This video from a Mexican news broadcast (hat tip reader Gonzalo Lira) is nominally off topic for this blog, but I thought I’d include it precisely because it illustrates one of the mechanisms of propaganda: how the non or under reporting of key facts is used to manage popular perceptions. This video appears getting play only on CNN and some local newstations in the US (and I see the YouTube has only a bit over 1000 viewings thus far).
The newswoman says the teenagers were throwing rocks, but as you can see from the video, unless they were using slingshots (and there is no evidence of that) they were so far away as to pose no threat to the border cop.
Gonzalo reports: “It’s getting a lot of play not only in Mexico, but in the rest of Latin America. The emerging consensus in Latin America is, the US is a country of trigger-happy crazy-people.”
As sad as this case is, in the overall scheme of things this is a minor incident, but it serves to illustrate how news reporting is tailored to fit conventional (and authority-flattering) narratives.
Update: A Google search does show The Daily News with a writeup of the video. It also points out the body of the slain Mexican teenager was found on Mexican soil. Since he appears to have fallen in place, this raises further problems for the “official” version of the story.
224 comments
Comments are closed.
It also shows how different groups and/or their media can construct different narratives out of the same events.
Yes, sometimes the construction of events by different groups as you call it Jessica is also known as lying and propaganda. It shows exactly what Ives point is–the U.S. govt is quell surprise lying….This is not a Rashomon like case of different interpretations based on perspectives. The border patrol agent murdered a child.
It is disturbing to me that I have seen video on this subject from two different sources that gave me very different impressions. I saw pictures of hand sized rocks being thrown and it seemed credible that the border patrol would have felt threatened, but obviously I was not there. The mexican media is showing a very different angle. Had this not been on the border, and had not involved mexicans I am sure most of us would have given the law enforcement personel the benefit of the doubt – a criminal taunting and threatening a law enforcement official can lead to the death of the criminal.
I also find the anti-american point of view in Mexico a bit disengenuous. The border towns on the mexican side of the border are some of the most violent places in human history. Mexicans who ‘work’ the border are not your typical migrant farm workers, but often violent career criminals. Handing out bobby sticks to border control agents is not going to cut it.
bob goodwin,
You’re another person who provides evidence that bolsters Eric Hoffer’s claim that “People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
If that is an ad-hominim attack, at lacks the benefit of clarity.
bob goodwin,
No ad hominem at all. You’re merely a victim of the decadence that has come to pervade the US education system. As Robert Hughes explains:
For when the 1960s animus against elitism entered American education, it brought in its train an enormous and cynical tolerance of student ignorance, rationalized as a regard for “personal expression” and “self-esteem.” Rather than “stress” the kids by asking them to read too much or think too closely, which might cause their fragile personalities to implode on contact with college-level demands, schools reduced their reading assignments, thus automatically reducing their command of language. Untrained in logical analysis, ill-equipped to develop and construct formal arguments about issues, unused to mining texts for deposits of factual material, the students fell back to the only position they could truly call their own: what they felt about things. When feelings and attitudes are the main references of argument, to attack any position is automatically to insult its holder, or even to assail his or her perceived “rights”; every argumentum becomes ad hominem, approaching the condition of harassment, if not rape. “I feel very threatened by your rejection of my views on [check one] pallocentricity/the Mother Goddess/the Treaty of Vienna/Young’s Modulus of Elasticity.” Cycle this subjectivization of discourse through two or three generations of students turning into teachers…and you have the entropic background to our culture of complaint.
–Robert Hughes, Culture of Complaint
So it is not ad-hominem because you are not calling me stupid, you are merely pointing out that my intelligence was neglected by a poor education?
I still am not closely following your complaint. And I don’t think that is due to my education.
bob goodwin,
Let’s go back to your original comment where you state that “a criminal taunting and threatening a law enforcement official can lead to the death of the criminal.”
A criminal?
And “taunting and threatening a law enforcement official” is justification for summary execution? By the way, more recent reports from Mexico confirm that Sergio was only 14, not 15 as is being reported by some US media outlets. And he sustained two bullet wounds, one to the shoulder and one to the head:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/columnas/84379.html
The shoulder wound would surely have incapacitated the 14 year-old boy, enough to keep him from throwing more rocks. After that, why was the bullet to the head—-the coup de grâce—-necessary?
And this comes just two weeks after a group of more than 20 border patrol agents brutally beat another Mexican citizen, 32 year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas, to death. There was no video of the beating, but here you can listen to the victim plead for mercy as he is being beaten to death by the border patrol:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/178309.html
Of course none of this evidence matters to bob goodwin. The only thing that matters to bob goodwin is what bob goodwin feels about things.
Ok your complaints against me were first that I was a boot licker, then stupid, and now that my feelings differ from your facts? I see that you are passionate about something. You just are not bothering to express yourself logically.
Yes, 14 year olds can be dangerous criminals using rocks as deadly weapons. I was not there, and neither were you.
Oops, Yves pressed the “hot” button. I realize the point is that media can be massaged in all fields, but in bringing up this case (and voicing an “opinion” on a law enforcement agent’s actions under the heat of the moment), this comment section will get insane. People will use this case to cement their preconceived notions, not learn a f***ing thing, yell at each other, refuse to listen to each other, call each other Nazis, distort views they don’t agree with. Sigh……
I’m not going to get into the scrum. This will be investigated, and the facts will come out, and if the border patrol agent violated the law, he will be prosecuted. Happens every time a US law enforcement officer employs deadly force. I only have one point to make:
I request that everyone who wants to rant about this agent’s actions give out their phone number and the town in which they live, and I encourage anyone who lives in their town, when faced with an intruder in your home, call this person rather than the police, and insist that he/she come right over to protect you, and that all split-second decisions they make when dealing with a chaotic,unknown situation must be made perfectly, or else they are going to jail.
Anyone who wants to sit in their comfy armchair and stand in judgement of the same cops who they’ll call in a heartbeat when in danger, I say – you take their place, and be available to come over immediately when any stranger calls you and asks for help. If you’re not willing to do that, at least understand why you’re not willing to do that. Does that little mental exercise give you any sense of empathy for the person who will come to YOUR aid when you ask?
alex black,
Why does it not surprise me that, given your extreme right-wing views on economics, that you would also see nothing wrong with the excessive use of force by the police? There is invariably a correlation between these two seemingly unrelated spheres.
As Eric Hoffer said:
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Down South,I’ve read enough of your posts to realize that you not only see the world “through a glass darkly”, but you seem to see it through kadeidoscopic reversal mirrors.
Where did you read me condoning excessive use of force by police? My only point was to encourage people to truly try to “put themselves in their shoes” before they cast their judgement. I made no comment about excessive force being justified. You read that into it, as you always read things in my posts which just aren’t there.
I’m always happy to debate with people who debate with what I say, but it’s pointless to debate with people who put words in my mouth and then debate with their own words. I feel left out of the discussion when they do that.
alex black,
Do you really believe that people who read this blog cannot discern how extreme your economic views are?
And in that same regard, do you really believe readers can’t discern how extreme the authoritarian viewpoint you expressed in your comment above is?
You like to play this little cat and mouse game, thinking you’re being coy.
Trust me, it’s not working.
Also, I notice scrolling through the thread that 23 of the 108 comments are yours.
And yet you swagger: “I’m not going to get into the scrum.”
You could fit the Grand Canyon into the space between your perception of yourself and how other people perceive you.
Hitting the head with a pistol (one handed mind you) at that distance?
Self-defense my ass!
Where I live (Northwest, USA) cops recently shot and killed a suspected robber. He was suspected to have robbed a drive-through espresso stand.
He was hiding in the bushes when police found him. It was claimed that a knife was found on the body, but no claims that he had threatened the officers who shot and killed the man, apparently as he hid in the bushes.
The story appeared on local TV and then was gone in the blink of an eye.
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Officer-involved-shooting-in-Sedro-Woolley-95879764.html
According to the latest CNN story, the Border Patrol is now claiming the victim was into human smuggling:
The 15-year-old Mexican youth who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent had a history of involvement with human smuggling and was on a list of repeat juvenile offenders, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mark Qualia told CNN Thursday.
The victim, Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, had been apprehended by U.S. officials on more than one occassion but was never criminally charged, Qualia said.
The border patrol is also sticking to its story that the victim was throwing rocks at the border patrol agent:
Rock-throwing can be considered a dangerous assault, Qualia said: “They’re not chunking pebbles.”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/texas.border.patrol.shooting/index.html?hpt=T1
This story is big, big news in Mexico, and it comes on the heels of another detainee who died in Border Patrol custody just a couple of weeks ago. And it’s all playing out with Arizona SB1070 as a backdrop.
The video offers ironclad evidence that the Border Patrol is lying.
The politicians here are playing this thing to the hilt to try to draw attention away from their own dismal record on human rights. Meanwhile, politicans in the US, most notably in Arizona, are whipping up anti-Mexican sentiment, trying to project their own failings onto Mexican immigrants who had almost nothing to do with causing Arizona’s severe economic downturn.
It really is a race to the bottom by unscrupulous politicians on both sides of the Rio Grande.
It really is just another incremental increase in the ruling wealthy elite’s program of global intimidation and fear mongering essential to more fully developing the intentional planet wide perpetual conflict in the masses.
Whistle blowers, border crossers, peace flotilla activists, financial protesters in Seattle, Miami, Oakland etc. — resist the rich and you will be punished is the message.
The reply to the message — 10,000 Pharaohs will be countered by 6 billion slaves all getting on the internet and becoming aware. The rich will soon know the meaning of justice. Cops should choose sides carefully.
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
“deception is the strongest political force on the planet”
No, it’s the second strongest one. Self-deception is far stronger. Meditate on that one for a while. If you dare.
If that s the case Americans do have a real problem.
Oh, it’s universal, my friend. :-)
Well, Alex, been looking in the mirror, have you?
I take it you’ve been “reflecting on that one”?
LOL.
Errr … self deception is a form of deception.
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
Ba Dat Bing!
Under de guise of a democratic and free system, U.S. citizens live under one of the most repressive regimes in the whole world. I saw a few weeks a ago a guy who was profiting from a flood to make some water skiing–for which I would have to congratulate him, for making lemonade out of lemons. And what did the local police do? They came over and arrested him, they handcuffed him, just like a common criminal and they took him away. I doubt that such a thing could have ever happened in Chile’s Pinochet or even in Hitler’s Germany.
It might have happened in Hitler’s Germany. But today’s German police is quite relaxed. When we entered the Reichstag in Berlin this weekend there was airport-like security to get to the roof. The X-ray machine picked up a knife in the backpack of one of our group members. This knife has a locking blade and is perfectly legal in most (or even all) of the US states. But apparently not in Germany. We were told to pick up the illegal knife on the way out of the Reichstag. Got a tag and so it happened. Nobody got arrested, no confiscation of contraband, just 30 seconds of questioning motives. That was all. In the US I would have been very afraid about the fallout of such an incident.
Well, if you’re on the subject of propaganda and perception, you should post link to 15min of raw Mavi Marmara footage. Its been edited and cut from an hour and doesn’t explain where blood (first 2min) on ladder came from, but it certainly gives timeline of events. Activist dead or wounded before commandos ever board the ship
http://www.culturesofresistance.org/gaza-freedom-flotilla
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/jun/video-inside-lethal-israeli-gaza-flotilla-raid-turkish-ship-released-united-nations-tc-indy
Who care what Israel does ?
Move along, you self-deceived fools…right, Alex?
Alex?
now they apparently started smearing the 15 yr old kid:
The 15-year-old Mexican youth who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent had a history of involvement with human smuggling and was on a list of repeat juvenile offenders, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mark Qualia told CNN Thursday.
well just like you better respect the police in los angeles i guess some people will start respecting the border patrol . i hate that it happened but i bet a few thousand people will not try to cross into our country there might be better than a fence what happened. no one has a right to live in usa its a privelige
Thanks Mike. I’m not smart enough to post a comment in this crowd so I appreciate your standing up for our country.
So, standing on mexican soil he should listen to american law enforcement?
Take the other side, if you were from the US standing in the US and a Mexican police person shot you, you would be ok with it?
What if the mexican police start giving orders to US BP agents, should they have to listen?
I wouldn’t be on the US side throwing rocks at armed Mexican police. If I were, I’d better be fighting for something I’m willing to die for, cause if I’m not I’d be one stupid dead criminal.
It is very simple. Do not throw rocks at armed federal agents, of any country, from anywhere. If you do, expect to be fired at, and when an agent fires a firearm they aren’t firing to scare, nor wound, they are firing to kill. If you walkaway alive, count yourself lucky.
A privilege to be determined by armed men, with the unquestioned power to kill.
Univision Network News, whose half-hour broadcast draws about 3M viewers, headlined today’s edition with the video.
At 1:09 in the video you can clearly seen the dust fly up in front of the agent’s feet from a rock, or whatever was thrown, landing. THEN the agent fires his weapon at the person responsible.
I rarely see any mention about the photo showing the kid’s legs and shoes with a small sledgehammer, an extra pair of shoes, and a piece of rope laying in front of him.
Here: http://tinyurl.com/2dxnjud
What reason would an “innocent child” have for carrying these things with him if he was just “playing” along the river with his friends?
These juveniles were clearly on the U.S. side of the border and running from the agent(s) trying to apprehend them.
Now that this video has been released the FBI/BP will certainly respond in a statement and release the video footage they claim to have.
Was it right? Not my call. I wasn’t the agent with several hostile people around me.
Is it wrong to shoot at unarmed teenagers throwing rocks at armed law enforcement officers?
Not in my book. These people made their own choices which led to this situation happening.
I know the U.S. government and its law enforcement can be corrupt on many different levels in many different areas, but is it really as corrupt as the authorities in Juarez, Mexico, the murder capital of the western hemisphere?
So who you gonna believe?
A terrible tragedy has happened. But the blame does not belong solely on the BP agent.He was doing his job. The juveniles were breaking the law and from what I can see they were attacking him trying to escape.
Yep just following orders or doing his job…..darn kid in the wrong place had it coming because he made some choices? Wow throw rocks and get a .40 in your head. Boy can’t just blame the government, look at how desensitized and authority grubbing people are. What does the corruption of the mex gov have to do with justifying the killing of that boy? Nothing the kid and no amount of rocks thrown justify his being killed. That people like you are apologists for murder is disgusting. You probably would have been right at home with the Khemer Rouge or the SS
im a black guy that lives in l.a. and my parents are from the south ive seen the police do alot of thins ..just like the cop in san fransico that shot the guy in the back while he was on the ground guess what? he was a citizen. trhis incedent will put a wakw up call dont f… with the border patrol hate to say it but it will slow a few thousand people down thats tring to get across the border. my hats of to arizona.. california is gone its not america anymore all i see is mexican flags on peoples houses
Yeah and Chicago with all those Irish/Italian/German flags and Partys…etc etc.
Most of whom are LEGAL!! GET OVER the whole race thing – it is about LAW.
I grew up in AZ, family/friends employed non documented workers and grew/increased wealth because of it, voted for republican and democratic politicians that kept the status quo. These states benefited for decades (grew wealth), none of these groups wish to loose such slave labour, just deflect that they have ripped off the citizens of that wealth and now push the buttons that tea partiers et al so easily provide.
Skippy…LAW you say, its been there all the time. Why not go after the real enablers.
Sho’nuff, Skippy. We Americans like to complain about illegals, and talk about “American jobs for Americans” but we also like cheap meat, table grapes, vegetables, construction labor, and so on.
“Yep just following orders or doing his job…..darn kid in the wrong place had it coming because he made some choices?”
If I go out tomorrow break the law and then start throwing rocks at an armed police officer in the process of detaining one of my fellow criminals and he shoots me in the head. It’s completely MY fault. Bad day for me.
Did he have it coming?
Everybody’s got it coming.
He made his choice on HOW he got it coming when he threw that rock.
“Boy can’t just blame the government, look at how desensitized and authority grubbing people are.”
I blame the government for many different things all the time. Especially corruption and heavy-handed law enforcement. This is not one of those cases.
This agent was protecting his own life as he is trained to do.
“What does the corruption of the mex gov have to do with justifying the killing of that boy?”
It’s the corruption of the entire society and its government. You are all sitting here in judgment of the U.S. “propaganda” with no thought or concern about the “propaganda” of the other side. As if this isn’t a P.R. coup for the Mexican government in its long-time quest to keep dumping the poorest citizens of that country across the border due to their own complete failure to improve their nation.
I also find it quite amusing that Mexicans and Latin Americans think Americans are “trigger happy crazy people” considering this happened across the river from one of the most violent cities on the planet. Meanwhile El Paso is one of the safest cities in the U.S.
The juxtaposition and cognitive dissonance here is amazing.
“Nothing the kid and no amount of rocks thrown justify his being killed.”
If he had hit that officer square in the temple and killed him would another officer have then been justified to shoot at the offender?
I wonder if Goliath felt the same thing about David’s actions after all was said and done.
“That people like you are apologists for murder is disgusting.”
That people like you would use this tragedy to make a partisan political propaganda point is disgusting.
“You probably would have been right at home with the Khemer Rouge or the SS”
And you’d probably be right at home with the Stasi or the KGB.
You’ve just proven Lira’s point.
Officer was out of range of rocks. He was not hit. Even if the kids might have managed to throw one far enough to reach him, it would have had to be so small as to not do any damage.
But you think it’s OK to kill people for merely defying authority. That’s what your view amounts to.
“Officer was out of range of rocks. He was not hit. Even if the kids might have managed to throw one far enough to reach him, it would have had to be so small as to not do any damage.”
That’s a lot of “ifs.”
In the entire minute this incident happened in, how many of those “ifs” did the BP agent run through in his mind before he pulled the trigger?
– Should he have stopped, reloaded with rubber bullets, and then fired?
Run for cover with his detainee hanging on to his legs?
In the entire minute this incident happened in, how many of those “ifs” did young Sergio run through in his mind before he threw that rock?
-WHY didn’t the kid stop running, and hold his hands up like any normal person would have done instead of attacking in hopes that if they knocked the agent out his amigo could have escaped?
This is where you are all getting it wrong.
This was a confrontation between several criminals and a law enforcement officer.
This would have NEVER happened had they not crossed the border. THEY made the choice that day knowing full well the dangers and consequences.
“But you think it’s OK to kill people for merely defying authority. That’s what your view amounts to.”
Putting words into other people’s mouths to score some points is the lowest, and most ridiculous, form of debate.
I am stating that I believe in the right of self-defense, especially in the case of a man who is paid daily to go out and risk his life to protect the borders of a country.
Throwing rocks at armed men is not “merely defying authority.” It is DANGEROUS and absolutely DEADLY activity.
WTF are you, some kind of anarchist?
But you think it’s OK to kill people for merely defying authority. That’s what your view amounts to.
Well DUUUH!
my_view,
No, but I see you are reduced to ranting to defend an indefensible position. You can see how far the kids are in the video from the officer. It does not take much in the way of powers of observation to see that they aren’t even remotely close enough to throw a rock and injure him in even a minor way.
Moreover, you are abjectly ignorant of the standard for the use of force by police. You are merely defending the abuse of authority. The officer’s act was clearly illegal. If you cared about the law, as opposed to the petty perquisites of people who wield power, you might bother to focus on the real issues here.
The standards accepted by courts is that officers are allowed to use deadly force regardless of whether they see a weapon, so long as they reasonably believe they are “in danger of death or serious bodily injury.” That kid did not represent a threat of “serious bodily injury.”
Another benchmark is UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Principles 9, 12, 13, and 14). One summary:
“Lethal force should not be used except when strictly unavoidable in order to protect your life or the lives of others
“The use of firearms is an extreme measure which must be strictly regulated, because of the risk of death or serious injury involved. The implementation of Basic Standard 5 requires, among other things, that police officers must not use firearms except for the following objectives and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives:
• In self-defence or in defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury
• To prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life
• To arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting the police officer’s authority, or to prevent his or her escape
“In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”
http://www.dcaf.ch/publications/kms/details.cfm?lng=en&id=95672&nav1=5
None of the factors that would justify the use of a firearm were even remotely in play.
I can only conclude you like the idea of a police state. You are certainly a vocal advocate.
Wow–shoot a kid because maybe a rock will hit the officer in the head and kill him? No political agenda, just basic human decency. Don’t want people to come over–take it up with the employers who are the scofflaws.
Defending his life endangered by unarmed teenagers? Only the agents perception counts not some basis of say reality captured on video or witnesses or investigative facts? Amazing how humans can rationalize such vile acts in spite of facts. Scary thing is you probably vote.
my_view,
Here’s a video of various people who think about like you do, and are equally outspoken as you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KOQLu32Ztk&feature=player_embedded#!
Different story (BP oil spill), same tailoring tactic.
Reuters reported on May 26th that BP’s potential liabilities under the Clean Water Act could include civil penalties of $1,000 to $4,300 per day for each barrel of oil spilled in the Gulf. (The upper level applies if the company is found to be grossly negligent.) These penalties are not subject to the $75M cap on economic damages. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N25143995.htm
Yet most of the MSM haven’t connected the dots that this provides powerful incentive for BP to conceal or low-ball the estimated flow from the broken well and deny the existence of the underwater plume.
The NYT has yet to acknowledge the CWA penalties in either the Dealbook blog on the subject or in today’s “Room for Debate” devoted to the question of whether BP should be allowed to pay pay shareholders’ a dividend.
(http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/looking-for-liability-in-bps-gulf-oil-spill/) and
(http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/can-the-u-s-punish-bps-shareholders/?ref=us)
Given this exposure to uncapped civil liability, plus potential health claims by clean-up crews and residents exposed to the toxic chemical dispersants, and other liability (shareholder suits), BP may already be bankrupt.
A demonstration of the two-tiered justice system in the USA:
Over the last Christmas holiday, police in NYC pursued a street vendor who was trying to cheat tourists out of $10 in some sort of bait and switch street vendor scam. During the pursuit of this penny ante crime, the vendor was hot and killed by the police. He was later found to have been armed, and to have brandished and fired his weapon during the pursuit. Of course the NYC police were correct in shooting at this criminal.
But the police pursued this fellow over an alleged $10 swindle.
When will the police pusue criminals on Wall Street who are stealing logarithmically more than $10? When will these deviants have the chance to engage in a shoot-out with the cops?
It is frustrating to see the “outrage” of Mexican Pres Calderón over this sad incident in the context of the tens of thousands murdered in Mexico’s drug wars.
The “outrage” is the fact that this murder of a 15-year old unarmed, whether his ‘weapon of choice’ was rocks or not, boy, a child, was accomplished by an officer of the law. This officer who took an oath to protect and to serve, a person who is demanded to be in control of his mental faculties at all times, so as not to make rash moves, i.e. shooting an unarmed child. The situation was also not a state of war.
This situation cannot be compared to drug war murders or the almost successful genocides of Tamils in Sri Lanka, or
the people of Sudan, Congo, Sierra Leone, Chechnya and the list seems endless. Or even the recent event of the Israeli attack on humanitarian activists in the Gaza. It’s all horrific and terrifying and unimaginable. The evil of mankind is insurmountable. In that view, you are certainly right.
Oh, Israels police and troops kill rock-throwing kids regularly.
As with torture, and pre-emptive war, israel again shows the US the way.
“No, but I see you are reduced to ranting to defend an indefensible position. You can see how far the kids are in the video from the officer. It does not take much in the way of powers of observation to see that they aren’t even remotely close enough to throw a rock and injure him in even a minor way.”
Who’s ranting? I am making a clear, concise, point which you will neither admit is logical and reasonable, nor remotely try to comprehend other than to make your rhetorical points in defense of a criminal attacking a law enforcement agent performing his duties as required.
It doesn’t matter one iota what you perceive, it only matters what the agent in question perceived as to whether or not his OWN life was in danger.
You, nor anybody else on this thread, were there.
I concur with the agent’s assessment, in this specific case.
“In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”
He protected his own life.
You just took “UN Basic Principles” and tried to make it appear like U.S. law on U.S. land.
It isn’t BP procedure, and you know it.
So now you are the legislature, judge, and jury.
Congrats. Welcome to YOUR police state.
——
As to Down_South:
Now I’m a ranting racist who hates all brown people and likes the idea of living in a police state?
LOL.
Amazing how much you’ve gleaned about me from this one posting on a comment thread.
Keep on propagandizing for your noble causes you total propaganda lovers.
————
Later, Yves, I prefer the economic topics you are usually so good at.
Your deviation here seems to have brought out the radical anarchists of the world who believe all authority is automatically guilty of something.
I thought my being a libertarian/minarchist was bad enough around real whack jobs, but I don’t even believe all law enforcement is automatically guilty of something in cases like this, and I don’t even come close to the radical globalist anarchists you’ve got hanging out in your blog here.
In my view gives us a terrifying view into the workings of the “minds” of some of our fellow citizens. The act is heinous and that persons such as my_view are always around rationalizing terror and murder is truly disturbing and unfortunately a constant in human history……
You’ve put your reply here, which makes it harder for others to follow the vehemence and distortions you’ve introduced in your efforts, as I said before, to defend an indefensible position.
Despite the pointers and text I supplied above, you refuse to admit to the basic issue. The police officer was not even remotely in SERIOUS physical danger, which is the ONLY justification for him to use his weapon directly against the kids. And had you bothered to read what I provided or do your own research, instead of relying on your own uninformed prejudice, the standard is “reasonably believe” not “believe”. There is no REASONABLE basis for thinking he was in danger. The kids were too far away, period.
Further, there is considerable evidence that this story was cooked up after the fact. The original story gave the impression the officer was surrounded and at close quarters. If the kids had been much closer and there were more, they could have thrown heavy enough rocks with enough force to have indeed represented a danger. It looks like the officer was indeed trigger happy. Moreover, you have no way of knowing whether he felt threatened. This bears the hallmarks of a fabrication to make it sound as if he in danger, because that was the only way he could justify the murder.
You’ve got so many stray men in what you say above that it’s ludicrous. I cited both the standards used in US courts, as well as international standards, (the kid may have been shot on Mexican soil) and you ignore the fact that I provided both.
There is no evidence the kid is a criminal, his body was found on Mexican soil, and you do not know where the border is (it may well be the middle of that gully).
There is plenty of evidence that this officer’s conduct was in violation of established police standards, but you accuse those who make that point of being anarchists rather than consider the fact that there is such a thing as inappropriate use of police power, and shooting an unarmed kid fits the bill big time.
Radical anarchists? How about people who don’t think shooting an unarmed 15-year-old is reasonable.
No self-respecting cop is going to shoot a kid for throwing a rock.
If it was your kid, you’d be singing a different toon.
my_view says:
I thought my being a libertarian/minarchist….
That is the great irony of those who claim the mantel of libertarianism.
It’s a phenomenon that Reinhold Niebuhr commented on,that those who advocate laissez faire for powerful corporations almost invariably advocate authoritarianism when it comes to dealing with less fortunate members of society.
This Agent is either an incompetent coward at best or a child murderer, at worst.
He is clearly the killer of a child.
HE is the one who’ll have to “get over it”…niot us.
Perhaps he’ll take the boys mother out for a drink, on the mexican side of the border?
Globetrotter–sometimes it futile to teach a horse algebra….my-view is of the variety of human who believes that some diabetic in a cave and his pals are the biggest threat to the U.S and that some half starved palestinians are on the verge of destroying Israel. Now kids who throw stones are a danger to armed men and must be shot…….You make great points. They say we are in scary times. Nothing wrong with the times–its the people who are scary. Keep up the good fight….
Obviously a lot of people here “disgusted” by the “American” imposition of force on the innocent 15 year old.
What planet are you people from?
Context please.
The Border had become a war zone. Border Patrol are on edge. The kid was crossing into an illegal war zone.
The country is under siege. The jails are full. Crime is up.
20+ million illegal aliens live here.
Not saying I defend the action but this is far, far from cold blooded killing.
You really believe this guy was a cold-blooded killer on a mission?
Go take a ride through Houston or El Paso. They have crime rates through the roof.
Phoenix was #2 Kidnapping in the world second to Mexico City in 2009.
There is a war going on. You can harmupf all you want about this tragedy but I am surprised this doesn’t happen more.
Solutions anyone?
Who declared it a war?
If it was your unarmed kid who was shot to death, you can bet your ass it would be cold-blooded.
here’s a lovely day in Tijuana…
Tijuana shootout
Looks like a war to me.
Solutions anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiX1vtnZ4Uk
or this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L503F9P1OjQ
So not to rant but the country is a war zone and our border towns are becoming battlegrounds.
And I am sad for the kid who died.
Solutions anyone?
Stop buying drugs.
Four stars, Vladimira. Excellent response. Those who create the demand share the blame for the consequences of their demand. Want less offshore drilling? Drive less.
The two things simply don’t compare. Drugs are deemed illegal, while oil is not.
Vlad, I can’t even agree with you without having you argue with me? :-)
Legalize marijuana (no news from California?), to to bottom.
Watch Mexico thrive.
The legalization of marijuana in California is leading to the increase in violence in Mexico.
There is no longer any economic benefit for producing marijuana in Mexico. You also still have the heavily patrolled border to get it across.
It’s a classic example of declining demand in a market (mexico), leading to increased competition. They are literally killing each other trying to grab their share of a shrinking market.
I’m very surprised that this aspect hasn’t gotten more press.
More marijuana produced in the US means less demand for it from Mexico. That means less money going back to mexico.
If I raised a child who decided to throw rocks at a cop, among my many reactions, one would be to look in the mirror and ask myself what I did wrong.
I kinda like you Alex.
You are cheeky..
Do you have kids ?
I have a 21 year old son.
I calculated that… once he was in school, he was spending more time OUTSIDE of my influence than he was with me. When HE was 14, we had a few little skirmishes. Nothing serious. But maybe, in certain circumstances, they could have been.
A 14 year old BOY is smack dab in the middle of puberty, with all those hormones driving him crazy. When he’s with other 14 year old boys, well, sometimes things happen. Things that won’t necessarily happen when he turns 20, or 30. And when HE has kids, well, millenia of human existence tend to show that things like that don’t happen very much at all after 30 (if he’s not in a mob).
I got really scared realizing that…
All the time, love, caring, I and his Dad spent on that child could be gone, pfft… in a second, through the influence of chance, or those gonads, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Think about it.
Thanks! I do strive for cheekiness.
You’re point is true, and eloquently, even movingly stated, and does provoke thought.
I don’t have kids, but I HAVE been a 15-year-old boy, full of hormones, with insane friends, a sense of invulnerability, a restlessness that would drive me to do crazy and sometimes very dangerous things that amaze me when I looked back on them at 30.
But even in my most unimaginably crazy and stupid moments, I would NEVER have attacked a cop.
I wish all the best for your son as he goes through his crazy years. I can imagine it’s quite a challenge it is, as a parent, to realize how helpless a parent is during that period. My mother says she really learned a lot about how to let go of that which is beyond her control (me) during those years. In a weird way, I taught her something….
Since I’m not a parent, it’s far from my place to offer any advice on how to instill an appropriate sense of caution in a teenage boy, but, just on the topic of this post, I will suggest that at some point you say to him “Please, if a cop ever tells you to stop and raise your hands, comply. And don’t attack him.” You sound quite bright and wise, so I imagine your son already knows that. :-)
alex black said:
But even in my most unimaginably crazy and stupid moments, I would NEVER have attacked a cop.
Your cognitive dissonance is kicking in again. Above you state that “This will be investigated, and the facts will come out.” And yet here you’re taking the Border Patrol’s rendition of events as if it were sure truth.
I’m replying to you, Alex.
My son is through his crazy years.
NOW… his anarchist mother tends to lean on him every once in a while to remind him that… not everybody is as fortunate as he is..
Empathy is the name of the game.
Empathy is a sign of intelligence.
Lack of empathy, well, it eventually has disastrous consequences for the ability to develop intelligent solutions to tough problems.
The border cop… was a SYMBOL to that 14 year old boy.
He SYMBOLIZED.. 1) brute, masculine force and authority and 2) the U.S. government.
Lots of levels of meaning there, lots of appeal, negative AND positive for a 14 year old Mexican boy.
And to a certain extent.. that Mexican kid was a symbol for the border cop too.
If you EVER get the chance, you might see the French film called “D’une seule voix”.
It recounts the musical tour of a group of… Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, Turkish musicians in France.
Can you imagine ? Sticking Palestinians, and Israelis in the same hotels, the same buses, and taking them on a musical tour in France ?
The film is edifying. You see ALL the tensions.
You see what happens when people become. ONLY SYMBOLS for each other.
And then you see… what making music together does towards deconstructing that.
I SAY THAT…
The American border cop and the Mexican kid should have been in an orchestra together, making music.
THEN the cop would have been able to put a face on that kid.
And… the kid would have been able to stick a face on the cop, too…
THEN there would have been less chance of a shooting.
Scharfy support your facts. Where’s your evidence? You xeno twit here’s something to illuminate you. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/05/02/20100502arizona-border-violence-mexico.html
“Too far away to pose a threat with rocks”?
I can kill a man with a rock from 100 feet away. 200 and I can only break his skull.
That is a ridiculous statement and discredits you. It is pretty hard to break someone’s skull with a baseball bat at close range. You’d have difficulty hitting someone’s head at 200 feet. The idea that you could hit them (they won’t be standing still) hard and squarely enough to kill them at that distance is laughable.
There’s a reason no one hunts game using rocks. If what you said was possible, hunting with rocks would be common. It’s only done with very small game and birds as a sport, and then per Yves, with slingshots.
I didn’t say it was certain. But it’s quite possible. Care to take me up on it? Sign a waiver. Stand 100 feet away. Give me rocks.
That’s the only one way for you to “discredit” me.
If you want to make it interesting, I’m willing wager that you’ll at the very least end up in a hospital.
Rocks are harder than skulls. If you don’t believe that, try smashing your skull into a rock and see which one breaks.
You made the mistake of trying that line with someone who has had that experience. I took a fall at about 40 mph, full weight of my head onto a rock.
Human heads weigh about 12 pounds. To achieve that kind of force with what you could throw at 200 feet, you’d need to throw much faster than the fastest throw ever recorded in history.
No concussion, no broken skull. I did get a hairline fracture of my cheekbone.
The 40 mph was a typo, it was 30 mph.
Sorry to hear that. I hope you fully recovered.
Did that experience make you at all leery of having rocks thrown at your head?
Good one globewalker, you shut the crap out of that piece of human crap. Pieces of crap like these are the ones that would have been sitting on their pinky assess during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and justify the beatings and abuses that the activists sufferred “just to have the “Privelege” of living in America. Bite me.
Wow, you’d be prepared to kill someone just to prove your point?
Of course not. Are you unable to distinguish between rhetorical and literal?
I asserted that some can kill or seriously injure another person with a rock thrown from 100 feet. Someone asserted that it was impossible. I replied with a concrete example that would possibly get him to actually THINK about what he was asserting.
I realize that’s normally a Quixotic effort, but I tried.
And please don’t take that to mean that I spend my time actually trying to knock down physical windmills.
You need to rethink this because obviously you don’t know enough about what’s what here.
Take one of those very smooth ‘river rocks’ you commonly see along river banks or on beaches. They’re generally about the size of two half-dollars end to end and about an inch thick. Very aerodynamic. And they fit the hand perfectly for leverage, control, and a whip-like release action.
A young healthy male can send that smooth river rock humming along in a vertical spin like nobody’s business. I mean it’s Moving. If that SOB hits you in the head you’re out brother and you very well may never wake up. So you think 100 feet or 33 yards with this kind of rock isn’t dangerous?
A pitcher’s mound is about 66 feet away or 22 yards. And that’s with a round object that is no where near the aerodynamics of that friggin river rock much less the weight. If that hardball hits you squarely in the head by a major league pitcher that throws 95 mph it can Kill you and will most likely Injure you Big Time.
Man, I’d like to see what you think after you got tagged with one of those kind of rocks – if you wake up to talk about it. I’m incredulous about what some of you think is ‘dangerous’ and what’s not. Obviously a bunch here haven’t a clue (maybe city slickers all their lives?) or have never thrown something hard and smooth like this to know what it can really do to a skull even 100 feet away.
I have hunters, Olympic medalists and pro athletes in my family. I know this terrain better than you think.
Your theories have no grounding in any supporting evidence. The area is a concrete embankment. Any evidence of those kind of rocks? Any evidence any of the rocks thrown AT the cop even hit him? You can see one falling short. Any evidence these kids were particularly athletic?
And that whip action throw you describe is great for speed, and LOUSY for accuracy. Don’t BS me, I know better.
If you know better, then put yourself in the position that the border agent and let a 15-year-old guy throw rocks at your head.
Since you know better, you know you have no reason not to….
“Don’t BS me, I know better.”
I think you BS yourself. Your argument is specious and disingenous.
Btw, for those of you that speak Spanish, you can hear a lady say….”Piedras!”. That means rocks. As if she’s saying….”Hit him with rocks!”.
Then you see the cop being tackled from behind. He felt at that point I’m sure that if he hits the ground with rocks already whizzing by him from all angles he’s toast. Much less his gun will be taken from him and HE’LL get shot with it if he’s incapcitated. He knew what was coming. Muerto. Dead.
He shot because he felt his life was in mortal danger. And from what I see in this in video I would’ve done the same thing.
(Btw Yves, I think you need to ride along with a cop someday in a real bad neighborhood, answer a domestic disturbance call, etc. Better yet, try a concrete chunk, bottle throwing riot for a better perspective on what it’s like to have lethal projectiles coming at you from all directions. I don’t think you thought this through nearly enough to make a plausibly informed conclusion. I sure don’t think you the brain tickets here.)
See David at 9:34 PM and me at 9:49 PM. The links debunk you conclusively. You simply do not know what you are talking about, but nevertheless refuse to acknowledge your ignorance and error.
Frank, I was about to make that same point. I reviewed the video – the guy was about 60 or 70 feet from the cop – less than 100, and about the same distance as a pitcher’s mound to home plate.
A baseball is a leather-covered ball of twine, and batters wearing high-tech helmets have had skull fractures from being hit in the head with one. Take off that helmet, substite a rock for a baseball, and you can easily have one dead batter.
Ever see a photo of a baseball being struck? The ball compresses in half. Rocks don’t do that. They are as hard as a…. well, as a rock….
And as a 15-year-old pitcher, I had a 75-MPH fastball (Yeah, that’s why I played center field). But give me a smaller rock with greater density, and I could throw that MUCH faster.
A sports field is a very artificial setting, plus pitchers get their body weight behind the pitch. No sign of form anything like that here. And as someone said earlier, no evidence the cop was every hit, or even close to hit.
And while we are bringing up irrelevant examples, Johnny Bench could catch fastballs with his bare hands. So much for baseballs as lethal weapons. Yes, I’m sure it hurts like hell to be hit by a good pitch. But justification for shooting? Spare me.
This is silly
1 – there has been one major league player and numerous minor league players who have been KILLED by being hit in the head with a pitched baseball
2 – Rocks are much harder than baseballs
This thread started out as me simply saying that someone can hurt or kill another person with a thrown rock. Somehow some people seem to need to declare that this just isn’t the case, that having rocks thrown at one’s head poses no significant danger.
So, Johnny bench can catch a fastball with his bare hands. Great. Can he catch one with his head? Better still, can he catch a rock with his head? Get him to try and maybe I’ll think you have a point.
i, too, am a balearic slinger
“I can kill a man with a rock from 100 feet away. 200 and I can only break his skull.”
My advice would be to stay away from border patrol agents. They will likely shoot you on sight.
I have no plans to illegally enter another country. If I ever decide to, I give the border agents of that country full license to kill me if I attack them in any way.
Not so long ago, three American hikers entered Iran illegally (http://bit.ly/a7i246), after you, they should have been shot straight away.
It seems Iran is vastly more humane than the US which proud itself to stand for human rights.
That should not come as a surprise, since the US was built on ‘shoot first ask questions later’ philosophy – they still haven’t gotten over their Wild West experience.
Vladmira, you either didn’t read what I wrote or you are intentionally distorting it. Which is it?
I said that if I illegally entered another country AND ATTACKED THEIR BORDER AGENT, yes, I would understand it if that border agent shot me.
Alex Black @2:04 am “I’m not going to get into the scrum.”
How’s that working out?
Not bad! :-)
I read some of the comments and the more ignorant ones were too hard to resist….
Well I’m not sure which you resemble more closely, a rock-throwing kid, or a cop with a gun.
Fortunately the comments section at NC is less like the Mexican border and more like a padded cell, so no-one is going to come to harm.
Actually, I resemble neither. I’m a lover, not a fighter.
But one of the things I love is good, intelligent, respectful debate. When I witness people violating that, I try to step in sometimes….
Same here. But somehow wading in always ends up with cyber-rocks and cyber-guns.
I go for the Russell1200 take on the Mexico incident.
I am sorry, if I had known you handle criticism this badly, I’d not have addressed you at all.
And as a sidenote, the Americans were deemed to be spys by the Iranians. Spying is carries a maximum punishment of death in Iran.
I handle cricism fine. But I DO point out when someone is distorting what I say. Feel free to cricize whatever I assert, but if you criticize the delusions in your head, I merely point out the difference.
Alex,
I grew up in AZ, spent time near all boarders with Mexico, *we* not *them* encourage crossing. By all the people that now cry foul and for what reason JOBS, the ones no one else would do for that price, the JOBS that they did at below minimum wage, the JOBS that forced them to live 10/20 to a one room flat or company back room and send money back home to pay off their American lead banking masters.
Drugs give me a break, Americans want it[!] can’t get enough of it! Hell I know personally a hole lot of white boys from the 70s 80s that made it big in the game, got their gear from south of the boarder/east by the container, shipped with help from mob, longshoremen, politicians, upstanding professional elites, WE brought them here in the name of PROFIT, and now the little people are told they the very same people that they baited over are the problem.
As far as my personal opinion on this event, well if every one can say IM scared so that gives me reason to shoot or kill some one….have fun with that. Been told by cops and DA to use this line in a court case when if fact it was a lie. Boy where they unhappy as they could not get the sentence they wanted to puff up their win vs. loss column, before going into the defence business.
WE asked them to come over for decades!!! Now that the economy is in the crapper, the drug party is scary, its their fault…man the ferals aka tea party et al mobs are soooo gullible.
Hint it was all those that they genuflect too that did it in the first place..bawwwwwhaha.
Skippy…Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
I’m afraid He’ll have to go
His magnets ruin my radio
And if I have a wreck He’ll leave a scar
SING IT EARL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqm7lvdRFIs&feature=related
To be fair, Huffingpost carried the story as well, on the frontpage, but not in a prominent spot.
I wouldn’t even call it different narratives of the same story, it’s completly different stories that are being told by both sides.
It’s more and more common for ‘news’ – that are essentially based on hearsay – to be declared fit to print and to be presented to the readers or viewers as facts that are factually proven. Usually, in the text you’ll find quickly, that the ‘facts’ the story is based on are not facts at all, but are mostly assumptions, projections, hearsay (the famous anonymous source who won’t reveal who he/she is for such and such reason).
It’s not the only story where it becomes apparent that propaganda is at work, and it also seems quite intentional. It’s not sloppy work of someone, time pressure, etc.
I liked Alex’s comment at the beginning. Very perspicaceous, Alex.
So… I will be deliberately off topic to respond to this incident, at the beginning at least.
Three years ago I flew out of Washington D.C.’s airport to go West on a tourist jaunt. (There may be more than one airport in D.C., I’m talking about a COMMERCIAL airport.)
Nice little ride on the underground train.
At one point, I started looking at the architecture of the buildings…
And then it hit me right smack across the face…
I was in a military installation, operating under the guise of a commercial airport ! I challenge ANY OF YOU here to take a long, hard look at THAT airport, and come to any other conclusion, moreover.
Yves stuck in a link a few days ago about stepping up security in trying to predict human behavior and weed out potential terrorists at the airport.
I say… NO RISK, wherever it is, and whatever form it takes, takes us right down the primrose path to totalitarianism.
And the U.S. has been going this way for quite some time now.
Just for fun, I’m going to trot out one of my favorite examples of this mindset.
I apologize if you have already heard it on this blog, I tend to repeat it a lot, because, in my mind, it is a very pedagogical example, and an excellent one.
On that same trip to the U.S., I went to the Smithsonian Zoo, in that same D.C., and saw the following sign stuck up in front of the lion’s “cage”, a cushy compound that was twenty times (at least) bigger than the cage of the average death row inmate. It said…
“We are sorry if you think that our lions are cramped up in a cage, but ask yourself the following question : where would you rather be, in this cage, with a yummy din din every day, a veto to treat every little scratch, a baball to play with when you get bored, or… in the wild, where you don’t even know IF you will have a next meal, and every scratch means the prospect of a slow excruciating death ?”
I swear I saw this sign, that would have sent the founding fathers retching, and reeling in shock if THEY had ever come across it… (Keep those death row convicts in mind at all times, when thinking of the sign, please.)
If you don’t understand how important this sign is to our discussion, (like some of my very intelligent French shrink friends, by the way..) let me know, and I’ll go into it more.
The human rights violations in prisons in Arizona are atrocious.
The… TORTURE on convicts who have no way to resist it would really blow your mind. (Not necessarily torture that leaves marks, either, and even… torture that is perpetrated with a smile to make everybody feel safe. Many psychologists or shrinks can tell you what THIS torture is, and how it works, and.. the military and the people working in the industrialized prison system are well aware of the scientific studies that corroborate what I’m talking about.)
Sorry Alex, to rain on your parade, but I don’t call the cops every time I scratch my finger. THEY chose their profession too, and THEY TOO are responsible for looking at themselves in the mirror every morning when they wake up. They are AT LEAST responsible for choosing to work in that context.
But… I am the first to say that singling out individual responsibility in these cases is placating one’s conscience while pointing fingers. When the SYSTEM is as brutal and punitive as it is, the poor schmucks (border guards AND 14 year old kids…) who are in the wrong place at the wrong time just can’t cut it.
Ask Macbeth, in William’s play by the same name. HE couldn’t cut it either.
Could… i cut it ? Maybe. Then again.. maybe not.
Think.. Milgram.
That’s where… WE come in. Because the border guards are not going to change the system.
ONLY OUR OUTRAGE at what is being perpetrated IN OUR NAME, and to keep us safe will change things.
The mindset of keeping us safe is woven all through the financial debacle too.
It informs a lot of our perceptions, a lot of our ideas about what is acceptable in our daily lives, and what is not.
Thanks, Yves for sticking down this incident.
By the way, it’s not JUST in Latin America that the U.S. has a reputation for being a trigger happy country. Most of Europe has this perception about the American way of life.
I say… IF THE SHOE FITS…
hi, Debra – I don’t at all mind if you “rain on my parade”, but if you choose to, please rain on “MY” parade, and not a strawman’s parade.
You use the example of calling the cops when you cut your finger. I used the example of having an intruder in your home. When you have an intruder in your whom, I’m curious, who DO you call?
And if by chance you call the police and they come to the rescue of you, a total stranger, do you have any gratitude at all for them?
When you say, “Well, they CHOSE that line of work”, yes, you’re right, they did. So have doctors who risk their lives in warzones (Doctors Without Borders), and firefighters who risk their lives to rescue strangers. I owe them both admiration and thanks.
Cops go a step further. They know their risk is even greater. Every time they get a call, they know they may not come back alive – but they go. Just my opinion, but I think that deserves some thanks.
As to your longer topic and main point, wow, that’s a looooong discussion. As with all things, the solution lies in achieving the proper balance, and the debate should be a respectful one that makes the case of where that proper balance lies. No one wants a Totalitarian regime, but no one wants no airport security.
And I agree – I’ll bet that, given a choice, that lion would prefer to be set free, and take his chances. I boycott zoos.
Alex said…Cops go a step further. They know their risk is even greater. Every time they get a call, they know they may not come back alive – but they go. Just my opinion, but I think that deserves some thanks.
—-
This is a greatly over worked Knightley piece of crap bow down to me garbage. Its a job, some take it for reasons that psychiatry has well defined (clock work orange stuff) others_Do_want to serve in the name of peace aka peace officers but to state that every time they show up its a possible shoot out is rubbish.
Skippy…spread the message son.
Skippy, I’ll agree that there are various motives for why one would become a police officer, ranging from altruistic service to a need to compensate for a lack of power as a child (clockwork orange). Police agencies try HARD to screen those folks out, because if they slip through the psych testing, they end up giving a bad name to the rest.
But I have to disagree with you when you diminish the dangers they face. It’s pointless to debate it – words can’t convey it. The only thing that might would be to have you agree to take random 911 requests and go see what you can do, and tell me how it felt. Short of that, you will maintain the same opinion, no matter what I or anyone has to say.
I have been in far worse situations, I was an instructor to the initial swat teams, I’ve been there, my friends have instructed, downloaded skills too many law inforcment officers around the world, where have you been, how many times have you made the call.
Skippy…yes they do screen but, not the way you think.
My start was in bluelight.
Skippy,
You make a great point here.
For those who want to look at some data, and not alex black’s campaing of lies and disinformation, law enforcement officers actually rank well down the list on dangerous professions.
When it comes to being the victim of a homicide, a taxi driver runs about three times the risk as a policeman:
http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/dangerousjobs.htm
Um, yes but…
The taxi driver does not wake up in the morning with the idea that he’s going to be going after “bad people”.
So that if he gets killed, he wasn’t expecting it, and he wasn’t living every waking moment on the job in the expectation that he could be killed.
That changes things quite a bit… in the minds of the people doing the job.
There is way too much base level fear in American society these days anyway.
It is.. mind boggling.
All that technology, a life materially much easier than that of our grandparents and great grandparents and.. we are probably much more afraid than they were.
Afraid.. without there being necessarily a good reason to be afraid, moreover.
I have my theories about where this fear is coming from.
It is.. very interesting.
Debra,
You make an extremely important point here, and that is we need to examine these events within the context in which they occurred, the “SYSTEM” as you put it.
Notice that the defenders of the system or the status quo—-like alex black—-struggle to keep the focus on the border agent and the boy, and not the system they both operate within. Both are operating in a system that is highly dysfunctional, and growing more pathological every day. The dysfunction exists on both sides of the border—-Mexico’s total embrace of neoliberalism and the tragic consequences this has had on the Mexican economy, the US’s somewhat diminished embrace of neoliberalism and the deleterious consequences this has had on the US economy, the US’s inability to resolve the conflicts inherent within immigration policy (for instance, the desire for cheap labor on one hand vs. the desire to see immigrants disappear on the other), the steady rise of tempers and emotionally charged rhetoric, the US public’s insatiable appetite for recreational drugs, the triumph of the drug cartels in turning Mexico into a narco state, the militarization of the border, etc.
Also it’s important to point out that this boy was not an “intruder in your home.” He wasn’t an intruder in anybody’s home. This transformation from standing in one’s own country and throwing rocks to being an “intruder in your home” is nothing but a rhetorical ploy by an unscrupulous propagandist.
Oops, forgot something. ;-)
There’s something else we’re going to have to do (the citizenry, not the much decried rich caste..).
We’re going to have to increase our tolerance of risk in all its forms.
Somebody way back there said (don’t ask me who, I have a hole in my head, not a good Wiki contributor… lol) : the man who wants to be safe AND free will end up being neither.
Pretty nicely put, I would say.
We need to ask ourselves some pretty tough questions right now.
WHAT do we want ?
To be safe ?
To be free ?
We aren’t going to have them both.
There are SOME equations where the exclusive form is the ONLY possibility.
Safe OR free. Others where we SHOULD be sticking the inclusive form in.
Like.. Reason AND emotion.
We sure as hell are NOT acting as though we want to be free these days…
I guess I must be a dinosaur.
It was Benjamin Franklin – “He who gives up Freedom for Safety deserves neither.”
The point you raise is a sore point for me as well – and it stabs me from both ends of the political spectrum – the Right willing to compromise Civil Rights and the Geneva Convention to achieve more national security, and the Left pushing for a Nanny state that somehow will make Everyone (especially those who vote the way they prefer them to) to be shielded from all of Life’s hazards and downfalls.
The world is a jungle – we can civilize it to a point, but only to a point. Going past that point gets ugly.
Whom is that who make it such…seek your masters.
It was a jungle long before humans showed up. If you look for the Master who made it such, don’t look at Man.
Jungle is an altruistic name given to that which we cannot control, a better name would be the world as it is, in which whether it’s ones fault or not, life is lost or desires are unfulfilled , things don’t happen the way we like or in plain english the universe does not give a shit what we want.
Skippy…have fun arguing with the universe,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIk7gLXBnlQ&feature=related
Read some Jim Corbett, Alex, for just what the jungle is. He knew it firsthand. Was born and grew up in it.
The jungle is not what we think it is.
Those prejudices and wacko beliefs… they keep getting in our way.
Puh-leeze! If you carefully read the Patriot Act, you will see that it is legal for any and all US law enforcement and security personnel to shoot any enemy combatant. Wasn’t it obvious that this so-called “kid” was an Al-Qaeda commando hell-bent of destroying our way of life?
In any case, I thought shooting Mexicans was legal in Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico. Was there some issue about the kid being out of season?
Kind of reminds me of East and West Germany. Back then an authoritarian regime shot and killed people for crossing a border– oh hang on, this analogy has gone rogue…
We don’t have the ‘technology’ to stop the oil leak, and we can’t apprehend someone (a kid) without shooting them dead either, apparently.
There are a lot of police officers. Most of them do not shoot anyone throughout their entire careers.
But every now and then, one of them panics, or is clumsy, or is over aggressive and shoots somebody when they should not. It is generally very hard to know which officers are going to lack the personal skills to deal with difficult stressful situations.
So this incident is pretty much par for the course.
The guard was wrong. But the kid (and he is a kid) was very foolish to be throwing rocks at an armed man.
You now have the usual problem of the general populous wanting to support law enforcement, not wanting to handcuff their efforts, but stuck with a disastrous situation.
On the other hand, people who deal with the police often (because they live in area of the type that draws police activity) see enough of the lower levels of police inappropriate behavior see these incidents as simply the more extreme end of a continuum of behavior.
As an individual incident: the kid should not be throwing rocks, and the officer almost certainly should not be shooting kids throwing rocks.
But if enough kids throw enough rocks at enough police officers, it is extremely likely that someone will be shot at. It is almost a certainty. That the officer could hit anything with his pistol at that range is probably the greater outlier.
Russell – that’s a good post with a reasoned effort to see all sides of the equation – a nice change from people calling me “a piece of human crap” for daring to say that rocks thrown at heads can hurt of kill people. :-)
But since you do lean a bit to one side, I’ll lean a bit to the other, and ask you a question: If you were a border agent, performing your authorized duty to arrest people committing a crime, and in the process of trying to detain one (who in the video is obviously resisting, and trying to escape the arrest), and someone was throwing rocks at you, what would your split-second response be?
Alex.. that’s why I say the problem is a social one, primarily.
Has it escaped you that the U.S. has declared “war” on just about everything (since Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty…) and now shoots almost everything that moves AS A PARADIGM ?
There are individuals who CAN show reason, and react in a measured way, and then, well, there is the social body itself which leans heavily towards the extremes at all times.
Logical, as Freud would have said. What we do not want to recognize or accept in ourselves, we expulse it and stick it on to other people OUTSIDE in the social body, for example.
There is a great English book I read a while ago that I still recommend.
It’s called “Undisclosed Materials”, you would like it, and it shows how, through long overexposure to criminals (not bad guys, because, well, it’s more complicated than that), the cops end up… thinking like criminals, and run a serious risk of becoming criminals. Even the best of them.
Call it a form of… domestication if you like. That’s why we shouldn’t make a career of being a policeman. It should be.. like a form of service for a limited period. To protect society.
Our dogs think like us through long exposure to us.
Very well put and I will remember it!
Sadly I have been too modified and must act the part with out the goodies people like you get to experience.
Skippy…past sins lived out from the other side.
Debra, very interesting, and probably very true. Cops have to get inside the heads of the criminals to deal with them, and human nature having the full spectrum of vices and virtues, yeah, I can easily see how that dynamic can develop. And your solution of “limited service” sounds like a good antidote to that.
On the “war” metaphor…. I think that politicians simply began to realize that using (overusing) that term paid off for them – got people fired up and behind them. War on Poverty, War on Drugs, War on Terror….
I can see it – years from now little children talking to their grandparents – “Grandpa, what was it like to live through The War?” Grandpa looks serious, sad, stricken…. “The War on Drugs…. it was…. no, I can’t talk about it, and you shouldn’t have to hear about it….”
Alex = troll.
Find someone to bug, and then bug them.
Have fun, Alex.
Debra, great comment here;
“Call it a form of… domestication if you like. That’s why we shouldn’t make a career of being a policeman. It should be. like a form of service for a limited period. To protect society.
Our dogs think like us through long exposure to us.”
Local cops should be drafted by lottery from the ENTIRE community (the same with the ‘troops’) and serve for a maximum of eighteen months, with a career technical support only corps.
The rich of course would not allow it as they would lose all of the amoral scum bags who are charged first with protecting their wealth, and then second, under the guise of public safety, with extracting wealth by selectively writing traffic tickets. Cops should also NOT be given blanket indemnification for their actions. It is time to end this sick “just following orders” mentality. No one should be allowed to check their morality at the door.
On balance, cops now suck, as they match and reflect the degree of corruption in our government and the ruling elite’s oppressive plan for instilling perpetual conflict in the masses. This corruption is by DESIGN. Note the top story.
http://www.unknownnews.org/cops.html
The comments in this thread attest to the effectiveness of the elite machinations. Stop backbiting each other and focus on the wealthy controllers.
BILLIONAIRE crook Jaime Dimon still walks free while a petty criminal father who shoplifted a hundred bucks worth of video tapes for his kid’s Christmas is spending life in prison under their horrendously unfair three strikes law.
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
Life in prison in Calif.
You really do like playing the victim…“a piece of human crap” but, then fawn acquiesce.
Hmmm, I compliment someone on their well-thought out and well-written post, and make the contrast between that and el loco above calling me a piece of human crap. And you interpret that as me liking to play the victim.
If you want to get into a game of personal insults, find someone else to play that with.
I have real experience (globally) and your qualifications are?
Skippy…look up bluelight for a start.
But your ‘compliments” sound like insults…and you only compliment those you agree with already.
Oh sorry, I miss your bit about “el loco above”.
Can you compliment without insulting oythers at the same time?
Police ought to be free to kill anybody at any time, so long as they are duly sworn, and they give a plausible explanation.
That’s your position, right?
If you want to get into a game of personal insults, find someone else to play that with.
Ahhh the game of sledging till some sticks to you, then its called foul.
Skippy…this is a classic tactic.
To be clear: I am not impressed by Alex’s contributions.
As to insults: Yeah Skippy, I agree.
The “best insult” is an argument which demolishes the others position using evidence, ans the pricnciples of reason and analysis.
Where “what is moral” is conditioned by ethnicity or nationality or citizenship, then it is more truthfully a justification for immorality,: at least, in practical terms.
In such discussions, simple human dignity itself becomes conditional.
And I feel free to insult the immoral, loudly and often.
Before they kill again!
And that’s immoral….
Has anyone here had rocks thrown at them? From the range shown on the video they seem plenty close enough to do damage, very real damage if hit above the neck. And thrown from that distance it would be very difficult to trace the missile. Also, what would be going through a well-trained border guard’s mind whilst being assaulted is – what else is going on? Is this a diversion? While they are throwing rocks is there something else that requires my attention? Is this a test to see how sharp BP is at this post? If it’s stones now is it bullets later?
What type of gun was fired by the BP guard? A scoped rifle is very different from a hand gun. Perhaps it was an attempted warning shot.
It seems a knee-jerk reaction to immediately condemn the BP as it is to immediately condemn the rock-throwers.
Whilst it appears no one in this thread could care less enough to address the folly of the dead: son, don’t take rocks to a gun fight. Wish someone had told you.
Yes, indeed: or else they’ll shoot you, across an international boundary, if they feel like it.
Goof luck on the extradition, Mexico.
‘Good” for “goof”, above.
The Mexicans want the killer of Sergio Adrian extradited:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/06/11/index.php?section=politica&article=011n1pol
You “law & order” types will be happy to know that in Mexico, suspected criminals are guilty until proven innocent.
Just like rock-throwers are, in the USA.
aet,
This article also serves as an example of Yves’ original thesis, and that is that this shooting is BIG NEWS in Mexico, but the US couldn’t be bothered.
If you go to the placement of the story, notice it is front page news in the left-leaning La Jornada you cite. But this story is front page news in papers from one end of the republic to the other, and from news outlets that hail from all points on the political spectrum.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/06/11/index.php
Notice also in the story you linked that the calls to extradite the Border Patrol agent are coming from across the full political specturm, all the way from the right-wing PAN, to the moderate PRI to the left-wing PRD.
It was a pistol shot, right to the head.
Fine aim. Well trained in the use of weapons of deadly force.
Upon reviewing the video it would appear that the BP guard took steady aim and fired twice, followed by a single shot. That would suggest a calm head. Also, it appears the detainee began to clutch at the guard’s leg after the latter drew his firearm and took aim. Thus it was less of an attack and more of an attempt to distract the gunman from actually firing, or from firing accurately.
I agree with the assessment that some peace officers are better than others. However, this BPg seems rather in control. Far more appropriate to give a verbal warning, accompanied by drawn gun. Failing that, a warning shot into the air? But the thing that continues to nag at me is that this guard appears to have responded quite cool and composed. He took steady, unbothered aim, and squeezed out in succession (and that distance you would have to use proper shooting technique of calm squeeze on the trigger rather than a rushed, frantic pull, which likely would have brought misses).
Still, you don’t take rocks to a gun fight.
Yeah we used to build forts out of freshly ploughed fields and chuck dirt clods and rock at each other till one got pegged really hard….then run home!
Skippy…shit I could have brought my fathers .357 highway patrolmen’s special and sorted that all out…WE WIN…where were you guys back then…eh.
Hell whilst I’m at it, tough guy stuff and all aka rocks are deadly, In my day and circle, if Dick Cheney shot me (idiot with a firearm) I would be in my rights to have a shot back and he would have to stand there and take it like a man.
Skippy..tough guys….right….
Debra, great comment here;
“Call it a form of… domestication if you like. That’s why we shouldn’t make a career of being a policeman. It should be. like a form of service for a limited period. To protect society.
Our dogs think like us through long exposure to us.”
Local cops should be drafted by lottery from the ENTIRE community (the same with the ‘troops’) and serve for a maximum of eighteen months, with a career technical support only corps.
The rich of course would not allow it as they would lose all of the amoral scum bags who are charged first with protecting their wealth, and then second, under the guise of public safety, with extracting wealth by selectively writing traffic tickets. Cops should also NOT be given blanket indemnification for their actions. It is time to end this sick “just following orders” mentality. No one should be allowed to check their morality at the door.
On balance, cops now suck, as they match and reflect the degree of corruption in our government and the ruling elite’s plan for instilling perpetual conflict in the masses.
http://www.unknownnews.org/cops.html
This thread attests to the effectiveness of their machinations. Stop backbiting each other and focus on the wealthy controllers.
Jaime Dimon still walks free while a petty criminal father who shoplifted a hundred bucks worth of video tapes for his kid’s Christmas is spending life in prison in california under their horrendously unfair three strikes law.
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
This story does not even appear on the US Google news page.
YS:
I no more accept the authenticity of this video than anything from the Palenstinians. They doctor videos all the time. I say it’s time to realize: we are at war with Mexico. At least, that’s how many people down here in Texas see it. We beat Mexico in 1836 and we’re ready to do it again.
…we are at war with Mexico…
That’s a strange thing to say about your third largest trading partner:
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/dst/current/balance.html
Do you think there’s just a little bit of political histrionics going on here, on both sides of the border?
I wonder if those census bureau figures include the approimately $3 billion per month of illegal drugs that flow into the US from Mexico.
We beat Mexico in 1836 and we’re ready to do it again.
Well before you let your moral high horse completely run away with you, you might want to consider the principal reason Texas rebelled against Mexico:
In spite of their privileges, Mexico’s stance against slavery quickly antagonized the colonists, most of whom came from the southern part of the United States and utilized slave labor. The Congress of the State of Coahuila and Texas had tried to abolish slavery since 1825 in the laws of colonization. Austin succeeded in postponing the abolition, arguing that slave owners should be indemnified by the Mexican government if their slaves were freed. Conscious of its lack of funds, the legislature ended by declaring: “en the state no one is born a slave,” and reiterated the prohibition against importing slaves. When on September 16, 1829 president Vicente Guerrero decreed the abolition of slavery, and although he conceded an exception for Texas, he did impose a prohibition on importing more slaves into Texas. This convinced the Texans that sooner or later abolition would be implemented in their territory. Quickly Austin devised a scheme to violate the prohibition to import more slaves by forcing the slaves to sign a contract. The contract declared that the slaves wanted to enter Texas and agreed to work for the slave owners until they had paid back the slave owners the price of their purchase. Given that the salary was miniscule and food and upkeep were discounted, liberation was impossible.
–Josefina Zoraida Vazquez, The North American Intervention: 1846-1848
But not to worry. As soon as the Texans beat Mexico, they immediately set about to make slavery and racism the founding principles of the new Republic, and immortalized these principles in the Texas Constitution:
SEC. 9. All persons of color who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude, provide the said slave shall be the bona fide property of the person so holding said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laws to prohibit emigrants from the United States of America from bringing their slaves into the Republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United States; nor shall Congress have power to emancipate slaves; nor shall any slave-holder be allowed to emancipate his or her slave or slaves, without the consent of Congress, unless he or she shall send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of the Republic. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently in the Republic, without the consent of Congress, and the importation or admission of Africans or negroes into this Republic, excepting from the United States of America, is forever prohibited, and declared to be piracy.
SEC. 10. All persons, (Africans, the descendants of Africans, and Indians excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Independence, shall be considered citizens of the Republic, and entitled to all the privileges of such.
http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/text/ccGP.html
Texans fought and won a war of independence against Mexico in order to defend racism and slavery. They fought another one against the United States a couple of decades later for the same reasons.
Tell me again, Independent Accountant, how well that second war turned out for Texas.
YS:
I add, what percentage of unserved murder warrants in Los Angeles County are for Mexican nationals? 90%? 95%? Mexicans believe they can kill Americans with impunity. That’s the reality of the Southwest. There is nothing that comes out of Mexico I would accept at face value. Nothing!
IA
Reminds me of the East German guards shooting down those attempting to climb the Wall but this incident is no different then our killing suspected Taliban via drones or the military non-combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan or Vietnam for that matter. Your statement ” As sad as this case is, in the overall scheme of things this is a minor incident” that pretty well sums up American attitudes concerning its military and border patrol activities.
From the initial post:
Gonzalo reports: “It’s getting a lot of play not only in Mexico, but in the rest of Latin America. The emerging consensus in Latin America is, the US is a country of trigger-happy crazy-people.”
So I would think the message would/should be: “Yes, if you are thinking of entering the United States illegally there is a good chance you will get shot.”
This is a bad thing?!?!
Nope. This guard was not pressured at all. He was in complete control, calm and composed. Two shots in succession had only one intent – kill shots. Obviously his long steady aim wasn’t at the legs — headshots all. He shot to kill, in full composure.
He utilized perfectly his target shooting training. Long, steady aim, squeeze the trigger. He actually advanced a few steps before firing; obviously he was not feeling under threat, underscored by the immediate fleeing of the assailant/victim/Sergio-former bringer of rocks to gunfights.
2 perfectly aimed and executed shots, followed by a long pause, and a final shot. Which one killed? Why a 3rd shot when the first two sent the rock-fighter fleeing for cover?
Perhaps he was struck by a rock when his back was turned when busy with the first detainee? Whatever, when he turned his attention on the former Sergio he had only one intention and he executed perfectly.
Folks like that have no right to have such jobs. They need to find something else to do. They are too eager, or become too eager.
I wonder how many Mexicans, seeking to flee their country’s lack of opportunity and squalor, will see that video and think twice?
I am confident they already think more than twice. You’d be pretty thick to think they didn’t already realize crossing the border is a dangerous enterprise.
Besides, a few weeks ago in San Diego a BP guard was charged with homicide in the stun gun killing of a Mexican. So, it appears it is not open season after all, or at least not all the time. This case may be treated differently (it already is as the FBI is involved) since officially the guard was under attack from Sergio.
This officer was not in any kind of danger. Even if the rock hit him squarely in the head he would have been fine. He is wearing a helmet!
A friend of mine was hit on his bike by a car going 30mph. He rolled over the front of the car cracked the windshield bounced off and landed on the pavement. He was wearing a helmet which cracked open. The result: cracked vertebrae, broken ribs, broken leg and NO HEAD TRAUMA. The helmet saved his life.
Additionally batters in baseball are occasionally hit in the head by pitchers. Death in these instances occurs but is rare. We are talking about professionals throwing anywhere from 88-100mph. I played a lot of baseball growing up and at around the age of 15 I could probably throw around 60mph, of course I was no prospect. Maybe this kid is the second coming of Sandy Koufax, who knows.
The officer was in no danger. Additionally for those who say it was a difficult situation and the officer had to make assessments on the fly…. well that’s what they are paid for. The training to assess threat accompanies the right to carry a pistol and use deadly force. There is no way you could reasonably see that as a deadly threat. I would be amazed if he couldn’t just have moved out of the way of a rock thrown by a 15 year old kid who could barely reach him with his throws. I mean he was riding a bike I imagine he is in pretty good shape.
Yeah I wasn’t there but neither were any of the supporters of the BP agents action. Why that precludes me from taking judgment when faced with evidence is beyond me. Also I am pretty sure I know how I would act. I would not shoot a teenager in the head for a rock that landed near my feet.
I find it entertaining how people think they’re able to draw facts out of this video. Here’s all I can give credence to, without imposing my preconceptions and stomping my foot on the moral high-ground (like so many others have been doing in these comments):
1) The Mexicans were doing something at the fenceline that they ought know better not to do, and the CBP agent responded, charging in from the left towards two guys that ran back into Mexico. Of two others near the fence, the BP agent pulled his firearm on one and got him on the ground, while the other ran into Mexico. At this point, there is a likely editing split in the video. How much time elapsed? What occurred? A crucial unknown.
2) The Mexican on the ground was on his knees, and rocks appear to land nearby (tough to tell on the video). The BP agent has one hand on his detainee, who does not yet appear cuffed or subdued (as he is able to lean in on the agents legs shortly). The agent draws his weapon at those throwing the rocks but does NOT fire for a full seven seconds. Scare tactic paired with a verbal warning? Unable to acquire a decent sight picture? Who knows? Likely: only the CBP agent.
3) At about four seconds after he raised the weapon, the detainee pushes into his legs, and the agent tries to compensate his stance by stepping forward. At the time the first shot is fired (eight seconds after raising the pistol), the CBP agent is clearly off balance as the detainee pushes into his legs — that first shot is wild.
4) Shots two and three follow in rapid succession, but the agent & detainee are NOT VISIBLE at this time. Aimed or wild? What was hit, if anything? Was the agent even in control of the weapon, or was he inadvertantly pulling the trigger as he tussled with the detainee? A lot of unknowns here.
5) After a pause of about ten seconds, a single, fourth shot is fired. No video of the agent, detainee, or victim, or what else was happening (rocks, struggling with detainee, etc). Same questions apply with a major lack of contextual detail.
6)The end-state, and most important: the Mexican 15-year old — apparently facing the CBP agent when shot — is dead, almost certainly due to one of the four audible shots fired. Which shot? Was it aimed or a ricochet?
What I pull forth from this: “im moe green” is wrong; this is very Rashomon-like. It is quite possible (NOT given) that the CBP agent felt a threat (even if, from perfect tranquility floating above the scene, one can see he ought not have felt so) and felt justified in opening fire, and not surprisingly his statement to CBP would reflect this, and the CBP / US gov’t initial report (pending investigation, of course) would closely mirror how that agent perceived things. Overall, a tragic event, and clear as Gulf Tar Balls.
I believe Yves’ has her assertion backwards. She thinks this is representative of US gov’t and/ or media manipulation; I’d bet the US media took a look, said “this is too hazy for our listeners/viewers/readers” and moved on to something else. Latin American media, however, took plenty of liberty to trumpet this as “clear cut”, and hence generate some controversy (and viewership).
My conclusion: Anyone who says anything definitive about this matter based solely off this video is letting their biases run away with their judgment. I look at it, and recognize that I can’t render a judgment either way. Far too much context is missing.
I have to agree with you that there is a lot of context missing from the video and no full conclusion can be made from just that piece of evidence, but the idea that nothing definitive can be determined from the video is not true.
From the video it is definitive that the officer was under no deadly threat from the rock thrower. From that distance and with his helmet the worst that could happen to him is maybe a broken jaw. If he felt his life as in danger than he was wrong objectively.
You are right though there is no way to know whether he shot accidentally, as warning shots or if verbal warning were given first. That doesn’t mean judgment about the situation can’t be made or that the video does not provide very important evidence.
“From the video it is definitive that the officer was under no deadly threat from the rock thrower.”
That is complete and utter definitive BS.
Explain the reasonable deadly threat there. Not what you might feel is a threat, but what kind of deadly damage a rock thrown by a 15 year old could do to a helmeted man?
“From the video it is definitive that the officer was under no deadly threat from the rock thrower.”
It doesn’t matter if the officer was definitively under no deadly threat, as observed on the video or hovering 20 feet overhead, god-like. What matters is whether the officer FELT under a deadly threat. Law enforcement requires snap-second judgment calls … and they aren’t always right.
Hypothetically, what if the detainee was yelling something in Spanish like “Cap him!”. D’ya think the officer might have been scared that maybe one of the others who’d crossed into Mexico had a firearm and was about to use it?
I’m not saying that happened, I’m saying that is the type of context that this video CANNOT provide. Best to let the investigation provide these details before assuming we know all about the situation that we need to know.
That is incorrect, as I discussed above. The legal standard is REASONABLE belief that the officer is in danger of serious physical harm. It is not a pure subjective standard.
Actually the view from a video or floating above the ground God-like is exactly the perfect way to determine weather deadly force should be used. Most of the time it is determined by verbal accounts which can be much faultier.
It does not matter how the officer FELT as you say, it matters weather it is determined as reasonable deadly threat. Reasonable means
–adjective
1. agreeable to reason or sound judgment; logical: a reasonable choice for chairman.
2. not exceeding the limit prescribed by reason; not excessive: reasonable terms.
3. moderate, esp. in price; not expensive: The coat was reasonable but not cheap.
4. endowed with reason.
5. capable of rational behavior, decision, etc.
If you think that the rock throwing by a teenager is a reasonable deadly threat to a helmeted man than please show your evidence for that. I have already shown the REASONS I think it is not. Which is exactly what the video can help us determine.
Honestly Vespasian if we went with the officers feeling about whether something was a deadly threat than everything is acceptable because that is a subjective definition and peace officers could justifiably go around shooting anybody for any reason as long as they justified it with their feelings.
Vespasian: Another true believer masquerading as a skeptic.
Again per my previous post, anytime an officer draws his weapon as he’s being attacked with any object that can harm him he knows that if he’s becomes incapacitated without any backup there to protect him, tha that same weapon very well will be taken from him and used on him.
That’s why he fired. At the moment that the kid grabbed his legs and was trying to bring him down to the ground while he had at the same time was dodging rocks coming his way, he had NO choice but to defend himself with that weapon. That kid that was hanging onto his legs is lucky he wasn’t shot too.
Yves is not fully using her usual high-caliber brain power in analyzing this situation. Perhaps she should just stick to economics before opining on something she obviously doesn’t understand with regards to when and why law enforcement is trained to draw their weapon. This cop was alone and he was being attacked. That’s all you really need to understand.
Btw, when I say ‘cop’, I include Border Patrolmen. He did what any regular policeman would’ve done in that situation when confronted by attackers – especially when he is surrounded and alone. It may come as a shock to some people but that BP’s first requirement as an officer is to protect himself foremost by whatever means legally necessary to ensure that he survives so that he then can protect his fellow officers, and if need be THEN innocent civilians. But he comes first when it comes to taking care of his own survival.
Scroll to David at 9:34 PM and my comment at 9:49 PM. Your argument is debunked conclusively.
Frank Ohsen,
You have an extremely active imagination.
You look at the video and read into it whatever suits your fancy.
The agent rides into the midst of four persons with no hint of fear or intimidation whatsovever. He is in complete control of the situation until he raises and aims his gun in the direction of Mexico. The person at his feet is completely submissive up until this time, and it is not until the agent raises his gun that that person begins to struggle. Could the agent’s captive be trying to prevent the agent from shooting his friends? And if the agent was as fearful of his captive as you say, why did he not turn his attention to his captive? Instead, the agent’s attention stays focused across the river.
Your narratvie is nothing but stupid, blathering nonsense, and it doesn’t fit the events at all. What’s amazing is that you are foolish enough to believe you can subsitute your fanciful invention for what people can see with their own eyes. Good luck with that one.
You’re obviously natively dense. Naively dense at that. But you were born that way. It’s not your fault. I don’t debate with people such as yourself because you lack foremost common sense. Because of that intrinsic lack everything that could be said that does involve common sense is therefore a-big-waste-of-time. That has been my most accurate experience after living 56 years.
Reply to someone else so at least you don’t aggravate your deficiencies for everyone that has common sense to see.
Now you’re trying to make the debate about me.
I’m flattered, but what’s all that got to do with the fact that people can look at the video and see with their own eyes what happened?
Frank,
Gotta tell you, when you are behind, quit digging.
Your assertions are obviously counterfactual. DownSouth and RonaldReagan above have analyzed the video persuasively. No sign of concern in the officer. He shot deliberately and calmly. He was wearing a helmet. It is absolutely not credible that he was in danger of SERIOUS physical harm (or imminent death or serious physical harm to others, not germane here), which is the ONLY permitted standard for an officer to fire on the kid.
Frank you just lost the argument and your narrative comes off as completely disingenuous.
If the BP agent felt threatened and compromised by the kid at his feet, he shoots the kid grabbing his leg not someone 100 feet away throwing rocks.
My uncle was the chief of police in one of the largest cities in the nation, so I’ve heard enough stories of real life threatening situations and no officer acts the way this agent acted. If you are worried of possibly losing your weapon you hold it with both hands and take out the nearest threat.
Your argument is baseless and without merit.
And I’d just like to reiterate the question I asked above. Sergio sustained two bullet wounds, one to the shoulder and one to the head:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/columnas/84379.html
The shoulder wound would surely have incapacitated the 14 year-old boy, enough to keep him from throwing more rocks. After that, why was the bullet to the head—-the coup de grâce—-necessary?
globewalker says: “DownSouth and RonaldReagan above have analyzed the video persuasively. No sign of concern in the officer. He shot deliberately and calmly.”
I’m pretty sure that anytime an agent has his weapon drawn, he’s got a whole lot of concern going on. Could you read his facial expression from the distance of this video, or analyze his calm voice? As I pointed out in my analysis of the video, the first shot came on the 8th second after drawing the pistol, while he was off balance due to the detainee undercutting his legs. Shots two thru four we’ve no video of him. How do you reckon he was “calmly”?
Or are you, yet again, projecting your biases?
I’m not saying the CBP agent is innocent … but I’m not prepared to say he’s guilty just based off of this video. It’s sad that so many of my (presumed) fellow citizens seem to think they can.
Yeah but Frank this isn’t a battle field this is a security installation/ border crossing. How the hell did the officer get into a situation where he had to kill some kid to resolve it? Where was his partner– was there a CO anywhere? What was he doing? All this guy needed to have was a dog and this situation would never have happened. This is a complete fail as far as I’m concerned– and comparisons with even something like break and enter (ala alex black) are wide of the mark because this isn’t a house it’s a high security border.
Officers ALL THE TIME are performing their duties without immediate backup. This was probably not envisioned to turn out like it did as many situations that cops are involved with turn out. This particular BP probably has handled such situations as this without a problem many times. Have you noticed that sometimes (most of the time) a cop is in his cruiser by himself? But that’s what that 2-way radio he carries is for, remember? But that doesn’t mean he waits UNTIL he gets backup to protect HIS life.
Again, c’mon, real world common sense at work here.
This was probably not envisioned to turn out like it did… This particular BP probably has handled such situations as this without a problem many times.
Yes, but the odds eventually catch up with reckless John Wayne types who repeatedly put themselves into risky situations.
There are probably some British Petroleum engineers and executives that could tell you a little bit about that.
Could we call this the tale of the two BPs?
Well if officers are going into situations all the time without backup and then this one has to use deadly force not because of the actual threat but ,according to because he didn’t have proper backup, then isn’t the mistake here going into the situation without backup? Isn’t that what escalated a situation to need deadly force according to you?
Frank,I may not have made this clear enough- I meant that this is a fail in command (and by implication /possibly/ procedure.)
Do all you guys know how STUPID you sound?
Unbelievable.
Default position of the out matched.
Frank, you and the others that lean toward the BP actions have only supplied arm chair arguments with out providing legal precedent, first hand experience or historical back ground (out side the resent political finger pointing).
If fact all the yeh’s seem to be saying they would do the same if in his shoes, is that right[?], if such is the case please say so, it would clear this up a bit more.
America has been a corrosive element/catalist with regards to south America for a long time, party to the unspeakable acts that we decry, it has not been a case of self determinism. This story goes back to discovery by the Europeans, yet here we debate one instance out of a long time line, set in motion not by the people of the south but ourselves. None of this would be happening if history was different, American corporate interests had not utilized 3rd world country as a strip mine to be left unreclaimed after all easy profit had been extracted.
Skippy…if we had not enticed them over for exploitation, we would not be having this discourse.
No, it is you who persistently and insistently show you know nothing about:
1. The risk of injury from a rock throw at 60-70 feet (police are taught anyone further than 50 feet is NOT a threat AND if they are in a situation where they are facing a HAIL of rocks, they should retreat unless there is an imperative to remain, like to rescue a fallen colleague)
2. The laws and practices around the use of force by police officers.
You insist on arguing and offer NO objective support for your position. All you have on your side is dogged ignorance and stubbornness. And now having been exposed, you resort to name calling.
Another example of the rhetorical strategy that Vespasian employs was given on another thread today, in this Rolling Stone story:
But rather than applying such skepticism to BP’s math, the Obama administration has instead attacked scientists who released independent estimates of the spill. When one scientist funded by NOAA released a figure much higher than the government’s estimate, he found himself being pressured to retract it by officials at the agency. “Are you sure you want to keep saying this?” they badgered him. Lubchenco, the head of NOAA, even denounced as “misleading” and “premature” reports that scientists aboard the research vessel Pelican had discovered a massive subsea oil plume. Speaking to PBS, she offered a bizarre denial of the obvious. “It’s clear that there is something at depth,” she said, “but we don’t even know that it’s oil yet.”
Scientists were stunned that NOAA, an agency widely respected for its scientific integrity, appeared to have been co-opted by the White House spin machine. “NOAA has actively pushed back on every fact that has ever come out,” says one ocean scientist who works with the agency. “They’re denying until the facts are so overwhelming, they finally come out and issue an admittance.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965?RS_show_page=0
Vespasian’s sophistry is identical to that used by the White House spin machine, and the AGW deniers.
Really? I’ll take your view of my comments as “sophistry” as a compliment … I just analyzed and reasoned a bit, and concluded I couldn’t conclude much.
But saying my reasoning is “identical to that used by the White House spin machine”? Puh-leez. Unlike the WH & NOAA with that scientist, I’ve zero impact on Yves NC budget or funding. I’ve no ties to CBP or law enforcement. I’m just expressing my opinion, which is plenty of people jump to conclusions based off of their preconceptions… and this (tragic) story exemplifies that nicely. But I’m certainly not badgering — or holding punishments over — people from expressing their honest analysis.
Vespasian,
The concluding remark in your comment says it all:
My conclusion: Anyone who says anything definitive about this matter based solely off this video is letting their biases run away with their judgment. I look at it, and recognize that I can’t render a judgment either way. Far too much context is missing.
Really Vespasian, do you believe people are so completely blind and gullible that they are going to believe your lawyerly invention over what their own eyes tell them?
My father always encouraged me to become a lawyer, but I chose a different path. If you keep praising my sophistry and lawyerly inventions, I may have to reconsider the old man’s recommendations :-)
I’m just relaying what my eyes tell me, and what conclusions I draw from there. Other people may view the same thing, and their brain applies their personal filters etc etc etc to generate “what their own eyes tell them”.
Philosophically, I try to follow Mark Twain’s view “It’s not what you don’t know that’s a problem, it’s what you know that just ain’t so” (or something to that effect). I try to be certain of very few things, as that allows me to always be sifting, analyzing, tweaking my views to fit the evidence, and honing in closer to the probable while keeping my eyes open for the bound-to-happen improbable.
Like I told alex black above, you could fit the Grand Canyon in the space between your self perception and the way the rest of the world perceives you. You’re a true believer in skeptic drag.
You have offered no evidence whatsoever to justify your self-proclaimed evaluation of yourself: “I try to be certain of very few things, as that allows me to always be sifting, analyzing, tweaking my views to fit the evidence…” Quite the contrary, the evidence you have presented belies your claim.
Whatever, DownSouth, have a good weekend.
No, not “whatever.”
You are very much a part of the “doubt is our product” crowd, and your arguments need to be outed for what they are.
Ah, you see, I don’t have a pathological need to always see myself as right and justified, and I’m fairly comfortable admitting to and operating in ambiguity. Perhaps that’s why we’re talking past one another.
I’m going to take a chance saying something.. definitive about this video, regardless of what really happened on site.
The U.S. currently has the biggest MILITARY budget of any country on this planet, and a good portion of our taxes continues to be applied to bolstering up that budget.
While people above were congratulating me on the anecdotal remark about police service ( a minor detail…) NOBODY picked up on the fact that the Washington D.C. airport looks like, no, excuse me.. IS a military installation.
When does… the military stop and the police begin ?
When you bring war home to the inside of your country, and everywhere is a battlefield, well…
LOOK OUT FOR TOTALITARIANISM.
It looks like this big disease is.. rather advanced in the U.S. at this time.
And it has permeated the mentality of anybody in a position of (governmental) authority.
Maybe you SHOULD be afraid, come to think of it…
You know, I may once again be repeating myself here, but people on American soil face a significant disadvantage compared to their European counterparts.
The World Wars took place on our soil, here.
They are not abstractions for us. STILL.
November 11, and May 8 are still commemorated.
I bet you don’t know what those dates correspond to, do you ?
No offense meant here.
If you don’t know what those dates are, there is a really logical reason why…
Think about it.
Fascism remains an abstraction for most of you in the States.
And something that could not possibly happen on U.S. soil.
Don’t you dare believe it.
“….the US is a country of trigger-happy crazy-people.”
That’s for sure.
“But the video… shows…the four suspected illegal immigrants who had just crossed through an opening in the fence,”
If they hadn’t been committing a crime, the kid would still be alive. Yes, the punishment is disproportionate, but I’m all out of sympathy for illegal *invaders*. (10 or 20 million people are an invasion, not an immigration!) Stay in your own country and this won’t happen to you.
bobn gives us an example of yet another polemical strategy, and that is to remove complex phenomena from their historical, political and economic context so that they can be reduced down to simplistic sound bites.
Although this may help one to achieve a sense of certainty, it is antithetical to the search for truth and understanding.
What planet are you from?
Policemen are not and have never been in the business of deciding who is and isn’t a criminal. They can and do arrest “suspects.” The kid’s body was found on the Mexican side of the border. You have no idea whether he did ANYTHING remotely against US law, and even if he did, it’s the job of the justice system to find him guilty and determine the appropriate punishment.
Bobn says:
If they hadn’t been committing a crime, the kid would still be alive. Yes, the punishment is disproportionate, but I’m all out of sympathy for illegal *invaders*.
While talking about committing crimes, what about the backing of your governement to the criminal, illegal, overthrow of many legitimate, democratic, heads of state around the world, in Guatemala in 1954, in Brazil in 1964, in Chile in 1973, just to name a few? What about the illegal invasion of sovereign nations using lies as a pretext, the illegal and criminal secret operations against the peoples of Cuba and Nicaragua, the sabotaging of their planes, the sinking of their ships, the random acts of terrorism agains the civil population? Wouldn’t you call that, criminal acts…?
It may seem unrelated, but the truth is that many of those “criminals” who want to come to the U.S. to escape a life of misery are doing it from countries that have been wrecked economically by U.S. intervention. Nicaragua, for ex., that after the Sandinistas has become, with Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, thanks to an undeclared war by R.R. All those latino gangs you see around selling drug and killing people are the direct result of the politics of Washington in Central America.
What planet are you from?
Policemen are not and have never been in the business of deciding who is and isn’t a criminal. They can and do arrest “suspects.” The kid’s body was found on the Mexican side of the border. You have no idea whether he did ANYTHING remotely against US law, and even if he did, it’s the job of the justice system to find him guilty and determine the appropriate punishment.
Whoops, comment in wrong place. This is in reply to bobn. Please delete, am putting in the correct place.
“…The emerging consensus in Latin America is, the US is a country of trigger-happy crazy-people…”
Canada, too.
The idea that most of the general public ought to have guns and the right to open-carry to any place that does not specifically forbid it, boggles my Canadian mind. A gun is not a defense, not a shield, it’s purely offensive. And having tried to learn to shoot some years ago, I can testify it’s not easy, and under stress I would guess that in 99% of cases a bullet is likely to hit not the “bad guy,” but some other item or person in the general direction the gun is pointing.
The gun owner’s idea is to defend himself, but if he looked around at the 30 people nearest him (on the bus, on the street, at church, wherever) and imagined them all armed, I wonder if his opinion would change?
Not sure if any of you have read more on this story but I found a very interesting admission from BP agents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/world/asia/09border.html
“The Border Patrol says it is subjected to hundreds of rock attacks during its patrols and takes them seriously. From October 2007 to the end of May 2008, there were 537 rock-throwing incidents involving agents, officials said. That number dropped to 460 the following year and then rose to 604 incidents in the most recent reporting period, which ended on May 31.”
1,601 rock throwing incidents in the last three years should give us a great baseline for determining the risk of people throwing rocks yet there was no mention of one death or even a serious injury.
There’s zero basis for using deadly force. The shooter is just an angry border agent and a cold blooded killer.
The shooter is just an angry border agent and a cold blooded killer.
There seem to be a lot of angry border patrol agents these days. Maybe the bad apples feel empowered by all the anti-Mexican hate speech coming out of Arizona?
Just a couple of weeks ago border patrol agents beat another Mexican citizen, 32 year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas, to death in San Diego. Here’s a recording of the beating, and I think it says volumes about how some of these border patrol agents think. If something untoward happens to a Mexican, then he must have been doing something wrong:
Hernández: Nooo, nooo……ayuda!
Ayudenme!
Ya, porfavor….señores ayudenme.
Ayudenme porfavor.
Ayudame. Nooooooooo!
Noooo….dejenme……no señores!
Bystander: Hey, he’s not resisting. Why are you guys using excessive force on him?
Border Patrol Agent: I don’t know what’s going on over there.
Bystander: Hun?
Border Patrol Agent: Obviously he’s doing something. He’s not cooperating
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/178309.html
In keeping with David above, see this story:
http://www.slate.com/id/2256457/
How many American police officers have been killed by a rock since 1792 (yes, 1792, no typo). A grand total of three.
And of those, only one was from a rock throw. The others were bludgeoned.
Check this out:
“A police officer may use deadly force only if a suspect is likely to kill or seriously injure him or any bystanders. To figure out what counts as “likely,” officers must make split-second decisions based on the nature of the weapon, the suspect’s location, and a host of other circumstances—but there are a few general guidelines. Cops are always entitled to shoot a suspect who brandishes a gun. (Firearms have killed 565 officers since 2000.) Empirical research has shown that a suspect can stab an officer if he gets within 21 feet before the officer draws his gun. (Nine officers have been stabbed to death in the last decade.) Most departments teach their cadets that a rock isn’t deadly beyond 50 feet. Unless they are performing a particularly important mission, like aiding a wounded colleague, officers facing a hail of stones should retreat to that perimeter.” [boldface added]
So the arguments above, that kids at 60 to 70 feet were a mortal danger, and that (even if they had been) the right course of action was to shoot, are crap.
That’s what I am saying. No way a rock from that distance thrown by a teenager is deadly to a helmeted man.
You know these people saying you can’t determine anything from video really confuse me. What exactly do we have all this surveillance for if it is completely useless in determining anything. Not everything but anything.
It reminds me of this time in school when I was explaining why I didn’t believe in UFOs using some scientific arguments. This guy comes back at me saying that Althusser showed how all science is a construction. WTF? Yeah so the Sun revolves around the Earth, Dinosaurs are 5000 years old etc. Man post-modernism sucks.
Besides the video there were also eye-witness accounts, including that of 52 year-old Bobbi McDow, a US citizen, who witnessed the killing from the bridge above.
According to her and other witnesses, Sergio was not amongst the four who crossed to the US side of the river. McDow said that two of the four who were on the US side were apprehended and two escaped. One of those who escaped, not Sergio, threw rocks at the agents.
When the agent aimed at Sergio, Sergio had his hands in the air, Raul Flores, of Mexican nationality, said.
Sergio was shot twice. The first shot hit in the shoulder. The second shot hit him in the head.
http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/agenteledisparodirectoalmenormatrimoniodeeu-508449.html
Here’s an English rendition of the above story:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256604575294950172855306.html
Here’s a photo of Sergio for anyone interested in seeing what he looked like:
http://noticias.aol.com/2010/06/08/agentes-hieren-a-un-sospechoso-en-la-frontera/
Holy crap. After reading the convoluted and contradictory ‘logic’ spewed here by unfortunately more than just a smattering I’m thinking NC has gone the way of comments ala Infowars or The Coming Depression. This is almost unbearable to read.
I mean I hope to hell none of you graduated from a top tier school because if you did you definitely got ripped off big time.
It doesn’t look good for the next generation if they get their parents’ brains if this place is any indication.
What a disappointment. And here I thought NC attracted the creme de la creme. Not so. Whew.
Frank,
Your last four, maybe more, comments have been pure ad hominem attacks. You’ve failed to rebut the information (with links, from outside sources) on the facts in the case (kid on Mexican side of the border, was not throwing rocks, rocks at his distance not considered by police to be any kind of a danger, even if there had been a “hail” of rocks, proper protocol was to retreat, BP shot deliberately which indicated he did not feel threatened) and have instead insisted on the validity of your unsupported fantasies.
Your remark is pure projection. And you inability to do anything more than criticize those who have demolished your illogic is proof.
Frank,
Thanks for sharing your insights and your optics are definitely granular fine and of subtracted nuance…the I thunkit world is a much better place…I grew up there..
.where every one kills the bag guys…where if a law enforcement office kills, arrests or browbeats some one they are obviously in the right.
Skippy…Frank has spoken, well better just pack our NC commentator bags and shuffle off too lame st.
Don’t fuck with a guy (or girl) packing heat and a badge and you’ll be fine.
On the other hand, CIA picks Mexico and Pakistan as states most likely to fail in the next five years. Between narco politics and the oncoming collapse of the Mexican oil industry, this little conflict between the teenager and the border guard is the tip of the spear – next time the latter won’t be on a bike, he’ll be in a black hawk.
But goddamn I do love me some burritos!!
YEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWW!!
I haven’t kept up on this but…
I seem to remember that British bobbies kept the law enforced while carrying sticks around…
My daddy (who did lots of autopsies on people who were shot with handguns BECAUSE THE GUN WAS THERE, and tried to work to get them banned…) said that if there were fewer guns then, well… there would be fewer shootings.
Now… THAT’S RATIONAL for you.
Gotta take the problem up to where it is a problem.
Fewer (like 0… guns) for the border patrol.
Sticks.
It’s… logical.
In order for the violence to scale down, it’s the GUY IN CHARGE, the HEAD HONCHO who’s going to have to make the first move.
THEN… the others will adjust in consequence.
But… you gotta be able to tolerate A LITTLE RISK, you know.
But then, that’s what living is supposed to be about, anyway.
“Fewer (like 0… guns) for the border patrol.
Sticks.
It’s… logical.”
Yes, that is really very, very logical, well thought out, applies loads of commonsense plus takes into consideration real world present reality.
And then when the drug cartel boyscouts play nice-nice too with these new BP Bobbies everything will just be rainbows, sunshine, and lollipops. Ok, so maybe the cartels will backslide just a bit at first and they’ll use hi-power slingshots on the BP Bobbies but it should all eventually even out nice-nice in the end and they’ll just sit around a campfire and iron out their differences over a cup of hot cocoa and smores.
(Now does anyone have any further questions as to why I posted 6/11/10 @ 11:54PM?)
Vespasian’s video analysis is good, and I would agree with his overall suggestion that, in a court of law for example, this could hardly be used as _conclusive_ proof.
However, some points:
– the BP moved forward to regain his balance after having his legs hugged, not tripped, by the detainee. He moved forward to steady his pistol, not to protect himself from the detainee, otherwise he would have given his attention to the detainee, whom he was obviously completely unconcerned about. His full concentration was on whatever he saw at the end of his pistol.
– Vespasian counted 4 shots, I counted 3. We both counted a long pause before the final shot. Vespasian suggests these shots could have been the result of being hugged by the detainee. Clearly this is wrong. As stated, the BP moved forward to secure his balance and steady his aim, therefore not even one shot was fired accidently. But, to play along, lets pretend a shot was fired accidently. How do you counter for the remaining shots, particularly the final one?
– Vespasian also does not address the fleeing person that is assumed to be the target. I admit now I assume that is the targeted person being fired upon, and that I could be wrong, and that I thought this because the person is identified by the circle drawn. I do not know who drew the circle or how they identified that person as the person targeted.
– re the possibilities of ricochets – Yes, these are possible. However, there was absolutely no grappling for neither the gun, no sudden shoves to the gun arm or even person of the guard. The guard is obviously and clearly planted, his arm is secure and level through-out, though we cannot see the final shot, the first shots are secure. _Two_ “ricochets” finish in the victim. Why would warning shots be fired that close to a person armed with rocks?
Finally, for meaningful conclusions to be drawn evidence such as a video are not required to provide a complete and perfect replay of all elements. Decisions are based not upon whether something is possible or impossible but rather whether a conclusion is reasonable. Therefore, taking this video on its own merit, we find questions that are very difficult to answer reasonably. Though certainly a wide range of possibilities exist, we cannot use them to determine our conclusions on what the video represents.
No matter what the BP felt, or thought, he was not in any obvious danger, his firearm was not, in any time, under threat or at risk, he re-established his position not to protect himself, not to escape the grasp of the detainee, not to protect his firearm. For what other reason then? Based on what followed he was protecting his aim. You aim – fire. In the video, he is clearly in control.
However, the video does not show the victim being struck. I was also puzzled by the beginning of the video there appears to be a body already in position where Sergio collapsed. Is it a shadow? Hard to make it out. In no way do I suggest a conspiracy or tampering etc. But, as Vespasian rightly points out, the video is limited and very unclear at times. My point though, just as correct, is that what the video _does_ show clearly _is_ relevant and useful and does demand some very good answers from what can be reasonably ascertained from its viewing.
A view from a REAL PARANOID here – with the advent of digital technology we will be “seeing” things that never really happened. This will be one of the many ways the NWO will use to influence the public’s opinion. We are truly living in The MATRIX these days. Directed Energy Weapons are now in use – see link here
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=directed+energy+weapons&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=sfcTTIS8PML68AbYrOidDA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDcQsAQwAw
Well I just viewed the video and I don’t have a problem with the shooting at all. I don’t see the situation through your eyes at all. I see criminals caught in the act of a felony. One criminal is physically subdue and is somewhat cooperating because the officer rightly has his gun drawn; the others then retreat only to turn and attempt an attack by quickly moving in the officers close direction while throwing rocks on the officer whereby he fires his weapon.
Years ago an umpire at a NY game got hit by a D cell battery thrown from estimated sixty feet away which put the umpire in the hospital in critical condition from the head injury.
Armchair quarterbacking is not the same as playing the real game.
We shall see once the review is done. I side with the US officer as it looks like a clean shoot to me.