Autopsy Of Rayshard Brooks: Death Was Result of Gunshot Wounds To The Back
[guest post by Dana]
The autopsy report has been released in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta P.D. officers:
Rayshard Brooks, the black man shot by Atlanta police outside a Wendy’s in the city’s Southside Friday night, suffered organ damage and blood loss from two gunshot wounds, the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Sunday after completing an autopsy.
“His cause of death: gunshot wounds of the back,” an investigator from the medical examiner’s office told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard released a statement about it Sunday.
“Today, members of my staff had the unfortunate duty of witnessing the autopsy of Mr. Brooks as part of our continued investigation.“Because this is a homicide investigation, there are several technical requirements that must be met before we are able to reach a decision. That includes the confirmation of the ballistics involved and obtaining a preliminary report from the Medical Examiner,” according to the DA’s statement.
You can read the account of Rayshard Brook’s death in Atlanta on Friday night here. There is also video at the link.
Rayshard Brooks leaves his wife and 4 young children behind.
–Dana
I’ve read a number of accounts about what happened, and am left with some questions. Mainly, what other practices could the cops have put in place to to prevent the situation from ending up like it did? What could they have done to help Brooks out, knowing that he was over the limit, while at the same time, recognizing that being behind the wheel was prohibited because of his blood alcohol level? What other course of action should they have taken?
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 7:56 amThe more we learn about this case, the more it shapes up like murder. A gang murder, with the gang in blue with badges. Like George Floyd.
Too bad. I would have liked a Vice President named Keisha.
nk (1d9030) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:21 amIf you watch some or all of the bodycam footage, the police officers were cordial and polite the entire time. Things only fell apart when they decided to cuff Brooks and he attacked the officers.
I don’t know if I could fault the officers for wanting to cuff Mr. Brooks. He was so intoxicated he didn’t even know where he was. He thought he was at a different Wendy’s which was 8 miles away from where he actually was.
Xmas (eafb47) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:28 am> Mainly, what other practices could the cops have put in place to to prevent the situation from ending up like it did?
This was the case of someone sleeping in the wrong place. Law enforcement responded, but it didn’t have to be them. Anyone could have approached Brooks, woke him up, and evaluated the situation from there.
To me, the right outcome would have been for Brooks to go home and wake up with a bad hangover to pick up his car with. Yes, it was a DUI, and I understand those who say he needed to be busted for that. I can see that too, but had someone stepped up and just diffused the situation, I think that would have been a far better outcome than a corpse leading us to this discussion.
Some of those talking about “defunding” really mean standing up unarmed mediators for situations more like this, that didn’t necessarily need LE. Same for psychiatric emergencies and many other crises that do not involve armed marauders – we should be relying on armed tactical response to solve far, far fewer situations than we do.
Leave the cops to do real police work.
john (cd2753) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:30 amWow. So we’re now justifying drunk driving and assaulting police. The world has gone insane.
Edoc118 (483907) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:38 amAndy used to let Otis sleep it off in a cell. I think he even had breakfast brought in.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:43 amWow. So instead we’re going to keep justifying shooting people in the back over sleeping in a car. The world really wants to stay insane.
john (cd2753) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:44 amWhy not let him walk to his sister’s home, like he asked, or even drive him there themselves? In seems that, in light of George Floyd’s death and the protests, this might have been the more prudent choice. Perhaps not following procedure to a T, but perhaps prudence was called for.
Dana (70666e) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:46 amHe didn’t get shot for “sleeping in a car.” But it’s a nice narrative. He was passed out drunk in a car (it’s called Actual Physical Control). He assaulted two officers when they told him he was under arrest. He tried to Tase a police officer. Cops get tased in training specifically so they can testify that being tased incapacitates you. Know what you can do to an incapacitated cop? Take his gun and murder him.
The same activists who call for cops to be charged with murder when they tase someone who subsequently dies have suddenly decided a Taser is not a deadly weapon. The same DA who just charged two police officers for assault with a deadly weapon because they tased violent protesters had now decided a taser is not a deadly weapon.
Edoc118 (483907) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:51 amWhat happens when he drives drunk and kills a kid? The kids family finds out every previous time he drove drunk, the police just gave him a ride home. Yeah, let’s enable drunk driving.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Edoc118 (483907) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:53 amThis one really frustrates me because at almost every step someone did the reasonable thing. Depending on the circumstances they might not have been trying to shoot him in the back and legitimately thought they were in danger.
But I guy still got killed because he was passed out drunk in his car.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:00 amSo instead we’re going to keep justifying shooting people in the back over sleeping in a car. The world really wants to stay insane.
Your ridiculously false first sentence is proof that the second sentence is true.
beer ‘n pretzels (ac915d) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:08 amHere is a 40+ minute body camera video of the interaction:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhdpG2XzRXQ
At what point in the video, up to the struggle, would you have done something different?
BuDuh (8c9d9f) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:11 amNine out of ten cops should have been waiters or hairdressers or nurses or accountants or tuckpointers or pipefitters, that’s the problem. We cannot have police that are representative of the entire community and not expect the lower half of the curve not only to mess up themselves but also to bring the good ones down to their level.
nk (1d9030) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:14 amTime123 (f5cf77) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:00 am
This framing is simply dishonest. Trying to force this situation into the same framing as the Floyd case will undermine the valid problems raised there.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:14 amHe died because he grabbed a weapon and decided to run instead of comply with the police. Running was a bad choice but grabbing a weapon was a fatal choice.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:30 amThe point where he breaks kydex with his Glock 22, There was no threat that meets the use of force requirements of the Atlanta PD.
Dana’s point is before arresting him, take him home and drop him off.
I’m not sure about the DUI bit, that was arrest worthy, but you had his ID, had his car, where was he going to go, and what threat to the community did he make? They had him for DUI, resisting, battery on an officer; go pick him up at home in the morning while he’s hungover, especially in the context of what is happening. Common sense and context matter.
He’s probably not getting convicted of anything that they could charge him with, but Atlanta police are at will employees according to their contract and he’s got representation.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:34 amFrosty, I get what you’re saying. My point was that the initial offense was pretty small and it’s tragic that it escalated to a man getting shot.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:34 amI guess Atlanta transitioned from M&P .40’s to Glock 22 .40’s and now to Glock 17 and 17M in 9MM.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:35 amColonel Klink, I specified “up to the struggle” because I want to discuss a point in time well before Brooks was shot. I watched the video in its entirety and only see one thing I would have asked the officers to do differently up to the struggle.
I am curious what Dana would have changed before I get any deeper into the dialogue.
Please be nice to me on this thread. It is an important topic.
BuDuh (64c12e) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:44 amHe died because he grabbed a weapon and decided to run instead of comply with the police. Running was a bad choice but grabbing a weapon was a fatal choice.
And the choice the police make in such situations is what separates the officers of the law from the hairdressers.
nk (1d9030) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:46 amBrooks went from zero to violent in a split second, right when one of the cops tried to cuff him. I’m not up on police procedure but it seems there should’ve been a way to arrest him without him taking a taser and escaping. Some guy on CNN said that the cops should’ve called him an Uber and sent him home, but I’m not down with that. It was a legitimate DUI. He was over a .10 when he pulled up in that drive-thru lane.
Paul Montagu (91c593) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:51 amI know, nk, but we don’t have the money to hire police who are psychic or always know how to de-escalate.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:52 amIf this suspect had hijacked a car with a family in it and caused a fatal wreck, we would be analyzing why the police didn’t stop him.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:53 amAs for why the police failed to secure him sooner, he was compliant. The BLM movement complains that white suspects get talked to and black suspects get restrained but that didn’t happen here. Are some now saying it should have happened?
DRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:58 amThey should have been able to stop him without shooting him. Ran him down and piled on him. High school kids do it on football fields all the time.
nk (1d9030) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:04 amTime123 (f5cf77) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:34 am
Are you in the common sense and context camp? If so can you reconcile that with your previous position on equal treatment?
His attorneys think he shouldn’t have been arrested because hundreds of times a night in college towns young white kids are let go? Of course this was right after lying about the sobriety test. They’re making the argument that equal treatment means selectively enforcing DUI laws.
Other than DUI should we give a pass on any other crimes? How long does that go on?
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:08 amJust imagine if there were other people to call into this situation? The police were quickly exhausted of their capacity to respond according to to this man’s needs, and thus stayed in their comfort zone: use violence to control and force an impaired person into submission, escalate the situation to the point of ultimately having to neutralize this new threat of their own creation.
When your only tool is a hammer, every[one] looks like a nail. The cops were simply the wrong tool for this job at hand.
If I provoked someone at the hospital where I work to the point that they attacked me and I then killed them in self-defense, I imagine I’d be accountable for my behavior that contributed to their escalation. There would also be a helluva reckoning about what went wrong and how to ensure that never happened again. Yet when cops kill someone who could have been deescalated safely, people shrug and go, well, you’ll have that.
The public willingness to continue uncritical acceptance and excuses for whatevee police do, seems to be turning. Good.
TR (71e867) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:09 amDRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 9:58 am
He did get talked too and it was obvious he was impaired. If this would have been a white guy they would have had the same conversation, had the DUI test, cuffed him, and put him in the police car. There is no version of “oh, since you’re white would you like to step over here and get into the police car, no, I don’t think handcuffs will be needed.” Arguing that white people routinely get a pass on DUIs will need some stats? Are there any?
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:15 amTR (71e867) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:09 am
What would those other people do? Either someone is arrested for DUI or they aren’t. Would these other people be trained to talk him into being arrested? If that plays out and he refuses to be arrested what happens? If you take him home, let him sober up, come back the next day, and he still refuses to be arrested what happens? People who commit crimes shouldn’t get to decide whether they’re arrested or not.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:23 amThis is problematic. Methods to de-escalate should have become a regular and integral part of training, especially in the past five years or so.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:23 amHe was bold enough to steal a cop’s weapon and even shoot at the cop with it. Some would suspect he had intended to murder the cop with a gun but accidentally took a Taser. I can see him attempting to steal a car.
You learn who people really are when they get intoxicated. .108 is not that drunk. Rayshard’s inner nature was that he would not be controlled, he would not take responsibility, and he would use violence happily. Those saying the cops should take this man home to his wife and kids have never worked a domestic violence call. I’ve taken plenty of drunk people to sober friends to sleep it off, or to a drunk tank to sleep it off. You can and should do this if it solves the problem, but not if the drunk is combative (nor if he’s a drunk driver, in my opinion). If you do, you’re going to get someone hurt. Austin has a drunk tank (called the sobering center). I took people there all the time instead of charging them with a crime. Rayshard would have been forbidden from such a solution because he was not cooperative.
The other issue: that this guy took a Taser, there are so many solutions to that short of deadly force, and cops legally only use the least amount of force that is objectively reasonable. If they had the newer pepper spray gel that doesn’t ignite, that’s a solution (that most cops refuse to use because of peer pressure). nk’s solution, the polyester pile-up, would probably be the most ‘normal’ solution and it would have worked. But don’t forget the cops still had three more tasers.
There was a clear need to bring Rayshard under control, and no he wasn’t killed for ‘sleeping in a car’ though it’s probably going to be fashionable to say he was. Still, we’ve got to get a higher quality of police officer.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:28 amI’m not sure what you’re asking me. I think it sucks that someone got killed. I think the fact he was shot in the back makes me suspicious he didn’t need to die, but I don’t know that for sure yet.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:34 amDustin,
Appreciate your input. Question: couldn’t the officers have told him that they were going to take him home to his sister’s to sleep it off *before* cuffing him, since that seems to be what set him off? Given that he was initially cooperative, it seems that this would have been a way to de-escalate the situation, as well as provide a solution that didn’t involve force.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:34 amDustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:28 am
This is absolutely true and
is going to make that a difficult conversation to have.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:38 amWhen I was a rookie, I would practice my sobriety test on extremely drunk college students while waiting for their sober friend, or if they were local, their father, to come pick them up, in lieu of arrest. It was a friendly thing and certainly a lot easier than booking a drunk into jail with the modern medical screening that requires.
Many cops (myself included) wouldn’t want to let a DWI slide, and if you don’t get a sample of breath or blood, you might as well not arrest them for DWI at all (the roadside breath test is not legally reliable beyond developing probable cause).
It’s one of those issues where cops have to arrest a lot of drunk drivers and will have a hard time letting them all sleep it off because of the modern day risks of arrests getting out of hand. I do think many departments are taking the approach of finding any and all ways to avoid these kinds of confrontations though, so maybe you’re right.
About your de-escalation training point: I think I’ve had four such classes. None of them were able to simulate de-escalation. Some of these trainings are pretty good, but only for the right listener. Everyone knows what to say at the police academy or on a piece of paper, to the police inspector. What do you say when Sandra Bland is being rude to you, and it would feel good to put her in her place? That’s what really counts, and I don’t think police departments really screen applicants for the person who realizes what being the bigger man really means.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:47 amTime123 (f5cf77) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:34 am
I don’t disagree.
Saying they should have called him an uber is saying don’t enforce DUI (or at least don’t enforce it in this case). Saying take him home to sleep it off and arrest him in the morning is saying let him decide he just didn’t want to be arrested right then (or at least give this guy that option). Saying we should be doing this because of what’s going on with Floyd, i.e. the protests and specifics of that case or common sense and context, means we do this because he is black.
It’s not clear that this is consistent with an equal treatment argument and I’m wondering how you resolve that.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 10:52 amI just watched the video.
Rayshard grabbed the taser out of the hand of an officer who was using it for pain compliance. Tasers used in this way do not stun the whole body. they just hurt like hell. It’s against Axon training to use one this way and it’s also bad tactics. It’s almost predictable that Rayshard would grab the taser when it’s so close to his hand and causing that much pain. If you use a taser from a distance, the prongs spread apart and you’re stunned between the prongs, making it easy to ‘cuff under power’. If they had simply not used the Taser at all they would have gotten Rayshard into handcuffs.
Prior to the arrest Rayshard is a apparently a nice guy, seemingly relatable, only really angered at the time of arrest. It was really dumb of him to fight obviously, but I can see why Dana is frustrated they didn’t just let him go home. A lot of people who aren’t concerned about some big picture DWI problem (or are more concerned with the big picture policing problem) are going to agree with Dana. From the cop’s perspective letting dozens of these guys go to play it safe won’t feel right.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 11:46 amHe’s such a nice guy!
I mean, who doesn’t have charges of false imprisonment, domestic violence, cruelty to children, theft, interfering with police officer (okay, I grant that last one is often garbage)?
Do note that Atlanta treats tasers as ‘deadly force’, in their recent firing of two cops for deploying the taser to get compliance with a car full of college students.
Capsaicin Addict (041266) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:04 pmI don’t know that I’ve said any of those things.
Time123 (c9382b) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:05 pmI had a chance to watch some of the video. It looked like he resisted arrest. It also looks like it went off the rails when they used the taser on him. Seemed like that hurt a lot and he reacted very badly to the pain.
#4 – wrote in pertinent part:
Gary L. Zerman (a1521c) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:06 pmMainly, what other practices could the cops have put in place to to prevent the situation from ending up like it did? This was the case of someone sleeping in the wrong place. Law enforcement responded, but it didn’t have to be them. Anyone could have approached Brooks, woke him up, and evaluated the situation from there. To me, the right outcome would have been for Brooks to go home and wake up with a bad hangover to pick up his car with. Yes, it was a DUI, and I understand those who say he needed to be busted for that. I can see that too, but had someone stepped up and just diffused the situation, I think that would have been a far better outcome than a corpse leading us to this discussion.
________________
Another tragic death.
It is my understanding, this area where Mr. Brook’s death took plaice is mostly black.
Again, #4 stated, “… Anyone could have approached Brooks, woke him up, and evaluated the situation from there. …” So, Why didn’t ANYONE come to his aid? So, Why didn’t SOMEONE step up?
Maybe they were too busy taking a knee? Protesting? Rioting? So where was Black Lives Matter? Why didn’t someone call them? Or call the NAACP? Or Reverend(?) Al? Kaepernick? The NFL?
Instead someone called the police.
So, Why did nobody in the neighborhood come to Mr. Brooks aid?
For years we have been disassembling the nuts & bolts of our communities. ALL OUR COMMUNITIES. And disassembling them for life in the fast lane and for the fast buck. We even have sanctuary cities, counties and states – while our neighborhoods are falling apart and becoming more dangerous.
It’s just easier to always blame somebody else (George Zimmerman, Donald Trump, the police, Republicans, Fox News, conservatives, the Founding Fathers, the weather,etc.) – and then resort again to bigger government and throw more money at the problem.
Instead of looking at and into ourselves, and asking and answering the hard questions, we point the finger and just blame someone else. Think Chicago. There last weekend, 2 dead, at least 34 wounded, in gun violence. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-weekend-shootings-1-dead-at-least-28-wounded-in-gun-violence/2289615/ Apparently none by police.
Confucius say, “He who point finger, have 3 pointing back at him.”
And remember Rahm Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02FOB-onlanguage-t.html And so in Atlanta, his advice was taken and they burned their Wendy’s. GLZ.
I have questions: Is there a way, during the selection process, to screen out applicants for the academy who don’t test/screen as the “right listeners” before they even enter training? Is there a way to weed them out after they’re in the academy, or, does the very nature of the system not consider that a priority? is the system itself not set up to do that?
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:21 pmI’m not sure I believe they should have just let him go home to sleep it off without any consequences for having driven while above the legal limit. Could he have been taken home, and cited there somehow? I am asking the question.
Also, can’t both the cop’s perspective and the big picture be considered overall (in trainings)? I understand that in the moment, the officer is thinking just about the ‘here and now’ and has to make judgement calls based on that instant, but if training involved a bigger picture look at procedure, perhaps the judgement calls would have been different.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:25 pmTime123 (c9382b) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:05 pm
I’m not saying you are. But you are participating in a conversation where other people have and I’m wondering if you think that squares with a request for equal treatment, which is something you’ve said. It’s not a nefarious plan, just wondering what you thought.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:30 pmThat’s fair. I don’t have this one figured yet. I know that it sucks. I know that driving your car to taco bell and passing out isn’t okay but I don’t have a great answer to what should have been done differently.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:34 pm@8
Lemme flip the script, because I vividly remember this story (I’ll see if I can find the link).
Let’s say the cop does let this DUI person leave his car to “walk home”.
Then, later gets back into his car (or another) later while still drunk, then proceed to get into a lethal accident.
Would the cops be held liable in this scenario, since they had a chance to take him into custody earlier?
(This happened in real life… looking for the link to that story)
whembly (c30c83) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:36 pmWhembly, that’s the problem with letting him go. I think passing out drunk behind the wheel (which i assume he did) merits arrest. I don’t think dying from gunshot wounds to the back is a good result.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 6/15/2020 @ 12:42 pmIn the hiring process, I think you could get a lot of them if you wanted to, but when I took my psych screening (which was around 2000 multiple choice questions followed by an interview with a psychiatrist) it seemed obvious what the correct answers were. I can’t see someone ‘failing’ unless they were illiterate. My interview was more along the lines of whether I would be a good subordinate and whether I would get too bored, and not really about empathy.
There’s probably some science that could favor those with leadership and de-escalation abilities, but this screening had nothing to do with hiring decisions anyway. Departments don’t want to pay for this kind of test until they have already determined they want to hire a cadet/officer. That means there’s a certain inertia.
There is a way to weed them out in field training and beyond. If the field trainer isn’t a joke, the rookie will get a lot of chances to talk to people, and if they can’t de-escalate it’s very obvious. An officer’s first few months on the street will also really highlight what their problems are. This probationary period is a great example of a sunk cost fallacy. Every time I’ve felt someone proved they shouldn’t be a cop in this early period, I’ve been proven right later on.
The numerous leaders in the police department have a different attitude. They will have some idea of how many officers they need to hire, not get anywhere enough great applicants, college educated, physically fit men and women who are diverse, haven’t done drugs, really want to help others. So they pick who they can and hope to keep as many of them through the process.
I don’t have the answers to this problem, but not enough people who would make good cops want to be cops. A ton of people want to be cops so they can brag about making the most arrests, be ‘operators,’ etc. I thought it was a very fun and rewarding job, though that’s really changing. I hate to think what kind of person doesn’t mind enforcing the laws in a community that thinks all cops are bastards. This divide between community and cops is a bigger problem for the empathetic people than the creeps.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 1:00 pm@47 When someone resists a lawful arrest…
who is drunk…
fought & acquired a taser…
attempted to use said taser on a cop…
while attempting to leave the scene…
…
Are we really that surprised the way it ended????
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So, I’ve changed my mind a bit from my original posts. Dan here really nails the disingenuous arguments made by the majority:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-supreme-court-decides-who-is-a-woman/
Just goes to show how important it is to maintain GOP control of the Senate and the Whitehouse. We need more Alito/Thomas/Kavanaughs at SCOTUS.
whembly (c30c83) — 6/15/2020 @ 1:22 pmThey can pursue a warrant. The practical reality is that the portable breath test and SFST performance is not sufficient and the charges would be dropped (where I am, which is not Atlanta). But the real challenge is that Rayshard is pretty nice before he wasn’t. It takes hindsight to know that not arresting was a great call.
I think the problem with the arrest seems like the arrest decision on an emotional level, but it’s not. Rayshard seems like a normal guy until that cop changes gears rapidly, and before you know it things have obviously gone wrong, and the guys the public called to take care of this problem didn’t. Those guys coulda shoulda done things differently, but avoiding all fights isn’t realistic. That things got ugly, that there were alternatives, that’s not even unusual. We wouldn’t be talking about this if they hadn’t shot a dude running away with a taser.
Was shooting him OK? I don’t think so, but I do think a lot of the arguments that he was still dangerous to others are pretty valid, so it’s not remotely like George Floyd.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 1:30 pmThanks for your thoughtful responses, Dustin.
I wonder, too, how much the job changes a once level-headed, emotionally well-adjusted individual to the kind of individual we don’t want to have on a police force, and with the ability to wield such power over the public.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 1:35 pm51. When you can be denied an interview for scoring too highly on a standardized test, it’s safe to say that intelligence and level-headedness is not something that a given police department necessarily looks for.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/15/2020 @ 1:52 pmI think it was appropriate to arrest him. He was drunk behind the wheel.
And probably, in any other atmosphere, this wouldn’t have been really analyzed and would have gone down as a good shoot, he tried to taze the officer and so he got shot. In this atmosphere, however, it is looked at closely and it doesn’t really look like it was. From what Dustin said the arrest itself was not handled appropriately and then there were other options to take him down. Instead they chose to end his life, so I have to say the initial approach was correct, but they screwed it up in ever other way.
Regardless of whether the officers are found to be in violation of the law for shooting him, I don’t think they should be police officers any more. Yes, it could have been just a series of bad decisions and mistakes, but if your bad series of decisions and mistakes ends with you killing someone, that needs to be taken seriously.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/15/2020 @ 2:08 pm53. Of course it needs to be taken seriously. But why should a police officer be punished at all for a “good shoot?” I’ve been saying for years that I don’t think cops should be given rights that a citizen doesn’t have, but I also think that cops should enjoy all the rights that citizens do have, including the benefit of the doubt when it comes to defending oneself, up to and including deadly force.
If we are to include police officers as members of the community they serve, they shouldn’t have to be held to a higher standard. That would make recruiting much more difficult than ending qualified immunity, IMO.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/15/2020 @ 2:24 pm@54 I realize that being let go would feel like punishment, even if no other action is taken, but some people are not suited for some jobs, even if they are otherwise good people and even if they really want that job. Someone who is easily angered or easily panicked, for example, probably isn’t a good fit as a police officer. And, ultimately, I think there’s a difference between someone doing something technically not illegal and having done the job with the appropriate level of care and responsibility necessary to remain in a position of trust.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/15/2020 @ 2:47 pmNic, great comments.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:00 pm@56 Thank you. I’ve worked with some excellent SROs over the years and have a high level of respect for good policing.
Nic (896fdf) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:19 pmUm, no, it was excessive force, not deadly force. What happened to Brooks was both excessive and deadly, IMO.
Paul Montagu (91c593) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:20 pmI rode with the police when I was in law school as part of a law school clinic. Policing is hard, dangerous, stressful, and boring — and it changes in a flash. You cannot stay at peak performance an entire shift but you have to be ready to switch into that gear in seconds. And then you have to quivkly switch back to “a normal person relating to everyday folks.”
No amount of training or psych evaluations prepares someone to do that day in and day out. No.amount of education or special backgrounds ensures that applicants are ready for that job. You do your best to pick the right people, train them, and encourage them to protect the public and themselves. And then you hope that, most of the time, protecting the public and protecting other law enforcement are not in conflict.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/15/2020 @ 3:55 pmUnlike the Floyd autopsy this one tells us nothing we don’t already know. We already have the Wendy’s security film which shows the deceased running from the Cop, turning and firing the stolen taser, and then the Cop, in a split second decision, firing his pistol and killing him.
It seems the police had “Patted Down” the suspect for weapons and knew he was disarmed, although its not clear if the policeman doing the shooting knew he’s stolen a taser and not also the other policeman’s gun. Did he mistake a taser Pop and flash for a gun? Could be. He dodges the taser and one second later opens fire.
It certainly was “Homicide” but “Justified Homicide”, since the law allows the police to shoot a fleeing suspect they believe to be a danger to other people.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:17 pmtasers are classified as “deadly weapons”, BTW. Its too bad, we don’t have a controversy over a “Peaceful Protester” being tasered. If so, we’d enjoy the spectacle of the liberal/Leftist flipping and flopping back and forth – arguing one second that police using tasers is very deadly & dangerous, and in the next breathe arguing Brooks’ stolen taser was no more dangerous than a toy.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:20 pmThis sounds reasonable.
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:27 pmI’m amazed at how Brooks was babied by the Cops. At first all they wanted him to do, was drive his car out of the way. But he passed out. Then they talked to him for 20-30 minutes BEFORE they gave him the Breathalyzer. And even then he was stinking drunk. At that point, they had no alternative but to arrest him. Given his cooperative behavior, his attacking them and resisting arrest must have taken them by surprise. After what, 30-45 seconds, of struggle he steals a taser runs off, and then shoots it at the officer. What a Jekyll and Hyde personality. One wonders if he was play acting as the nice guy, or just panicked at the thought of being handcuffed and arrested.
IRC, if you’re in a parked car, with the keys in the ignition, you can still be arrested for drunk driving.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:29 pmThe “Officers” Plural didn’t do anything. ONE of the two officers may have used excessive force. The other officer did nothing wrong.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:30 pm@16. No. He died because a police officer shot him in the back– twice.
The comedy of error is not pretty but gunning down a belligerent drunk is so very, very ‘Police Squad.’
“Just think, the next time I shoot someone, I could be arrested.” – Lt. Frank Drebin [Leslie Nielsen] ‘The Naked Gun’ 1988
DCSCA (797bc0) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:31 pmPeople do the same thing with the Floyd situation. Two of the four officers were Rookies. And one of them didn’t seem to do much of anything. The other rookie just did what he was told by the Senior officers. The 3rd suggested to Chauvin (the officer in charge) that they turn Floyd on his side and was shot down. I believe this other officer is the same one that noted Floyd wasn’t breathing.
Chauvin seems to have been responsible for the whole mess. Charging the other 3 with “Murder” was ridiculous prosecutorial over-reach.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:34 pmAbout George Floyd, a 911 dispatcher says that “all of them sat on this man” (referring to George Floyd:
Dana (25e0dc) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:57 pm55. Be that all as it may, I don’t think what happened to Rayshard Brooks was a crime. It’s up to the officers’ peers in the department to decide if the incident was consistent with department policy.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:35 pm63.
That is true in most states as far as I know, including South Dakota.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/15/2020 @ 5:41 pm#67 – Well, if the dispatcher, who’s NOT at the scene says so, it must be true. I’ve watched the video and 4 people didn’t sit on Floyd. And how could 4 policemen have even fit on Floyd? At the most 3 people are on Floyd, and later its down to just Chauvin on this neck. How in the world is it “Murder” for a rookie cop to sit on Chauvin when he was still alive and breathing?
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 7:37 pmOf course by Chauvin i meant Floyd. What a bizarre country we live in, where people’s attitude toward any police misconduct is “Hang ’em High” “Sentence first, trial afterwards” while Killers and crooks are coddled and given every chance to prove their innocence.
rcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 7:40 pmAre you really going to claim that?
NJRob (4d595c) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:01 pmThe real crime here is why this child abusing lowlife was out on the streets instead of being inside a nice quiet cell like he should’ve been.
Capsaicin Addict (041266) — 6/16/2020 @ 4:43 am73. I’m sure his early parole had something to do with CoViD-19.
Gryph (08c844) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:43 amChavin and 2 other officers sat on Floyd while he begged for air.
Thao did crowd control and watched the whole thing.
So you might have a point that the two officer trainees deserve leniency. I think that’s debatable, but I wouldn’t be outraged if a jury that listened to all the evidence decided that.
But this set up supports a systemic problem in the MN police department. There were 2 officers being trained. If Floyd hadn’t died the lesson would have been that this is how policing is done. If it had been brushed under the rug the lesson would have been even stronger.
Time123 (66d88c) — 6/16/2020 @ 5:58 amNJRob, I guess it depends on where you start the clock. The point I’m trying to make is that the original problem was a car parked in the wrong spot, with a drunk guy sitting in it. Now a guy is dead. Maybe the officer did everything right and this is just an example that sometimes bad things happen no matter what you do.
Time123 (441f53) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:04 amNo, actually, he was killed because a Southern cop was torturing him with an electric cattle prod with a mall ninja name, and he got mad and scared, took the cattle prod away from the cop and tried to run away, and that made the sh!tkicker mad enough to shoot him.
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:10 amTwice. In the back.
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:12 amthey disbanded the undercover unit in nyc, drug pushers and muggers rejoice,
narciso (7404b5) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:23 amThe cop said “hands off the taser”. It was caught on tape. From what I could see, their tasers are a yellow color. It would be difficult to mistake one for a gun.
Paul Montagu (d27749) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:41 amNk,
I miss when you used to be witty and interesting. Now you’re just mean and angry all the time.
NJRob (4d595c) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:49 amrcocean (fcc23e) — 6/15/2020 @ 4:34 pm
He was supported in court by seven members of is family, and posted bail. (set at $750,000)
There;s actually a policy on the books requiring police officers to intervene to stop colleagues from using unreasonable force. That’s like someone in the military seeing someone committing a war crime I suppose. The cklaim would be that he should have believed his lying eyes and not Chauvin.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:54 amNever realized you were such a fan of those community oriented Chicago cops.
Don’t hate the player. AXON stock has doubled in price since the year started running so badly. It’s a great investment in bad times.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/16/2020 @ 6:57 amthey’ve signed on with the anarchists, now njrob, when ray lopez is the sign of sanity, virtually the new eddie vrdolyak, well we’ve gone fully bearded spock,
narciso (7404b5) — 6/16/2020 @ 7:05 amI think this is a question of what you should do versus what you can do. Certainly Brooks could have been cited for public intox (or maybe even DUI) and arrested…or cops could have moved his car for him….put him in a cab….and sent him home (or God forbid, driven him home themselves). Again, more Mayberry….less Fallujah. If Brooks failed the field sobriety test, then his judgment is impaired….it doesn’t excuse resisting arrest…or grabbing the taser….but it adds perspective. De-escalate the situation….deadly force should be the last option. Could they fire on Brooks? Sure. Should they have fired on Brooks? I don’t think so.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 6/16/2020 @ 8:45 amIt is the conundrum of policing, especially broken windows policing.
DRJ (15874d) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:00 amThere;s actually a policy on the books requiring police officers to intervene to stop colleagues from using unreasonable force. That’s like someone in the military seeing someone committing a war crime I suppose. The cklaim would be that he should have believed his lying eyes and not Chauvin.
What nonsense. Floyd only died because he had an underlying heart condition and large quantity of drugs. How could the policeman have known that? Chauvin sat on him for 8 minutes to calm him down. At what point were the other 3 policeman, 2 of them rookies, supposed to know the force had gone from “Reasonable” to “Unreasonable” 7 minutes, 6 minutes, 2 minutes – you tell me, Dr. Sammy.
rcocean (2e1c02) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:11 amWhen one of them checked his pulse, found he did not have one, and told Chauvin?
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:17 amthey werent rookies, thao, the thai fellow had handled some of the harder cases, that are more questionable, but this is errol garner, eleventy, and ellison probably made a difficult case even harder to convict, remember where he comes from, who ilhan omars sponsor has been,
narciso (7404b5) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:19 amNobody has yet commented that the original Chauvin, a Frenchman named Nicolas Chauvin, is the origin of chauvinism, exaggerated or aggressive patriotism, or excessive or prejudiced support for one’s own cause, group, or sex?
nk (1d9030) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:26 amThey continued to sit on his neck for 2 minutes after he cried out for his mother and went limp.
Time123 (66d88c) — 6/16/2020 @ 10:13 amThere were people standing there saying he needed help, so it’s clear that some people correctly noted his distress. Tao kept them back while the other three smothered Floyd.
Missing the point:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/15/the-monument-destroying-mobs-dont-hate-the-confederacy-they-hate-america/
Narciso (7404b5) — 6/16/2020 @ 10:46 am9. Edoc118 (483907) — 6/15/2020 @ 8:51 am
It should have been obvious that he only fired that taser in order to facilitate his escape, He turned around right away and continued running. The cop used lethal force to stop him. On a man he knew was very, very drunk. Who might have been afraid of being captured by police because of what happened to George Floyd.
Note: There was a lot of propaganda going on that said that the George Floyd was not an isolated incident, and on top of that how it got started was misrepresented, since if Floyd had let himself be put into the car nothing much would have happened to him. Falling on the street gave Chauvin control of the situation.
It was not a bunch of cops deciding to kill George Floyd, still less was that something many cops all over the country do. But he could have feared it. His family did discuss the Floyd case, although we don’t know the details.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/17/2020 @ 2:36 am87. rcocean (2e1c02) — 6/16/2020 @ 9:11 am
Floyd was obviously in his 40s.
Did that work? Did it seem likely to work? Is that safe to try?
You do give a possible explanation of Chauvin’s motives – that he wanted him to stop wriggling and decided to weaken him. But he continued even after Floyd had stopped wriggling.
It’s like the apocryphal frog boiling story.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/17/2020 @ 2:44 amAfter Chauvin was told Floyd had no pulse, which was maybe too late already, Chavin still didn’t let up. This reflects on his motives even before that point. And also afterwards.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/17/2020 @ 2:47 amSammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/17/2020 @ 2:36 am
There is a lot of lying, aka propaganda, going around. That lying is going to get more people killed. It’s disgusting that so many people are willing participants.
frosty (f27e97) — 6/17/2020 @ 6:56 am85. AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 6/16/2020 @ 8:45 am
He apparently didn;t even know where e actually was. He was not near his sister;s hiome.
another possibility was calling a family member. If he’d parked and locked his car he might have gone back to it. If he walked he might have been run over by a car – small possibility but a possibility – besides getting lost.
What do they do in other cities?
Trump is now promoting de-escalation. Very yery good. His ads are more stupid.
They shouldn’t do every thing that might be legally justified in doing.
Brooks only had a taser, which is only effective at close distances and was running away. And he was drunk.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/17/2020 @ 7:15 amIf they had followed their training and initiated CPR at that point, they would have had a chance. CPR usually doesn’t work, but in this case where someone was suffocated right before, I think there was a good chance. This is going to be a problem for Lane, the officer who was the most hesitant of the four.
I think Floyd was truly an exception. Truly a terrible, strange event. The indifference of the other officers makes this point hard to accept. It makes people try to read something into all white cop vs black suspect interactions. Maybe I’m wrong though. I definitely have my biases and preferences as to what the facts are. We all do.
I agree with the mayberry notion. If you watch cop shows these, even ones that used to be pretty interesting 25 years ago like Law and Order, it’s all about action action action. Star Trek has undergone a similar transition. The older shows were just a team managing an interesting problem each week. Now it’s a desperate fight where the hero stops the evil villain who would kill everybody. A lot of the problems we’re seeing are cultural, and hoping the cops just do things better now is a naive solution.
I always thought the evolution to internet punditry would be a golden age where ideas were debated on merit by professionals who actually walked the walk. But no, the transition has been from reading newspaper editorials to reading people follow trend hashtags on twitter, invariably an insult of some kind. We’re not solving problems. We’re stopping the bad guy. Politics, policing, media.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/17/2020 @ 7:43 amIt makes people try to read something into all white cop vs black suspect interactions.
One of the rookie cops was black. The other rookie gave CPR and asked Chauvin to roll Floyd over.
The elevated charges against the rookie cops are only there so when they skate we get more riots. They may be guilty of something, but not what they’re charged with.
Too many are dancing to Ellison’s tune.
beer ‘n pretzels (8caeae) — 6/17/2020 @ 8:01 amLane checked the pulse and did nothing. Only after medics arrived minutes later and placed Floyd into an ambulance did Lane perform CPR. At that point they knew the gravity of their mistakes.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever taken a CPR class, but there’s nothing else to wait for when you find there’s no pulse. Lane was the ‘least bad’ of the four, but he was violating his training to not immediately give CPR. I really think if this had been a single cop screwing up the video wouldn’t sicken me so much. The other three are what makes this so bad.
I guess I agree. But reasonable minds will differ about that, due to the indifference they seemed to show. Unlike with Rayshard, I simply cannot follow the motivations or actions of the Floyd cops at all.
Dustin (d59cff) — 6/17/2020 @ 8:37 am101. Dustin (d59cff) — 6/17/2020 @ 8:37 am
Chauvin was a training officer. For the African American cop, he was specifically his training officer. It may take something for a rookie or two to come to the conclusion that a highly experienced person is out of his mind.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/19/2020 @ 3:58 pmMany nurses would probably let a doctor murder someone.
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/19/2020 @ 4:00 pmHow many people in charge of nursing homes followed tr orders of Dr. Howard Zucker?
Sammy Finkelman (71800b) — 6/22/2020 @ 4:51 pm