El Cajon police say black man was holding vape smoking device in hand when officers fatally shot him

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Los Angeles Times

El Cajon police say black man was holding vape smoking device in hand when officers fatally shot him
Los Angeles Times
Veronica Rocha, Sarah Parvini and Richard Winton
5 hrs ago

Just moments after an African American man was shot and killed by El Cajon police Tuesday, his sister was captured in an eyewitness video as she wept and screamed at officers, saying she told authorities her brother was mentally ill.

In the video posted on YouTube (some explicit language), the man’s sister said she told officers he was sick and needed help. She said she called police three times but instead should have called a “crisis communication team.”

. . .

He ignored multiple instructions from an officer and “concealed his hand in his pants pockets,” Davis said. The man paced back and forth as the officers talked to him, then “rapidly drew an object from his front pants pockets, placed both hands together on it and extended it rapidly toward [one] officer, taking what appeared to be a shooting stance,” the chief said.

The man, he said, pointed the object at the officer’s face. Police said Wednesday evening that the object was a vape smoking device, which officers have recovered.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/el-cajon-police-say-black-man-was-holding-vape-smoking-device-in-hand-when-officers-fatally-shot-him/ar-BBwL5sR?li=BBnb7Kz

[bagelsforbreakfast]

1. The gun is mightier than the (vape) pen - couldn't resist.

Seriously how unhinged can one be than to assume a shooter's stance vs cops the way they are?

[jtuck004]

2. How much of an asshole can one be to poke fun at someone with a brain injury?

Since we are asking questions...

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

8. Excellent question! nt

[madokie]

9. Do you belong here?

I mean in the story it's reported that the man is mentally unstable, not those words but the same meaning. And you come up with this question. Shame on you

[Nitram]

12. Bagels, you should learn to resist making jokes about the shooting death of an innocent person.

That's something Dump is known for...

[brush]

26. How _ _ _ _ ed up can one be to post to an op without reading it?

It clearly says that the man's sister told the cops her brother was mentally ill.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Man shot by police was distraught over best friend's death

Man shot by police was distraught over best friend's death

Julie Watson and Brian Melley, Associated Press

Updated 3:47 am, Thursday, September 29, 2016

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — The unarmed black man shot by police in a San Diego suburb had a history of run-ins with authorities and was distraught over the recent death of his best friend.

. . .

The family described Olango as a loving father who had moved back to California from Arizona and had landed a part-time job at a furniture store, Gilleon said.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Man-shot-by-police-was-distraught-over-best-9422566.php

(Now for the attempt to smear the dead guy. It happens every single ####ing time. All that to "justify" the killers. They forget it's nothing for someone to have "run-ins" with someone who's invariably coming after you because of your skin tone.)

[murielm99]

6. I live in a very small town.

We have several mentally ill or mentally disabled people here who rent rooms or small apartments. They are in and out of restaurants, and out on the streets downtown much of the time. Sometimes they get off their meds or agitated about something. Then they have run-ins with the cops. Most of the time, the cops just calm them down, take them home, find a relative or social worker. Occasionally, one of them is arrested. Since everyone knows them, there is seldom any problem beyond that. I would stress that the cops usually help them, which is what their job is supposed to be.

If this man had a history of mental health problems, that may explain his run-ins with law enforcement.

[Judi Lynn]

18. The picture of how things can work non-violently is so helpful. Clearly, cops can be very tuned-in

to human beings, and have a grasp of how people work. If only the thugs could take the time, have the courage to look more deeply at people without thinking of themselves first.

As it is, others seem more than willing to sacrifice others without taking the time to honestly assess the situation.

What a shame the violence-prone cops don't know real policemen can and do deal successfully with people without murdering them.

If only the good ones could be cloned. . .

[bagelsforbreakfast]

4. How much of an asshole can one be to advocate calling the cops to deal...

with a troubled family member KNOWING they have a history of shooting first and letting bleed out.

since we are asking questions...

[sinkingfeeling]

7. So, you seem to fault only a mentally ill man and his family?

Why aren't police trained to use other means to disarm people? Why don't they know how to deal with the mentally ill?

[LanternWaste]

11. Should we then ask you...?

"How much of an asshole can one be..."

Should we then ask you...? Would it be relevant to do so?

[haele]

17. Both the County and the city has mental crisis response teams.

People with family members that have severe mental/emotional problems are told by mental health professionals that when they call 911, they first identify that there is a mental health crisis, then say if there's any weapons around or involved. According to the sister, she said she called and told her brother was having a mental health crisis and that she needed help controlling him.

A mental crisis response team should have been dispatched, or if they weren't available, the few officers on shift who had been through the mental crisis/de-escalation training should have been dispatched. Instead, regular untrained beat cops arrived - late.

Haele

[Judi Lynn]

19. He was walking in traffic, as the article clearly states. Any person would need help with that.

A cop could simply stop the traffic until they could walk out and pull him back to the side of the road without everyone involved being killed.

Why are you so determined to attack this African-American and his relatives? Do you think Democrats are racists? You clearly think we are either racists, or so stupid we can't grasp what's at the heart of your hatred of the victim and his relatives.

Anyone in the world would have read the situation as something bigger than he/she could manage alone and would have tried to find help to extricate his/her loved one from a desperately dangerous situation. Why would you NOT be able to recognize it?

[brush]

27. Yeah, right. Blame everybody but the killer cops.

You fit right in here on a progressive board .

[Sand Rat Expat]

30. As stated below, I don't blame the "killer cops" in this particular incident.

Do I not belong on a progressive board?

I'm not defending bagels, because he/she comes across like a complete jackwagon. I'm just asking if, in your estimation, those of us who don't reflexively blame the cop(s) every time should stop bothering to post here.

[brush]

31. The cops were told the man had brain damage. Funny how countless times on this board . . .

MrScorpio has posted OPs where cops somehow remarkably deescalated situations with white people with actual guns (not vape pins) without killing them.

He's got a whole series going where incident after incident white men with guns are talked down, disarmed and arrest — alive.

With black men, somehow they are gunned down within minutes of the cops arriving.

A coincidence, I don't think so, but keep your cop apologist blinders on if it helps you get past these killings that keep happening over and over and over and over and over . . .

[Sand Rat Expat]

32. If one of us has blinders on, I think it'd be you, chum.

Your metric seems to be "black man + cop + shooting = EVIL RACIST COPS!!111"

Rather than look at the particular circumstances of each incident, you simply leap to the conclusion that the cops simply must be in the wrong, and devil take the details.

The cops were told he had brain damage. Okay, and...? If you're shot by someone with brain damage, you're just as injured or just as dead as if you're shot by someone without brain damage. When he refuses to take his hands out of his pockets, and then yanks them out holding an object that looks similar to a gun in the split-second the cops have to react, they're going to do what any reasonable person would do: defend themselves.

As I stated below, this incident is in no way similar to what happened to Eric Garner, or Philando Castile, or John Crawford III, or Terence Crutcher. Those men made no threatening moves, and yet were killed anyway. There's a big problem there, and it needs ot be rectified. When cops kill people for no reason, they need to feel repercussions for that, and we're slowly moving in that direction.

But this incident doesn't fit that pattern. Neither did what happened to Michael Brown. In these two particular incidents, I simply can't fault the cops for making the decision they did in the infinitesimal time they were allowed.

I, unlike you, am able to examine the circumstances of each incident, and to make a decision based on those circumstances. You, on the other hand, just make a knee-jerk "COPS BAD!" judgment. Which of us is wearing blinders, again?

[brush]

33. No need to go further than your first sentence. I think you got it correctly there.

[Sand Rat Expat]

34. Actually, on edit...

So you fully admit that you don't even bother to consider the circumstances of each individual incident, just assume from the get-go that the cops are in the wrong. You believe the worst of cops in every interaction that comes into question, and in fact, you suspect them of malice as a group, with no consideration of the fact that there are individual police officers, some good, some bad.

There's a word for that kind of mindset, you know. Prejudice. If I said, "All black people are X" and X was something bad, you'd howl with outrage, and rightly so, because such a statement would be bigoted and prejudicial. But as long as the statement is "All cops are X" you're perfectly okay with it.

That, sir or madam, is not only prejudice, but hypocrisy. Own it.

[Egnever]

35. You figured that poster out fairly quickly

[brush]

36. Nothing to figure out

The evidence is clear that there are racist, shoot-first-cops in departments all across the country and cop apologists all across the country try to defend them in all the murders that happen.

That's very clear.

The apologists are just part of the wallpaper to me, I appeal to the non-racist, smart, non-trigger-happy, non panicky cops with sound and fair judgement and cool heads to try and get the more unstable, non-empathetic cops to stand down before they escalate situations to murderous results.

Come on, guys, we all know you have to go home and live with what you saw too. You'll feel much better about yourself and your department if you know you did what you could to talk down your out-of-control colleagues.

[Sand Rat Expat]

37. Oh please.

You straight up admitted that if a scenario involves "black man + cop + shooting" then the solution to that equation is "evil racist cops." You said that's how you see the world.

Don't now try to play the "I agree there are good cops too!" card when you admitted that you don't look at the circumstances of each incident at all beyond the race of the person injured or killed. You don't allow for the possibility that sometimes, just sometimes, the use of lethal force against a person of color might be justified.

I'm not a "cop apologist." I'm a rational human being who examines the facts of each incident and then comes to a conclusion. You've already admitted that you go with your visceral reaction based on race, so kindly don't pretend that now you've suddenly learned how nuance works because I called you out on your prejudice and blind emotional reactions.

If the cop is in the wrong, such as the killing of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, then the cop needs to be charged, brought to trial, and then judged by a jury of his or her peers, just like anyone else. But not every cop is in the wrong every time they injure or kill someone, whether that person is a person of color or not.

Sometimes, regrettably, lethal force is required. The fact that you automatically assume a cop's guilt just because they're a cop is just as ignorant, wrong-headed, and offensive as the person who assumes a defendant's guilt because he or she is a person of color. Your prejudice is not acceptable just because it's directed at cops.

[brush]

38. Cop apologists just wallpaper around here — so predictable whenever one of these murders happen.

There but of little concern.

[Sand Rat Expat]

39. I was honestly hoping for better.

But perhaps I was being overly optimistic. After all, it's easier to just repeat oneself than it is to, you know, actually engage in debate.

Carry on being a prejudiced hypocrite, then. At least those who have read our exchange can now see you for what you are.

[brush]

41. Of little import.

[Sand Rat Expat]

42. If that's so, why are you still responding? N/T

[Sand Rat Expat]

40. Well, he or she didn't exactly make it difficult for me. N/T

[Ligyron]

5. I knew the FDA was down on these things saying they might be "dangerous"

but this is ridiculous.

[Nitram]

13. Hardy, har, har. Do you find police violence amusing?

[Ligyron]

43. No, I don't find it one little bit amusing

and the fact that they keep killing black people left and right while they somehow avoid killing near as many whites tell me a lot about what is really going on in the US.

I made that stupid comment way too early in the AM without really thinking. I use those vape devises myself and should have taken a few hits and waited for the coffee to clear my head.

It was stupid and insensitive of me and I apologize to any and all whom it may have offended.

I'm usually a better human being than that.

[Nitram]

44. Wow! Apology accepted and no harm done.

I've done the same under the same circumstances and regretted it afterwards.

[Ligyron]

45. Thank you!

You were absolutely right in calling me out on it and I felt bad. I feel a bit better now.

[Thor_MN]

10. How long before someone holding a phone out to record

is deemed to be in a "shooting stance"?

[Nitram]

14. This guy was mentally ill and didn't know any better.

I would be very careful about pointing anything at a cop with a drawn gun. I would make no sudden moves and I would not put my hands in my pockets. I'd suggest putting your hands up (with your cell phone in one of them) unless you want to record your own death.

[Taitertots]

15. It's already happened, but the victim was white

So our corporate infotainment providers didn't think you should know about it.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Selective journalism. It's been that way so much longer than we realized. n/t

[Old Vet]

16. My God, From the little information there is sounds like a suicide by cop to me........

Honestly, what would one expect if a person reaches in there pocket and then pulls hands out and takes firing position. These cops want to go home at the end of a shift, Dealing with the mentally challenged isn't in there sop.

[brush]

28. Let's wait for the video release to see if he actually took a shooting pose

Many cops, not all, lie to cover their asses.

[OnlinePoker]

29. See my post #25 n/t

[Sand Rat Expat]

21. This may be an unpopular opinion, but oh well.

I can't really fault the cops too much on this one.

For one thing, they didn't roll up and open fire instantly, like in the sad case of Tamir Rice. They did try to engage and talk him down.

Two, they had no way of knowing he was mentally impaired just by looking at him. Even if the deceased's sister told them that, they can't just relax entirely. Even if she told them he wasn't armed, they can't take her word for it 100%. He may have a weapon and she doesn't know that.

Three, when he refuses to take his hands out of his pockets and then suddenly yanks them out, holding an object they can't necessarily see with perfect clarity and then assumes a stance that looks like he might be aiming a weapon... well, they're going to react as if it is a deadly weapon, because hesitating a moment to make sure could result in being injured or killed, and they want to go home at the end of their workday just as much as the rest of us do.

This situation is not at all comparable to Eric Garner, or Philando Castile, or Terence Crutcher. Those men made no sudden moves, didn't have in their hands or point at officers an object that may have been a weapon. Comparing this shooting in El Cajon to the ones I listed is comparing apples and oranges. These cops didn't open fire with no provocation whatsoever.

It's unfortunate that this encounter ended with this gentleman's death, but again... given the circumstances, I simply can't fault the cops for making the split-second decision they were forced to make.

[romanic]

22. Agreed.

This was a suicide by cop situation.

[arely staircase]

23. Think I have to go with the cops on this one. NT

[KewlKat]

24. what happened to the video taken on a phone by a restaurant employee nearby?

They willingly handed it over to authorities.....so why no information about that video. Only on one from the sister AFTER the shooting and someone else recording her after the shooting.

[OnlinePoker]

25. Here's the video

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/us/california-police-shooting-video/index.html