Laquan Mcdonald's Murder

Hand to hand combat: A certain amount of aggression is necessary to control the environment; however, these officers could have easily loss control of the situation if the criminal had reached for a gun. Their actions were foolish. Not only did they jeopardize the integrity of any possible charges, their actions could have further damaged police and community relations.

In certain situations, the police may have to act quickly on their instincts. Sometimes, a situation is unpredictable and a decision needs to be made in a split second. The quick decision may to be to take a person down physically with the officer’s own hands, or to use deadly force, unfortunately. Anything can happen and the officer needs to be ready for every scenario. The different levels of force can be anywhere from just a police officer being present, to having to kill someone to prevent him or her from hurting anyone else. It’s a harsh reality, but sometimes the officer needs to make the decision to die or to protect him and do what he needs to do.

In the closing statement, Ta-Nehisi Coates provides us a statement inquiring that “police are turning to police brutality to solve situations where it's not needed then leading them to overuse their power. The use of excessive physical assault or verbal assault during police procedures, such as apprehending or interrogating a suspect should never be acceptable. Deadly force is not always excessive force. However, when deadly force exceeds the force that is necessary to create a safe environment, it is considered police brutality. This is emphasised in Ta-Nehisi essay when said “his father called the police, who apparently arrived to find the 19-year-old wielding a bat. Interpreting this as a lethal threat, one of the officers shot and killed LeGrier and somehow managed to shoot and kill one of his neighbors, Bettie Jones.” this situation could have been conducted differently Though the officer over used his authority and instead of simply calming the man down governing both the father and son he chose to kill which wasn't rational .

The dash cam video disclosed McDonald walking down South Pulaski Road in a Southwest side neighborhood with a knife in his hand, strolling away from officers. Van Dyke immediately began to fire six seconds after arriving on scene, taking only 15 seconds to fire 16 shots. (Drash, W. (2015, December 19). The killing of Laquan McDonald: The dash cam. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/us/laquan-mcdonald-video-records-comparison/) What happened

Now that we have established what deadly force is and what the law states, let’s move on to the investigation that ensues after the fact. Let’s look into how the investigative process works for this type of incident and how the public views the use of deadly force. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin outlines six investigative elements in a case of deadly force; The Investigators, The Crime Scene, The Involved Officers, The Civilian Witnesses, The Criminal Justice Authorities and The Media. All of these play a pivotal role in deciphering a particular case of deadly force. This process could take months or years to sort out. I will tell you about the steps of the process but keep in mind, that while the slow wheels of justice are turning, the officer is dealing with his emotions, his family’s response and most likely the public’s response due to the media coverage. Whatever the outcome, no doubt this will have an effect on the individual officer for the rest of their life.

This case provides the story of the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald (17 years) in Chicago by Police Officer Jason Van Dyke on or about October 21, 2014. McDonald died after having been shot 16 times late on that evening by Van Dyke as he and others responded to a report of a man armed with a knife breaking into vehicles in a truck yard (CQ Research, 2016). McDonald, who had a record of juvenile arrests, allegedly refused the officers’ demands to drop his knife (CQ Research, 2016). After 400 days of the incident, the video from a police vehicle showed that McDonald, who was holding a knife was walking parallel, but away from the officers when he was shot 16 times by Van Dyke (Police Charges, 2015). The public has a right to know as much as possible about the rules governing the police and about investigations into allegations of police misconduct. Transparency holds police accountable and accountability builds trust in Police Department.

Louis County Police Department (where Ferguson is located) was asked about the allegations, police said that they “had one mission, and that was the preservation of life” (Gillam, 2014). The Amnesty report also questioned a Missouri law, which they stated might be unconstitutional because it allows police to use deadly force against someone even if there isn’t an imminent threat of harm. The law states an officer may use “deadly force in effecting an arrest or in preventing an escape from custody when the officer reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes that the person to be arrested... has committed or attempted to commit a felony” (Gillam, 2014). This report asks lawmakers to make Missouri law comply with international standards of lethal force by police as a last resort.

He could have waited for Billy to leave the liquor store and approach him differently than withdrawing his weapon. The Fourth Amendment is In the Garner decision and it says that in excessive force claims becomes the matter of seizure and the court must balance when seizure is needed against the nature and quality against seizure to figure out if the seizure was reasonable (Ross, 2015) Under the Garner decision, the officer must have probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of serious injury or death to officers or citizens, Lethal force may be warranted to prevent an escape or to protect a citizen, It may also be used only when a felony has been committed. The felon must be dangerous involving violence or a threat of violence, A suspect is only dangerous if he threatens the officer with a weapon or the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect committed an offense which he inflicted or threatened to inflict serious physical injury. (Ross, 2015) The officer must also give warning before using lethal force. Billy could sue for punitive damages and compensation because the officer did not warn him before he fired the weapon. The officer was very

Expatriate Australian TV news reporter Cass Loukas finds herself elbow deep in the story of her life when she and two Los Angeles cops happen upon a dark and desperate man who has committed an unspeakable act of violence.

Dallas Winston also pulled a pistol on the pursuing police officers. That is a death threat, police officers see the worst side of people every day. To have someone point a gun at you means that they want to kill you. So the Police have a choice, kill or be killed. At the end of the day, people are people, we want to make it home safe every night.

The NYPD are very familiar with situations like shooting unarmed citizens. The shooting of Deborah Danner; mentally ill 66-year-old women shot down due to having a baseball bat in hand. The past shooting of Amadou Diallo; 23-year-old African American man shot 44 times for a misunderstanding of a wallet in his hand. Circumstances such as these cases repeat time and time again. Shooting unarmed is the result of excessive force. Officers are trained to be one step ahead of individuals when handling them. That one step has been abused by uneducated officers and excessively apply force to unnecessary circumstances.

From the video, it looks like things escalated quickly between the officers and Sterling. The Officers could have spent more time talking to Sterling, and the might have even been able to ask him if he had a weapon on him instead of finding it once they wrestled him to the ground. They could have also resorted to using the Taser gun on him again once he was on the ground instead of pulling out their guns. By doing this I feel as though the situation would have gone more calmly than it did. It would have prevented anyone from getting shot which would have allowed officers to fulfill their four goals which were stated before. Sterling would have never been killed, and everyone’s safety would have been protected. If this situation were looked at from a hypothetical standpoint things could have turned out differently. Sterling could have gained possession of his gun while they were wrestling and shot off a few rounds before the officers shot him, or Sterling might have just let the officers take the weapon from him before things escalated. The second hypothetical scenario would have been the best outcome because everyone would have been safe, the officers would have made their arrest and Sterling’s rights would not have been

With knowing that the suspect had already prior run-ins with the law and that they were trying to run from officer's it gives an understanding that getting them into custody is of greater need since they have a firearm. Since the suspect was in a public area with a firearm the situation

This one is quite different from the regular police brutality cases you see, this time they have footage of it. The police is claiming that the man had a knife, but if you see the footage you can clearly see the man running away from the police before they tried to handcuffing him .The officers later said Harmon threatened them with a knife, but the police is saying they feared for his life because the man was supposedly with a knife and the officer claims that the man used the knife to threaten them. But when you see the footage you clearly can see the man running away while the police yelled I will shoot you , then he goes right ahead and shoots a man in the back while he tries to escape.

No one was ever charged in the murder of rapper Christopher Wallace, aka. Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, but I will show how a suspect would be tried if there were such a suspect. But first I would like to point out that this trial would be a media circus. To begin with the suspect could more than likely end up being one or more LAPD officers, a fact that the FBI has suggested in their report on Wallace that was released in 2011 (Federal Bureauof Investigation , n.d.). Then there is the gang aspect, Biggie had ties to the Crips, which he had reportedly hired to murder rival rapper Tupac Shakur, who was himself a Blood, just six months prior to his own murder. Subsequently, since no one has ever been formally charged in this case,I will try to use vague wording when referring to the suspect, and I will refer to him by of name “Mr. Murder Suspect”. I use the masculine only because there were no female suspects.