Daunte Wright

[kray]

 

To give some context, Daunte Wright (the black male) was stopped for a traffic violation. During the stop, he was dragged out of his car by two police officers, and was being restrained on his car. I guess some fight or flight response kicked in, and he ended up fighting the police officers and getting back in his car, in which one of the officers tries to restrain him again, this time using her taser. Problem is that she ended up not using her taser....but her gun instead, and shot Daunte several times. The local police department decided that the best action was to put her on "administrative leave", which I think is not the right consequence the officer should face. She should be fired and charged with manslaughter. If a doctor "accidentally" kills his patient by  administering morphine instead of an IV, does he get put on administrative leave, or is he fired and put on trial? 

I also do think that this is a 100% racial profiling issue. If he was white or Asian, he wouldn't been dragged out and restraint for a fucking traffic violation. The response by the police needs to fit the crime.

What are your guys thoughts on this?

[Forestluv]

The first question is whether it's justified to have used the gun. If it's justified to use the gun, then it doesn't matter if her intention was to use the taser. 

Assuming it's not justified to use the gun (a big assumption)., then. . . 

If the defense can demonstrate it's reasonable that she she mistakenly used the gun, it would be involuntary manslaughter. An example of involuntary manslaughter would be a car driver hitting a killing a cyclist they didn't see. As long as the driver was otherwise driving responsiblly it's involuntary manslaughter and the penalties can be mild. Quite often probation, driving lessons, 60 days with an ankle bracelet etc is given.

If prosecution can show that she was grossly negligent and careless, it would be raised to voluntary manslaughter, which carries a prison sentence of a few years. 

Again, this assumes that it wasn't justified to use the gun. 

[kray]

32 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Again, this assumes that it wasn't justified to use the gun. 

She intended to use her taser, not her gun. But what's sad is the fact that a traffic stop lead to this in the first place. 

[Forestluv]

15 minutes ago, kray said:

She intended to use her taser, not her gun. But what's sad is the fact that a traffic stop lead to this in the first place. 

I understand that. 

If it was justified to use her gun, then it doesn’t matter if she intended to use a taser because a taser is a lesser weapon. 

Imagine a murderer with an AK47  breaks into your house and starts shooting at you. You shoot him in self defense and later say “I meant to use my taser”. It doesnt matter because shooting him with a gun is justified. 

[Arcangelo]

Come on guys. JFC. WTF is going on?

If I was a black man in the USA and a cop tells me to do something, trust me, I would do it.

What are they protesting for? 

I am sorry but enough is enough.

[Arcangelo]

And WTF If you are gonna escape you step down from the fucking vehicle. OMFG!!!

I am sorry. But...() people need to obey the police, if they don't wanna get shot.

The police is gonna think that you are reaching for a gun and kill you.

It's a survival situation. You can not be like: -''Oh wait what non lethal weapon should I use while this guy goes back into his vehicle and pulls out a lethal weapon  and kill me.

The lady grabbed what she could and did what she could.

This is not a George Floyd.

 

Arc

[Forestluv]

@Arcangelo There is more going on than “just obey the police”. 

[Preety_India]

@Arcangelo

What logic is this that If I don't obey the police, I need to get shot 

 

So if tomorrow the police officer is trying to rape me and I try to escape him, he gets the right to shoot me??? 

Bro, you're wrong on the constitution. 

Constitution reserves my right to STAND MY GROUND AND DISOBEY. 

 

It's called human rights 

Ain't no police deciding laws 

 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, kray said:

But what's sad is the fact that a traffic stop lead to this in the first place.

It wasn't a regular traffic stop. The guy had an outstanding arrest warrant. The cops had to take him in on that warrant and as they were doing so he started resisting arrest and fleeing.

Using a taser in that situation is fully justified. But not shooting him of course.

Although if he got in that car and started driving away, I think shooting at him would be justified too. You can't just get in a car and flee an arrest warrant and not have cops shoot at you. Keep in mind, that car can be used as a weapon, and it could contain weapons.

Of course the taser should have solved this whole problem. That is its function. Looks like the cop was panicking and got sloppy.

[Rilles]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It wasn't a regular traffic stop. The guy had an outstanding arrest warrant. The cops had to take him in on that warrant and as they were doing so he started resisting arrest and fleeing.

Using a taser in that situation is fully justified. But not shooting him of course.

Although if he got in that car and started driving away, I think shooting at him would be justified too. You can't just get in a car and flee an arrest warrant and not have cops shoot at you. Keep in mind, that car can be used as a weapon, and it could contain weapons.

Of course the taser should have solved this whole problem. That is its function. Looks like the cop was panicking and got sloppy.

Cops did another woopsy. Like they do a 1000 times every year...

[Opo]

The real question here is did that happen because the cop was a woman? ??‍♀️?

[Raze]

The police in America are very poorly trained, better training could have resolved this. They also should make the standards harsher for becoming a police officer, so they are better trained to keep cool in intense situations like this. 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Rilles said:

Cops did another woopsy. Like they do a 1000 times every year...

When you have tens of millions of arrests per year, you will have hundreds of woopsies per year.

[Bojan V]

What is so interesting and sad to me, looking at the american cops from my country, is how easy it is for these racist cops to kill black people and also how many people agree with that.

[Hardkill]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

When you have tens of millions of arrests per year, you will have hundreds of woopsies per year.

Do you think that our government and legal system will find ways to reduce the occurrence of these kinds of mistakes over time?

Edited April 13, 2021 by Hardkill

[vladorion]

I think there need to be more rigorous psychological tests for cops. Some cops are just not fit to do the job. The moment they sense danger they start shooting.

[Forestluv]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It wasn't a regular traffic stop. The guy had an outstanding arrest warrant. The cops had to take him in on that warrant and as they were doing so he started resisting arrest and fleeing.

Using a taser in that situation is fully justified. But not shooting him of course.

Although if he got in that car and started driving away, I think shooting at him would be justified too. You can't just get in a car and flee an arrest warrant and not have cops shoot at you. Keep in mind, that car can be used as a weapon, and it could contain weapons.

Of course the taser should have solved this whole problem. That is its function. Looks like the cop was panicking and got sloppy.

One of the witnesses in the Chauvin trial yesterday (Seth Stoughton) was an expert on reasonable force standards in policing. He has been a police officer, detective and law professor specializing in police force. He offered interesting models based on 1) threat of xyz, 2) opportunity, 3) ability and 4) foreseeable outcomes. As well, he made distinctions about threat vs. risk, training vs. acceptable standards and how a "reasonable officer" would perceive a situation based on the information at the time. 

I often think of these things as being highly subjective, yet he was super objective. I've never seen anyone describe reasonable force standards so objectively before. 

[Forestluv]

38 minutes ago, vladorion said:

I think there need to be more rigorous psychological tests for cops. Some cops are just not fit to do the job. The moment they sense danger they start shooting.

I agree. Yet I also think this is a difficult skill and training is involved. People that are oriented toward "kicking their ass" as a hyper aggressive desires or a catharsis for their own repressed issues, should be screened out from being cops. Yet being a cop has inherent dangers and serious risks to a cop's health. It takes skill to be able to make fast judgements and resolve a situation with minimal harm. I'd say training is needed. 

I watched a documentary showing a training method that involves hooding cops. The cop stands with a hood over their head. They can't see anything and are in a vulnerable position. They have a virtual gun. Then a scenario outside of them is created. It could be a large man with a knife about to stab them, a person with a cell phone, a person reaching out to grab them - etc. All sorts of scenarios with different threat levels. Then the hood is lifted and the cop has a split second to react. At first, most cops shoot quickly which may be expected. The demo is also very real. It may look like a real madman about to stab you. And the guns sound real and if you shoot, blood is all over and the person really looks like they have been shot and are dying. 

One thing I found interesting is that a lot of cops in training were really shaken up by the demo. As well, some seemed to genuinely believe they were threatened. One woman gunned down an actor - she shot him like five times until he was motionless. Afterwards, she was in another room in distress. They asked her to explain what happened. She said when the hood was lifted, there was an armed man about to shoot her, so he fired. She said after 1-2 shots he still had his gun and was pointing it at her. The training officers told her it was actually a man with a cell phone. When she shot him, he reached his arm out begging for his life. The officer could not believe this and thought they were lying to her. She was adamant he was armed and trying to shoot her. And she seemed 100% genuine. Then they showed her the replay video. She started shaking and was in extreme distress. She considered dropping out of being a cop. Yet she went through a few months of this training and got better and better. By the end, she was responding with great judgement. 

[kray]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The cops had to take him in on that warrant and as they were doing so he started resisting arrest and fleeing.

I understand that, and I personally think that he should not have resisted. But what you need to understand that him resisting was a result of a natural reaction people have to situations like this, fight or flight. Its been proven. In this situation, he knew he was going to die either way....which he did. That's the problem. And also her using a gun instead of a taser is not her simply being "sloppy", its her not doing her job correctly. The whole point of police training is to be able to handle situations like this, and if you can't be work under situational pressure, then you should not even be a cop. If a firetruck driver accidentally ran over a civilian, him being "sloppy" isn't an excuse.  

[kray]

@vladorion agreed. In America, the average training is just a few months. In Germany for example, cops have to go through training for two years. Considering that America is the most violent, crime-ridden developed nation in the world, it would make sense to make police training longer and more intense. At the end of the day, police are public professionals. Any average Joe should not be able to join the police force.