Tamir Rice, 12, shot and killed by police officer.

[GRColin]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... N+Facebook

Tamir Rice, a 12 year old Cleveland boy, was at a local park when officers arrived responding to a 9/11 call saying that he had a gun although it was "probably fake". Upon arriving, the officers cut Tamir off with their patrol car, the passenger shot Tamir twice as soon as he exited the vehicle. No warning. No tasing. Just two shots, dropping him to the ground, killing him.

The gun he was holding was a BB gun.

Spoiler alert!

Tamir is black.

 

[UrbanMasque]

Messed up for everyone involved, but I wouldn't inject race into this. Dunno how I feel about it, though.. He's a kid, but if he did point the BB gun at the cop.. wtf. The sad part about this is - you never know, because legitimacy of police everywhere is at an all time low.. so the cop could be honest in his version of the account, or he could be a shit-house covering up his misdeeds.. no clue. The 911 call was from a concerned older person saying hes waving it at people scaring them, but he also stated that he thought it was a toy. Whether that was passed on to the officer, is unknown.

You could make the case that a kid with a bit lighter of a complexion might've gotten a bit more of a response time than a minute or so (i believe the cop showed up yelled at the kid to put his hands up and the kid responded by pointing the bb gun at him).. So it went down pretty quick.

Correct me if im wrong, but I think this is the gun. Why they make "toys" this realistic is beyond me.

This shouldn't dilute the mike brown case, because in a sick sort of way - the cleveland cop, from what I've seen/read seems justified.

 

[GRColin]

Yeah. I don't necessarily know if it's race related or not. I suppose it's just hard to not come to that conclusion given what's going on.

From what I have read, the message was never relayed to the police that the guy thought the gun was a fake. I can understand and appreciate cops are faced with life and death situations but I also feel that there needs to be something better in their training or psych eval or something to ensure that firing first isn't a go to for some officers out there. Could he not have tased the boy?

From what I read the kid didn't point the gun at the cops and had it pointed to the ground when they showed up. Unfortunately, the surveillance video that was released had no audio.

Here's the clip:

Skip to about the 7 minute mark.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ss ... hot_1.html

 

[De-Ting]

This one's easy.

Cop shows up. Kid points "gun" at cop. Cop shoots.

It's tragic, but it's not the cop's fault.

 

[GRColin]

This one's easy.

Cop shows up. Kid points "gun" at cop. Cop shoots.

It's tragic, but it's not the cop's fault.

I don't think he did point the gun at the cop though. And again, the cop could have easily gone for a less lethal show of force. They do carry tasers for that very reason don't they?

Authorities said the boy was told to raise his hands and was shot when he pulled the pellet gun from his waistband, though he hadn't pointed it at police or made verbal threats

 

[De-Ting]

Put yourself in the cop's shoes. Would you have tried/even thought to use a taser? Someone's coming at you with a gun; your first instinct?

 

[UrbanMasque]

I can understand and appreciate cops are faced with life and death situations but I also feel that there needs to be something better in their training or psych eval or something to ensure that firing first isn't a go to for some officers out there.

If we can learn ANYTHING from all this bs, maybe its this statement.

Something fundamentally needs to be taught about how police interact with the public. They also need to do a better job at weeding out Psychopaths.

 

[MattAY]

That's just fucking stupid. Everything about this is stupid.

A kid playing with a realistic toy gun, the police shooting the kid instead of maybe tasering him, or even just shooting to scare him...does the cop have to aim for a death shot?!

 

[madster111]

Spoiler alert!

Tamir is black.

And?

If i went out right now and pointed a realistic looking gun at an australian police officer my bitch ass would be filled with .40S&W quicker than you could say 'b-but r-racism!'.

A kid playing with a realistic toy gun, the police shooting the kid instead of maybe tasering him, or even just shooting to scare him...does the cop have to aim for a death shot?!

If the police hesitate, they get killed.
It's as simple as that. Both in the US and here in Aus officers carry guns, and if the situation is deemed severe enough to warrant drawing a firearm (ie, someone waving a gun around in a public park) that means they shoot to kill, no exceptions.
There's a few good reasons for this, but the general idea is public safety. If all the bullets go into the suspect, few can go and hit innocents and if the bad guy is dead, they can't subsequently shoot civilians or the officers themselves. Hell, if you tazer someone holding a firearm they will almost certainly shoot that weapon putting everyone in danger.

The solution to this problem is that there is none on the cops side. Either they carry guns and shit like this happens occasionally, or you get situations like happened in your country where the cops couldn't do shit about the crazy fuck beheading people in the street, a delay caused by needing to get an officer with a gun to the scene.

The only thing that could've prevented this is either a ban on sales of realistic looking fake weapons or the parents not being a bunch of useless assholes. The cops showed up to see someone waving a gun around in the middle of a park in a time of civil unrest, what are they meant to do?

 

[GRColin]

Spoiler alert!

Tamir is black.

And?

If i went out right now and pointed a realistic looking gun at an australian police officer my bitch ass would be filled with .40S&W quicker than you could say 'b-but r-racism!'.

Except he didn't point it at them.

 

[Sourdeez]

Skip 7 mins in the video
NSFW
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ss ... hot_1.html

 

[WickedLiquid]

Spoiler alert!

Tamir is black.

And?

If i went out right now and pointed a realistic looking gun at an australian police officer my bitch ass would be filled with .40S&W quicker than you could say 'b-but r-racism!'.

Except he didn't point it at them.

And it was a 12 year old child.

 

[madster111]

And it was a 12 year old child.

So you're saying a 12 year old holding the detonator to a nuke is less dangerous than a 22 year old holding it.

 

[GRColin]

And it was a 12 year old child.

So you're saying a 12 year old holding the detonator to a nuke is less dangerous than a 22 year old holding it.

Because that is totally the same thing as a 12 year old holding and pointing a BB gun at the ground.

 

[Green_Lantern]

I would just like to know why a 12 year old has a BB gun in a public park in the first place? Where are his parents in this situation?


Granted, I got my first BB gun probably when I was younger than 12, but I NEVER took it outside my backyard without my dad with me.

 

[Master_Craig]

This is an absolutely terrible tragedy.

A friend of mine acquires BB guns, all of them look very realistic. One of them is a P90 sub machine gun that actually looks like the real thing. It's ridiculous. I also agree with some of the above comments, why did a kid have a realistic BB gun in the park? Did his parents know?

On one hand, I don't blame the police officer. He saw the kid with what appeared to be a gun and with reactive, instinctive thinking, he fired.

On the other hand... it is very, very extreme. While the police were told that the gun was "probably fake", they didn't seem to take that into account? I mean, "probably" doesn't mean "it is" I suppose, so the police wouldn't take risks... but you would think that the police would have at least told the kid to drop the gun instead of just jumping out of the car and shooting right away. Isn't that what should happen?

I can only assume that they didn't use a taser because theoretically if the gun was real, shots may have been fired whilst been tazing and risking harm to themselves or others in the area?

Whoever made the 911 call, shouldn't the phone operator have asked if shots were fired or anything like that?

I can see both sides of the argument here. I think I'm leaning more towards the latter side, e.g. the cops were too aggressive and could have dealt with it without violence and more communication? E.g. "Put the gun down"?

I don't want to start a flame war, but yeah, I know the gun wasn't real, but in all honesty I think America really needs to reconsider its gun laws.

I read an article on the news recently about how there was a recent shooting at Florida State University and a girl texted her dad "There's a man with a gun in the library, I love you."

While no one was killed (except the gunman, and three injured) imagine receiving a text message like that from a loved one? That's fucking terrifying.

 

[C_nate]

I would just like to know why a 12 year old has a BB gun in a public park in the first place? Where are his parents in this situation?


Granted, I got my first BB gun probably when I was younger than 12, but I NEVER took it outside my backyard without my dad with me.

Then you lived a pretty sheltered life. When me and my friends were that age we had one that looked very similar to the one pictured above and we took it with us everywhere till it was confiscated by one of the kids parents.

With all this other stuff going on in the news, it is easy to say this was about race but I don't think that is the case. With all the "active shooter situation" bullshit going on now, along with the continued militarization of the police, it is a very bad time to be a young person with a gun, fake or otherwise because the police will probably be shooting first and asking questions later.

Having said that however, at first glance it does appear to be a tragic accident. It's sad but it's not unprecedented. Recall the tragic story of Sgt. Al Powell for example.

 

[used44]

 

[LinksOcarina]

This one's easy.

Cop shows up. Kid points "gun" at cop. Cop shoots.

It's tragic, but it's not the cop's fault.

I don't think he did point the gun at the cop though. And again, the cop could have easily gone for a less lethal show of force. They do carry tasers for that very reason don't they?

Authorities said the boy was told to raise his hands and was shot when he pulled the pellet gun from his waistband, though he hadn't pointed it at police or made verbal threats

That doesn't matter. The minute a gun is pulled, even if it's not pointed at someone, you get shot.

I get that this kid should not have died, but honestly, the cop did nothing wrong.