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Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

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Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#131
post #95
post #10

It sort of blows up the whole pro gun control argument that citizens shouldn't be expected to have to protect themselves but instead rely on law enforcement :p

Other take: north of a dozen "good guys with guns" didn't do jack-shit. Other other take: military bases have very strict gun control, far in excess of the civilian world, despite hopefully being far more reliable, stable, and law-abiding than the general population. It makes them more vulnerable in certain rare cases, but they judge it to make them far safer in general, so the rules stick. Other other other take: pr…

>north of a dozen "good guys with guns" didn't do jack-shit.

The "good guys with guns" clearly had no investment in a positive outcome, unlike the parents who were fighting the police to save their kids. A "good guy with a gun", by definition, has a personal, moral obligation to save lives...something that those police obviously lacked, so classifying them as such is disingenuous.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#132
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen some of them passed around. They're not secret as far as I can tell. They pretty obviously are just embarassed by their failure.

There's an outside chance it's even worse than what we know now - maybe they killed a kid or two, or did something otherwise more shameful than expected.

I mean, they kinda-sorta already did...

>“When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her,” the boy said. “The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting.” The police got a student killed, according to the survivor’s story.

https://www.vox.com/2022/5/27/23143997/the-uvalde-police-kee...

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#133
post #13

I’ve wondered if someone could run for mayor of Uvalde on the simple platform of firing everyone in their police force, and eliminating pensions for any police officers deployed to the school.

In Texas ? Likely not. we are here in this debate over and over after columbine, sandy hook and countless others because there is strong minority who either don’t care or believe gun freedom is worth the cost. I don’t think uvalde is going to change that overnight

They were talking about taking the police to task for cowardice or incompetence, not running for gun control.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#134
post #63
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want to find yourself in harm's way, don't become a police officer. Legally required or not, they knew the risks when they signed up, they knew what they were trained to do, and then they... didn't.

I think the point is that they should be legally required to intervene when a crime being committed but currently are not.

The problem is that they're equally as likely to be crucified if they jump in, and do a dumb thing and accidentally kill someone when others think that it was avoidable. There are just as many people crying "why didn't they just shoot the shooter in the leg to incapacitate him".

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#135
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not willing to put your life at risk, you should not be a first responder. Plain and simple.

Calculated risks, yes, like going in to the same building as an active shooter. They're not going to jump in front of a bullet to protect anyone else, though. The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

> The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

This is fundamentally wrong. If it were ok, let's just disband them all and save a lot of money since their responsibility doesn't benefit anyone other than themselves. I reject the concept of a society where this is somehow ok.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#136
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not willing to put your life at risk, you should not be a first responder. Plain and simple.

Calculated risks, yes, like going in to the same building as an active shooter. They're not going to jump in front of a bullet to protect anyone else, though. The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

Firefighters can and do frequently put themselves at far more risk than any police officer ever will. Police don't even rank up near the top of the list in terms of most dangerous jobs to hold.

If the police cannot do their jobs to save children from being killed by a school shooter then they should not be police officers. They should not be militarized and given advanced equipment, they should not pretend that they ever need it and their budget shouldn't be the majority of a town's spending. And if they don't like it, then maybe the police and the police union can do better campaigning on actual ways to stop school shooters instead of using it as an excuse to further increase their own budget.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#137
post #134
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that they should be legally required to intervene when a crime being committed but currently are not.

The problem is that they're equally as likely to be crucified if they jump in, and do a dumb thing and accidentally kill someone when others think that it was avoidable. There are just as many people crying "why didn't they just shoot the shooter in the leg to incapacitate him".

I'd rather someone be crucified for fucking up than for not doing anything at all, in this instance. Time is a massive factor in these situations, and time was massively wasted.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I happened to be on the jury for a case assessing the murder of an Uvalde police officer by an Uvalde school parent I would not vote "Guilty" under any circumstance. Realistically, I think what this situation means is that the police, at least in Uvalde, need to be disbanded and reformed and serious steps need to be taken to ensure their failure is not repeated. I think such serious steps include charging the cowa…

You're basically asking for a Supreme Court shakeup and an overturning of stare decisis. That's the only way any criminal charge would even be on the table for discussion.

I don't think so.

If I were an Uvalde prosecutor (and I'm not even a lawyer so I have limited knowledge of the law) then I would charge the police on the grounds that they protected the murderer from the parents without actually doing anything to arrest or kill the murderer. The police were effectively serving as protection for the murderer. It would be legal for the police to detain the parents in the course of the police doing their duty - for example, the police could hold the parents back while other officers engaged the shooter, but if the police aren't fulfilling their duties then they have no legal reason to detain the parents and are therefore engaging in criminal acts to facilitate the murder of children.

I would take a list of the children who died and charge all of the non-responsive officers with the murder of the first child on the list under this theory. If a jury rejected it then I would charge the officers for the second child on the list, possibly with an updated theory of the crime to account for double jeopardy or to anticipate the police officers defense, and keep going until I found a sympathetic jury or ran out of victims.

If the supreme court, or any superior court, would overturn this case that would have to happen after the case was decided in the lower courts and while the officers languished in jail and I would fight to delay any overturning as long as possible.

Apart from the law, the basic facts of the matter are that nineteen children were murdered and the police are largely responsible for that fact. Of course the murderer is the one who ultimately killed the children, and bears the most culpability, but the police had ample time and opportunity to engage the murderer and save the children and did not. Morally, the police are absolutely responsible and I think a creative and aggressive prosecutor could find a way to present the fact pattern such that a jury would agree.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#139
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might win the election, but you won't manage to deliver on pulling the portion of their pension already credited.

I would run on bankrupting the entire city before paying one dime on the police officer’s pensions

Will the bankruptcy court then seize the city's assets and prioritize creditors?

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They maintained control with minimal personal risk to themselves. From a "policing realism" perspective that's exactly what police do. Preventing or ending any sort of crime or violence is optional at that point, and they opted not to. This is extremely at odds with how the police want to be perceived , and managing that contradiction is certainly their biggest concern right now. From that perspective it's easy to un…

Charging in against someone with an AR-15 and some cover is suicide. It's hard to fault the cops on this one. The 2012 Florida nightclub shooting was a roughly comparable situation - barricaded shooter, substantial firepower, hostage situation.[1] It took three hours to stop that guy, and the cops had to punch a hole in a wall with explosives and an armored vehicle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub…

> Charging in against someone with an AR-15 and some cover is suicide.

If so, that is a clear cut case for banning it completely.

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