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As far as I can see here, three mistakes have been made:
1. The gun. Some people here seem to be blaming the parents for letting their kid have such a real-looking gun, but you can't realistically expect parents to constantly check every toy their kid has. The mistake here is not so much the kid having such a gun, but the fact the kid took it out in public and started pointing it at people. Now I don't know if the kid was never taught well enough to never point (fake)guns at people or if he just lacked any common sense, but a mistake it was.
2. The kid. If some guy aiming a gun at you tells you to put your hands in the air you better damn well do as he says. And you most certainly don't go pulling out a gun of your own. That only works in stupid movies.
3. The police officer. There is also significant blame on the police officer. His position may be somewhat understandable, but he still pulled that trigger. He had a split decision to make a decision and made the wrong one. This police officer does not seem to have been qualified to deal with children. Kids are naive, reckless and unpredictable. The kid was probably scared and panicked. Even if he did pull out a gun, the police officer should have been much more cautious and patient because he was dealing with a child, even if it would have put himself at increased risk. Especially when you think logically and consider it is about a kid, there is a large chance the gun is indeed fake. The best course of action would have been to gently approach the child without weapon drawn while making sure there is a second policeman nearby in case it does go wrong. More risky, but the probability of killing innocent children would be greatly reduced. After all, if you do not want to put yourself at risk you should not have become a policeman.

1. You sure can realistically expect parents to check all there toys as they should be the source of the toys in the first place
2. srsly
3. im honestly not sure what kinda patience the officer could of had as the first thing he said was put your hands up. and the very next thing was the kid reaching. there is literately nothing that could be done at that point. going in without a weapon drawn when he was dispatched against an possibility armed suspect is a sure fire way to get shot.

Literally the only time it would be acceptable is if you went in with a hologram, a robot, or terminator armor.

 easysauce wrote:
Threatening to shut down the thread ...

I'll take 'Yet Another Thing I Didn't Actually Say' for 20, Tony...


Against my better judgement, lets try this one last time...

twice in one quote you say that the cops made the wrong choice, because the gun wasnt real, emphasis was yours.

Yes, I did. Not because they should have been prescient, but because approaching the situation from the assumption that the gun was real was insane.


Around the country on any given day, I can guarantee that there would be vastly more 12 year olds playing with toy guns than there are 12 year olds going on shooting rampages. In this case, no shots had been fired. No threats had been issued. There was no logical reason for police to assume that it was anything other than a kid playing around.

They certainly should have been prepared for the possibility that it might turn out to be something more, because that's what police do. But charging in on the assumption that this kid had a real weapon and was about to shoot someone, with no evidence that this was actually the case, was the wrong approach.

If they were going to take that approach, they should have been prepared for the fact that a 12 year old confronted by police officers in that fashion was possibly not going to react in a logical fashion.

Instead, they treated a kid playing around like a criminal about to go on a rampage, and the end result is a dead kid.

Hang on.. actually

do we know if the officer had actually gone up to him with weapons drawn?

I cant find it on the original news flash.


All i could see was that the officer ordered him to put his hands up.

 insaniak wrote:

Yes, I did. Not because they should have been prescient, but because approaching the situation from the assumption that the gun was real was insane.

While in your non professional opinion that approach is insane,

There are far more numerous professional people that conclude its rational that the police force is specifically taught to never assume guns are fake, and never assume weapons are not present.


Armchair quarterback all you want after the fact with 20/20 hindsight, that officer had legitimate reason to think he was in immediate danger and reacted appropriately. Its only after the fact with 20/20 hindsight that we see it was not the situation it appeared to be.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
, the thread might as well be locked now.

again, own what you say, or be more careful about what you say. its clear what the intent of these words were.

 Desubot wrote:
1. You sure can realistically expect parents to check all there toys as they should be the source of the toys in the first place

But you can't hold the parents responsible for removing the orange part from a fake gun.

 Desubot wrote:
3. im honestly not sure what kinda patience the officer could of had as the first thing he said was put your hands up. and the very next thing was the kid reaching. there is literately nothing that could be done at that point. going in without a weapon drawn when he was dispatched against an possibility armed suspect is a sure fire way to get shot.

Literally the only time it would be acceptable is if you went in with a hologram, a robot, or terminator armor.

This trigger-happy 'shoot first ask questions later' attitude is what gets so many innocent people killed by the police in the US. The US is about the only countries where incidents like this are so common. When there is an armed suspect, you should try to negotiate first before shooting. At least, that is what the Dutch police does. It seems to work pretty well. Incidents with weapons here turn deadly a lot less often than in the US. I mean, American police drives around in tanks and is more heavily armed than the armed forces of some countries. That says a lot about American police culture.

 easysauce wrote:
While in your non professional opinion that approach is insane,

There are far more numerous professional people that conclude its rational that the police force is specifically taught to never assume guns are fake, and never assume weapons are not present.

And they're welcome to their opinion.

In this case, though, that assumption resulted in a dead 12 year old with a toy gun. Which, to my mind, proves that it was the wrong assumption to make.

 insaniak wrote:
, the thread might as well be locked now.

again, own what you say, or be more careful about what you say. its clear what the intent of these words were.

The intent of those words was to convey the idea that if we're just going to spend page after page debating things that I didn't actually say, there is no point continuing the thread. That's not a threat to lock the thread. It's a statement that the thread is pointless if it continues down that road.

I'm more than happy to 'own what I say'. I'm less ecstatic about owning what you insist I meant even though I didn't actually say it.

 insaniak wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
, the thread might as well be locked now.

again, own what you say, or be more careful about what you say. its clear what the intent of these words were.

The intent of those words was to convey the idea that if we're just going to spend page after page debating things that I didn't actually say, there is no point continuing the thread. That's not a threat to lock the thread. It's a statement that the thread is pointless if it continues down that road.

I'm more than happy to 'own what I say'. I'm less ecstatic about owning what you insist I meant even though I didn't actually say it.

You're a moderator. When you mention locking a thread, it definitely will come across as a threat to use your mod powers to lock the thread. You are either one of the worst at communicating via the written word or dishonest as all heck.

I can however realisticly expect parents to parent there kids and tell em not to feth around with an air soft gun. and realisticily they should of taught the kid to respect police officers and the gun it self as even if its a toy its not actually a toy.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
This trigger-happy 'shoot first ask questions later' attitude is what gets so many innocent people killed by the police in the US. The US is about the only countries where incidents like this are so common. When there is an armed suspect, you should try to negotiate first before shooting. At least, that is what the Dutch police does. It seems to work pretty well. Incidents with weapons here turn deadly a lot less often than in the US. I mean, American police drives around in tanks and is more heavily armed than the armed forces of some countries. That says a lot about American police culture.

This is wrong for this situation though

The negotiations started when he was told to put his hands up.

It would be entirely different situation if it was just say a knife. but a Gun is a ranged weapon that doesn't take but a second to point and click off.

(dont get me wrong i think those videos of people charging cops with knives is silly and those would generally be the best times for something like a taser)

As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

I dont think anyone made the claim that this is actually acceptable from any point.

But the call was correct from the information given

 loki old fart wrote:
As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

You realize that the police didn't just roll up and decide to shoot this kid, right? They were called because someone was threatening people with what appeared to be a gun. Be honest about things, please.

I've found myself disagreeing with Insaniak a lot recently, however, not in this thread.

I'm British and, to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a gun outside an airport, so... A bit of context from me.

It seems to me that the 12 year old involved, looks a whole lot like a 12 year old. - If not younger.

It seems to me, from an IT background, that the police in this case took an attitude of Risk Avoidance, as opposed to Risk Management. It seems to me, that in this situation with a 12 year old boy, police officers should be willing to shoulder the additional risk of the potential of the child actually carrying a real gun, and knowing how to use it well enough to injure or kill a police officer from range, versus the risk of, well, actually shooting and killing a 12 year old child with a toy gun.

Change the variables and sure, the weight of risk changes. Have the kid be older or put the situation in some place known for, say, child soldiers. - That weight of risk might change.

But honestly, I myself am drastically naive when it comes to dealing with the police or any such like. Even being nearly 30, a bunch of people jumping out of a car, yelling, "hold your hands up" at me and pointing guns at me, I probably would do something so incredibly mindnumbingly dumb out of the sheer shock and surealty of it all, I'd have a dozen rounds in my chest before I managed to say, "wait... what?"

Sometimes, I genuinely can't help but think I wouldn't survive a month living in the USA. And that's me having spent years in Paisley and Glasgow of all places.

 Compel wrote:
I've found myself disagreeing with Insaniak a lot recently, however, not in this thread.

I'm British and, to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a gun outside an airport, so... A bit of context from me.

It seems to me that the 12 year old involved, looks a whole lot like a 12 year old. - If not younger.

It seems to me, from an IT background, that the police in this case took an attitude of Risk Avoidance, as opposed to Risk Management. It seems to me, that in this situation with a 12 year old boy, police officers should be willing to shoulder the additional risk of the potential of the child actually carrying a real gun, and knowing how to use it well enough to injure or kill a police officer from range, versus the risk of, well, actually shooting and killing a 12 year old child with a toy gun.

Change the variables and sure, the weight of risk changes. Have the kid be older or put the situation in some place known for, say, child soldiers. - That weight of risk might change.

But honestly, I myself am drastically naive when it comes to dealing with the police or any such like. Even being nearly 30, a bunch of people jumping out of a car, yelling, "hold your hands up" at me and pointing guns at me, I probably would do something so incredibly mindnumbingly dumb out of the sheer shock and surealty of it all, I'd have a dozen rounds in my chest before I managed to say, "wait... what?"

Sometimes, I genuinely can't help but think I wouldn't survive a month living in the USA. And that's me having spent years in Paisley and Glasgow of all places.

At what point did the cops find out the kid's age?

Hint: after the incident. And the reporting mentions the kid is tall for his age which will make him appear older.

Have 12 year olds ever shot and killed people intentionally?

Hint: Look for links in this topic, click on them and read.

 Compel wrote:


Sometimes, I genuinely can't help but think I wouldn't survive a month living in the USA. And that's me having spent years in Paisley and Glasgow of all places.

It should be fine

just dont go around with a gun in your pants or run with a butter knife and you will be fine.

Edit: to add to jake as well there is no mention of actual age in the dispatch report

only that he was a juvenile threatening people with what looks to be a gun.

17 year olds are juveniles.

 Desubot wrote:

I can however realisticly expect parents to parent there kids and tell em not to feth around with an air soft gun. and realisticily they should of taught the kid to respect police officers and the gun it self as even if its a toy its not actually a toy.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
This trigger-happy 'shoot first ask questions later' attitude is what gets so many innocent people killed by the police in the US. The US is about the only countries where incidents like this are so common. When there is an armed suspect, you should try to negotiate first before shooting. At least, that is what the Dutch police does. It seems to work pretty well. Incidents with weapons here turn deadly a lot less often than in the US. I mean, American police drives around in tanks and is more heavily armed than the armed forces of some countries. That says a lot about American police culture.

This is wrong for this situation though

The negotiations started when he was told to put his hands up.

It would be entirely different situation if it was just say a knife. but a Gun is a ranged weapon that doesn't take but a second to point and click off.

(dont get me wrong i think those videos of people charging cops with knives is silly and those would generally be the best times for something like a taser)

The police of the United States are not, in the main, deserving of respect. They are little more than jack-booted thugs.

 Psienesis wrote:


The police of the United States are not, in the main, deserving of respect. They are little more than jack-booted thugs.

Your opinion has been noted but i do not share it.

 curran12 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

You realize that the police didn't just roll up and decide to shoot this kid, right? They were called because someone was threatening people with what appeared to be a gun. Be honest about things, please.

Yes let's be honest. A 12 yr old kid was playing cops and robbers in a kids play ground. The police stood 10 ft away and shot him.
Well done.

 loki old fart wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

You realize that the police didn't just roll up and decide to shoot this kid, right? They were called because someone was threatening people with what appeared to be a gun. Be honest about things, please.

Yes let's be honest. A 12 yr old kid was playing cops and robbers in a kids play ground. The police stood 10 ft away and shot him.
Well done.

You realize that there is no context to prove your claim he was just playing.

 loki old fart wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

You realize that the police didn't just roll up and decide to shoot this kid, right? They were called because someone was threatening people with what appeared to be a gun. Be honest about things, please.

Yes let's be honest. A 12 yr old kid was playing cops and robbers in a kids play ground. The police stood 10 ft away and shot him.
Well done.

Really? Where does it say he was playing? And playing so well that people were calling 911?

 loki old fart wrote:

Yes let's be honest. A 12 yr old kid was playing cops and robbers in a kids play ground. The police stood 10 ft away and shot him.
Well done.

That isn't being honest at all.

Funny you think it is, though.

 CptJake wrote:

Hint: Look for links in this topic, click on them and read.

In any case,



That certainly looks like a young lad to me.

 Psienesis wrote:
[

The police of the United States are not, in the main, deserving of respect. They are little more than jack-booted thugs.

Disagree wholeheartedly.

 Desubot wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

You realize that the police didn't just roll up and decide to shoot this kid, right? They were called because someone was threatening people with what appeared to be a gun. Be honest about things, please.

Yes let's be honest. A 12 yr old kid was playing cops and robbers in a kids play ground. The police stood 10 ft away and shot him.
Well done.

You realize that there is no context to prove your claim he was just playing.

Your right, he could have been ransoming the other kids for their sweets. definitely deserves the death penalty.

 loki old fart wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
As a kid I used to play with guns all the time. I had a 177 air pistol, that also fired bb's. I also had a real sten gun, from a scrapyard, it was decommisioned, and couldn't be repaired. But it made a good toy. I have never been threatened by police, or been shot at by them. I feel sad that American society has deteriorated
To the point that this is considered acceptable.

You realize that the police didn't just roll up and decide to shoot this kid, right? They were called because someone was threatening people with what appeared to be a gun. Be honest about things, please.

Yes let's be honest. A 12 yr old kid was playing cops and robbers in a kids play ground. The police stood 10 ft away and shot him.
Well done.

You realize that there is no context to prove your claim he was just playing.

Your right, he could have been ransoming the other kids for their sweets. definitely deserves the death penalty.

Also absoluetly no context to prove it.

But you know what information we do know? some one called 911 to tell em that there was a juvenile in the park THREATENING people with what looks like a gun.

How can you instant go from threatening to playing?

 Compel wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

Hint: Look for links in this topic, click on them and read.

In any case,



That certainly looks like a young lad to me.

How recent is that picture? How tall is he? We saw pictures of young innocent looking Mike Brown too. That picture in no way fits into the context of what the cops knew or saw.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
[

The police of the United States are not, in the main, deserving of respect. They are little more than jack-booted thugs.

Disagree wholeheartedly

Disagree all you like, but realize the police are not there for your benefit. They are, more and more, being trained and geared towards the defense of infrastructure. That is, they're there to save buildings, not people.

Are there good cops? Sure. Some.

But every department that has a Wilson and, worse still, knows it, and is covering for someone like that... that's a problem. It's a problem when a community that is 60%+ of one ethnic group does not have similar representation of that ethnic group in its police force. It's a problem when public oversight of the police is not permitted, or when such citizens' rights groups are ignored when they point out egregious issues with the way the police force of their area handles things.


there is no national database to track how many police shootings happen in any given span of time. This data simply does not exist in any reliable, worthwhile format. The FBI collects some data from some police departments from some regions on a self-reporting system that follows no national guidelines or requirements for what needs to be in that data.

... but it certainly follows how many police officers are injured or killed in the line of duty (under 50 a year, according to the latest data, by the way), while independent groups tracking police-instigated shootings are finding upwards of 2,000 shootings a year.

And it's not just events that culminate in someone's death. There's plenty of evidence to indicate that police departments across the country are basically havens for bigots, and these are just the ones we got to learn about! Not all of the below are violent cops, but simply a range of the police basically doing whatever-the-feth they want, regardless of the legality of their actions:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/03/watch-two-texas-police-officers-fired-after-being-caught-on-tape-beating-woman-slamming-her-head-into-countertop/
http://www.military.com/video/law-enforcement/police/phoenix-cop-fired-for-bad-behavior/2551559789001/
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2013/09/ohio-cop-caught-camera-terrorizing-family-bizarre-video/
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/kern-county-police-brutality/519392482b8c2a259500017f
http://aattp.org/caught-on-tape-texas-cop-executes-handcuffed-suspect-video/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ssCmc238s
http://copsbreakingthelaw.com/2009/07/lax-police-repeatedly-taser-unarmed-senior-citizen/

... and that took me a few minutes on Google to find. The events reported above are not particularly uncommon. The days of Mayberry cops are long, long gone.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
1. You sure can realistically expect parents to check all there toys as they should be the source of the toys in the first place

But you can't hold the parents responsible for removing the orange part from a fake gun.

You sure as heck can... It's along the same principles as bicycle helmet laws (that are rarely enforced)... It is up to the parent to force their children to comply with the local law. Just about the only thing a parent is not directly responsible for is if their child actually commits a crime (such as murder or arson), unless of course, it's proven that the child committed a crime at the direct of the parent.

This trigger-happy 'shoot first ask questions later' attitude is what gets so many innocent people killed by the police in the US. The US is about the only countries where incidents like this are so common. When there is an armed suspect, you should try to negotiate first before shooting. At least, that is what the Dutch police does. It seems to work pretty well. Incidents with weapons here turn deadly a lot less often than in the US. I mean, American police drives around in tanks and is more heavily armed than the armed forces of some countries. That says a lot about American police culture.

Look up the band "Pussyriot" and their treatment by the government of your beloved Putin


And actually, if you look at the stated reasons for Police Departments "need" for being armed with "tanks" and the like, yeah... it's our own damn fault, but it's a problem we could fairly easily fix. We need to end the "War on Drugs". Much of that armament is in response to cartels and other drug organizations being better armed as well.

 insaniak wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
"Making up arguments" such as stating that the officer in question was fully aware of the kid having a toy gun? I see.

Nobody said that.

That is precisely what you state. You state that the officer wasn't in an immediate threat situation because of the kid having a toy gun.

That's the way it read to me, also.

Then you didn't read what I actually wrote.

You said in essense, that the cop shouldn't have shot the kid because he was only 12 and obviously had a toy gun. Of course, you also said you were done with this thread.

 Psienesis wrote:

But every department that has a Wilson and, worse still, knows it, and is covering for someone like that... that's a problem.

Really... It's a problem that an officer like Wilson defends himself? Was he really supposed to just let a man who outweighs him by some 20 or so pounds just have his way...



Yes, there are places with bad officers, and I agree with your sentiment about them, however I completely disagree that Wilson is in that category. If anyone is in that category, it's that dude from California that went down in a blaze of glory (I forget his name though)