Another kid shot by police - officer cleared...

[ezkl2230]

Last November, a Battle Creek, MI, officer shot a 14 year old kid with a toy gun while he was with a group of other kids. As can be seen from the video, the officer rolls up on the group of kids, jumps out of the car, yells, "let me see your hands" twice, and immediately fires a shot. According to the officer's testimony, the kid was pulling the toy from his waistband when he was order to put his hands up.

The other kids that were there when there friend was shot told officers that they were playing hide and seek with the boy.

 

[Eidolon]

That video shows nothing

 

[BigSlick]

I would run too if someone was shooting at me.

 

[BluesStringer]

Is there a link available for the story of the cop being cleared?

 

[SR40c]

Is there a link available for the story of the cop being cleared?

Here's one, not many details though...

Link Removed

 

[BluesStringer]

Not many details indeed. Not enough for me to draw any conclusions one way or 'tother at this point. Would like more info, but if that's the only video of the event, we'll likely never get any more.

 

[Eidolon]

I want to hear the backstory. Why did the cop pull up and immediately demand that they show their hands? Was there a kid with a gun call prior? I seriously doubt the cop just decided to blast some kids. If there was a call that one of the kids was flashing a gun around and the kid tried to draw his fake gun I'd have to say the cop responded appropriately.


As the fat girl said 'you can't just kill people like that."

 

[ezkl2230]

Is there a link available for the story of the cop being cleared?

Here it is: Dash-cam video shows police shooting of Battle Creek teen with fake gun | MLive.com

 

[ezkl2230]

I want to hear the backstory. Why did the cop pull up and immediately demand that they show their hands? Was there a kid with a gun call prior? I seriously doubt the cop just decided to blast some kids. If there was a call that one of the kids was flashing a gun around and the kid tried to draw his fake gun I'd have to say the cop responded appropriately.


As the fat girl said 'you can't just kill people like that."

Her remark was directed at the cop - not the kid.

 

[Eidolon]

Her remark was directed at the cop - not the kid.

I am aware of who she was speaking to she was looking right at the cop when she said it.

 

[BluesStringer]

Here it is: Dash-cam video shows police shooting of Battle Creek teen with fake gun | MLive.com

Thanks ezkl2230, but I'm unclear as to which other case(s) you are comparing this event to by using the title, "Another kid shot by police..." If the reporting is accurate, I can't fault the cop either. From your link:

"I don't even know if it's real or not," one officer says looking at the fake gun on the ground. The toy was a "spitting likeness of an actual 9 mm or 45 Cal semiautomatic handgun," and the orange tip put on the toy by the manufacturer to signify it was a fake gun had been removed, said a Dec. 13 report by Calhoun County Prosecutor David Gilbert.

I can certainly understand if there is a controversy about the veracity of the report from which that information was gleaned, then of course, continue to demand more answers. But if there's a picture of the toy sans any orange tip, and it's basically a replica-quality reproduction of a common firearm (92F or 1911, what have you), I want to know who here would expect a cop to hesitate in that situation? Or a citizen carrying a gun for that matter? The toy lying on the ground very close to the cop car seems to validate that the kid either had it in his hand when the cop drove up, or he was in the process of removing it from the pocket or waistband that it was in, because it doesn't seem likely to me that a shot to the shoulder would knock it out of a waistband or pocket by itself.

14 year olds are involved in shootings quite often in this country. I hate how trigger-happy cops have become over the last 20 or 30 years, but they're also not robots with special sensors that can determine in a split second whether the weapon they're facing is real or a toy, especially not if the kid and the kid's parents are stupid enough to allow the orange tip to be removed.

Taking the reporting at face-value, with no further mention of any controversy about what they have reported, I can't fault the cop-shop or DA for clearing the cop.

Blues

 

[Paul_of_TX]

It looks like the car stops in the video at 0.02 and the shot is fired 0.05. This officer basically pulled up and started firing his gun on a group of kids.

Also when you remove the orange tip from a toy gun you are asking to be shot.

Sounds like a case where both parties were in the wrong. I find it a little harder to blame the officer since he actually saw a gun and his job puts him in harms way; hie simply wants to go home and see his family at the end of his shift. I think I would have to clear the officer of any wrong doing officially while feeling that he could have handled the situation better.

 

[dstryr]

I'm not letting the cop off so easily. The kids did not appear to be ganging, more like they turned wondering what a cop was doing. It would appear the cop used none of his training to assess the situation. Nobody was shot BEFORE the cop got there. For arguments sake if it took 3 minutes to get there, why would 10 extra seconds or 10 extra minutes make a difference? Similar to the kid in CA, cop stops, screams, fires at a bewildered kid.

Is the traditional talk the guy down approach no longer? That's what 'we' generally have come to expect from our police force. This didn't appear to be a violent situation; it appears the cop created one. Are we(the general population) brainwashed to comply, believe cops are the good guys, and accept them at their word when they are in fact guilty of murder?

Run in, create havoc, kill a kid or two, and excuse it by claiming fear of injury or loss of life.

Last thought, would like to hear the 911 call, the dispatch recording, and see a timeline on the incident. Until then, the cop was wrong in my mind.

 

[BluesStringer]

I'm not letting the cop off so easily. The kids did not appear to be ganging, more like they turned wondering what a cop was doing. It would appear the cop used none of his training to assess the situation. Nobody was shot BEFORE the cop got there. For arguments sake if it took 3 minutes to get there, why would 10 extra seconds or 10 extra minutes make a difference? Similar to the kid in CA, cop stops, screams, fires at a bewildered kid.

Is the traditional talk the guy down approach no longer? That's what 'we' generally have come to expect from our police force. This didn't appear to be a violent situation; it appears the cop created one. Are we(the general population) brainwashed to comply, believe cops are the good guys, and accept them at their word when they are in fact guilty of murder?

Run in, create havoc, kill a kid or two, and excuse it by claiming fear of injury or loss of life.

Last thought, would like to hear the 911 call, the dispatch recording, and see a timeline on the incident. Until then, the cop was wrong in my mind.

A very clear and concise argument which I will have to take into account as I reassess my previous post. Thanks for the post.

 

[Black Dragon]

I'm not letting the cop off so easily. The kids did not appear to be ganging, more like they turned wondering what a cop was doing. It would appear the cop used none of his training to assess the situation. Nobody was shot BEFORE the cop got there. For arguments sake if it took 3 minutes to get there, why would 10 extra seconds or 10 extra minutes make a difference? Similar to the kid in CA, cop stops, screams, fires at a bewildered kid.

If he pulled up and the kid had the gun in his hand that is probably why he draw his gun so quickly. For training purposes lets do this; put an airsoft gun in my hand, you pull up, wait ten seconds, and lets see how many shots I get off while you wait 10 seconds. Now if that would have been a real gun I'm sure you would have wished you didn't wait the ten seconds. All it would really take is one shot to get my point across though. Do you really expect a person to wait and see if that first shot is a plastic BB or a bullet?

Just because you don't think there was any "ganging" happening doesn't mean that's not what the officer saw.
He pulled up, saw a bunch of kids milling around, one kid had a gun in his hand. Whether that constitutes "ganging" or not really has no bearing any way. The kid had a gun in his hand.

Is the traditional talk the guy down approach no longer? That's what 'we' generally have come to expect from our police force.

The "traditional talk the guy down" is a Hollywood created scenario. Stop thinking what you see on the screen is how it actually happens.

This didn't appear to be a violent situation; it appears the cop created one.

Actually the kid created a violent situation when he removed the orange tip from the toy and kept the gun in his hand when the police rode up.

Are we(the general population) brainwashed to comply, believe cops are the good guys, and accept them at their word when they are in fact guilty of murder?

Run in, create havoc, kill a kid or two, and excuse it by claiming fear of injury or loss of life.

Last thought, would like to hear the 911 call, the dispatch recording, and see a timeline on the incident. Until then, the cop was wrong in my mind.

I am far from brainwashed and although there are a few cops that are bad apples, most of them are doing their best to get home to their families at the end of the day. If someone were to pull a toy gun on me I'm going to assume that it's real and I'm going to shoot.
If people want to be stupid enough to take the orange tip off a toy so they can make it look more real, then they will wind up paying the stupid tax for it.

 

[ezkl2230]

I'm not letting the cop off so easily. The kids did not appear to be ganging, more like they turned wondering what a cop was doing. It would appear the cop used none of his training to assess the situation. Nobody was shot BEFORE the cop got there. For arguments sake if it took 3 minutes to get there, why would 10 extra seconds or 10 extra minutes make a difference? Similar to the kid in CA, cop stops, screams, fires at a bewildered kid.

Is the traditional talk the guy down approach no longer? That's what 'we' generally have come to expect from our police force. This didn't appear to be a violent situation; it appears the cop created one. Are we(the general population) brainwashed to comply, believe cops are the good guys, and accept them at their word when they are in fact guilty of murder?

Run in, create havoc, kill a kid or two, and excuse it by claiming fear of injury or loss of life.

Last thought, would like to hear the 911 call, the dispatch recording, and see a timeline on the incident. Until then, the cop was wrong in my mind.

This is what I was trying to communicate - didn't do so well this time.

 

[Paul_of_TX]

Like others here I was completely against the cop after seeing the video and reading the article. Up until the point where the article stated that the boy had removed the orange plastic tip from the toy gun. The kid wanted the toy to look like a real gun and he got exactly what he asked for. You don't get to pick and choose which consequences will result from your actions. Once you make the choice those consequences can sometimes be out of your control. The police officer thought the kid had a real gun and apparently the kid had it in his hand, was reaching for it or was doing something besides putting his hands in the air. There was talk of the kid reaching for the gun or him throwing the gun. We will never know if he was reaching for it so he could toss it on the ground or if it was already in his hand when the officer pulled up.

 

[dstryr]

If the kid were a 28 year old and holding up a store with a toy gun, I'd agree with that Paul. But if I were 14, the orange tip is for 5-year-olds, I'm not into the law, or why the gun came with an orange tip. Shot for being a kid is not ok.

 

[Paul_of_TX]

In real life we don't get to pick and choose the consequences of our actions. I still think how the police officer reacted was wrong but I don't think he was negligent in this case. Both the officer and the kid are at fault here. How much each is at fault hinges on what the kid did with his hands when the officer pulled up and told him to put his hands in the air. Unfortunately that is not on the video and we will never know.

Another question is where are the kids parents. Parents need to be involved in their kids life. If a teenager is happy with the level of intrusion in their life by their parents then the parents are most likely not involved enough. If this kid is carrying around a gun that looks real then the parents need to do something about that.

 

[wolf_fire]

There are several calls that LE get where they will pull up with guns drawn. From the video and the different article links, it does not tell what call the LEO received to report to this location.

Therefore, I cannot assume one way or another that he indeed had a legitimate purpose for doing so.

Let us assume he did. If he did indeed have justification to arrive at the scene with his firearm drawn and shouts to get your hands up, you will notice that the folks in the video, immediately did just that. Heck if anyone pointed a gun at me and said hands up and I was that far away from them and their car was between us, I would too. The officer said it a second time and then we hear the shot.

The testimony we get is that an officer after rolling up, draws his firearm, yells "hands up" twice and then witnesses one of the actors does not put his hands up, but instead reaches into his waistband and attempts to pull what looks like the exact replica of a semi-automatic pistol. If this is what happened, then YES, I would have shot as well.

The question still remains, why did he pull up in the manner that he did?

I also find it strange that the person getting shot would not comment. I can only speculate as to the reason. Since speculation could reasonably be for a variety of reason, I will not speculate here.

It would be nice to take the word of all the officers and say that everything was done by the book, but I too have been way too jaded by too many jack booted thugs in uniform to completely say that he was 100% above reproach. The problem is we still don't have all the information.