[UPDATE II - Showing the Real Face of Policing]
[UPDATE III - Digby Says It Best]
According to the DA's review, Lundie ordered Garth to the ground but he did not comply and instead quickly advanced on Lundie with the rake handle “held high as if about to strike a potentially lethal blow.” [Emphasis added]Refusal to immediately obey a police officer's "order to the ground" also justifies the use of lethal or deadly force.
This is the same precedent set in American-style justice as established by President Obama and his ordered killing of Osama bin Laden. The difference here merely an implication versus an accusation. The end results, however, are the same.
The Times-Standard reports today, Friday, May 6, 2011, that "DA determines officer-involved shooting was legal" - Sheriff's office cleared in last year's shooting on State Route 299.
Again, according to the report, we find two officers appearing on the scene of two men struggling over a weapon where deadly force is used to kill one of these men. Without knowing who the aggressor is and who is struggling to defend themselves, failure to instantly comply to the officer's orders results in a death.
In that report, Sheriff Mike "Downey said the shootings determination as lawful was not a surprise, but comes as a relief to the department." When you have an inbred system where one hand washes the other, I would guess not.
Downy also says something that is relevant to all people living in Humboldt County when speaking about the officer's involved in the shooting, who were "able" to duty shortly after the incident: "'They're at work,' Downey said. 'They're doing their jobs as they always have.'"
When two trained officers are supposedly forced and totally justified to use lethal force to deal with this kind of a situation, EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE is in immediate danger when confronted by any police officer. Any excuse that implies threat predetermines lethal force OVER arrest.
At the time it was reported that the so-called weapon, a broken rake handle, was not available for anyone to see. I don't see anything in the DA's report of the incident that addresses the "lethality" of the broke rake handle. Nor do I believe it was ever presented for public viewing. That broken metal rake handle goes right to the heart of "potentially lethal blow" since, apparently Robert Garth, the man shot, was using it to beat or assault another man. Which was the incident that first brought the deputies to the scene.
Lunging at someone with the threat of punching them out with your fist "held high as if about to strike a potentially lethal blow" can, in some circumstance, meet that justified standard. One really has to ask how business as usual is totally "justified" when such fragility was demonstrated by these officers.
[Source]
[UPDATE :: Saturday, May 7, 2011 - Showing the REAL Face of Obama, President of these United States]
Is this the America we live in? One where President Barack Obama, “[T]arget(s) American citizens for assassination without a whiff of due process”? What's this got to do with the local police departments use of deadly or lethal force BEFORE arrest?
In Glenn Greenwald's latest, U.S. tries to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, he says:
“The killing of bin Laden got the testosterone pumping, the righteousness pulsating, and faith in the American military and its Commander-in-Chief skyrocketing to all-time highs. It made America feel good about itself in a way that no other event has since at least Obama's inauguration; we got to forget about rampant unemployment, home foreclosures by the millions, a decade's worth of militaristic futility and slaughter, and ever-growing Third-World levels of wealth inequality. This was a week for flag-waving, fist-pumping, and nationalistic chanting: even -- especially -- among liberals, who were able to take the lead and show the world (and themselves) that they are no wilting, delicate wimps; it's not merely swaggering right-wing Texans, but they, too, who can put bullets in people's heads and dump corpses into the ocean and then joke and cheer about it afterwards. It's inconceivable that this wave of collective pride, boosted self-esteem, vicarious strength, and renewed purpose won't produce a desire to replicate itself. Four days after bin Laden is killed, a missile rains down from the sky to try to execute Awlaki without due process, and that'll be far from the last such episode (indeed, also yesterday, the U.S. launched a drone attack in Pakistan, ending the lives of 15 more people: yawn). ”Yeah! YAWN. – Dead is dead, right? They're all mentally sick and deranged. So what?
I'd say that REAL face of Obama looks a whole lot like a banshee?
[UPDATE :: Saturday, May 7, 2011 - What happens when kids refuse a cop's order]
Is this coming to Eureka and Humboldt County: "Cop Breaks a Kid's Arm and Tasers Him. His Offense? Saggy Pants."
In my book, communities that allow this kind of "overaggressive," over-policing - "the use of street-policing tactics against kids," deserve what they get.
[UPDATE :: Monday, May 9, 2011]
Cause of death
by digby
The location was convenient anyway:--Joe
A Connecticut man who was causing a ruckus in the lobby of a hospital died after being shocked with a Taser by police.
Police were called to Saint Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, Conn., at 12:30 a.m. on Sunday by employees complaining about a man causing a disturbance, the Hartford Courant reported.
Cops arrested the man and threw him in the back of their cruiser, where the man continued to act belligerent, police said.
One officer tasered the man and, shortly after, he fell unconscious.
He was rushed back to the hospital, where emergency crews tried to resuscitate him, but he died early Sunday morning.
Cops said an autopsy was planned to determine the cause of death.
Oh why bother? He was obviously going to die of something else (aren't we all?) so the taser couldn't possibly be the cause of death. Therefore, he died of natural causes.
Seriously, they are likely to say that he had "excited delirium" the organic disease that only manifests itself in people who are tasered by police. Taser international has spent a lot of money on junkets convincing coroners that this junk science is real.
h/t to bb
digby 5/08/2011 02:30:00 PM
Nice article, thanks for the information.
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