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A thread about when it's okay for cops to shoot people
Posts
He would have had to drag his unrestrained perp with him, who was trying to escape. If the officer had immediately protected himself first and foremost and lost the perp, he would have completely been in dereliction of duty.
I think it was seriously bad judgment for the teenagers to throw rocks at a law enforcement officer. Or any person with a gun, for that matter. But hey, it was theirs to make.
I hope, after seeing the sort of judgment calls Border Patrol agents make in the field, Mexican teenagers will not throw fucking rocks at our federal agents. That'd be peachy.
The danger of each rock thrown remains the same, but yes the danger posed to the officer increases with each rock thrown...right? Pretty sure there'd be an integral involved in there somewhere, and that eventually the probability of serious injury (given enough rocks thrown) would approach 1.
EDIT: Assuming the probability of any given rock causing serious injury is non-zero, which you seem willing to accept. Maybe you're not.
Regardless of whether the rocks were a lethal threat or not, I can't imagine this scenario in any way making Border Patrol Agents' lives any easier. The response so far from Mexico does not seem to be "we totally learned our lesson and won't throw rocks anymore!"
I'm pretty sure Scalfin is on the "the cop didn't have to shoot him!" side. So no, no gun for Scalfy. He can, however, drag a resistant and unrestrained suspect 30 feet to some cover if he'd like to while we keep whipping the rocks at him.
Do I get to shoot you? I'd yell at you first, so it would be within my rules of engagement.
Shoot more of them. They'll figure it out eventually.
Ever?
Want to go down this road?
EDIT: Also, unless you're the one volunteering to get hit in the face with rocks by little kids (or shot by little kids, or blown up by little kids), you might want to consider just not posting any more on the subject.
No, it's rather been, "How dare they shoot our criminals when they attack American police!"
Charming as always, Mexico. What a shithole.
I think this more or less summarizes the entire thread, and I'll let your final response stand alone without commentary, it does not justify a rebuttal.
Being aggressively partisan is just what countries do when it comes to any issue that involves their sovereignty in any way.
Was that a rebuttal? My view is that the Border Patrol agent made a bad call. You're supposed to give your reasons why the agent made a good judgment call given the minimal threat the kid or kids who were throwing rocks represented. All you said are that teenagers are stupid. That's nothing new. I think the Agent also made a dumb call. That is new because Border Patrol agents are supposed to, on average, not make bad calls like this.
But seriously, I think there are some people here who just have a knee-jerk reaction to things like this. Whether it's the use of force itself, the age of the target, or the idea that sometimes force used in response to force isn't (or can't be) proportional...they just wouldn't accept this situation given any set of circumstances, except maybe the kid actually having a gun.
Even then, they might want the kid to shoot first.
Oh, so something's only a threat if it's meant as a threat? I'll have to tell that to all the people who let themselves be buried under the false assumption that they died in traffic accidents. Hell, can you even show that throwing the rock was intended to be an attack rather than a show of defiance?
You argument was that the incident involved x, that x can cause injury, so this incident could cause injury. To put it in formal logic:
This incident involved a rock
Some incidents involving rocks cause injury
Therefor, this incident must have caused injury
To use the same logic:
This incident involved a sneeze
Some incidents involving sneezes impart fatal diseases
Therefor, this incident must have imparted a fatal disease
You have completely failed to show that this use of a rock could have caused injury, just like how you complain that I failed to show that a given case of sneezing would impart a fatal disease.
Wait really?
That's
What the fuck is this?
Only if you're arguing guns are a reasonable deterrent to thrown rocks.
Yes, thank you for adding so much to the discussion.
Could someone please PM me if this thread becomes sane and on topic again? Following it in its current state is a bit too much for me.
I found that Iraqi children respond quite quickly to having an M-16 pointed at them. Adults too, obviously.
Maybe Iraqis are just smarter than Mexicans. I don't know.
If they kept chucking masonry, though? Yeah, eventually they might get shot. Depends if I started feeling my safety (or that of my fellow soldiers) was threatened.
I would rather die than kill a child armed with nothing more than a rock. I am an adult.
No even if the kid shot first you'd hear "but he coulda ran away, could have arrested him, could have taken cover". There is a certain portion of our society that just hates the cops, agents, and the military. It's rather nasty and well... it's part of a certain political spectrum at that. Those people are just out there to die and have no reason to defend themselves, ever, and if they do... off with their head!
I have to imagine that, were the roles reversed, and an American teen was killed after attacking a Mexican soldier, we'd all be going, "What an idiot," not condemning the Mexican border guards.
I hope they give you a desk job too.
Really?
This is so fucking naive I'm not even sure how to respond
It's an assault either way.
Wait. I'm missing something with your formal logic here. Simply because some incidents involving rocks cause injury, that wouldn't imply that any incident involving a rock must cause injury.
I mean, if you're going to be a twat, try and get your argument right.
EDIT: I mean, if some cats are white, and I own a cat, that doesn't imply that it must be white...right? I've not taken any liberal arts logic classes, but I took plenty on the digital logic side and this doesn't seem to work.
I wouldn't. I am a human being with a sense of self-preservation.
What horrible irony it would be if you were killed by a rock thrown by a child.
And really, 15? 15 ain't a "child." Half the Hispanic 15-year olds I see at work are parents.
Wait that's silly, he was too far away to hit with one
... wait
I hope you never join the military.
Ahahahahaha
Never change, Atomic Ross. Never change.
Please stop strawmanning.
Oh I forgot, white people are kids if they're 15, messicans are adults
Actually, he was only talking about Mexicans in terms of teen pregnancy rates. Which I'd be unsurprised to find that their teen pregnancy rates are higher. His "15 ain't a 'child'" comment was race-neutral.
Nice dodge. Now, do you feel that I'd be justified in shooting you if you were throwing rocks from three meters short of the winning shot put at the latest Olympics, or am I only allowed to shoot Hispanics?
People have made those exact arguments here...
So no, not a strawman. And since a section of our society has known to value the lives of cops and soldiers less then that of anybody else, it's a concern.
The point being made was that a child with a rock posed no legitimate threat. Fifteen is hardly the age of a child incapable of physically harming someone, and choosing to frame it that way is intentionally dishonest.
You, too, are engaging in dishonest debate by purposefully misconstruing my statement.
A rock isn't a shot put there boss, it's not even close to the same thing.
Just like sneezing and holding out a hand isn't a hostile action.
Try again.
That's the point.
As a former collegiate shot-putter, I have to wonder if you know how little distance that is.