CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

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Bruenor
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CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by Bruenor »

Yes, because someone in a soft comfy chair should determine these types of things..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -guns.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
California has proposed a new lethal force law that allows cops to open fire 'only when necessary' rather than 'when reasonable' after the police killing of unarmed Stephon Clark.

The changes in legislation were suggested by several lawmakers and the family of the 22-year-old.

It means officers would be allowed to shoot only if 'there were no other reasonable alternatives to the use of deadly force' to prevent imminent serious injury or death, said Lizzie Buchen, legislative advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is among the groups behind the measure.
Wasn't that the guy that was running through yards, breaking windows and doors on neighbors houses ? then was chased by the police when they tried to question him. maybe if he wasn't doing that sort of thing the police wouldn't have been called on him in the first place...
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djthomas
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by djthomas »

Texas has a similar rule. Not sure if it's codified or just an accepted practice but it comes down to "did the perp need shootin''?"
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

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I'm sure 90% of the people don't even know the full circumstances of the shooting. Medias reports are always " Police shoot unarmed man in his grandparents backyard". The fact that he was recorded trying to break into a occupied home where an elderly man was home alone, and the recording followed him into his grandparents yard. That seems to come out late in about 40% of the reports on the incident, if at all...
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by qmti »

dustymedic wrote:I'm sure 90% of the people don't even know the full circumstances of the shooting. Medias reports are always " Police shoot unarmed man in his grandparents backyard". The fact that he was recorded trying to break into a occupied home where an elderly man was home alone, and the recording followed him into his grandparents yard. That seems to come out late in about 40% of the reports on the incident, if at all...
Didn't you know that the liberal media in the state now establishes police policy. The legislation just follows their recommendation. Yeah, I'm being sarcastic.
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schmieg
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

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djthomas wrote:Texas has a similar rule. Not sure if it's codified or just an accepted practice but it comes down to "did the perp need shootin''?"
The "he needed killin'" is still a valid, if not codified, defense in parts of the south.
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by schmieg »

dustymedic wrote:I'm sure 90% of the people don't even know the full circumstances of the shooting. Medias reports are always " Police shoot unarmed man in his grandparents backyard". The fact that he was recorded trying to break into a occupied home where an elderly man was home alone, and the recording followed him into his grandparents yard. That seems to come out late in about 40% of the reports on the incident, if at all...
I agree that this is a "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" situation, but the 20 rounds fired that I heard does seem a bit excessive. On the other hand, it sounds like they only hit him eight times.
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AlanM
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by AlanM »

schmieg wrote:
djthomas wrote:Texas has a similar rule. Not sure if it's codified or just an accepted practice but it comes down to "did the perp need shootin''?"
The "he needed killin'" is still a valid, if not codified, defense in parts of the south.
I'm pretty sure that's covered under the "waste of air and space" defense.
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by M-Quigley »

It means officers would be allowed to shoot only if 'there were no other reasonable alternatives to the use of deadly force' to prevent imminent serious injury or death,
In the particular case mentioned, if based on the circumstances the officers had a legitimate reason to think the subject was armed with a gun, what reasonable alternatives would there have been? Letting the suspect shoot first a few times? Who defines reasonable? I doubt the family of the 22 yr old is going to find anything the police do will be reasonable, short of just letting him go.
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

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schmieg wrote:
dustymedic wrote:I'm sure 90% of the people don't even know the full circumstances of the shooting. Medias reports are always " Police shoot unarmed man in his grandparents backyard". The fact that he was recorded trying to break into a occupied home where an elderly man was home alone, and the recording followed him into his grandparents yard. That seems to come out late in about 40% of the reports on the incident, if at all...
I agree that this is a "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" situation, but the 20 rounds fired that I heard does seem a bit excessive. On the other hand, it sounds like they only hit him eight times.

If it's ok to shoot him once or twice it's ok to shoot him twenty, fifty or a hundred times. Lethal force has no degrees.
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by TSiWRX »

^ Exactly.

And this works from an objective/scientific angle, too.

The correct thing to do is to shoot until the threat is no longer a threat. Given how the human body responds to handgun rounds and the time it takes for the threat to "drop," how log it takes for the police officers' eyes/brains to register that the threat is "down," and further then signal their trigger finger to stop pulling the trigger (versus how rapidly they are triggering follow-up shots), quite a number of rounds can be sent downrange.

This can easily be simulated at the range with a training partner - on the threat command, your task is to shoot the target as many times as you can as fast as you can (remember the scenario is that this is an active lethal threat that you are trying to stop, so play it realistically) but to cease fire as soon as your training partner tells you to stop. How many more shots did you take after the cease-fire was called? Understand as you do this drill that you're in an ideal atmosphere and under no stress. With stress added (and this goes back to police training), it's easy to see precipitous decline in shooter performance on this drill...the use of a target that actively advances towards the shooter and/or one where shots do not visually register with clarity (such as a 3D humanoid target dressed with a dark-colored checkered shirt) will work to dramatically increase the difficulty of this drill.

Low-light just makes this all that much harder.
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schmieg
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Re: CA proposal regulating when cops can shoot

Post by schmieg »

evan price wrote:
schmieg wrote:
dustymedic wrote:I'm sure 90% of the people don't even know the full circumstances of the shooting. Medias reports are always " Police shoot unarmed man in his grandparents backyard". The fact that he was recorded trying to break into a occupied home where an elderly man was home alone, and the recording followed him into his grandparents yard. That seems to come out late in about 40% of the reports on the incident, if at all...
I agree that this is a "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" situation, but the 20 rounds fired that I heard does seem a bit excessive. On the other hand, it sounds like they only hit him eight times.

If it's ok to shoot him once or twice it's ok to shoot him twenty, fifty or a hundred times. Lethal force has no degrees.
They didn't stop shooting. This was California, so ten round magazines are the rule. The guns just stopped firing after a while.
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