FREDDY GRAY His death should not have happened. I think that it is terrible if the officers didn’t have probable cause to approach and arrest him in the first place . I do believe that Mr. Gray had been resisting arrest. Once again I can’t reiterate enough how important it is to comply with law enforcement no matter if the officers are in the right or the wrong. Remember that if they falsely arrest someone, it is a big pay day because the police department can be sued for 10's of thousands of dollars. I can't wait for that to happen to me.
I think that Mr. Gray was injured during the arrest procedure. Mr. Gray looked like he was in agony when the officers were carrying him to the van. Those police officers should have gotten Mr. Gray medical attention when he had first requested it.
Some theorize that Mr. Gray’s injuries were self inflicted. Never the less, the police officers that had arrested him should have restrained him properly so that he wouldn’t have been able to do that. The police are responsible for that if Mr. Gray would have done it.
I need more information on everything that happened to make a correct assessment. All police officers should wear body cameras and cameras should also be in their vehicles especially within the back of them. This is for proving or disproving theories.
SOURCE: CNN
MINNESOTA ARBY’S POLICE SHOOTING
I’m saddened by this. There was a mentally ill man at a Minnesota Arby’s that was creating a disturbance. The police were called. A female police officer arrived.
There are some situations where a police officer especially where one is female where they need to attack a vulnerable spot on a subject to subdue them so that they can get the handcuffs on them and take them into custody. A female officer isn’t as strong as a man. I think that she wouldn’t be able to wrestle a man to the ground to cuff them. She needs to be able to physically attack unarmed to subdue them.
If police officers are not allowed to attack a subject to subdue them into submission, then they should be able too. Because it is better than trying to wrestle them so that the cuffs can be put on them. In this situation, it was a female officers and two other Arby’s employees that were wrestling with the subject on the ground. The subject was reaching for the officer’s gun. She ended up having to shoot him, killing him.
If police officers were allowed to attack a subject’s vulnerable area, it is better to do that, than ending up having to shoot them. Especially if someone does something stupid as reaching for the officer’s gun as the officer is trying to get the subject into custody.
Once again, someone made a wrong and bad decision and had done the wrong actions. They ended up dying. I can’t stress enough how important it is to COMPLY! Is anyone getting this yet?!
SOURCE: KSTP Channel 5 News Minneapolis Minnesota
ERIC GARNER
I have just watched the video of Mr. Garner’s dilemma. Both sides made mistakes. First off, Mr. Garner should have COMPLIED. He allowed his anger at the police officers to control him. As for the police officers, one of them had put Eric in an illegal choke hold. There were at least four police officers, I can see how they could have done things differently.
First off, I would have tried to talk Mr. Garner into complying by giving him a warning that if he doesn’t comply, physical force would be used to take him down to the ground. I would say if he has any health problems that he should comply. I would have taken the time to try to convince him into complying. During that time I would have another officer to call for a taser and have more back up for intimidation purposes.
Sun Tzu an ancient Chinese general wrote the book titled “The Art of War”. He stated, “Know your enemy and know yourself and in a hundred campaigns you will never fail.” His lessons can be applied to individuals and not particularly to army warfare.
Using Sun Tsu’s teachings, the two weaknesses I would have immediately seen is that Mr. Garner was a very large man. This means that he moves slowly. The other officers were young, thinner, and in good shape. The most important aspect is that they react and move much faster than him. Second, he appears that he can’t run very fast. It would be easy to catch up to him and take him down then. The police officers were in a superior position compared to Mr. Garner.
If Mr. Garner would have started to try to walk away, me and my other 3 police officers would each grab a limb at the joint to manipulate his limbs to move into a desired position and twisting them creating pain. No choke hold would have been necessary. He may have COMPLIED because of the pain. There is also a popular Karate submission hold the officers could have also used on Mr. Garner. Mr. Garner may have survived. But if his health was too poor, he may not have even have survived that. But in that case, the fault would have been Mr. Garner’s for not complying and forcing the issue by acting out when he knew he was in poor health. He had broken the law and needed to "man-up" for it and deal with it no matter of how ridiculous the law is. No one can physically defeat all of law enforcement.
From the perspective of the police officers who were involved in that incident, they are trained to take control of a situation from the very start. This is so the subject doesn’t decide and have the time to pull out a weapon and/or begin attacking the police officers or decide to run away. The police officers do that to take the initiative before the subject has a chance to act out by attacking.
SOURCE: CNN
JAMAR CLARK
Once again, if I were a police officer and there were two of us (like in this situation), I would have handled the situation differently. I would only shoot someone if I were alone and outnumbered and if they didn’t comply and were approaching me. I would give them a warning if there were time. I would give them every chance to back down and comply, even at the risk of my own safety.
I would have worked in tandem with my partner. Because we would have trained together beforehand. Even if my partner were a woman, there are things that she can do just like a man can do. As he is reaching for my gun (which I would anticipate), I would knock his hand out of the way and push him hard with all my strength knocking him backwards giving me some distance from him, then my partner could attack. She would have him on the ground in seconds, writhing in agony, subdued and alive.
The primary reasons for police officers shooting unarmed subjects is because of their feelings of fear and lacking basic unarmed hand-to-hand combat knowledge. I understand if the police officer is in fear or concerned that their opponent may get a hold of their gun. So they end up shooting the unarmed subject when they do reach for it. A lot of the police shootings are considered justified.
It is very stupid for someone to reach for the police officer’s gun. But if the police officers had some basic training they wouldn’t need to use their guns. This would boost their confidence and alleviate some of their fear or concern. They also need training in sizing up their opponent. They need to be taught to look for weaknesses in their opponent. I am personally training myself to look for weaknesses in other people even though I have absolutely no desire to harm them. It is for training purposes only.
If there are two or more police officers and only one subject who is reaching for an officer’s gun, there are fast defensive and offensive maneuvers that could be performed by both officers on the subject. The two police officers would train for this scenario ahead of time. By resolving situations like this in these manners would prevent the loss of human life. Also protests could be avoided that affect other people.
Now as for the subjects, they let their fear of going to jail or their angry emotions to make the wrong decisions and actions. They may resist arrest, go for an officer’s gun, or attack them because they don’t want to go to jail because maybe they are on parole. They would then have to spend more time in jail, maybe for a much longer time. But in this type of situation, they have to take the lesser of the two evils. As I mentioned, it is better to go to jail and eventually get out than it is to go to the grave. They must control their emotions and COMPLY!
I wish everyone would do what they are supposed to do. I am so saddened by the death of so many people. Both sides have some reflection and learning to do to change behaviors and to drastically change the outcome of tense situations.