SSCC #558-#560: NYPD

NYPD officers pepper-sprayed three little children, including 2-year- and 5-month old babies, because they thought the kids’ mom jumped a subway fare, the family claims in court.

Because in Bloomberg world that is reasonable.  No wonder Bloomberg doesn’t want anyone in his city armed, with officers behaving like that people might be liable to defend themselves from the criminals employed by the state.

State Sponsored Criminal #558: Maripily Clase

#559: Suranjit Dey

#560: Jermaine Hodge

Because when you out number someone and you think they may not have paid, pepper spray them and their children.  No need to use thought or a reasonable level of force, you’re a member of Bloomberg’s finest don’t you know!

SSCC #425–NYPD

There’s a reason this happened in NYC.

An unarmed Army National Guardsman was pulled over on a Queens highway and shot to death by an NYPD officer from an elite unit today — and the DA now is probing the incident that the victim’s friend is calling a case of police “road rage.”

Noel Polanco, 22, had his hands on the steering wheel of his 2012 Honda Fit moments before Detective Hassan Hamdy shot him once in the torso, a woman sitting in the front passenger seat told police, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Reading the article it appears the officer had no reason to treat the stop as a felony stop.  He then broke two rules obviously and put a round into the driver.  Yup, still think the cops are out to protect and serve.  They’re out to merely protect their own ass if they’re protecting anyone.

Odds are the officer won’t be fired and if anything will receive “training”.  I have a feeling the training is really, “How to frame the situation better in your favor.”

The reason I say it happened in NYC, is here in free America they would be afraid of people in the car being armed and shooting back after the first shot.

State Sponsored Criminal #425:  Hassan Hamdy

Because if you’re a cop and someone cuts you off, pull him over and shoot him.  If anyone asks what happened say he shot himself!*

*Yes, read the article, the officer told his friends that the driver shot himself…

Another Compare and Contrast

via Uncle comes this story.

There were two big developments Monday in the case of a motorist who was shot and killed along Greenwell Springs Road Friday after a fight with a police officer.  Investigators say an autopsy shows the deadly bullet was fired by a bystander, not the officer.  Police also announced that no charges would be filed in the case, either against the police officer involved or the bystander who fired the fatal shot into the head of George Temple.

The other kicker is the following:

According to Col. Greg Phares, "[Mr. Stevens] orders Mr. Temple to stop and get off the officer.  The verbal commands are ignored and Mr. Stevens fires four shots, all of which struck Mr. Temple."

There is also this assessment of the NYPD shooting from the Balloon Goes Up.  If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you do.  Of significance is the behavior of Officer 1 versus Officer 2.  It gets better though because Joe found something I saw a while ago but couldn’t remember where I found it.

A nationwide study by Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The "error rate" for the police, however, was 11 percent, over five times as high.

Sit back and let that sink and and absorb into your brain.  Remember that one of the arguments against concealed carry is that lawful carriers are more likely to shoot innocent bystanders.  The problem is the facts do not support this and there is a serious reason why.

Sit back for a second and think about your job, odds are your job provides you extra training from time to time relevant to your specific field.  For instance I once or twice a year attend classes specifically on power systems and power protection, paid for by my employer.  I am also regularly evaluated on my performance, including my ability to apply skills as well as learn new ones.  That said, while I do occasionally study power system material on my free time, that is a rare occurrence.  I do often study up on software design, as well as write my own applications.  I went into software and EE because I love the subject, so studying it doesn’t really bug me as it’s something I enjoy… That is until I start getting a headache from trying to follow some of the math.

Many officers however carry a gun because it is a part of the job.  They attend merely the mandatory training and leave it at that.  Luckily for a majority of officers this is not a problem until such time as they require the use of that skill.  Officer Doughnut though doesn’t want to spend his own money and off time practicing a skill with something he doesn’t inherently enjoy.  There is no incentive for him to do that.  Unlike me, where I love to shoot, it is my choice to carry a firearm, and I love learning new skills.  I have no problem spending my own money or time on such an endeavor, many within this culture have no problem with that.

We do have a problem with mandatory training requirements because as a wise man once told me, “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.”  Officers of the law are no exception to this rule.  Just because they went into law enforcement doesn’t mean they enjoy firearms.

This closing comment from Ron in his article on the Empire State Building shooting I think drives the point home sufficiently well.

But that is the power of video’s like this! It allows us, with a clear head, to review the actions that occurred and learn from them. If you don’t think about how you are going to respond and just think you will rise the occasion, you are wrong.  You will default to your level of training.

The Empire State Building shooting is a chance for us to learn what went wrong and what we need to do better.  On both sides of the fence.

On that Soda Ban…

So Phil over at RNS stumbled across and laid out a bunch of petty tyrants talking about how great the soda ban is.  I sparked the beginning of what became the reclassification of the term “New York Reload”.

Now supposedly this ban doesn’t affect places that sell things like grocery’s and convince stores unless they fall under the purview of the “health department”.  I.E. this mainly affects fountain drinks.  I don’t care, and the whole thing is absurd, especially when in light of the following: Continue reading