I’m surprised there hasn’t been a thread discussing this, unless I’ve missed it already in which case apologies and thanks for the redirect.

Of course is couldn’t happen here

Great little tractors, TE20 or the TE35.

They had a good range of VCR’s back in the 80’s.

Bacon face retired a few years ago didn’t he?

Well I wouldn’t expect a police officer to shoot unarmed people with their hands in the air unless physically threatened.

U.S. Gun culture shock…

Not a good situation over there at all. Looks like the protests which came about because of genuine anger have been hijacked by a criminal element as well, similar to the riots in London.

I’ve no real idea how they’ll sort it out, but at the end of the day it’s another shooting in the US that should never of happened, crime suspect or not.

Man United will never be the same without him.

Well I think the militarisation of the police is probably also happening more here as well and was probably adopted after the financial collapse to head off potential internal insurrection.

It is shocking nevertheless, a simple shot to the legs would have been enough to disable any criminal.

We don’t exactly have a good record here on the matter either.

William Gibson (sf author thread elsewhere) has re-Tweeted some good eye witness accounts. Rapid jump to militarisation of a local police force: cop cars one minute to armoured personnel carriers with snipers on top in one move.

a simple shot to the legs would have been enough to disable any criminal

Not done a lot of shooting then I’m guessing? Its not like in the movies and your average state trooper or similar would struggle to hit a cow’s arse with a shovel. Appalling disregard for human life over there though especially the blacks, coloureds or whatever is the current PC term.

or whatever is the current PC term.

It’s not

coloureds

Police State USA is interesting/terrifying.

They seem to be much further along the road in terms of a militarized police generally seeing citizens as the enemy than we are.

It’s not absolutely clear that we will get there – I don’t think (for example) that military equipment brought back from Iraq has been handed out to police forces in the UK in quite the same way.

The authorities have obviously been quite taken with the Israeli approach to dealing with people the wrong colour who they don’t like

RaveyDavey – Member
a simple shot to the legs would have been enough to disable any criminal
Not done a lot of shooting then I’m guessing?

Enough to know I could hit a person in the leg as easily as the head and a double tap at that.

They also would/should be well trained, they have better access to firearms training than we now have, I’d quote the anecdote about the German cops that had a mate of mines brother shot in the legs and in and out of hospital over the weekend for simply vaulting the barrier of the tube.

What did we do to that Brazilian who vaulted the tube barrier, several shots to the face I recall..

It is shocking nevertheless, a simple shot to the legs would have been enough to disable any criminal.

It’s not that simple. Shots should only be fired when someone’s life is in danger and when that happens (especially if it’s yours); the last thing you think of is shooting someone in the legs. You aim for the biggest bit and shoot until the threat is gone.
I have no idea if that’s what happened here, but it is how it works.

The real issues will begin when the cop is found not guilty, like the Rodney King riots…

It’s not that simple. Shots should only be fired when someone’s life is in danger and when that happens (especially if it’s yours); the last thing you think of is shooting someone in the legs. You aim for the biggest bit and shoot until the threat is gone.
I have no idea if that’s what happened here, but it is how it works.

Well that might be how it should work but it doesn’t, not there, not here, but it does in Germany who I gather only fired 85 bullets last year which is more than some yank used in a single incident according to the radio today.

So the training is wrong. I know ‘they’ are not trained to go for a head shot because of the likelihood of missing, but rapid firing a sequence of shots to even running legs has a very high chance of success. Given also the lack of threat posed in this particular circumstance.

double tap at that

two shots landing on the same part of the body, does not a “double tap” make. More likely by luck than marksmanship.
Especially since it’s quite possible the second head wound was not even from the next round fired.

Rossatease, your astounding lack of knowledge on shooting and police training/procedure is impressive. Please do educate us further…….. 🙄

RaveyDavey and Wrecker have both made good points.

You cannot “double tap” as every use of force has to be justified. The threat should be re-assessed after every shot. Double tapping does not allow sufficient time to do this. Note the word “should”.

Rapidly firing a series of shots at a moving target in a public place so as to hit someone’s leg is very likely to result in a bystander being shot in the back drop. Frankly a ludicrous suggestion!

I am commenting in general terms and not with reference to this specific case.

You have to get the guns out of circulation and the police can then also be disarmed. The will is simply not there in the US to do this – particularly with the likes of the NRA nutjobs.

‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people’.

Yeah, brilliant – a masterpiece of superficial bullshit masquerading as ‘common-sense’.

The statement is patently true, but the presence of guns significantly increases the likelihood of someone being killed. Give enough people the means and sure as eggs is eggs someone is going to use the means. Whether in a cold-blooded slaying or a ‘genuine’ me or him situation. In one respect it doesn’t matter what the circumstances or motives were – it doesn’t make that person any more or less dead.

Rossatease does make some fair points; the young man shot wasn’t armed and that’s a fact so I cannot see how he was lawfully killed. He does cherry pick his information though;

Last year, in total, British police officers actually fired their weapons three times. The number of people fatally shot was zero.

Our police service fires their weapons far less than the Germans and also don’t walk around wearing them.
One more thing;

rapid firing a sequence of shots to even running legs

Is not how the police should use their weapons in any circumstances.

You have to get the guns out of circulation and the police can then also be disarmed. The will is simply not there in the US to do this – particularly with the likes of the NRA nutjobs.

Gotta admit; I do like those MOLON LABE T-shirts.

d also don’t walk around wearing them.

They do now in Scotland, though there’s been a bit of an uproar about the new tactics. Officers being routinely armed and deployed in places like the Highlands and Islands where it’s totally uncalled for, and unwanted.

U.S.A.

Localism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…

Enough to know I could hit a person in the leg as easily as the head and a double tap at that

Sorry I misjudged you. I didn’t realise Call of Duty counted as shooting experience. Double taps for your information are generally administered to the torso not the head. This is due to the inability of a single shot to stop a determined aggressor. Used by experts the world over who couldn’t pull of a double tap to the head.
This IMVHO was a racially motivated execution.

Why do we concern ourselves so much with what happens over the pond, I may be wrong but I don`t think they give a toss what happens over here.

Another black youth shot dead, this one was armed with a knife apparently.

He was armed with a knife, so that one is more understandable. What isn’t understandable, is why they don’t use tazers/rubber bullets before live rounds. Also it was a couple of miles from the Ferguson suburb.

In no way amusing, is the St Louis Mayor’s surname is Slay.

Anyway, this is an interesting read on how the media has been treated:

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/18/6043247/ferguson-police-media-harassment

…which begs the question, if that is how the media is being treated, then what hope do the residents have?

John Oliver did a great piece on Last Week Tonight:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHXwUvcv0CE[/video]

Pfft. Tazers are like so unamerican dude. They should be called like gayzers or something man.
Their forefathers died for the right to arm bears.

In an earlier statement, US Attorney General Eric Holder said he would “personally travel” to Ferguson on Wednesday to meet FBI investigators and prosecutors.

How else was he going to travel? Maybe send his avatar?

He is, literally, going to personally travel there.

Gun culture is so engrained in the US that things are never going to change. Some of the people who work for me carry concealed handguns every day to work. That’s just the way it is.

The young man, was hit by six bullets, and they bear all the hall marks of being shot as “Controlled pairs” or double tap, that’s what that privately funded post mortem seemed to suggest, something that would not have appeared in the public domain had the authorities been left to conduct the post mortem.

Either way, it was a wicked and senseless act and absolutely racially motivated and any amount of STW handwringing or suggestion my firearms technique was acquired thanks to some lame video game, isn’t going to allay.

Nasty case and nothing to do with gun culture, this was a public servant allegedly acting with the support of the law, he should therefore be sanctioned.

I agree with you Rossatease with almost everything you said. Except

Nasty case and nothing to do with gun culture

It has lots to do with gun culture. The cop carrying and shooting someone. Plus the public carrying. All to do with gun culture.

However America is a shockingly unequal culture for some parts of their population. Terrible poverty for an amazingly rich country.

The officer suffered an orbital fracture after being punched, if true then fair play. If someone is that close, hitting you and you have a holstered pistol the last thing you want is for them to get the chance to your weapon on you.

If I beat the shit out of a lone armed officer in the UK, I’d place a bet on me getting slotted.

The black community in the states aren’t going to do themselves any favors with the racists, if it turns out the officer was actually justified in using lethal force.

The young man, was hit by six bullets, and they bear all the hall marks of being shot as “Controlled pairs” or double tap, that’s what that privately funded post mortem seemed to suggest, something that would not have appeared in the public domain had the authorities been left to conduct the post mortem.

“Four of the bullets entered his right arm, one entered his right eye on a downward trajectory, and one entered the top of the skull”

Doesn’t seem to be consistent with controlled shots to center mass whilst Brown was running away, does it?

Well I guess it depends what you mean or believe by the term ‘gun culture’, my perception is that it is the culture of universal access to guns, rather than them only being used by professionally trained personnel, which these days, you only have to walk through ay airport to accept is all around us.

The key factor here is that an allegedly professionally trained public servant unloaded almost an entire clip into a defenceless person and so far appears not to even be suspended yet.

We had a similar case with Menezes, eleven shots fired, six to the head, was that part of our gun culture?

Playing the ‘Gun Culture’ card muddies the water, this is a huge abuse of power and position of a police officer and possibly racially motivated, that’s it. He should be seriously punished.

The key factor here is that an allegedly professionally trained public servant unloaded almost an entire clip into a defenceless person and so far appears not to even be suspended yet.

You carry on shooting until the person stops.

Contrary to popular opinion, people don’t just stop when you shoot them once. Especially when four of those shots were to the arm.

Talking about UK “gun culture” in the same reply as US gun culture is crazy. We have no gun culture and mentioning extremely isolated incidents in the UK is no way like the US. In the US it’s completely ingrained whether it’s this incident, Columbine or kids killing themselves with their parents guns. It’s part of their national make up.

What did we do to that Brazilian who vaulted the tube barrier, several shots to the face I recall..

Menezes didn’t jump the barrier…

There are conflicting reports in this current American case. Some say the dead man did nothing. If you are a black person who wants to live a life of a normal length with access to opportunity to better yourself and to be treated fairly under the law you better hope like **** you are not born in the US – especially to parents of limited financial means or education.

Saw this on facebook and thought it was quite good.

A Mother’s White Privilege

What if my son was black? How would you see this picture?

As the ongoing events in Ferguson, Missouri show us, America’s racial tensions didn’t disappear when George Wallace backed down from the schoolhouse door. Dr. King didn’t wave a magic wand, and we never got together to feel all right. White America remembers this at ugly flashpoints: the Rodney King beatings, the OJ Simpson trial, the Jena Six, Trayvon Martin’s death. White America recoils in horror not at the crimes – though the crimes are certainly horrible. It’s not the teenagers gunned down, the police abuse, the corrupt trials. It’s this: at these sudden, raw moments, in these riots and demonstrations and travesties of justice, White America is forced to gaze upon the emotional roil of oppression, the anger and fear and deep grief endemic to the Black American experience. Black America holds up a mirror for us.

And white America is terrified to look.

To admit white privilege is to admit a stake, however small, in ongoing injustice. It’s to see a world different than your previous perception. Acknowledging that your own group enjoys social and economic benefits of systemic racism is frightening and uncomfortable. It leads to hard questions of conscience may of us aren’t prepared to face. There is substantial anger: at oneself, at the systems of oppression, and mostly at the bearer of bad news, a convenient target of displacement. But think on this.

I have three sons, two years between each. They are various shades of blond, various shades of pinkish-white, and will probably end up dressing in polo shirts and button downs most of the time. Their eyes are blue and green. Basically, I’m raising the physical embodiment of The Man, times three. The White is strong in these ones.

Clerks do not follow my sons around the store, presuming they might steal something.

Their normal kid stuff – tantrums, running, shouting – these are chalked up to being children, not to being non-white.

People do not assume that, with three children, I am scheming to cheat the welfare system.

When I wrap them on my back, no one thinks I’m going native, or that I must be from somewhere else.

When my sons are teenagers, I will not worry about them leaving the house. I will worry – that they’ll crash the car, or impregnate  a girl, or engage in the same stupidness endemic to teenagers everywhere.

I will not worry that the police will shoot them.

If their car breaks down, I will not worry that people they ask for help will call the police, who will shoot them.

I will not worry that people will mistake a toy pistol for a real one and gun them down in the local Wal-Mart.

In fact, if my sons so desire, they will be able to carry firearms openly. Perhaps in Chipotle or Target.

They will walk together, all three, through our suburban neighborhood. People will think, Look at those kids out for a walk. They will not think, Look at those punks casing the joint.

People will assume they are intelligent. No one will say they are “well-spoken” when they break out SAT words. Women will not cross the street when they see them. Nor will they clutch their purses tighter.

My sons will never be mistaken for stealing their own cars, or entering their own houses.

No one will stop and frisk my boys because they look suspicious.

My boys can grow their hair long, and no one will assume it’s a political statement.

My boys will carry a burden of privilege with them always. They will be golden boys, inoculated by a lack of melanin and all its social trapping against the problems faced by Black America.

For a mother, white privilege means your heart doesn’t hit your throat when your kids walk out the door. It means you don’t worry that the cops will shoot your sons.

It carries another burden instead. White privilege means that if you don’t school your sons about it, if you don’t insist on its reality and call out oppression, your sons may become something terrifying.

Your sons may become the shooters.

Tom_W1987 – Member
I’d place a bet on me getting slotted.

rossatease – Member
I could hit a person in the leg as easily as the head and a double tap at that.

I bet you guys totally know what colour the boathouse at Hereford is.

Just grew up with lots of RAF types Kona Bunny. I think it’s all a bit mad that people are jumping to the conclusion that the policeman is a racist before the facts are known. People jump to conclusions because they have shot a gun a few times in their life at paper targets and then think that they can damn a man based on that experience.

There’s no question that America has deep seated problems with racism but lets not forget that due process hasn’t taken place yet and that the officer in question seems to have already been condemned.

He seems to be a pawn in a large political and social standoff, the rioting doesn’t seem to be about the shooting at all really.