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Cops Gone Wild: Shooting Yourself in the Foot
Feral
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/10/BA771OFT3F.DTL
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8654038
So, yet another shooting by police under shady circumstances, this time in East Oakland.
Here's what we know: 18-year-old Alan Blueford was on probation for a felony burglary conviction when he was out after midnight with two friends on Sunday morning, May 5. Police stopped the three kids with suspicion that one of them was carrying a gun. Blueford ran and was shot three times by Oakland PD officer Miguel Masso.
Officer Masso also shot himself in the leg.
Here's what makes this sketchy:
Masso originally claimed that Blueford fired upon him. When it came out that the gun retrieved on the scene that purportedly was carried by Blueford had never been shot, and that Masso's wound was self-inflicted, he recanted his story to say that Blueford was merely threatening him with the gun.
The police claim that "independent witnesses" corroborated the story that Blueford brandished his gun at the officers. As far as anybody but OPD knows, the only "witnesses" on the scene were Blueford's friends.
Of course, at 12am at night, in a not-particularly-well-lit neighborhood, why did Masso suspect that one of the boys was carrying a gun? X-ray vision? Psychic powers?
This isn't an Oscar Grant or Scott Olsen situation where there is clear video footage of cops being dicks. We might never know what happened the night Blueford was killed. It's not impossible that Blueford was posing a threat to the officers.
What we do know is that Masso lied in his report and the penalty for that misconduct is a paid vacation. There needs to be some way of effectively dealing with cops who blatantly lie.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8654038
So, yet another shooting by police under shady circumstances, this time in East Oakland.
Here's what we know: 18-year-old Alan Blueford was on probation for a felony burglary conviction when he was out after midnight with two friends on Sunday morning, May 5. Police stopped the three kids with suspicion that one of them was carrying a gun. Blueford ran and was shot three times by Oakland PD officer Miguel Masso.
Officer Masso also shot himself in the leg.
Here's what makes this sketchy:
Masso originally claimed that Blueford fired upon him. When it came out that the gun retrieved on the scene that purportedly was carried by Blueford had never been shot, and that Masso's wound was self-inflicted, he recanted his story to say that Blueford was merely threatening him with the gun.
The police claim that "independent witnesses" corroborated the story that Blueford brandished his gun at the officers. As far as anybody but OPD knows, the only "witnesses" on the scene were Blueford's friends.
Of course, at 12am at night, in a not-particularly-well-lit neighborhood, why did Masso suspect that one of the boys was carrying a gun? X-ray vision? Psychic powers?
This isn't an Oscar Grant or Scott Olsen situation where there is clear video footage of cops being dicks. We might never know what happened the night Blueford was killed. It's not impossible that Blueford was posing a threat to the officers.
What we do know is that Masso lied in his report and the penalty for that misconduct is a paid vacation. There needs to be some way of effectively dealing with cops who blatantly lie.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Feral on
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Posts
Nope, they just left Blueford to bleed out on the street.
http://oaklandlocal.com/article/oakland-police-shoot-kill-another-black-youth-community-questions-killing
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That is a goosey thing to say, riots don't solve anything.
...
I honestly have no idea how mad to be. I'm somewhere between super mad and mega super mad.
Obviously. They need to take them to the neighborhoods where the cops live.
A bit of mindless destruction can go a surprisingly long way to leading to real reforms. LA sure learned from the King riots.
Take away the self inflicted wound, and what does the situation look like? Suspect brandished a gun at cops, cops preemptively opened fire. Had everybody involved called it a night right there and just filed the report, the whole situation looks a lot less suspicious and whatever their reasons for shooting this guy would probably just be quietly ignored. The initial stop might be questionable, and there's still questions about the shooting itself, but at the end of the day, "Cops shoot guy with gun" doesn't invoke outrage the way "cops taser, pepper spray, beanbag, then shoot 70 year old ex-marine having a heart attack," does.
But at some point, "Hey, dude, shoot yourself in the leg. No, not with that gun, you'll get prints on it, just use your own," sounded like a good idea to somebody, and now this whole situation smells fishy.
American cops have a duty of care to suspects right?
What's the 'defence' there. Surely the fact there exists no evidence that they tried to call for medical attention when required is an instant serious/fireable disciplinary offence.
I don't know about duty of care to suspects (though "watch your head" as they put someone in the back of a cruiser is ubiquitous).
I do know that courts have found that police are not responsible for protecting citizens in general. As in, you could get mugged in front of a police officer and if he chooses not to intervene for whatever reason, you don't have any grounds to take action against him or the department.
Class reaction against the state is never a riot.
Actually, SCOTUS has stated over and over that police have no repsonsibility or expectation to protect or help anyone. They could easily say they didnt check on him because they thought he was "faking" and still a danger.
If things were on the up and up, and I shot at someone but couldnt tell if I hit because its the middle of the night and the perpetrator had a gun, I wouldn't be inclined to run and grab vitals or call/allow parametics near him.
Besides, Oakland has had small riots in the not-too-distant past over Oscar Grant and they didn't really help much.
What I want is for Mayor Jean Quan to step down and take interim chief Howard Jordan with her. Jordan didn't start the problems with the OPD, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he isn't fixing them. We need a modern day Lindsay & Serpico to clean up the department.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
See my guess would be that he shot himself while drawing his weapon and mistakenly registered that initial hit in his mind as the consequence of the other guy firing upon him, so he immediately "returned" fire.
Which makes sense but the rest of it...hooo wee.
Well, to be clear, I think what happened is fairly repulsive, but I can see most of the other things which happened in connection with the incident emerging naturally out of a panicked police officer firing into his own leg while drawing his service weapon and mistakenly believing that he was under fire from an armed felon. It certainly makes more sense than the deliberate cover-up narrative where a police officer deliberately shoots in the leg with his own firearm, like that won't somehow be immediately detected when both his weapon and the subject's are secured as evidence.
By contrast, if you didn't realize you'd shot yourself and believed that you'd been shot by the armed felon you were pursuing, then of course your story is going to change after the facts surrounding who shot whom emerge.
Plus, why would he shoot himself?
It's not like he wouldn't get away with it if he didn't have a leg wound.
EDIT -- By the way, I'm highly suspicious of the family's claim that the two officers never tried to get medical aid for Blueford. Even if we take for granted that they were bad actors who wanted to deny Blueford access to any medical aid, I can't imagine any way that scenario plays out where they don't radio for an EMT team -- if not for Blueford, then at least for the idiot who'd just shot himself in the leg. If more comes out to substantiate that claim, Feral, do please let us know.
Especially the whole didn't call EMT when an officer has been shot (even when who shot him wasnt immediately clear). I will be willing to bet EMT was called.
If you draw a gun on an officer he has the right to draw and shoot you dead, right then and there. You dont have to fire the weapon. If thats what happened, and everything else is just chaos at work here, so be it. Tragic, but its possible the officer was in the right here.
Also we want would want to know if it was suspected because someone called to report a man with a gun. I know ive gotten notices where I live when police are looking for such individuals after someone calls one in.
I doubt the officer intentionally shot himself in the leg either. Probably go with the simple assuption that the suspect was brandishing a gun, and Masso drew to shoot, shooting himself in the leg in the process, and thought that the suspect fired upon him and returned fire. Its probably more likely than corrupt cop saw teen and shot him dead then shot himself in the leg to try to cover it up.
Investigations are important and were better off just letting the investigation take its course. A wrongful death suit is probably sure to follow here.
Care to share the omnipresent facts you seem to have to wish harm on a fellow human being?
A uniformed police officer blamed his own fuckup on a civilian, and accused a civilian of a crime he knows that civilian did not commit.
That should not happen, ever, and should not be tolerated when it does.
The authority of the police depends necessarily on them being trustworthy witnesses. If they cannot be trusted to give reports that are true to the best of their knowledge (and to accurately represent the boundaries of that knowledge), they're not police, they're thugs.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
I feel pretty comfortable saying that no one really knows yet what happened definitively. The police have changed their side of the story based on factually inaccurate information, and elements of the narrative put forward by the family also appear specious.
Masso can be reassigned to desk duty or be pushed back into training to correct the self shooting part. I'm not going to advocate that someone get fired over shooting himself when there are alternatives. Let the investigation move forward, get the facts, then make the appropriate decision. I doubt Masso is going to repeat the actions that lead to him shooting himself, and probably will be more careful in the future.
At the very least, he should be reprimanded. I would prefer suspended without pay for a few days or a week. Firing may be extreme, assuming that the suspect he shot was actually brandishing a weapon.
He was trained to safety his weapon while it was in the holster and to only place his finger upon the trigger when he was ready to fire the first time around. That's not just Day One instruction, it's Every Day instruction. I haven't been to a firing range in this country where they don't have the rule "Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot" on the range rules poster.
When confronted with a situation where the officer felt afraid, that (very basic, persistently reinforced) safety training failed him. If being reminded about the rules of firearm safety every single time he practiced with his service weapon still failed to make those safety behaviors so natural to him that he could observe them without thinking -- even under duress -- then I don't know what a temporary refresher course could possibly accomplish for him. I see literally no reason to believe that this couldn't possibly happen to him again.
I'd personally refuse to partner with the guy in the future, lest he accidentally shoot me in the back the next time we're going through a doorway.
-He had an accidental discharge, and covered it up by blaming it on the suspect. This is jail time worthy. (HEAVY jail time worthy, IMO- this is essentially framing someone for attempted murder)
-He had an accidental discharge, someone managed to NOT realize it, and wrote his report honestly. This is "Are you really fit to be a cop?"
-He panicked, shot himself, and blamed it on the suspect. Unlikely. Also jail time worthy though.
The problem is that because we've already caught him in one lie this means all related testimony needs to be heavily scrutinized. Who said the suspect drew the gun? Oh right, him and his partner...nope, no reason at all to doubt that story, no siree. It's not like either of them have a vested interest in lying or come from an organization built on a culture of institutionalized lying-to-cover-your-ass...