11/18: Kids, Cops And Guns
9 p.m.
• Yet another reason why I don’t want kids. The other day while talking about Swift Terror’s latest download, I made some remark to the better half about keeping kkk Jr. in his crib out in the living room while I played Madden. Her response, “I’d be OK with that.” Oh hell no we’re not having kids.
• Fuck this shit. Blast away, po-pos.
A candy bar, a wallet, even a pair of baggy pants can draw deadly police gunfire.
The killing of a hairbrush-brandishing teenager last week was the latest instance of police shootings in which officers reacted to what they erroneously feared was a weapon. It has revived debate over the use of force, perceptions of threats and police training.
"We have cases like that all over the country where it can be a wallet, a cell phone, a can of Coca-Cola and officers have fired the weapon," said Scott Greenwood, a Cincinnati attorney who has worked on police use-of-force cases across the country and who is a general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
"It does not necessarily mean it was excessive use of force," he added. "However, those types of incidents do give rise to greater suspicion on the part of the public about how police use force and they call into question the training departments are using to train officers to perceive and respond to threats."
The New York Police Department says the officers who fired 20 shots at 18-year-old Khiel Coppin on Nov. 12 were justified in their use of force. The mentally ill teenager approached officers outside his mother's home with a black object in his hand—the hairbrush—and repeatedly ignored orders to stop.
The officers were responding to a 911 call in which Coppin could be heard in the background saying he had a gun. But in a second 911 call Coppin's mother told the operator her son wasn't armed, and after officers arrived she repeated that to them.
"Why did the police not heed the warnings ... that her son was unarmed?" said Paul Wooten, the family's attorney. "Why was it necessary for the overwhelming use of deadly force? Five police officers, 20 shots, eight hits. Is there no proportionality?"
I’m so sick of hearing this shit about “OMG HE DIDN’T HAVE A GUN WHY DID YOU SHOOT?” Don’t want to get shot? When the cops show up and tell you to get on the ground, do that. I know it’s crazy, but try it.
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