Otherwise he might have missed the kid, and once you let teenagers survive peacefully leaving a party that got broken up by the cops, civilization is over.
I cannot believe this one. I mean, I believe it, but the cop literally fired a rifle into a car full of teenagers driving away from him.
It's unsettling that with each police killing in the Trump-Sessions era, it feels like they're becoming increasingly brazen about not giving a flying fuck about even a charade of justice. Counterpoint: they did fire the cop so fucking yay for that but about those criminal charges?
Actually having the rifle out may or may not be appropriate depending on the timing. From what I've read both the police and other party goers heard something they thought were gunshots. If he's getting out of his car, hears gunshots, and then grabs the rifle, that's a legitimate thing to do. If prior to hearing gunshots he's just walking up to a regular old party call with a rifle then I'd be asking him if he thought we were in Mogadishu.
Even given the first scenario you still can't unload on a car fleeing the scene without a pretty compelling reason and this recent stuff with the firing makes me think he went all Baghdad checkpoint on a bunch of teenagers without cause.
Let it never be said that gswift is a fascist pig.
4 makes sense, but I am a bit baffled about why there are police officers routinely patrolling around with assault rifles in the first place. Are there really that many occasions where normal police officers - not specialist snipers - need to use rifles because they can't do their jobs with just automatic pistols, tasers, pepper spray, batons and shotguns? My respected grandfather carried less firepower than that and he was actually, you know, fighting the Wehrmacht. What are they going to want next, SAWs?
The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.
A fair number of US cops carry AR15s or similar in the trunk of their cruisers just in case. They are occasionally useful as in the Bank robbery a decade or so back where the robbers were each wearing two layers of body armor. In that case the cops did not have the rifles on them and grabbed them from a nearby gun store, but it's influenced others to want to have heavier firepower available.
8: sure, but that case was one incident, twenty years ago. You might as well argue that because of the Killdozer case (which was more recent than the North Hollywood shootout) all police cars should carry an AT-4 in the trunk, so they can destroy any hostile armour they come across.
9: People are shit at risk assessment. Cops are no exception. See also stranger danger. Or terrorism from muslim immigrants.
I never killed anyone.
I don't even like that the reports say the car was fleeing the scene. The boys were just driving away as far as I can tell. "Fleeing" is certainly the language the police chief used, but that's just to imply the boys were doing something wrong. How can you be fleeing from the police if they never tried to stop you (before shooting) and you weren't breaking a law?
You never know when a routine traffic stop could turn into fighting the Wehrmacht.
Lots of people become cops because they like guns. So if you let cops decide what guns to have, well they're probably going to want to have "cool" guns.
What always made me super uncomfortable was the cops with assault rifles in Penn Station during holidays. It's just so crowded and I couldn't see them without thinking "that guy could kill hundreds of people if he wanted to."
Though all things considered, it may be better to have cops who got into it because they like guns rather than because they like bullying people or because they like breaking the law.
If it makes you feel better, a cop standing guard at a train station is almost certainly not carrying hundreds of rounds of ammunition. That would get really heavy.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you see one wearing a big backpack or something, maybe worry.
14 It's usually National Guard you see carrying M4s. It's been a while but ISTR NYPD carrying MP5s not M4s whenever the serious kit came out.
When I was in undergrad, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary got permission to carry sidearms. Before that all their weapons had to be locked in the trunk of their car. They also haven't been able to use tasers since 2007.
Also I found this tidbit on Wikipedia "The unit has four Percheron horses and four riders. Below is a list of the Percheron horses' names.
Dr. Rich
Townshend
Fraize
Dobbin"
Speaking of the National Guard and shooting kids, happy 37th Kent State anniversary.
The officer was charged with murder.