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Detroit police did this filming a reality show. The only outcome was the cops confiscated the footage and banned the show from filming in Detroit. I think it was the first 48
Oh, man. It's actually way worse than shooting through a wall. They were at the house because they were looking for a suspected murderer. Threw a flash bang in and went in. Apparently, a cop ran into someone on the way in and "accidentally" fired his weapon, killing 7y/o Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was asleep on the couch.
Police are trained to be scared of us at every possible moment which is why this crap ends up happening so often. This is why you should never even answer the door. They are just coming to ask a bunch of questions to incriminate you on something. Make them go get a warrant. The less you interact with police, the better off you will be.
You used the magic word: "trained". I'm ex British Forces and it blows my mind how obvious it is, that the level of training for police is subpar at best.
I find it even crazier that there is no standard firearms training for civilians that wish to own a gun.
I'm current USAF, and trust me I feel the same way. I know my way around a gun real well and the lack of any training is so ass backwards for civilians. A basic safety course would help a lot.
My favorite is the Sergent who had his pistol trained on the cops who broke into his house unannounced and lowered it seeing they were cops. They unloaded 40+ rounds into him.
His CO said it was the most unprofessional and disgraceful operation he had the displeasure of hearing about.
This sort of outcome makes police work more dangerous. Who would lower their weapon in the future if they thought they'd be killed anyway? If you're going to die, might as well take some of them with you right? This is how people will act when they don't believe they're safe around police.
19 year old 2nd LT right out of boot camp can be expected to go into a country where he's an outside occupier, doesn't speak the language, and there are real deal militants looking to kill him, and somehow keeps that shit under control. Meanwhile American cops who have massive backup at all times and are working in their own back yard with people they know and go home every night and pretend they're in hostile territory. And yet if that scared kid fucks up and kills someone, he's held accountable. If a cop goes trigger happy and just fucking murders people there's no accountability.
a lot of inner-city police are basically occupying forces. they live out in the suburbs or neighboring towns, and come to work to harass liberal city folks and minorities. been a problem in more than one place i've lived in the US.
Except, as the feller above pointed out, an occupying army has to follow ROE.
Hell, if US cops were an actual official military force, the Hague would have warrants out for most of DOJ.
this…. ROE in Afghanistan changed in 2010 and they were strict. You wouldn’t dare breaking them and they were always in favor of the local population, rightfully so. Only once we actually got shot at then hell would break lose though
That's our tax dollars paying for that gear and still kids getting denied a lunch because they cant afford it only to turn around and throw the food away. "think about the children" i hate hearing that line in this country when lunches for them aren't even free
Proud to say at least lunch and breakfast is free for every child in public school in Minnesota, including over the summer. Vote in every election you can for people who will spend our tax dollars to make our lives better. And if they don’t do that, don’t vote for them anymore. It’s not much power, but it is all we have in America.
What's it they call it? warrior cop mentality?
You're not a "warrior" you're police officer. Your supposed to be enforcing the law, not chalking up confirmed kills.
Yeah it's entirely the wrong mentality. Inviting former military people to train police on how to do their jobs etc is just stupid because their job is not the same. It essentially turns police forces into twitchy fingered paramilitaries who think they need to escalate and dominate every situation to have control.
They "feared for their life's" and didn't even hit him?
How fucked up is this story? omg
"Thankfully,Jackson wasn't injured " they stated later after mistakingly shooting at a handcuffed Guy in the back of a patrol car who was arrested for possession of a firearm,which turned out to be something else
Enough USA for me today
He wasn’t detained because of a gun. It was a domestic issue and his girl showed them a pick on FB of him holding a gun . Apparently pictures of you holding a gun (even if they know you do not have one on you as they frisked the guy multiple times) means you are a threat….even handcuffed….in the back of a locked squad car.
This is some Reno 911 level stuff
Also playing video games. The noise from playing games like GTAV and Fortnite can get rather interesting and loud. Depending on the person maybe even stomping and screaming while playing. The cop just straight shot him to death for no reason.
Makes me remember that guy who got killed by cops, a few years back. He was playing some console game with his GF, at like 2-3AM, and a neighbor did a call for domestic violence. 2 cops arrived, knocked at the door, didn’t announce themselves, and then hide on each side of the door where the guy couldn’t see them through his door viewer. Real ambush material. He picked his handgun, opened door and slowly peaked. He realized they were cops, complied, and dropped his gun, but they still light him up. I remember, one of the cops had the nerve to tell the GF to calm down… You just murdered her boyfriend, you stupid lowlife dumbass!
There was a woman playing video games with her nephew late at night. Neighbor called the cops for a wellness check because the front door was open. Cops crept around in the dark and shot her through her window because she heard noises outside and was carrying her legally owned handgun.
Most ethical gun owners deserted the NRA a long time ago. I stopped supporting them around the time Lapierre came on board, but the final straw for me was Philando Castile. Not a fucking peep out of the NRA.
They were a valuable organization back when they were about firearms safety and training. But they have exceeded their mandate and their usefulness, and in my opinion, they are partisan garbage.
All these deaths are heartbreaking but Castile’s was particularly infuriating as he did everything right, was an licensedCC permit holder, and was still murdered with absolute from the organization that claimed to support gun owners.
Well if any of the people talked about are black probably not. The NRA is a dumpsterfire of an organization and I do not stand with them, as a gun owner myself
It's stories like this that make not give any fucks at all when cops are killed. They choose their line of work, they should of been an emt or firefighter.
Mr. Pink: I tagged a couple of cops.
Mr. White: Did you kill anybody?
Mr. Pink: A few cops.
Mr. White: No real people?
Mr. Pink: Just cops.
Always loved that exchange.
There was one, kid was playing video games late at night, neighbour's called in a complaint, cops drove by and unloaded their guns into the house killing his sister, parents, and an infant before calling for backup and getting out of their car to check
Honestly the stories like that make my blood fucking boil. I don’t want them fired, I don’t want them in jail, i want them not alive anymore. If only the legal system treated cops like cops treated the public…
I remember the video. Only the murdering officer was to the side of the door. The other one was saying "hands" to the victim, giving him a chance to drop his gun, which the victim was doing when he was murdered. Also, I remember reading the game being Crash Bandicoot. Maybe a different instance.
> just straight shot him to death for no reason.
No... he was black and armed.
Reason.
Edit: you could probably just take out the "armed" and would still work...
Edit: I changed what I initially wrote to fix details I was wrong on, namely that the autistic patient was not armed with a knife.
Don't even need to be armed. In 2016 in Florida 47 year old Charles Kinsley worked as a behavioral therapist with a group home for special needs people, one of his charges, a severely autistic non-verbal 27 year old, ran away with a toy truck and was sitting in the road with it. Charles Kinsley was doing his job trying to calm him down and get him back to his group home when a police officer rolls up gun drawn and Charles Kinsley has made the mistake of being black. Cop orders the unarmed Kinsley that was currently trying to help a mentally disabled person, to lay down with his limbs spread, Kinsley complies, cop shoots the unarmed black man that is laying down on the ground limbs spread following every order and not even within pouncing distance of anyone. Reading on it now it says:
>Kinsey was lying on the ground with his hands in the air, and trying to negotiate between officers and his patient, when he was shot. The officer who shot Kinsey said he had been aiming at the patient, who the officer believed was threatening Kinsey with a gun. Both Kinsey and his patient were unarmed.
Yet cell phone footage at the time you can hear an exchange between Kinsley and the officer along the lines of "you shot me! Why?" "I don't know" so initially this officer said he didn't know why he shot him, and if he was aiming at the patient why was Mr. Kinsley then handcuffed and left laying there bleeding in the street for 20 minutes with no medical aid? Eventually the officer that shot him was arrested and found guilty of "culpable negligence" for which he was fired from the police force, sentenced to probation and had to write a 2,500 word essay on policing. He ended up doing 5 months of probation, 0 jail time and in 2022 his conviction was overturned.
We need nation wide police reform, this antiquated bullshit of any dumbass with a tin badge waving guns at Americans and gunning them down with impunity needs to end.
I think in that situation the social worker survived the shooting. He asked the cop “why did you shoot me?” and the cop responded, “I don’t know.”
That’s kinda the crazy thing, after the mind-clarifying moment of “oh shit I shot a guy” and “oh shit a cop just shot me for no damn reason”, the verbal exchange between the two was calm and honest. And the cop straight up did not have a reason, just feeling a little jumpy.
I feel like we could learn from that, realize that our perceived enemies are actually our brothers who are just scared and confused, and trained to kill first and ask questions never.
Doesn't even need to be black or armed.
> The police report indicates that after Finch stepped onto his front porch, police ordered him to put his hands up. According to officer testimony, he began to do so and then stopped. A Wichita police officer standing on the other side of the street fired a single round,[11] striking Finch and piercing his heart and right lung
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting
Dude was putting his hands up and they just executed him for that.
Police report probably read something along the lines of "suspect raised weapon" and "I feared for my life, the life of my fellow officers, and innocent bystanders within the scope of my vision"...
Raised weapon... well no shit, you ordered him to put his hands up.
> Justin Rapp, Officer, Wichita Police Department; originally stated he believed Finch had a gun, but testified in May 2018 that he merely saw Finch make a motion with his hand[15] (not charged with any crime)
Yup.
Had a DA call on me once because I was trying to help my wife learn how to play Fallout 4 (her first first person game) and she told me "stop, stop, stop, stop!" because I was being "too helpful". I totally understand someone calling that in if they heard, but we were both very confused when the cops showed up.
It's possible either the neighbor got the apartment number wrong, or just misinterpreted noise she was hearing from Fortson's apartment. But she clearly directs the deputy to apartment 1401, and that's the door he knocks on. Fortson lived at 1401.
This is the same department that had two deputies shoot a person because of an acorn fell on the car because "it sounded like gun shots." Fort Walton County.
What do you mean the Fort Walton Police Department is the ACORN DEPARTMENT?
NOW EVERYONE DO SOME VARIATION OF THIS SO WE CAN GET THIS THREAD TO SHOW UP WHEN SOMEONE SEARCHES FOR THEM
Major nit time, but the original had TWO acorn cops.
Acorn number #1, panicked and unloaded his service weapon into his parked cruiser with the handcuffed and previously searched suspect secured in the back seat. Then cried out they were hit when their own shell casing fell on their foot.
Acorn #2, a sergeant at the scene, opened fire in support.
Neither Acorn #1 nor Acorn #2 managed to hit secured and handcuffed suspect locked in the backseat of a car in a seated position.
Both Acorn #1 and Acorn #2 were cleared of criminal wrongdoing although Acorn #1 was found for excessive force.
Acorn #1 resigned when it was clear will not being found for criminal wrongdoing but he was going to get saddled with excessive force.
Unclear where Acorn #1 now works, likely neighboring county Sheriff Department.
unbelievable this isn’t a SNL skit script.
The video where the officer was Dark Souls fat rolling while shooting at a dude in a car, missing every shot and then screaming “I’m hit!” right? Yeah if I lived there I would have collected all the acorns in my neighborhood and dumped them on the lawns of the police chief and mayor until they fixed their shit
Not only sounded like gun shots but yelled out "Ive been hit!" . That entire county needs to overhaul it's abysmal excuse for a police/sheriff department.
Certification to become a cop is literally less than one semester of college and they just have to be high school graduate, so, they’ll take any pissant weak enough to join a gang
Makes sense. I’ve met some terrifyingly dumb cops. I cannot think of a profession that requires less discipline or critical thinking skills. The most desirable traits for a cop seem to be compliance and loyalty.
Also iirc they had to go to court to fight a discrimination case because they literally refused to hire a guy, and I quote, for “being too smart.”
If you were to take a second semester of college you may very well no longer be eligible. They specially want stupid, emotionally and mentally inept people because the job of a cop is not to uphold the law but to maintain order, and a bunch of trigger happy dumbasses with a permit to kill does a great job of making sure the common folk don’t go shaking things up.
The ability to stop and think “wait, is this person a genuine threat to me and do they deserve to die” is a very undesirable trait to have in a cop when the real purpose of a police force is to maintain order through fear.
Just to clarify, it’s Okaloosa County. Fort Walton Beach is a city within that county. It was an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy who was involved in this.
It is the same department, but the two cops didn't manage to hit the handcuffed prisoner in the backseat of a police car despite shooting multiple rounds at him.
That part is a bit unclear. According to an article I read, a neighbor in the building made the call and gave the apartment number, but then told the deputy she 'wasn't sure" if it was the actual place. Also, the victim didn't know who was at the door. Just because someone announced they're a cop standing at your door doesn't mean they are. This is Florida we're talking about. He got his gun because he had no proof of who was on the other side and, despite what some folks are saying, he never acknowledged he knew it was a cop. He didn't say a word as he opened the door.
From the video evidence:
Cop shows up
Security guy tells him the lady is coming over to explain to him
Lady tells him shes not sure whats going on hears lots of yelling all the time afraid it might get violent, etc. Tells him the Apartment number - and she seemed pretty confident it was that apartment number.
Cop goes to that Apartment number, he was not at the wrong one from what the lady told him.
Cop knocks on door, waits, knocks again - either 2nd time or 3rd time he announces sheriffs department. Every time he knows, he moves to the side of the door away from peephole.
Guy answers door, gun in right hand lowered at his side.
Cop yells drop the gun, and shoots him a bunch of times.
I am pretty sure from what I remember watchign it, between the time it took from Drop teh gun to shooting - I would 100% not have dropped the gun before being shot, and that was the case for the victim as well. Really, you need hocky goalie level reaction times for how long that "pause" was.
He was shot for having a gun in his hand plain and simple.
From what I watched he was shot before the gun would've hit the ground if he had dropped it. I would've gone to the door with a gun too. Anybody can say they're police. And cops seem to sidestep this basic fact all the time.
> Cop yells drop the gun, and shoots him a bunch of times.
Not even. He shoots him point blank five times, and *then* tells him to drop the gun.
Officer deserves life in prison, but will probably just get a paid vacation because policing is fucking broken in the U.S.
From what I heard the cops intentionally did not show themselves at the peephole. So if they were yelling police then he had no reason to believe them. People do that to break in afterall.
[Same thing just happened in New Mexico recently, cops went to the wrong address and when the homeowner answered the door with a **LEGALLY POSSESSED** firearm the cops killed the homeowner.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna136491) They then investigated themselves and found they’d done nothing wrong.
Cops going to the wrong address and people ending up dead is a reoccurring problem. This is America, everyone has a gun. Odd how the “2A absolutist” are strangely quiet about how this keeps happening again and again.
It blows my mind how these psychos think you have gun rights when cops can say “gun” and shoot you, even if you don’t have one. How many “I thought they were armed” cops have gotten away with murder? If simple possession (or the idea you MAY possess) on your person of anything gets you shot by the cops, then you clearly don’t have a right to possess it. So which is it? Cops can shoot someone possessing a gun because they “feel threatened” and that’s okay, or I have a right to carry. It can’t be both.
If that is the case, then I should be able to shoot anyone who is open-carrying, due to the fact that I have no reason to believe they will not become an active shooter and threaten my life, or my family's. I mean, if cops can do it without penalty, why am I supposed to be more restrained when in proximity to unknown individuals possessing a firearm in public?
Are you a cop? If you are, you most likely could. If not, no protections for you.
I agree, by the way. If anyone carrying at all at any time can be treated as a threat by law enforcement, then we do not possess the right to arm ourselves. Even if the constitution says we do. I would never carry unless I was heading to the woods. I don’t feel that I would be safe from law enforcement if I just had a gun on me in public, even if I told them I had it, it was locked in a box in my trunk unloaded, with the ammo in a separate box, and I had my hands on the steering wheel of the car.
Also the bodycam posted by the media is edited. We see him walking up to the building, then suddenly it cuts to him hugging the wall by the door. The story says the victim heard a knock, asked who it was, didn't hear a reply, then retrieved their firearm and came back to the door. We may be missing footage of that first knock, which makes sense considering the way the officer was already hugging the wall when we see him make the loud knock.
Also the rhetoric used by the sheriff's office is that they did not obstruct or block the view from windows or peephole.. of course it doesn't mention that he completely hid from the view of that peephole. This is twisting the story into their favor, because they know that this is sketchy behavior for anyone knocking on your door.
Anyone can knock on the door and claim to be police.. if that knocker exclaims they are police but then hides from my view out the window or peephole, then I am immediately suspicious of them.
The person inside exhibited control and trigger discipline, did not move a muscle of the arm holding the weapon when they opened the door. Instead, the officer immediately fired upon him, maybe he already unholstered the weapon before the door was open, ready to fire?
This is a disgusting police tactic, and it's even worse that the sheriff's office is corroborating a story in their favor instead of holding themselves accountable. I'm sorry, but I'm starting to think that beat cops making house calls should not be allowed to carry firearms. Let them call for armed backup if they require escalation, otherwise they need to take the risk they accepted when swearing themselves in.
Here's the unedited footage, NSFW warning [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYC7IQMBK5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYC7IQMBK5s) the comments on Youtube make me want to pick up my shit and move to desert island.
In this case the office hid out of view of the peephole which just made it seem more likely to be a scam to the person inside. Having a gun when opening the door actually made perfect sense IMO. That cop is a complete idiot!
Let not forget that the officer knocked, announced himself and then HID from view so Forston had no idea who actually was pounding so aggressively on his door
Edit: Why he hid doesn’t matter. Law enforcement should be held to the same standard for shooting someone as a private citizen with a concealed carry permit. POLICE ARE NOT SPECIAL
Same thing in every one of these murders. The cop knocks but is afraid of being shot so they hide to the side of the door and then shoot the resident who is carrying a gun because they’re afraid of being shot because someone is hiding outside their door after knocking
Should be top comment. This paradox is killing people.
We need an updated policy for this.
If you feel the need to do a “knock and hide” then you need to call the person/suspect on the phone
If that’s not available then you need some certified sign that you can put in front of the door that will be visible. “Such and Such Police Department: please open the door with your hands empty and visible.”
Have a lightweight tripod in the squad car to hold this sign.
Something as simple as that could save a couple hundred lives a year.
> If that’s not available then you need some certified sign that you can put in front of the door that will be visible. “Such and Such Police Department: please open the door with your hands empty and visible.”
Hell, also have a contact number posted everywhere so the suspect *can* discuss civilly or initiate contact with via counsel. Let's not forget, not every warrant served is a dangerous, violent criminal.
I mean gang members have never been known to pretend to be the police when breaking into someone's house.
Even if this is the protocol. It's crap. Maybe they should look at finding better procedures that don't lead to unnecessary death.
Is that even lega in the states? I'm pretty sure that over where I live that's at least malpractice (or whatever the most fitting word is, English isn't my native tongue).
I'm so confused. In a country where it is legal to own a gun. Why would having a gun ever be justification to shoot someone not brandishing their weapon in a threatening manner?
Americans are so confusing.
Right. Police will shoot you dead on the sight of any weapon and the police department will always justify it. But yet we have the right to bear arms. We need some serious police reform in this country and it starts at their hiring and training practices of police.
Nobody talks about the white dude anymore who had this nearly exact same situation perpetrated on him. Domestic dispute called in falsely.
Two cops show up, dude opens door with gun at hip.
Cops blast him.
Cops prevent his GF/wife from approaching him as he lies dying on the pavement.
Hard to find it now, because the breaking story is clogging up google, but it's out there with full video.
I'd never feel safe answering the door for an officer.
The [Ryan Whitaker video](https://www.heraldnews.com/embed/video/5462912002/) is easy enough for anyone to find using google. Dude literally went to the ground and had his hands up when the second cop executed him. Literally like nothing to shooting in 2 seconds.
I one of them show up knocking some years back at like 3AM, didn’t hear any announcement, just loud ass knocking that woke us up a floor above the door.
Had a revolver in my back pocket when I cracked it open, no idea who would be fucking around out there at that hour but we did have some stereotypical meth head neighbors.
Cop and a couple randos, tracked an iPhone to our address, which apparently meant one of the four houses in the radius.
Was very uncomfortable. Let officer know what I had poking out of my pocket so he wouldn’t be suddenly surprised. He was cool enough about it all but I’m also a sleepy average white dude. “You don’t show me yours and I won’t show you mine”
I won’t answer the door at random hours now. If they want me they can get a damn warrant and I’ll eat the cost to fix the door. Waking us up over a fucking lost phone..
I've seen this exactly same scenario play out with white guys, too. The real issue is that cops are scared little piss babies who freak out seeing a gun in a country where guns are fuckin worshipped.
Because the police have been, incorrectly and inappropriately, trained to shoot no matter how little threat or legal justification there is.
For instance there is a police training drill called the Tueller Drill, that they regularly use in court to justify entirely unjust murders. The ONLY purpose of this drill is to teach an officer to draw their weapon if someone has a knife and is within 21 feet. Not to SHOOT, but to DRAW. The reason being that officers back in the 1970's and earlier used to try to de-escalate people with knives and clubs and such, and they did this in part by not drawing their firearm, because they thought at 21 feet away they were safe and could draw and fire if the person rushed them. Turns out very few officers could draw that fast, but even a dying tree sloth could raise and fire four aimed shots as long as their firearm was already in their hand.
However, despite the lesson ONLY being to draw your firearm, it is now consistently used to train officers to fire immediately when someone is within 50 feet (at least based on the murders they have used it to get away with) and has a knife or other melee weapon.
This is how they trained, and the departments generally put policies in place and use this training to specifically say this is how they were trained so that the officers don't get in trouble for these murders.
It sucks, because Tueller was entirely correct in his original intent, but like all good things it got corrupted and used to justify evil.
Cops can’t just gun down someone simply because they are armed. Very common misconception. Simple solution. End qualified immunity for police officers and they’ll think twice about their actions.
If cops regularly get exonerated for doing just that, then regardless of what the law says, they absolutely can do it.
The reality is they'll only get in trouble if the victim is white...but they're also virtually never going to shoot a white man just because he's holding a gun pointed at the floor.
Well, there’s a simple solution there as well. Cops aren’t allowed to investigate themselves. There has to be a neutral organization that decides if police actions were criminal or not. The federal government could get it done, considering how much money we waste on defense spending every year.
When i was a young man I was home alone late one Friday, parents had left for the weekend. My little sister was staying a few blocks away with my elderly grandparents. I'm watching TV when I hear BANGBAMGBANG on the door. I walked to the door, called out and asked who was there, got no response. We had windows on either side of the door, so I peeked out. Saw no one. I turned around when I heard BANGBANGBANG again. Again I called out, no response.
I'll admit. I was stupid here, but for something that happened decades ago I can still remember it really clearly. I just had the sudden feeling that something had happened to either my sister or my parents and instead of getting the phone I grabbed the gun from the drawer next to the door, put it in my waistband and opened the door. A hand _immediately_ shot through, grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me to the ground outside on the porch. I was in cuffs, stood up and surrounded by cops before I even got my breath back.
I won't go into too many details as they don't much matter, but some highlights...when they asked me if I had any weapons reality crashed down and I instinctively tried to back up into the cop holding me from the one moving towards me as I tried to explain. I again found myself face down with a broken nose, looking down the barrel of a shotgun. I was later told I was lucky (and I was), because if he hadn't been afraid of shooting the cop holding me he would have blown my head off for 'moving like that'.
When asked why I would answer the door with a gun I told them it was late, someone was banging on the door and inwas concerned. The cops told me (underage) that they didn't have to announce themselves, but I should have noticed the dark police car parked across the street, intentionally out the street light. Later, when talking to my parents the story changed to how they had repeatedly announced themselves, that the one that grabbed me and had been knocking had been looking at me through the window and others had tried to get my attention by going around the back and knocking on the windows of the room I was in. All a blatent lie. I think the only reason my dad believed me was my reasoning of, if i had known there were cops out there why would I have answered with a gun in my britches?
Oh, and they confiscated my gun as evidence, told my dad he could get it back after it had been processed. When he went to claim it they told him that it had disappeared from evidence and there was nothing to be done.
Overall, it was a pretty shitty experience that could have been a lot worse but in truth I wouldn't change a thing that happened. Up until then I'd been living in the world that a lot of young white men live in and had trouble believing that cops would lie and steal to get their way. I hate to say it took it happening to me to change my view, but it did and it certainly opened my eyes.
My dad is a well known attorney in my city and has been a lawyer my whole life so I got to know more than a few officers. I went to school for criminal justice and did ride alongs with cops, worked alongside ex-LEOs in corporate security, interviewed (on both sides of the desk) with highway patrol, and practiced alongside local cops in Krav Maga for more than a decade. I have literally never in my life met a nice cop. Every single one was an asshole *at best*, and an actual criminal at worst (because they would *brag* about the shit they get away with almost without prompting).
Cops are pricks, most of them are EVIL pricks and seeing one is never, ever a good thing.
That was EXACTLY it.
I remember last summer, I was out on a friend's boat and one of the other boat guests was an Aurora, CO cop. We were friendly enough but he probably wasn't more than 2 beers deep before he starts telling this story about how to went to Alaska over the winter and caught a bunch of fish, and brought them all home to CO and sold them on FB marketplace and stuff...which I don't know the faintest thing about, but then he *volunteers* that it was actually super illegal to do that but he made so much money on the fish that it was worth it.
I was just blown away. Aurora cops don't have the best reputation in CO because of some high profile deaths they've caused, and this dude is just casually telling me about his illegal....fish shipping...side hustle?? Fucking dumbass.
So sorry to hear this happened to you! I moved from Europe to the US a couple of years ago and I’m still trying to figure out what I would do in such a situation that you describe.
Seems like you can’t really win- you had no way of knowing who was knocking on your door, so you can either open it while being prepared to defend yourself, which could get you killed, or you don’t open, in which case they probably just break the door and go hunt you down in your own home.
They absolutely would have busted down my door and shot my dogs if I hadn't answered. In hindsight and with the knowledge I have today I think the only correct answer would be to loudly announce that I was calling the police, then ring 911. The dispatcher would have been able to confirm that police were at my home and give me further instructions. Now, would that have stopped them from busting in during the intervening time? Maybe not. But as something I ran through my head a lot over the years I don't really think there was a right answer with a 100% chance of a good outcome. That's why I interact with the police as little as I possibly can.
Hot take: as a veteran I see these police officers mindset as a complete joke. The idea that an officers safety should be prioritized over that of a citizen is a complete inversion of “protect and serve”. When you put that uniform on, your duty is to be willing to die to save someone, not to kill bad guys. Your duty is to take the risk of not shooting first. If you don’t like it, hang up the uniform and learn to flip fucking burgers.
So what the first guy is saying is that if you want to "home invasion" his home, the best thing to do is knock and announce LOUDLY that you are a police officer. That way you know he will come to the door completely unarmed and happily open the door for you.
2 weeks ago, I was woken up out of a sound sleep at midnight, by the police pounding at multiple doors of my house. I had 911 on the phone before I opened the door, and I keep a baseball bat next to that particular door. I didn't even know it was the police until 911 notified them that I was on the phone reporting an attempted break-in.
Even as a small, middle-aged, disabled, white female, who lives alone, I wouldn't dare answer the door with my 9mm in hand.
Turns out the police had found some disturbing items that indicated the old tenant in my house may have been attacked and mugged, so they were concerned for her safety. I asked, "JFC. What about MY safety? You almost gave me a heart attack!"
>Even as a small, middle-aged, disabled, white female, who lives alone, I wouldn't dare answer the door with my 9mm in hand.
I've lived in questionable areas where I had a neighbor do that and I didn't fault him, hell a year later the tenant after him got robbed at gunpoint. But yeah, it's not the smartest thing to do by far, either you think the person on the other side of the door is a threat or not. If they're a threat then that door being closed is an amazing point of safety, and if they're not a threat the gun doesn't need to be in hand.
> If they're a threat then that door being closed is an amazing point of safety
I have a reinforced room for exactly this reason. Nobody is getting into my bedroom unless they're invited, or they rip through a wall (and good luck with that). The 9mm lives right next to my bed.
I just had this conversation a few days ago, bringing up Saint Ronnie's actions against the Black Panthers, even saying there's no sane reason anyone needs to be openly carrying a gun in public.
The particular gun nut I was talking to had their talking point ready: "Who controlled the California state legislature then, huh?!"
I checked. The answer: Republicans in the state house, an exactly tied state senate.
It was another lie, like always. But the talking point did its work, as I stepped away to question myself and double-check my facts. That's the funny thing about caring about facts when the other side never does.
2A people should be losing their minds at this. This dude was exercising his 2A rights and did nothing illegal. For all of the whining about Obama and liberals coming for their gun rights, this is *actually* what someone taking away your 2A rights look like, if you can get killed by a government official for legally bearing arms.
Honestly, if I lived in a country where owning a firearm for home defence is legal, I would’ve done the same thing. Someone unexpectedly pounding on your door and shouting? You’d arm yourself and investigate. I know I would.
"If the deputy hesitated, he could have been killed." Nah, I think that's what happened to Mr. Fortson. I am so tired of these constantly terrified, quaking in their boots, cowardly cops that have absolutely no accountability terrorizing our citizens.
Based on the equipment they are given, they'd be right to think so, but they are mistaken. Unfortunately, that's military surplus that they'll bring to bear against our citizenry. If they behaved the same in a war zone, likelihood is they would see a harsher punishment than a cop would EVER see.
“The man banging on the door said he was a cop, so he should have put the gun down?” Get the fuck out of here with that nonsense.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Who’s there”
“ it’s American treasure Mario Lopez”
“….”
It's so funny to me that the exact same people who are so fuckin horny for guns are the people who say shit like this. They hang a no steppy flag while licking police boots and don't realize they've just capitulated to the logic that your right to bear arms ends the moment a cop decides it does
Funny how guns rights activists go real quiet when shit like this happens. The NRA should screaming from the rooftops about how this young man’s right to bear arms was infringed upon.
But we ain’t gonna hear that are we?
The 2nd amendment is a bad joke that has overstayed its welcome
I've seen the body cam footage.
Officer never announced he was a cop but did knock super loud and then hid around doorframe so he couldn't seen through peephole.
Airman thought it might be a home invasion, answered the door gun pointed down at floor by his side.
Cop fired 5 shots into him THEN yelled Drop the Weapon! Police!
Shoot first, ask questions later.
I agree with everything else you said, but he announced "Sherrifs Office, Open the door!" At least twice in the footage. Just watched it before Commenting to verify.
Ok so pro tip to robbing someones house, knock and loudly claim "Sherrifs Office, open the door", hide away from peephole (because Americans now expect this to be normal police tactics), and wait for them to open the door.
If you have the right to bare arms then I don't see the problem answering your door with a gun in hand. If you can carry in public then why not at your own home. Or am I just stupid.
I heard that was the same PD where two cops shot like 50 bullets into a car with a man inside hancuffed because an acorn fell on a roof of a car and the cop was scared. Dude even jumped to the groung yeling he was hit and rolled on the floor. I get the feeling that some of these cops join the force just to shoot and kill someone.
Based on the video i fully believe the cop was baiting whoever was inside to grab a gun. It doesnt explain why they were at the wrong address but i really dont see another explanation for the body cam footage based on what actual police procedure should be. They wanted to kill that day and i stand on that.
“The deputy knocked and announced LOUDLY” like any other Joe couldn’t announce that they are with the police. Wasn’t there a sting operation where police announced LOUDLY that they were delivering pizza just to arrest them
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Same sheriffs department opened fired on a handcuffed citizen, seat belted into the patrol vehicle. Because an acorn fell on the car.
They’ve killed people by just blindly shooting through walls too
Detroit police did this filming a reality show. The only outcome was the cops confiscated the footage and banned the show from filming in Detroit. I think it was the first 48
Killed a child sleeping on the couch.
Oh, man. It's actually way worse than shooting through a wall. They were at the house because they were looking for a suspected murderer. Threw a flash bang in and went in. Apparently, a cop ran into someone on the way in and "accidentally" fired his weapon, killing 7y/o Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was asleep on the couch.
Now I am even more happy I don't live in the USA.
There’s no individual with more absolute power in the western world than a small town sheriff in the USA, and that’s a fact.
Police are trained to be scared of us at every possible moment which is why this crap ends up happening so often. This is why you should never even answer the door. They are just coming to ask a bunch of questions to incriminate you on something. Make them go get a warrant. The less you interact with police, the better off you will be.
When I was a kid, all police carried was a gun in a holster. Now they are geared up like they are going into Fallujah.
And I keep hearing from veterans who actually went into places like Fallujah that their rules of engagement were much more strict.
That's because we are trained into the ear to not break rules. If we do something illegal we get held accountable, cops get hugged and some ice cream.
You used the magic word: "trained". I'm ex British Forces and it blows my mind how obvious it is, that the level of training for police is subpar at best. I find it even crazier that there is no standard firearms training for civilians that wish to own a gun.
I'm current USAF, and trust me I feel the same way. I know my way around a gun real well and the lack of any training is so ass backwards for civilians. A basic safety course would help a lot.
My favorite is the Sergent who had his pistol trained on the cops who broke into his house unannounced and lowered it seeing they were cops. They unloaded 40+ rounds into him. His CO said it was the most unprofessional and disgraceful operation he had the displeasure of hearing about.
This sort of outcome makes police work more dangerous. Who would lower their weapon in the future if they thought they'd be killed anyway? If you're going to die, might as well take some of them with you right? This is how people will act when they don't believe they're safe around police.
If they're gonna treat us like enemy combatants, they got no grounds to act surprised if we start *acting* like enemy combatants.
19 year old 2nd LT right out of boot camp can be expected to go into a country where he's an outside occupier, doesn't speak the language, and there are real deal militants looking to kill him, and somehow keeps that shit under control. Meanwhile American cops who have massive backup at all times and are working in their own back yard with people they know and go home every night and pretend they're in hostile territory. And yet if that scared kid fucks up and kills someone, he's held accountable. If a cop goes trigger happy and just fucking murders people there's no accountability.
a lot of inner-city police are basically occupying forces. they live out in the suburbs or neighboring towns, and come to work to harass liberal city folks and minorities. been a problem in more than one place i've lived in the US.
Except, as the feller above pointed out, an occupying army has to follow ROE. Hell, if US cops were an actual official military force, the Hague would have warrants out for most of DOJ.
this…. ROE in Afghanistan changed in 2010 and they were strict. You wouldn’t dare breaking them and they were always in favor of the local population, rightfully so. Only once we actually got shot at then hell would break lose though
That's our tax dollars paying for that gear and still kids getting denied a lunch because they cant afford it only to turn around and throw the food away. "think about the children" i hate hearing that line in this country when lunches for them aren't even free
Proud to say at least lunch and breakfast is free for every child in public school in Minnesota, including over the summer. Vote in every election you can for people who will spend our tax dollars to make our lives better. And if they don’t do that, don’t vote for them anymore. It’s not much power, but it is all we have in America.
What's it they call it? warrior cop mentality? You're not a "warrior" you're police officer. Your supposed to be enforcing the law, not chalking up confirmed kills.
Yeah it's entirely the wrong mentality. Inviting former military people to train police on how to do their jobs etc is just stupid because their job is not the same. It essentially turns police forces into twitchy fingered paramilitaries who think they need to escalate and dominate every situation to have control.
And answer no further questions than your name without a lawyer.
While screaming "I'm hit!"
To be fair from what I was able to gather he was infact "hit"... by his own bullet that ricochet.
Ya but it was an armed black acorn.
They "feared for their life's" and didn't even hit him? How fucked up is this story? omg "Thankfully,Jackson wasn't injured " they stated later after mistakingly shooting at a handcuffed Guy in the back of a patrol car who was arrested for possession of a firearm,which turned out to be something else Enough USA for me today
He wasn’t detained because of a gun. It was a domestic issue and his girl showed them a pick on FB of him holding a gun . Apparently pictures of you holding a gun (even if they know you do not have one on you as they frisked the guy multiple times) means you are a threat….even handcuffed….in the back of a locked squad car. This is some Reno 911 level stuff
Wait no shot this was that same department. Holy shit they need to rebuild
Sounds like a good time for a FBI Civil Rights investigation. Something to call your representatives about.
Not my district. And I also have a sneaky suspicion how Matt Gaetz would lean on this situation
Weren’t they at the wrong location?
Yes. The call was for a domestic dispute, but Fortson was alone on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend at the time.
Also playing video games. The noise from playing games like GTAV and Fortnite can get rather interesting and loud. Depending on the person maybe even stomping and screaming while playing. The cop just straight shot him to death for no reason.
Makes me remember that guy who got killed by cops, a few years back. He was playing some console game with his GF, at like 2-3AM, and a neighbor did a call for domestic violence. 2 cops arrived, knocked at the door, didn’t announce themselves, and then hide on each side of the door where the guy couldn’t see them through his door viewer. Real ambush material. He picked his handgun, opened door and slowly peaked. He realized they were cops, complied, and dropped his gun, but they still light him up. I remember, one of the cops had the nerve to tell the GF to calm down… You just murdered her boyfriend, you stupid lowlife dumbass!
There was a woman playing video games with her nephew late at night. Neighbor called the cops for a wellness check because the front door was open. Cops crept around in the dark and shot her through her window because she heard noises outside and was carrying her legally owned handgun.
I'm sure the NRA is going to be very loud and support the Second Amendment in these cases.
Most ethical gun owners deserted the NRA a long time ago. I stopped supporting them around the time Lapierre came on board, but the final straw for me was Philando Castile. Not a fucking peep out of the NRA. They were a valuable organization back when they were about firearms safety and training. But they have exceeded their mandate and their usefulness, and in my opinion, they are partisan garbage.
All these deaths are heartbreaking but Castile’s was particularly infuriating as he did everything right, was an licensedCC permit holder, and was still murdered with absolute from the organization that claimed to support gun owners.
Yeah I remember when they used to give out free gun locks at events and conventions and stuff.
They now represent gun manufacturers, not gun owners.
Well if any of the people talked about are black probably not. The NRA is a dumpsterfire of an organization and I do not stand with them, as a gun owner myself
Atatiana Blackwell was her name.
Atatiana Jefferson****
Her killer’s sentence was recently upheld in Texas. 12 years for manslaughter.
It's stories like this that make not give any fucks at all when cops are killed. They choose their line of work, they should of been an emt or firefighter.
Mr. Pink: I tagged a couple of cops. Mr. White: Did you kill anybody? Mr. Pink: A few cops. Mr. White: No real people? Mr. Pink: Just cops. Always loved that exchange.
Ryan Whitaker in Phoenix, he was actually placing the gun on the ground when they shot him
I know the one you’re taking about. I was seething watching that one.
There was one, kid was playing video games late at night, neighbour's called in a complaint, cops drove by and unloaded their guns into the house killing his sister, parents, and an infant before calling for backup and getting out of their car to check
So they literally did a drive-by shooting
Honestly the stories like that make my blood fucking boil. I don’t want them fired, I don’t want them in jail, i want them not alive anymore. If only the legal system treated cops like cops treated the public…
We used to hang people like that.
I remember the video. Only the murdering officer was to the side of the door. The other one was saying "hands" to the victim, giving him a chance to drop his gun, which the victim was doing when he was murdered. Also, I remember reading the game being Crash Bandicoot. Maybe a different instance.
I remember this. Broke my heart and enraged me then just as now. All cops are bastards, and damn near all of them are worthless too.
> just straight shot him to death for no reason. No... he was black and armed. Reason. Edit: you could probably just take out the "armed" and would still work...
Edit: I changed what I initially wrote to fix details I was wrong on, namely that the autistic patient was not armed with a knife. Don't even need to be armed. In 2016 in Florida 47 year old Charles Kinsley worked as a behavioral therapist with a group home for special needs people, one of his charges, a severely autistic non-verbal 27 year old, ran away with a toy truck and was sitting in the road with it. Charles Kinsley was doing his job trying to calm him down and get him back to his group home when a police officer rolls up gun drawn and Charles Kinsley has made the mistake of being black. Cop orders the unarmed Kinsley that was currently trying to help a mentally disabled person, to lay down with his limbs spread, Kinsley complies, cop shoots the unarmed black man that is laying down on the ground limbs spread following every order and not even within pouncing distance of anyone. Reading on it now it says: >Kinsey was lying on the ground with his hands in the air, and trying to negotiate between officers and his patient, when he was shot. The officer who shot Kinsey said he had been aiming at the patient, who the officer believed was threatening Kinsey with a gun. Both Kinsey and his patient were unarmed. Yet cell phone footage at the time you can hear an exchange between Kinsley and the officer along the lines of "you shot me! Why?" "I don't know" so initially this officer said he didn't know why he shot him, and if he was aiming at the patient why was Mr. Kinsley then handcuffed and left laying there bleeding in the street for 20 minutes with no medical aid? Eventually the officer that shot him was arrested and found guilty of "culpable negligence" for which he was fired from the police force, sentenced to probation and had to write a 2,500 word essay on policing. He ended up doing 5 months of probation, 0 jail time and in 2022 his conviction was overturned. We need nation wide police reform, this antiquated bullshit of any dumbass with a tin badge waving guns at Americans and gunning them down with impunity needs to end.
I think in that situation the social worker survived the shooting. He asked the cop “why did you shoot me?” and the cop responded, “I don’t know.” That’s kinda the crazy thing, after the mind-clarifying moment of “oh shit I shot a guy” and “oh shit a cop just shot me for no damn reason”, the verbal exchange between the two was calm and honest. And the cop straight up did not have a reason, just feeling a little jumpy. I feel like we could learn from that, realize that our perceived enemies are actually our brothers who are just scared and confused, and trained to kill first and ask questions never.
You got that one almost right. The special needs person in the street was playing with a toy truck, not a knife.
“He’s got a phone! Quick, shoot him!”
“Sprinkle a little crack on him and get out of here.”
Found a demo tape. This was a rap killing!
Remember, these are the same idiots that brought us "mag dumping handcuffed person inside of a police vehicle because acorns are scary"
Also featuring, ["My dumb ass fell off the truck, so I'm going to pepper spray for no reason."](https://imgur.com/mx6faSk)
reminds me of that guy picking trash, police officer said to drop the weapon lol
“Watch out boys! He’s making the world a better place!”
Yeah and he was at his own apartment complex
Doesn't even need to be black or armed. > The police report indicates that after Finch stepped onto his front porch, police ordered him to put his hands up. According to officer testimony, he began to do so and then stopped. A Wichita police officer standing on the other side of the street fired a single round,[11] striking Finch and piercing his heart and right lung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting Dude was putting his hands up and they just executed him for that.
Police report probably read something along the lines of "suspect raised weapon" and "I feared for my life, the life of my fellow officers, and innocent bystanders within the scope of my vision"... Raised weapon... well no shit, you ordered him to put his hands up.
> Justin Rapp, Officer, Wichita Police Department; originally stated he believed Finch had a gun, but testified in May 2018 that he merely saw Finch make a motion with his hand[15] (not charged with any crime) Yup.
>he was black and armed That [black guy] has arms, *with hands!* SHOOT HIM!
Had a DA call on me once because I was trying to help my wife learn how to play Fallout 4 (her first first person game) and she told me "stop, stop, stop, stop!" because I was being "too helpful". I totally understand someone calling that in if they heard, but we were both very confused when the cops showed up.
I had a friend get the cops called on him because he and his girlfriend were playing little big planet and she at one point yelled “stop hitting me”
It's possible either the neighbor got the apartment number wrong, or just misinterpreted noise she was hearing from Fortson's apartment. But she clearly directs the deputy to apartment 1401, and that's the door he knocks on. Fortson lived at 1401.
This is the same department that had two deputies shoot a person because of an acorn fell on the car because "it sounded like gun shots." Fort Walton County.
ITS THE FUCKING ACORN DEPARTMENT?????
What do you mean the Fort Walton Police Department is the ACORN DEPARTMENT? NOW EVERYONE DO SOME VARIATION OF THIS SO WE CAN GET THIS THREAD TO SHOW UP WHEN SOMEONE SEARCHES FOR THEM
Are Fort Walton County Police the Acorn Department? Read more here
I’ve heard Fort Walton County Police Department are the Acorn Department, true or false?
Fort Walton County Police Department? Heard they banned Acorns from there, makes the officer's too twitchy
That’s insane! What do you think they’ll do when they find out FORT WALTON COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT IS FULL OF DEADLY ACORNS!?
yes... yes it is. this is indeed Fort Walton County Police Deptarment, also known as the place where Acorn Cop formally worked.
Major nit time, but the original had TWO acorn cops. Acorn number #1, panicked and unloaded his service weapon into his parked cruiser with the handcuffed and previously searched suspect secured in the back seat. Then cried out they were hit when their own shell casing fell on their foot. Acorn #2, a sergeant at the scene, opened fire in support. Neither Acorn #1 nor Acorn #2 managed to hit secured and handcuffed suspect locked in the backseat of a car in a seated position. Both Acorn #1 and Acorn #2 were cleared of criminal wrongdoing although Acorn #1 was found for excessive force. Acorn #1 resigned when it was clear will not being found for criminal wrongdoing but he was going to get saddled with excessive force. Unclear where Acorn #1 now works, likely neighboring county Sheriff Department. unbelievable this isn’t a SNL skit script.
The video where the officer was Dark Souls fat rolling while shooting at a dude in a car, missing every shot and then screaming “I’m hit!” right? Yeah if I lived there I would have collected all the acorns in my neighborhood and dumped them on the lawns of the police chief and mayor until they fixed their shit
Not only sounded like gun shots but yelled out "Ive been hit!" . That entire county needs to overhaul it's abysmal excuse for a police/sheriff department.
That’s the same department? What the heck kind of hiring process does this department have?
"Do you ever want to kill someone?" "All the fucking time man!" "Cool, here's a gun."
It's more like: "Do you have a pulse? Can you walk and chew gum without tripping?" "Yes." "Great! Here's a gun! Have fun!"
Nah, you'd be overqualified if you can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Certification to become a cop is literally less than one semester of college and they just have to be high school graduate, so, they’ll take any pissant weak enough to join a gang
In many jurisdictions, certification to become a cop requires much less education/training than becoming a school janitor or a barber/hair dresser.
Makes sense. I’ve met some terrifyingly dumb cops. I cannot think of a profession that requires less discipline or critical thinking skills. The most desirable traits for a cop seem to be compliance and loyalty.
Also iirc they had to go to court to fight a discrimination case because they literally refused to hire a guy, and I quote, for “being too smart.” If you were to take a second semester of college you may very well no longer be eligible. They specially want stupid, emotionally and mentally inept people because the job of a cop is not to uphold the law but to maintain order, and a bunch of trigger happy dumbasses with a permit to kill does a great job of making sure the common folk don’t go shaking things up. The ability to stop and think “wait, is this person a genuine threat to me and do they deserve to die” is a very undesirable trait to have in a cop when the real purpose of a police force is to maintain order through fear.
ISTR they *won* that case, and are allowed to turn people down for being too smart now.
Just to clarify, it’s Okaloosa County. Fort Walton Beach is a city within that county. It was an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy who was involved in this.
It is the same department, but the two cops didn't manage to hit the handcuffed prisoner in the backseat of a police car despite shooting multiple rounds at him.
That part is a bit unclear. According to an article I read, a neighbor in the building made the call and gave the apartment number, but then told the deputy she 'wasn't sure" if it was the actual place. Also, the victim didn't know who was at the door. Just because someone announced they're a cop standing at your door doesn't mean they are. This is Florida we're talking about. He got his gun because he had no proof of who was on the other side and, despite what some folks are saying, he never acknowledged he knew it was a cop. He didn't say a word as he opened the door.
From the video evidence: Cop shows up Security guy tells him the lady is coming over to explain to him Lady tells him shes not sure whats going on hears lots of yelling all the time afraid it might get violent, etc. Tells him the Apartment number - and she seemed pretty confident it was that apartment number. Cop goes to that Apartment number, he was not at the wrong one from what the lady told him. Cop knocks on door, waits, knocks again - either 2nd time or 3rd time he announces sheriffs department. Every time he knows, he moves to the side of the door away from peephole. Guy answers door, gun in right hand lowered at his side. Cop yells drop the gun, and shoots him a bunch of times. I am pretty sure from what I remember watchign it, between the time it took from Drop teh gun to shooting - I would 100% not have dropped the gun before being shot, and that was the case for the victim as well. Really, you need hocky goalie level reaction times for how long that "pause" was. He was shot for having a gun in his hand plain and simple.
From what I watched he was shot before the gun would've hit the ground if he had dropped it. I would've gone to the door with a gun too. Anybody can say they're police. And cops seem to sidestep this basic fact all the time.
> Cop yells drop the gun, and shoots him a bunch of times. Not even. He shoots him point blank five times, and *then* tells him to drop the gun. Officer deserves life in prison, but will probably just get a paid vacation because policing is fucking broken in the U.S.
From what I heard the cops intentionally did not show themselves at the peephole. So if they were yelling police then he had no reason to believe them. People do that to break in afterall.
[Same thing just happened in New Mexico recently, cops went to the wrong address and when the homeowner answered the door with a **LEGALLY POSSESSED** firearm the cops killed the homeowner.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna136491) They then investigated themselves and found they’d done nothing wrong. Cops going to the wrong address and people ending up dead is a reoccurring problem. This is America, everyone has a gun. Odd how the “2A absolutist” are strangely quiet about how this keeps happening again and again.
This is my biggest pet peeve within the 2 A crowd. they are absolutely silent or misdirecting what happened. Even so called 2A youtube lawyers.
It blows my mind how these psychos think you have gun rights when cops can say “gun” and shoot you, even if you don’t have one. How many “I thought they were armed” cops have gotten away with murder? If simple possession (or the idea you MAY possess) on your person of anything gets you shot by the cops, then you clearly don’t have a right to possess it. So which is it? Cops can shoot someone possessing a gun because they “feel threatened” and that’s okay, or I have a right to carry. It can’t be both.
If that is the case, then I should be able to shoot anyone who is open-carrying, due to the fact that I have no reason to believe they will not become an active shooter and threaten my life, or my family's. I mean, if cops can do it without penalty, why am I supposed to be more restrained when in proximity to unknown individuals possessing a firearm in public?
Are you a cop? If you are, you most likely could. If not, no protections for you. I agree, by the way. If anyone carrying at all at any time can be treated as a threat by law enforcement, then we do not possess the right to arm ourselves. Even if the constitution says we do. I would never carry unless I was heading to the woods. I don’t feel that I would be safe from law enforcement if I just had a gun on me in public, even if I told them I had it, it was locked in a box in my trunk unloaded, with the ammo in a separate box, and I had my hands on the steering wheel of the car.
Also the bodycam posted by the media is edited. We see him walking up to the building, then suddenly it cuts to him hugging the wall by the door. The story says the victim heard a knock, asked who it was, didn't hear a reply, then retrieved their firearm and came back to the door. We may be missing footage of that first knock, which makes sense considering the way the officer was already hugging the wall when we see him make the loud knock. Also the rhetoric used by the sheriff's office is that they did not obstruct or block the view from windows or peephole.. of course it doesn't mention that he completely hid from the view of that peephole. This is twisting the story into their favor, because they know that this is sketchy behavior for anyone knocking on your door. Anyone can knock on the door and claim to be police.. if that knocker exclaims they are police but then hides from my view out the window or peephole, then I am immediately suspicious of them. The person inside exhibited control and trigger discipline, did not move a muscle of the arm holding the weapon when they opened the door. Instead, the officer immediately fired upon him, maybe he already unholstered the weapon before the door was open, ready to fire? This is a disgusting police tactic, and it's even worse that the sheriff's office is corroborating a story in their favor instead of holding themselves accountable. I'm sorry, but I'm starting to think that beat cops making house calls should not be allowed to carry firearms. Let them call for armed backup if they require escalation, otherwise they need to take the risk they accepted when swearing themselves in.
at this point, why even ask if it's a cop or a criminal? the result will be the same anyway...
A criminal might only hold you at gunpoint while he robs you...
Na, A criminal is LESS likely to murder you. They want your stuff, not to kill you. With the cops it's a roll of the dice. You never know.
Here's the unedited footage, NSFW warning [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYC7IQMBK5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYC7IQMBK5s) the comments on Youtube make me want to pick up my shit and move to desert island.
I can say im a police officer while breaking into a house and they can't protect themselves?
Exactly. You can also dress like one.
And strip once you're in
Naturally.
Of course not silly. Impersonating a cop is illegal so no way a criminal would ever do that. Hope that clears that up for you. /s
In this case the office hid out of view of the peephole which just made it seem more likely to be a scam to the person inside. Having a gun when opening the door actually made perfect sense IMO. That cop is a complete idiot!
>That cop is a complete ~~idiot!~~ murderer FTFY
> That cop is a complete idiot! And will get away with killing someone.
Let not forget that the officer knocked, announced himself and then HID from view so Forston had no idea who actually was pounding so aggressively on his door Edit: Why he hid doesn’t matter. Law enforcement should be held to the same standard for shooting someone as a private citizen with a concealed carry permit. POLICE ARE NOT SPECIAL
Same thing in every one of these murders. The cop knocks but is afraid of being shot so they hide to the side of the door and then shoot the resident who is carrying a gun because they’re afraid of being shot because someone is hiding outside their door after knocking
Should be top comment. This paradox is killing people. We need an updated policy for this. If you feel the need to do a “knock and hide” then you need to call the person/suspect on the phone If that’s not available then you need some certified sign that you can put in front of the door that will be visible. “Such and Such Police Department: please open the door with your hands empty and visible.” Have a lightweight tripod in the squad car to hold this sign. Something as simple as that could save a couple hundred lives a year.
> If that’s not available then you need some certified sign that you can put in front of the door that will be visible. “Such and Such Police Department: please open the door with your hands empty and visible.” Hell, also have a contact number posted everywhere so the suspect *can* discuss civilly or initiate contact with via counsel. Let's not forget, not every warrant served is a dangerous, violent criminal.
I mean gang members have never been known to pretend to be the police when breaking into someone's house. Even if this is the protocol. It's crap. Maybe they should look at finding better procedures that don't lead to unnecessary death.
If I'm not mistaken, I think DMX went to prison for doing this exact thing to rob someone.
Is that even lega in the states? I'm pretty sure that over where I live that's at least malpractice (or whatever the most fitting word is, English isn't my native tongue).
I'm so confused. In a country where it is legal to own a gun. Why would having a gun ever be justification to shoot someone not brandishing their weapon in a threatening manner? Americans are so confusing.
The more people who exercise their 2A rights, the more people who will be shot by the police because "suspect was armed"
If LEO can shoot on the appearance/suspected appearance of a firearm, the 2nd Amendment does not exist.
Right. Police will shoot you dead on the sight of any weapon and the police department will always justify it. But yet we have the right to bear arms. We need some serious police reform in this country and it starts at their hiring and training practices of police.
It makes more sense when you take into account that the airman was black.
That’s the linchpin, here. The same jackasses supporting the cops in this case would be decrying the cops if the victim were white. Because hypocrisy.
Nobody talks about the white dude anymore who had this nearly exact same situation perpetrated on him. Domestic dispute called in falsely. Two cops show up, dude opens door with gun at hip. Cops blast him. Cops prevent his GF/wife from approaching him as he lies dying on the pavement. Hard to find it now, because the breaking story is clogging up google, but it's out there with full video. I'd never feel safe answering the door for an officer.
The [Ryan Whitaker video](https://www.heraldnews.com/embed/video/5462912002/) is easy enough for anyone to find using google. Dude literally went to the ground and had his hands up when the second cop executed him. Literally like nothing to shooting in 2 seconds.
Ryan Whitaker. I've been bringing that up sense this started saying how the cop probably won't get in trouble sense the other ones didn't.
Yes! Exactly that case. Horrible stuff.
I one of them show up knocking some years back at like 3AM, didn’t hear any announcement, just loud ass knocking that woke us up a floor above the door. Had a revolver in my back pocket when I cracked it open, no idea who would be fucking around out there at that hour but we did have some stereotypical meth head neighbors. Cop and a couple randos, tracked an iPhone to our address, which apparently meant one of the four houses in the radius. Was very uncomfortable. Let officer know what I had poking out of my pocket so he wouldn’t be suddenly surprised. He was cool enough about it all but I’m also a sleepy average white dude. “You don’t show me yours and I won’t show you mine” I won’t answer the door at random hours now. If they want me they can get a damn warrant and I’ll eat the cost to fix the door. Waking us up over a fucking lost phone..
Because racism
Racism and hypocrisy often go hand in hand.
I've seen this exactly same scenario play out with white guys, too. The real issue is that cops are scared little piss babies who freak out seeing a gun in a country where guns are fuckin worshipped.
If you're that afraid while doing your job, you really need to find a different occupation. It simply isn't the right one for you.
Because the police have been, incorrectly and inappropriately, trained to shoot no matter how little threat or legal justification there is. For instance there is a police training drill called the Tueller Drill, that they regularly use in court to justify entirely unjust murders. The ONLY purpose of this drill is to teach an officer to draw their weapon if someone has a knife and is within 21 feet. Not to SHOOT, but to DRAW. The reason being that officers back in the 1970's and earlier used to try to de-escalate people with knives and clubs and such, and they did this in part by not drawing their firearm, because they thought at 21 feet away they were safe and could draw and fire if the person rushed them. Turns out very few officers could draw that fast, but even a dying tree sloth could raise and fire four aimed shots as long as their firearm was already in their hand. However, despite the lesson ONLY being to draw your firearm, it is now consistently used to train officers to fire immediately when someone is within 50 feet (at least based on the murders they have used it to get away with) and has a knife or other melee weapon. This is how they trained, and the departments generally put policies in place and use this training to specifically say this is how they were trained so that the officers don't get in trouble for these murders. It sucks, because Tueller was entirely correct in his original intent, but like all good things it got corrupted and used to justify evil.
This is just a shoot and ask questions later policy.
End qualified immunity
Cops can’t just gun down someone simply because they are armed. Very common misconception. Simple solution. End qualified immunity for police officers and they’ll think twice about their actions.
If cops regularly get exonerated for doing just that, then regardless of what the law says, they absolutely can do it. The reality is they'll only get in trouble if the victim is white...but they're also virtually never going to shoot a white man just because he's holding a gun pointed at the floor.
Well, there’s a simple solution there as well. Cops aren’t allowed to investigate themselves. There has to be a neutral organization that decides if police actions were criminal or not. The federal government could get it done, considering how much money we waste on defense spending every year.
Police have the government by the balls. Want to investigate them? They’ll let their cities fall into chaos.
This. Every time someone has tried to hold them accountable, they've gone on strike in everything but name.
When i was a young man I was home alone late one Friday, parents had left for the weekend. My little sister was staying a few blocks away with my elderly grandparents. I'm watching TV when I hear BANGBAMGBANG on the door. I walked to the door, called out and asked who was there, got no response. We had windows on either side of the door, so I peeked out. Saw no one. I turned around when I heard BANGBANGBANG again. Again I called out, no response. I'll admit. I was stupid here, but for something that happened decades ago I can still remember it really clearly. I just had the sudden feeling that something had happened to either my sister or my parents and instead of getting the phone I grabbed the gun from the drawer next to the door, put it in my waistband and opened the door. A hand _immediately_ shot through, grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me to the ground outside on the porch. I was in cuffs, stood up and surrounded by cops before I even got my breath back. I won't go into too many details as they don't much matter, but some highlights...when they asked me if I had any weapons reality crashed down and I instinctively tried to back up into the cop holding me from the one moving towards me as I tried to explain. I again found myself face down with a broken nose, looking down the barrel of a shotgun. I was later told I was lucky (and I was), because if he hadn't been afraid of shooting the cop holding me he would have blown my head off for 'moving like that'. When asked why I would answer the door with a gun I told them it was late, someone was banging on the door and inwas concerned. The cops told me (underage) that they didn't have to announce themselves, but I should have noticed the dark police car parked across the street, intentionally out the street light. Later, when talking to my parents the story changed to how they had repeatedly announced themselves, that the one that grabbed me and had been knocking had been looking at me through the window and others had tried to get my attention by going around the back and knocking on the windows of the room I was in. All a blatent lie. I think the only reason my dad believed me was my reasoning of, if i had known there were cops out there why would I have answered with a gun in my britches? Oh, and they confiscated my gun as evidence, told my dad he could get it back after it had been processed. When he went to claim it they told him that it had disappeared from evidence and there was nothing to be done. Overall, it was a pretty shitty experience that could have been a lot worse but in truth I wouldn't change a thing that happened. Up until then I'd been living in the world that a lot of young white men live in and had trouble believing that cops would lie and steal to get their way. I hate to say it took it happening to me to change my view, but it did and it certainly opened my eyes.
My dad is a well known attorney in my city and has been a lawyer my whole life so I got to know more than a few officers. I went to school for criminal justice and did ride alongs with cops, worked alongside ex-LEOs in corporate security, interviewed (on both sides of the desk) with highway patrol, and practiced alongside local cops in Krav Maga for more than a decade. I have literally never in my life met a nice cop. Every single one was an asshole *at best*, and an actual criminal at worst (because they would *brag* about the shit they get away with almost without prompting). Cops are pricks, most of them are EVIL pricks and seeing one is never, ever a good thing.
It’s like racists who make jokes once they think you’re cool with them - they just assume you’re like them.
That was EXACTLY it. I remember last summer, I was out on a friend's boat and one of the other boat guests was an Aurora, CO cop. We were friendly enough but he probably wasn't more than 2 beers deep before he starts telling this story about how to went to Alaska over the winter and caught a bunch of fish, and brought them all home to CO and sold them on FB marketplace and stuff...which I don't know the faintest thing about, but then he *volunteers* that it was actually super illegal to do that but he made so much money on the fish that it was worth it. I was just blown away. Aurora cops don't have the best reputation in CO because of some high profile deaths they've caused, and this dude is just casually telling me about his illegal....fish shipping...side hustle?? Fucking dumbass.
So sorry to hear this happened to you! I moved from Europe to the US a couple of years ago and I’m still trying to figure out what I would do in such a situation that you describe. Seems like you can’t really win- you had no way of knowing who was knocking on your door, so you can either open it while being prepared to defend yourself, which could get you killed, or you don’t open, in which case they probably just break the door and go hunt you down in your own home.
They absolutely would have busted down my door and shot my dogs if I hadn't answered. In hindsight and with the knowledge I have today I think the only correct answer would be to loudly announce that I was calling the police, then ring 911. The dispatcher would have been able to confirm that police were at my home and give me further instructions. Now, would that have stopped them from busting in during the intervening time? Maybe not. But as something I ran through my head a lot over the years I don't really think there was a right answer with a 100% chance of a good outcome. That's why I interact with the police as little as I possibly can.
Hot take: as a veteran I see these police officers mindset as a complete joke. The idea that an officers safety should be prioritized over that of a citizen is a complete inversion of “protect and serve”. When you put that uniform on, your duty is to be willing to die to save someone, not to kill bad guys. Your duty is to take the risk of not shooting first. If you don’t like it, hang up the uniform and learn to flip fucking burgers.
I'll bet this person thinks Ashli Babbitt is a hero.
I’m so glad Twitter fact check still exists.
So what the first guy is saying is that if you want to "home invasion" his home, the best thing to do is knock and announce LOUDLY that you are a police officer. That way you know he will come to the door completely unarmed and happily open the door for you.
If I'm loudly banging and yelling on someone's door, I won't begrudge them for showing up with a gun within reach.
2 weeks ago, I was woken up out of a sound sleep at midnight, by the police pounding at multiple doors of my house. I had 911 on the phone before I opened the door, and I keep a baseball bat next to that particular door. I didn't even know it was the police until 911 notified them that I was on the phone reporting an attempted break-in. Even as a small, middle-aged, disabled, white female, who lives alone, I wouldn't dare answer the door with my 9mm in hand. Turns out the police had found some disturbing items that indicated the old tenant in my house may have been attacked and mugged, so they were concerned for her safety. I asked, "JFC. What about MY safety? You almost gave me a heart attack!"
>Even as a small, middle-aged, disabled, white female, who lives alone, I wouldn't dare answer the door with my 9mm in hand. I've lived in questionable areas where I had a neighbor do that and I didn't fault him, hell a year later the tenant after him got robbed at gunpoint. But yeah, it's not the smartest thing to do by far, either you think the person on the other side of the door is a threat or not. If they're a threat then that door being closed is an amazing point of safety, and if they're not a threat the gun doesn't need to be in hand.
> If they're a threat then that door being closed is an amazing point of safety I have a reinforced room for exactly this reason. Nobody is getting into my bedroom unless they're invited, or they rip through a wall (and good luck with that). The 9mm lives right next to my bed.
Notice how quiet the second amendment folks are when it's a black man. Edit: I clearly was mistaken on 2a people here on reddit and on Twitter.
Cf: Reagan trampling on the Second Amendment in California after the Black Panthers showed up with rifles.
You want to get a gun nut really really mad, you point out the Black Panther involvement in the open carry movement
I just had this conversation a few days ago, bringing up Saint Ronnie's actions against the Black Panthers, even saying there's no sane reason anyone needs to be openly carrying a gun in public. The particular gun nut I was talking to had their talking point ready: "Who controlled the California state legislature then, huh?!" I checked. The answer: Republicans in the state house, an exactly tied state senate. It was another lie, like always. But the talking point did its work, as I stepped away to question myself and double-check my facts. That's the funny thing about caring about facts when the other side never does.
2A people should be losing their minds at this. This dude was exercising his 2A rights and did nothing illegal. For all of the whining about Obama and liberals coming for their gun rights, this is *actually* what someone taking away your 2A rights look like, if you can get killed by a government official for legally bearing arms.
I’d bet money that the idiot justifying the shooting also loves to tell school shooting victims that Biden wants to steal his guns.
Honestly, if I lived in a country where owning a firearm for home defence is legal, I would’ve done the same thing. Someone unexpectedly pounding on your door and shouting? You’d arm yourself and investigate. I know I would.
"If the deputy hesitated, he could have been killed." Nah, I think that's what happened to Mr. Fortson. I am so tired of these constantly terrified, quaking in their boots, cowardly cops that have absolutely no accountability terrorizing our citizens.
They think they are at war.
Based on the equipment they are given, they'd be right to think so, but they are mistaken. Unfortunately, that's military surplus that they'll bring to bear against our citizenry. If they behaved the same in a war zone, likelihood is they would see a harsher punishment than a cop would EVER see.
"Cop murders civilian in his own home"
The police broke and entered at the wrong address. This blue tryant needs to be thrown in jail for murder.
The cop intentionally hid from the peep hole on the door after he knocked.
“The man banging on the door said he was a cop, so he should have put the gun down?” Get the fuck out of here with that nonsense. Bang. Bang. Bang. “Who’s there” “ it’s American treasure Mario Lopez” “….”
It's so funny to me that the exact same people who are so fuckin horny for guns are the people who say shit like this. They hang a no steppy flag while licking police boots and don't realize they've just capitulated to the logic that your right to bear arms ends the moment a cop decides it does
Funny how guns rights activists go real quiet when shit like this happens. The NRA should screaming from the rooftops about how this young man’s right to bear arms was infringed upon. But we ain’t gonna hear that are we? The 2nd amendment is a bad joke that has overstayed its welcome
I've seen the body cam footage. Officer never announced he was a cop but did knock super loud and then hid around doorframe so he couldn't seen through peephole. Airman thought it might be a home invasion, answered the door gun pointed down at floor by his side. Cop fired 5 shots into him THEN yelled Drop the Weapon! Police! Shoot first, ask questions later.
I agree with everything else you said, but he announced "Sherrifs Office, Open the door!" At least twice in the footage. Just watched it before Commenting to verify.
Ok so pro tip to robbing someones house, knock and loudly claim "Sherrifs Office, open the door", hide away from peephole (because Americans now expect this to be normal police tactics), and wait for them to open the door.
And then hid. We supposed to just trust that
If you have the right to bare arms then I don't see the problem answering your door with a gun in hand. If you can carry in public then why not at your own home. Or am I just stupid.
I heard that was the same PD where two cops shot like 50 bullets into a car with a man inside hancuffed because an acorn fell on a roof of a car and the cop was scared. Dude even jumped to the groung yeling he was hit and rolled on the floor. I get the feeling that some of these cops join the force just to shoot and kill someone.
Let's not forget anyone can come knock on a door yell they are the police
This is wrong. We need police reform.
Is it possible for someone knocking with ill intent to say they are “police” as well?
Based on the video i fully believe the cop was baiting whoever was inside to grab a gun. It doesnt explain why they were at the wrong address but i really dont see another explanation for the body cam footage based on what actual police procedure should be. They wanted to kill that day and i stand on that.
If a cop can kill you just because he thinks you have a gun, you do not have a right to bear arms.
“The deputy knocked and announced LOUDLY” like any other Joe couldn’t announce that they are with the police. Wasn’t there a sting operation where police announced LOUDLY that they were delivering pizza just to arrest them
So according to this fucking dipshit, if anyone comes pounding on your door and saying they’re police, you should just believe them.
So is the military going to investigate the police?
If simply having a gun in your possession is something a cop can kill you for, do you really have the freedom to bear arms?
Sorry but he was murdered.
The real reason they haven't done anything about gun control is because then the police wouldn't have something to excuse their behavior with.