Columbus Cop Shoots/Kills 16-Yr-Old Black Girl Who Had A Knife

[macphanatic]

CW2V wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
[quote=CW2V]
...On June 10, 1983, Buck arrived at the house Tracey was staying at and demanded to see her. Tracey remained inside and contacted the police. Fifteen minutes later, with no officer in sight, Tracey exited the h....

CW2V

I am not certain what point you hope to make, but the tragic story you shared is typical of how police handled domestic violence against women and children until fairly recently. Tracey was lucky the officer came over at all.

While in this case the officer was obviously completely ineffective, that does not mean that jumping in with no thought or assessment is best. Police need to slow down and de-escalate situations. Too frequently THEY are the ones who introduce violence and urgency into situations, with sometimes tragic results.
The point was that the officer saw the young woman with a knife attacking another. It only takes a second for a knife to end a life in the right spot. The officer had a spit second to make a decision. He was not in danger. Another was. If he "Shot for the legs or in the air" a knife in the neck could've been the next thing to happen. Then what? There's too much gray here.

CW2V
Exactly! There was a famous court case years ago involving a store owner that shot and killed a robber with a bare blade. His defense attorney proved by demonstration in court that an old, overweight man could close a distance of 7 yards with a bare blade before the average person could unholster a gun and shoot.

The idea of shooting someone in the leg is hogwash. Great in theory but not reality. Plus, there were too many innocent people in the area. The officer had to shoot for center of mass.

There are bad cops. But, there are many more good cops who have no desire to hurt or harass people. However, politicians and the news are judging all of them without all the facts or true understanding of the situation that officers face everyday.

[RAMd®d]

It’s not admirable to kill a child, sorry. At best it’s the easy out. This fascination with certainty and guaranteed but narrow outcomes isn’t enforcement, it’s artificial justification based on pre-determined criteria, NOT situational criteria.


What a crock of BS.

You should be apologizing for deliberately mischaracterizing what I said to suit your agenda.

The officer did perform admirably.

As tragic as the suspect's death was, he prevented more tragedy.

That was abundantly clear in the video.

An easy out?

You presume much.



The other day cops killed a dude when they came to his house to arrest him on an outstanding warrant.

Not the same thing.



Anything else, while we’re speculating?


You said:

Folks like to play what-if. OK, I can do that. What if the best outcome was for the "truly innocent" (girl in pink about to probably get stabbed, right?) was to suffer a knife wound, possibly fatal, and that our victim here suffered I don't know, one, maybe 2 shots at most, possibly fatal?

The victim's safety and well being is something something you're willing to sacrifice on your speculation that two less shots might not have killed the attacker?

Maybe you'd like to run that by the parents of the "truly innocent" victim.

What's up with the quotation marks by the way?

I didn't say "truly" so you weren't quoting me.

Are you speculating she wasn't "truly innocent"?

I ask because quotation marks are used to denote a direct quote or imply some other meaning to a word or phrase, referred to as using scare quotes.



I wasn’t aware tasers at close range were unreliable enough to not even be worth a try. She looked like she had plenty of area and thin clothing for taser probes...


Certainly unreliable enough to use on a suspect who is wielding a deadly weapon.

Time and distance dictate what's "worth a try".

My observation is there would only be one chance, no do-overs if it didn't work.

If your strategy didn't work, what then?

What do you tell the family of the victim?

'Sorry, I was trying to safe the life of the attacker and thought I could pull it off'?



I’d be shocked (no pun intended) that someone would still have both the strength and coordination after such an encounter.


But you'd be more informed.

A web search would show that Tasers are fairly reliable, but don't alway do what's expected, and that gives one pause.

Time and distance are very key elements, as well as the specific circumstances of deployment.


Anything that stops someone, even if it’s just a shoulder tap, remains perfectly capable against a lethal weapon, right?


Maybe you should have been in the Berwyn grocery store, as you could have stopped the whole thing with a shoulder tap?



Maybe that’s why 4 is better than just one? Still no reply to that.


He fired until the threat against the victim was stopped.

He didn't fire 6, 8, or 10 times, he didn't empty the magazine.

The girl went down, dropping the knife shortly after.

Given time and distance, the officer could have fired as department training dictates, and fired again if necessary.

I say given the time and distance involved in this shooting, that wasn't an option, certainly not at the risk to the victim.

One last speculation on my part– a failure to prevent injury or death to a victim targeted by an attacker with a deadly weapon would have left the officer just as responsible as he would be for an unlawful use of force against an attacker.

[Lemon Drop]

Many questions here for an independent investigation.

12 minutes elapsed between the first 911 call and the arrival of the officer who fired his weapon .Somebody was making a second call when he rolled up but hung up before giving any info.

During that 12 minutes and whatever happened before, Ma'Khia did not injure anyone, it's not known if anyone was assaulting or threatening her. Nobody had been injured. It is not yet clear who made calls.

5 other people were present, men and women all older than Ma'Khia, before the officer arrived. Why did these people not leave and run if they thought she was going to injure or kill them? They had plenty of time.

At least one of them yelled in disbelief that the officer shot her 10 seconds after he opened his car door.


Lots of questions.

[Blankity Blank]

Lemon Drop wrote:
Many questions here for an independent investigation.

12 minutes elapsed between the first 911 call and the arrival of the officer who fired his weapon .Somebody was making a second call when he rolled up but hung up before giving any info.

During that 12 minutes and whatever happened before, Ma'Khia did not injure anyone, it's not known if anyone was assaulting or threatening her. Nobody had been injured. It is not yet clear who made calls.

5 other people were present, men and women all older than Ma'Khia, before the officer arrived. Why did these people not leave and run if they thought she was going to injure or kill them? They had plenty of time.

At least one of them yelled in disbelief that the officer shot her 10 seconds after he opened his car door.

This situation badly calls for a step back and a deep breath.

I look at these pictures and watch the video, and so far only come away with questions about tragedy.

• Ma’Khia is clearly welding a knife and shows every intent of harming the other young lady.
  
• Yes, she might have stopped for some impossible to guess reason, but she’s fractions of a second away from stabbing this young lady. Whose life do you gamble with in that sliver of time, the attacker’s or the victim’s?
  
• As much as the precursors to this moment will tell a larger story, in that moment of decision, those details are as far away as Mars as one person stands ready to injure or snuff out the life of another.
  
• Some of the bystanders are simply being bystanders being bystanders. But more to the point of why didn’t they run away (presumably because they themselves weren’t being threatened), was there no one there close enough in Ma’Khia‘s life to step forward and try and reach her, even a little, in her fury? The only action recorded being cowardly addition to the chaos.

[Lemon Drop]

Blankity Blank wrote:

Thanks for the comments and opinions. The questions I have can be addressed in an investigation. They are not answerable by anyone here.