Calif. DA: Police killing of bystander justified

[Toriach]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXaRwjfrOQJIACWMR_wAzsqXqpjAD9FJ15LG0


A district attorney's report says an officer who fatally shot a bystander at a California pizzeria robbery was legally justified.Chino police Cpl. Claudia Lisner shot 23-year-old Daniel Balandran outside the restaurant on Feb. 1, 2009.
Balandran was leaving a McDonald's and walked into a gunbattle between officers and two robbery suspects.
The report released Friday says Balandran was wearing the same color shirt as the suspects and came from the same direction as the shots.
The report says Lisner asked Balandran to show his hands, but he did not. Lisner kept hearing shots and feared for her life, and she shot him in the chest.
An attorney for Balandran's family calls the report a "whitewash."

[Tobias]

Note to self:

Next time you're in Chino and an all out gun battle ensues between the cops and a few perps (not that remote of a possibility), and as the bullets go whizzing by you hear one of the police officers screaming at you to show them your hands, comply with their wishes! :thumbsup:

[Vampiel]

There is way to little information to make a judgement call but seeing as to how shots where being fired from the same direction and the bystander had on the same color shirt - assuming thats all true I could see why the police dept would conclude that the shooting was justified.

Tobias I agree with you but they may have been in shock from the situation which can make a person behave extremely irrational.

[Nox_Mortus]

Note to self:

Next time you're in Chino and an all out gun battle ensues between the cops and a few perps (not that remote of a possibility), and as the bullets go whizzing by you hear one of the police officers screaming at you to show them your hands, comply with their wishes! :thumbsup:

If bullets where wizzing by me I'd hit the dirt before even trying to understand what people where yelling, but I imagine the person was too confused to think clearly, having just walked into the middle of a shootout and all. I can understand why the cops would do this, but I would hardly call gunning down an innocent bystander justified in any situation.

[Shaedema]

I thought the police would've sent at least one officer around to the other business to tell employees and customers to stay inside. But maybe they didn't get a chance to.

And what happened to shooting to maim/stop first before going for a lethal shot? :whatgives

In any event I think the police could at the very least apologize for the death.

[Nox_Mortus]

I thought the police would've sent at least one officer around to the other business to tell employees and customers to stay inside. But maybe they didn't get a chance to.

And what happened to shooting to maim/stop first before going for a lethal shot? :whatgives

In any event I think the police could at the very least apologize for the death.


Cops are trained to shoot to kill, if they to use less lethal force they use Tasers and whatnot. You don't shoot someone unless you intend to kill them.

I'm more concerned with why they shot someone who didn't have a gun, that's usually something you look for.

[Valnorran]

I've read several reports of gunfights and it is absolutely amazing how radically your perceptions can be altered. One phenomenon is auditory exclusion - you can be totally deaf to your own shots but still hear someone's footsteps. Another is extreme myopia. There could be a T. Rex standing right next to you and you'd never notice it because you're so focused on the shooter. Even in training weird things happen. I just read of a training exercise in which the students, all of them police, were warned that other police would be on the scene and to watch out for them. In the ensuing simulation of a critical incident (think Colombine or Virginia Tech) each and every one of these cops "shot" (remember, it was only training. They weren't using real guns) a fellow officer, despite every officer wearing a highly visible insignia. Every man who "fired" said he didn't see the insignia, even though it was right out there.

Someone trying to inflict violent death on you is just about the single most stressful situation you could be in. Your physiological reactions to that extraordinary level of stress does weird things to you, so I can see how the officer fired and the law would consider it - for lack of a better term - justifiable: the officer honestly and reasonably believed the man was about to kill her. Shudder to think what that officer is feeling right now.

[Shaedema]

Cops are trained to shoot to kill, if they to use less lethal force they use Tasers and whatnot.
I know they are trained for it, but I kind of thought they would rather see the suspect in jail than in the morgue. But I've been wrong before.:weirdsmil



You don't shoot someone unless you intend to kill them.
QFT.
I would amend this to- You don't shoot a weapon unless you intend to kill something. Which is what I was taught.




I'm more concerned with why they shot someone who didn't have a gun, that's usually something you look for.

I think someone is bound to claim self-defense against the possibility the person was hiding a weapon. (Not me though.)

[*~Amora~*]

I've read several reports of gunfights and it is absolutely amazing how radically your perceptions can be altered. One phenomenon is auditory exclusion - you can be totally deaf to your own shots but still hear someone's footsteps. Another is extreme myopia. There could be a T. Rex standing right next to you and you'd never notice it because you're so focused on the shooter. Even in training weird things happen. I just read of a training exercise in which the students, all of them police, were warned that other police would be on the scene and to watch out for them. In the ensuing simulation of a critical incident (think Colombine or Virginia Tech) each and every one of these cops "shot" (remember, it was only training. They weren't using real guns) a fellow officer, despite every officer wearing a highly visible insignia. Every man who "fired" said he didn't see the insignia, even though it was right out there.

Someone trying to inflict violent death on you is just about the single most stressful situation you could be in. Your physiological reactions to that extraordinary level of stress does weird things to you, so I can see how the officer fired and the law would consider it - for lack of a better term - justifiable: the officer honestly and reasonably believed the man was about to kill her. Shudder to think what that officer is feeling right now.

QFT. It's easy to sit back and think it would be easy to identify someone whose hostile from those who are not, and aim to cripple rather than kill; but it isn't easy when actually in a life vs. death context.

[*~Amora~*]

And what happened to shooting to maim/stop first before going for a lethal shot? :whatgives

That only happens in the movies.

[Shaedema]

That only happens in the movies.

Maybe they should consider taking it out of the movies and using it in real life. :smileroll It could save lives.

[Nox_Mortus]

Maybe they should consider taking it out of the movies and using it in real life. :smileroll It could save lives.

They can't, gunshot wounds are far too unpredictable to do that reliably, plus purposely shooting anything other than the center mass with a handgun under those conditions is damn near impossible for most people, hell it's hard for most people on a firing range.

[Twinkle]

I've read four different articles on this just to be sure - but I'm going with Vampiel on this -

The shots were coming from the same direction, the poor guy was wearing the same color shirt as the other shooters.

It is horribly tragic. But I do think it was a good shooting.

I feel terribly for the young man and his family. Justifiable shooting aside, their child is dead.

People want someone to blame, I get that. But sometimes, shit just happens. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he got shot. Horrible.

[Toriach]

The report says Lisner asked Balandran to show his hands, but he did not. Lisner kept hearing shots and feared for her life, and she shot him in the chest.

I wonder if both the officer and the victim were not both on the wrong end of the way the body can react under stress.

If I understand correctly during times of intense stress time can seem weird to people.

So in objective time there might have been only a few seconds between her asking the subject to show his hands and her shooting. However the whole while she is hearing shots, and meanwhile his reactions could have easily been slowed by his being confused. So he's reacting slower than normal, at the same time to her distorted perceptions it may have seemed much longer than it actually was from the time she had issued the directive for him to put his hands up.

Altogether you have an unfortunate tragedy for all involved.

About the only complaint I have based on what I've read is that perhaps it would have been kinder if the police had explained a bit about how perceptions can be distorted during these situations instead of merely saying that according to the officer the man who was shot failed to comply. I'm sure they didn't mean it this way, but if I were the man's family in my upset state I'd probably view this as them blaming the victim.

[Tobias]

The fact is, that when cops and robbers have a shoot out, other people are in grave danger. Kind of like with high speed car chases.

That is why it is often times better to let the criminals get away with the loot, rather than stack up a body count in the effort to apprehend them. Or create all kinds of other collateral damages. If you got their face on camera or a fingerprint left behind, once the person is ID'ed they usually don't get away with it for long.

Police shooting with lethal force means that they thought the suspects were more dangerous left free than the risk of hitting innocent bystanders. Heck, for all we know the cop could have thought the guy they shot was one of them, and killed him before anything was said to warn him. The story about asking him to show his hands could have been invented after the fact. I doubt anybody was standing on the sidelines watching the whole thing, and can testify the exact order in which things transpired. Personally I would have been keeping my head down if I were there.

It's a shame that we all can't be like R2-D2 in a gun fight! I don't know how that little droid survived so many times, being right in the middle of it all but never harmed.

[*~Amora~*]

They can't, gunshot wounds are far too unpredictable to do that reliably, plus purposely shooting anything other than the center mass with a handgun under those conditions is damn near impossible for most people, hell it's hard for most people on a firing range.

QFT. That's what I was trying to get across. The kind of accuracy that is portrayed in the movies happens only with choreography, possibly multiple takes, and fake bullet wounds.

[gracesong]

to me, my gut reaction told me it was definitely whitewashed. However, after reading some of the other responses, I'm really not sure.

[Valnorran]

Maybe they should consider taking it out of the movies and using it in real life. :smileroll It could save lives.

As others have pointed out, making such a surgically precise shot on a moving target and under stress of life-or-death is virtually impossible. Most police departments have something like a 25% accuracy rating for gunfights. Rarely do they have an accuracy of over 50%. Trained shooters hit their target (and that's just hitting him, never mind in a specific point) less than half the time in actual combat, and often at very short range (within 12 feet).

Another factor is a legal consideration. Shooting at someone is, in legal terms, applying deadly force. If you deliberately shoot only to disable, it implies you felt deadly force wasn't warranted, and if deadly force wasn't warranted, why were you shooting? That's what a lawyer would say, and that's why cops and civilians who get training are universally told to never fire a warning shot and never shoot to wound. Aim for the center of the target's mass and shoot to STOP the person.

[Phoenix Blue]

The report released Friday says Balandran was wearing the same color shirt as the suspects
I.e., the police may have suspected he was part of the same gang.

[Shaedema]

As others have pointed out, making such a surgically precise shot on a moving target and under stress of life-or-death is virtually impossible. Most police departments have something like a 25% accuracy rating for gunfights. Rarely do they have an accuracy of over 50%. Trained shooters hit their target (and that's just hitting him, never mind in a specific point) less than half the time in actual combat, and often at very short range (within 12 feet).

Another factor is a legal consideration. Shooting at someone is, in legal terms, applying deadly force. If you deliberately shoot only to disable, it implies you felt deadly force wasn't warranted, and if deadly force wasn't warranted, why were you shooting? That's what a lawyer would say, and that's why cops and civilians who get training are universally told to never fire a warning shot and never shoot to wound. Aim for the center of the target's mass and shoot to STOP the person.

It was just a thought. :weirdsmil


Honestly I don't believe in shooting unless it is to kill something (preferably someone). But I kind of thought the police might place another human life a little higher on their priority list.

[Phoenix Blue]

Honestly I don't believe in shooting unless it is to kill something (preferably someone).
Generally speaking, neither do most cops.