitude in it's design.)

It was developed by the University of Chicago. Until a few weeks ago, if you had a handgun in Chicago, you were a criminal!!

Or a politician who had gotten peace officer status, as the politicians in Chicago are able to do. Then again, in Chicago, there may not be much difference......

mgood wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

mgood wrote:Yeah, I remember a story (from Florida, maybe?) where a man was shot by LEOs when he reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. They said that the black wallet, seen edge on, looked like the slide of a pistol coming up. I can understand that perception and can hardly fault the officers in that tragedy.

If you want to know how really hard that is to do, try this. I've gone through it over ten times, and I still suck.

That's cool!
515 on my first try. Only shot one good guy. (Does it bother you that you're supposed to shoot everyone with a gun, even though few, if any, of them are pointing it at you? Fun game, but I think there's a bit of the "only bad guys have guns" attitude in it's design.) I was too slow a few times.

The game does provide a little insight into how difficult it can be to distinguish objects and threats. Remember none of these guys was moving, they were all in good light, they were facing the observer, and you knew you were at no risk at all - 4 conditions that don't usually happen together when things go south.

Did anyone feel just a twinge of vulnerability when facing a guy with a gun (which wasn't even pointed at the observer)?

Would you have felt a little better if you were observing that same scene from behind a brick wall with just enough of your head showing to allow you to see?

Do you think that situation might give you a bit more time to make a good call without unnecessary risk?

Just askin......

mgood wrote:

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:

Fangs wrote:That man is soooooo lucky they didn't shoot him dead when he reached for his cell phone.

Quite possibly his worst decision of his life. If LEOs have guns on me I am keeping my hands up until they cuff me, or specifically tell me otherwise.

I can't figure out what he was trying to accomplish with that move. It certainly escalated the pucker factor for no apparent gain.

It was a very stupid and dangerous move. I believe that he was trying to show the LEOs that it wasn't a concealed gun.

Yeah, I remember a story (from Florida, maybe?) where a man was shot by LEOs when he reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. They said that the black wallet, seen edge on, looked like the slide of a pistol coming up. I can understand that perception and can hardly fault the officers in that tragedy.

A lot of things can look like a gun when first presented, especially in poor lighting, viewed from less than ideal angles, etc. During contact with LEO's it's unnecessarily risky to all involved to take anything out without prior discussion and agreement.

Even on a simple traffic stop I keep my hands on the wheel until I've told the officer where my ID is and I've gotten his permission to reach for it, which I do slowly and deliberately. There's nothing to be gained by surprising officers with unexpected moves or objects during a contact and forcing them to make rapid high consequence decisions on your intentions and their safety - especially when you're one of the good guys or gals.

Fangs wrote:That man is soooooo lucky they didn't shoot him dead when he reached for his cell phone.

Quite possibly his worst decision of his life. If LEOs have guns on me I am keeping my hands up until they cuff me, or specifically tell me otherwise.

I can't figure out what he was trying to accomplish with that move. It certainly escalated the pucker factor for no apparent gain.

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:This was clearly a despicable abuse of power by very poorly trained and led LEO's. It does not speak well for the agency that an extended action of this type involving multiple officers did not merit a visit by a field supervisor to the scene.

I would have to second the comment at the end - what happens at the level of execution reflects the values and actions of the agency's senior leadership. The agency's post incident response shows that the senior administration has no regard for the constitution, feels no obligation to ensure that officers adhere to their oaths of office, and does not see its role as one of either protection or service to the public.

It appears that the LEOs and their supervisors were trained well enough to have the knowledge to start a conspiracy to justify their illegal search and seizure.

This whole scenario makes me ill. As you stated, the senior adminstration has no regard for the constitution and their oaths of office. This is a clear violation of the constitution and civil rights. Where is the FBI when you need them?

In my experience things like this rarely happen because one or more officers set out to deliberately trample the constitution or people's rights. I don't think the call handling we saw here, as atrocious as it was, started out as a conscious decision to do wrong. I'd be willing to bet none of the involved officers would have gone nearly as far if he had been alone on the call.

I am not suggesting that when the officers recieved the call, they deliberately set out to trample the defendant's rights. But when they all arrived on the scene there was a cascading effect where they turned into a vengeful mob, where each officer contributed and condoned the other's illegal actions.

I believe that this was a result of their "training" to a certain extent. When these officers were taught the law, they were also led to believe that it was acceptable to stretch the truth or confuse the truth with "colorful language" as long as it could be justified by arresting and prosecuting the "bad guy."

Whether or not they would have done it "alone" is besides the point. Perjured testimony under the color of authority is powerful evidence in court. Their corraborating false testimony is even more odious.

Excaliber wrote:Concoctions and embellishments never hold up very long when smart people start asking pertinent questions.

That a poor consolation for the person who is arresting and sitting in jail. An innocent person should never be put in the position where these questions have to be asked.

Wild Bill, I'm not making excuses for these folks - I'm just trying to make how several smaller and seemingly unrelated circumstances can cascade into an incident like this a bit less bizarre. It happens in many small steps, not one horrific decision.

A similar process happens in private industry - AIG and Enron would be case studies on the corporate scale.

WildBill wrote:

Excaliber wrote:This was clearly a despicable abuse of power by very poorly trained and led LEO's. It does not speak well for the agency that an extended action of this type involving multiple officers did not merit a visit by a field supervisor to the scene.

I would have to second the comment at the end - what happens at the level of execution reflects the values and actions of the agency's senior leadership. The agency's post incident response shows that the senior administration has no regard for the constitution, feels no obligation to ensure that officers adhere to their oaths of office, and does not see its role as one of either protection or service to the public.

It appears that the LEOs and their supervisors were trained well enough to have the knowledge to start a conspiracy to justify their illegal search and seizure.

This whole scenario makes me ill. As you stated, the senior adminstration has no regard for the constitution and their oaths of office. This is a clear violation of the constitution and civil rights. Where is the FBI when you need them?

In my experience things like this rarely happen because one or more officers set out to deliberately trample the constitution or people's rights. I don't think the call handling we saw here, as atrocious as it was, started out as a conscious decision to do wrong. I'd be willing to bet none of the involved officers would have gone nearly as far if he had been alone on the call.

Here's how things can go south in police work, and this or some variation of it may well be the back story in this case:

The stage is set by departmental leadership that "saves money on training". This is done by providing only mandated minimums, or even less. This deprives officers of the knowledge and skills they need to be consistently successful in the field.

Add aloof management whose stance is that no news is good news.Their subordinates quickly take the hint and don't tell them anything about things that don't go well. As a result, close calls, warning signs and smaller incidents never make it to the command level and they sit around congratulating themselves on how well things are going. The situation is often compounded by poor first and second line supervision which leaves most critical decision making in the hands of those least prepared to do that well.

Then, as in virtually every disaster, a bad day brings multiple weak links together in the same place at the same time. In this case, the deputies lack of training left them with only a very vague understanding of the basics of search and seizure law. The lack of a supervisor on scene left them to their own devices. This is the formula for bad initial decisions cascading into even worse ones as time goes on. No one puts a stop to it because even though each one knows that he doesn't know what he's doing, he figures that the others know more than he does and he doesn't want to look like a dummy in front of them.

It appeared to me that at several points each of them got the queasy feeling that they'd stepped over the line and they were starting to feel the thin ice they were standing on starting to crack. They then began polling each other for ways to justify what they had done. As in many group situations, no one wanted to be the one to say "Stop. This isn't right." When they all finally recognized they had gone way too far, were in deep kimchee, and there was no way a true account would justify their actions, they started discussing the "flowery language" approach that they hoped might keep consequences from what they had done from following their actions.

Concoctions and embellishments never hold up very long when smart people start asking pertinent questions. At that point, the agency leadership starts realizing that what's happened wasn't something they'll want to highlight with a full page on in the annual report. Their choice at that time is to do a transparent investigation and let the chips fall where they may, , take the flogging for poor leadership, and try to restore public trust with appropriate action, or to do as so many of our esteemed politicians do: stonewall and hope it goes away.

Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. When option 2 comes to pass, things get really ugly.

I suspect that's what will end up happening here.

TXlaw1 wrote:As a retired LEO I found the actions of these deputies in this case outrageous - especially the primary deputy. At a minimum he should be severely disciplined. But the cover up has been up the chain of command. And the DA seems to have been involved with threatening several felonies to get a plea to close the case. That's outrageous too.

I did not see anything in the report done by the victim of this overreaching that justified these actions. Now give his guns back.

This was clearly a despicable abuse of power by very poorly trained and led LEO's. It does not speak well for the agency that an extended action of this type involving multiple officers did not merit a visit by a field supervisor to the scene.

I would have to second the comment at the end - what happens at the level of execution reflects the values and actions of the agency's senior leadership. The agency's post incident response shows that the senior administration has no regard for the constitution, feels no obligation to ensure that officers adhere to their oaths of office, and does not see its role as one of either protection or service to the public.

A successful federal lawsuit with large punitive damages against both the agency and the individuals involved is probably the most promising way to dissuade similar actions in the future, but it will take years if ever to see justice done.