>> ^JiggaJonson:

Thanks for posting this, if i had any power-points I would quality this b/c you've given me some ammunition to fight idiots who stood up for the police involved in that other video.


Sure the policeman who shot the guy was a bit too trigger happy, but that's because he's trained to react in a split-second to any threat he might encounter. I'm not saying he handled the situation perfectly, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Why was a SWAT team sent to arrest one guy? What warranted an action like that? At what point will the government admit that it's fighting a war it cannot win, with civilian casualties piling up left and right?

That's just my opinion, if that makes me an idiot in your eyes so be it.

Am I the only one that sees this as sad, but understandable and justifiable outcome given the circumstances? Raising a deadly weapon at the SWAT team was met with deadly force.

>> ^Smugglarn:

I normally do not bash police work, but this seems strange.
It's obvious that the suspect has a weapon in his hand, but it's also obvious that it is a melee weapon. The suspect pretty much goes down on the first shot. The rest are kill shots.
Now, if this was a military op I would understand, but this seems like strange procedure in police work - SWAT team or not.


I had a discussion about this kind of thing with a cop a while back. She basically said that you don't fire unless you fear for your life, and if that is the case then you don't fire just one bullet and wait to see if one was enough. Part of that is because with some drugs one bullet isn't going to neutralize the person immediately unless it's through the head or spine. Another part is that a judge/jury is less likely to believe the officer feared death if they only fired once.

In this case it's hard to tell because of the poor video quality. The first time I watched this video I thought the guy opened his front door and the police gunned him down immediately. Watching it again they were inside yelling "search warrant" and then there's suddenly a guy holding a golf club (?) in a stance like he's about to attack with it. I watched that part several times but couldn't tell if the guy was moving forward, backward, or standing still.

I prefer non-lethal means, but in this case I'm not sure what the cop should have done differently at that moment, nor can I say with any certainty what I would have done in his place (one reason why I'm not a cop). I've seen police video of a meth'd-up guy repeatedly punching someone with his severely broken arm, so I doubt a non-lethal bullet wound would stop someone in that state (all the more reason for preemptive flashbangs).

I feel that the first cop in perhaps should have had a tazer rather than a pistol, but then I'm not sure what he would do if the guy had turned the corner with a shotgun instead. That's a situation I don't care to be on either side of.

I normally do not bash police work, but this seems strange.

It's obvious that the suspect has a weapon in his hand, but it's also obvious that it is a melee weapon. The suspect pretty much goes down on the first shot. The rest are kill shots.

Now, if this was a military op I would understand, but this seems like strange procedure in police work - SWAT team or not.

No drunk driver will ever stop to think "oh wait, prison rape."

So this ad isn't a deterrent of any sort.

Furthermore, when [in a decent civil society] is it ever acceptable to threaten a person or group with the fear of violent sexual assault by individuals stripped of their dignity, freedom & humanity?
~~~

I never liked "slippery slope" arguments but if you think this is okay, where do you draw the line for these ads?

"Don't smoke cannabis or.. SWAT teams could bust down your door without a warrant and murder beloved family pets right in front of your young children..

And you wouldn't want that to happen, riight? *Wink Nudge*"
~~~

If this doesn't set off a "completely inappropriate/tasteless" bell in your mind..
it would seem you are indeed infected by the Neo-con Ideology Virus, NCIV


>> ^bareboards2:
..but this thing just doesn't set off any alarms with me. It's a well played scare tactic, as far as I am concerned.

@dystopianfuturetoday, don't try to pin the Republicans who go voted in on our ideology, brother. You're just grasping at straws at this point.

But let's talk about some of the things you're bringing up.

1. Government services. The go to argument for statists any time you attack the amount we pay in taxes and what we're taxed on (income & inheritance tax being the worst of them) is "What about the roads? The fire department? The police?!" What's important to point out here is that these cited governmental "services" are always the bare minimum offered, and never do they scream out "What about our defense budget? The unreconciled transactions each year in the Treasury Department (reaching $25 billion in 2003 alone!)? The jackbooting swat teams at the G20 summits?! The prison industrial complex?!!! Homeland Security?!"

Roads, police and firefighters are all paid for by local taxes (not Federal), mind you, and most of which can be paid for by excise taxes or other voluntary taxes. Can we put that dog to rest?

2. Social contract. I didn't sign it. You didn't either. As mentioned above, a contract is an agreement where both parties voluntarily agree to the terms. Those who believe in the social contract idea tend to think, as you do, that it's a trade for living in a 'democracy'. That's ridiculous on its face. And your 'like it or leave it' mentality on the matter has the intellectual maturity of the Republican 'this is a Christian nation' philosophy. Bravo.

3. Taxes. Offering services and goods under the threat of violence is immoral, therefore compulsory taxes are theft. If you agree with compulsory taxes, then you agree services and goods should be offered under the threat of violence, and in any other arena outside of government that would be considered sociopathic.

The concept of life outside of earth ought to be part of everyone's reality. I don't know about alien spacecraft actually visiting us and shooting beams of light into missile silos. If aliens were studying us it'd probably be accomplised by something like remote viewing through a wormhole or some such. In other words completely undetectable. What I am almost certain about is that alien life must exist. To me, looking out at the universe and believing we're the only life that exists is like one speck of sand believing it's special and magical among all the other specks of sand in existence. The numbers are against the presence of life here being unique. Most likely, life is commonplace. And I believe that intelligence is simply the logical result of self-organizing biology... intelligence leads to greater energy capture which is the immediate purpose of biological self-organization. In most cases you probably only get one intelligent species on a life-bearing planet at a time, but there are more planets out there than stars. Which is to say, a lot of cases.

Back to the wormhole thing. There's a theory that, at some point in the future, humans will develop remote viewing technology. That is, the use of wormholes to peer through time and space, giving an undetectable *live view* of events from the past. Not exactly visiting the past, more like snaking a SWAT team camera through time via wormholes. Now, according to the rules of big numbers, given the existence of remote viewing technology in the future, and future extending for millions and billions of years... every single moment of every single person's life is probably being directly observed by someone in the future. Of course, more important moments are being watched by billions or trillions of people from the future. But on average, every moment is watched at least once. Think about that shit.

Arthur C Clarke wrote a book around this concept called The Light of Other Days. Needless to say, the ultimate, ultimate extents of the technology in the book are pretty mindblowing.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

That's total bullshit. Cops are allowed to do things during the course of their job that the average citizen is not.
Try pulling someone over with your car today. Really yell at them and honk your horn like crazy and see if they pull over. Then, when they don't, perform a nice PIT maneuver with your car. After all, cops are allowed to do it right? So shouldn't you?
Or how about this: Try carrying around a loaded, fully-automatic assault rifle. If anyone screws with you, tell them that SWAT team members are allowed to carry them, so you should be allowed to as well. Sound like crazy talk? It is.
How is this for a double-standard: if a cop sees someone committing a crime, they are required by law to stop it. Whereas you, a normal citizen, is not required by law to do anything. Is that unfair? Or is that because stopping criminals is part of a cop's job description?
Cops are allowed to do things that normal citizens are not. They can put up barricades. They can direct traffic. They can use "police only" radio channels.
It seems to me like this is equivalent to walking into a hospital and saying, "I'd like to perform some brain surgery, and if you don't let me, you're holding me and the actual brain surgeon up to different standards!" But they're not holding you up to different standards at all. Almost anyone can go to school to become a brain surgeon. But the school part is a requirement to actually practicing the work.
In the same way, almost anyone can go to a police academy or other training school and become a cop. So it's not a double-standard, it's two separate roles that individuals play in a society. Roles that are established by that same society. It's not that complicated.
Again, if the cop was using an illegal space to park in while he went and got a tic-tac or something, I could see the argument. But this isn't even an argument. It's crazy talk.


Cops are allowed to do break the law only in the case of an emergency.

A citizen is not afforded the lawful power to stop someone from moving freely on the street, or in the commission of a misdemeanor, or felony.

When was the last time you saw Special Weapons and Tactics carrying around fully automatic weapons on a beat, or a QRT for that matter? No, they cannot just walk around with their fully automatic weapons while patrolling. That argument is bogus. Force proportion. A peace officer does not need an M-4 to perform a traffic stop.

Cops are allowed the erect barricades only in case of emergency. Traffic redirection is case of emergency or special occasion, funerals and the like. In some cases officers have the legal authority to setup checkpoints for license and registration checks. That's been argued that they cannot do that because it hinders freedom of movement, and the police didn't have a legal reason to stop. Other than to check if someone committed an offense.

You will find that police only radio channels are often encrypted, because the public can listen to them, and hijack them. Which is illegal and those laws are enforced by the FCC.

Your argument above has many sections I would say are crazy talk. The video producer's argument is simply stating if a officer who is at rest and is illegally parked he or she is violating the same law he or she is sworn to uphold. There is a reason that area is illegal to park in; fire hydrants, bus-stops, bicycle path, or whatever reason the municipality decided citizens can't park there. What is the officer doing? The exact same thing a citizen would be doing, except he has a different hat on.

This has been argued over and over. The only time an officer can lawfully break the law is in case of emergency. It's the same case when an officer is speeding without his or her lights and sirens active. The only time anything ever gets done to stop unlawful activity is when someone raises the red flags, otherwise it will continue.

Whether the producer's a douche or not is beside the base argument of this video.

That's total bullshit. Cops are allowed to do things during the course of their job that the average citizen is not.

Try pulling someone over with your car today. Really yell at them and honk your horn like crazy and see if they pull over. Then, when they don't, perform a nice PIT maneuver with your car. After all, cops are allowed to do it right? So shouldn't you?

Or how about this: Try carrying around a loaded, fully-automatic assault rifle. If anyone screws with you, tell them that SWAT team members are allowed to carry them, so you should be allowed to as well. Sound like crazy talk? It is.

How is this for a double-standard: if a cop sees someone committing a crime, they are required by law to stop it. Whereas you, a normal citizen, is not required by law to do anything. Is that unfair? Or is that because stopping criminals is part of a cop's job description?

Cops are allowed to do things that normal citizens are not. They can put up barricades. They can direct traffic. They can use "police only" radio channels.

It seems to me like this is equivalent to walking into a hospital and saying, "I'd like to perform some brain surgery, and if you don't let me, you're holding me and the actual brain surgeon up to different standards!" But they're not holding you up to different standards at all. Almost anyone can go to school to become a brain surgeon. But the school part is a requirement to actually practicing the work.

In the same way, almost anyone can go to a police academy or other training school and become a cop. So it's not a double-standard, it's two separate roles that individuals play in a society. Roles that are established by that same society. It's not that complicated.

Again, if the cop was using an illegal space to park in while he went and got a tic-tac or something, I could see the argument. But this isn't even an argument. It's crazy talk.

>> ^Raaagh:
Face punching is a legitimate physical recourse to pacify a 17 year old girl?
Fuck you.


>> ^ToKeyMonsTeR:
sorry for all the fucks, this shit bugs me and it bugs me that the majority are ok with it.


Precisely, all of you defending the cop like he has the right to be a dick because he has a title "officer of the law making an arrest" don't care about the larger social context of: You shouldn't be a prick toward other humans?

Think about it. If it were a citizens arrest or rent-a-cop at a school.
Would it be okay for the average person to punch your 17 year old daughter [aka a child] in the face?

His actions aren't protecting or serving anyone.
It's a misdemeanor charge that should have been handled with a verbal warning like our sensible @swedishfriend mentioned.

We already know that power corrupts and bureaucracies make rules for the sake of rule making.
We already know that police precincts nation wide are pressured to meet quotas & falsify crime stats.
We already know that swat teams can & will bust into your house and kill both of your dogs for no reason.

If you support this officers actions you're only supporting a broken "justice" system where white collar criminals [upper class] get away with ruining the economy and normal common class citizens get hassled.

I understand and apologize for my knee-jerk reaction. After reading the comments about the other video, I chose to not watch the video because I didn't want to be disturbed by it. I did read some of the linked news articles though. A truly disturbing set of fu**ed up circumstances.



In reply to this comment by juliovega914:
I am a person. People suck.

But anyway, I love the video, truly. Its just that me watching this one right after watching the other one one (the one that I linked, with the swat team) really threw a wet rag over it.

>> ^curiousity:

>> ^juliovega914:
Sadly, I can now only think of a swat team breaking into this guy's little cottage on the edge of the mountain, shooting his little dog, and busting him for owning .3 grams of marijuana.
http://videosift.com/video/SWAT-A-Holes-Murder-Pets-in-Front-of-Kids
People suck.

You suck.
This is a happy video about an old man doing something he really enjoys for a long time.
There is no benefit to tainting this video with your ineffectual, internal need to lash out.

Check this out...
May 6, 2010

Yesterday, Columbia Police Chief Ken Burton and Mayor Bob McDavid convened a news conference...

Burton said yesterday that investigators should not have executed the warrant because the information was too old. The warrant ... was executed eight days after Boone County Associate Circuit Judge Leslie Schneider approved it. Burton said the state allows police 10 days to execute a signed warrant, and he thinks Columbia officers should have done so immediately...

“It’s my opinion that it needs to be served as soon as possible,” Burton said of the warrant. “The contraband can be disposed of. It they are going to do that, there is not much point in serving the warrant.”

“It was not a mistake to shoot the pit bull,” Burton said. “I wouldn’t be standing here if an officer had been bitten by a pit bull instead of the reverse happening.”

But, back when the incident initially happened...
February 23, 2010

Because the SWAT team acts on the most updated information available, the team wanted to enter the house before marijuana believed to be at the location could be distributed, [police spokeswoman Officer Jessie Haden] said.

“If you let too much time go by, then the drugs are not there,” she said.

If the SWAT team believed they could have executed the warrant successfully during the daytime when the wife and child were not present, they would have, she said.

And now the rest of the story...

Information provided by an informant led investigators to believe Whitworth was in possession of a large amount of marijuana and was considered a distributor. In 2003, Whitworth pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana in federal court and was ordered to serve 15 months in federal prison, according to court documents.

Some friend of his probably got arrested and given a deal for being informant (even if the information was made up). The police assumed guilt based upon prior history.

On the dog issue, doesn't SWAT wear like bulletproof vest and heavy duty tactical outfits? Certainly the lead person could have some way of handling a dog and shoot it after it attacks someone. You are attacking someones private property so in my opinion the dog has more business being there. Also, I have a feeling the dog was in his crate, but not locked in. ie. the dog sleeps in his crate and was in his crate but came out and was barking at officers and they shot it. I doubt the shot a dog just to stop it from barking.

Now explain to me what kind of asshole shoots a corgi in the leg?? So maybe they were just looking for animals to execute.

I am a person. People suck.

But anyway, I love the video, truly. Its just that me watching this one right after watching the other one one (the one that I linked, with the swat team) really threw a wet rag over it.

>> ^curiousity:

>> ^juliovega914:
Sadly, I can now only think of a swat team breaking into this guy's little cottage on the edge of the mountain, shooting his little dog, and busting him for owning .3 grams of marijuana.
http://videosift.com/video/SWAT-A-Holes-Murder-Pets-in-Front-of-Kids
People suck.

You suck.
This is a happy video about an old man doing something he really enjoys for a long time.
There is no benefit to tainting this video with your ineffectual, internal need to lash out.

>> ^juliovega914:

Sadly, I can now only think of a swat team breaking into this guy's little cottage on the edge of the mountain, shooting his little dog, and busting him for owning .3 grams of marijuana.
http://videosift.com/video/SWAT-A-Holes-Murder-Pets-in-Front-of-Kids
People suck.


You suck.

This is a happy video about an old man doing something he really enjoys for a long time.

There is no benefit to tainting this video with your ineffectual, internal need to lash out.

Sadly, I can now only think of a swat team breaking into this guy's little cottage on the edge of the mountain, shooting his little dog, and busting him for owning .3 grams of marijuana.

http://videosift.com/video/SWAT-A-Holes-Murder-Pets-in-Front-of-Kids

People suck.