Daniel Shaver Killed By Police While Being Ordered to Crawl...

[Rawkmann]

To me this is one of the most heinous and disturbing videos of an officer abusing and flat out murdering an unarmed civilian. After watching the footage I’m in complete shock that this case ended with the officer being totally acquitted of murder in court.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...er-seen-crawling-begging-in-disturbing-video/

 

[Jonathan20022]

I have a very clear opinion of this and it's unpopular but there's clear circumstances why the officer shot the victim.

There was a report of Shaver pointing guns out of a window from the party that called it in. The officer explained that if Shaver did not follow the directions he would ultimately shoot him, and it took 3 repeated warnings before any shots were fired. From what I understand the officer simply didn't restrain Daniel without them moving towards them due to risk of there being more people with said weapons inside the hotel room.

It's horrific that Shaver's family has to deal with his death, and I have complete sympathy for them. But you have to admit that after 3 "final" warnings, and Daniel still reaching for his waist/back WHILE being suspected of having firearms is a bit clear cut for why the officer shot his weapon. Ultimately Daniel did not have any weapons except some bug rifles in his room, and he was reaching for his pants to pull them up because they were falling.

I'm literally just analyzing the footage, and I'm not negating or ignoring police brutality. It absolutely exists, but to say that there was nothing suspect in the final actions Daniel took leading to shots being fired is to ignore the facts here.

 

[Rawkmann]

Maybe I’m the crazy one (wouldn’t be the first time) but to me there HAS to be a better way to handle these situations. I feel like the officer was shouting so many commands at such a rapid pace that it made the situation near unavoidable. The whole time I’m watching all I can think is: This is just going to end so badly... Some will say “Oh, what the officer was asking wasn’t so difficult” But doing all that with an assault rifle trained on You the whole time, all the while basically say “You WILL be shot if You do ANYTHING wrong”, I guarantee I wouldn’t hold up in that situation either. I’m almost to the point that if I ever was in that situation, I think I’d almost rather ignore the cops commands and just lie on the ground in a prone position so I don’t accidentally make any ‘threatening’ movements.

 

[Jonathan20022]

I definitely agree that we should be training officers a bit better to de-escalate in a lot of cases of police brutality. Also find a better way to vet officers through psych evaluations to hire less officers who have history of violence or those with anger issues.

I also understand the point of being under that amount of pressure and simply not being able to cope with it when you're being shouted commands like that. I see both sides of it for sure, it's a tragedy it happened at the end of the day. It's also the reason I don't want to live stream ever, I've seen some of my favorite streamers get swatted that it's turned me off from ever wanting to put myself at risk like that.

And yeah my parents taught me to just keep my hands at the wheel if I ever get stopped for any reason, turn on the lights inside the car and just comply if an officer stops me for whatever reason. I'm not super dark but I understand their concern in telling me that, don't give an officer any reason to feel threatened.

 

[Hollowway]

And yeah my parents taught me to just keep my hands at the wheel if I ever get stopped for any reason, turn on the lights inside the car and just comply if an officer stops me for whatever reason. I'm not super dark but I understand their concern in telling me that, don't give an officer any reason to feel threatened.

Fat lot of good that will do when they ask for your license. There’s a guy near me (you can see the footage on FB) who was pulled over. The cop asked the guy for his license, and when he went to get it the cop pulled his gun on him, and told him not to move. Then there’s philando Castile who told the officer he had a gun, and a permit, and that he was going to reach for the permit, and was shot. So, what do we citizens do when a cop tells us to take our hands off the wheel and then shoots us?

In this case, I’m sorry, but an officer with this officer’s past, who asks a man to cross his legs and then walk forward, is NOT justified. In this country, we continually make excuses for our cops who shoot citizens. Yet, in every single other first world country, cops kill a tiny percent of what our cops do. And there is plenty of video footage showing the same situations, with totally different results. In this case, the officer was giving mixed commands, and the jury was not shown all of the footage. That’s the issue. Oh, and his questionable job history before murdering this guy.
Another interesting thing about US police - departments here reject applicants with moderately above average or higher IQ. They only accept average to slightly higher. That’s who you want defending the law?
The simple fact is, statistics don’t lie. Our cops are much, much worse, and use the “I feared for my life” excuse way you much.

 

[narad]

Another interesting thing about US police - departments here reject applicants with moderately above average or higher IQ. They only accept average to slightly higher.

Have a citation for that? I find it hard to believe...though I don't believe many above-average IQ applicants are applying...

 

[Jonathan20022]

Sure the stats do back that up, but I come from South America. Rio de Janeiro to be specific and I hear a lot of people talk about a militarized police force as if they have any idea what that looks like. I haven't gone back to my home country in over 7 years and there is a reason for that. I got my citizenship in the states at the age of 12 and trust me if you think we're much worse, Brazil's unarmed deaths at the hands of officers I'd wager outnumber the US's by at least 4-5 times.

I also fail to see how the officer's history comes into play when you have clear footage of what happened in this situation. If he has a history of violence (which I haven't looked at) why is he still an officer and in charge of situations like these? Disconnecting the officer's history from the situation doesn't change the facts of what happened in that video, he asked him not to reach behind his back and waist and he did twice. Would this fact change if it had been an officer with an impeccable history with no negative history at all? Genuinely curious what you think of that.

His exact instructions were to cross his legs, pull himself up to a kneeling position, and then crawl towards him by not putting his hands anywhere except in front of him. How is that not justified when there is potential for another person to be in the hotel room with the weapons as well? Do you take the suspect's word that there is no one inside the room and approach just to get your head blown off if there was a person in there ready to shoot you? That's why he requested they come to him in that fashion.

 

[narad]

Sure the stats do back that up, but I come from South America. Rio de Janeiro to be specific and I hear a lot of people talk about a militarized police force as if they have any idea what that looks like. I haven't gone back to my home country in over 7 years, I got my citizenship in the states at the age of 12 and trust me if you think we're much worse, Brazil's unarmed deaths at the hands of officers I'd wager outnumber the US's by at least 4-5 times.

Not a competition dude.

 

[Jonathan20022]

In what way did I insinuate a competition? I'm just stating facts that are completely backed up by studies and statistics by the way.

Our Law Enforcement isn't perfect, but it's far from the worst and we should talk about how we can fix that and properly train sane officers to handle these situations better if there really are better ways to handle them.

 

[narad]

In what way did I insinuate a competition? I'm just stating facts that are completely backed up by studies and statistics by the way.

Our Law Enforcement isn't perfect, but it's far from the worst and we should talk about how we can fix that and properly train sane officers to handle these situations better if there really are better ways to handle them.

Backed up by statistics but not relevant. Comparing to some place with an even worse record (and a homicide rate in the top 20 internationally) is neither here nor there, because Brazil is not anyone's benchmark when it comes to crime or corruption.

It's just not a relative issue. If that logic was good for anything, one could just as easily flip it around, "You guys think you have it good? You should look at the death-by-police rate in Sweden!"

 

[Jonathan20022]

I completely disagree when you say it's not relevant, it is very relevant because it shows what a country can devolve into if you leave a Police state unchecked and left to their own devices with the authority presented by the suit and weaponry. And it totally is relative, how much more similar can they be? Unarmed deaths by police officers, exactly what happened in the case of Daniel Shaver.

(Unrelated)
Should people not be allowed to bring up healthcare in other countries and compare it to our own then in conversations relating to healthcare? Because I see people bring up Canada's and European Countries' superior healthcare to the US on a regular basis. Bringing up another country's state on a similar issue has never been seen as irrelevant.
(Unrelated)

If your only issue with what I've said so far is that I brought up a single thing as a response to another member's statement that the US is the worst. Then I'll just wait for you to address anything else I've said.

 

[narad]

I completely disagree when you say it's not relevant, it is very relevant because it shows what a country can devolve into if you leave a Police state unchecked and left to their own devices with the authority presented by the suit and weaponry. And it totally is relative, how much more similar can they be? Unarmed deaths by police officers, exactly what happened in the case of Daniel Shaver.

(Unrelated)
Should people not be allowed to bring up healthcare in other countries and compare it to our own then in conversations relating to healthcare? Because I see people bring up Canada's and European Countries' superior healthcare to the US on a regular basis. Bringing up another country's state on a similar issue has never been seen as irrelevant.
(Unrelated)

As an example of how it can be done better. No one needs a proof of concept for a worse system.

If your only issue with what I've said so far is that I brought up a single thing as a response to another member's statement that the US is the worst. Then I'll just wait for you to address anything else I've said.

I didn't/don't see anyone claiming that the US is the worst. If someone did, then sure, that would be a counterexample.

 

[Hollowway]

Have a citation for that? I find it hard to believe...though I don't believe many above-average IQ applicants are applying...

Yeah, I did too. It seems ridiculous, yet appears to be true. While it is a department by department decision, apparently, it occurs in a lot of departments. The story blew up years ago in a court case:

https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836

 

[Hollowway]

Sure the stats do back that up, but I come from South America. Rio de Janeiro to be specific and I hear a lot of people talk about a militarized police force as if they have any idea what that looks like. I haven't gone back to my home country in over 7 years and there is a reason for that. I got my citizenship in the states at the age of 12 and trust me if you think we're much worse, Brazil's unarmed deaths at the hands of officers I'd wager outnumber the US's by at least 4-5 times.

I also fail to see how the officer's history comes into play when you have clear footage of what happened in this situation. If he has a history of violence (which I haven't looked at) why is he still an officer and in charge of situations like these? Disconnecting the officer's history from the situation doesn't change the facts of what happened in that video, he asked him not to reach behind his back and waist and he did twice. Would this fact change if it had been an officer with an impeccable history with no negative history at all? Genuinely curious what you think of that.

His exact instructions were to cross his legs, pull himself up to a kneeling position, and then crawl towards him by not putting his hands anywhere except in front of him. How is that not justified when there is potential for another person to be in the hotel room with the weapons as well? Do you take the suspect's word that there is no one inside the room and approach just to get your head blown off if there was a person in there ready to shoot you? That's why he requested they come to him in that fashion.

Yeah, I see your perspective. I have no idea about Brazil’s police force, so I get what you mean.

And in this situation, I’m not saying he outright shot the guy. I’m just saying, with someone’s life on the line, try a different tactic. Or, shoot maybe once, and try not to kill. This guy shot 5 times. And Shaver was drunk and scared, so he’s not likely to have been super good with unusual instructions.

But, ask yourself this: if you encountered someone that you thought had a gun, and you saw them reach for their shorts, and shot them 5 times, killing them, only to find out they had no gun, do you think a jury would let you off? Cops routinely flout the law, and because of the way the justice system is set up, there are nearly no consequences for it.

The cop’s history comes into play like this: a good cop could have defused the situation successfully. I can only guess to this, but there has to be a reason why American cops kill so many times more innocent people than cops in other countries. Video evidence shows cops in other countries are far better and defusing situations than us cops, for instance.

 

[Hollowway]

I was thinking about this a little more. Anyone know why the police didn't just cuff the guy when he was on the floor? That seems like a logical thing to do, rather than tell him to get on his knees, cross his legs, put his hands in the air, and then try to shimmy towards them. That's actually pretty damned hard to do.

Also interesting is that the NRA hasn't said anything. I really cannot figure out when these guys want to defend people holding guns. Apparently they only want to support the people who actually shoot at somebody. Because, in recent days, anyone who was shot holding a gun was not supported by the NRA.

 

[Lemonbaby]

Welcome to the US of A. Gun slinging cowboys in uniforms...

 

[cwhitey2]

This might be a little off topic, maybe not...but I always read articles on the failure rate of officers tasers to be around 50%. Why isn't anyone addressing the fact the one of the alternative methods to 'safely' bring someone down fails 50% of the time.

Probably poor examples, but:

If 50% of the gas you bought was shit it would be a big issue.

If 50% of the custom guitars you bought were shit there would be an issue.

BUT 50% of the tasers our taxes buy fail and that's not a issue.


I was always under the impression that shooting someone actually required the officers life to be threatened. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I honestly blame it on someone crying wolf and not having to deal with the legal repercussions of their actions. I hear all these augments about how it's not an easy job...no shit Sherlock...they also signed up to do the job so that's no excuse. To put them above the law defeats the purpose of having laws, because they were intended for EVERYONE.

/rant

 

[bostjan]

What was the justification for treating this guy like he had a weapon?

 

[cwhitey2]

What was the justification for treating this guy like he had a weapon?

The problem is they don't need justification anymore.

 

[vilk]

What was the justification for treating this guy like he had a weapon?

Witness reports of him pointing a gun out the window I thought