New Mexico Police Accidentally Shoot And Kill the Wrong Man - Law&Crime Network

[ItsjustMe]

[malthaussen]

1. So, there was a "right" man to shoot and kill?

It's a curious way to put it. Although even if one said, for instance, "innocent," it implies that there are some people it is okay to shoot and kill.

-- Mal

[GenXer47]

3. thank you for that point

And for holding the line!

[MagaSmash]

2. Gee; I guess his gun didn't really protect him. Also; this is a 5. This is an 8.

[marble falls]

4. Those cops are being investigated by cops. No worries for them.

[cab67]

5. Nothing you can say, perhaps -

- but it would be good if you took several actions. Disciplining the officers would be a good start - I get that they were defending themselves from a perceived threat, but their mistake led to the confrontation, and they took the life of an innocent man.

Arranging a nice settlement with the victim's survivors would be another.

It's no longer enough to express sadness, but then walk away as if the officer's actions were fully justified. In this case, the "justified" actions followed from an unjustified error.

This is why so many people mistrust the police. It's as though our rights take a back seat to those of the officers. You get a dog for protection, but when an officer comes onto your property to look for a missing child - a circumstance where a search warrant isn't needed - the officer shoots the dog, and there's no immediate interest in at least compensating the dog's owner. You get a gun to protect your home, but sometimes, if you shoot an officer on your property who didn't announce him or herself as police, you get charged - even if any rational person might act against someone in dark clothing, holding a gun, stalking one's back yard at night.

It's as though we have to shoulder the burden of their errors, even if we were acting reasonably to protect ourselves.

I completely get that police officers are often in harm's way, and that they're entitled to go home to their families at the end of their shifts. I also understand that many police-related shootings are fully justified. But law enforcement officers should be held accountable for their mistakes, just as the rest of us are.


(As an aside - I often argue to gun nuts that the US has so many more police-related shootings of unarmed civilians than other developed countries because, in the US, officers have to worry that the person they're confronting is packing heat. They face those split-second decisions that end in tragedy more often than in other countries, where police officers aren't necessarily worried that a suspect is about to draw a firearm. There are just too many guns in our country.)

[aggiesal]

6. In some countries in Europe, to become a police officer you are required to ...

have a college degree in Sociology, Psychology or the like and are trained on human behavior to de-escalate situations when needed.
Also, until recently, police in Europe didn't even carry guns.

In the U.S., no such requirement for college degrees are needed.
I don't know what a police officer has to do become a police officer, but college is not one of them.

Maybe someone with more knowledge, in this forum, could enlighten the rest of us.

[ret5hd]

7. Funny "coincidence"

He worked at a scrapyard.

Earlier, 2 other workers at the scrapyard were found murdered.

Then he was murdered.

Nobody knows why.

As I said, funny “coincidence”.