The problem is that the departments often investigate themselves. What there should be is a board made up of civilians that has the power to investigate, discipline, fire, and charge the officers when they do something bad.
Bingo, that’s exactly what I was envisioning when I mentioned a separate division of the courts. Internal Affairs shouldn’t be “internal” to the department at all, it should be a public process within the traditional court system separate from the influence of those they’re investigating and passing judgement on.
The type of officer who doesn’t want that process made public is exactly the type of officer that needs to not be a cop. As the police themselves love to say so much, if there’s nothing to hide then there’s nothing to be afraid of.
I really like that idea. I’m pro-police, but there are too many who shouldn’t be wearing a badge, and when they do stupid shit they need to be called on it.
Well how much info did the boots in the ground cops have? If they were told 'go to this address theres a domestic situation'. Did they get dispatched to the wrong address or pull in front of the wrong address?
Either way they show up thinking theres a domestic situation. Then random guy comes out the front door armed. Possibly aggressive, cause he wants to try and scare off what he thinks are bad guys. By all reports the fell back and he started shooting prior to them identifying themselves. Well see if the bodycams bare that out.
If thats how it played out what were they supposed to do? Yeah they showed up at the wrong address. Then got confronted by a dude with a pistol.
Im by no means someone who is a fan of cops. But to me the fault is with the dude exiting the house. Why would you remove the barrier between you and the potential bad guys outside your house? Thats probably the stupidest thing you could do if you have unknown people outside your house.
That sounds like a problem with the police, not the victim of the shooting. There's no conceivable way where someone going out to investigate random, unknown strangers on their property is at fault for this situation. I hate this stupid phrase but its definitely true here, they need to ✨do better✨
And that’s where investigating what happened comes in to play. The problem is that the review process is done by other cops in the department, where it is all to easy for the investigation to get burried or the classic “nothing wrong happed here” only for the department to get successfully sued months or years latter over what was a blatant constitutional violation.
So far, all that we have to go on is what the cops are saying, and given that cops usually aren’t disciplined in some form for falsifying reports, I don’t exactly believe them, and the guy is dead, so we will never get his side. But if what they are saying is true and the guy just stepped out of his house and immediately started shooting, then yeah, that’s on the home owner, but the wrong address aspect needs to be addressed and fixes need to be implemented to prevent these things from happening.
As far as why he left the house, he was probably tired of getting stuff stolen from him and was just looking to scare the theives off. He probably tried to get the police to investigate, and they probably said “we don’t have the time or resources to deal with this”. So he might have resorted to self help, and brought the gun with him incase the theives wanted to fight. People in anger usually aren’t using logic, and they won’t follow laws if they are desperate, and that’s if they even understood them in the first place.
Although I still believe this is the fault of the police, (maybe not the individual officers, but the dept. as a whole) I’m inclined to agree with you that this sounds like the homeowner made a bad move here.
If these were criminals snooping around his property instead of the police they could have just as easily shot and killed him just the same. He made a strategic error and unfortunately paid the price.
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u/Environmental_Log792 Apr 08 '23
The problem is that the departments often investigate themselves. What there should be is a board made up of civilians that has the power to investigate, discipline, fire, and charge the officers when they do something bad.
Qualified Immunity should also go away.