Police officer mistakes Wii remote for a gun, kills a teenager

  • Thread starter Madertus
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TenEightyOne
You've still got to give yours, I can't believe that any exist! :D
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I haven't claimed anything, so what figures would I produce?


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study
States that high gun ownership = high GUN RELATED death rate. Which is not what you claimed.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2012/jul/22/gun-ownership-homicides-map
Claims the same.

TenEightyOne
Homicides (and suicides) go up massively with gun freedom.
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Please provide figures that show that total homicides and suicides go up massively with gun freedom.

You've shown that gun related deaths go up, now show that other types of murders and suicides stay at relatively the same levels as without guns. It's entirely possible that gun related deaths and suicides are simply replacing other methods of killing.
 
Imari
You've shown that gun related deaths go up, now show that other types of murders and suicides stay at relatively the same levels as without guns. It's entirely possible that gun related deaths and suicides are simply replacing other methods of killing.
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Rightly I should have restricted that statement to gun-related deaths. I can't find any transitory figures showing the replacement of deaths-by-firearm with deaths-by-other-means. I'm prepared to be persuaded on that, I just can't find any trends either way and am therefore ignorant of them :)
 
Johnnypenso
45% of Finn's own guns...24 gun homicides
30% of Norweigans...2 gun homicides
30% of Germans...158 gun homicides
31% of Canadians..173 gun homicides
4% of Indians....3093 gun homicides...40,700 by other means

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/gun-homicides-ownership/table/
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Where are the non-gun figures? I only see with-gun figures on there? Couldn't see the "other means"?

EDIT: When I sort by Guns-per-100-people the Homicides-by-guns-per-100 falls quite nicely, the only spikes are the kind of countries often associated with smuggling crime and the like.
 
TenEightyOne
Where are the non-gun figures? I only see with-gun figures on there? Couldn't see the "other means"?
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You'd have to reverse engineer them using the % of homicides by gun. But if the premise is "more gun ownership = more gun murders" either relatively or absolutely, those countries seem to refute that trend.

TenEightyOne
EDIT: When I sort by Guns-per-100-people the Homicides-by-guns-per-100 falls quite nicely, the only spikes are the kind of countries often associated with smuggling crime and the like.
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I noticed the same thing but didn't want to hear that I was "cherry picking" by throwing out the third world countries and other places known to be somewhat lawless:lol:. The conclusion I'd be inclined to draw from that is that each country's overall number of murders isn't directly related to gun ownership levels, but the % of murders by guns is closely related to the % of gun ownership.
 
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Johnnypenso
You'd have to reverse engineer them using the % of homicides by gun. But if the premise is "more gun ownership = more gun murders" either relatively or absolutely, those countries seem to refute that trend.
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That wouldn't show the change though because you'd have to quantify what constitued homicide in each country and what the likely survivability of an attack was in each country.

I've grabbed that table anyway, will have a play in a bit, thanks for the link :)
 
Statistics show that you are 29 times more likely to be killed in America by a policeman than a terrorist. Wonder what would happen, if a policeman shot someone for wearing a back-pack? Same response from the defence, presumably. Back on topic, the officer could have benn slightly off-balanced mentally before hand, or possibly very poor eyesight. I don't believe she would have done this on purpose.
 
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Citation required.

Also:

http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/01/police-involved-shootings-2011-annual.html

Your chances of getting shot are much, much higher if you are armed or are holding something that looks like a gun or a weapon. (Suicide-by-cop is an all-too-common reality, in this case)

This does not excuse police shootings, however... but one has to recognize that people, in the heat of the moment, can and do make grave mistakes.

Here's an excellent breakdown of how and why cops can shoot people without really meaning to:

http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/policeshooting.html

Which is apparently what happened in this case. It seems likely the officer did not intend to kill the boy. Who in their right mind would want the public outrage and ostracism that goes with that?

What I find questionable is how the two officers approached this possible confrontation, with guns drawn and (presumably) expecting a fight or a difficult arrest... and how they came to the house without proper knowledge of the suspect's living conditions and the presence of minors. For that, they definitely deserve a sanction.

For the wrongful death of the boy, the particulars of the case will determine how much more than that they should get.
 
5000 deaths since 9/11. But yes, I agree, the number of perps would be more than useful. Jim Fisher also states that more people were shot by police in 1971 than in 2011, by some margin 93 to 24. So the rate went down!
Maybe the police are killing less people, and it's the media that's changed, or the way I've interpreted it.

It's a lot of people though, and very sad.
 
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Enemem
Statistics show that you are 29 times more likely to be killed in America by a policeman than a terrorist.
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I'm not disputing that number by any means, but I wonder if you could perhaps cite the study/studies that came up with those statistics?
 
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niky
What I find questionable is how the two officers approached this possible confrontation, with guns drawn and (presumably) expecting a fight or a difficult arrest... and how they came to the house without proper knowledge of the suspect's living conditions and the presence of minors. For that, they definitely deserve a sanction.

For the wrongful death of the boy, the particulars of the case will determine how much more than that they should get.
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The officers attended the property to arrest the occupant for parole violation, according to the small amount of information given by the police.

In my early "what ifs" I speculated that one explanation could be that the arrestee had his children unexpectedly visiting having just moved to there. Certainly it doesn't seem that the witnesses at the trailer park knew much about him.

That is, as I said, pure speculation but it adds up with the police side of the story. Unfortunately the only other side comes from Cole Law right now, police statements are all sub-judice.
 
Another thing is.
Since the officer was going to open fire no matter what(since she had the gun drawn) she may have killed the dad if the kid wasn't there and the police would cover the whole thing up and in the end no one would care since the word of a criminal is worth less than that of a cop.
 

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