Wal Mart brawl leaves one dead, several injured

[silverspoon]

Just a thought here, but all the praise heaped on the cops doing what they thought was the right thing by exercising so much restraint almost certainly contributed to the injuries, the length of time it took to contain this, and the death.
It wasn't really the LEO's fault, but they almost certainly have been told to back off lest the self-styled guardians of justice come down on them for stopping violent situations with overwhelming force.
What really should have happened is that all of the lawmen should have just walked up with the riot guns and ARs at the ready, each pointed at each of these hicks.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the cowardly way that these hoodlums would suddenly stop flailing at and grabbing the cops the moment they were looking down a gun barrel, raising their hands, then immediately went right back to swinging at the cops the moment the guns went back in the holster.
The heavy artillery should have been out and on each of these pukes, no putting them away until backup arrives to cuff each.
The first to start swinging gets a full charge of 00.
A pity that either no one thought to do that, or they didn't even have said artillery.

I guess we are all entitled to our own opinions. Somethings definitely could have been handled differently. Hindsight is always 20/20. It's a catch 22 for law enforcement. If they had been all tacticool with their AR's and riot guns and something happened, which it almost certainly would have given the circumstances, then everyone would have their panties in a bunch about them killing family members of a Christian {used very loosely} rock band. And yes the response probably did contribute to some of the injuries.

I think given the circumstances the responding officers acted with professionalism, a tremendous amount of restraint and just enough force to gain control of the situation. Just exactly what I expect from our law enforcement officers.

 

[HoughMade]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

 

[churchmouse]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

Not sure I really want to read that this early.
Been a good day so far.

 

[ccrubaugh]

Doesn't bode well to disobey orders from a cop multiple times and then trying to grab for them.

 

[bradmedic04]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

I'm with CM. I'll read this later when I'm in a bad mood.

 

[Bfish]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

As soon as I saw this I was thinking the same thing as CM and bradmedic before I even scrolled down, I think I'll leave it alone all together though and not have a look later haha.

 

[CountryBoy19]

For mugshots look here: Police: Family in Walmart melee were street performers

Just a thought here, but all the praise heaped on the cops doing what they thought was the right thing by exercising so much restraint almost certainly contributed to the injuries, the length of time it took to contain this, and the death.

So the cops not jumping immediately to a means of deadly force is what caused the death? That doesn't make any sense. These guys wanted to fight and I don't think there was really anything that was going to stop them except over-powering them (what finally happened when backup arrives) or shooting them.

I know we're all just armchair quarterbacking here but I think the cops showed a great deal of restraint for good reason. From the info I've gotten from articles and video they didn't appear violent, there was only a report of them physically preventing a Walmart employee from entering a restroom in the store. Once it turned violent it turned violent very quickly and there was a lot of chaos. Very easy to say, "should have just used your guns" but isn't that how the officer got injured? He likely attempted to deploy his sidearm and at some point lost control of it because of the mayhem and close quarters.

I guess the point I'm getting at is that people have been crying that cops are too forceful so these guys try to approach it in a civil, less forceful manner and now people are crying that they didn't approach it forcefully enough?

 

[jamil]

Rookie move. If it happened at Wally World, it's probably worth reading.

I've been on forums since the days of dialup BBS. I missed great threads then. I even remember thinking, ooh, Walmart melee. Sounds interesting. Need to read that. Ooh, look, a squirrel. Let me chase that instead.

I'm with CM. I'll read this later when I'm in a bad mood.

Well, I read it. Actually, I LOL'd. I mean, how seriously can you take a white-privileged kos-monaut bemoaning the plight of the "black folk".

 

[bradmedic04]

If it's good for a laugh, I guess I'll take a look.

I can't help but think of something one of the INGO LEOs mentioned a while back in reference to another thread; that some people just want to scrap, and officers will often oblige them. I'm not saying that these officers looked at this situation and said "hey, what the hell" and decided to have a melee favored against them, just that it's probably a lot harder than it seems to draw a definitive line between someone who just needs an ass kicking and someone intent on killing.

Also, I think it's easy to say "I would have shot much earlier" without considering that, regardless of circumstances, you'll carry that decision with you forever. My best friend is an Iraq combat vet, and the only thing he ever said to me about killing someone is that "once you ring that bell, it can't be un-rung." Not to mention how hard getting clean shots would have been in that clusterfrack.

Just a couple things that popped into my mind as I mull these things over....

 

[bradmedic04]

I've been on forums since the days of dialup BBS. I missed great threads then. I even remember thinking, ooh, Walmart melee. Sounds interesting. Need to read that. Ooh, look, a squirrel. Let me chase that instead.

 

[jamil]

If it's good for a laugh, I guess I'll take a look.

I can't help but think of something one of the INGO LEOs mentioned a while back in reference to another thread; that some people just want to scrap, and officers will often oblige them. I'm not saying that these officers looked at this situation and said "hey, what the hell" and decided to have a melee favored against them, just that it's probably a lot harder than it seems to draw a definitive line between someone who just needs an ass kicking and someone intent on killing.

Also, I think it's easy to say "I would have shot much earlier" without considering that, regardless of circumstances, you'll carry that decision with you forever. My best friend is an Iraq combat vet, and the only thing he ever said to me about killing someone is that "once you ring that bell, it can't be un-rung." Not to mention how hard getting clean shots would have been in that clusterfrack.

Just a couple things that popped into my mind as I mull these things over....

I think this situation in no way is comparable to the SC shooting and that some hipster "occupy" wannabe tries to compare them to imply social injustice is laughably silly.

What I thought the whole time I watched this video is why the hell are those officers getting into this without sufficient force? The melee starts when the one officer tries to separate the individuals. Why not wait for further backup when it's potentially 6 large guys / two females against 3 or 4 cops? Certainly if they started the contact with 10 officers, likely no one would have been shot.

Of course that's hindsight. To those officers, this started out as just another typical "people of Walmart" event. Get in there, separate people, get their statements, figure out who's lying, what happened, and arrest people if needed. How could they know that these people were real nutters who would attack police like that? Moral of the story, send 10 squad cars to every Walmart incident in case it turns out to be a group of nutters. Then when they get accused of overreaching replay the vid.

 

[bradmedic04]

I think this situation in no way is comparable to the SC shooting and that some hipster "occupy" wannabe tries to compare them to imply social injustice is laughably silly.

What I thought the whole time I watched this video is why the hell are those officers getting into this without sufficient force? The melee starts when the one officer tries to separate the individuals. Why not wait for further backup when it's potentially 6 large guys / two females against 3 or 4 cops? Certainly if they started the contact with 10 officers, likely no one would have been shot.

Of course that's hindsight. To those officers, this started out as just another typical "people of Walmart" event. Get in there, separate people, get their statements, figure out who's lying, what happened, and arrest people if needed. How could they know that these people were real nutters who would attack police like that? Moral of the story, send 10 squad cars to every Walmart incident in case it turns out to be a group of nutters. Then when they get accused of overreaching replay the vid.

Ugh. What a riveting read. I really can't stand what passes for "writing" and "reporting" these days. There's no thesis, no cohesive argument grounded in concrete events to back it up, and nothing useful to anyone but the author. I miss writing that had structure and style. We're stuck with half assed, poorly expressed fragments of irrational emotion that do nothing other than assimilate more people into a mindless viewpoint.

Sorry, I'll put the literate English speaker away and get my pitchfork back out.

 

[jamil]

Ugh. What a riveting read. I really can't stand what passes for "writing" and "reporting" these days. There's no thesis, no cohesive argument grounded in concrete events to back it up, and nothing useful to anyone but the author. I miss writing that had structure and style. We're stuck with half assed, poorly expressed fragments of irrational emotion that do nothing other than assimilate more people into a mindless viewpoint.

Sorry, I'll put the literate English speaker away and get my pitchfork back out.

Well, I did say it was authored by a hipster kos-monaut.

 

[oldpink]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

All I had to do to determine whether this was worth even bothering clicking, let alone reading, was to do a mouseover and see that it was DailyKooks.
The only good thing to come out of there are dissidents, if any...the Death Star of the far left.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

Yeah! They only shot TWO of the family members! Buncha racists!!

 

[HoughMade]

Yeah! They only shot TWO of the family members! Buncha racists!!

...but if they hadn't been WHITE CHRISTIANS THEY'D ALL BE DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Indyal]

I have watched this video several times. My theory: gypsy family pretending to be a Christian band ( easier access to spend the night in a church, church family, free meals, etc) and were dealing drugs/doing drugs. They did look practiced on how to confront and talk to police officers.

 

[Kutnupe14]

We shouldn't be surprised that some knucklehead would come to this conclusion.

Police get punched, put into headlocks, shot, but show shocking restraint with white 'Christians'

It will undoubtedly make some wonder. I'm wondering myself how this would have played out if this was a black gospel band. To MMQ, a bit, I would have ramped up my response WELL before these officers did.

In my experience, some officers seem to be almost afraid when dealing with black people. They tend to show more "presence" than with other people. They aren't overstepping, they're just more in the "I'm in charge" mode. This is typical of officers who, prior to becoming officers, never really dealt with black people before. I work with guys, white guys, who are from D.C., Los Angeles, Rockford, Muncie, Ft Wayne, etc. These guys interact with black people like they do anyone else. But guys from more local places (ie Hamilton Co), seem to havent quite perfected their technique. This isn't to say they do anything wrong, its just that you can see how they think they need to project power in order to ensure compliance.

...and yes, we make fun of them.

We know nothing about the officers in the vid, so you really can't compare this instance to anything, unless somewhat me has a vid of the same officers dealing with black people, in a similar instance, and busting heads from the jump. But still, people will wonder why these officers, in clearly a deadly force situation, didn't employ it sooner.... especially when compared to other that employ it immediately when justified, and sometimes prior to.

 

[bradmedic04]

Shooting people is considered impolite, and depending on circumstance, not PC. God forbid we should have police shooting people when justified and offending sensibilities.

 

[t-squared]

199 posts and nobody has stated the obvious.....if weed were legal, all of this woulda never happened.....