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From Yahoo News:
A man was gravely wounded in a gun battle with police in Ferguson, Missouri on Sunday night after a day of peaceful rallies to mark the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white officer one year ago. Several volleys of gunshots rang out as police in riot gear tried to disperse demonstrators blocking traffic and smashing storefront windows along a street that was a flashpoint of last year's unrest in the St. Louis suburb after Michael Brown, 18, was slain. Police later said the gunfire began with two groups of agitators apparently shooting at each other.
http://news.yahoo.com/ferguson-protests-mostly-peaceful-anniversary-brown-shooting-015555407.html
...
Anniversary commemorations had begun hours earlier with a peaceful march through the St. Louis suburb. The scene changed dramatically after dark. Dozens of protesters converged on West Florissant Avenue, which bore the brunt of last summer's rioting, and chanted: "Shut it down" in the midst of a severe thunderstorm.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Francis on Monday August 10 2015, @07:16PM
They made the right call with Tamir Rice, he was holding an illegal toy gun that couldn't be readily distinguished from the real thing. He might also have lived if he had dropped it rather than motioning like he was going to point it at the officers. Rather than be outraged at the idiots that gave him that gun, you're outraged at the police who had a perfectly reasonable justification for shooting him. The reason why toy guns have to have that tip is specifically because of situations like this. That orange tip greatly reduces the likelihood of it being mistaken for a real firearm.
The difference between me and a Klansman is that I'm not racist. Even if I were a racist Klansman, that's an ad hominem to make up for the complete lack of substance in your post.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 10 2015, @08:23PM
Horse shit. Did you actually watch the video? The driver all but ran the kid over with the car. The shotgun rider fired his first shot within two seconds of the car stopping. Watch a few movies, find some scenes in which assassins plot to murder the target from their vehicle. Then tell me how to distinguish between these cop's actions and the assassins.
They heard "black male" and "gun" and decided that the black bastard had to die. There was no request to "drop the weapon". There was no request to see a concealed carry permit. No questions whatsoever - they saw their quarry, and opened fire.
In this case, black people have every right to be indignant. I am outraged. Guns are legal in this nation. Guns are legal in Ohio. Guns are legal in Cleveland. UNLESS of course, it's a black person who possesses the gun.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:13PM
Ohio is an open-carry state.
A loaded firearm in plain sight is not illegal there.
UNLESS of course, it's a black person who possesses the gun.
You and I are on opposite sides so often, I savor the instances when we agree.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday August 10 2015, @08:49PM
They made the right call with Tamir Rice, he was holding an illegal toy gun that couldn't be readily distinguished from the real thing.
If there is such a thing as an illegal toy gun, then that is simply insane. I could get a real gun if I wanted to. I don't care how real it looks.
Furthermore, no, they didn't do the right thing. They pulled up right next to someone who they believed possibly had a real gun, surprised him, and then shot him dead immediately, giving him no chance to surrender. They did this instead of doing something like pulling farther away, getting behind their cars (if they thought the gun was real), and ordering him to drop it. There are any number of ways this could have been handled besides shooting him dead immediately. The cops, which are supposed to be trained, screw up and put themselves in scenarios where they believe they need to shoot people. And that's being generous; they are often outright malicious, in addition to being utterly incompetent.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @09:23PM
The stupid kid was waving a toy gun around in public, acting like his future thug life. The cops probably saved several lives that day.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Francis on Monday August 10 2015, @09:52PM
It's not stupid, the law says that toy guns have to have that orange tip specifically because they had problems with toys being mistaken for real guns and people being shot.
They shot him because he had what appeared to be a gun and he was moving it in the direction of aiming at them. Now, we'll never know what it was that he was intending to do, probably hold it up so that the cops could see it, but this wasn't a case of racist cops, this was a case of somebody making some incredibly poor decisions. I wouldn't go around with a prop gun and then get upset when people assume that it's a real one, but that's just me.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:47AM
It's not stupid
Banning something entirely simply because it could be abused or mistaken for something else for reasons of physical safety is pure cowardice. Not that I expect anything else from you.
They shot him because he had what appeared to be a gun and he was moving it in the direction of aiming at them.
Nice job ignoring most of my comment. Specifically, the entire last paragraph (out of a very short post) where I explained that the whole situation could have been avoided if they hadn't been completely incompetent. You believe someone has a gun? Pull up right next to them with your car, surprise them, and then act completely baffled when the situation turns bad due to your own actions. Do you honestly believe that was the correct course of action?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @09:25PM
> The difference between me and a Klansman is that I'm not racist.
You know that no racist ever thinks they are a racist, right? They always have some sort of specious reasoning to justify their beliefs, beliefs that just happen to line up with race.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday August 10 2015, @10:49PM
Have you stopped beating your wife?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday August 10 2015, @10:42PM
Tamir Rice: judge finds cause for murder charge over police killing of 12-year-old [theguardian.com]
In a 10-page order, Judge Adrine wrote that after viewing surveillance video, which shows Tamir being shot dead within two seconds of Loehmann’s arrival, he was “still thunderstruck by how quickly this event turned deadly”.
The judge said Tamir was given “little if any time” to respond to any commands from the officers, that his arms were not raised, and that he made no “furtive movement”. Adrine wrote: “Literally, the entire encounter is over in an instant.”
Holy fucking shit! [youtube.com] The judge was not kidding! A fully trained Amazon warrior would have been able to escape or attempt de-escalation, but not a 12 year old kid! We can argue about the semantics and nature of the wibbly-wobbly information we have about the other killings (murders? self-defense?), but this here is pretty unambiguous.
Rather than be outraged at the idiots that gave him that gun, you're outraged at the police who had a perfectly reasonable justification for shooting him.
I would have expected the police to do a more thorough assessment of the situation before bringing lethal force to bear. What if it were a situation that required lethal force? What if Tamir really was a big, bad black man hopped up on meth and cocaine with a real weapon? Well, congratulations, officer, you just put yourself in a tactically stupid position by even getting that close to him. Honestly, what was the officer's next move going to be if the shot wasn't fatal or otherwise didn't immediately drop Tamir?
(Presumably the officer will be a better marksman than your run-of-the-mill suspect, but screw that advantage by zooming right into point-blank range!)
Isn't it much more normal procedure for the very first thing to be drawing one's weapon, taking aim, and ordering the suspect to drop their weapon? We don't have audio, and the kid does seem to be acting quite stupid, and as much as I wish stupidity were a capital offense some days, it isn't and shouldn't be. AND HE'S A KID FFS!
(Yes, I know, all guns are always loaded [wikipedia.org], which is why I would recommend keeping distance. I was not aware of the color code system just above the linked section, but it makes sense. The officer should have been at orange at maximum, but flew straight into red. In fact, reinterpreting what happened, the officer was fucking lucky the kid's firearm was nonlethal and the kid was apparently at white.)
I'll take your word for it you're not racist, but you seem to have quite the authoritarian interpretation of that event in particular.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday August 11 2015, @06:59AM
Will they make the "right call" tonight in Ferguson, withe cocked and loaded oathkeepers?
I thought so.
You and a Klansman differ largely in social class, no more than that.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...