Sure, in my view this thread has morphed from the cop shot, the Church Lady died, the cop claims a justification under the law, the facts. To, he does not deserve to claim a justification for killing the Church lady because of __________ (insert rational). Rightly or wrongly.
Pointing ou, needlessly it seems, that user has posted what Church Lady is alleged to have done as if those are the settled facts, not just allegations of wrong doing by the cop. The again, it could be that if a alleged felon is shot and killed then the alleged charges become a defacto conviction due to the lack of a defense against those charges.
You've identified precisely my concern, which Grape and Skid seem to be so inclined to ignore/disregard.
Whether Mrs. Cook is guilty or innocent of the allegations
is relevant, regardless of her not being on trial, because the truth/validity of the proffered defense for her homicide lies
entirely on the truth of those allegations. It's not enough to judge whether what he
claims he perceived might justify the shooting, because he might lie. The objective truth does matter, although it may be that "you can't get there from here".
And this issue
is bigger than merely the scope of this case.
What, exactly, prevents the government/its agents from murdering
anybody, and simply making allegations of felonious behavior? Here, we having
nothing to back up those claims, except the word of the officer. Who, is of course, the person with every reason to lie, as his future is in jeopardy.
And, the presence of his skin/blood in the window groove is
not evidence proving his word. It
may be construed as supporting evidence, but then it
may equally be construed as evidence of the alternate scenario. The skin/blood proves that she drove off with his arm in the window; it does not prove that she did so feloniously. We still rely on the cop's word when we take it as evidence of felonious behavior. For, without hard knowledge of his prior actions, we do not know that he did not behave illegally in such a fashion as to justify her trying to flee.
And, once again, I'm not pointing this out because I want to play courtroom. I'm pointing this out, because, given what we know, nothing has rendered it
impossible for the cop to have been in the wrong. Therefore, it is
possible that the state, through its agent, simply murdered Mrs. Cook for no reason and without due process. Here's the thing: if it
can happen to "church lady", it
can happen to
you. And
this we should worry about. If the state
possibly can murder someone like Mrs. Cook, with nothing more than the word of a cop making allegations of felonious behavior, then the state (or its agents) can just as easily murder
any one of us, and simply make unsubstantiated allegations that we were, I dunno, going for our guns. If nobody is going to demand a higher standard of proof when taking the life of "church lady", do you really think they're going to care when it comes to someone who was carrying a
gun?
We mitigate these risks by carrying voice recorders, but nothing physically prevents a cop from simply destroying any recordings.
Here's the thing: we have the technology, money, and ability to change this, to render it far more difficult (if not quite impossible) for the state to do such. That the state, in this case, may or may not have
actually done so does not change the fact that, from what we know, it
could have murdered Mrs. Cook. That should be enough to demand
immediate reform of the standard of proof the government must provide when it goes, with prior knowledge, into a situation, and takes the life of a citizen.
Why, skid and grape, are you so intent on being apologists for this cop, and telling
me to write letters? Where are
your letters? Where is
your concern? Why am I encountering
resistance, of all things, to these eminently reasonable concerns and suggestions?
Seriously, last time, one of you asked me why the standard should be different for police than for citizens. And then
not two pages later we have all this baloney about how officers are
required to stop, with lethal force if they prefer (certainly not if necessary, as proven by this case), those subject to felonious allegations. I could just as easily ask why police should get all this extra authority and obligation. Instead, I far less controversially ask why they shouldn't be required to, you know, actually turn
on the video recorders they already have, and I encounter
resistance?
Do you know what it is when a double standard is championed if it benefits the police, but another, less severe, double standard is disregarded out of hand if it benefits instead the citizenry? Do you know what I call that? Can you guess what word I'm going to assign to such behavior? That's right.
Apologia.
You
seriously don't have a problem with any of this? You
seriously don't see how a cop, with all this extra authority and obligations, should be held to a higher standard of proof (which is easily obtainable, if only we passed a law requiring video recordings whenever a police officer has prior warning he is going to make a contact)?
[video]http://www.hark.com/clips/qlpprwrnbd-whats-that-suppose-to-be-somekind-of-sick-joke[/video]
Regarding user, I wish him luck, yet also wish that he fails in his defense. This case could affect the use of lethal force mindset by cops in the future if this cop is found to not to have been justified in his use of lethal force. Just as fresh pursuit laws have changed due to the conduct of cops doing their job under the law. Fresh pursuit laws were tweaked in some jurisdictions to limit the amount of death, mayhem, and liability, by cops doing 120 in 25.
I'm inclined to agree. Since nobody cares for reform, I'd rather like to see a conviction (although I'd prefer reform). If we can't get the proper restraint implemented by law, then at least we can jail those who act to excess. At least then there will be
some disincentive to such excess. And, if cops and their sycophants don't like it, perhaps they should find a different job, or accept reasonable compromise designed to safeguard the noncriminal citizen. Being that police lobbies fight relentlessly against such incredibly reasonable reform, I'm not going to lose any sleep of one if their number suffers jail time as a warning to all the rest, since they won't let us enact more reasonable disincentives into law. Frankly, I'm not going to cry if, after eating their cake, they can't have it too.