In the US, yes. His was filed off / painted over. In the UK, no. Skirmishers can have RiFs (replica imitation firearms), non-skirmishers get guns painted in dayglo colours.
Justified or gun happy?
- Thread starter Kronos
- Start date
In the US, yes. His was filed off / painted over. In the UK, no. Skirmishers can have RiFs (replica imitation firearms), non-skirmishers get guns painted in dayglo colours.
Congratulations, 3 innocent kids have just been shot by a 12 year old because you spent too long "analysing the situation" from behind the safety of your police car.
No he isn't....
Dist86 said:
That quite clearly states lets go around offering poeple, not the child in question.
No one has said he should be allowed to have fired, stop putting words in people's mouths. The people who disagree that what happened was the correct actrion have stated that the officer should've waited until the weapon was being raised at them, which it wasn't as per....
Cleveland deputy police chief Ed Tomba said:
Few things here.
1) wasn't a toy gun. It was a gun capable of firing pelets.
2) The orange indicator (to identify it wasn't a real gun) on the gun was scratched off.
3) I played army at school. Using my hands as gun worked fine. Toy gun would be fine too, as long as you don't scratch off the orange indicator.
4) I owned BB guns and air rifles from a young age, my kids will probably to. They were never allowed to leave the house / back garden, my parents lookd after them whilst not in use. Same will apply to my kids.
If I let my child walk the streets with a replica firearm, let alone take it to school I would have failed as a parent.
Following that simple rule my children will not be at risk from being shot by police.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Nov 2011
- Posts
- 4,906
That gun looks very real, and doesn't surprise me why he got shot. Poor lad. 
If he was going to shoot them, then those 3 hypothetical dead children would've been killed before 2 armed police officers were pointing guns at him and screaming orders.
Except people keep posting the excuse that people do unpredictable things when panicked...
wouldnt have made any difference in this case he had it in the waistband of his trousers so it would have been obscured
he reached for it and they shot him..so they wouldnt have seen it was fake before he was shot dead anyway
Depends, the articles aren't that clear on when exactly he was shot, might have been when he initially reached for it, might be when he was pulling it out of his trousers, might of waited until they could see whether or not it had the orange indicator.
The one thing I take away from this is that american cops are pretty quick when it comes to shooting their citizens. The default action comes across as 'apply deadly force'.
This case deserved better.
When you add to that the militarisation of the police force, where the equipment and training are more geared to producing 'overwhelming and deadly force', then it's inevitable that they will increasingly shoot first and ask questions later, and lie or interpret the events to make them look less culpable - as is quite often the case.
I don't mean in this instance specifically, however there's a lot of cases when the police in america have shot and killed people who have done nothing to warrant their fate. I'll not provide examples here - google can do it for you.
I can only hope that our government here does not decide to use the same training and tactics for our police (some of them are inept enough as it is without having the ability to carry firearms). I'd not like to see that level of force and coercion used here. Unless it involves brazilian electricians, then it's ok.
This case deserved better.
When you add to that the militarisation of the police force, where the equipment and training are more geared to producing 'overwhelming and deadly force', then it's inevitable that they will increasingly shoot first and ask questions later, and lie or interpret the events to make them look less culpable - as is quite often the case.
I don't mean in this instance specifically, however there's a lot of cases when the police in america have shot and killed people who have done nothing to warrant their fate. I'll not provide examples here - google can do it for you.
I can only hope that our government here does not decide to use the same training and tactics for our police (some of them are inept enough as it is without having the ability to carry firearms). I'd not like to see that level of force and coercion used here. Unless it involves brazilian electricians, then it's ok.
Except that he pulled the gun out when challenged which suggests he'd put it away and wasn't waiving it around and threatening anyone when the officers arrived.
Good post.
A member of public phoned the police. If the indicator was still on they may not have phoned the police as they would have know it was fake or they could have passed the information to the operator that the gun had an indicator on it.
And so when told to put his hands in the air, he made a move for a suspected weapon. What is your point? You seem intent on trying to lay blame at the feet of the police. I'm no fan of cops, growing up in Northern Ireland, but god damn, if I was a cop in the US I'd shoot a baby deer in the face if I thought it was reaching for a weapon, despite their lack of hands or opposable thumbs.
When you have a gun culture you can't expect your police force, those who uphold the law, who put themselves in harms way to protect the public, to be less equipped than the masses.
But you're right. This will in turn create many, many problems.
And when challenged may have pulled it out to try and warn the police away, attempted to take a hostage, etc.
There are so many variables, it's impossible to make any judgement call about what may happen, other than the most basic "is he cooperating, or does he look like he might try to use the gun", particularly when you need to make that decision in a split second.
It's very easy to make the judgement with the benefit of hindsight, but given the information the officers had at the time, I don't feel they did anything wrong.
That when the officers arrived he...
a) had the gun put away so he wasn't directly threatening anyones life.
b) by the police's own admission wasn't threatening anyone or pointing it when when he was shot.
I've made those points pretty clear throughout the thread.
He was 12. He knows who the police are. He knows what a gun is. He knows what 'put your hands in the air' means.
He didn't listen. Unfotunate. But it is that simple.
But he didn't did he, it doesn't go from pulling out the gun to being pointed at someone with nothing in between.