NYPD brass said the alleged fare-beater had charged at the officers with a knife and made verbal threats against their lives; he was last said to be in critical condition, along with one of the bystanders
Yeah, that may have been how it started.
Body-worn camera footage, which Maddrey said he reviewed before the press conference, allegedly showed the man make a verbal threat to the officers. He told the cops, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop following me,” the chief said.
Definitely sounds like the police at fault, and the guy wasn’t a walking time bomb or anything.
I get that the situation with the police in the US is cooked, but saying this was over a $2 fare isn’t really being honest about the situation.
I mean, for discharging your firearm in an enclosed space with tons of people around? Yeah, I definitely would consider the police at fault. Should the guy with the knife have been persued once it was revealed he was armed? Sure, I can accept that. But what I do not accept is that the police seem to, despite the absurd modern toolkit at their disposal, only have two tools they actually use: their taser and their gun.
Why is it that seemingly anywhere else a knife-wielding assailant can be subdued without blood being drawn, but here it results in several people suffering life threatening injuries and one dead?
It’s much cheaper (and better for psychological conditioning to the Policed States of America) to just hire the cheapest community college dropouts with a pant size bigger than their IQ than it is to attract, train, and maintain a respectable (read: “for the community”) police force. If the US adopted similar requirements for their police as a country like Germany, I’d imagine we’d lose well over half of our force instantly, with most of the rest quitting soon after being asked to not shoot people at the first sign of noncompliance.
I think the argument being made here is that what you have described is egregious enough and also a fair take on what is alleged to have happened.
Unlike saying “a guy jumped a turnstile and police opened fire for $2” which now looks like a ragebait equivocation.
seemingly anywhere else a knife-wielding assailant can be subdued without blood being drawn,
Where has this actually happened though? I very much doubt it’s standard practice for any police force.
My mans knife attacks are the primary deadly assault weapon used basically anywhere else on earth that you cant get guns from vending machines. I know that is hyperbole, but only just.
This happens in England fairly often, actually. The basic cops don’t have guns, they have specifics fire arms units. Sometimes detectives can carry, but they have to have a written justification for it, and it is very closely monitored. Even tasers are considered firearms for these purposed. They use a combination of PAVA and CS spray, speed cuffs, and, if the person isn’t deterred with the spray, batons. The batons are not allowed to be used on the head, and each use is investigated to a degree that would make american police quit.
So how it normally goes, police arrive to man weilding knife, give warning, spray, tackle, cuff. If the spray doesn’t seem put them in a state in which they clearly are struggling to function, they may attempt to hit them, almost always on the legs, with their batons. If this seems dangerous, they will surround the person with the knife, and call in a firearms unit. This unit will, with very, very, very, few exceptions, will use their taser to incapacitate the person. Is this systems perfect? No. However it is incredibly rare that police shoot people with guns. Police killing people, in the UK, for any reason, is far more rare.
“OH shit, Bobby shot some bystanders. We better say there was a reason we were shooting other than he was running away.”
“He had a knife! That’s the ticket!”
No knife found. Just typical police bullshit.
There’s body camera footage, and multiple eyewitnesses, do you really think they’re going to make up a knife?
Are you this naive about everything or do you just especially like sucking on the Blue?
Of course, they’ll lie that they saw a knife even though there’s a video. “I swear I thought I saw one and I had to act.” Csuse you know the video isn’t going to back them up.
Even if the guy had a knife, that doesn’t justify shooting into a crowd. Oh shit, there is a violent criminal in NYC. We better nuke it to make sure the criminal doesn’t get away.
