Don't carry table legs in plastic bags

[rajagra]

similar story.

I saw a video where a black policeman (american) shoots this black teenage lad who is just standing their.
... (although they kept saying get down on the floor)

I have to say it's disgraceful the way American police seem to be entitled to use extreme / fatal actions just because you don't do what they say, even if they have no particular reason to think you're armed or violent.
Imagine if you had headphones on, or simply didn't speak English, and was out jogging and a policeman ordered you to stop. In the U.S. there could be quite a high chance of getting shot.
Things are nowhere near that bad in the UK. Our police are not allowed to shoot you as a means of stopping you from escaping.

[Rave]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4603643.stm

Blimey. Bit of a turn about.

[rajagra]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4603643.stm
Blimey. Bit of a turn about.

Unless it's a show trial to appease the public, and it's known they will be found not guilty?
Bit like the policeman who was prosecuted for speeding even though the law clearly states that speed limits do not apply to police going about their business. I thought the CPS were supposed to stop things like that from happening.
Maybe they think wasting the court's time is an acceptable price for "proving" that the police are accountable?
But I guess anything could happen with this case.

[Rave]

Well it's not like the story had legs after the high court ruling. I didn't hear of any public outcry. This thread originally died within two days, as an example.

[rajagra]

Edit: the point of this is that the armed coppers seemed to believe that they were in danger, so they shot him, and that's apperently fine. I personally say that it's not fine, because those coppers chose to pick up a gun, whereas Harry Stanley had no reason to believe that picking up a table leg would place him in mortal danger.

Perhaps you would reconsider your opinion a little if you read today's News Of The World, which reveals:
1) The informant did not lie about seeing a gun. The transcript of the call makes it quite clear he did not see it directly, but he saw an object in a plastic bag that looked exactly like a shotgun.
2) The table leg DID look exactly like a shotgun in a bag! The NOTW has 2 photos. One is the ACTUAL table leg in question wrapped in a bag. The other is an actual sawn-off shotgun in a bag. Nobody would know which was which, they are so similar.
3) The guy who was shot was on bail for threatening a policeman with a kitchen knife (and carrying a 2nd knife) just 2 weeks earlier.

So here's a guy with a proven track record for threatening the police. Is it so hard to believe he was behaving aggressively during this incident? While holding a sawn-off shaped object in a plastic bag.

I would have definitely shared the police's opinion that people's lives were in danger.

EDIT> He was twice the drink-drive limit when killed, making it even more plausible that he was behaving aggressively. This despite his ordering a "lemonade" in the pub, as reported earlier.

[Rave]

Perhaps you would reconsider your opinion a little if you read today's News Of The World

PMSL!

[rajagra]

PMSL!

I know, I know!
But every now and again they have to put some facts in the rag so they can continue calling it a newspaper.

[Rave]

Hmm....that sounds like hope over experience to me, but:

2) The table leg DID look exactly like a shotgun in a bag! The NOTW has 2 photos. One is the ACTUAL table leg in question wrapped in a bag. The other is an actual sawn-off shotgun in a bag. Nobody would know which was which, they are so similar.

Well since both objects are long and pointy, that's fairly obvious.

3) The guy who was shot was on bail for threatening a policeman with a kitchen knife (and carrying a 2nd knife) just 2 weeks earlier.

That doesn't tally with the story that he'd just come out of hospital after cancer surgery. The truth will out eventually I suppose.

So here's a guy with a proven track record for threatening the police.

No, he was on bail, to have a record he would have had to have been convicted of the offence. He was never tried in a court of law, for obvious reasons.

I would have definitely shared the police's opinion that people's lives were in danger.

What, because he was already reputed to have threatened the police previously? Unless the guy who dialed 999 gave them his name, the police who shot him would not have known who he was nor would they have known anything of his past record.

[rajagra]

Hmm....that sounds like hope over experience to me

Sometimes facts slip through the net and get printed, LOL

Well since both objects are long and pointy, that's fairly obvious.

The similarity is much greater than that. Please see the pictures before you ridicule the comparison.

No, he was on bail, to have a record he would have had to have been convicted of the offence. He was never tried in a court of law, for obvious reasons.

I said track record, not criminal record.

What, because he was already reputed to have threatened the police previously?

No. I meant that if "he was behaving aggressively during this incident... While holding a sawn-off shaped object in a plastic bag... I would have definitely shared the police's opinion that people's lives were in danger."

[Rave]

The similarity is much greater than that. Please see the pictures before you ridicule the comparison.

I'm not ridiculing it, I'm saying that I've never denied that a table leg would be pretty indistinguishable from a sawn off once it was wrapped in a plastic bag.

As for the rest of it- we shall see, once the investigating police force either take the officers to court or drop the charges. There's not much point in speculating until the (supposedly) new evidence has been released to the public.

[rajagra]

One of these is the actual table leg in question, in the same blue plastic bag, wrapped tightly as it was in the incident.

The other is a real sawn off shotgun, in the same bag.

Which is which?
Decide quickly, like your life depended on it.

Seriously, I'd like to know which one people think is the shotgun. Opinions please, I won't say anything to influence your choice.

[Milky]

What you know is wrong then. His last conviction was in 1968, his convictions were spent and the police who stopped him would have known nothing of them.

Sorry, I have to disagree. No matter what date you were convicted, it stays on your criminal record, although may not show up as active.

If I got details of say, Joe Bloggs previous convictions, it'd go back to when he was born. It just requires a PNC Check.

I cant really decide whether the shooting was justified or not. I have never been a firearms officer, and therefore cannot even begin to imagine what was going through their heads. (no pun intended)

[Rave]

Sorry, I have to disagree. No matter what date you were convicted, it stays on your criminal record, although may not show up as active.

If I got details of say, Joe Bloggs previous convictions, it'd go back to when he was born. It just requires a PNC Check.

Well, the salient points are that a) his convictions were spent, and 30 years old, thus should not have been read out at the first (farcical) inquest, and b) the police who responded to the 999 call did not know his identity before they shot him and thus couldn't have PNCed him.

I cant really decide whether the shooting was justified or not. I have never been a firearms officer, and therefore cannot even begin to imagine what was going through their heads. (no pun intended)

Well the shooting cannot have been justified, since he wasn't armed. The question is whether the police had sufficient reason to believe that he was an immediate threat to them. I'm done arguing that point now, we might as well wait for the outcome of the latest investigation.

[oralpain]

People's recollections of events are always unreliable.

Not always.

As for wich of those is a shotgun, I don't know for sure, but I'm leaning to to the bottom one.

If this guy pointed the leg directly at one of the officers, and/or refused put it down when he was told to, then the police were justified in opening fire. If most anything else happened, the police are at significant fault.