Thanks for the clarification.

Is there any standard progression of sanctions in police shootings between "good shoot=back to work", "bad shoot=criminal prosecution"?

I'm sure departments are up against pretty stiff union resistance to firing officers.

Perhaps there needs to be a "bad shoot, but not criminal" option where the officer is dismissed without financial benefit and can no longer serve in any department.

quote:

So, police aren't looking for a gun, a bic lighter would do the job.

So you think the officer shot him because he may have been going for a lighter?

I don't believe that's what the shooter claimed.

he should of not been shot the cop is fucked plane and simple

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Wouldn't it just be easier to not shoot until you see a gun?

Why worry about what command is given, how it's given, if the person can hear, if the person speaks English, etc? What difference would it have made had this man walked out on his porch and started doing jumping jacks?

He didn't have a gun. He wasn't a threat. Nothing he did, or didn't do, made a bit of difference to the reality of the situation. See a gun aiming in your direction, shoot. No gun, don't shoot.

I'm not justifying the shoot; rather, I'm saying there are very logical, non-officer-threatening reasons for why his hands went down, then back up.

One of the reasons that springs to my mind as to why the victim put his hands down to his waistband is to pull up his pants. If I'm not wearing a belt, or I am but put everything on in a hurry, my pants will slip down - especially if I start walking. It's an automatic, I guess instinctive, reaction for me to grab my pants at the waistband and hitch them up.

If I was in the same situation as the victim, I would also be dead because I would have moved my hands to keep my pants up before my brain could process the danger of doing so.

quote:

Originally posted by marksman41:
One of the reasons that springs to my mind as to why the victim put his hands down to his waistband is to pull up his pants. If I'm not wearing a belt, or I am but put everything on in a hurry, my pants will slip down - especially if I start walking. It's an automatic, I guess instinctive, reaction for me to grab my pants at the waistband and hitch them up.

If I was in the same situation as the victim, I would also be dead because I would have moved my hands to keep my pants up before my brain could process the danger of doing so.

Daniel Shaver was shot dead for trying to pull up his shorts while being ordered to crawl awkwardly, a movement that compounded his loose shorts falling off his hips. The Mesa, AZ PD officer who shot him was recently acquitted.

I don't know how LE arrived at this point, but the Shaver and Finch homocides show that simply moving your hands to your waist is a furtive movement justifiable by penalty of death. In both cases, LE had every tactical advantage (firepower, manpower, positioning, suspect complying, etc), and yet, a LEO felt compelled to shoot based on a perceived furtive movement but no visible weapon.

Ten years ago we were debating the justification of police - incidentally, also Wichita PD - Tasering a deaf man (Donnell Williams if you want to look it up) in his own home wearing only a bath towel around his waist. This was also in response to a bogus 911 call. Judging by how ROE/Force Continuum has evolved, I suspect given the same circumstances today, it's more likely he would be shot.

Swatter was still talking to 911 at least 16 minutes after Wichita man was shot

As police converged on a house at 1033 W. McCormick, a caller pretending that he had killed his father and was holding others hostage was still on the phone with 911.

By the time police discovered the 911 call was false, Andrew “Andy” Finch was dead, shot after he answered his front door. Police have said the officer fired after seeing Finch raise then drop his hands near his waistband. Finch was unarmed.

It was a fatal example of “swatting,” when someone makes a false call to 911 to try to draw a large number of police to an area.

Online gamers said a dispute had developed between two Call of Duty players and that one had given a false address that was then “swatted” when a man called Wichita City Hall’s security desk Thursday evening. Finch was not a gamer and not involved.

Wichita deputy chief Troy Livingston said in a Facebook video Friday that the caller continued speaking with 911 after officers had arrived at the house.

The department would not answer questions Wednesday about when Finch was given the first verbal command or when the 911 call ended. The Sedgwick County Department of Emergency Communications denied an open records request pertaining to the 911 call that could have provided more details on how events unfolded. The county said the police department had asked that no additional records be released.

“It is still an active investigation and has been presented to the District Attorney’s Office,” police department spokesman Charley Davidson said in an email. “This is all the information we are releasing at this time.”

Davidson also would not answer whether officers at the scene were aware that the caller was still on the phone with 911.

Asked why Finch was shot on the porch while apparently not holding a phone while the hoax caller was talking to a 911 dispatcher, Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said Tuesday evening that was a difficult question to answer.

“Unfortunately we don’t have telepathy yet,” he added.

Here’s a breakdown of when events occurred.

3:52 p.m. Thursday: Screenshots show a Twitter user giving the 1033 W. McCormick address to the user of the Twitter account called @SWAuTistic, threatening the other Twitter user to “try some (expletive).”

6:10: The downtown security officer at City Hall receives the first of several calls from a local area code with a man saying that his father had been hit over the head with a handgun. The officer attempts to transfer the calls to 911 over the next few minutes.

6:18: 911 Dispatch receives the transfer from the downtown security officer.

6:18: The caller tells 911 that he shot his dad in the head and his father is no longer breathing. The caller gives his address as 1033 W. McCormick St.

6:19: Initial officers are dispatched to 1033 W. McCormick St.

6:19: The caller tells 911 that he is holding his mother and brother at gunpoint in a closet.

6:22: The first officer arrives in the area and waits for additional officers to assist

6:22: The caller tells 911 he didn’t mean to kill his father.

6:23: The caller says he wants to kill himself and light the house on fire.

Time unknown: Andrew “Andy” Finch opens the door of 1033 W. McCormick. Officers say he was given several verbal commands to put his hands up and walk toward them, complied for a short time, then put his hands back down to his waist. He turned toward officers on the east side of the residence, “lowered his hands to the waistband again, then suddenly pulled them back up towards those officers at the east,” Livingston said.

6:28 p.m. (Police had previously reported 6:43 and 6:46, but made a correction Friday): An officer on the north side of the house shoots Andrew Finch with one round.

Time unknown: Officers remove four people from the house, search it and find no hostages.

6:41: The caller tells 911 he has a black handgun.

6:42: The caller says he is by his mother’s closet.

6:43: The caller says he has his mother and brother at gunpoint and won’t put the gun away.

6:44: The caller says he has poured gasoline all over the house and is thinking of lighting it.

7:03 p.m.: Finch is pronounced dead at a hospital.

7:34 p.m.: @SWAuTistic tweets, “That kids house that I swatted is on the news.”

9:14 p.m.: @SWAuTistic tweets, “I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION.”

Friday afternoon: Los Angeles police arrest Tyler R. Barriss, 25.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:

quote:

The estimate may be good, but once again, I see nothing in or around the video that gave a distance, 30 yards or anything else. Again, what am I missing?

I think you are correct, there are no numbers mentioned or shown on the video. LA streets tend to be quite wide, and this one appears to be at least average for that city.

I simply estimated the distance from the video, in no way was meant to be a “quoted” distance. Does that really matter? Why is this your response to my post? What am I missing?

Let me rewrite it:

“The cops are a ways a way behind cover with rifles”.....

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
victims family: $650,000.00 per year for ten years...

Most likely, with local Taxpayers footing the bill.

Shouldn't even be like that.

I bet if the policy were you were found guilty of a "bad shoot" then you're on your own. No taxpayer funded liability insurance to cover you. That means you lose your home, car, savings, family, etc.

When there's the hammock of taxpayer funded insurance to cover you, I would imagine some are a little more bold in what they do. It's like using someone else's money to play with at the casino.

iron chef, thanks for the timeline. interesting how the gas thing was mentioned after the shooting.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
victims family: $650,000.00 per year for ten years...

Most likely, with local Taxpayers footing the bill.

Shouldn't even be like that.

I bet if the policy were you were found guilty of a "bad shoot" then you're on your own. No taxpayer funded liability insurance to cover you. That means you lose your home, car, savings, family, etc.

When there's the hammock of taxpayer funded insurance to cover you, I would imagine some are a little more bold in what they do. It's like using someone else's money to play with at the casino.

Suing officers is not the golden goose. Low wages makes sure of that. They want to sue the big budget police department. when this officer is prosecuted and looses his job there won't be much for a law suit to collect. That's actually probably already the case. It's a lot like arresting a meth whore who ripped off your home and the property was never recovered. You stand little chance of getting restitution from a person who can't keep a job.

The city can fire him and they can refuse to cover him legally as well. This happens and almost every officer I know is covered by a legal defense plan that we pay for monthly with our union.

quote:

Where did you get the 30 yards positioning information? Was it released recently?

The shooting occured at 1033 W McCormick St. Wichita. You can pull up that address on Google maps.

The street is four lanes, two in either direction, with a turn lane in between. Using Google's measuring tool, the distance from that front porch to halfway up the driveways across the street is 100 ft, so the shooter was 33 yards away.

The police on the side of the porch (left side of video at neighbor's driveway) were 35 feet away.

Thanks for posting that timeline, iron chef.

quote:

Originally posted by Surefire:
I simply estimated the distance from the video, in no way was meant to be a “quoted” distance. Does that really matter?

Yes, details matter to this old detective, and especially details about how someone knows what he claims to know. If it was an estimate, fine, and I’d have said nothing if that had been clear. When someone doesn’t make that clear and implies at least that the figure was based on hard information, then that changes the entire complexion of the matter.

Many people have become highly irate about this incident, and with some good reasons. What is not a good reason, IMO, was what was based on the original video linked in the first post. At least one poster even said that we could see (from the video) what the police officer who fired the shot saw. That is ridiculously false. For one, as it turned out, the body cam footage wasn’t even from the officer who fired the shot, and as I explained above, because of the type of lens used with typical body cameras and the overall poor quality of the images, the officers on scene almost certainly could see much more than what was recorded in the video.

The distance between the officer who fired and the victim who was shot is extremely important for even beginning to understand what happened and why. If someone is 200 yards from a suspect and claims he fired because he thought that the suspect was going for a gun in his waistband, that’s a far different situation than if they’re five yards apart. The shorter the distance, the more someone will be justified in feeling threatened, and the clearer and less ambiguous the suspect’s actions will probably be.

In addition to having been a detective or counterintelligence agent for 20 years, I’m also a firearms instructor today. When I made a statement in my former life or make one now, I expect people to ask, “How do you know what you’re saying is true?” If I can’t answer that for myself, I won’t make the statement at all. I realize that not everyone holds themselves to that standard of veracity, but I don’t know who the ones are who just make stuff up—or who pass off guesses as hard facts—unless I ask.

quote:

The shorter the distance, the more someone will be justified in feeling threatened, and the clearer and less ambiguous the suspect’s actions will probably be.

Perhaps if I wrote “~30 yards”, you would have focused on the rest of the comment and provided a counter-point?
Do you have a counter-point to my OP?

I never tried to pass off guesses as fact. Regardless, my guess appears accurate, and yet here you are posturing and throwing passive aggressive insults. Nice.

Saying that factual details matter when discussing an incident like this is an insult?

I humbly apologize, and so as to not upset you further, I will never refer to one of your comments again.

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
How hard can it be, when law enforcement has firearms aimed at you, to instantly comply with simple commands such as "don't move," "put your hands up," "get down on the ground" and the like?

I don't care if my pants are about to fall off. If I have guns pointed at me and the cops yelling "Put your hands up!," my hands are going up and staying up.

We've all seen videos where 2 or 3 cops are yelling different commands at the same time. "Don't move", "put your hands up", "get down on the ground". When you drop your hands to get down on the ground you get shot by the cop who said to put your hands up because you reached for your waistband. I'm not suggesting that this was the case here, but I think in some high stress situations it may be a lot harder then you make it out to be.

I believe this is a common problem these days. Low IQ officers giving conflicting simultaneous commands. Stupid fucks. And you won't fix it until hiring standards and the quality of people hired into LE are increased. Civilian CCers are not allowed to say 'he moved', and get off scott free. So why are LEOs allowed to kill people because they moved ? Sure LEOs should get some kind of break, but lately it seems they are given WAY to much leeway in killing perps and otherwise. Many of these situations look progressively more like executions vice apprehensions. If it looks like a execution, smells like an execution, and sounds like an execution, it's probably an execution, by hook or by crook, or just plain old stupidity, lack of dynamic creative thinking, shitty training, or lack of self control. Those traits are not shared generally in the professions, so why are we hiring those kinds of people into the LEO profession ? Better fix it before LE is no longer considered a professional line of work. We are headed in that direction.

City and county bean counters appear to think they can save money buy paying and getting low qualified officers. This works so-so until the city shells out 6 million from time to time.

This is true in any business, cutting corners always comes back. Note that even in screwed up San Francisco they pay officers a fairly high amount, there is lots of overtime, and they provide excellent equipment. Officers starting salary is $83,000 a year and they are issued P226 pistols. One of the few things done right in that weird city.

Exactly. It's really that simple. You get what you pay for. If you pay for a plastic Ruger you will get a plastic Ruger, not a Sig Legion. If you want an officer at your front door that won't shoot you when you say hello, you have to pay for an officer who won't shoot you when you answer the door.