re: President of Georgia Tech's Pride Alliance Shot Dead By Cop After Refusing To Drop Knife

quote:

---

You think the students going to riot after this? I need more Periscope content

---

If students show their arse it will be during and before the football game this weekend. There may be a small contingent of the gay activists marching around during the week, but everyone else is generally too concerned with not failing calculus or thermos to spend time on a temper tantrum.

quote:

---

It's obviously a male if it's the president of something.

---

That will trigger some folks on the PT board.

Edit: Soccer board too.

I'm not a cop but if someone is coming at me with a knife, large or small, and I'm armed, I'm going to shot them.

So apparently a lot of media outlets are running with this story and not playing the whole video, just the end.

But almost everyone I have seen outside of the media trying to create a story has said this was a good shoot and there is no story here.

This was about as justified a shooting as you can get.

quote:

---

I'm more if multiple cops are around, there was a way not to shoot someone with a knife. Why not send a dog after the guy? Why not shine bright lights in his face?

---

Are you fricking serious with this? Jesus.

If someone has a lethal weapon and they do not comply, you have 100% right to use lethal force.

Tazers are NOT always effective, nor is pepper spray, especially when dealing with a dangerous weapon. Rubber bullets are a better solution but these officers did not have any.

If they have a gun or a knife and do not comply, they are getting shot. End of story.

quote:

---

Also, what's with the idiots who are claiming the kid didn't have the knife folded out? If I'm carrying an ear of corn and a cop thinks it's a knife, I'm dropping the thing so I don't get killed. All other issues can be sorted out later.

---

Ah yes. I'm sure if your child is carrying an ear of corn and a cop kills your child for not dropping the ear of corn that you'd feel the same way.

I don't think the cop should be charged with a crime, but I think it should be acknowledged there were other ways to disarm this person of a knife that didn't involve shooting him or her.

I actually don't know why rubber bullets aren't carried for situations like this. Some states would rather give narcan to cops than arm cops with rubber bullets.

quote:

---

But the clear thirst for adrenaline caused this.

---

How so? Cops were clearly level headed and pleading with the guy/whatever to quit advancing.

If anything, I think the idea that some dork with a small folded pocket knife walking towards several cops justifies deadly force is the issue. I'm not going to make that call, but I think it's worth discussing. I think that situation could be redone 10 times with no one firing a shot, and no cop sustains a serious injury 10/10 times.

We live in a culture where police are taught that deadly force is appropriate where even the slightest risk of considerable harm confronts them. I do not think they're out there looking for this shite, but I do think that is what they're told. Now, I think there are probably great cops who will avoid deadly force until it is absolutely necessary to prevent very serious harm, but I don't think that's what they're taught, and you can't expect all/most to show that type of discretion.

In short, I don't think the real dispute here should be your adrenaline junkie idea, I think a far more reasonable and useful discussion is the concept that a 1% chance of serious harm justifies a police shooting where death or serious injury is 100% (note, I'm not assigning a percentage to this incident, I'm just making a drastic comparison that I nonetheless think is accurate in many cases).

What is a "lethal weapon"? What if he had a hammer? A baseball bat? Scissors? A taser? These are all "weapons" in certain contexts.

It'd be outrageous if he had a baseball bat and the cops shot him for not dropping but in truth, a baseball bat is probably similar in lethality to this knife.

They were level headed. Then their search for adrenaline took over in a fight or flight manner.

quote:

---

It'd be outrageous if he had a baseball bat and the cops shot him for not dropping but in truth

---

No it wouldn't be.