Shooting a susoect with a gun is not a trained, experienced police officer’s only option.
When a susoect with a gun/“with a gun, “is shot where he stands, can we not at least question whether that was the only option?
In one case, reported by NYT
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/west-virginia-officer-firing-lawsu...
a police officer, annex-marine, with combat experience, determined that, in fact, the man with a gun, saying, “shoot me,” was not a threat, and tried to talk him down.
Two other officers arrived on the scene, and one, w/o much ado, shot & killed the suspect
The officer, who had tried to de-escalate the situation was fired (but subsequently prevailed in a wrongful-termination lawsuit).
Further, what are the U.S. Military’s rules of engagement in a setting where cuvilians are present, shoot whenever a soldier fears for their life, or fire only when fired upon?
Given the level of police militarization in the US, can’t we even debate “shoot upon fear of one’s life” v. “fire only when fired upon”?
Just who gets to decide if a shiny object is a gun or not. The police with the ultimate decision to use deadly force or some callers who THOUGHT they saw a gun?
Unfortunately it seems to have become standard operating procedure to say “I THOUGHT saw he or she had a gun” and then fire away.
The NRA is much to blame here as well because they want every man, woman and child to carry a gun and therefore the police think that we actually do.
Again it is the most innocent citizens who pay with their lives.
1
There are several important social issues that are present in this tragedy, but none more important than this. We are CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT as a society in our treatment of the mentally ill. We have abdicated our obligation to these poor souls for DECADES. WE are far, FAR overdue for the re-establishment of clean, well staffed, live-in treatment facilities for the chronically mentally ill. The number of such individuals whose treatment needs are answered by ill-trained law enforcement officers is far greater than our hospital emergency rooms can or should attempt to manage.
Our political establishment is only too happy to seek funds for ridiculous projects like boarder walls or more usable nuclear weapons. Yet when our OWN CITIZENS are being gunned down in the street because they have no access to mental health care, we dismiss them as "one less crazy to worry about." This is a crime against humanity!
2
I've watched the videos. It certainly looked like a gun, and he was pointing it at people as if it was a gun.
And yet I refuse to believe that 5 police officers had "no choice" but to shoot an unarmed man not once, not twice, but 10 times. And yes, he was undeniably unarmed.
Only in a culture where gun are the solution to everything can a pipe and an aggressive posture be an immediate death sentence.
That many people can't even imagine what else police officers could have done in this situation is disgusting.
Think it's ok to kill someone for looking dangerous? Well, consider this. Anyone with a backpack could be lugging around a bomb. Should we kill anyone with a backpack that's acting suspicious out aggressive before they have a chance to detonate their "bomb"?
We live in a world where virtually anyone can pose a fatal threat to those around them. We have to decide as a society whether we're ok with murdering the suspicious or risking our own security to be free to carry around backpacks, pipes, and cellphones freely and without reproach.
So what if he really in fact had a gun? Millions of Americans are carrying guns at any given moment. Unless the suspect had a hostage - or the policeman's life was imminently in danger (caught unawares, out in the open, with no protective equipment), the name of the game should be de-escalation.... Some people have trigger fingers ( I know that I sure would, and this is why I'm not in law enforcement and don't own a gun) ... if you do have a trigger finger, that's fine; just don't become a cop.
The later article with the footage convincingly shows an aggressive man pointing a "gun" at people - and also establishes that his metal illness is in fact alcoholism. There are a lot of people like that in my Brooklyn neighborhood, and the police are not their buddies. Pretending that neighborhood policing means some beat cop knows with absolute conviction that a man with 120 summonses (120!) would never hurt someone is an injustice to news and facts.
2
From all accounts, the victim, Saheed Vassell was well liked and known within the community, never causing a public alarm. Yet 3 separate 911 calls were made for a man with a gun; if the police should have discerned the man was holding a metal pipe, then why did the callers fail to recognize a pipe from a gun? Of course we do not blame the 911 callers but the point is the following: callers in their panicked state believed they saw gun and relayed the message as such; officers respond to the "man with a gun" call, thinking it is a legitimate call as 3 separate callers conveyed the same information. Upon arrival the officers confront a man holding a pipe but is in a shooting prone stance; officers exit the vehicle and fire at the suspect. What happens next is a terrible accident. Do we blame the 911 callers, NO!. Do we blame the police officers, NO! NYC is to blame for not providing adequate care for the mentally ill and leaving police officers to handle mental health issues. In all this tragic episode maybe be summed up by former SC Judge Rehnquist "The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight," Rehnquist wrote.
1
I just saw the video of this man on the news. He went right up to people on the street and aggressively pointed what looked like a gun in their faces, even a man with a small child. Every person looked terrified, up close they thought it was a gun. People called 911 saying there was a man with a gun pointing it at people. In this case it was clear that the police had no choice, they thought he had a gun and innocent people were in danger. Unfortunately they have to make a split second decision. It’s sad that he was bipolar and he obviously should not have been wandering in the streets but the police can’t be blamed for an unjustified shooting. In this case sadly it was justified.
12
In my mind there was a big trade off here that didn't work out. It has been decades now since we decided as a society to stop sequestering people with Saheed Vassell's degree of mental llness in locked wards. Generally speaking that has meant much more pleasant lives for them and minor awardness from time to time for the rest of us. This is especially true for people like him who are able to live with family. Unfortunately the policy has also meant that they are in a position to get themselves harmed by exercising clinically delusional judgement. Mr. Vassell lost our colllective bet.
Of course, as others have pointed out, as long as we have so many handguns in our communities, police will have good reason to believe they are looking at a gun when something that loosely resembles a gun is pointed at them. The civilians who called 911 obviously made the same judgement.
3
Those individuals being targeted by this crazy person certainly looked as though their lives were in danger. The 911 caller absolutely sounded like people's lives were in danger.
9
Now everyone can say that not only California has marginal cops, but New York isn't far behind.
1
Eventually, the various police departments will get together and provide a list of items that Black men ( and people of color) are allowed to carry, to reduce our chances of being shot while resisting arrest after the fact.
It is no wonder the police shoot so quickly, they fear for their lives with over 400million guns in the US you have to assume everyone has a gun and they assume the worst. That said they do need to be better trained.
There were 5 cops there. None of them were beat cops in the neighborhood. With 5, none of them were really in great danger. If they waited a few minutes for a local cop to get there, the local cop would have recognized the perp and would have told the other 5 that he was harmless.
1
They had been told he had a gun. "Waiting a few minutes" could be a death sentence for someone if he had had a gun.
11
The problem with all the commentators describing how in this specific instance or that specific instance a shooting sounds justifiable to them is that you're missing the forest for the trees: These situations almost universally involve black men.
Why are police seemingly able to handle potentially threatening white people without killing them, but mysteriously lose this ability when it comes to black men -- including black men just hanging out with their cellphones?
I can't even count how many young black men have lost their lives in recent weeks because of holding some innocuous object. I have not heard *one single* similar story involving a white person, despite whites being the vast majority of this country's population.
Yes, this man was mentally ill, and yes he appeared to be a threat. But deadly use of force is the only available option? Think of what you are saying. Think of how you would respond if it were your brother.
9
this guy was armed. if you point something that looks like a gun at the public and/or the police, prepare to suffer the consequences. maybe an electric tazer is an option. unfortunately many examples of abuse of power but from the provided accounts, this isn't one of them.
4
I don't want to hear the race-baiting. If a white guy was pointing that at a cop, he'd be dead too.
8
Disgusting. More of the same racism. A white man with a pipe in his hand would not have been murdered.
2
I'm in no position to want to fault the police on this one, but there are so many other cases around the country that prove black life is cheap. Just ask yourself, walking around would you rather be black or white? Note my query does not relate to income and such, just walking the streets.
1
Could someone please tell why the Police don't use their batons more often than they do?
I know the press cried about police brutality in NY back in the 70s and 80s but isn't better to use a baton than to use deadly force?
2
This has all the earmarks of suicide by cop. Tragic, and heart wrenching for everyone involved, including the police.
2
I live near Crown Heights on a block where there are several familiar faces of mentally ill - all black males. We had one more, who was shot dead by another black male a couple of years ago. The question I have today is, why are there so many mentally ill black men wandering the streets of my neighborhood? They are classified in the court system as "known public menaces," and I would expect them to be in the highest category of people likely to act in a threatening manner that leads to the end of their own life.
NYC police well-know that they are under increased scrutiny when in involves black males in particular. We, as citizens, also know that media often incites and manipulates public opinion by the photos media chooses to publish and, in particular, by the selected witness statements chosen to publish. I lean in favor of NYC police. Three 911 calls is enough to put them on STAT alarm to stop any mass injury/killing spree.
4
These cops did not shoot to defend themselves.
They shot to protect the pedestrians who were in the area.
Just think.
Lets say he had a gun and shot it and some pregnant woman got hit and died.
All the people now condemning the police would do the same if that had happenned.
7
A person with such a pipe, making threatening gestures, is unquestionably a danger to the public and needs to be stopped, immobilized in some way. But that does not give the police the right to impose a death sentence. It seems to me that police training and resources could be vastly improved such that people who are a threat could be caught rather than killed.
333 people have been killed by police in the USA since January 1. That is between 3-4 people A DAY.
http://killedbypolice.net/
In the UK, 23 people were killed by police in the 10 YEARS of 2006-2016. In France, on average there are 5-7 police killings per year. In Germany, 8-10.
Yes, "America's different". That's always the first thing people trot out. But it's meaningless. Of course we're different! France is different than the UK. Canada (25 per year) is different than Germany.
The excuse, "we're different" is nothing but an attempt to squelch the discussion.
We really need a police force that is on the streets to PROTECT the public, not a police force full of people who are running around scared that they themselves are in mortal danger from every person carrying a cell phone or piece of pipe.
We're seeing a complete loss of trust in the police and that is not going to end well for anybody.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country
2
Ten shots were fired by the police.. No shots were fired from the shower head that the dead man was holding. The dead man, by the way, was not alleged to be committing any crime.
It would seem well past time to investigate how police are trained to handle ambiguous situations. In too many recent cases, it would seem that police fear is enough to prompt deadly shootings and retreat never seems to be considered an option.
3
Dear Matthew,
You're ignoring the fact that there were multiple calls to 911 stating that there was a suspect threatening people with a silver gun. Menacing with a deadly weapon is a crime, thus he was indeed alleged to be committing a crime.
When the police arrived, having been told they were going to confront an armed suspect, they encountered a man who pointed what appeared to be a gun at them. He was crazy to do so, and it was not a gun, but they could not know that, and I'd say they had little choice but to shoot him.
Cops can't stand around waiting for someone to shoot people before they take action. If someone gives every appearance of being about to shoot people, they have to shoot that person first. If this person was just joking around, then that's their fatal mistake.
9
You forget.
There were pedestrians who would have been hit.
What would you say if some pedestrian had been killed because the cops did not act.
3
Dan, my problem is that the police don't seem to be trained to do anything other than "shoot to kill".
Far too many people who were not actually dangers to the public are being killed by police. We need to acknowledge that so that INNOCENT people do not continue to be killed. Police training needs to include far more on how not to escalate the tension in a situation.
A mentally ill man is in the street, an apparent danger to the public. FIVE police officers arrive and take a confrontational approach to the man, who is mentally ill and unsurprisingly acts unpredictably and APPARENTLY dangerously.
Okay, that's fine. It's fair to kill him then.
10 bullets do the trick.
These police were undoubtedly wearing bullet proof vests. There were FIVE of them. They were NOT in any immediate danger. In 15-30 seconds they probably could have determined he was mentally ill and poorly armed. If they couldn't have determined that, then their training is inadequate. And that, I believe, is the real problem. They are not trained to de-escalate situations and to recognize problems such as mental illness.
"Suicide by cop" is a phrase that should never have entered our consciousness as a society. But the police have been very active in keeping it there.
333 Americans killed by the police since January 1.
http://killedbypolice.net/
1
Mr.Vassell was known to the people, including the police, in the community.
The demeanor of the police who arrived on the scene sounds like opening day of deer season. They had already made up their minds to shoot.Since no shots had been reported, the demeanor of Mr. Vassell could have, should have , worst case been thought to be " suicide by police'. If someone had asked the question " who is this man?" they could have certainly found out. The police were never in danger as it turns out, but everyone else in the neighborhood was...police literally jumped the gun.
3
Um, maybe they knew he was dangerous. Why are people assuming that mentally ill = not dangerous, as if mentally ill people only play at hurting others.
maybe the cops knew him, and had been worried for years that he would crack and hurt people. everyone is putting their own spin on events.
2
Somebody being "dangerous" does not mean that they are instantly subject to a death sentence.
The police need to be better trained at de-escalating situations. Pumping every perceived danger full of bullets is not the solution.
333 Americans killed by police since January 1.
http://killedbypolice.net/
1
This just in...."If you point something that looks like a gun at a police officer, they will shoot you!"
14
The same old two rules would apply here, and this man would be alive.
No. 1 (Man) Don't point anything at police doing their job. Don't challenge them. Keep your hands in sight.
No. 2 (Police) Don't rush to apply excessive force in making an arrest. Do not shoot to kill. Avoid multiple shots: 10, 20,25. You will show black lives matter.
2
What kind of police state do we live in that police can avoid criminal charges if they kill or brutalize someone because they feel "challenged"? The police are not above the law.
1
The police are enforcing the law. That's their job. To protect citizens from terrorism which this man was perpetrating against innocent people.
It's getting pretty steady now. And pretty clear.
Black men dont just need to have the talk with their sons, they have to talk with each other and with themselves - don't ever go out on the street or even your backyard with anything in your hands except maybe a balloon.
6
There is no reason to believe the cops shot him because he was black.
The same thing would have happened if he was white..
5
Many of the comments here discuss the fact that the police should have known that the individual was mentally ill. Someone running around pointing a gun at people is probably mentally ill. It doesn’t mean not dangerous or not capable of shooting a gun. I would bet that most people who shoot cops are mentally ill on some level. They can’t always be treated as harmless.
19
From the article:
"...said she heard the police fire and then saw the man drop. She said the police then fired several more shots before they ran over to the man and handcuffed him".
Nice, first they pour bullets into him after he is down, and then, they handcuff the corpse - just to be sure the dead man doesn't shoot them with his door knob.
The problem here is has to be bad training. Somebody needs to investigate the Police Academy; and that means someone other than the police.
5
You don't know that and the corpse was not handcuffed.
2
stone - Peter Zenger is referring to the quote of an eyewitness in the article.
I wasn't there. You weren't there. None of us know what REALLY happened. The article is the only, and consequently, the best information we have to go on at the moment. If you can produce reliable information refuting the eyewitness's statement the please present it. I'm sure we'd all like to see it.
1
In 2017, in a city of 8.5 million, the NYPD discharged weapons in a total of 23 incidents. Please don't confuse them with the Klansmen of Trump country PDs. This was a tragic error that could have been avoided if we were a nation of strict gun control.
8
Note how the NY Times even immediately credits that the officers "falsely believed" the bipolar man had a gun when it was a shower head that looked nothing like a gun? Every day in America the media instructs us that officers "believe" that some random mundane object is a gun to justify another shooting when the entire notion is absurd. The "liberal" corporate media is a myth. America is a slaver nation with right wing corporate media that religiously looks the other way when it comes to the plight of people of color.
2
There were 911 calls stating that the guy had a gun. People only a few feet away from him thought it was a gun. Who are you to say it didn't look like a gun when people who were close to the man thought it was a gun?
There is ever any excuse for more than one shot, if any. This is homicide, perpetrated by every officer who fired the 2nd-10th shots. The first shooter needs to be suspended without pay.
Why is every police department in this country staffed by spineless weeenies?
Does there exist a man/woman of courage who can act with dignity, maturity, and restraint?
4
They weren't shooting only to defend themselves.
If the suspect had shot at the cops people who were near them would probably be hit and there is a good chance someone other than the cops would die that day.
3
5 police officers, presumably well trained for situations just like this, and probably also wearing bullet proof vests.
vs.
One mentally ill man armed with a pipe.
Who has the advantage? How should they use it?
Should they shoot first and ask questions later?
How about 4 officers remaining out of view, guns trained on the potential danger, while 1 officer looks with binoculars from a safe distance at what the man is actually holding, i.e. doing a risk assessment.
Considering that these situations happen on a daily basis and that 3-4 Americans lose their lives EACH DAY in police shootings, I think it is fair to question whether there is room for improvement in police training.
1
And while taking these "risk assessment" measures on someone who's clearly wielding an object as if it's a firearm, innocent people could be killed in the unknown circumstance that it turned out to be a real gun. You only say these things because information came out after-the-fact. You're not being realistic at all J Jencks.
NYT, #SayHisName. I shouldn't have to read six paragraphs to know the name of the victim of more police brutality and trigger fingers.
5
First of all, what ever happened to shooting the suspects hand or leg using non-lethal force? Why are the victims always black? I have not read nor heard about a white person being killed this way in eons.
I realize that the police use the high stress alibi quite liberally apparently always assuming the suspect has a gun without using their training to observe and assess a situation. If the police are so afraid while doing their jobs perhaps they should not be in the force to begin with. This is plain assault on civilians without justification. Cell phones, shower heads, and apparently anything held in ones hand is always a gun.
5
@Oyster Bay
Re " Why are the victims always black? I have not read nor heard about a white person being killed this way in eons. "
Did you already forget about the Justine Damond shooting, in which a white woman with no gun was shot by a black office in Minneapolis?
Have you heard of Gidone Busch, a mentally ill Orthodox Jewish white man wielding a hammer was shot dead by NYPD?
That said, it is true that unarmed blacks are shot at a higher RATE by white cops than either armed or unarmed whites are shot by cops of any race.
1
Why are the victims always black? I have not read nor heard about a white person being killed this way in eons.
maybe because white people don't do things like this. apparently, asian people don't either, because you don't hear about asians getting shot. it could be because cops refuse to shoot whites, or because whites don't fail to comply with the police.
if a cell phone looks like a gun it is a gun. it is the person's responsibility to show it is not a gun, or to drop it to the ground. i know that a phone is not a gun, but in some situations (lighting) it might be mistaken for a weapon. i can't think of any situation in which a man was shot holding a rose or a tulip. I think it's safe to assume that anything held that is metal might be mistaken for a weapon. the same is true of metal detectors.
1
Dear Oyster Bay,
First of all, it has never been possible to just shoot people in the hand or leg. These are cops with handguns, not Olympic snipers. Also, a shot to the leg can easily kill someone. But primarily, if you shoot for someone's hand and miss, you can easily hit someone two hundred yards behind them. Cops are trained to shoot for the center ring of the torso, and trained to know if they draw their guns, they expect to fire them, and if they fire them, they expect to kill the suspect.
Also there are plenty of people shot by cops who are white, it's actually the majority of victims. But those stories are not really newsworthy.
6
He turned out to be unarmed and his death is tragic,
Why is it tragic.
He died in the normal course of events.
Posters looking for any opportunity to be anti gun and anti Trump will soon move on to another grievance.
This was not the Oxbow Incident.
Soon, most wont remember or care.
The people he was pretending to point a gun at, will give a great big sigh of relief.
The family is probably already talking to lawyers.
The politicians are already budgeting for the payout and getting ready to get the most mileage out of it.
Only the taxpayers remain. They remain forever.
Vaya con dios.
3
o, in italiano, va con dio
Since we know most police officers are inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, can people, please, please, please, please, PLEASE get their facts straight before they start hysterically calling 911? Especially when the suspect is a black male!
This is not the first time a 911 caller has been fatally wrong--someone has blood on their hands and it is not just the police...
4
In this case, it's not the police at all. They get 911 calls saying there's a man threatening people with a silver gun, they get there and a man points what looks like a silver gun at them, they do exactly what they're supposed to do. The only people at fault here are those who called 911 with erroneous information.
5
The police shot and killed an unarmed man, hence they are culpable.
And they are lucky they just killed him and no other innocent bystanders.
Just once, I'd like to see the NY Times mention how many people are threatened by a weapon per year. Here's the data from the FBI: "57,180 officers were victims of line-of-duty assaults ... firearms [are] 4.2 percent of incidents." That's nearly 2,400 firearm-related assaults. It's also true that a small fraction of police are shot and killed, but it's possibly because they're well trained at defending themselves AND other people. I'm subscribing to the NY Times, but probably won't for much longer unless you report about the threats officers face and give some honest reporting.
The police TRULY BELIEVED it was a gun (not "falsely believed" as your headline says. The NY Times even wrote, "Five officers — three of them in street clothes, two in uniform — were responding to three 911 calls about a man threatening people with a silver gun ... A law enforcement official who listened to one of the calls said a woman was frantically reporting that a man was pointing a gun at people."
SOURCE:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2016-stati...
11
"The police TRULY BELIEVED it was a gun"
Were you in their heads?
It's pretty obvious that many cops are downright EAGER to believe that a gun is being pointed at them, giving them an excuse to shoot somebody. When it's a black or mentally ill person, that is. White boys get peacefully subdued and taken to Burger King.
So this man can't know the thoughts going through police officers' heads, but you can? You think you know about what they're eager to do and not do?
Vassell was literally terrorizing people, handling an object as if it were a firearm. He put on airs that were meant to create the illusion that he was carrying a deadly weapon.
Yes, ma'am, the policy truly believed it was a gun.
1
Accidents happen. This one sounds like a reasonable mistake by the police.
7
This is unfortunate, but when several 911 calls come in about someone threatening people with a gun, and when the police arrive a man points what looks like a gun at the police, I don't think they have any choice except to shoot him.
After the fact it's clear that the victim's mental illness is what caused this action, and that speaks to our lack of mental illness treatment in this country. If it had been a gun, he might well have shot several random people instead, as happens every few days, and then nobody would be bothered by the cops having shot him too.
Reduce the amount of guns available, and increase mental health treatment availability, and this sort of event will become rare. But if we keep pouring guns into society, and refuse to treat mental illness, then expect more of this. In other words, expect more of this until Trump is out of office.
3
Of course he is going to get shot and killed. And why not. The cops are suppose to figure out if its a gun or a pipe or a drill? They are supposed to take a chance that it is not a gun and get killed themselves or someone else.
Here is an idea. Don't point something that looks just like a gun, at a cop. And how is a cop supposed to know he is mentally ill? Ask him? "Ok Johnny stop pointing that thing that looks just like a gun at me so I can ask you a question". How ridiculous that so many people would want the cops to do that.
6
This man was known to the police, they knew he was mentally ill and there is no evidence of past violence in this article. There is also no evidence of suicide by cop.
What is evident is that another black man, another mentally ill citizen, was executed by police officers citing fear for their lives.
2
The practice lesson here is clear. Unless you have been actually shot, do not report to the police that you have seen someone threatening people with a weapon. The police unfortunately will believe you and respond accordingly.
2
Tragic, but this will get anemone killed: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/180405-police-shoot-man-wi...
From: https://nypost.com/2018/04/04/cops-shoot-man-dead-after-he-allegedly-poi...
America needs smarter cops. The current batch seems to think everything from a wallet to a cell phone is a gun. But i've got an old aunt in a nursing home who can tell the difference better them than they can. Why not try a simple I.Q. test before hiring the next cop?
2
Please liberal cities, get your racism under control. It's embarrassing to us conservatives in the heartland. Do people in cities enjoy the segregated lifestyles they lead? It would seem so, since very little effort has been made in urban areas to change this lifestyle. From my view, liberal coastal cities are the most racially segregated areas in our nation. These cities are controlled, often by liberal Democrats. They have done very little. I think it's obvious who the racists are and where they live. Big cities that are filled with hypocrites.
5
Taylorville, IL, is literally 97.1% white. It's pretty obvious what kind of lifestyle you personally enjoy. Assuming you live in Illinois and not a basement in Estonia somewhere, that is.
1
Another terrible tragedy.
I think there can be no serious talk about gun control unless it extends both to the police and the military.
We live in an era of remarkable ingenuity when it comes to all sorts of technology and devices. Can't somebody come up with some sort of instrument that would temporarily disable a suspect without killing him? When a snap judgment is required and there is reason to believe that someone is immediately endangering an officer, a non-lethal weapon could bring the situation to a halt, without anybody ending up dead. Surely this is worthy of serious investigation?
There exists such an instrument. A stun gun.
I am one to criticize a questionable police action because it is our civic duty to make sure those with power do not abuse it. However, in this instance, I can not fault the police. The man in the video released appears to be aiming a weapon at a bystander.
4
I admittedly am not a resident of NYC, but I recognize the size and complexity of that city. Based on the number of potentially deadly situations the reports I see of police killing of suspects in that city are few. I think overall they must have quite an excellent police force and am hesitant to paint them with the same brush that seems to apply to many of the more Southern smaller city police forces where officers are all too happy to use excessive force. Though tragic police shooting do occur in NYC I think its policing methods are more a model for other cities to study than an example of poor policing methods.
4
Law enforcement officers kill unarmed Black Americans every now and then, not daily yet all too frequently. Today we read of the latest police killing -- in Brooklyn. We are not a moral nation unless and until we correct this ongoing, lethal injustice.
4
Many people will say not to blame the officers and to put yourself in their position. If I was a cop, I most likely would have shot at this person. However, that's why i'm not an officer. The police should be held to a higher standard then a civilian with no training. If an officer can't tell the difference between a pipe or cellphone between a gun, then they have no right to be in that position.
People called the police stating a man was pointing a gun. However, the officers should come in to a situation to deescalate it, and realize that certain tips can be wrong.
The officer job is to ensure the safety of the public. This is antithetical to their whole mission. I don't care if they thought they were in danger. They obviously can't do their job. An innocent man was murdered by the people sworn to protect him. We give the police a great amount of power. The misuse of that power should be met with swift opposition regardless of what officers believe. Are we willing to accept and justify the death of an innocent man to protect police officers that can't do their job properly?
3
Dear Alfred,
Yes, I'm willing to accept the death of a man to protect police officers. We need police officers. When a cop encounters a suspect who points what appears to be a gun at them, or runs at them with a knife, then the cop should shoot that suspect. If it wasn't actually a gun, then oh well, somebody made a fatal mistake and paid the price.
Nobody in their right mind goes around pretending to point a gun at a cop. Anyone who might do such a thing will probably work their way up to killing random strangers at some point, in other words they're dangerously mentally ill (but please note, most people who are mentally ill are not actually dangerous).
So yes, in this and similar situations, I figure this is an unfortunate part of life, like when someone runs out in front of a bus going full speed, or throws themselves in front of a moving subway. No way for the bus or subway to avoid killing them, so it's just evolution in action.
4
So you think you life is more important than a cops? It was reported as a gun, should they take a bullet before shooting back?
3
I think it's a jump to say someone who pretends to point a gun will inevitably work their way to more dangerous crimes. if we apply this logic, then any kid playing cops and robbers will become a criminal.
John Crawford was shot for carrying a bbgun sold at a Walmart while in the store. tamir rice was shot playing with a toy gun in a park. if you look at the video it takes seconds before cops arrive for them to shoot him. furthermore, rhey pulled up alarmingly close to someone reported to be armed. I just saw a video of a white man stealing a police officers car and trying to run him over and no shots were fired. Dylan roof not shot. the parkland shooter Is alive. why is that the police seem to handle these threats without lethal force?
furthermore, I do not think my life more valuable then an officers. however, they have the authority to take a life if they deem necessary. they are in a unique position to kill people without consequences. I believe that we should be much harder on their use of force especially since we see it being disproportionately used against people of color.
From an outsider prospective: I think this kind of shooting are related with the problem of the high number of guns present in the US. In Europe is uncommon for private citizens to have guns and maybe subconsciously the police start an interaction assuming that is unlikely that the suspect has a gun, I think this is reversed in the us. So maybe resolving the the gun problem could help also with the police shooting. Just a thought
2
Absolutely right Grete, there are more guns in the U.S. then there are adults. Thus, the assumption is that an adult acting in a violent fashion probably has a gun, because odds are the adult does have a gun. If we had, say, one gun for every thirty adults, police would be able to be a lot more leisurely in apprehending a suspect.
Last I checked Switzerland is a part of Europe and has one of the highest guns per capita in the entire world (even higher than the U.S.). How many mass shootings or how high is the murder rate (by gun) in Switzerland? Did you even see the video/pictures of the guy pointing what clearly looked like a weapon? And you're suggesting the police acted rashly in shooting him? Enlighten us...how would the Carabinieri handle a similar situation in your average large Italian city. So yes, your outsider perspective is a bit unrealistic and naïve in that any police in any part of the world would have reacted the same way and had the same unfortunate outcome. Well, with the exception of in Great Britain where they would've had to wait for their version of a SWAT team because they're the only "armed" police over there. And if the guy was actually armed he could've taken out a large number of folks... Just saying...
4
Switzerland does have a very large number of guns. However, unlike the United States these weapons are very tightly controlled and are part of the Swiss military. The Swiss population is virtually a militia. Guns are kept in armories. Training is a serious business there. People are not permitted to accumulate vast stockpiles of weapons for their personal amusement. I wish we would adopt the Swiss (or Israeli) system where the weapons are a part of a tightly controlled self defense force. This is the "well regulated militia" sited in the second amendment.
1
Nearly every person in the community interviewed for this article conveyed that Saheed was known in the community to be mentally ill. Why would the NYPD officers also not know him, and why would there not be specialists within the NYPD identified to consult when the officers made the call? Other commenters continue to state that those questioning the legitimacy of the killing by the NYPD are not "realistic"--that officers need to make snap judgments. That might be true (although there is significant research showing that officers, even black ones, are quicker to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white one via unconscious bias)--but doesn't the NYPD owe it to its citizens to ensure that there are resources at the ready in case a mentally ill person is acting erratically, even if there is a firearm involved?
2
Are you a cop? Do you put yourself in harm's way every day to protect others? Is a bullet from a mentally ill person's gun somehow less lethal to a body than a bullet from a sane person's gun? If NYC or Cambridge MA or SF decide to abolish their police forces and leave themselves to the tender mercy of thugs and lunatics, that's fine with me. But don't ask Americans who live in common sense areas of the country to go along with your delusions.
1
Perhaps these neighborhood people and family members who claim to know that this man was ill should have taken him into some sort of care instaed of laying it all on the police.
3
cops kill bad guys. that's what cops do. they should not kill non-bad guys. what else do cops do? you imply they should be social workers or therapists. i am not sure of that. cops have one role in society: prevent bad guys from killing innocent people. i think people misunderstand their role. Firemen are supposed to put out fires and pose for calendars. cops use force to prevent bad people from hurting other people or from selling illegal drugs.
i am neither pro nor anti cop. i just see cops as having a very simple role. they shoot anybody aiming a gun at innocent people. in every instance like this, something has been mistaken for a gun.
i think it's fair to expect cops to execute their one role with more care and precision, but it is unfair to expect them to be like school principals for the entire city.
2
Police officers are humans, not robots. It is impossible to predict how anyone is going to react in such a highly-charged situation, in which a decision needs to be made in a split second. And yes, we cannot deny that there are some in law enforcement who size up the threat based on their own prejudices. But in looking at the stills from video of Mr. Vassell holding that pipe, it certainly looked like a gun to me. It is a painful situation for all involved.
6
I unfortunately didn’t have the chance to know Saheed Vassell. From the accounts I’ve read of his interactions with his community and neighbors, he sounds like a decent man living the best life he could.
I cannot blame the NYPD en masse or the responding officers for this unfortunate shooting, assuming their actions were indeed driven by 911 calls from within the community about Mr. Vassell’s actions leading up to the shooting, which were seemingly corroborated with the limited surveillance footage we have seen of him wielding an L-shaped pipe in a way that made it look like a firearm.
I will, however, place blame on America’s pervasive and malicious “gun culture” that caused a young, mentally ill man grasp an L-shaped pipe like a pistol and imitate the actions and attitude he’s no doubt seen countless times in America’s “gun culture.” It’s there for us to see every day in an endless flow of gun-worshipping action movies, TV dramas, music videos, and even children’s cartoons. Our kids are subjected to Nerf guns, laser tag, cowboy cap guns, water pistols, action figures like GI Joe, Transformers, and even Lego characters wielding handguns. Some of the most popular video games of all time are first-person shooters with characters wielding an array of mayhem-causing weapons, both real and imaginary.
2
Uh, uh... you can't blame violent video games, explicitly violent TV show/movies or any of all the other entertainment pushed onto the masses glorifying murder and mayhem in general. We've been told there are numerous scientific studies claiming that these all have no effect on a rational person's ability to distinguish fantasy from reality and make appropriate decisions. Rightttt.....
suicide by cop. a truly sad outcome for all involved.
2
The headline should have read: "Police Fatally Shoot a Brooklyn Man After Falsely ASSUMING He Had a Gun."
7
Assuming after MULTIPLE calls saying he had a gun. I guess you prefer seeing cops killed.
2
Headline ought be in this case as in so many others: "Violent Man Fatally Shot Attacking Neighbors and Police".
3
How about "Police Fatally Shoot a Brooklyn Man After a 911 Call Stating That He was Pointing a Gun at People, and then pointing a gun-looking object at responding officers"
2
In a high stress situation when someone is pointing something that appears to be a gun, all bets should be off and we should trust the police to use best judgement including lethal force. How were the police to know he was bipolar. Should we make those people wear special markers so we know they are high risk? He turned out to be unarmed and his death is tragic, but should the family spend more time monitoring him and his meds? Snap judgments under stress, you assume the worst case scenario and react appropriately. If the police had no shot him and there was a gun, there would be hell to pay as well.
8
Use "best judgement"? Poor judgement by law enforcement officers is not rare. Daily, we are told by the anti-gun crowd and others that only highly trained police should carry guns but all too frequently we learn that, among that "highly trained" group, shooting of unarmed/innocent people is all too frequent. Police should be held to the same firearm safety standards and responsibility as the more than 100 million law abiding gun owners. We don't get two weeks of administrative leave if we "accidentally" shoot someone.
Most cops do a good job, safely. Police supervisors should also be held accountable for the actions of officers under their supervision.
4
Sorry, but police are required to take risks with their own lives in ways ordinary citizens never encounter, so they deserve special exemptions.
1
There are surveillance photos on other articles about this that show him pointing the pipe at people. In the photo it looks like a gun from that distance. I can completely see how the police and bystanders thought he had a weapon.
Also to those that say they should have warned him or shot to disable- That's a fantasy. If it is a weapon and you stop to warn them, they pull the trigger and you have a dead officer. You can't disable because handguns aren't that accurate. You aim center mass and fire until the threat is neutralized.
8
Or a dead pedestrian
1
I'm all for criticizing police when it is due, and I normally side with the NYT, but you failed to publish the photo shown in the NY Post where the man is very clearly pointing the same object at a pedestrian's head like it is a gun.
17
The shooting may have been bad. However, it seems that the Crown Heights neighborhood has a high level of people that can predict the future, read someone's mind, and determine if someone is harmless and will never commit a crime or snap. If just a few dozen of these persons and some of the commenters who have the same talents would just join the force then all our nations crime problems would simply disappear. Any takers out there in mental marvel land?
25
This comment should be an NYT pick.
3
More second guessing by a crowd who has no idea what the truth may be. Nor do I. Reality? Cops do get killed when people point things at them sometimes. And, sometimes the person doing the pointing gets killed. Potentially an extremely difficult scenario when lives are at risk. It's impossible to cover any and all scenarios.
12
Unarmed mentally ill people are killed daily by the police and SWAT teams throughout our nation and have been for decades now. Will it stop? Unlikely.
3
Don't sweat it, it's nowhere near the rate that regular Americans are shooting themselves and each other every day. In 2017, cops killed about 987 people. About 13,000 people were shot dead by non-cops, and about 26,000 people committed suicide with guns. Cops are really not the big problem.
We don't know all the details yet, but if indeed 911 recordings indicate that multiple civilians DID say the man 'had a gun', well.... it seem natural that the police too would assume that to be the case, and especially if the victim was indeed holding the object as one might hold a firearm...
13
FYI: This is also what occurred in the Tamir Rice case, a preternaturally large 9190 lb. 5'&'' tween black male who was reported by neighbors in the park to be a man walking around waving a gun at kids and adults. Rice fled when cops arrived, as is their job, and was shot when police pursued him. He actually was carrying a lookalike Glock, which is even more indistinguishable than a large lead pipe. There's not enough money in the world to make be want to be a cop in America or allow my child to be one these days.
6
'a preternaturally large 9190 lb.' Please...
Why are the dispatchers, who relay these phone calls to the police, and the police themselves, taking the original phone message, from untrained, coincidental callers, as certain and confirmed fact. There is plenty wrong here, but much of it seems to be in the process that the police get their information.
4
What's the alternative? How is an operator at 911 supposed to know the truth of the allegation/ complaint? Should these operators only pass along information that is correct and has been verified? Impracticable and impossible.
1
Just a BIT misleading. I think they truly believed he had a gun (not falsely believed).
20
MI said "Just a BIT misleading. I think they truly believed he had a gun (not falsely believed). "
------------------------
If u believe someone has a gun and u are responding to calls that he was aiming it at people, why would u approach the suspect till u can ascertain what it is u are dealing with? It's not night time and he is wide open for all to see. Before approaching, wouldn't u command him to freeze and immediately show your hands? Knowingly walking up to someone who was aiming a gun at people is extremely irresponsible.
1
I think Wittgenstein would concur.
1
We had a similar situation here in San Diego last year. A mentally disabled man was threatening his neighbors, being violent, cops where called. When confronted he has something in his hands and ignores commands to "drop it and get on the ground." He assumes a shooting stance and point an object with a barrel at the cops. That cop had a second or less, to decide if it was a gun or not, he was in the line of fire, he shot and killed the man. It turned out, after the fact, to be a vape pipe.
I am not going to argue right or wrong, here are suggestions on how to survive a confrontation with the cops:
If the cops draw their guns on you, your life is now measured in seconds.
Never ever, point anything, not even your fingers, at a cop.
Do as your told.
Make no sudden movements, keep your hands visible at all times.
Do not argue, be mad later, your only job is to survive the next 30 seconds.
If you ignore their instructions, they will shoot, they will not miss, you will die.
15
That is very helpful for someone who is either mentally ill or developmentally disabled. Police are supposed to protect the public FIRST and if that means they lose their own lives then so be it. They are supposed to "protect and to serve". Collateral damage as a result of an officer feeling their life is threatened is unacceptable and there are way too many incidents of unarmed minors, developmentally disabled, mentally ill, or people otherwise not in full possession of their faculties getting shot and killed by those responsible for keeping them safe.
It is a hard job, a dangerous job, and often thankless. I would not want to do it myself and I appreciate very much that there are people willing to take on the huge responsibilities of law enforcement. But If they cannot handle the responsibility and they are more interested in self preservation than the public good then they should find a safer line of work.
7
totally agree. Cops who can't deal with the pressures of the job shouldn't have the job to begin with.
So arusso, if you were a policeman, self-preservation wouldn't be at the top of your list? Let's see how long that bit of naivete would last if you thought someone was pointing a gun at you.
2
This is a really difficult situation. I am normally very supportive of the police and give them a lot of leeway in many shooting incidents that others quickly criticize. Now here of course the full facts are yet unknown. However I am disturbed that an unarmed mentally ill person was killed and I would like to pose a few questions. First, as witnesses say, this person was known in the neighborhood, and known to be mentally challenged, so did the regular beat officers and community officers know him, should they have? Did they know his tendency to odd behavior, if so that may have helped diffuse the situation, if not then there is a breakdown in community policing here. Second, how well trained were the responding officers? What was the threat they noticed? Of course officers cant be expected in a split second to distinguish a real gun from a realistic looking fake gun, but how realistic was this pipe to a gun, could they have determined that more readily before starting to shoot? What other techniques such as voice commands were employed first? Third, and this is a much bigger issue, what other non-deadly force could be used in these situations, and I dont mean as Chris Williams ably points out, that any officer can be expected to "shoot to disable" that is nonsense of course - but tactical techniques such as defensive stance and cover, isolating the subject and more use of poles, nets and plastics especially when confronted with knives and pipes has to be employed. more.
6
Same thing with crazy school shooters, the family would never think they would do it. Also how close can anyone really be in knowing someone and if they went around pointing a barrel at strangers, who want to second judge it?
"Like we have a dangerous person pointing a weapon at people...wait is that Billy? Big guy, wears a t-shirt. No worries he won't hurt anyone. He has a gun? Guns never hurt anyone, Billy is probably joking around. He acts funny now and then if doesn't take his pills."
Police officers are trained to respond to threats but when in high stress situation where the other person is not cooperating and a single mistake can cost their lives or other civilians . I haven't or know how training officer take but best would be diffuse the situation and eliminate the threat. It is not like they can send an entire swat team and quarantine the area in seconds when threat is shown.
1
If any fault attaches, it should go to Gov. Hugh Carey and NY State due to the cynical response to court ordered release of mentally ill individuals from state institutions back in the 1970s. Prescriptions for medications may or may not be filled. Drugs may or may not be taken. What is certain is that the inmates' bodies are often recovered from subway tracks after being run over by a #2 Express or removed from the streets after having been shot. In either case, it's easier and less expensive than caring for the mentally ill.
In this case, NYPD is not to blame. The healthcare providers and our elected officials share the guilt for not living up to their responsibilities.
7
why doesn't the NYT post the pictures of him pointing what looks like a gun at the cops?
17
CBS posted a picture of him pointing it at civilians prior to the police response. It looks very convincingly like a small pistol.
5
So the NYT did not post the pictures of him pointing what looks like a gun at the cops. Ask yourself...will a sane person act like that? Have the police lost any modicum of common sense when dealing with erratic behavior?
1
The narrative is that the evil cops shot the innocent black guy, as always. This narrative suffers when it becomes apparent that it looked like the suspect was about to shoot the cops, to any rational observer.
1
I have lived in three other countries where people have mental episodes everyday by threatening people with screw drivers, knives and weapons. Police negotiate and calm the person, without lethal force being the first solution. How? All those countries are not rife with hand guns designed to kill people, so police are not concerned the person will draw a weapon. They are all countries proud of their hunting traditions. America has a gun disease.
18
Andy,
Go test your theory. And by test, I mean repeated trials (*) in realistic scenarios. For your first trial perhaps head to, say, Paris. You'll find plenty of heavily armed officers from various branches. Begin acting erratically and then, upon receiving the attention of said armed officers, produce a metal object roughly shaped as a pistol (something close to the photo in this article) and quickly adopt the stance of someone who would fire a pistol, "aiming" towards the officer(s).
Good luck.
* Assuming you are able to repeat after the first incident.
6
Yeh, well, America has a 330 million population, a very diverse box of crauola crayon from all over the world since the 1960s. Wake me when ANY of those 3 nations you've lived in hits that mark on size, with half on the dole and with a huge number of males flat out predatory violent.
1
It's a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality in many forces that were originally designed to "protect and serve."
According to the Washington Post's ongoing survey, "For the third year in a row, police nationwide shot and killed nearly 1,000 people, a grim annual tally that has persisted despite widespread public scrutiny of officers’ use of fatal force.
Police fatally shot 987 people last year, or two dozen more than they killed in 2016, according to an ongoing Washington Post database project that tracks the fatal shootings. Since 2015, The Post has logged the details of 2,945 shooting deaths, culled from local news coverage, public records and social-media reports.
While many of the year-to-year patterns remain consistent, the number of unarmed black males killed in 2017 declined from two years ago. Last year, police killed 19, a figure tracking closely with the 17 killed in 2016. In 2015, police shot and killed 36 unarmed black males."
The numbers seem small when compared to deaths by firearms across the country, but it is possible that only the most prominent shootings are counted in the tally - or, the numbers provided by the forces are deliberately manipulated downward. Regardless, some serious questions need to be asked and addressed. Unloading a 15 round 9mm pistol at an unarmed person is, ironically, overkill.
3
Instead of spending so much money developing self-driving cars, maybe Silicon Valley could develop non-lethal weapons that would disable threatening suspects , armed or unarmed, without killing them. Or maybe that technology is already available? Why not throw a canister of non-lethal gas to temporarily blind or incapacitate the suspect? Or employ something like a fire extinguisher with a liquid under high pressure that would knock the assailant down or knock the gun from his hand? Pistols are only one kind of weapon police could use to protect themselves and others. Technology solves many social problems. It's time to use it to save lives, those of police as well as threatening civilians.
6
Police are already using cannisters of non-lethal gas at protests and they take quite a while to drive people from the scene. Meanwhile, anyone with an AR-15 could just start shooting towards the police and hope to hit something. I cant think of anything that would be quick enough to affect the suspect and act quick enough to incapacitate. But like you suggest, maybe someone could come up with one.
And I doubt that the fire extinguisher could blast to the end of the street. But I do not build rocket ships so what do I know? :)
4
My guess is that many cops see such anti-social people (people behaving anti-socially) as like cancer cells. They don't see them (black or white or any color) as people who need compassion. They are most likely seen as cancer cells threatening the healthy body of society, and the cops seem themselves as the immune system. Liberals see society as a joint project of mutual support. Cop type people probably see it as bastion of normalcy that needs to be protected from criminality and/or deviancy.
2
Maybe we can vet immigrants for mental illness and just not let them in.
Folks, please, please try to gain some knowledge on why it is unrealistic for police officers to "shoot to disable." Talk to a police officer about why it is unrealistic. Maybe Google can help. Please take a minute to put yourself in the shoes of the cops in a situation like this. The man was holding the pipe pretty much like a person would hold a gun, and pointing it directly at the officers to boot. I know that we have a problem with unjustified police shootings; they happen far too often, especially with black people. But please, understand: if you bemoan the fact that police don't shoot someone to "disable" when they are pointing a gun, or what looks very much like a gun, towards a cop - you are betraying a deep ignorance about the realities of police work. Try to talk to someone in law enforcement, get educated, please.
64
You mean talk to someone in law enforcement who would rather shoot someone than de escalate the situation? Lets ask the source of the problem why their actions are not a problem. This wouldnt even be news if cops who were involved in unjustified shooting were held accountable for their actions. Instead, since they arent here we are, American citizens being gunned down by the people who are supposed to protect them with no repercussions.
Why should we as the taxpayers foot the bill for the civil suits that come out of these shootings?
8
Chris, Not a very thoughtful comment. The challenge here is to think of novel solutions, not to do sociology with those involved in the shootings. There are many non lethal weapons that should be deployed, especially when the target is known to be mentally ill. The notion that shooting someone 15 times is an appropriate response to fear of being shot makes no sense.
6
The way I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that law enforcement is trained to shoot to hit, which essentially means aim for the largest target, center mass. What happens after that is just luck. The whole idea of "shoot the leg" is Hollywood nonsense.
6
If the guy was believed to be harmless, why did the community call the police? To create a spectacle? To create an opportunity to protest? The community killed the kid. They knew exactly what the outcome would be.
17
If you look up the pictures of "the gun" you'll see why people called to report a man with "a gun". It looked like he had a gun and was running up to people pointing it at their heads and faces.
Where was this man's family? Why was the known-to-be-mentally-ill man unsupervised?
I agree. The community is to blame. The police responded bravely to what could have been their last call. Don't forget that people. That's why we give certain protections to the police. BECAUSE THEY FACE DEATH EVERYDAY!
6
I'm white, have a graduate degree, and wear 600 dollar shoes. But If I stood outside the NYSE or Bloomingdales aiming a pipe that looks like a handgun, I'd probably get shot too. But how often do white people do stuff like that? How often do residents of the Upper East Side, the West Village, or Battery Park City do stuff like that? How often do people in Brioni suits do stuff like that?
These shooting victims have more in common than just the color of their skin. They are also
- poor
- usually not college educated
- not wearing a suit
- intoxicated
- not responsive to police commands
I think cops are too trigger happy, but I don't think they are premeditative death squads. My guess is that cops think ALL non-cops are below them, the way that some military people have disdains for all civilians.
First rule: When confronted by the police, drop everything in your hands and put your hands up. I bet observance of that one rule would save a lot of bullets.
Why do people act so strangely? I am not saying such conduct warrants death, but everybody looks before they cross the street. People take precautions in daily life. Don't point metal objects at people on the street.
20
Total nonsense. There are poor white folks that have mental problems too. The question is: how likely are you to get shot and killed if you are a mentally ill black man vs. mentally ill white man in a police encounter? Show me the statistics that they are equal and I'll buy that there is no racism.
To be honest, I haven't seen the statistics proving the other way either, so I'm withholding judgement for now. I would really love to see NYT doing an article on the statistics on various types police killings by race.
3
Sacramento Fly,
Like I said, I think conduct enters into it. I think a lot depends upon how compliant the person is. As an outsider, it seems like black people are evasive, belligerent, furtive, non-compliant, resistant, and in most ways non-coperative.
i would be a thousand dollars that white people confronted by cops tend to be much more compliant than black people who are confronted by cops. I don't listen to any rap. I listen to Depeche Mode. My head is not filled with angry lyrics about cops. Until shown otherwise, I assume most cops are like Andy Griffith. I am sure I am very wrong, but I am not in any way predisposed to be resistant to authority. Also, I have never met anyone who owns a gun. Guns are entirely absent from my world. Cops may assume that white people don't carry guns and that black people do.
Seeing racism where there isn't racism won't solve any social problems and won't save lives.
1
Weird society we live in where a guy is smart enough to hold a degree and a job that can afford $600 shoes but doesn't understand the concept of mental illness and it's very definition of not having control of your senses.
You don't tell mentally ill people to "not point objects at people on the street" and expect it to register. It doesn't work that way. Can't believe I have to say that.
The lack of understanding in your post is staggering and reeks of privilege.
By the way the Las Vegas Gunman probably looked a lot like you, suit, shoes, white - and pointed a gun at people. By the way - he was mentally ill.
1
If this story that the police are telling is true the police will be exonerated. I'm not necessarily on their side but if someone called and said he was pointing a gun at people and he then took a shooting stance, the police actions will be considered justified no matter how harmless the man was otherwise. The shooting in Sacramento was different. The police never identified themselves and just shouted gun, gun, gun. And then they shot. There was no report of a gun, just someone breaking windows.
If it'd been reported as this particular mentally ill man pointing a gun things might have turned out differently. However, given that the police are trained to shoot to kill and that any report of a civilian wandering around with a gun is taken quite seriously, Mr. Vassell might still be dead. The question is did any of the police on the scene recognize him and try to de-escalate the situation. Just as we want our friends and families to come home to us at the end of the day, so too, do police officers families.
4
why would they try to de-escalate the situation?
My guess is this: To a cop, human life (black or white) is cheap, but laws and justice are important. My guess is that cops will try hard to act lawfully and to uphold the law, but will not hesitate to take a life, if doing so is not unlawful (and might protect people).
Liberals value human life and justice. Let's assume that copes value justice, but not human life. Cops, will then, act justly as often as possible, but will take a life, when it does not conflict with justice. Taking the life of a person threatening other lives does not conflict with justice.
Maybe cops think these things:
A) Justice matters
B) NO lives matter
In most situations, justice will dictate not taking any lives. So, in most situations, no lives will be taken.
Liberals seem to think cop should care deeply about each and every life. What if cops care only about law and justice (like robots or something)? The mistake is thinking that most cops think like hippies. My guess is that most cops don't care about other people, but do care about justice and the law.
1
I have a brother who is bi-polar. He didn’t always take his daily meds religiously. His behavior would become extremely threatening and alarming to the point where the police were called – numerous times. They were well versed about my brother and his medical condition, but each time they responded to a call, they did so with weapons drawn. One time he was brandishing a large knife around, threatening people in the pool hall. The cops responded and were able to talk my brother down and to drop the knife. He never knew at the time just how close he came to being killed that night. I knew the police would have killed him, in self-defense, if the situation escalated more than it had.
I never blamed these officers for what they needed to do to protect innocent people or themselves when my brother was out of control. I felt responsible and equally horrified that my brother’s actions put others at risk. He was hospitalized numerous times over the years, but was also released. The fact is when a bi-polar person refuses to take his meds causing him to have behavioral changes, resulting in police intervention; it becomes a dangerous and potentially deadly situation.
I cannot speak for the actions these 5 officers took, but I do understand & appreciate their situation, especially when being confronted by an individual in “a two-handed shooting stance and pointing an object at the approaching officers”.
Condolences to Saheed Vassell's family and friends.
24
:) My mother was bi-polar and an ex-Marine. There was the time the police had to come and take mom away in a straight jacket. She had no weapon in hand but it took a number of large men to get mom under control while she barked orders like General Patton:)
If she had anything in hand that looked like a weapon, it would have been foolish of police to not perceive her as a real threat. And it was a good sized city and they had no idea she was bi-polar when they showed up. It took her doctors years to figure out she was mental and no officer can deduce that on the scene in the dark talking to someone.
4
I've a bipolar brother who has been that way, gleefully and quite arrogantly, for 60 years. He was a predatory as a boy an still is. He got away with it because he is white and his mommy indulged his every breath, his daddy coddled his backside, instead of getting his violent, lowlife drug dealing, pedophile son into either prison or an institution. There's a reason I and most of our family have had no contact with him for 45+ years. My parents left him a pile of money and till their dying day refused to admit their Little Prince was a dangerous sociopath nutjob. They refused to consider it their duty to protect others he has harmed over all these decades. A cop with a well-placed bullet would've been karma and the right thing for the world decades ago. I always thought it a shame my parents connived to get him out of the Vietnam draft, where other men could fix the problem they created.
1
Section 8, Tom?
Were the 3 citizens who called 911 about a man with a gun racist?
My guess is they were the same race as the suspect.
22
There seems to be a large difference between this shooting and the travesty in Sacramento. Here you have multiple people calling police and telling them a man is waving a gun around in a public space. The guy is holding a prop that is metal and shaped like a gun, as if it is a gun. He is apparently acting like he is going to shoot at officers, who have absolutely no way to know it is a gun. This incident does not appear to be a police problem, more a mental healthcare problem. If the unfortunate man received all the compassionate mental healthcare he needed, perhaps this incident would never have occurred. Once again, society needs to do more than one thing at a time. Improve police training, increase the availability of mental healthcare, better regulate firearms and develop a new generation of non-lethal weapons for law enforcement.
10
Good points but who's going to pay for all this? Seriously, everyone is so quick to point out we need better this or that but no suggestion on how to pay for it.
5
We could provide mental healthcare AND free college for all just by leaving Afghanistan.
2
Or not only how to pay for it, but how to successfully design and implement such a program even if money were not an issue.
Better police training, especially when handling lethal weapons is a MUST. There are many ways to de-escalate a situation like this, and officers need to realize that their presence alone can cause individuals (especially POC) to become defensive. If there were that many police officers on the scene--multiple shots from multiple officers were fired—maybe they need to consider assigning better roles: one or two stand on guard with weapons raised, while another one or two stand back and scout the situation to confirm that the weapon is in fact a firearm.
It honestly makes me wonder, after hearing of so many POC getting killed while holding items that aren’t weapons, that whether eye tests, glasses & contacts are covered by the benefits provided by the police force. Perhaps there needs to be a mandatory eye exam every few months for any officers carrying lethal weapons.
4
Perhaps, when confronted by police, you should follow the directions/orders that are given by police?
12
.......And even if you do that you still will get shot and killed
2
Good comment Kal. It doesn't play into the "victimology mindset" of many though.
1
50 years ago this person would have been in a state mental institution. He would have participated in vocational activities such as gardening, received psychiatric medication and would have had grounds privileges. Today someone like him wanders the streets until something bad happens. Some are shot by the police, some succumb to drugs, some die because they simply do not take care of their health. Is this really an improvement over institutionalization?
16
The fundamental problem is that we have a country with so many guns. That is why the police are afraid that suspects have a gun.
83
The U.S. also has too many violent men, period. Refusing to admit this is tantamount to forcing police to be psychiatrists and catcher of feral dogs all rolled into one.
2
True, criminal-types will always tend to have guns so the general population just may need a gun as well. Sad to say but makes sense. Taking guns away from non-criminals will NOT take away the guns from criminals.
I disagree. The problem I see is politicians constant attacks on law abiding citizens rather than violent criminals. The problem is not the gun. The problem is the people willing commit violence. Look at the firearm death statistic from CDC. The problem is very different than the anti gunners try to convince others.
It also helps to understand something about firearms. Most people who criticize firearms have zero knowledge or understanding.
In a number of states there are open carry laws or simple-to get concealed weapons licenses. But it seems the American black male can't hold even a phone or piece of metal without police firing on them. There has grown a de facto rule that carrying guns of any sort in any fashion is acceptable only for the white males, which is tragic because those are nearly always the ones who seem able to carry bulky assault rifles to mass shootings.
12
I am sorry but there is not justification for the killing of this person. Why on earth can the police shoot to the leg or the arm of the "suspect"? Just like the other case where the police were called because "someone with a gun", how can they not learn from that? Or the little kid walking around with a fake gun and killed right when the police got to the place he was, without a chance to tell the police it was fake?? I am sorry but the Police Department either does not care of the past or does not want to change, but they should know better at this point. I can keep mentioning case after case and most of them on my opinion are not justifiable.
Again, maybe the PD should focus on training on how to immobilize suspect instead of how to just shoot and kill and then ask questions. And the irony of all this is that after all four cops shot him, they went on to try to save him. Why did shoot at the same time so many bullets? they should be given a suspension or at least send them back to training for a few months. The PD have to stop making this killing like part of the process of being a cop. The guy was sick just like the old lady killed in her apartment a year or two ago. Either they learn or they are out.
3
Clearly, you are not familiar with Article 35 of the NYS Penal Law. You should read up, educate yourself a little more. and adjust your comments accordingly. If you think the cops acted inappropriately, you should lobby to change Article 35.
6
Your view of how police officers should respond to a suspected shooter shows a complete lack of understanding of a proper response to this type of situation & if you were a officer would likely get you killed.
10
You know why they don't do that? try tagging a target as narrow as a leg or arm... A) it is not guaranteed to immobilize them, there are tons of videos showing this technique being attempted and failing.
B) Shooting someone in the leg can be a lethal shot due to the femoral artery, once again, plenty of videos can be seen where this has happened.
You always aim center mass as you have a greater likelihood of actually hitting the target, making it safer for bystanders and it is also more effective at ending the threat.
The man was intentionally misleading officers to believe he had a gun and was taking aim to fire at them. Completely justified.
These things happen in seconds, if the officers don't respond immediately they can and have died as a result.
Killing isn't part of the process as you have suggested. Again, countless instances of people being shot in these situations and they survive. The goal is to stop the threat, even if death occurs in the process.
8
One more example of how poorly trained urban police are. Many seem to believe they should shoot first and ask questions later. It's also an indication of cowardice. I spent years dealing with the mentally ill. Approaching an unstable person with fear or anger will only make the situation worse.
9
I have spent a life time dealing with the mentally ill. Question - can you take a look at someone on the street and instantly tell if they are mentally ill? It took doctors years to figure out that my mother was bi-polar. It took doctors literally 4 years to figure out that I am not mental but have severe epilepsy. And that involved a three day visit in the hospital wired up observing me along with catscans and MRIs to figure it out. But an urban police officer who is not even required to have a college degree much less a medical degree is supposed to instantly tell who is stable and who is not?
5
My advice to black men, especially young black men:
Avoid walking in public at all times, you are at a high risk of being shot by police.
As evidenced by the killing outside of Minneapolis recently, also avoid driving in public, you are at a high risk of being shot by police
If you are forced to walk in public do so with your arms raised at all times else you are at a high risk of being shot by police
If you are forced to walk or drive in public, make sure you have no objects whatsoever with you, i.e., no tools, cell phones, rubber ducks, no nothing…they could be viewed as threats to the police who will shoot first and then exonerate themselves later with claims that they feared for their lives
Never stand in your grandmother’s yard or your own yard, that of another relative or, preferably, any yard…doing so is an invitation for a neighbor to call the police and for the police to shoot you.
All white men can disregard the above; it only applies if you are black.
19
And here's my advice - when confronted by police follow their directions. This applies to all races.
16
According to FBI reports, there were 511 officers killed in felonious incidents and 540 offenders from 2004 to 2013. Among the total offenders, 52 percent were white, and 43 percent were black. The rest were of other races. Blacks make up 13 percent of the overall population whereas whites make up 77 percent. Thus, it’s fair to say that blacks are far more likely that other races to kill an officer. This is not excusing the lack of attempt to subdue an unarmed man, but it is simply human nature that an officer approaching a black person, especially a black man, is thinking of FBI statistics in the back of his/her mind and more than like, doesn’t want to become a statistic, too.
10
...and once again it you are a black man and follow this advice you STILL will get shot and killed by the police.
[[Police Fatally Shoot a Brooklyn Man After Falsely Believing He Had a Gun]]
[[John Fuller, 59, said that he had known Mr. Vassell for years and that local police officers had, too. He echoed a common refrain: The officers should have known him well enough to not simply shoot him to death. “Every cop in this neighborhood knows him,” Mr. Fuller said.]]
The cops didn't "falsely believe" he had a gun, three callers to 911 falsely reported he had a gun. That's what set everything in motion. And, yes, I'm sure the cops knew the victim well enough to say he was a "mental" case and now they had three reports of an armed emotionally disturbed person.
If the shooting victim had been armed and had shot someone else, a child or a shopkeeper, I'm sure "John Fuller, age 59, who had known Mr. Vassell for years" would be singing a different song..."Why didn't the police stop him!!! The officers should have known him well enough to realize he was a danger to the community!!!"
[[Other crowd members wept at how this had happened on the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.]]
Oh, come on! Seriously?!? Because the victim is black and King was black there's some sort of eerie connection?
[[Rocky Brown said he was a friendly man who was mentally ill.]]
Let's discuss the difficulties of treating an adult with mental disorders? How many mental health clinics are there in that neighborhood? Let's discuss how the mentally ill are neglected by society.
13
Exactly. We are dealing with imperfect or even incorrect information but our society demands something pretty darn near close to perfection. Errors in judgment will occur. There is no way getting around this. (Willful misconduct is of course something different.)
That said, the number of such incidents like the one that occurred in Brooklyn is infinitesimal in comparison to the total number of police / civilian interactions.
"The officers should have known him well enough to not simply shoot him to death."
It is incomprehensible to me how anyone can think that police procedures should be so fine-grained. In an emergency situation, the police are expected to draw on their personal acquaintance with the man, and use that as a basis for estimating how much of a threat he poses?
Only when we have artificial intelligence algorithms that operate in microseconds will that be possible.
11
"It is incomprehensible to me how anyone can think that police procedures should be so fine-grained. "
OK, so you agree with that logic for when Mohamed Noor shot Justine Damond, I assume?
Based on the reporting here, if I were one of the responding officers, I would have fired too (I am not a police officer).
By the info they received they were predisposed to think the gentleman had a gun and he took a position that is recognized as a "shooting position".
Police are humans just like you and me. They surely felt they were in mortal danger and responded in a proper manner IMHO.
12
As a Black American male, my expectation is that I will be shot dead during any encounter with law enforcement regardless of threatening behavior or total compliance. If I am not murdered, I would count myself lucky. This is the world I live in.
32
Obey the laws, obey the orders of cops. Start with that.
8
I would imagine that there are untold thousands of encounters between law enforcement and Black American males every week, maybe even every day, in this country. Yet an infinitely miniscule portion of them end up in any kind of gunfire. I think MDargan is not so much lucky to still be here, but simply paranoid.
8
You don’t get it at all. It doesn’t make any difference if you obey the law if you’re black
3
I recently read in the NY Times that there were 987 citizens killed by police in the US last year, some of those justified, many not.
I continue to ask, other than a Taser, can't some type of disabling instrument be developed which doesn't have so much killing power? Many years ago rubber bullets were used but I assume they proved useless since they aren't deployed anymore.
There has to be a better way.
30
Tranquilizer guns?
*the vast majority of those justified, a handful not.
6
Non-lethal deterrents or arrestors should be the sophisticated way forward. A fatal outcome is not the best/only way.
Tasers are 80’s technology.
We’ve got to think of a better way that is more effective than bullets or tasers for temporarily arresting someone until the threat can be removed.
Let's see Amadou Diallo was shot brandishing a wallet, a shop keeper in Staten Island was strangled for selling loosies, and now a mentally disabled man was shot for holding a pipe. It is probably easier to get guns out of the hands of criminals than it will be to get the police to stop recognizing everything as being a threat.
40
I like your idea but you see the stalemate/ difficulty in changing the gun laws. And with 300 million or so guns in this country at best it will be many, many decades before there is any effective way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
1
This is not Diallo and this is not Eric Garner.
Be respectful.
5
Eric Garner was not "strangled." He died on the way to the hospital.
He was taken down because he refused to comply. The choke hold was illegal, but not the take down.
6
I still do not understand why police shoot to kill in almost all circumstances. Why do they not shoot to disable ? I believe our police force needs better training.
9
From my understanding it is too difficult. Police officers are taught to aim for the largest mass on the body, which is the chest area. Shooting for the knees is very difficult to properly effectuate. If the office misses then you heighten the risk of: (i) a bullet going past the perpetrator and hitting an innocent person, and (ii) not disabling the perpetrator.
4
Because they are trained to aim for the chest (large body mass). Only Wyatt Earp was capable of shooting his opponent in the hand as a way to disarm him.
4
Shot to disable?
You show a complete lack of understanding of the time frame that is involved in a suspects ability to shoot a gun and kill or injure a officer.
5
If the police had 30 seconds before shooting to use binoculars to see the object was not a gun this tragedy could have been avoided.
5
That's the problem. Often, the police don't have 30 seconds or any reasonable period of time to determine if the item is, or is not, a gun. If they wait for 30 seconds - and the person does have a gun - then the police officer and innocent civilians could be killed.
9
If they had 30 seconds is my point. But maybe one of the four or five officers could have reached for his/her scope first.
1
Is this how NYPD, police officers around the country are trained? To shoot to kill? 4 police officers shooting at 1 man is an execution whether or not he had a gun. 4 police officers, 4 guns vs 1 mentally ill man with a shower head is excessive force. Couldn't 1 officer shoot him in the leg and take him down? Or shoot him in the arm and disarm him? What about tasers? These officers will say they feared for their lives but should we have police officers who are so easily frightened? Should we have officers who can't tell the difference between a phone and a gun or in this case a gun and a piece of old shower head? So yes, fine, 4 people called 911 on this man but a 911 call doesn't always have to end this way but increasingly, for Black men & women, they do.
10
Yes, they are trained to hit the center of the target Ru. Shooting the gun out of the guy's hand only happens in the movies.
9
Officer 1 shoots at his leg and misses. Innocent bystander is killed off the ricochet. Mentally ill man now shoots and kills Officer 2.
Good job keeping the public safe.
4
Police officers are trained to aim for the chest as the most effective way to "stop" someone who requires the police to potentially use deadly force.
The underlying problem is that cops are fearful of brown skinned people, and seem to use deadly force on them far more than they ever would on a Caucasian person. Are many cops racist? I think that they are, and these racist cops have to be weeded out. Even black cops tend to go along with the program for fear of not being a team player(blue team).
The J. Egar '"police as a warrior" concept of policing has replaced the traditional "Peace Officer". This, combined with military grade armaments in the form of 15 round guns has produced a pile of unarmed citizen's bodies. So what other outcome is expected.
5
I would LOVE to put all the critics posting here in the cops' shoes.
THREE calls come in of a man with a gun.
You arrive and the guy's holding what looks like a gun. You have no idea what's led to this. Has he just robbed someone? Shot someone? Shot multiple people?
Now he takes a two-handed shooting stance and points it right at you.
Okay, smart guys, what are you gonna do? Walk up and take a close look at what's in his hands to determine if it's a gun or not?
No, I know: wait until he fires a few shots at you. After all, as some commenters here state, you're a cop, you're paid to take that sort of risk!
46
What if it was a gun and a police officer was slained. Try explaining that to the family. It's sad that the person was killed but this isn't a paint gun weekend in the woods.
4
Exactly right, exactly.
3
No you arrive on the scene and all FOUR of you just keep shooting on a public busy street of Brooklyn until someone dies. DUH! *insert end of sarcastic voice*
If the officers believed he was pointing a gun at them, it really doesn't matter what they knew about his mental state. They need to get home to their families. The call was for a man threatening the public with a gun!
35
So arrive on the scene and shoot him to death because that is what they taught them in training. That's all they could do, shoot to kill kill kill. They only need to get home to their families.
Another case of city police poorly trained in self-control and use of firearms.
This will not stop as long as the municipalities continue to hire as policemen mercenary gunslingers.
5
The fact that he was mentally ill is sad. Sounds like he should have been somewhere safer than walking the streets picking up objects off the street and playing with them like toys.
Don’t blame the cops for our failure to properly deal with real mentally ill. Put yourself if the cops position, you have less than a second to determine if the object is a toy or a gun. If you make a mistake you or an innocent bystander might be dead.
I don’t think these are as clear cut decisions as many commentators make it out to be. I doubt the cop went home happy he killed a man, likely this will weigh on him his entire life.
As a society we need to decide how to deal with mentally ill people. In Portland many of them are sleeping on the street and the cops are left to deal with the problems.
I’m all in favor of holding the police accountable, I’m also in favor of holding society accountable for our inability to safely House the mentally ill.
92
If all that need for police shootings were true, and if those were the only criteria for police shootings, why is it that the black man usually gets shot.
3
The black man does not usually get shot. The black man usually complies with police orders and is either arrested or let go, just as os the white man under similar circumstances. The black man who does get shot usually is in a black area, where it is much more likely anyone committing, or suspected of committing a crime or other infringement, will be black. Ditto the white man in a white area, except that poverty and the other factors involved in crime are much more prevalent in black areas. However, that is not a police consideration. Their consideration is to contain a situation, protect the innocent, keep themselves alive, etc. It is the lack of any kind of real political will to address the problems of poverty, mental instability, etc. that is the real problem here. It should not be laid upon the police to be agents of social change.
3
Here in Michigan our country sheriff has worked to get funding for the police and mental health community to educate each other and working to stop the 'shoot first, ask questions later' attitude.
Looks like this should be done everywhere.
I grew up in Flatbush, right down the street, and many of my closest friends from childhood are Caribbean immigrants who grew up on Utica Ave, so this story isn't just close to home for us – it is home.
My greatest fear tied these stories is not necessarily that of unarmed black men continuing to be shot down in the streets – most of us know from young that this is the norm, not the exception – but that the public writ large make the mistake of interpreting these events as the exploits of a "few bad apples," or even a string of "freak accidents," if you still somehow believe this.
What is described here, while at its core an unforgivable tragedy, remains the natural consequence of The House That Kelly Built. We can forgive one accidental shooting, maybe even two, but what cannot be forigven is the blatant disregard for human life. Seriously. Just imagine someone told someone shot your kid and told you "Sorry for your breaking your son's life – he was the wrong color."
Judging from the speed with which NYPD assembled its forces at the scene of the crime (and make no mistake, I do mean crime) yesterday, they are fully aware of the fact that if the residents of Crown Heights and surrounding neighborhoods don't obtain justice not just for this shooting, but years of friends, schoolmates, and brothers, being unjustly frisked, set up, and falsely implicated by our friends at 67th, 77th, and 88th, this city will never sleep again.
7
Yes, it is a crime to threaten the general public. It is also a crime to threaten police, as well. In that, you are correct!
4
Thank you for posting. As someone who grew up in the neighborhood we know this all too well but to them it is just another black man waving an object at police so he must be shot down and killed.
1
Apparently, cops are supposed to know every single mentally ill person (there are so few of them in NYC!) in every neighborhood, and always presume in every situation that each of these people represent no threat to public safety. They are also supposed to refrain from self-defense every time someone points something looking like a gun at them, and allow that person to fire first. They are supposed to assume that when they receive multiple calls about someone threatening people with a gun that the person wielding the presumed weapon is not dangerous. If they don't do these things, and the person who has been shot happens to be black, a crowd will gather and call them "murderers," and the local newspaper will raise questions about their actions -- but never raise honest questions (or even report the statistic) about why a group that comprises barely six percent of the country's population (black men) commits almost half of its violent crime, because reporting this statistic, or even linking it (via statistical probability) to the statistically non-existent "epidemic of police brutality against African-Americans," is utterly racist.
And, of course, worst of all, the person shot must not be a "person of color," and the cops doing the shooting must not be of European or East Asian descent. Because such a shooting, in and of itself -- due to "implicit bias"-- would be absolutely racist.
What a distorted fun-house mirror of a world we live in.
53
"but never raise honest questions (or even report the statistic) about why a group that comprises barely six percent of the country's population (black men) commits almost half of its violent crime"--- Ahhh someone who isn't familiar with the history of the United States and the prison system, someone who rattles off stats they heard of without digging a bit further. So you think that African-Americans do not ask themselves these questions are discuss them? There are A LOT of factors that make up this percentage that is pushed out to the public. But hey all you know is that African American men commit violent crimes and police should shoot to kill.
What a distorted fun-house mirror of a world we live in.
@Rae
That statistic -- that African-American males (six percent of the population) commit almost half of all violent crime in the US -- is not, as you put it, "pushed out to the public." It's an FBI statistic that doesn't see the light of day in the mainstream media. Why, I wonder, is that?
As for your accusation that I am somehow not familiar with "the history of the United States" -- presumably, a knowledge of this history might provide some kind of potent explanation of why a particular population group would commit such an astonishingly disproportionate amount of violent crime -- I would be eager to know (especially since I am a former history major) what information I am lacking that would explain the sheer magnitude of this disproportionality. I mean, if it were a twenty or even perhaps a fifty percent difference between the average black male and the average American in the amount of violent crime committed, that would be one thing -- but it's a several hundred percent difference (a discrepancy which I believe may be unrivaled in any other Western country).
Blam (suspect goes down), Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam, Blam.
At what point do you call this is an execution?
27
It's an execution at the point where the police officer had actual knowledge that the victim did not have a gun but shot anyway. Nothing in this story suggests that the police officer knew that the victim did not have a gun.
3
Well, it's a good thing he didn't fire the 11th bullet.
If the trigger-happy police cannot control their weapons just imagine how many kids a hysterical untrained teacher could waste.
12
The issue in these circumstances is who bears the burden or cost of the unknown. In these situations, I suspect that police officers often have a few seconds at most to determine if the object that the victim has in his hands, or on his possession, is a gun or something else. If the officer decides that it is not a gun - but it turns out that it is a gun and does not shoot first - then the officer or others around him may be killed. On the other hand, if turns out to be something other than a gun, an innocent person loses his life.
Thus, when you have this imperfect knowledge of whether someone has a gun, who bears the burden of waiting? Is it the police officer, who may be killed if he is wrong, or the victim, who may be killed even though he had no intent or ability to murder.
One argument is that the police should bear this burden because that's what they signed up for when they agreed to serve and protect the community. But I think that's a tough sell among police officers and many citizens.
The bottom line here is fear. Not a cowering fear but a reasonable fear that a police officer's failure to act may result in his/ her death or that of innocent people in the vicinity. From the point of view of many minority citizens, they may fear the police, based upon the police department's history of abuse.
2
From the police photograph, the object Eric Vassell pointed seems to be a propane camping stove regulator.
3
Unfortunately, the police responding to the call didn't have the time or ability to study any photograph in such detail as you have been afforded. Walk a mile in a man's shoes...
Takeaway for all ethnicities: don’t point anything that looks like a gun at a police officer or you will likely die.
Unlike portrayals in popular film police will not shoot then wait for you to return fire. They will not radio to the station to try to determine whether anyone in the area who fits your description is known to be mentally ill. Per their training they will return nonstop fire, with merciless efficiency and accuracy, until they are certain you’re incapable of firing back.
Police fatalities are up by nearly 70% in 2018, and it has a lot to do with men and women, who put their lives on the line to make their communities safer, exposing themselves to risk to save themselves and their superiors from media-manufactured scandal. Again: don’t point anything that looks like a gun at a police officer. They will survive any ensuing scandal; you will not.
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/
17
makes sense. what doesn't make sense is how mass murderers are apprehended but black men are killed.
4
Molly, the numbers don’t lie - statistically, more black men are killed than white men in similar situations, and there’s no justification for anyone killing anyone who’s walking away from them.
But I have to believe any officer, regardless of the ethnicity of his/her assailant, would respond the same way in this situation and be justified in doing so.
1
your observation is meaningless when you take into account the fact that this individual was mentally disabled, and that fact was widely known, including by law enforcement....there have been too many instances of law enforcement arriving, creating confusion, making the situation worse, and then overreacting....whatever happened to finding out what the circumstances are before they execute someone?.....I was always taught that law enforcement professionals had the training and demeanor to diffuse situations...... any group of idiots with guns can murder someone ....police are NOT militia.
1
This is the same way John Crawford was shot in walmart trying to buy a toy gun for his son, please anyone can you be sure of what you are saying and not call 911 if you're not sure, the consequences can be deadly.
7
Sounds like you want a repeat of the Kitty Genovese situation!
3
Getting in a shooting stance and pointing a shiny metal, round object at the police who had been called to the scene with reports of a man pointing a gun at local residents?!
C'mon folks, get a little perspective here. You can still make a case that there is racial inequality in our criminal justice system without mindlessly denouncing every police encounter that is deadly.
48
Assuming that the police account is true... historically not likely.
3
Timbo,
I suspect that the police account of reports of a man pointing a gun can be verified, presumably through the 911 system. Of course, the reports given to the police were wrong but that's not the police's fault.
2
It's not enough to go after actual corrupt cops. No, every cop needs to be painted as corrupt if the eventual criminal takeover is to be successful. Demonize police, silence opposition by labeling them all as racists, build a political movement masked as civil unrest, and then what? Any police reform that puts officers in harm's way but does not adequately allow them to defend themselves would literally end up in no one wanting to be police. "Why risk my life if I'm unable to protect it if I fear losing it?"
It'd be funny to see police go on strike, because we'd get to be reminded of who we should really fear. (in case you don't know, it's the people that the police are VERY GOOD at protecting us from)
A good way to protect the mentally-ill from police encounters would be to, you know, supervise them......
1
Time to take away the guns from the police. They clearly don't know how to use them.
7
They got 10 rounds off. Sounds like they at least know the basics.
1
Were the plainclothes officers part of the local precinct? If not, why didn't local cops respond? Since they knew him, this death could have been avoided. "Justice!" -- MLK
3
It's time to take guns away from cops. They absolutely cannot be trusted with them. They are easily the most dangerous, irresponsible gun owners in the world.
14
Puh-leeze! I'm sure you don't hesitate to call 911 when you need help.
4
What should they defend themselves with, Legos?
1
This is how the NYPD deals with mental illness. Nothing has changed in the last few decades and we will see more needless killings in the future. NYPD and police officers across the country think they are on a movie set when they get called to these situations and typically do all they can to provoke behavior that they can then use to justify a needless killing. The person with mental illness never has a chance. He is executed upon arrival. No need, apparently, to consider that this person is a human being, has family and friends. No effort is made to observe first, to approach non-aggressively, or perhaps unnoticed in order to evaluate the situation, or engage the subject non-violently. Utter lack of competence which might allow police officers to do anything other than scream some command at a disturbed and likely completely unreceptive individual and then pump that person full of bullets if that command is not immediately followed. Yes, there may be situations where this is not possible. And that it was not possible is the story we will hear in this case. Because it is the only story we will ever hear. Because it is the story that has already been written in the police officer’s mind before (s)he even gets to the scene. Once (s)he gets there, it is just a matter of enacting the script.
7
Best comment.
Five cops come up on scene and shooting ensues...has me in mind of boys crowded around basement tv playing shoot-em-up video games. Something competitive gets triggered. I wonder if there were more female cops in the country, and in this scene, if outcomes would be different. Testosterone, it’s a real thing.
When are these tragic accidents going to stop?
If police truly knew the neighborhoods they policed, and the folks who lived there, these ‘accidents’ could be reduced.
If we stopped militarizing our police force, and behaved like other civilized democracies, where only certain elite police squads were armed (not every rank and file cop working a neighborhood should be armed), these ‘accidents’ could be reduced.
If we passed common sense gun control legislations, or in the alternative banned guns in the civilian population except for trained hunters, police officers would not fear the citizens they work with, and these accidents could be reduced, if not altogether avoided.
Let’s get creative to figure out a way to stop this scourge of killing unarmed black men.
3
So the cops are supposed to know the neighborhood better than the four 911 callers who reported this guy.
8
How about investigating the four callers and charging them with making false reports that ended in murder. They are guilty of making false reports! Punish them! They apprehended eight students last week in Michigan for making false reports that they were going to attack or bomb public schools.
1
I would be very afraid to be a black man in the USA. Even when the community knows the people who are mentally or emotionally unwell 911 calls go out to the police and they in turn respond. Why the police are using such extreme force and shooting over and over again is more then very disturbing.
Rubber bullets, and tasers would certainly be other options.
The police are mandated to wear body cameras and not having them is not acceptable.
And classes on mental illness would help. Also is it possible for the police to meet their community members who do have mental illnesses in a community center and get to know these folks before they start aiming guns at people.
4
In large cities like New York it is impossible/ unreasonable for the police to know, except in limited circumstances, if someone is or is not mentally ill. 35,000 police officers cannot keep track of, or know, the mental health of the now more than 8 million NYC residents.
2
In our progressive society it appears, and the record shows, that people (black men in particular) with mental trauma, etc, (see Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D., The Body Keeps The Score) are left on the streets to eventually be shot like dogs by the authorities. Is this the victorious results of the Compassionate Conservative movement we have experienced since the 1990's? or merely a by product of community policing with a hostile PBA who at this very moment are figuring out how to make the shooters, in this case the NYPD, the victim. Personally I blame the John Wayne Syndrome, rampant in modern policing, which shows an inverse relationship between hero worship and professional competence. The "safer" the police are from consequences for their actions the deadlier they get. "good guys" though they may be.
2
No, this is more the result of the Liberal Left agenda, which, almost a half-century back, passed legislation to allow mentally-challenged people to remain
uninstitutionalized and to wander the streets at will.
4
Newsbuoy,
I think that this type of situation has much less to do with any John Wayne syndrome, and has much more to do with the fear that police officers have when they are, or believe that they are, on the wrong side of a gun barrel.
1
This is the result of at least 500 years of racial denigration by the West assisted by some African and Arabian human traffickers to denigrate black chattel slaves in the USA to insure that wealth would accrue and make USA bigger, stronger and richer than anyone else. Not a new practice. Beginning with Bacon's rebellion in colonial Virginia; all whites were required to police all blacks and within a 100 years only blacks were to be slaves for life. This is the basis for race-biased policing in USA. It continues today and many black cops also shoot unarmed blacks, or sanction it like our Detroit Police Chief did in the case of one of his officers killing a sleeping 7y.o. black child in her living room and getting off.
1
Police respond to a call regarding a (fill in race) male 'alleged' to have a weapon. Arrive, shoot, kill, then find out they're was no weapon. Is it that hard to properly train New York's "Finest" in how to deal with these things in a way that does not end in the death of someone? This is my city too - all of ours - and there is no reason why 'our' police force respond in our communities in this manner. Find out how to deal with issues like this without killing people. Is that too much to ask of our police?
3
Yes, it is that hard. Police officers are working with imperfect knowledge and make mistakes in judgment, just like we all do. No amount of training will be able to resolve this type of situation although situational training - which the NYPD already does - may help. There are just too many variables and each situation is different to achieve what you and everyone else of good faith want to achieve.
3
I blame the false 911 reports of a black man with a gun. The responding officers are only as prepared as the information they are given, much like soldiers during war. The more information you have, the less unplanned and drastic the response would seem. The problem with the police is that they usually are provided incorrect or vague information, but they are then required to rush to the scene.
Can you argue more could have been done to obtain more information? Of course, but even as the article states they were encountered by the "threat" almost immediately upon arrival. Too bad the 911 callers weren't one of the 'everyone' that knew this mentally-ill man was no threat.
11
If a guy points a shiny object at me that looks like a gun, I'm calling 911 while I have a chance. I'm not investigating his mental status, nor should I.
4
Right. Scared people frantically calling 911 as soon as they perceive a threat leads police into questionable conflicts with sometimes non-threatening individuals, but the misreporting done in the 911 call can lead to fatalities. You may think you don't have a civil duty to do more than dial those 3 numbers, but I'd argue otherwise (not to the extent that I'd want you to endanger your life, but once out of danger you could, you know, not be scared to look over your shoulder to see what's going on). Mind you, none of the callers were ever actually in danger or shot at. They were just misguided by fear.
1
Sad news but the police were doing their job.
43
I did not know it was their job to just arrive on the scene and perform an execution without even checking if the suspect is holding an ACTUAL FIREARM.
Oh wait. Yes I did.
I wonder if I, as a regular citizen, could be blithely walk away after killing someone I just THOUGHT had a gun.
3
Further proof that police all over the country are poorly trained and unable to shoot to only disable rather than kill suspects who may be holding a weapon. Police need to demonstrate better marksmanship ability before they are issued weapons. It is apparent from all these police shootings of unarmed mentally disturbed people that just because a police officer is issued a weapon, he doesn't necessarily know how to use it. We need better monitoring of police marksmanship.
1
Police, military - anyone who uses a gun in defense of him- or herself, or to render a target harmless - are taught to aim for the largest body mass - usually the upper torso - as that is a larger target and also has more arteries and important muscles - like the heart! They are not taught to shoot to 'disable', because people with guns can continue to shoot them even with a load of bullets in them in non-vital areas. The police know exactly how to use their weapons, and when they don't do so, they often die.
5
Aurora, Las Vegas, Newtown, even the case in Pennsylvania where a white man killed two state troopers; all these white guys after killing large number of innocent people were either apprehended or killed themselves. The police all over the country knows how to handle them. When the guy on the other side is black, the response is different.
8
This was not a back alley in the dark of night. This was a street corner in broad daylight! Does that pipe look anything like a gun?
You can’t be serious. I am always a supporter of the police they do a tough job, but really. You have a mentally challenged man pointing an imaged toy. What did they see? Why not just take up position behind car to evaluate before taking a life? What about slinging lead on a corner that could have potentially killed a bystander? Get these reckless officers off the street.
9
I agree and I think the only cops that stop and evaluate before taking a life are the ones in movies.
How terribly sad and angering for Mr. Vassell, and for his family. My heart goes out to them.
My sense of proportion regarding a comparison of people who are black in comparison to people who are white, people who in similar circumstances are killed by police, is that - - people who are black are more often killed (?).
And, I also think that we need to think about why police, and white people in general, anticipate aggressive responses from black men. I think this is caused by a psychological projection of white people, that is, - - "if I was treated the way we white people, men, have treated black people, which goes back to when we white people enslaved and otherwise mistreated/tortured black people, as well as how we whites tortured and raped and lynched black people during the the Jim Crow era, - - I would be enraged and want to get back and get even and attack." Thus, due to this psychological projection, police see things, dangers, that are not really happening which leads police, white people, to kill, or wound, or abuse black people rather than deescalate, find out, and, if necessary, arrest the black man, (and/or black woman).
5
The cops don't necessarily "anticipate aggressive responses from black men." They just figure -- and with some justification -- that killing the guy isn't going to get them into very much trouble, so why not?
1
Not that it matters, the "gun" is a broken propane torch head used by plumbers.
2
Yes, it is. And aren't you lucky that you had all the time in the world to look at its pretty picture and determine this to be the case. But the cops are seeing it during a few seconds of a lot of activity, maybe from a considerable distance - even a dozen feet would qualify as that - so maybe you'd like them to request an official photo of whatever the guy is holding before proceeding further?
5
You’re right, NY. It doesn’t matter. Think about what it looked like to cops responding to 911 calls from frightened citizens warning that an armed man was on the street...
Imagine that you are a police officer and a deranged individual points what everyone agrees looks exactly like a gun at you. Would you try to reason with the individual at the risk of your own life? The bleeding heart liberals who fault the police for every use of of deadly force are deluding themselves if they believe that they would not protect themselves first and ask questions later.
24
Yeah... I get what you're saying but we hold cops to a higher standard. They've been trained to deal with and diffuse situations like this not just shoot everyone when their blood pressure goes up.
5
If a police officer can't be expected to act any differently than anyone else in this situation, then they shouldn't have any more police powers than anyone else either. If they can't responsibly exercise the HUGE amount power the public entrusts them with, then they are worse than useless. They are dangerous.
3
“Looks exactly like a gun”? In broad daylight? That is the problem. Look again please. This is not liberal item. Sometimes the police are justified, just not in this case.
Aaand, once again we see mental illness a factor. I'm not disregarding the need for better police training, and perhaps more importantly screening at the academies, but the victim was pointing a pipe at the officers that could have been mistaken for a gun (as opposed to other police killings where the victim is holding a cell phone or a handful of ambient air).
Over the past 30 years, states have shuttered mental health facilities and slashed funding for services, and that is coming home to roost.
9
Please inform us of the race of the officers, whether it fits the narrative of "racist cops" or not.
1
The race of the officers is not relevant. In fact, the presumption that they had racist motives if they were white is itself a racist statement.
2
What are the facts?
...3 separate people called 911 to say that a man was threatening people with a silver gun. They obviously feared for their lives
...The police arrive and order the man to drop his "weapon".
...He refuses.
What do you think the police are going to do after a "man with a silver gun" points it after the police him to drop his weapon?
Law enforcement officers are taught to stop the threat by shooting at the center. That's what the police did.
As far as unloading the entire clip - do we know that to be true? Mr. Monaghan said that a total of 10 shots were fired by 4 officers. That could be 2-3 shots per officer - far from unloading their clip.
We'll have to wait until all the info comes in, but this shooting appears to be justified.
81
Number of shots is mostly irrelevant. As you say, cops are taught to shoot for the center-shoot to kill-for good reason. However, cops are also taught that reports from civilians are often inaccurate, and that mentally ill people may not understand their orders. In almost all cases, you should actually see a gun before firing. And be at least close to certain it is a gun ( as in the case of a replica or toy gun). They failed in this case.
4
The type of certainty you are insisting officers need to possess before engaging a target is often going to be impossible to obtain. How can they be so certain? Cops do not have perfect information and yet they are often in scenarios where immediate decisions need to be made.
4
Maybe officers should be taught to asses the "threat," first before shooting to kill. Maybe they should be taught not to put themselves in positions where they'll have no choice but to shoot if the "threat" is non-compliant. We see repeatedly that many victims of police violence are mentally ill. We see repeatedly that police and civilians often are way off base when perceiving threats, especially when the "threat" is a black person.
What are police supposed to do when someone points an unidentifiable object at them? Take cover and try to get him to drop first. Is that really such a radical idea?
3
The most horrendous thing about all the police shootings is that they happen at all. But whenever a police officer says - show me your hands - and the individual, hesitates or brandishes something, it is not an excuse to unload the full clip.
Taking the Amadu Diallo case, a black man in the dark hallway of his building. From the Feb. 5, 1999, NYT article, "Two of the officers, Sean Carroll, 35, and Edward McMellon, 26, emptied their weapons, firing 16 shots each, the police said. Officer Kenneth Boss, 27, fired his gun five times and Officer Richard Murphy, 26, fired four times." 41 shots, victim hit 19 times.
This is panic shooting and it happens when officers are under trained. The four officers were part of a special unit looking for a serial rapist. But any group of officers who have a high probability of encountering deadly force should be trained to a high degree of marksmanship.
If we add the recent deliberate shootings of police officers into the current mix of street violence, it only ramps up the probability that any police officer faced with maybe, will shoot first and settle the details later.
Live fire situations are chaos itself. The roar of gunfire, the fear of being shot, the sudden rush of confrontation all play a part. But not giving officers the training they need to be more confident in such situations is part of the problem.
21
The fact that most of these shooting victims are Black point to a bigger problem. Regardless of training, there is a disgusting subculture that undervalues black lives. This is disgusting and must STOP. I’m white and I don’t trust the police with my brown neighbors.
8
Except that 10 shots from 4 officers means nobody emptied their clip. Each officer shot roughly 2.5 times. Nowhere near untrained, excessive firing like you claim.
1
[[But whenever a police officer says - show me your hands - and the individual, hesitates or brandishes something, it is not an excuse to unload the full clip.]]
Magazine...not a "clip"...magazine.
1
I wonder when I hear or read about so many police shootings if there is a problem with the police training program. Why would the police have to shoot 10 rounds with some of those rounds fired after the man was down? If the officer cannot hit a stil target in two rounds maybe the officer needs more range time. If the target goes down then why continue firing until it is known that the target is a threat? Don't tell me that the officer was afraid for his life because he (she) knew that would be required before the officer took the job. I am not saying that the officer should not fire more than twice but before firing any more the officer should clearly know that there was an immediate threat and not just the feeling that they life was in danger.
There needs to be a complete change in the training of police officers in when and how they engage the subject and how much deadly force that is used.
49
Because your average cop is not a sniper, and suspects in a real world scenario do not act like cardboard cutouts at the the range. Handguns are not the most accurate firearm and it is *incredibly* easy to miss, especially in a tense situation that unfolds in seconds. Believe it or not, even wounded people are capable of returning fire. That is why there is no such thing as a warning shot, or a less than lethal shot to the leg, or whatever other unrealistic scenario people enjoy concocting. Officers are taught to neutralize the target, not wound the target. That's why many rounds are fired.
//I am not saying that the officer should not fire more than twice but before firing any more the officer should clearly know that there was an immediate threat and not just the feeling that they life was in danger//
Please enlighten us about how easy it is to "know" everything in such scenarios. What a joke.
15
Target goes down but keeps gun in hand. 'Hey Bill, I shot the guy. Why don't you go over there and make sure he isn't a threat. The gun in his hand? Don't worry. I THINK I incapacitated him."
2
Just an FYI, but people who are on the ground - even those who have been shot - can still shoot you. In fact, they’re probably even more likely to do so. If someone aimed a gun at you, would you stop shooting them after one hit? I certainly hope not. Otherwise you’d be the one who winds up dead.
2