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3 Comments

  1. Martin Williams
    16 October 2015 @ 1:22 pm

    As a criminal defence advocate in South Africa and well versed in gun related homicides, my impression after looking at the video is that the officers version bears no relation to what is shown. It is presumed that he would have been unaware of the footage when he gave his version. It is also easy to be an armchair critic and spend hours dissecting what took place in literally a second or two.

    As a former Police Officer as well, It appears in my opinion that here is an officer that has never been properly trained. I cannot fathom why, knowing there is possibly a person armed with a firearm that you would drive right up to the person. Logic dictates that you stop a distance away and then using the vehicle as cover call on the person to drop what he is carrying and raise his arms and so on.

    The speed of the entire incident tells me that there was never proper warning to the youngster and that at best the officer panicked thinking it was a lethal weapon and fired blindly. There was never enough time to look for orange dots, give three warnings and so forth. Their version was simply to cover up their actions. I really cannot believe that he intended to murder this young man.

    Saying that he would almost certainly have been convicted of at least Culpable Homicide [unlawful negligent killing of a human being] in South African Courts.

    One must sadly also pose the question that under the identical circumstances whether this scenario would have had the same result if the young man was a white person. The answer l come up with is no.

    What is also shocking is that neither officer made any attempt to assist the young man. That goes to a callousness that does not belong in a Police service that is there to protect and serve.

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  2. Jason Kerpelman
    14 October 2015 @ 11:26 am

    These supposed use of force “experts” are the worst kind of hired-gun experts out there. They know that sympathy often rests with the police officers “who risk their lives every day to keep us safe” (a sentiment that will hopefully change with the increasing exposure of police misconduct by smart phone, body cam, and other videos), and they use “studies” that can be very compelling to juries. These studies, very contrived, supposedly show how quickly a “suspect” can grab a weapon and pose a threat. Contrived, but they work to great effect. The studies often aren’t relevant because who knows whether they depict the situation that was present for the cop, and usually there is no video so the cop can say whatever he wants (as Loehmann did, until the video made him a liar – I think police are actually trained to lie in this fashion, after all, they “risk their lives every day” so lying is okay…). But even if there is video that shows what the actual circumstances were, these “studies” can convincingly create an attitude of “even so, the cop was at grave risk.” See the videos that accompany this New York Times article:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html?_r=0

    Attorney’s representing the victims of these shootings need to figure out how to exclude these experts, or cross examine them into insignificance.

    And by the way, in my opinion, “the thin blue line” more accurately represents the Berlin Wall between police misconduct and accountability for it.

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  3. David Bates
    13 October 2015 @ 3:21 pm

    Philip – it’s hard to make meaningful comment about something like this. Tamir was a kid, for heaven’s sake. Kids play with toy guns. Policemen are supposed to keep kids (and others) safe. Words like incompetent and reckless and stupid (and a few others common decency won’t allow me to use here) come to mind. One can only hope for honest accountability now for Tamir’s sake, and one helluva shake-up in police operating methods. Why are these guys even police officers? My condolences to Tamir’s family. Best wishes from good ole Noo Zealand.

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