SHOOT FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER

How about a shot in the leg?

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has released mobile phone footage that seems to be at odds with parts of its story surrounding the officer-involved shooting of Kajieme Powell in the weeks after Michael Brown’s death.

According to St. Louis Public Radio, the police released the video Wednesday evening as part of an effort to be more transparent when it comes to violent incidents involving law enforcement. In addition to the cell phone footage, the department also released security camera footage of the alleged robbery, as well as the two 911 calls made to police.

Police were first called to the scene – less than four miles away from the spot Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was killed – when a local store owner reported the 25-year-old Powell for stealing drinks and snacks. A separate woman, meanwhile, also reported Powell for allegedly having a knife in his pocket and acting strangely.

As RT noted previously, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Powell was brandishing a knife and ignored commands to drop it. Dotson said Powell approached the officers carrying the knife “in an aggressive manner,” with an overhand grip, and was shot when he came within three or four feet of police.

In the newly released video, Powell can be seen walking in the direction of and yelling at the two responding officers, telling them to shoot him. However, his hands look to be at his side while this is happening, and he also appears to be further than three or four feet from police when they decide to shoot him.

Powell had a well-known history of mental illness, though it’s unclear how, if at all, that played into police decision-making. He was shot about 15-20 seconds after police arrived, about nine times total.

Speaking to CNN, Dotson acknowledged that Powell’s hands were down when he was shot, but said the man was brandishing a knife and walking towards officers at a close enough range that the knife was considered a lethal weapon.

“The officers did what I think you or I would do, they protected their life in that situation,” Dotson said, as quoted by the Huffington Post. He mentioned that tasers aren’t “100 percent” successful, concluding, “In a lethal situation, they used lethal force.”

Previously, Dotson also pointed to the safety of his officers as the most important concern.

“I think officer safety is the number one issue,” he said on Tuesday. “I think you have the right to protect yourself and defend yourself” if someone approaches you with a knife and gets too close.

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harry p.

It appears the guy wanted to be shot, he had a knife, i personally dont see an issue with how this particular incident was handled. They allowed him to get closer than i would have allowed someone approaching me with a knife in an aggressice manner.
The idea that someone can be shot in the leg to stop them from advancing or shot in the arm forcing them to drop their weapon in mostly hogwash and hollywood nonsense. Tension is too high, i shoot often and the average LEO i see has below average marksmanship skills (at least in my area).

PeaceOut
PeaceOut

Watching this video I didn’t see a whole lot of “defending” themselves by the LEO’s. It took them all of 15 seconds to decide to kill the dude in cold blood. Saying that is fucked up doesn’t even begin to describe how wrong that situation was handled. Pathetic.

dunce

It’s hard to say because it happens so quick … The officers had to make a quick judgement decision … If the guy is telling u to shoot him it definitely seems like he will do all in his power to attack u …

Regardless this was definitely a suicide by cop

bb

Good , one less black criminal on the streets of St Louis . Pls don’t give the typical bullshit about him having rights or they should have shot in the leg .To many people on this make excuses for criminals.

Billy
Billy

“Previously, Dotson also pointed to the safety of his officers as the most important concern.

“I think officer safety is the number one issue,” he said on Tuesday.”

Oh? When did “Officer Safety” replace the well-being of citizens? “Everyone goes home safe at the end of their shift” replaces “Protect and serve”…

Don’t get me wrong. If dude was mentally unhinged and had a blade and came at the LAW ENFORCEMENT goons, whatever happened after that is on him…

What burns my ass like a 3 foot flame is this Dotson asshole’s comments. They illustrate the shift in mindset from “Peace Officer” to “Law Enforcement” better than I ever could.

The ONLY reason governments – and their representatives, the Agents of the State (cops) – exist in the first place is to protect and ensure the rights of the citizenry. PERIOD. That’s it. That’s the whole reason they were invented in the first place. Anyone who has read the writings of our Founders know that this is so…

And, since the Founders wrote the Supreme Law of the Land that all Agents of the State – and the State itself – MUST abide by, you would think they would know that…

Putting their own well being ahead of that of the citizens is remarkably selfish and the “we’re better than you” attitude shows a jaw-dropping level of narcissism and disconnect. And it’s reflected in their comments.

Today it was someone you didn’t much care about that got dead. But, sooner or later, they WILL get around to either you, or someone you do care about…

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Iska Waran
Iska Waran

They probably had called in a pizza order for pickup and didn’t want to be late.

TJF
TJF

The only thing good about that is that the PD released that footage.

harry p.

Billy,
Officer safety has been their mantra for years, there is the political class, then the police/enforcer class and then the rest of are mundanes (grigg term). Most are in it for a paycheck and will continue doing what they are ordered to do as long as they are being issued checks.

After reading thru and watching it again this would have been a prime opportunity to use a tazer instead of a glock. I always try and look at the situation as if the cops are equal to us and how i would act, respond and be accountable. This is why i dont see much wrong with the actual footage and available facts here but think Officer GoFuckYourself should be in fucking jail because any of us doing exactly that would be in a cell (or a bodybag). Best thing to do would be to stop the special priveleges and “qualified immunity.”

Stucky

The unversal problem with copfuks is that their FIRST reaction to ANY threat …. no matter what the actual risk level …. is ALWAYS towards violence.

Merely talk back to, question them, disagree with them … even in the slightest, and what do they do? They put their hands on the gun. Keep it up just a few seconds longer, and out comes the gun pointed at you.

For fuck sake … they shoot PUPPIES because they “fear for their lives”. Bullshit excuse to SHOOT you!

There are OTHER and BETTER ways to handle mental patients. MOST are NOT violent. Waving a gun around and yelling at them is probably the WORSE thing one can do.

Sorry for shouting. I’m in a bad mood. Yet another copfuk killer. Krist. When will it stop? The 4th of never?

Billy
Billy

Harry,

Hell yeah, bro…totally in agreement with you…

But you missed one thing. How fucking CORRUPT they are.

“Officer Safety” up there? The one that looks like Mo from the 3 Stooges? That fat fuck gunned down some kid in a mall, then tried to falsify the report. See, the kid was legally carrying a concealed weapon. Had his state-issued permit and everything. (I say “kid” but he was 21, I think)…

Don’t remember what prompted Officer Fat Fuck to gun that boy down, but he DID NOT draw his weapon…

How do we know this?

Because the EMT’s who showed up afterwards noted on their inventory that the poor bastard had on him a pistol and magazine still in their holster. Afterwards, Officer Fat Fuck – or an accomplice – put that same gun on the ground near where the kid was gunned down and then photographed it. They tried to use that as justification. Too bad the EMT’s own paperwork contradicts them… OOPS!!

To make matters worse, “someone” broke into the kid’s home and stole some guns. At least one of these was used later on to try and bolster some bullshit “two gun” theory the copfuks tried to sell…

Officer Fat Fuck works – or at least worked, I don’t know if he still draws a paycheck there – for the Las Vegas PD. It’s pretty much an open secret that the Las Vegas PD is a wholly owned subsidy of the Cleveland Mob. They also own the Coroner’s Officer and the DA. It is also rumored that the PD is being used as Enforcers for the mob – they go after guys who don’t pay their gambling debts. Lots of guys with gambling debts being killed in “officer related” shootings…

See, every “Officer” involved shooting has to be judged by a Coroner’s Inquest. The last TWO HUNDRED shootings have been ruled “justified”…. two hundred? Gimme a fucking break…

When the Coroner’s Office did their “inquest” for the kid being shot, it was streamed live. The blowback was so intense, the DA decided that HE would make all judgement calls from now on about whether a shooting was “justified” or not…

Since then, 100% of all officer related shootings have been ruled “justified”…. different system, same result..

I don’t trust any of these sons-a-bitches…. none of em…

overthecliff

The answer to the police shooting people is to disarm the police. First responders should remain unarmed . If the first responder determines that physical violence may be necessary he should refer the problem to a committee of community representatives who could then and only then dispatch armed tactical teams. Tactical team members would have to receive sensitivity training and have constitutional law courses before serving on the team. Voila no more unnecessary police shootings.

Stucky

Ferguson: No Justice in the American Police State

By Paul Craig Roberts

PaulCraigRoberts.org

August 22, 2014

There are reports that American police kill 500 or more Americans every year. Few of these murdered Americans posed a threat to police.

Police murder Americans for totally implausible reasons. For example, a few days before Michael Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, John Crawford picked up a toy gun from a WalMart shelf in the toy department and was shot and killed on the spot by police goons.http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/family-man-killed-cops-walmart-demands-surveillance-video Less than four miles from Ferguson, goon thugs murdered another black man on August 19. The police claims of “threat” are disproved by the video of the murder released by the police.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/20/kajieme-powell-shooting_n_5696546.html

Five hundred is more than one killing by police per day. Yet the reports of the shootings seldom get beyond the local news. Why then has the Ferguson, Missouri, police killing of Michael Brown gone international?

Probably the answer is the large multi-day protests of the black community in Ferguson that led to the state police being sent to Ferguson and now the National Guard. Also, domestic police in full military combat gear with armored personnel carriers and tanks pointing numerous rifles in the faces of unarmed civilians and arresting and threatening journalists make good video copy. The “land of the free” looks like a Gestapo Nazi state. To much of the world, which has grown to hate American bullying, the bullying of Americans by their own police is poetic justice.

For those who have long protested racial profiling and police brutality toward racial minorities, the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson is just another in a history of racists murders.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/20/racial-repression-and-the-murder-of-mike-brown/print

Rob Urie is correct that blacks receive disproportionate punishment from the white criminal justice (sic) system. See, for example:

Mother Faces 11 Years in Prison

Myself, former US Representative Dennis Kucinich, and others see Michael Brown’s murder as reflective of the militarization of the police and police training that creates a hostile police attitude toward the public. The police are taught to view the public as threats against whom the use of violence is the safest course for the police officers.

This doesn’t mean that racism is not also involved. Polls show that a majority of white Americans are content with the police justification for the killing. Police apologists areflooding the Internet with arguments against those of the opposite persuasion. Onlythose who regard the police excuse as unconvincing are accused of jumping to conclusions before the jury’s verdict is in. Those who jump to conclusions favorable to the police are regarded as proper Americans.

What I address in this article is non-evidential considerations that determine a jury’s verdict and the incompetence of Ferguson’s government that caused the riots and looting.

Unless the US Department of Justice makes Michael Brown’s killing a federal case, the black community in Ferguson is powerless to prevent a cover-up.

What usually happens in these cases is that the police concoct a story protective of the police officer(s) and the prosecutor does not bring an indictment. As Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, are partially black (in skin color alone), the black majority community in Ferguson, Missouri, might have hopes from Holder’s visit. However, nothing could be more clear than the fact that Obama and Holder, along with the rest of “black leadership,” have been co-opted by the white power structure. How else would Obama and Holder be in office? Do you think that the white power structure puts in office people who want justice for minorities or for anyone other than the mega-rich?

The 1960s were a time of black leadership, but that leadership was assassinated (Martin Luther King) or co-opted. Black leaders sold out for prestige appointments and corporate board memberships. Today black leadership is marginalized and exists only at local levels if at all.

If the cop who killed Brown is indicted and he is tried in Ferguson, the jury will containwhites who live in Ferguson. Unless there is a huge change in white sentiment about the killing, no white juror can vote to convict the white cop and continue to live in Ferguson. The hostility of the white community toward white jurors who took the side of a “black hoodlum who stole cigars” against the white police officer would make life for the jurors impossible in Ferguson.

The trouble with purely racial explanations of police using excessive force is that cops don’t limit their excesses to racial minorities. White people suffer them also. Remember the recent case of Cecily McMillan, an Occupy protester who was brutalized by a white good thug with a record of using excessive force. McMillan is a young white woman. Her breasts were seized from behind, and when she swung around her elbow reflexively and instinctively came up and hit the goon thug. She was arrested for assaulting a police officer and sentenced by a jury to a term in jail. The prosecutor and judge made certain that no evidence could be presented in her defense. Medical evidence of the bruises on her breast and the police officer’s record of police brutality were not allowed as evidence in her show trial, the purpose of which was to intimidate Occupy protesters.

In America white jurors are usually sheep who do whatever the prosecutor wants. As Cecily McMillan, a white woman, could not get justice, it is even less likely that the black family of Michael Brown will. Those who are awaiting a jury’s verdict to decide Michael Brown’s case are awaiting a cover-up and the complicity of the US criminal justice (sic) system in murder.

If there is a federal indictment of the police officer, and the trial is held in a distant jurisdiction, there is a better chance that a jury would consider the facts. But even these precautions would not eliminate the racist element in white jurors’ decisions.

The situation in Ferguson was so badly handled it almost seems like the police state, in responding to the shooting, intended to provoke violence so that the American public could become accustomed to military force being applied to unarmed civilian protests.

Ferguson brings to mind the Boston Marathon Bombing. Two brothers of foreign extraction allegedly set off a “pressure cooker bomb” left in a backback that killed and injured race participants or observers. The two brothers were deemed, without any evidence, to be so dangerous that the entirety of Boston and its suburbs were “locked down” while 10,000 heavily armed police and military patrolled the streets in military vehicles conducting door-to-door searches forcing residents from their homes at gun point, while the police ransacked homes where it was totally obvious the brothers were not hiding. Not a single family evicted from their residences at gunpoint said: “Thank God you are here. The bombers are hiding in our home.”

The excessive display of force and warrantless police home intrusions is the reason that aware and thoughtful Americans do not believe one word of the official account of the Boston Marathon Bombing. Thoughtful people wonder why every American does not see the bombing as an orchestrated state act of terror in order to accustom Americans to the lock-down of a city and police intrusion into their homes. Logistically, it is impossible to assemble 10,000 armed troops so quickly. The obvious indication is that the readiness of the troops indicates pre-planning.

In Ferguson all that was needed to prevent mass protests and looting was for the police chief, mayor or governor to immediately announce that there would be a full investigation by a civic committee independent of the police and that the black community should select the members it wished to serve on the investigative committee.

Instead, the name of the cop who killed Michael Brown was withheld for days, a video allegedly of Michael Brown taking cigars from a store was released as a justification for his murder by police. These responses and a variety of other stupid police and government responses convinced the black community, which already knew in its bones, that there would be a coverup.

It is entirely possible that the police chief, mayor, and governor lacked the intelligence and judgment to deal with the occasion. In other words, perhaps they are too stupid to be in public office. The incapacity of the American public to elect qualified representatives is world-renown. But it is also possible that Michael Brown’s killing provided another opportunity to accustom Americans to the need for military violence to be deployed against the civilian population in order to protect us from threats.

Occupy Wall Street was white, and these whites were overwhelmed by police violence.This is why I conclude that more is involved in Ferguson than white racist attitudes toward blacks.

The founding fathers warned against allowing US military forces to be deployed against the American people, and the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the use of military forces against civilians. These restrictions designed to protect liberty have been subverted by the George W. Bush and Obama regimes.

Today Americans have no more protection against state violence than Germans had under National Socialism.

Far from being a “light unto the world,” America is descending into cold hard tyranny.

Who will liberate us?

5,000 Americans Killed by Cops Since 9/11

Econman
Econman

I happen to know a bunch of cops that are good guys. They privately say it has become like teaching, U can’t get rid of the bad apples & now everyone’s reputation is tainted. This makes cops nervous & fearful, add in bad training & lots of racist & this is what U get.

With black youth, the bad apples have tainted everyone also, so cops think all minority youths are up to no good.

With cops, teachers, & youths, some are bad, some good but not all of anything can be bad. I know how to shoot & can tell U these cops need to be taught how to take down someone with killing the last resort. It is possible.

Lastly, bb is back proving 1 bad apple spoils the bunch for Christian phonies. If all Christians were like bb, jihad would be very enticing to lots more people.

Billy
Billy

Econ..

I’ve heard that trope before… “Not ALL blacks are stupid, violent, sub-human Homo Erectus throwbacks!” Only this time, you apply it to cops…

Are ALL cops psychopathic goons who get off on the pain of others? No. Are they ALL Beta types that got picked on in High School, so they seek the AUTHORITAH! and power they were denied by life by wearing a State-issued uniform – then spend the rest of their lives dishing out “payback” to everyone? No.

But EVERY DAY we hear about some new outrage, some new heinous thing that the “other” kind of cops have done… blowing up a toddler with a grenade, then refuse to pay the medical bills. SWATTING a card game. Or some old lady. Or some mook who didn’t pay a parking ticket…

My answer to the “they aren’t ALL like that!” trope is the same as if someone said it about negroes: “I’m sure there are good ones. But I’m not going to look through busloads of them, looking for the one that won’t kill me in an effort to disprove the rule”

Better to assume they are ALL like that, and be pleasantly surprised when they don’t kill you, than to think otherwise….

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

The cops overreact, just overwhelming force, and BLAM! first before saying “Stop or I’ll shoot”. They view us Sheeple as all being criminals. Something has changed in the last ten years or so and I believe it’s their training.

Peaceout
Peaceout

Admin’s chart above says it all, even if you broke the number down to deaths per 100k of people or any other metric the results are still staggering. Unbelievable and a shame!

bb

Econman, I refer you to ROMANS 13 .*Read it meathead.When the whole house of cards comes tumbling down a lot of Christians will have to kill to stay alive .Notice I say kill not murder.

bb

Billy ,all cops are psychos is pure bullshit and you know it .

Billy
Billy

bb,

Let me guess… you got a Participation Trophy when it came to reading comprehension, right?

Don’t be fucking stupid on purpose, b…

If you re-read my comment, I agreed with Econ in that NOT ALL COPS ARE PSYCHOTIC OR CARTMAN BETA TYPES WHO JUST WANT TO DISH OUT PUNISHMENT…

I know they’re not ALL like that… for all of them – 100% of all the 19,000 police departments in the US to be populated by psychopaths – would be impossible. Even if I hand-picked everyone from a penitentiary, it still wouldn’t add up to 100%…

What I said was that I’m not going to go through busloads of them looking for the ones who will disprove the rule… in the simplest terms, I’m not going to go looking for the good ones. It’s safer for me to assume that they’re all going to try and beat/taze/kill me and then be pleasantly surprised when they don’t… same as with negroes….

Now… does that clear it up for you?

Mr Chen
Mr Chen

My buddy John’s favorite joke: Cop stops black dude and beats him up (or down). Black dude aks why?, I din’t do nothing. Cop says, if you didn’t, you were gonna.

Tisha’s fave: Cop stops two dudes in a car; beats up the driver then proceeds to beat the passenger. Why me? Aks the passenger. Because, says the cop, a few miles down the road, you were going to say, I wish he had beat ME like that.

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