Daniel Shaver shooting

[Penner]

Wouldn't it not be smart (and even safer) to have another cop come over and frisk Shaver first before deciding if someone who could've had a gun come closer to them?

Looking at it from a tactical point of view, just in general, when I have my weapon trained on you, that is maximum cover, if I take my weapon off you and approach, that's your opening to make a move, and if I, as the cover man, send someone else towards you, they are then in the line of fire. If I bring you to me, then I can cover you, and my fire team partner can cover the hallway, nether of us is in the line of fire, and everything is covered, so if you make a move, or somebody else comes around a corner, both of you get blown away before you can take your shots.

But if the cops thought that he was armed why the hell make him come close to you? Why not, once Shaver was on the ground and hands out on the ground, come out (or send another cop) to come forward and frisk the guy? What was the point of putting your fellow cops in jeopardy (assuming that Shaver DID have a weapon- which he didn't) come close to you and your collogues?

[Smitty-48]

Wouldn't it not be smart (and even safer) to have another cop come over and frisk Shaver first before deciding if someone who could've had a gun come closer to them?

Looking at it from a tactical point of view, just in general, when I have my weapon trained on you, that is maximum cover, if I take my weapon off you and approach, that's your opening to make a move, and if I, as the cover man, send someone else towards you, they are then in the line of fire. If I bring you to me, then I can cover you, and my fire team partner can cover the hallway, nether of us is in the line of fire, and everything is covered, so if you make a move, or somebody else comes around a corner, both of you get blown away before you can take your shots.

But if the cops thought that he was armed why the hell make him come close to you? Why not, once Shaver was on the ground and hands out on the ground, come out (or send another cop) to come forward and frisk the guy? What was the point of putting your fellow cops in jeopardy (assuming that Shaver DID have a weapon- which he didn't) come close to you and your collogues?

I just answered that question. If you send a man down to the suspect, your teammate in the kill zone if it is an ambush, and in your line of fire as well. You're getting in each others way, and neither of you are covered, if it turns out to be a trap.

You make the suspect come to you, so that when you go to cuff him, neither of you are in the kill zone nor in each others line of fire, you've got the suspect covered, and the hallway as well, in case there is an ambush waiting around the corner.

The hallway is not secured, that is not a secure area, you don't frisk people in an area which you haven't secured first, they clearly are under the impression that this is a high risk armed and dangerous scenario, they don't know what they're walking into, they don't know how many people they are dealing with, and they don't know if there are more of them right around the corner, so you make the suspects move up out of there, before you proceed.

If the suspect tries to pull a weapon on you while he is crawling forward; shoot him. If someone comes around the corner with a gun, your teammate shoots them.

They're moving as a fireteam through the hallways of the hotel, it's a sweep and clear, and you don't stop, until you've swept and cleared it all, and you don't get in each others way, and you don't walk into kill zones. If the suspects are in a killzone, you don't walk down there, you make them come to you. Then you can cuff them, and move on from there, down the hall, around the corner, and so on, until the whole area has been cleared.

If it was a noise complaint, they just go to the room and knock on the door, but since the call presents as a plausible mass shooter, they are in full on tactical mode, sweeping forward to clear the halls, with every person they encounter; potentially armed and dangerous, and around every corner; a potential ambush.

[Otern]

I just answered that question. If you send a man down to the suspect, your teammate in the kill zone if it is an ambush, and in your line of fire as well. You're getting in each others way, and neither of you are covered, if it turns out to be a trap.

You make the suspect come to you, so that when you go to cuff him, neither of you are in the kill zone nor in each others line of fire, you've got the suspect covered, and the hallway as well, in case there is an ambush waiting around the corner.

The hallway is not secured, that is not a secure area, you don't frisk people in an area which you haven't secured first, they clearly are under the impression that this is a high risk armed and dangerous scenario, they don't know what they're walking into, they don't know how many people they are dealing with, and they don't know if there are more of them right around the corner, so you make the suspects move up out of there, before you proceed.

If the suspect tries to pull a weapon on you while he is crawling forward; shoot him. If someone comes around the corner with a gun, your teammate shoots them.

They're moving as a fireteam through the hallways of the hotel, it's a sweep and clear, and you don't stop, until you've swept and cleared it all, and you don't get in each others way, and you don't walk into kill zones. If the suspects are in a killzone, you don't walk down there, you make them come to you. Then you can cuff them, and move on from there, down the hall, around the corner, and so on, until the whole area has been cleared.

If it was a noise complaint, they just go to the room and knock on the door, but since the call presents as a plausible mass shooter, they are in full on tactical mode, sweeping forward to clear the halls, with every person they encounter; potentially armed and dangerous, and around every corner; a potential ambush.

While I agree with you here. The cops obviously overreacted. Not by sending the SWAT team, but by not properly reading the situation after getting him down on the floor after the first seconds. That's when they should've realized the call may have been exaggerated.

Thing is, you'll probably get hundreds, if not thousands of either fake, or misinformed "mass shootings" calls before the real one. If some over sensitive soccer mom sees a guy in his own apartment with a gun, she could call the cops about "a dangerous man about to shoot up some place". The police knows this. People tend to be bad witnesses, and really bad at reading situations.

I think everyone, police included, have been brainwashed into thinking these sorts of events are "normal", and therefore treat way too many situations like a possible terrorist attack or mass shooting.

Thankfully, most cops do not treat the situations this poorly. If that were the case, the entire western world would get hundred times as many innocent people dying from trigger happy cops than from mass shootings and terrorist attack. And I suspect the number of innocent people dying at the hands of cops already is higher than the number of people dying from mass shootings and terror attacks.

[Smitty-48]

Well, strategically, it does indeed appear to be death by mass hysteria, but what it comes down to for the jury, is what did the cop believe when he opened fire, in the heat of the moment, not with hindsight as to what it really was, but what he perceived it to be when he fired, in the context of the situation he believed them to be walking into.

He does handle it poorly, but for murder, you need proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, as to mens rea, and with the confluence of events there, and the context of the situation, clearly the jury believed his account and not the prosecution's, in that he believed that was a plausible armed and dangerous suspect going for a gun.

[Otern]

Well, strategically, it does indeed appear to be death by mass hysteria, but what it comes down to for the jury, is what did the cop believe when he opened fire, in the heat of the moment, not with hindsight as to what it really was, but what he perceived it to be when he fired, in the context of the situation he believed them to be walking into.

He does handle it poorly, but for murder, you need proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, as to mens rea, and with the confluence of events there, and the context of the situation, clearly the jury believed his account and not the prosecution's, in that he believed that was a plausible armed and dangerous suspect going for a gun.

Yeah. I actually agree with you in that.

But for someone to believe that guy was armed and dangerous, after those five minutes, where he's clearly doing his best in following the police's instructions, is why all those cops on this call should be charged for criminal negligence.

[Smitty-48]

If Shaver hadn't made the move at 4:26, reaching back behind his back for a second time, looking exactly like he's going for a gun, would the cop have shot him? The other suspect didn't do that, and he didn't shoot her. If Shaver hadn't made that move, and the cop shot him, then I think he would have been convicted, but because the video shows Shaver making that move, precisely from the cops point of view, the video itself is what provided reasonable doubt as to murder.

[Otern]

If Shaver hadn't made the move at 4:26, reaching back behind his back for a second time, looking exactly like he's going for a gun, would the cop have shot him? The other suspect didn't do that, and he didn't shoot her. If Shaver hadn't made that move, and the cop shot him, then I think he would have been convicted, but because the video shows Shaver making that move, precisely from the cops point of view, the video itself is what provided reasonable doubt as to murder.

The other suspect didn't do that, because they managed to put her in cuffs early on. He managed to put his hand in the air before her.

Put enough pressure on a guy, for a long enough time, and he will do a mistake. Repeatedly screaming to a guy you're going to kill him, while keeping a gun pointed at him, will put enough pressure on him to break down mentally.

For those five minutes, the cops had plenty of time to reassess the situation, but they didn't. Meanwhile, Shaver did his best, while breaking down.

If put in Shaver's shoes, I'd die just like him, you'd probably die just like him. Most of us would.

[Smitty-48]

If Shaver hadn't made the move at 4:26, reaching back behind his back for a second time, looking exactly like he's going for a gun, would the cop have shot him? The other suspect didn't do that, and he didn't shoot her. If Shaver hadn't made that move, and the cop shot him, then I think he would have been convicted, but because the video shows Shaver making that move, precisely from the cops point of view, the video itself is what provided reasonable doubt as to murder.

The other suspect didn't do that, because they managed to put her in cuffs early on. He managed to put his hand in the air before her.

Put enough pressure on a guy, for a long enough time, and he will do a mistake. Repeatedly screaming to a guy you're going to kill him, while keeping a gun pointed at him, will put enough pressure on him to break down mentally.

For those five minutes, the cops had plenty of time to reassess the situation, but they didn't. Meanwhile, Shaver did his best, while breaking down.

If put in Shaver's shoes, I'd die just like him, you'd probably die just like him. Most of us would.

You can't charge him with criminal negligence once you've charged him with murder, that's double jeopardy, but in many jurisdictions the jury would be given a choice, wherein if they had reasonable doubt as to murder, they could still convict for manslaughter, but I don't know how it works in Arizona.

[tue4t]

I have a friend who was in the marines who deployed to iraq. He told me one time a guy came running towards his buddies from around the corner like some suicide bomber. He had no ammo loaded (didn't ask why but likely wouldn't have changed the outcome), so he charged him, knocked him down, and stabbed him in the neck. Turns out the guy was innocent and had nothing on him. It is what it is. Sometimes there isn't any perfect happy ending in the fog of war.

Put enough pressure on a guy, for a long enough time, and he will do a mistake. Repeatedly screaming to a guy you're going to kill him, while keeping a gun pointed at him, will put enough pressure on him to break down mentally.

Sure, if that's the case we can talk about better police training, policy, screening etc. This doesn't in and of itself however prove malevolent intent.

The idea that they were getting him to play some complex game of simon says in the hopes he would make a mistake and they could shoot him just doesn't fly because the officer who issued the commands isn't the officer who does the shooting.

I'm all for weeding out terrible cops and preventing things like this from happening, but the hysteria around this isn't doing anyone any good. A correction is needed, but more importantly a correction in the right direction to the right degree arising from clear analysis of facts, which is ironically the same charge of negligence that's being levelled at the cops involved (and not without some degree of merit).

[SuburbanFarmer]

The idea that they were getting him to play some complex game of simon says in the hopes he would make a mistake and they could shoot him just doesn't fly because the officer who issued the commands isn't the officer who does the shooting.

Eh? I thought the guy with the body cam was shouting the orders.

Another thing that bothers me is that after he blows Shaver away, he just marches off to the hotel door, nobody comments, checks his pulse, or even takes a deep breath. Just cool as a cucumber, a bump in the carpet over there, fuck it.