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this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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It's insane that they're just opening fire, while innocent drivers are passing by on the opposite side of that highway.
You can see a bullet bounce off the barrier. (3:19)
Like WTF is wrong with your country that you allow your police force to just fire off their weapons in public like that?
None of those cops give a flying fuck about the general public in the background, and people are stunned that they killed the hostage they were supposed to be helping?
SOP. The only thing that matters to cops is that cops aren't put at risk. Everyone else is entirely disposable. Here's a hostage situation where the cops killed the suspects, the hostage and a bystander. The cops, of course, investigated themselves and found themselves to be entirely innocent. They have also refused to release the ballistics report from the investigation, in much the same way that the cops who murdered this girl investigated themselves and determined that she was in tactical gear and shooting at them. They then tried to bury the video that shows that those two statements were easily-disprovable lies.
If I were to just guess to the reason(s) US law enforcement is so inept, I'd say training and recruiting are a huge part.
Training: There's apparently no universal training requirements for law enforcement officers. Many organizations and/or states have their own requirements, but there's also situations where that is not the case.
The following is purely anecdotal, so make of it what you want. I'm sure it's not universally applicable. In my social circles I have a few police officers, and one of them told me of an exchange program, where he had gone to somewhere in the south east of the US. On a ride along with a deputy, they talked about training prior to patrol duty. Said deputy claimed that they had had no prior training, but was hired on the basis of a high school diploma, a drivers license, and no history of drugs or criminal behavior. First day on the force the deputy had been equipped with uniform, badge, gun, and a patrol car, and a couple of hours later had been driving about town, uniformed, armed, and extreheeemely nervous. Training hadn't begun until 6 months later, and in the meantime that deputy had been driving around, scared of getting flagged down by civilians, because he/she had no idea of what to do.
What kind of system allows you to drive around armed with both a gun and qualified immunity? (rhetorical question, we know what kind)
In the recruiting part: Turning down applicants for having an above average IQ https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 does seem weird, unless you want mindless drones carrying out orders without reflection.
I think they believed it was the father running out. She was apparently wearing tactical gear.
She was out of the car and crouched down alone by the passengar door when one of the cops said "its her, shes out the passenger door" and yelled at her to walk towards them. Dispatch said the same thing at the same time. As shes walking (not running) clearly unarmed towards the cops as instructed, several other cops RIGHT NEXT TO THE ONE THAT TOLD HER TO WALK TO THEM shoot her several times and kill her.
There was controversy the same day about what happened to her. The sheriff's department blamed her dead father, then refused to release this footage for 18 months, only doing so when sued by a journalist.
Youre giving these violent murderers way, way, way to much credit.
How do you know which officer is giving instructions, who they are near, and who heard it?
In the video, I see at least eight officers, at least 20m away from the vehicle in all directions.
Who was the one that shot her?
Is there another source you can reference explaining the details? Because there's no way anyone could know based on the video and article.
That said, this is about as American as a police interaction can be.
Facts matter. I'm not in the position to defend anyone, as it's hard to know exactly what happened, even after watching the video several times.
When you're in a situation where bullets are flying from both the "'good" and "bad" guy, innocent victims can, and do, get killed. This happens more often than you'd think, and there isn't a perfect way to end a situation like this. Everyone's life is at risk when you've got a murderer in a car not willing to surrender.
The narrative that all those officers, except for one, wanted the KIDNAP VICTIM to be shot and killed is so deranged and incomprehensible outside an American mindset.
Let's not lose focus here. The father who kidnapped her is ultimately the one to blame. His actions led to her death.
This is a wild take. These cops (all of them present) are to blame for where the rounds from their firearms go.
So it was the cops who woke up that day and said "I want to kill an innocent girl today", rather than the guy who actually got up with the intention to kill his family?
We obviously have two different perspectives, but I could never see it that way.
Its not a binary choice and presenting it as such is manipulative. Those cops where there to do what?
If it was to protect the populous then they failed miserably, shooting wildly into the public many times.
If it was to save the girl then they failed completely when they murdered her.
If it was to show everyone they are in control and had the situation in hand then they failed spectacularly when they made the whole situation into chaos.
If it was to bring the father to justice for intending to kill his family then they failed tragically when they helped him out by killing his family for him.
The idea that no matter what the cops do its the accused fault is so ass backwards to anyone outside of the USA. These chuckle fucks made a bad situation much worse while showing off their massive incompetence. Hell what would have happen if they all did not show up for work that day?
I don't disagree. It was a total failure on their part, but a situation like that one really had a very slim chance of success.
Why did they attempt it then? I am sorry but poor choices in when to engage and how are still on the cops here.
All they had to do was not be so trigger happy, people need to be held responsible for the bullets that are coming out of the firearm in their hands.
From what I understand from the reporting, they may not have been aware if there was a danger or not.
She ran out wearing tactical gear, and they allegedly had reason to believe she may have been involved in the prior shooting(s).
Miscommunication? Likely.
Keep in mind that these are regular officers, not the SWAT or tactical unit. They have some very limited training for these situations, but can't be perfect in their execution, especially in an uncontrolled environment such as a madman with a gun who's in control of a moving vehicle.
Even in cases where a suspect is barricaded in a home and has someone hostage, there's a very real risk of harm to the victim. It's a miracle when nobody gets hurt, but noone can predict the outcome.
I can predict that a bunch of yahoos opening fire irresponsibly into a hostage situation is cartoon levels of stupid that will lead to outcomes that are "undesirable".
In this case it is compounded by the fact she was told to walk towards the cops and while doing so was killed. There is no feasible explanation on the actions of the cops, and since you replied to my question with further damnation by saying "they may not have been aware if there was a danger or not." we can clearly put this down as a boondoggle at best.
A more long term issue is the more and more of these crappy cop reactions to almost any situation happen and are shared, when does it become rational to open fire on cops preemptively? If you are just as likely to get killed by following directions then why not try and take a few with you?
This will not end well for anyone, and the more people make piss poor excuses for poor police behaviour the worse it will be.
The idea that you have to have wanted something to happen to face consequences for it happening is going to set a lot of folks free from prison though.
No, because the justice system balances the sentence based on intent. Homicide, 2nd degree murder, 1st degree murder, etc.
This is why drivers who run over pedestrians often get no jail time, while someone who plows into pedestrians on purpose goes to jail for a long time.
You could most certainly make a case that the officers could have been negligent, which caused someone to be killed.
Then why is your entire contribution to the thread a deflection of any suggestion of consequences?
Really? I do think there should be accountability and consequences.
What degree of consequences depends, I guess, on how much animosity one might have towards law enforcement. I don't think that's a very balanced way of looking at things.
the guy she was going towards knew it was her, and he was calling her.
it looks like someone else started the "she's coming right for us" and then others joined in - but the original cop immediately shouted "stop its her" or something.
so seriously fucked up.
Sounds like none of them had or followed any sort of proper protocol, and they should all be kicked off the force, charged with murder, and never allowed to work as police ever again
Put on paid leave for a few months and then quietly transferred to another police station, you say?
Nah, they'll be allowed to retire early due to PTSD and receive a pension and disability for the rest of their lives.
still have yet to see any evidence this is true. doesn't look like it from the video.
Quite literally in the article:
"Savannah was wearing tactical gear and a helmet as she walked toward a deputy, the Sheriff’s Department said."
Maybe the father was using her as a decoy.
Cop statements aren't evidence, they are cop statements. Should I link all the cases (Let's start with Walter Scott) where what cops said was true wasn't?
Of course, you can't trust everyone. There were like 50 people there, including EMTs who could vouch. The video we saw was highly compressed and censored, so it's hard to see what she was wearing "at ground level".
That said, this happened nearly two years ago. Original reports stated that she was wearing BODY ARMOR, and may have been a “participant” in shooting at the officers during the pursuit.
I'm not going to investigate this. It was tragic, and I hope justice is served to whomever it needs to be.
...but you're pretty sure whomever that is, it's not the cops.
I hope when you eventually realize police aren't to be trusted it's not that you dug in your heels all the way until you had a tragic encounter with them that actually affected you. That seems to be the threshold for a great many folks, and it's a huge contributor to the slow progression of police reform.
Good day to you.
Hmm, no. Obviously, they admit to shooting her.
The question is, was it an accident? Negligence? or premeditated? Consequences should follow once that's been determined.
In the context of a shootout with someone in the vehicle she came from (initially reported as possibly her), and with either mistaken identity or reason to believe she may have been armed, it's going to be hard to say that they intentionally caused her death.