Many ask: Was 30 rounds too many? (Omaha COPS crew member killed)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/many-ask-was-rounds-too-many/article_345a7677-bcd5-5eb8-b7c9-033e35996d43.html




Cortez Washington



Bryce Dion


POSTED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 2014 12:15 AM
By Maggie O’Brien / World-Herald staff writer

Social media was abuzz on Thursday over whether Omaha police officers acted excessively when they fired their weapons more than 30 times inside a midtown restaurant, leaving two men dead.

“Thirty rounds is really endangering the public,” one man wrote on Facebook Thursday. “Call them a hit squad.”

The shooting took place at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday along one of Omaha’s busiest streets.

But Sgt. John Wells, president of the Omaha police union, defended the officers’ actions, saying they didn’t do anything wrong by firing so many rounds at the Wendy’s at 43rd and Dodge Streets. The fast-food restaurant is scheduled to reopen at 10 a.m. today. On Thursday, a sign at the restaurant said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with all involved.”

FULL story at link: http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/many-ask-was-rounds-too-many/article_345a7677-bcd5-5eb8-b7c9-033e35996d43.html

[malthaussen]

1. Well, the chief has a point.

The idea that an officer is going to cooly double-tap the target in a situation like that is naive. All the training in the world isn't going to regulate panic reactions. Time and again, we see officers emptying their clips in wild fusilades. This was foreseen, you know, back when they decided to retire the old Police Specials because the drug dealers had "more firepower" than the police. With a six-shot revolver, you just can't pop off as many rounds as you can with an automatic.

While I am not overly sympathetic to the police in most situations, I think expecting them to act differently in this kind of situation is unrealistic. The focus, I think, should be more on finding solutions that don't involve gunplay, than in trying to regulate the gunfire once it has started. Even highly-trained and motivated Special Forces troops have been know to "spray and pray" when the shit comes down.

-- Mal

[Taitertots]

2. He only has a point if you accept the position that...

Innocent lives are less important than protecting officers from the very slim chance of injury.

[malthaussen]

3. No, you'd need that position for justification.

There is a difference between justification and expectation.

-- Mal

[Taitertots]

4. Your post sure sounded like an attempted justification

[malthaussen]

6. Nope.

I'll put it this way: instinct is not subject to justification. In a firefight, one reacts, one doesn't cogitate. Where the question of justification comes in is in asking whether gunplay should be initiated to begin with. Once that decision has been made, however, it is a pretty vain hope to regulate it, especially when the persons involved are civilians who are rarely put in that position to begin with. And police are civilians. Gunplay is only a minor (albeit dramatic) part of their work, and it is not unheard of for a policeman to serve an entire career without ever having to fire a shot. Your really can't train for that kind of situation.

The question should not be: was firing 30 shots excessive? The question should be: was gunfire the only alternative?

-- Mal

[Taitertots]

8. Claiming any action in a police shooting is "instinct" and beyond control IS a justification

Even worse, you are suggesting that we shouldn't even try to regulate the police when they are shooting people.

"The question should not be: was firing 30 shots excessive? The question should be: was gunfire the only alternative? "
The first question should be "was gunfire the only alternative". The second question should be "were the officers actions an acceptable reaction".

[malthaussen]

9. Well, we differ.

Presumably, we have different expectations.

-- Mal

[moriah]

7. Citizens are still more dangerous to police officers, on the whole, than vice-versa.

In 2008, there were about 461,000 sworn police officers. In 2010, a report shows that 247 fatalities were involved in the just under 5000 reports of police misconduct that made it to the media -- the only thing we have to go on.

The US population was about 303.8 million in 2008. In 2010, the US census said there were just under 10 million people who identified as African-American on the census ages 14-30. Cut that in half, and we have probably about 5 million people that seem to be in the demographic to more likely be targeted by police harassment and violence (young black men once they've achieved something close to adult height). Sadly, we may have to add 10-14 due to recent research.

In 2008, 41 officers were non-accidentally shot and killed in the line of duty. (This doesn't include the 4 who died of assault, 2 who died from being stabbed, 12 who died of vehicular assault, etc -- they seem to really like to report those and keep websites to keep track.) This is just one danger officers face from suspects -- and by their own statistics, the most common one aside from automobile accidents (no, getting run over by a suspect isn't an "accident&quot .

Based on this data, if we assumed that all 247 fatalities that generated a complaint of police misconduct (whether determined to be unfounded or founded) were of unarmed young black men (I really don't know how many, but it does seem like that's what we hear about), it's still at least almost twice as dangerous to be a cop insofar as your likelihood of getting shot and killed by a suspect than it is that the public have to fear death from police, whatever your age range or demographic.

The part that's fucked up about the whole thing is not that the chances of both violence against cops and cops killing unarmed kids are both "very slim", but that there's such a discrepancy in the demographics when it comes to these fatalities. It very well may be that every person killed in 2010 fit the sample danger demographic.

And talking about the tragic and needless loss of human life in terms of statistics, chances, or odds. That we do that in our society is pretty fucked up, too.

[Brother Buzz]

5. One could make the argument the police showed restraint

They left a dozen unspent rounds in their weapons, so stop saying that!