Yes, I would argue that shooting the kid was the wrong move.

I hope you got shot for no good reason

All right, what should the cop have done?

Hypothetically: I'm being aggressively charged by a teen who probably smokes brick weed out of a Pepsi can while his parents sleep and I have:

Pepper spray
A night stick
A Mag light
Fists
Taser (maybe not still viable)
A 9mm

I'd like to think I wouldn't be rattled enough to reach for the gun. Then again, I'm not a 100% sure, that's why I shouldn't be a cop.

The cop allegedly fired after the kid had charged him and was pounding him to unconsciousness. And the medical report on the cop showed "significant facial trauma", so this wasn't one of those fake George Zimmerman moments.

If that's the way it actually went down, so be it. Unfortunately, it's impossible to ever know. Maybe, I had a knee jerk reaction, I think we've all seen too many police brutality videos.

I too have an initial reaction "more police brutality" when these things happen. But then I often ask myself what I would have done in the officer's place, and if I can't see a nonviolent option that would let me come home alive, I tend to side with the cop.

I call bullshit on "pounding him to unconsciousness", there's almost no time between him using the tazer for refusing to submit to his 'authoratah' and shooting the kid to death.

Even the IDF occasionally shoots to wound, while mr piggly here had to empty the clip on a lanky teen.

In an ideal world, cops would have partners with them.

I gotta be honest, none of us here are cops. The cop probably has an escalation of force procedure, like what me and fellow marines had in Iraq. If you're in imminent danger you're allowed to skip a few steps. Ultimately I think the cop was acting on self preservation when he shot the kid.

And the IDF doesn't shoot to wound, they shoot until the target stops moving, same with any military force. I hate hearing that shoot-to-wound bullshit, it's a dumb matrix-y myth about the use of firearms. If you shoot someone, that's probably going to be a use of deadly force, because you don't shoot someone into submission, that's one of the dumbest things I've heard. It's like using power lines to stun someone.

And that summary of this video is misleading, and this debate is starting to get youtubey because SolRo is now commenting. Fuck.

Bort asks what I would do if I was the cop.

Well, I guess after the third or fourth person flashed me for having my hi-beams on, I would have gone back to the station and had someone either replace the lights or mess up the bezel so I would stop being such a hazzard to other drivers at night.

But what a cop does, is pull everyone who tries to tell him this over and give them a big cop lecture about how right he is and how wrong they are and by the way, he's such a nice guy, he won't taze and shoot you _this time_.

Maybe it would be clearer to eveyone how fucked up this is if the boy was black.

If a black kid rushed the officer and the officer needed to defend himself, I'd be on the cop's side there too. Not because I think cops should have carte blanche to mete out violence, but because they should be allowed to defend themselves.

BVBB, you can't expect the average schmuck off the street to have a good grasp of lethal force engagements if all they've seen is TV. It's no fault of theirs, and probably to their moral credit that they imagine having the presence of mind (let alone the physical ability to shoot accurately and quickly) to "shoot to wound" in a low visibility engagement. The armchair after-action reports typed by a white middle-class college educated civilian living a life of comfort do piss me off, but I can empathize with the sentiment. This had no reason to go so bad.
There are a lot of questions here, though, I was under the impression that cops rolled two deep at night as a more or less universal SOP.

Yes, that is true, but you are neglecting all the events prior to the fight. The police have _all_ the authority and the power. At any point in this interaction Frost could have de-escalated the conflict. He choose not to, and those decision(s) lead to him killing the boy.

Just to be clear, Officer Frost is driving around at night shining super bright lights into the backs of peoples cars. When they try to alert him to this ( as he admits on camera, multiple times ) he would pull them over and hassle them. Sounds like Officer Frost was badly suited for police work and should be manning a desk somewhere.

That's a good point, doc. I think it would have gone differently had there been another cop. That being said, I get upset when people think that shooting someone with the intention of wounding them is a proper use of a firearm.

Escalation of force is is used because we have to adhere to some rule or conduct in wartime, and in counter insurgency warfare. We were taught the "shout show shove shoot" rule, but things can happen, like if someone charges you, that following every step is impossible in relation to self-preservation.

I don't know what the other person's intent is, I can only control my own actions, and if the other is willing to comply with my requests as dictated by the law, then it's all gravy. But if someone is on top of me, punching me, harming me, and I'm alone and am unsure of when help arriving, I'm not gonna flail a baton at them, or spray them. You can still function with pepper spray in your eyes, and a baton is only as useful as where you hit them. At that point it's kill or be killed. I'm not taking that chance, and the cop was, ultimately albeit sadly in the right for not taking that chance either.

This is what I disdain about armchair moralizing, there are so many idiotic myths and advice pieces about how to deal with the police. There's not impartiality, no logic in this debate, it's all YouTube comments.

Oscar, if your idea of telling someone a complex piece of info like "your lights are too bright" is flashing your high beams at them, then you're creating an unsafe incident yourself. Maybe the cop should have given the kid that piece of advice, that's a fair point. Except he did, and he told he kid that, and then asked the kid for his id and registration. It's a sad thing, but I'm on the cops side on that point.

And who goes driving with their ID?

Uhm, yes. That is exactly how I, and the rest of the driving public, will tell you when your hi beams are on. How could you not be aware of this?

Also: Boy is 17 years old. Does he even _have_ a license? Could be why he is so nervous and squirrelly when pulled over.

You are NEVER supposed to flash your high beams at someone at night. It will cause dazzling, which is a great way to blind someone, and you never look into the headlights either. If someone is driving with high beams on, do not look into the light, drive defensively and move on, don't retaliate, don't flash back and don't take it upon yourself to correct them, that's for the cops to do.

What the fuck is wrong with people when it comes to driving and following the rules?

This is driving 101. I'm sure the kid might have had a learners permit, but he probably didn't pay attention in class about low-light driving. I think you can get a ticket for flashing high beams at someone, too, or it depends on what state.

I've had cops wait for me to drive by and shine their spotlight right into my eyes when on the road.

Ha! Now we know what lecture officer Frost gave to the previous four fools who had the temerity to alert the officer to a potentially life threatening problem he was creating.

Let's savor the Evil here for a moment. Frost is shining klieg lights into other cars. Every time someone signals to him to stop it, he pulls them over and gives them a big lecture about how _dangerous_ it is to flash your hi beams at someone. How could you? I almost drove off the road because I couldn't see! Now I could charge you with assault, or a traffic violation for flashing me, but this time, I'll go easy...

That's terrific. Here's my five, B.

Yeah, flashing brights at people is bad driving. You are taught to look to the right and hug the right side if someone has their lights too bright. Flashing your brights at, say, a potential drunk driver, isn't going to make the world a better place.

Sad that this kid was shot. As usual, I'll wait a while before I claim to know what's actually happening, as details take time to surface.

However, I do know this, had this been Israel, this would have been handled in the most proper and responsible way.

Stop it, baleen, we all know Israelis don't have headlights. They don't even need bras.

Oscar: I don't think I'm getting my point across. It doesn't matter why you committed an unsafe act; it's still an unsafe act. That's why you're taught defensive driving in school, you don't flash someone with high beams if you think their lights are too bright because now you have both drivers disoriented, double the accident potential double the fun.

There's nothing evil about Mr cop man guy for upholding the law (if the law in that state forbids improper use of HID lights), so what if his lights are bright? If it's bothersome or you think it's dangerous, honk your horn, don't replicate the same act like some asshole father who makes his son smoke the whole pack of cigarettes as punsihment for getting caught lighting a fag. Ooo! Ooo! You're doing a bad thing! Let me do the same bad thing to show you the error of your ways!

And here is the kicker: if you think the ticket or whatever from the cop is unjustified, you can have your day in court to argue for your innocence. Don't argue with the cop, take the punishment; go to court. This isn't fucking Russia, if you can argue your case either by lawyer or by yourself you will probably get off without penalty, no bribes needed.

I blame the kid, tragic as it may be, he made some awful choices and showed a total lack of understanding of our common law system. He died like an idiot. What a waste.

Without penalty?

You really are kind of naive and a bit overly idealistic about how America functions. It is not an unexploited gross imbalance of power kind of system. What if he couldn't afford that lawyer, or the court costs he would have racked up even if he won? He could win one day and be in jail in six months for that win.

http://tinyurl.com/qeasx9q

Don't forget he's dead over headlights.

In Israel the poor boy (goy?) would have been driven over numerous times by other drivers, all with their hi beams on.

"If it's bothersome or you think it's dangerous, honk your horn"

Or turn your lights off and on. That's the universal signal for "check your lights".

"Don't forget he's dead over headlights."

Headlights, assaulting a police officer, same thing. There's all kinds of ways the kid could have walked away safely from this, and most of them have to do with his own choices.

Yes, and it takes two to kill someone and have a survivor. The cop had the most power, in fact, ALL of the power, and yet we're so cynical here we just assume the cop is a mechanism that has no choice but to kill when a variable is flipped to true.

Don't be cynical like me, demand some humanity from law enforcement.

Oh no, Beav, I get your point exactly. It's dangerous to flash your beams at someone. Agreed! But to whom? Me, the flasher? I suppose, but not much you know? It's the other driver who's going to lose control. And who might that be? Why, the guy making it likely that I'm going to lose control! Now, you may say that this is an Evil thing and not a Good thing to do. I readily concede that point.

"Don't be cynical like me, demand some humanity from law enforcement."

I see a cop who was doing his best to be reasonable with somebody who would have no part of it.

As has been noted, the kid seems to have been playing at being a Sovereign Citizen; how firm his convictions were we can never really know, but they were at least firm enough to prefer to attack a cop rather than offer the minimal cooperation required for the cop to just do his damn job.

The cop may have had more power, but the kid still had enough power to decide whether the encounter would be peaceful or violent. He chose the latter. It was a futile, pointless, wrong-headed choice that served nobody.

I think our disagreement is to whether or not a citizen (Sovereign or Otherwise) should adopt a baseline assumption of "cop is friend keeping me safe" or "cop is unhinged killer looking for an excuse." I think the latter is a more accurate assumption, and that assumption could save a lot of lives.

Maybe citizens should be taught the rules of thumb for surviving a hostage situation when dealing with police. That could maybe lower the rate of mechanically triggered executions, or foolish and pointless challenges of their power.

No one is going to mouth off to the Taliban militia if they kidnap you, perhaps this will work in these situations too.

At least we agree this should be scrutinized.

We agree on that -- there are countless cases where police use force at completely disproportionate, unreasonable levels.

I've gotten traffic tickets before, and somehow they didn't escalate into violence. I'm white; that helps. But then again this kid was white too. Perhaps the uncanny fact of my survival had something to do with not attacking the cop after being uncooperative at every prior stage. Whether I consider a cop a "friend" or a "killer", either way I am not served by putting the cop in a position where he has to defend himself.

This kind of shit is the reason I would never want to be a cop. While in some regards, the translation of skills from the military to the police is quite natural, it absolutely blows my mind how many of my peers ended up in LE careers. Depending on what you spent your time in the service doing, the idea of staking your life against the imperative to follow protocol to the letter is challenging, if not downright crazy. Even with the current strictures and severe consequences regarding ROE, situations are still treated as being more flexible than they are ever portrayed and ultimately reacted to stateside. Beaver-san summed it up pretty accurately; when shit gets weird, all bets are off.

Not to mention the fact that I have no desire to stop and cite/arrest people for speeding, smoking weed, flashing their high beams etc. Maybe I am not really the cop type, but I do believe in the rule of law and generally maintaining order for everyone's good. That is what you have to do as an LEO. And in doing so, go into those situation with a modicum of caution that places your safety at a great disadvantage. No thanks.

That is my .02, but I'm curious if anyone has anything to say about the police/military transition.

Meme: I'm not really sure that going into traffic court results in destitution. Normally if it's a citation for something like flashing lights at someone it may be a minor fine, like 50 dollars. Court costs are generally low, too, in MD I went in to plead guilty for a speeding ticket and I got my points dropped and paid a reduced fine, court costs added. It was 100 dollars. They offered a payment plan.

I think there's a lack of understanding of our civic institutions by many Americans. That's why getting a lawyer is recommended. At most, it would cost another 200 dollars. With payment plan. Or a pull a loan, a great way to build credit. Or if the kid had his learners permit, he would have gotten a warning, or at the very worst, a PBJ. If he was polite to the cop he probably would have gotten a lecture and then let off on his own, probably wouldn't have even asked for a license. I'm not sure on that, tho.

All I'm saying is the kid is an idiot.

Oscar: you should read into what defensive driving is, you seem to be rather aggressive. And mean to cops. I'm calling the cops. I am the cops. I am the law.

I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise. The kid is definitely an idiot about a lot of things. What you'd expect for a 17 year old boy, no?

I watched the clip again. The money shot is at 3:14. Here is where the officer explains that he's been flashed multiple times that evening by people unable to see because of the tanning salon bed the guy has strapped to the front bumper of his cruiser. His response to this is to pull _every_ person who flashes him over to explain how dangerous _they_ are driving. So the first 3 or four people aren't idiots, and they communicate to officer Frost that his lights are too bright. His response? DOUBLE DOWN! ESCALATE! I AM RIGHT! YOU ARE WRONG! Kind of sounds...idiotic, doesn't it?

Needless to say, you spin that wheel enough times, eventually you'll pull over another idiot. And when two idiots combine, we get fodder for this website.

Maybe not malicious, but certainly incompetent. I thought he shot him while he was lying down. Either way, shit police work.

What would "competent" look like in your mind then? Incapacitating this kid before he had the opportunity to charge? I'm pretty sure that would look like brutality.

Short of a sweet crane kick, I'm not sure the officer had that many options.

as others have mentioned; pepper spray, baton, fists, etc.

I'm ok with death for being a dumb, know-it-all, 17 year old sovereign citizen.

Couldn't agree more with 15th. I was a little shit as well, and now I'm a productive adult. Cops dealt with me when I was young as well, and they all seemed to understand the vital difference between petulance and danger. This looks like the actions of a cop with confidence issues.

there's also the baton, fists, etc.

they're supposed to be trained to use those.


right now it's tazer or death

The police should be immediately shut down and replaced by the National Guard until a new (as in NO ONE formerly a cop has a job now) force can be trained in a Federal police force.

Police states rights needs to end, either voluntarily or in a war. I don't care which.

I think the reworking makes sense. Also, for perpsective that one should compare police to teachers. We all know how they are- teachers slip up on facts and can have days of bad moods. Police are the same.

Although being in a tense situation and having a slip-up with a firearm can lead to death. They should be given a kind of adjusted examination based on the fact that police inherently have to go to trouble and confrontation.

ROUS THEY REMEMBER YOU AT THE FORUMS
YOU'RE REMEMBERED FOR BEING A STUPID PIECE OF SHIT
WHAT IS THAT LIKE

seems like all of Bo news, aside from xiphias, has a giant inferiority complex against PoE.

hahahha oh my gooooooodd

HAY GUYS MY MENTALLY JR HIGHSCHOOL-AGED CLIQUE DOESNT LIKE YOU! YOU SHOULD CARE! YOU SHOULD CARE A LOT!!!

DONT YOU WISH YOU COULD SIT AT OUR TABLE?! WELL YOU CANT BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT COOL ENOUGH!

WHAT, YOUR MOM MADE YOU A PB&J SANDWICH?! LAME!! I GOT LUNCHABLES AND GOGURT!

CHECK OUT MY NEW BMX BIKE! WATCH ME DO A WHEELIE!

jesus christ solro

all are welcome even bootlickers

Waugh, but he was shitty and mouthed off. He was a shitty person. I don't think he should have died.

Also, it's nice that Bo News remembers me. Please tell them I say hello and wish them well as they are trying to save the world and make it a better place for everyone. Keep on shining your bright light of inspiration as you lead others, who are simply drawn to your natural compassion and leadership skills. Thank you for leading by example as you communicate with your fellow humans using wit, charm, and the confidence that comes with years of not bothering to fill yourself with pointless vitriol.

i'm not even going to begin trying to explain what an incredible piece of shit you are for promoting this kind of attitude, just tell me where you live

I live wherever evil strikes at the hearts of men!

In other words your basement.

you're sharing snuff videos on some internet backwater and you're calling anybody else an evil basement dweller

you don't have to share your home address, if you're scared. just tell us what town you're from, we can hang out sometime

Waugh don't take offense to this but you're a complete fucking psycho. I come here to try to shrug off the horribleness of some things in life to make them less awful, and make jokes, such as the one above where I said something about your basement because you're being creepy and I'm returning that by making fun of you and also being creepy.

Look, just don't get your panties in a bunch and then pretend you want to hang out with me sometime. It's not believable in the slightest. You obsess over people here and it's unhealthy. Go for a walk or a run or go collect stamps or something. Take up cooking or taekwondo or something that brings you joy. You aren't making yourself happy here, all you're doing is making yourself miserable and trying to make people here miserable. Why? People die every day. We watch these videos as reminders of how life can be different and we can make choices to ask our leaders and society to change. Getting emotional over it won't help anyone and if you are this affected, don't watch shit like this. It isn't helping you.

Go do something that doesn't hurt you or anyone else and try to make yourself happy in life. That is my advice and I hope you take it. ROUS OUT.

even if i were a "complete psycho" i'd still know that blaming victims was wrong.
you dipshits think you can just discredit your way out of any criticism that isn't presented on your terms, don't you.

so let's talk it over in person sometime hahaha cmon
cmonnnnnnn

Kill yourself.

Darwin Award by Tough American Bouncer!

Bouncers don't kill themselves. They are made of sterner stuff than thee or me. They are our vanguards against chaos, our knights in the dark.

Never forget the Bouncer's Oath.

"In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, Beware my power, Tough Bouncer's light!!!"

more Seinfeld logic from the BLM crowd. He got pulled over for no reason the yadda yadda yadda the cop shot him to death. You yadda yaddad over the part where he attacked the officer

And you apparently yaddad over the part where I said he goaded the kid into attacking him.

On one side, you have what is supposed to be a responsible adult supposedly trained in dealing with tough situations. From the beginning, he does nothing to defuse the situation. He only becomes more and more antagonistic.

On the other side, you have a young dumb kid whose still-developing brain is saturated with hormones that likely affect his decision-making process.

The officer is supposed to be a trained professional. Instead, he acted like another teenager, thumping his chest and pushing the kid to make a move so he could be free to retaliate.

Yes, the cop got beat up. But the point is, he made it happen.

Maybe he's sovereign citizen. Maybe he's in a militia. However, that doesn't justify emptying a clip into him. Call for backup. See Solro's points about better non lethal options. Incidents like this just add more self justification to SC's minds.

The kid charged the cop. You can even see it in the video.

Then, if you Google the story, you will find that there is medical evidence strongly supporting the officer's story that the kid got on him and was pounding him towards unconsciousness.

There are plenty of times the cops are in the wrong, but there are times when the suspect is to blame. This is the latter.

The kid made a tactical decision and knew the cop's ranged weapons would take him down, so he had no choice but to charge. He knew the moment the cop approached that his life was probably over, and it was going to be the cop or him. Angry animals noises didn't work, so fight or flight it was.

It turned out to be him, but only because the cop was better armed, not because he was correct.

Cops aren't sentient, treat them like mountain lions. The only hope for survival is to fight back. Sheep and wolves.

I agree completely, meme, he should have rolled and gone for the backstab

I gotta be honest, I'm not sure I'm seeing the same video as you guys did.

The rush happens at 5:25. The first shot is fired at 5:37.

Bad Beaver, this is how I flirt with Bort, it's memeperbole. I think Doc saw that ("ranged weapons" gave it away).

What's nice about poeTV is it's pretty much middle of the road with this issue. Some are slightly on the jackboot licking side, some are slightly on the Nuremberg III side, but no one is on the Americans are the enemy of the holy cop gods, or the copcentration camp side. I gauge the reactions of the Internet at large against poe regularly, and most other places have all pretty much defaulted to "kill all cops" mode in every single instance. Poe is not an echo chamber, and still has a bit of the "moderation through adversity" of the secular American spirit. Hell, where else can you go to argue about America with an angry Russian? Best result of the Cold War possible.

It's also disconcerting, because the police unions and the police are absolutely escalating the tensions with the American people. They think, probably, that they can force the government to side with them, naively unaware that our secular society means we can vote in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome any time we want (I think we keep the fascist party around just as an American autodestruct device). The token pressure valve releases of pretending to maybe, but never, indict or prosecute murder-cops aren't working anymore and the voltage is rising towards breakover. The 2016 elections is the last pause button people are going to tolerate.

I don't want citizen brutality to replace police brutality, it isn't a solution. Now... if only the citizens had a less than lethal way to save themselves by neutralizing the wild feral pig.... like some kind of... taser.

I'm seeing a kid running away after pleading with the officer in fear.

What meme said, it is indeed what's fun about this place. I'm going to disagree with meme (and others) on various issues, but I see it as actual disagreement and not operating on completely alien / irrational / broken logic and misinformation. Most other places on the Internet, you have to explain over and over in small words (for example) that the president can't just make laws because Congress has that job, but they don't want to hear it.

The fact that meme, or whoever, disagrees with me is grounds for me to double-check my stances, in case I missed something.

themilkshark -- try to view the video frame-by-frame (i.e. double-click the "play" button) during 5:25; Devin definitely attacks the officer. I would have been less likely to believe it without the body camera, but there it is.

It's more a case of making blanket statements about officers. I do have bias in this discussion because I have a lot of friends that are officers in Baltimore City county and state.

Sometimes batons aren't really all that effective, neither is spray. Those aren't be all end all solutions. I think we're to violent and aggressive in this country tbh. It's disturbing to me.

Yeah, one of my oldest friends is a big time SWAT cop in Florida. Total raging bigot and loves to brag about abusing his power and targeting people. Just because I know him doesn't mean I have to defend his shitty outlook on life and love of oppressing people. Do you really have friendships based on not caring how your friends are?

Do you really think your cop friends should have absolute power and an unquestionable license to kill? Because mine can get fucked.

You should probably look again

I watched frame by frame. The kid tries to run past the cop after the part where the cop turns the camera back at himself to hide something he was doing. The kid's hand is wide open, not closed fist and not holding anything. I don't think he was open hand slapping the cop. There is an 8 second gap between the frame with the kid running past the cop and the first gunshot. Within that timeframe you can clearly hear running, and a gunshot followed by the kid screaming from far away. The kid ran away and was shot dead for it.

That's ... very much not how I read the camera footage.

Also, the cop's face had the shit beaten out of it; photos are available online.

Okay, maybe not a taser. Bear mace?