Back and to the Left: The L.A. Times Analyzes a Police Shooting
Imagine working in an occupation in which your most important decisions were evaluated by people who have never performed your job. Imagine further that your very life depended on those decisions and that you had to make them in the blink of an eye. And finally imagine that others could take months to come to a conclusion about what you had done, mulling it over with the aid of reports, photographs, and a 3-D animation of what had occurred.
Such is the situation facing officers in the Los Angeles Police Department today.
On May 7, the Los Angeles Times reported on a police shooting that occurred about a year ago. According to the Times, two undercover narcotics detectives were walking in downtown Los Angeles when they initiated an impromptu buy-bust operation aimed at a street-corner drug dealer. When the suspected dealer snatched a proffered $5 bill from the hand of Detective Arthur Gamboa and then failed to deliver the expected merchandise, Gamboa began following the suspect and demanding the product he had paid for.
The account of the shooting as described in the Times is interrupted with this ominous sentence: “What happened next is not clear.” From which the reader is supposed to infer that something untoward surely happened.
Gamboa claimed the suspect stopped and turned around while unfolding a large knife, then said, “I am going to kill you.” Gamboa, fearing he was about to be stabbed, pulled his concealed pistol and shot the suspect twice, killing him. When interviewed by investigators, Gamboa insisted he had shot the suspect in the chest.
Again the Times strikes the ominous chord: “An autopsy, however, showed both bullets had struck [the suspect] on the left side of his back, making Gamboa’s account impossible.”
As with all officer-involved shootings in the LAPD, Gamboa’s was investigated by detectives from Force Investigation Division, who interviewed Gamboa and his partner as well as other witnesses. Every bit of evidence at the shooting scene was photographed and its location measured and noted, all for inclusion in an animated 3-D presentation. The FID investigators prepared a report, which was presented to command-level officers who sit on what is known in the LAPD as a shooting review board. The board reached conclusions on three separate questions: 1) Were the involved detectives’ tactics in conformance with LAPD policy? 2) Was the drawing and exhibiting of a weapon proper under the circumstances? And 3) Was the use of deadly force justified and within policy?
The shooting review board concluded that the detectives’ tactics were deficient in that they engaged in a buy-bust operation without the necessary personnel and other safeguards in place, but that Detective Gamboa was justified in drawing his pistol and shooting when the suspect presented an immediate deadly threat. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck concurred with these findings. But, when it comes to officer-involved shootings, Chief Beck’s is not the last word. The five civilian members of the police commission, mayoral appointees, are charged with making the final ruling. And Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa makes appointments to his commissions, most especially such a high-profile one as the police commission, not with an eye toward expertise but rather with an emphasis on “diversity” as the word is currently understood. In the case of Detective Gamboa, the commission voted 3-2 to rule the shooting out of policy.
I was a 30 year police veteran (not your department) and have experience with those curious creatures who are chosen for commissioner. Inevitably, all are wannabe politicians or activists, and see eye-to-eye with your leftist Mayor.
The choice you pose is this: which would the commissioners prefer? An opportunity to preen before the cameras at an officer’s funeral (great for their careers), or hide from the distraught family members of the low-life drug dealer (not good for their careers).
I think the question answers itself.
“Back and to the left” sounds like homage to a Murdoch Mysteries episode where the detective analysed the shooting of a city counselor. But he had more info, sympathy and accuracy in his analysis than LAPD board.
I read the report. The other detective did NOT see a knife. Knowing the trigger-happy history of LA cops, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was MURDER.
Why would anyone suspect the commission’s decision to be ‘political’? One does not have to be an ‘expert’ to take direct testimony and read a coroner’s report.
The man was shot in the back, o ver $5 !! Prosecute them….both
“Why would anyone suspect the commission’s decision to be ‘political’?”
Surely you’re not this stupid! Politically appointed commissions are appointed to be political, so of course they’re political. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong necessarily, but their whole job is to make their decisions informed by the political interests of the person who appointed them or the constituency they were appointed to represent.
perhaps you can supply some evidence based on facts, not conjecture.
Why bother, lefties don’t know the difference between facts and conjecture. But, anyway, lefty fool, a poltically appointed commission has no qualifications other than friend of the mayor/governor/President, etc. and maybe some background for some member in the thing they’re supposed to be the commissioner of, e.g, a police background, which could be anything remotely related to law enforcement, a “public” background who can be any damned fool but being the Mayor’s squeeze helps, etc. You obviously don’t know a damned thing about how governments work but here you are being a high and mighty lefty. Flash: lefty and smart are not synonyms.
Aspen…high altitudes =’s hypoxia. It’s a real problem with folks from Boulder and Denver too.
Was the knife open? Did it have the suspects’ prints/dna on it?
Officer Dunphys comment is real-life: In the second or two it takes to draw and fire an assailant can twist, turn, standup, fall down, etc., as can an innocent- either evading or entering into the line of fire. Your lie that LAPD is “triggerhappy” displays your ignorance and/or hatred of the police and their procedures. LAPD shoots a lot less often than it needs to. If you’ve got the guts, just pin on one of those tin targets and find out for yourself. That way you might become a man before your mama does.
Ever hear of O.J. Simpson? These Commissioners are not making a political stand — they are one one side of the race-war that is playing out in California. White people see criminals as threats to their safety and property. Blacks and Hispanics see criminals as their family members and friends. Obviously, Hispanic politicians will side with their bros rather than police (whatever their race), as police are recognized as infringing on the minority’s ‘way of life’ i.e., crime. Sorry, but the former Presidente de Mexico was 100% correct when he said. “Mexico is wherever Mexicans live.” SoCal is swarming with Mex, and it is becoming the third-world sh*t-hole that Mexico is.
I laugh at the yuppies who move into Downtown and cry when they get robbed or their car gets broken into. They demand a safer community in what has historically been a unsavory part of town. After all, developers and political interests are at stake on this relatively new influx of real estate/commercial revenue for the City of Los Angeles! Keep in mind these buildings were once laughable when envisioned with the idea of turning them into bars and condos. This brings me to the meat and potatoes of this topic. Exactly who are the people that live in these new found places? Take a close look and you will see that they are from all walks of life and they live a middle class and up standard of life. A majority of these people embrace the idea that the cops are the bad guy bullying the poor homeless convicted sex offender on parole for armed robbery. It is almost “chic” to view the LAPD as the villains who ruin everyone’s fun on a Saturday night when the bars are in full swing and the music is alive! A lot of the very asme people who cry for help when a base head freak is dragging their girlfriend into an alley turn their back on the police and make insulting remarks as they walk into a shop for coffee. I have seen it first hand and I feel for those cops. I look at villaraigosa’s handpicked commission and I see a clear leftist agenda on what is supposed to be a fair and impartial panel. Their constituents embrace the ridiculous kangaroo court antics and so the injustice will continue. Ultimately this process will erode public confidence in the police further until we have another catastrophic break down (1992 riots etc). The one’s who will lose out the most will be the same individuals I speak of in this reply. That detective was out there doing his job to do his part in trying to reduce crime and improve the quality of life in that area. The idiot he killed is the one who chose to forcefully steal money and brandish a knife with bad intent, not the detective. I can only hope the citizens that live in their neighboring super lofts will someday realize the truth for what it is and not some skewed off the cuff story like our wonderful LA Times depicted.
When LAPD officers stop emptying the magazines of their pistols in every shoot (and maybe reloading and emptying the 2nd magazine too) without hitting the perpetrator more than a couple of times, then maybe the post-weapons use proctological exam can be dispensed with. Meanwhile those of us mere citizens who live downrange, require that our employees don’t shoot innocent bystanders, therefore the 3d reconstructions, over-analysis, etc. A bit more time spent by officers at the range to gain a higher hit rate, and fewer rounds expended in the course of duty will make everyone happier. Like it or not Jack, LAPD needs to stop using the spray and pray doctrine.
Two rounds fired, two hits.
100 % shot fired/hit ratio?
Give that man a medal!
That must be a department record.
Like the above poster, its my experience that cops usually need at least 6-15 rounds downrange to get 2 hits.
I’ve personally seen in my own Pennsylvania town, 93 in order to get 6.
(also in the back, over a BB gun)
Correction PJMers:
It was 55 for 6 in my town….an 89% miss rate.
See? They dont miss what they shoot at 90% of the time.
They are MUCH better than that
RKV, what? No reply? Two shots. Two hits.
In all honesty you have to admit that 2 shots, 2 hits is exception, not the rule. See this for example. LAPD admits that 90 rounds were fired.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/17/local/la-me-0417-freeway-chase-lawsuit-20120417 Does the name Anthony Dwain Lee ring any bells? 9 rounds fired 4 hits.
And Jack, my older brother is a medically retired LAPD officer who stood down after being shot in the line of duty a second time. I know the culture and the training of the department.
You seem to be missing the point here. no he isn’t a marksman, but the rounds were fired at a distance of less than 5 feet (another fact left out of the article). Perhaps that is why he didn’t miss. But is may also be why he didn’t have the time to do anything but shoot once the knife was drawn. As Jack correctly pointed out, lag time would account for the fact that he was partially turned when shot.
Try this one. Stand 5 feet from someone and tell them to kick you in the balls on the count of three. My guess is that once the person counts three, you will have turned slightly to avoid being struck. (though that assumes you have a pair and don’t get pleasure from being kicked there) The fact that you turned, did not stop the person’s foot. That is lag time. You may have to try this a few times so that you can properly analyze the process.
I’m surprised they didn’t latch on to the fact that the officer followed and demanded the drugs which provoked the knife threat. Of course, in reality, that does nothing to alter the imminent threat when the knife was pulled that caused the use of deadly force. It’s those few critical seconds that make or break justification, although, in the aftermath the type of sweetener the officer used in his coffee 6 hours earlier often becomes that critical media fact.
I do challenge the often repeated complaint that the police decisions are evaluated by those who haven’t done their job. Well, that is the stock and trade of the police and courts so such limitations would negate the legal system. The problem is those who get on boards such as the police commission seem unwilling to seek out an understanding of the conditions those decisions are made in or approach their work with a skeptical mind rather than a standing bias. There are plenty in our society who develop the skills to manage and oversee experts in other fields to run their businesses, few however seem to be in the professional advocacy community, however.
I read an article a few years back about the police review board that had been put in place in Cincinnati after several police shootings.
The most impressive part of the article was a quote from an anonymous police officer who stated that if he chased a suspect, the suspect might try to kill him and that he responded to the threat by killing the suspect the policeman might be sued, he might lose his job, he might lose his pension and he might even go to jail. But none of those bad things would happen if he spent his shift sleeping in his patrol car parked behind an abandoned factory.
And people wonder why cops unionize? Ultimately, any discipline or dismissal should go through the union’s grievance procedure and to arbitration by a neutral third party skilled in labor relations practice and probably in police practice as well, whose decision will be final and binding and which is owed great deference by the courts. The downside is that some unions, even some cop unions, are very political and if the mayor is “their guy” they may not want to cause the mayor trouble by having his decision overturned. I’ve seen more than a few arbitration cases “tanked” by the union rep because while they had a legal duty of fair representation they didn’t want to win and upset the administration they had backed. The other side of that is that the employer’s labor relations people or attorney may well know that the decision was political and while they have to represent the mayor’s position, it is easy to do a half-a**ed job of it and lose the case. That’s what makes labor relations people so dangerous in an organization: only another skilled practitioner knows it when they do stuff like that and even another practitioner can’t really be sure if it was done or purpose or the person just made a mistake or had a bad day. The other dynamic is that in places like California, even the arbitrators can be very political, and then the whole system is simply a corrupt charade.
I’ve done a few force cases but never represented the employer in a shooting case; we only had one shooting that went to arbitration in my twenty year tenure. That shooting was so politicized and had so much attention that the politically appointed director put himself on the appearance line so nobody could accuse him of sending someone who did’t adequately represent the State (That isn’t always a good technical move; directors tend to be rusty at best, but it is a good political move. At that time I was a much better advocate than the director if for no other reason than I did it all the time, but I was very junior, the State had a good chance of losing, so he put it on himself. I came to be in the same position later when I was the director and went and took a couple for the team.). Some force cases are pretty obvious: the guy just lost it and “thumped” the arrestee or inmate and he’s got the discipline or dismissal coming. The union knows it and they’re just doing their representational duty or think maybe they can get the arbitrator to reduce the penalty, which they do sometimes. Sometimes it is literally a life and death struggle between the employer who wants to keep the guy fired and the guy and the union who really believe either the guy didn’t do wrong or the penalty was excessive. Frankly, I’ve never seen an officer who’d use excess force who wouldn’t do it again, so my practice was to discipline short of dismissal if I didn’t have pretty much a lead pipe cinch case and figure I’d get them the next time, while hoping they didn’t hurt somebody too badly the next time.
The problem with cops from the employer’s perspective is that you pretty much have to either clear them or fire them. While things like discipline records are supposed to be confidential in most jurisdictions, they’re really only confidential until some judge decides they’re necessary to the defense or to the plaintiff in a civil case. So, if a cop has discipline on his record, it is going to come out and be used against him in every thing he does thereafter. Trooper Wooten of Sarah Palin infamy is essentially useless as a State Trooper because of his notariety, so he’s basically a clerk with State Trooper pay and benefits for the rest of his twenty years.
No mention in this story of whether the dead perp had drugs on him at the time of his demise. If he didn’t have drugs on him then all he was doing was trolling for victims. Unfortunately for him he picked on someone who was armed.
So…how many victims that day didn’t report being ripped off – or threatened at knife-point if they protested – by some perp posing as a drug dealer? No surprise that none of the ‘victims’ of this perp bothered to call in to report that they were robbed.
A cop does his job and ‘takes out the trash’ – and gets screwed in the process. Typical lefty crap. Just wait until some of these idiots need a cop and they don’t come because its safer to just hide out for 8 hours and go home not having to face life and/or career altering events for one more day.
It is NOT a cop’s job to “take out the trash”. That’s what’s known as a POLICE STATE.
Nor is the “badness” of the perp AT ALL relevant to the shooting. It doesn’t matter ONE WHIT if he just tortured 27 little girls to death. The ONLY justification for a cop shooting is to protect his own life or the lives of others.
Cops are NOT judge, jury, and executioner in a free society.
Actually, it does matter. A lot. People not engaged in criminal behavior are not usually shot by police. When an innocent person is shot, I take issue. If a thug who preys on innocents is shot, that’s usually a benefit to the community.
The job of police – the job of government under the social contract – is to protect its citizens in their lives, liberty and property from the predations of others so that civilization may exist. The police are not our enemy. Predatory criminals are.
Numerous court cases say otherwise. Police have NO duty to protect anyone.
You’ve seen too many reruns of the “Star Chamber” I think. I pray one of those 27 victims is never one of yours too. You might just change your mind on those “ROE’s” you propose.
I’ve read too much of history, including the Founding Fathers, who would find the attitudes of most “conservatives” today, appalling.
Sorry Dunphy but when your decisions at your job result in someone’s death, those decisions are going to be scrutinized. Police’s job is to protect the public not shoot the public. And it is their job to assume risk to ensure that public is protected. You don’t get to shoot first and ask questions later. Police have too much power not to be subjected to constant scrutiny.
How is this shoot first and ask questions later? ?..I’m confused…or you’re confused..or…God man! See what you did? ?
Another victim in our War Against Small-time Pushers.
Yup…the cop is definitely the victim here …unless you meant the drug dealer…in that case ..it’s not my fault sir…or madame that your parents didn’t properly socialize you and equip you with a moral compass
If you think our drug laws are moral then you are the one without a moral compass.
I apologize for not giving drug dealers and users a hug and pat on the back..sir your view on this issue is extremely eschewed. Unfortunately I’ve come to expected it…the leftist/ liberal media and many higher education institutions are doing a marvelous job at brainwashing and propaganda.
– a Federal Civil Rights violation prosecution might follow.
Sorry, Jack. But the process is, as you know, just as invasive, just a thorough (in fact usually more thorough), and just a hard emotionally on a civilian who makes a good self-defense shooting. The rules are the same, civilians get no departmental support, and they have just a lawyer holding their hand.
Civilians involved in a seld-defense shooting would welcome with tears of happiness the SAME TREATMENT that cops get.
Prosecutors wouldn’t take cops to trial in discretionary cases but they will, gleefully, do that to civilians. Why? Because even if the State we doesn’t win it gets to ruin his family life, cost him his career, and bankrupt him. Even if the civilian turns out to be “not guilty” the State gets to inflict enormous punishment on him. This happens to cops once or twice a year.
So, Mr. Dunphey, treat us just like them. We’ll thank you.
I was a cop in Los Angeles County for 33 years and helped investigate several civilian involved shootings. Those that were self-defense were cleared quickly and those that were crimes arrests were made. The handful in the grey area were almost always DA declined to go forward because he felt a jury wouldn’t convict. What you are missing here is that civilians do not and should not try to play cop and when things start to go wrong they refuse to retreat.
Treat them the same? OK I am good with that. Except Lybarger v Los Angeles is an interesting precedent. The officer does NOT have the right to remain silent for the administrative investigation. He/she is ordered to make a statement and answer ALL questions by the investigators, Commanding Officer, and Use of Force Board under penalty of insubordination which results in termination. Must submit to any drug or alcohol tests if ordered to, and this is all done immediately after the shooting and before the officer can go home. Yes, the officer can have an attorney present, but the attorney can only provide advice and not tell the officer which questions to answer or how.
I would love to see how you as a lawyer would work that one. I have investigated citizen self defense shootings and in EVERY one that I handled, we recognized the trauma that the person (shooter) faced as having been not only a victim, but at having taken a life, and acted accordingly to afford them proper breaks and yes the right to see an attorney and even remain silent. How many clients have you represented in these cases and how many of them were not allowed to go home and see their family first?
Not nearly enough information to make an informed call. OK, his partner didn’t see the knife but was he in a position to do so? Was a knife found? How close were they? Did the suspect perhaps see the officer’s gun and spin away as the shots were fired? I’ve seen 6 shots fired in about a second and range training has long encouraged firing two quick shots. I’ll not make a call here based on a lack of information.
Yup. And absent any other evidence, the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” applies.
Dumphey, do you really think CIVILIANS who shoot in self-defense face different rules and a different process? Not under the law, but practically, all departments “cut slack” for their own. The aftermath is muck worse for the civilian.
Most civilian self-defense shooters (those with prima facie cases, not dope dealer A shoots customer B in a fee dispute) would weep tears of joy to be treated “just like” a police officer (after all, the legal rules are the SAME).
Al you want is equality, right? No “special” deals for cops, right? Be aware that is a 2-way street.
Police officers ARE civilians. They are part of the CIVIL government, not the military.
Unfortunately, many LEO’s see themselves as something other than civilians.
Yes, the militarization of our police departments is a huge threat to liberty.
Due to the nature of the work involved, where military / war theories and tactics are espoused a police department is considered a paramilitary organisation …a bit ” more” than a civilian and a bit “less” than a soldier.
If you have time to draw you have time to take a step back at the same time. And why wouldn’t you? The issue is not whether the victim is trash. That is not in dispute. The issue is whether this cop is up to dealing with trash. Like most of us, it appears he is not. Unlike most of us, he chose to deal with trash.
1. It’s not always that simple.
2. Stepping back isn’t enough when you’re that close to a knife.
Greetings:
Back during my driver’s education training, I remember a reference to “reaction time” which was supposed to be three-quarters of a second. This was not a new concept to me, as my father had repeatedly explained it to me when he was teaching me how to defend myself. His primary principle was what he called the critical distance which was the amount of space one needed to keep between one’s self and a threat. If that distance wasn’t preserved, you were basically exposed to the threat’s desires without possibility of protecting yourself.
Nowadays, as we are being badgered into foregoing our right of self-defense, all manner of legal and philosophical arguments are being concocted to protect perpetrators from the consequences of their actions. Regrettably, as the Martin-Zimmerman affair so cogently demonstrates, those who wish to promote our infantilization have “the process as the punishment” on their side.
35 year cop.
30 year lawyer? I don’t think so. If you were you would know that civilian shootings are a Y/N decision by the courts. Cops can be called to 5 different levels of courts over a period of decades and still get jail if 1 out of four of the reviewing courts from state to federal votes no. Rules are massively stricter and reviews take years for cops but not for civilians. The rules ARE different as are the standards to which the two are held. A lawyer should know that.
The laws and procedures vary a lot with location.
I had the unfortunate experience of living in New York state for a few years. I recall a case where a young father and husband confronted a burglar in his house at night and held him for police with a .22 rifle. The District Attorney prosecuted the home owner to discourage people from “taking the law into their own hands”.
I don’t know how that eventually worked out but certainly the young man had to pay a whole lot of money to lawyers during that process.
If a District Attorney did that here, it is unlikely that he would be reelected.
I presume that was before the Internet? If that happened today, I would think the whole country would raise a ruckus about that DA, much like that which occurred in the Treyvon Martin case.
Most states east of the Hudson River…are not. So long as they deny the constitution to their citizens…how can they be, “states”?
I suspect if a DA did that in most Texas counties, he’d be out of office before he had to worry about re-election.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Police must act quickly in life and death situations, and yes, it is difficult to make such decisions correctly every time, and yes, police are subject to intense scrutiny.
But I’m not sure your sympathy for Detective Gamboa is entirely justified.
The decision to draw and fire and the resulting action is not quite instantaneous. If it was, Gamboa would have shot the offender in his front.
The offender had time to observe Gamboa drawing his gun and turn away before Gamboa fired. That strongly suggests Gamboa had time to observe the offender turn away and hold fire.
If he failed to, that’s an indication that he probably should not be carrying a gun in police action. Question: had Gamboa previously drawn his gun in action? Had he fired his gun in action?
Gamboa is no criminal. Certainly not “beyond reasonable doubt”. But whether he conformed to LAPD rules is determined on a very different scale. There is no presumption either for or against him. And while punishment for crime must be very strictly limited to the guilty, removing authorization to wield such dangerous authority can legitimately be applied to the merely possibly incompetent.
One would not convict and imprison a suspect based on a test that had a 50% false positive rate. But suppose one was testing, say, airline pilots for a dangerous disability, and only 10% of those who tested positive actually had it? Should all positives be excluded? That would be unfair to the 90% false positives. But the alternative is to exclude no one, and the risk to the public of the 10% real positives may outweigh that unfairness.
Balance the alternatives here: officers losing their jobs unnecessarily; citizens shot by police unnecessarily. Both happen. I’d much rather some of the former than any of the latter.
Of course there are collateral effects. If police are excessively fearful of post-action judgement, they will avoid the risks of action. Perhaps a different view of the issue might help; if it was assumed that this is a competency issue, rather than a criminal issue – and that the competency test is NOT an easy one.
“The offender had time to observe Gamboa drawing his gun and turn away before Gamboa fired. That strongly suggests Gamboa had time to observe the offender turn away and hold fire.”
All that can really be said is the offender was able to turn before the rounds struck him. Research has shown, a person can turn well within the time of shooter’s awareness of movement and be struck by bullets discharged before the turning movement was apparent to the shooter. We’re talking split seconds here but that is what governs life in a gun fight.
Yep. This is why many perps are shot in the back – quite legitimately, quite properly.
We probably all flashed our high beams at someone coming the other way…. just a second AFTER he dims his own high beams.
Absent any evidence to the contrary, that should be the working hypothesis in this case.
It all goes back to High School.
Girls and sincophant boys were drawn to the evil power of the bad boys or bullies. Girls for obvious primordial reasons. Sincophant guys because they are drawn to power and want to avoid getting beat up.
The LA Times are like teenage girls or weak High School Boys.
They are drawn to the power of evil. They are more inclined to trust the dirty drug dealer than the straigh, boring cop.
Oh please. The police are the ultimate bullies in this country. They can (and do) get away with murder, we have more people in jail than any other country on the planet (either by capita or sheer numbers) and they essentially run several types of protection rackets – speed traps, loitering, simply confiscating large sums of cash (thanks to the insane drug laws) etc, anything that can bring in money to the department.
There’s virtually no difference between the Mafia and the police, except at least in the city I live in, St. Louis, the Mafia at least keeps their parts of the city largely free of street crime.
“… we have more people in jail than any other country on the planet (either by capita or sheer numbers)…”
Well, we have one race in this Country a significant portion of which is essentially feral. 75% illigitimacy rate, single mothers if any parental influence at all, no societal pressure to socialized behavior, perverse rewards and status for antisocial behavior, it goes on…
Art, a lot of the stuff you cite can be laid at the WOD. Ending it would lead to an improvement in some of the things you cite.
Police officers are like anybody else, they can vote with their feet and leave a department that has no political support, quit police work altogether, or as happened in some communities, retire on the job and wait till they complete their time. In one municipality the mayor and his buddies get police protection most in the form of presence and heavy patrolling, but everybody else is on their own especially the minorities. When they complain to the police department they are passed are on to the mayors office. The cops that give a damn have left.
Had this been the 1920′s it would have been the same result, different substance, different failed attempt by the government to prevent people doing what they want with their own bodies. Yet nobody seems to understand the central lesson. No prohibition = lower profit margin = no threat to the cop = no shooting = no investigation = vast sums of money saved by the taxpayers and denied to the trial lawyers association and the DNC.
I would leave the ” i” out from your name next time…the notion that legalizing illegal drugs would somehow end the violence around it is a fallacy..i agree with doing whatever you want with your body…but…when you’re a drug user unfortunately your habit affects me through a multitude of factors ..some (you’re not ” thinking straight ” can’t hold a job need support & money at my expense) I’m not willing to put
up with…you wanna use drugs!?..go jump off a cliff first with no support sytem
So mrsirtoyou votes for continuing the tyranny that is the drug war. Got it.
Ok,lets see…anybody here ever watch a boxing match? Or mma match? I’ll assume ( yeah I know…assumptions ) that some of you have..then you have witnessed the fighters facing each other BUT not quite …because a lot of times they are ” bladed” to each other, meaning they expose their sides ( left or right ) and their backs but they still advance toward each other at amazing speeds; and they manage to punch or kick each other in the face or anywhere on the front of the body, inflicting damage. But, again the but, they also hit each other in the back punching and kicking even though that is not their intention. You get the idea! I’ll add that most those who have been locked up are notorious for ” polishing “their ” self-defense ” skills while inside…and by self defense here I sincerely believe that they use the skills to create victims not help victims. Now extrapolate this information to this article and the conclusion is the police commission is useless in understanding police work, just as reporters and the large majority of the population. To help you understand Google ” simunition” and then do it.
It makes sense…i don’t think they care though…theoretical ” what ifs” trump evidence in this day and age.
I received an e-mail from Joel Rubin, who wrote the L.A. Times story referred to in my piece and with whom I enjoy a respectful relationship. I haven’t the time at the moment to address the points he raises, but in the interest of fairness and with his permission I present the relevant portion of his email below. He writes:
I read with interest your post regarding the Gamboa OIS and my article on the shooting. While I have little expectation that I’ll change your stance, I wanted to respond to some things you wrote.
You write: “The account of the shooting as described in the Times is interrupted with this ominous sentence: “ ‘What happened next is not clear.’ From which the reader is supposed to infer that something untoward surely happened.”
And then: “Again the Times strikes the ominous chord: ‘An autopsy, however, showed both bullets had struck [the suspect] on the left side of his back, making Gamboa’s account impossible.’
I think you’re reading intent into my words that simply are not there and were not intended. Where do you get “the reader is supposed to infer that something untoward surely happened” and “ominous chord” from these two straightforward statements? The fact of the matter is 1) we don’t know how the shooting unfolded and 2) that it could not have occurred as Gamboa said it did. He affirmed repeatedly to investigators that he shot the man in the chest – a statement that is simply not true.
And while I don’t use the phrase “lag time,” it isn’t accurate to say my article fails to “mention anything about” the issue. I wrote: “A witness standing nearby told investigators that Garrett only turned at his waist, instead of spinning around completely. This, Beck said in his review of the shooting, could explain how Garrett was shot in the back.Or, Beck speculated, Garrett may have faced the detective and then continued to turn away, exposing the left side of his back.”
This is lag time explained in a way that, in my opinion, would make more sense to readers. You use similar wording tot explain it to your readers: “It is equally plausible that the suspect, on seeing Gamboa draw his gun, turned away…”
And you speculate about why I wrote what I did about the knife. I agree with you that somewhere in the FID report questions about the knife are likely answered. But the fact is neither the chief nor the Commission in their respective reports clarified what I and others I interviewed thought was a salient point of whether the knife was opened or closed. This is important because it goes to the heart of the question of whether the man posed an immediate, deadly threat to Gamboa – a question the commission was split on. I anticipated that readers would have the same question I did and so I felt I needed to address it in the story. (I asked several sources, who said they did not have the FID report in front of them when we spoke, if they knew the answer, but none were certain of the knife’s position.)
“He affirmed repeatedly to investigators that he shot the man in the chest – a statement that is simply not true.”
Experts who study such things explain that when a person is suddenly faced with a life or death situation, their memory does not always work properly. Afterwords, the memory they have access to may be only snippets of the full account. When they explain what happened, they believe what they are saying is the truth – even though it may be wrong. They are not lying about it. A trained psychologist can (sometimes?) recover more of the hidden memory.
First of all we are talking about a series of events that take place in about one second, possibly two or even three. Human reactions do not operate well in fractional-second time, in actuality what we think of as a reasoned reaction to a stimuli is actually your brain triggering a series of actions, which is why it is dangerous to get a drop of boiling water spilled on you while carrying a pot, or have a bee sting you while driving.
When an officer is presented with a situation where a suspected drug dealer produces a weapon and uses it in a threatening manner, the decision to shoot is made *at that point*, the series of muscle movements is triggered in sequence, draw, aim center of gravity, shoot twice. The memory of the officer will be of the suspect facing him with drawn knife *even if* he has moved during the fractional seconds it takes to draw and aim, and even if the suspect has seen the gun being drawn and made the instinctual reaction of twisting and diving for cover.
In short, the decision made by the officer to shoot the suspect does not run counter to the facts presented in this article. The commissioners made a bad call, and they will ruin the lives of two officers.