>> ^MarineGunrock:

This is why all police should employ flash bangs.


Flash bangs can blind, deafen, or even kill. I'd be outraged if they threw those into the houses of suspects without confirming that they are armed.

But definitely they should have non-lethal weapons drawn on raids. This is a perfect example of why. I have a bit of sympathy for the officer's decision to shoot. It did sort of look like he came around the corner with a sword. If that was the case he could close that distance in a dark room very quickly. What turned this into a tragedy is that the officer was holding a gun in the first place.

>> ^kronosposeidon:
I can tell you what the police we're thinking: "It looks like a harmless fucking toy, but because someone said it looks suspicious we have to treat it like a goddamn lethal weapon. And if we don't treat it like that and then it blows up, it'll be our asses."
Jesus, I guess we must want to live in the same fear that Iraqis do. And to whoever reported this stuffed horsey to the police: If the world is that damn scary to you, don't leave your fucking house.


Nail meet head. It is sad that, should the police do nothing, they could be held to task. After all, we need a whipping boy for little Jonney's accident and who better than those who had no clue what a horse was about.

I can tell you what the police we're thinking: "It looks like a harmless fucking toy, but because someone said it looks suspicious we have to treat it like a goddamn lethal weapon. And if we don't treat it like that and then it blows up, it'll be our asses."

Jesus, I guess we must want to live in the same fear that Iraqis do. And to whoever reported this stuffed horsey to the police: If the world is that damn scary to you, don't leave your fucking house.

>> ^kronosposeidon:

I hope every filmmaker sees this and kills it every time they see it in a script, because this cinematic meme needs to die a horrible, excruciating death. It's right up there with "I'm getting too old for this shit." Any screenwriter who puts this in a script should be blacklisted for life.


...Except for Lethal Weapon sequels!

In any decent army they'd all be pretty severely punished. No wonder there are so many accidents.

Repeat after me. Your assault rifle is not a toy, it is a lethal weapon.

I think that everyone would be surprised just how easy it is to become an Armed Security Officer (guard). 40 hour training which includes handgun qualification and shotgun qualification. I've seen a few of these classes, and they are pretty strict, but that is given the place that is providing the training. Zero Tolerance for itchy trigger fingers, and violating the fire line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_guard

Pennsylvania No licensing requirements to be an unarmed security guard. However, armed security guards must undergo and successfully complete a 40 hour training course (including shooting range time) in order to be certified to carry weapons and on watch while on duty under the Lethal Weapons Training Act (commonly referred to as Act 235 certification). Certification involves qualifying on a pistol range, with firing of 50 rounds of .38 cal. ammo. You are also required to qualify on a shotgun. The certification is good for five years at which time an eight hour refresher course must be taken or the certification is revoked.[28]

>> ^lavoll:
taser happy overweight pigs


You know who else is overweight? The black man in this video and 55% of Americans!

We could apply violent pig to anyone... Like to all the common thugs on the street, just like all the people in America... Of course, then who could we blame for brutality? Not the everyday man because that would take introspection as to why society as a whole fails...

Remember, all cops come from flesh and blood and some are stupid. What would have been the appropriate course though? Go after him? (Answer, no.) Wait him out (Possibly, but figure he can wait up to about two days... ) Tase him? (Answer, depends if you think you can safely take him down. Considering everyone thinks they are more capable than they truly are, these cops prolly did too.)

Also, if there is a suspected gun, the cops who want to return home disable as soon as possible. The cops that want to test their speed and accuracy wait until they are dead. When they hit him with the first taser, what was behind him? If it was land, they needed to try and tase him right then and there (While he was seated. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron... It was BECAUSE he was SEATED that the opportunity was right. Of course the view is bloacked...) If the first deployment would have succeeded, the man who threatened to take life would have been fine. You say lethal force wasn’t warranted and you are correct, but the taser is only a potentially lethal weapon. Just like the hands and feet are a potential lethal weapon… A gun on the other hand, if used correctly will nearly always be lethal (Cause death or great bodily harm...)

If I was in that situation, and I was law enforcement (which I am not,) here is a potential scenario:

Fat man on bridge threatens to off himself. May be packing due to his 50 page history, reports from family AND state of agitation (So, first thing I know is that he may murder himself and any "Pig headed mother-fing cops"--as come others call all cops here on this site.) We respond, try to wait him out. Looks bad, because he is saying f-you, I will do it. We wait till he sits, there is ground behind him (Cannot see from this camera footage,) and then deploy the less-than-lethal taser... It fails. He gets up, makes a dash for the security of the bridge but also a better drop point. Take him down or let him fall? Hrm, hard to say because now he knows what will happen to him if he stops and therefore, he prolly won't stop... Taser deployed... And he falls. Slightly better outcome than if he had done a head-first dive of his own accord, which is of course what he promised to do... But bad outcome anyways…

The gun would have been the better option. When your opponent goes for a lethal weapon, you don't counter with a less-than-lethal option. The cop was extremely generous.

I actually kinda liked Lethal Weapon 5. err... I mean Predator 2.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Thanks for that. Sounds good. I'm going to see it.
>> ^therealblankman:
I went to a sneak-preview of the film that they don't bother to promote in the above interview. Really enjoyed it! Below is the review I wrote for Cinemaclock...
Here's the deal with this flick- if you're a fan of 1980s style comedy cop flicks a'la Lethal Weapon and especially Beverly Hills Cop, then you'll really enjoy this lightweight action film from Kevin Smith. Hell, it's even got an 80s Axel Foley synthesizer soundtrack.
Bruce Willis is the grizzled veteran cop, Tracy Morgan (or is it Jordan? I get confused) plays his goofy partner. There's a plot of sorts- revolving around the pair trying to get back a valuable baseball card stolen from Willis' character by a gang of frightening hispanic ethnic stereotypes, the leader of which is a sports memorabilia collector.
There are a bunch of chases- both on foot and in cars- a couple of shootouts, and some minor sub-plots with a few twists. All of which serve solely as situations for Morgan to riff off of Willis' straight-man like a manic comedic madman. These guys have some great chemistry together, in the finest buddy-picture tradition.
A couple of cameos- notably Jason Lee as the slimy step-father of Willis' daughter, and Seann William Scott is hilarious as a strung-out cat burglar.
This movie's quite a change of pace for director Smith- a straight-up mainstream comedy. But it's still got a lot of his trademark clever dialogue and the characters are better fleshed-out and more believable than is usual for this genre. It drags a little bit in the second act, but moves on soon enough and pretty much succeeds in entertaining on every level.

I went to a sneak-preview of the film that they don't bother to promote in the above interview. Really enjoyed it! Below is the review I wrote for Cinemaclock...

Here's the deal with this flick- if you're a fan of 1980s style comedy cop flicks a'la Lethal Weapon and especially Beverly Hills Cop, then you'll really enjoy this lightweight action film from Kevin Smith. Hell, it's even got an 80s Axel Foley synthesizer soundtrack.

Bruce Willis is the grizzled veteran cop, Tracy Morgan (or is it Jordan? I get confused) plays his goofy partner. There's a plot of sorts- revolving around the pair trying to get back a valuable baseball card stolen from Willis' character by a gang of frightening hispanic ethnic stereotypes, the leader of which is a sports memorabilia collector.
There are a bunch of chases- both on foot and in cars- a couple of shootouts, and some minor sub-plots with a few twists. All of which serve solely as situations for Morgan to riff off of Willis' straight-man like a manic comedic madman. These guys have some great chemistry together, in the finest buddy-picture tradition.

A couple of cameos- notably Jason Lee as the slimy step-father of Willis' daughter, and Seann William Scott is hilarious as a strung-out cat burglar.

This movie's quite a change of pace for director Smith- a straight-up mainstream comedy. But it's still got a lot of his trademark clever dialogue and the characters are better fleshed-out and more believable than is usual for this genre. It drags a little bit in the second act, but moves on soon enough and pretty much succeeds in entertaining on every level.

I don't know. When will they start shooting each other?

Also, the L-RAD does not work. After watching several episodes I came to the L-RAD was just an annoying sound generating device and not the mega non lethal weapon it was made out to be.

For those of you out there who ever wanted to become a cop, can you honestly say that the top reason was NOT to be able to pull out a Beretta at any time like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon?

I guess some of us actually grow up to be police officers.

I didn't.

Never grew a Riggs mullet either, though.

Alright, people. One of my best friends goes to the University of Pittsburgh and he was in the middle of the whole thing. Most of the "protesters" were just students curious about what was going on. He wrote this about it all:

"This note is for my friends who are not in Pittsburgh and have not yet been given a fairly comprehensive version of what has been going on here. If you have been seeing my wall posts, you'll know that something bad happened in Pittsburgh, but if you want my story, here it is...

On Thursday and Friday September 24-25, the G-20 World Leader's Summit occurred in Pittsburgh. The summit involved the leaders of the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The purpose of the summit is to have a forum for the major world leaders about the global economic crisis. Pittsburgh was chosen to be the location for the summit in order to highlight its economic recovery after the city's manufacturing industry collapsed about 40 years ago.

The G-20 is always met with protesters for various causes, including global warming awareness, socialism, peoples' rights in other countries, anti-free-trade, and anti-war, and anarchy. The city of Pittsburgh was required to bring in police forces from all regions of the state of Pennsylvania and other nearby states.

On the evening of the 24th, the summit began with a dinner in the Phipps Conservatory, a plant exhibition hall (really quite a nice place) just under a mile from my dorm in the borough of Oakland. The University cancelled classes after 4:00 PM that day in order to ensure that students did not have to be outside if they did not wish to. During the day of the 24th, several protests had been broken up by riot police. At about 7:00 PM a small protest began at the Schenley Plaza. (from this point on, I will be referring to locations on campus, please refer to the map I posted at:< http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs209.snc1/7620_178174626232_559501232_4081545_8066324_n.jpg>)

I went there to investigate myself at about 8:00 PM. The protest itself was fairly small, only about a hundred or so people total, with only a handful of protesters. There was some live music and dancing, courtesy of the Hare Krishna. Despite the fact that the protest was fairly small and peaceful, there were several hundred police forming a perimeter around the plaza, which is under a quarter-mile from the Conservatory. All of the Police were in riot gear, which covered any form of identification they may have had; they were also all armed with lethal and non-lethal weapons.

Around 9:00, I decided to return to my dorm. At 10:15, I overheard someone saying that they saw fire on Forbes Avenue. I decided to go out and investigate. At this point, the street had been flooded by curious students, and would remain that way until the police removed them. Several dumpsters had been pushed into the intersection of Forbes and Atwood by anarchist protesters. The next intersection had a overturned dumpster with flaming garbage spilled on the street. Several shop windows had been broken by a protester from California, however the media initially implicated that it had been students who were responsible.

I reached the lawn of the Pitt Union, and at about 10:45 the police began to multiply rapidly. They also brought in several scary-looking trucks with large dish-shaped things on them. This turned out to be a Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which emits a loud, scary noise which is physically disabling within a certain radius. At 11:00 PM, the trucks began playing a pre-recorded message declaring that the people in the streets had become an "illegal gathering" and that the crowd was to disperse, or they could be subject to arrest or attack with "less lethal" weaponry (does that mean you're less dead when you get hit?)

At this, I decided to retreat to Forbes Hall. Other people were not fortunate enough to get out of there as quickly as I did, and became exposed to a hail of "OC" gas, rubber bullets, mace, LRAD blasts, and nightsticks. The University unfortunately decided to lock down the residence halls as the police approached, giving the retreating students nowhere to go to escape from the police. One of my friends was arrested while holding open the doors to the Litchfield Towers residence hall lobby so that escaping students had somewhere to go. She was dragged outside of the doorway, beaten to the ground, not given any rights, held for five hours, and released without any charge as of yet.

At the time, I was unaware of this, but I watched the police advance through the lower campus (residential area, mainly between Forbes and Fifth avenues) via the live feed on the local news. When I noticed that they were three blocks away from Forbes Hall, I went to the patio on the second floor of the hall (out of reach of anyone who didn't live there or have a friend there). At about midnight, the cops were in front of the hall, still chasing a small group of protesters despite being nearly a mile from the original protest ground and being practically at the end of the campus. Without any real warning, they threw several canisters of "OC" gas onto the patio. Unknown to me at the time, several also entered the lobby and threatened to mace several students who were unable to enter the hall due to the lockdown.

OC gas is for all intents and purposes the same as tear gas. When you inhale it, your lungs and throat itch and you can't do anything but cough. If it gets in your eyes, you become partially blind and it feels like your eyes are melting. I was several feet away from a grenade and was directly exposed to it for several seconds as my fellow students and I tried to escape. I ran to my bathroom on the sixth floor and flushed my eyes and choked for five minutes. The third floor had window open out of which the students had been looking, it was filled with gas, and the students living on the third floor became refugees for several hours while it cleared.

Shortly after passing Forbes hall, the police attack ended. They left Oakland with 42 arrests (most were let go that morning), and a large number of unfairly treated, assaulted, and pissed students. The university itself has yet to make any statement regarding Thursday night, but the Mayor of Pittsburgh and Chief of Police have stated that they are "proud of how well the police handled the situation". They are apparently not fans of students either.

I will save my personal commentary and descriptions of the aftermath for another note. However, here are a few links that you will find interesting.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNeD4rHUF4A> a compilation of student-made videos from 9/24.
The videos are of varying quality and contain some harsh language and violence. These will give you an idea of what the students here experienced (I know the person being dragged away at 2:35)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6aRrQz7224> This video was not taken by me, but it was taken from my vantage point when Forbes Hall was attacked
<http://www.pittnews.com/> Pitt's student newspaper, featuring independent coverage of the G-20 (and some rather good photography, the ones I took came out terribly)
<http://www.pittbriefly.com/> A blog on which many videos of the G-20 'riot' have been posted. Some of these cannot be found on Youtube.

Thank you for reading this,
......."

>> ^Bruti79:
^ ^ ^
Normal humour in Automata? Did you read it?


Strip 2 - Weather joke, last panel.
Strip 3 - Robot shaped like door as doorman
Strip 5 - "Let's see what you got, Professor" + Lethal Weapon reference last panel and joke.

Unreasonable expectations perhaps, but I had envisioned the concept in my head as if it was being done by Warren Ellis.