Saginaw police need some serious gun training.

[techs]

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/michigan-police-shooting/

Video captures Michigan man's shooting by police

Police said Hall had just had a run-in with a convenience store clerk. On the video, he tells police, "My name is Milton Hall, I just called 911. My name is Milton, and I'm p---ed off." When an officer tells him to put the knife down, he responds, "I ain't putting s--t down." He appears unimpressed by a police dog, telling officers, "Let him go. Let the motherf---ing dog go."

Finally, he turns to the left of the frame, where another officer had moved out of view a short time earlier. It's then that the police open fire with a reported 46 shots in a five-second hail of bullets.


Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEKCJlYtUwc


It took 46 shots to kill a guy from like 5 feet?

 

[DrPizza]

Looked like he was walking *away* from officers. If that's the case, then seems like it's an unjustified shooting.

 

[rudeguy]

Looked like he was walking *away* from officers. If that's the case, then seems like it's an unjustified shooting.

its Saginaw

That whole city is a trash bin. I doubt the police are much better than the rest of the population.

 

[Jodell88]

Those officers should be tried for murder.

 

[darkxshade]

WTF...

I wish I could be in the room when they showed that video to the officers and asked them what they were thinking

 

[Schfifty Five]

Shit like this always baffles the hell out of me.

You have a guy with a knife vs 6 officers with guns.

The target is fairly large and appears to be walking away. What the hell makes you think you need to kill the guy, let alone put 46 bullets in him. Why not shoot him in the leg?

 

[MrPickins]

Looked like he was walking *away* from officers. If that's the case, then seems like it's an unjustified shooting.

This. Why the hell was he not tased instead?

(snip)
Why not shoot him in the leg?

No. For reasons that have been explained ad nauseam.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Shit like this always baffles the hell out of me.

You have a guy with a knife vs 6 officers with guns.

The target is fairly large and appears to be walking away. What the hell makes you think you need to kill the guy, let alone put 46 bullets in him. Why not shoot him in the leg?

There is no such thing. There is ONLY fire center mass till they stop being a threat, or not firing at all. Now, we can argue which was called for in this case, but IF it was a justifiable shooting then they did it exactly right...everyone empty mag till the target stops twitching.

 

[waggy]

Shit like this always baffles the hell out of me.

You have a guy with a knife vs 6 officers with guns.

The target is fairly large and appears to be walking away. What the hell makes you think you need to kill the guy, let alone put 46 bullets in him. Why not shoot him in the leg?

This is real life and not hte movies. you still die from getting shot in the leg. not to mention they are cops and not Robocop. people miss. so you are trained to shoot until the threat is down and fire into teh center mass.

I do question if it was a legitimate shooting though.

 

[Pia]

Dafuq. That looks like an execution.

And guys: the "shoot until the threat is down and fire into the center of mass" rule is for self defense. For use of force it's occasionally practical and reasonable to shoot elsewhere.

For instance, here's something I remember happening in Finland, details may be wrong. An uncooperative nut raged on his front yard with a gun in hand (!), shot in the air. No acute need to put him down then and there. So cops got an armored car on site so they could safely talk to the guy, parked it at a short distance, tried to talk him down. No success, nut still has gun, still takes shots. Then a cop managed to sneak to suitable distance from behind while the car was distracting the nut, and shotgunned him in the knee. He went down, dropped the gun so it was safe for the cops to approach and arrest him, and obviously he lived. I think saving a human life is a good use of an hour of cops' time when they can safely do so, and to the cops' credit, in that case they figured out a way. Much better than shooting and killing the guy the instant some kind of legal justification exists.

Similarly, I don't find it likely that a nut with a knife will keep walking and being a threat if his knee is shot out. Nothing special about making a knee shot at those distances, if the nut is stationary.

 

[Lifted]

Does anyone know if the dog is OK?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow and he drops!
Someone badly needs to autotune that.


That's quite terrible how they ganged up on him like that. Yet another incident of police abusing their power. Of course they'll get away with it. The "investigation" is just a term to make people feel like something is being done. Give it a few more months and it will be forgotten.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Dafuq. That looks like an execution.

And guys: the "shoot until the threat is down and fire into the center of mass" rule is for self defense. For use of force it's occasionally practical and reasonable to shoot elsewhere.

.

No, it's for shooting, period. Rather or not some crazy set of circumstances have, a few times in the history of firearms, conspired to allow targeted shooting by anyone other than a trained sniper is not at issue. It's how anyone who carries a sidearm (in America at least) is trained, and it's how you're expected to behave.

It didn't use to be that cut and dry, but because too many good guys were getting hurt (and bad guys getting litigation) pretty much every agency has now switched to this modern model. I'm sure you could find a handful of holdouts that haven't adopted it yet, but you'd have to look.

 

[pcgeek11]

Looked like he was walking *away* from officers. If that's the case, then seems like it's an unjustified shooting.

He was going away from most of the officers. There is an officer on the left and it appeared that he was setting up on him.

I don't know if they were justified or not, 46 shots IMO was excessive. If he were coming at me with a knife as he did the officer on the left, I think I would have shot him too. I wouldn't aim for a leg either. I think they should have tazed the shit out of him before it went this far. Of course there are those that would be whinning about the tazer too.

Why didn't he just put the fucking knife down?

 

[BladeVenom]

Looked like he was walking *away* from officers. If that's the case, then seems like it's an unjustified shooting.

What would you do? Tackle a guy with a knife? Let him walk over to someone else? Then what he stabs someone?

There were officers on the left. At least before the video cut.

 

[Pulsar]

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/michigan-police-shooting/

Video captures Michigan man's shooting by police

Police said Hall had just had a run-in with a convenience store clerk. On the video, he tells police, "My name is Milton Hall, I just called 911. My name is Milton, and I'm p---ed off." When an officer tells him to put the knife down, he responds, "I ain't putting s--t down." He appears unimpressed by a police dog, telling officers, "Let him go. Let the motherf---ing dog go."

Finally, he turns to the left of the frame, where another officer had moved out of view a short time earlier. It's then that the police open fire with a reported 46 shots in a five-second hail of bullets.


Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEKCJlYtUwc


It took 46 shots to kill a guy from like 5 feet?

We get it. You have an agenda. You continue to argue incidents like this. People have repeatedly explained it to you.

1. Officers warned him.
2. Officers threatened him.
3. He began to approach an officer in a threatening manner.

When a person acts in a threatening manner toward police, ignoring warnings etc, they are going to react. Especially when the person is mentally distrubed and has a weapon. It's right, it's trained, it's expected.

It's unfortunate those officers didn't have tasers. (To the best of my knowledge they are not carried in Saginaw, but it's admittedly been a few years since I've seen my friend who used to work up there).

Police have a right to defend themselves in this manner EVERY SINGLE TIME someone ignores their warnings and becomes aggressive. You think a guy with a knife went after an officer to offer hugs and kisses?

FYI, this isn't a discussion, and I'm done after this post. It sickens me that so many people want to place police in a bad light all the time. Yeah, they screw up some times and should be punished. Continually bringing up instances like this where they did it RIGHT just serves to push people apart.

 

[Kalvin00]

We get it. You have an agenda. You continue to argue incidents like this. People have repeatedly explained it to you.

1. Officers warned him.
2. Officers threatened him.
3. He began to approach an officer in a threatening manner.

When a person acts in a threatening manner toward police, ignoring warnings etc, they are going to react. Especially when the person is mentally distrubed and has a weapon. It's right, it's trained, it's expected.

It's unfortunate those officers didn't have tasers. (To the best of my knowledge they are not carried in Saginaw, but it's admittedly been a few years since I've seen my friend who used to work up there).

Police have a right to defend themselves in this manner EVERY SINGLE TIME someone ignores their warnings and becomes aggressive. You think a guy with a knife went after an officer to offer hugs and kisses?

FYI, this isn't a discussion, and I'm done after this post. It sickens me that so many people want to place police in a bad light all the time. Yeah, they screw up some times and should be punished. Continually bringing up instances like this where they did it RIGHT just serves to push people apart.

/thread.

 

[Meghan54]

What would you do? Tackle a guy with a knife? Let him walk over to someone else? Then what he stabs someone?

There were officers on the left. At least before the video cut.

I dunno....maybe let the police dog go instead of threatening him with it?

 

[consolibyte]

We get it. You have an agenda. You continue to argue incidents like this. People have repeatedly explained it to you.

1. Officers warned him.
2. Officers threatened him.
3. He began to approach an officer in a threatening manner.

When a person acts in a threatening manner toward police, ignoring warnings etc, they are going to react. Especially when the person is mentally distrubed and has a weapon. It's right, it's trained, it's expected.

It's unfortunate those officers didn't have tasers. (To the best of my knowledge they are not carried in Saginaw, but it's admittedly been a few years since I've seen my friend who used to work up there).

Police have a right to defend themselves in this manner EVERY SINGLE TIME someone ignores their warnings and becomes aggressive. You think a guy with a knife went after an officer to offer hugs and kisses?

FYI, this isn't a discussion, and I'm done after this post. It sickens me that so many people want to place police in a bad light all the time. Yeah, they screw up some times and should be punished. Continually bringing up instances like this where they did it RIGHT just serves to push people apart.

This ^^^.

 

[DrPizza]

I saw an officer on the left earlier, but in the frames before the shooting, I don't see one.

 

[ussfletcher]

You know, its situations like this that the Police use as a reason to spend money on new toys like Tasers. What do they do when the situation actually arises? Shoot at him 46 times. When do they use the taser? When a granny gets out of hand.

 

[Arkaign]

We get it. You have an agenda. You continue to argue incidents like this. People have repeatedly explained it to you.

1. Officers warned him.
2. Officers threatened him.
3. He began to approach an officer in a threatening manner.

When a person acts in a threatening manner toward police, ignoring warnings etc, they are going to react. Especially when the person is mentally distrubed and has a weapon. It's right, it's trained, it's expected.

It's unfortunate those officers didn't have tasers. (To the best of my knowledge they are not carried in Saginaw, but it's admittedly been a few years since I've seen my friend who used to work up there).

Police have a right to defend themselves in this manner EVERY SINGLE TIME someone ignores their warnings and becomes aggressive. You think a guy with a knife went after an officer to offer hugs and kisses?

FYI, this isn't a discussion, and I'm done after this post. It sickens me that so many people want to place police in a bad light all the time. Yeah, they screw up some times and should be punished. Continually bringing up instances like this where they did it RIGHT just serves to push people apart.

I'm wondering if we saw the same video. I can't comdemn nor justify this shooting based on that crappy video. I didn't see the suspect do anything sudden or that looked to be a reason for deadly force, though again the quality and perspective was terrible.

Anyhow, it seems like you are jumping to conclusions just as you accuse someone else of having an agenda.

 

[Pia]

No, it's for shooting, period. Rather or not some crazy set of circumstances have, a few times in the history of firearms, conspired to allow targeted shooting by anyone other than a trained sniper is not at issue. It's how anyone who carries a sidearm (in America at least) is trained, and it's how you're expected to behave.

Are there no shotguns in those police cars? It's trivial to hit what you want with a long gun at those distances.

Even with just handguns, while you can't expect or require a random cop to make accurate shots, if there is a good shooter on the scene they should be allowed to exercise judgment. Isn't it common sense that some damage to the guy is better than killing him for sure? I'm pretty sure I would hit a knee on a stationary target at 10 meters with pistol, and I'm a lousy competitive shooter.

I understand that legalities in a specific place might require different kind of action, but the practical side is sound.

It didn't use to be that cut and dry, but because too many good guys were getting hurt (and bad guys getting litigation) pretty much every agency has now switched to this modern model. I'm sure you could find a handful of holdouts that haven't adopted it yet, but you'd have to look.

If good guys were getting hurt, they were doing it wrong. I'm not talking about self defense, I'm talking about proactive use of force. If the situation turns into self defense, then by all means as many shots as necessary to center of mass.

Police almost never has to shoot anyone in Finland or Sweden etc., either to kill or to disable. It's not just a question of how aggressive the suspects are, but also how the situation is handled. Cops have the right to defend themselves as vigorously as needed in any situation, but professionalism requires actively and carefully avoiding any situations where they might have to. For instance, unless there's an urgent reason to, they won't go anywhere near an armed suspect.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

If they had tasers, and didn't use them, they should be fired. Maybe even tried for homicide (hard to tell based on this edited/grainy video).

If they didn't have tasers, the police chief should be fired.

That's my take on it.

I don't understand why police officers approach men with knives. Now that officers have rifles in every car, why not deal with these crazies at stand of ranges until a taser arrives.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Are there no shotguns in those police cars? It's trivial to hit what you want with a long gun at those distances.
....For instance, unless there's an urgent reason to, they won't go anywhere near an armed suspect.

This.