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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (14225)	5/25/2001 6:35:07 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

<<<I don't think your point in any way excuses what was done.>>> Well, I had more than one point -- there was context, plus a few points -- and I believe the points and context do "excuse what was done" sufficiently to make it unfair, and prejudiced, to call the cops names. Some of the names they have been called are a lot worse than your "trigger-happy" characterization. "Racist" is one. "Murderers" is another. <<<I don't buy this. Cops don't carry automatic weapons. If 41 shots were fired, triggers were pulled 41 times. That's a lot of shooting>>> Okay, semi-automatic, 9mm, requiring a separate trigger-pull each time, but very fast firing, so it was all over in about 5 seconds. <<<These guys were not blazing away in a panic. That was deliberate, aimed fire, probably at fairly close range. >>> The cops are wrong if they were "in a panic" and wrong if they were firing deliberately according to the protocols, aren't they? My reading about the case convinces me that they were probably doing both, in fact. I'm convinced that departmental guidelines say they were justified in firing in those circumstances, given what they perceived to be happening; and also that part of the reason they perceived what they did is that they, being human beings, were probably in a galvanized, flight-or-fight sort of state. Diallo's not obeying police orders, and instead thrusting his hand in his pocket, probably represented a cultural misunderstanding. I have a serious practical suggestion to make: All immigrants should be instructed that in America, if the police show you their shield, and, aiming guns at you, tell you to stop, to halt, to show them your hands, you must not put your hand in your pocket to pull out your wallet, or you may be misunderstood, with tragic consequences. I asked in my post how the guidelines should be changed in a way that protects both the public and the lives of cops, but no one offered suggestions. I'm going to post more about this.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (14225)	5/25/2001 6:35:43 PM
From: E	Respond to of 82486

I didn't mention in my first post that an unfortunate thing happened that probably created part of this sad situation. It seems that the first or second officer who fired stumbled backward off the stoop and fell to the ground. The other officers had, at that point, been (wrongly) told by the shouted words "Gun! He's got a gun!" from one of their number (who thought the black wallet Diallo was pulling from his pocket was a gun) that Diallo did have a gun; and they had been witness, they thought, to the felling of their fellow officer. In my opinion your characterization of what cops are "supposed" to do sounds good enough in the abstract, as so many liberal social prescriptions framed as generalizations do ("if they have a choice between risking their own lives and risking those of the citizenry they have to risk their own") but... what does that mean, exactly, in practical, day-to-day-guidelines terms? That they "have to" let themselves and their fellow officers be shot when they think that is about to happen? The first officer who shot thought that his partner, McMellon, was about to get a bullet from the "gun" Diallo had pulled. I know you don't mean they have to let themselves be killed, of course. What you mean, I think, is that you don't believe they really thought one of them was really about to be shot. That they didn't say "Halt," and "Stop," and "Show me your hands," often enough; that when the officer showed Diallo his shield and asked to have a word with him, they should have considered that his not replying, not saying a single word, but instead backing into the vestibule, and pulling the black object out of his pocket, might have indicated the incomprehension of a new immigrant; and they should have considered that their partner's shout of "Gun! He's got a gun!" might well have been a misperception; and that when the cop fell backward off the stoop, and to the ground, after the gunshot, they should have kept in mind that sometimes people stumble. After McMellon fell down, and they thought he had indeed been shot, they rushed over to him: "Where are you hit? Where are you hit?" He wasn't hit. <<<They were not under fire, they were worried about possibly becoming under fire. >>> But they thought they were. The first to shoot thought his partner was about to be shot with the gun he thought he saw. The next three had been told there was a gun, and had seen their fellow officer fall. <<<I wouldn't say that if I hadn't had certain experiences. I have been shot at, with automatic weapons, without the option of shooting back. I've made the rational (if somewhat hurried) decision to act in a manner contrary to self-preservation under those conditions.>>> I know you have behaved heroically in your remarkable life, Steven, in ways large and small. But I have to point out that the circumstances were different; that you weren't, when you were being shot at, at risk every single day and therefore trained to follow certain specific guidelines for self-preservation over time; and that at the time you are referring to in which you made heroically dangerous decisions, you were imbued with a particular sort of inspirational fervor. And that, at the time, you didn't have two beloved, dependent, children.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (14225)	5/25/2001 7:11:59 PM
From: E	Respond to of 82486

When I said that I thought the circumstances indicated that the cops had, given the horrifyingly tragic way the situation unfolded, followed police guidelines, I didn't reiterate that the jury, a third of which was black, thought as I do. I would be interested to hear a suggested phrasing for protocols on how police officers should react in situations such as the one they perceived they were in. Here are a couple of excerpts from the testimony of one of the officers. I put them here out of sympathy, because I (and the jury) think these men have not been shown to be murderers, or racists, or trigger-happy, and have suffered horribly, and that it is an ongoing injustice. One of them recently took the examination to become a fireman. He scored very high, in the top, well, I forget, but about 5%. But there were protests that a "murderer" shouldn't be allowed the privilege of entering burning buildings, and the last I heard, his acceptance had been put on hold. Account of Carroll's testimony: When Carroll's gun's 16 rounds were emptied, he said he reloaded and slowly approached Diallo, who was now floored... Since Diallo still held the object in his right hand, Carroll said he still perceived him as a danger. Behind him, the officer heard his partners ask McMellon, "Where are you hit? Where are you hit?" [McMellon suffered no gun wounds.] Carroll said he slowly removed the object from Diallo's hand and noticed it was soft. It was a wallet. He then opened the wallet to see if it was a "wallet gun" he had learned about from police training films. But it wasn't; it was a plain ordinary wallet. Then the truth began to dawn on Carroll. "I believe I said, 'Where's the f---n' gun? Where's the f---n' gun?'" Carroll weeped. ...The officer then noticed that Diallo was still moving a bit and still breathing. "I figured I would try to perform CPR on the individual," Carroll said. "But then I saw the bullet wounds in his chest and thought, 'Oh God, I might make it worse if I press on his chest.' I held his hand and said, 'Don't die, keep breathing, don't die.' But Carroll said, there came a point when Diallo stopped moving and stopped breathing....