African-American Asphyxiated by Police in Minneapolis - Page 181 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Talk about what you've seen in the news today.

Moderator: PoFo Today's News Mods

#15111690
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n

1. So cops would not need to be there. I fail to see how this is any different from using 8111, but whatever, there are mire important points: would the cops be forbidden to engage with the person with mental health issues unless the mental health workers allowed it?


Yes, mental health workers would need to request it, except if a third party warns they are unable to do so.

Pants-of-dog wrote:2. So we agree that California PDs are not liable of they do not provide sufficient police protection service. Please quote the text or provide a link to the post where you quote the text from the case. Thank you.


PDs don't control their funding, do they? Again, the law is about shielding localities, not cops.

As for the rest: viewtopic.php?p=15109614#p15109614

Pants-of-dog wrote:3. So anyone can kill anyone where no one is looking and claim self defense and just walk away free?


No, they can be afforded the right (yes, it's a right) to have a prosecutor being forced to establish a case before being charged and be jailed or offered bail.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Do you agree or disagree that the cops created the situation that led to Breonna Taylor’s death?


I think it's more complicated than that. The cops were after all following through a court order to carry the no knock warrant out and they were therefore pursuing their duties with judicial review to boot.
#15111694
@wat0n

1. When you say that the mental health workers would heed to request it, do you mean that cops would not be allowed to be present unless explicitly told to by the health workers?

2. The Warren decision explicitly states that police are not liable if they fail to protect an individual, which is my claim. You even agree and quote the part where it says that cops are not liable for failing to protect an individual because they protect society at large instead. And the California law affirms that.

3. So yes, you are saying that cops and anyone else can simply kill someone where there are no witnesses and then claim self defense and the law would let them walk free unless the state can prove otherwise. That seems to be what you are claiming.

So the police in combination with the courts and a judicial review created the situation that led to Breonna Taylor’s death. Do you agree or disagree?
#15111697
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n

1. When you say that the mental health workers would heed to request it, do you mean that cops would not be allowed to be present unless explicitly told to by the health workers?


Yes, but they should be nearby since the presumption is that the workers would request police assistance because their lives are in danger.

Pants-of-dog wrote:2. The Warren decision explicitly states that police are not liable if they fail to protect an individual, which is my claim. You even agree and quote the part where it says that cops are not liable for failing to protect an individual because they protect society at large instead. And the California law affirms that.


Yet it also explicitly states that they are liable if they engage in a willful neglect of their duties ("In the case of the Metropolitan Police Department, officers are subject to criminal charges and a penalty of two years imprisonment for failure to arrest law breakers. D.C.Code 1973, § 4-143. Additionally, officers are answerable to their superiors and ultimately to the public through its representatives, for dereliction in their assigned duties. D.C.Code 1973, § 4-121."). The issue is that the duty to "protect the public" cannot be interpreted as a duty to protect all individuals, one for which anyone who wasn't protected by the police would be able to sue even when the police was performing its duties in good faith. Or else, one could go on and sue elected officials for all sorts of behavior that could be regarded as benefiting the public at large while not addressing the problems of, or even harming, specific individuals ("The absence of a duty specifically enforceable by individual members of the community is not peculiar to public police services. Our representative form of government is replete with duties owed to everyone in their capacity as citizens but not enforceable by anyone in his capacity as an individual. Through its representatives, the public creates community service; through its representatives, the public establishes the standards which it demands of its employees in carrying out those services and through its representatives, the public can most effectively enforce adherence to those standards of competence. As members of the general public, individuals forego any direct control over the conduct of public employees in the same manner that such individuals avoid any direct responsibility for compensating public employees.").

Pants-of-dog wrote:3. So yes, you are saying that cops and anyone else can simply kill someone where there are no witnesses and then claim self defense and the law would let them walk free unless the state can prove otherwise. That seems to be what you are claiming.


Yes, that's how it works in some states: The prosecution needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense once it is claimed (even in a he-said-she-said situation).

In others, the accused needs only to fulfill a preponderance of evidence standard that he did indeed act in self-defense, because it is deemed to be an affirmative defense.

https://scholarlycommons.law.northweste ... ntext=jclc
https://www.swthayer.com/blog/who-carri ... f-defense/
https://www.cga.ct.gov/ps99/rpt/olr/htm/99-r-0984.htm
https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS99/rpt%5Colr%5 ... R-0642.htm

I'm guessing that's also why it can sometimes be hard to prosecute law enforcement, but video evidence would help a lot to clarify these incidents. And making it an offense for cops to refuse to properly use their bodycams would, at least, make them face jail time for it even if a more serious unlawful homicide charge would not be able to be proven.

Pants-of-dog wrote:So the police in combination with the courts and a judicial review created the situation that led to Breonna Taylor’s death. Do you agree or disagree?


Yes. But if we had to establish a culpability scale, neither Kenneth Walker, the judge nor the cops directly involved in the incident are at the top. The main culprit would be whoever didn't collect the proper intelligence thereby leading to the request of the no-knock warrant to begin with, this guy is a cop indeed but he didn't participate in the killing - not directly at least. So why would you place the burden on the cops who were at the site and who (in good faith) simply performed their duties?
#15111710
@wat0n

1. I have no idea why you think a mental health worker dealing with a patient (and who is trained to do so safely) is at any higher risk than the average person walking down the street.

In the vast majority of cases, the only person whose would needlessly attack and hurt someone else is the cop.

2. But protecting individuals is not one of their duties, which is why the court acquitted the cops. So, in the scenario where a mental health worker is dealing with a dangerous individual and asks for the cops to protect them, and the cops do not, the cops are not liable.

3. What is the standard in Colorado?

If the state created the situation that led to Breonna Taylor being at risk of death or serious injury, do you think the cops had a duty to protect Breonna Taylor at that point?
#15111716
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n

1. I have no idea why you think a mental health worker dealing with a patient (and who is trained to do so safely) is at any higher risk than the average person walking down the street.

In the vast majority of cases, the only person whose would needlessly attack and hurt someone else is the cop.


Do you have any comparative between the damage done by cops vs that done by armed mentally ill people going through a crisis?

Why are you so determined on letting mental health workers get killed in the line of duty by denying them access to the police even when they, using their professional judgment, believe it's a situation beyond their means to deal with?

Pants-of-dog wrote:2. But protecting individuals is not one of their duties, which is why the court acquitted the cops. So, in the scenario where a mental health worker is dealing with a dangerous individual and asks for the cops to protect them, and the cops do not, the cops are not liable.


No, you are wrong. In that case, the cops acted in good faith and the issue is that, while acting in good faith, they failed to actually succeed in doing their jobs.

If the cops were present in your second scenario and did nothing, then they would be personally liable for dereliction of duty if the jurisdiction does have it as an offense in its statute. The PD would also be liable under the state-created danger liability if it did not provide mental health workers with the adequate security:

Police Magazine wrote:"State-Created Danger" Liability

More common than a claim of liability based on the "special relationship" doctrine is a claim that someone who was not in police custody nevertheless came to injury or death at the hands of another, or via human or natural hazards, because of something police did or failed to do in circumstances of obvious danger. This is the "state-created danger" theory of liability.

"Although the state's failure to protect an individual against private violence does not generally violate the guarantee of due process, it can where the state action affirmatively places the plaintiff in a position of danger, that is, where state action creates or exposes an individual to a danger which he or she would not otherwise have faced." (Kennedy v. Ridgefield)

In other words, if you become involved in an incident and your action or omission places the person in a more precarious position than if you had not intervened at all, you could face liability for creating a greater danger.

Examples of application of the "state-created danger" doctrine are more numerous than "special relationship" cases, and they are often far more tragic in their facts. Just a few will be enough to illustrate how this doctrine works.


And I'm pretty sure the city would be liable under quite standard labor law provisions.

Pants-of-dog wrote:3. What is the standard in Colorado?


I would need to search for that specific bit, but preponderance of evidence is a fairly low standard ("it's more likely they acted in self-defense than not").

Pants-of-dog wrote:If the state created the situation that led to Breonna Taylor being at risk of death or serious injury, do you think the cops had a duty to protect Breonna Taylor at that point?


They did, but it would have been fulfilled by properly collecting intelligence.
#15111730
Just watched the new bodycam footage.

-Floyd complained of breathing problems and panic before the cops were on top of him on the ground.
-Floyd clearly didn't want to go into the cop car, saying he was allegedly claustrophobic. Being that he was just sitting in his own car without problems, it's hard to know if the cops believed him or not. But he was clearly distressed.
- Floyd asked to be put on the ground, but also said he couldn't breathe when he first slid out of the cop car
-Floyd tested positive for COVID-19, and told the cops he had it during the bodycam video, and claimed it as another reason he didn't want to go in the back of the cop car (afraid of getting it again?)
- The cops didn't seem to act racist or mistreat him in the bodycam video, other than the initial approach which seemed a bit aggressive.
- The cops asked him if he was on drugs given his erratic behaviour. The autopsy revealed he had fentanyl, meth, marijuana, caffeine, and nicotine in his system, and suffered from heart disease and hypertension.
-The original autopsy said he died of a heart attack, not asphyxiation, which is interesting.

I think this video helps the case of the cops. It would be really hard to say that the cops alone caused his death. But they almost certainly made things worse and could have worsened his condition to the point of death by doing the knee choke & then not helping him when he wasn't moving. I think the cops should at least be found as using excessive force and being negligent when he was unresponsive for a long period. I think someone should still go to jail. Will be an interesting trial and verdict.
#15111738
Unthinking Majority wrote:Just watched the new bodycam footage.

-Floyd complained of breathing problems and panic before the cops were on top of him on the ground.
-Floyd clearly didn't want to go into the cop car, saying he was allegedly claustrophobic. Being that he was just sitting in his own car without problems, it's hard to know if the cops believed him or not. But he was clearly distressed.
- Floyd asked to be put on the ground, but also said he couldn't breathe when he first slid out of the cop car
-Floyd tested positive for COVID-19, and told the cops he had it during the bodycam video, and claimed it as another reason he didn't want to go in the back of the cop car (afraid of getting it again?)
- The cops didn't seem to act racist or mistreat him in the bodycam video, other than the initial approach which seemed a bit aggressive.
- The cops asked him if he was on drugs given his erratic behaviour. The autopsy revealed he had fentanyl, meth, marijuana, caffeine, and nicotine in his system, and suffered from heart disease and hypertension.
-The original autopsy said he died of a heart attack, not asphyxiation, which is interesting.

I think this video helps the case of the cops. It would be really hard to say that the cops alone caused his death. But they almost certainly made things worse and could have worsened his condition to the point of death by doing the knee choke & then not helping him when he wasn't moving. I think the cops should at least be found as using excessive force and being negligent when he was unresponsive for a long period. I think someone should still go to jail. Will be an interesting trial and verdict.

I think they would have got manslaughter without question, because there is evident disregard. Everyone on drugs denies they are on drugs to the cops, and that shouldn't relieve a duty of care. However, pushing for the second degree murder charge is where I think the prosecution overstepped, and perhaps deliberately? The Attorney General, Ellis, has this information and still pushed for an unsustainable charge.

LEAKED VIDEO EXPOSES GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH AS TRAGEDY AND RACE HOAX USED TO DIVIDE US
#15111762
Unthinking Majority wrote:Just watched the new bodycam footage.

-Floyd complained of breathing problems and panic before the cops were on top of him on the ground.
-Floyd clearly didn't want to go into the cop car, saying he was allegedly claustrophobic. Being that he was just sitting in his own car without problems, it's hard to know if the cops believed him or not. But he was clearly distressed.
- Floyd asked to be put on the ground, but also said he couldn't breathe when he first slid out of the cop car
-Floyd tested positive for COVID-19, and told the cops he had it during the bodycam video, and claimed it as another reason he didn't want to go in the back of the cop car (afraid of getting it again?)
- The cops didn't seem to act racist or mistreat him in the bodycam video, other than the initial approach which seemed a bit aggressive.
- The cops asked him if he was on drugs given his erratic behaviour. The autopsy revealed he had fentanyl, meth, marijuana, caffeine, and nicotine in his system, and suffered from heart disease and hypertension.
-The original autopsy said he died of a heart attack, not asphyxiation, which is interesting.

I think this video helps the case of the cops. It would be really hard to say that the cops alone caused his death. But they almost certainly made things worse and could have worsened his condition to the point of death by doing the knee choke & then not helping him when he wasn't moving. I think the cops should at least be found as using excessive force and being negligent when he was unresponsive for a long period. I think someone should still go to jail. Will be an interesting trial and verdict.

One thing you missed is that the autopsy says that there was no damage done to the neck. So the knee on the side of the neck did not act like a choke hold at all. It seems clear to me that the knee on the side of the neck did not cause George Floyd's death. He was not choked to death.
#15111800
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n

Before I address your points, why are you so insistent on personally attacking me and accusing me of wishing violence on innocents?


I'm not attacking your character. I'm pointing that out because it's hard to find another explanation for denying health workers the right to call for police backup if their lives are in danger as a result of simply doing their jobs. If you believe their lives should not be in danger, then why wouldn't they be allowed to decide if they need backup so they aren't put in harm's way?
Last edited by wat0n on 06 Aug 2020 16:42, edited 1 time in total.
#15111804
https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org ... dercounted


    The Role of Mental Illness in Fatal Law Enforcement Encounters

    December 2015


    Enormous attention has been focused in recent years on the lack of complete and accurate official statistics reporting fatal law enforcement encounters. Barely noted in the uproar has been the role played by serious mental illness, a medical condition that, when treated, demonstrably reduces the likelihood of interacting with police or being arrested, much less dying in the process.

    Despite the dearth of official data, there is abundant evidence individuals with mental illness make up a disproportionate number of those killed at the very first step of the criminal justice process: while being approached or stopped by a law enforcement officer in the community.

    Overlooked in the Undercounted: The Role of Mental Illness in Fatal Law Enforcement Encounters surveys the status of law enforcement homicide reporting, examines the demonstrable role of mental illness in the use of deadly force by law enforcement and recommends practical approaches to reducing fatal police shootings and the many social costs associated with them.

    Top Takeaway

    Because of the disproportionate volume of contact between individuals with serious mental illness and law enforcement, reducing the likelihood of police interaction with individuals in psychiatric crisis may represent the single most immediate, practical strategy for reducing fatal police encounters in the United States.

    Fast Facts

    The risk of being killed while being approached or stopped by law enforcement in the community is 16 times higher for individuals with untreated serious mental illness than for other civilians.

    By the most conservative estimates, at least 1 in 4 fatal law enforcement encounters involves an individual with serious mental illness. When data have been rigorously collected and analyzed, findings indicate as many as half of all law enforcement homicides ends the life of an individual with severe psychiatric disease.


    The arrest-related death program operated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics within the US Department of Justice is the only federal database that attempts to systematically collect and publish mental health information about law enforcement homicides. The program was suspended in 2015 because the data available to the agency was not credible enough to report.
    Recommendations to Policymakers

    Restore the mental illness treatment system sufficiently that individuals with serious mental illness are not left untreated to the point that their behavior results in law enforcement action

    Accurately count and report the number of fatal police encounters in a reliable federal database

    Accurately count and report all incidents involving use of all deadly force by law enforcement, not only those incidents that result in death

    Systematically identify the role of mental illness in fatal law enforcement encounters

    Since the Study

    The 21st Century Cures Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in December 2016, included a mandate for the US attorney general to collect and report data on the role of serious mental illness in fatal law enforcement encounters.
    The Bureau of Justice Statistics overhauled its system for collecting law enforcement homicide data and, in December 2016, resumed reporting arrest-related death statistics. Using the new methodology approximately doubled the number of arrest-related deaths that were verified and reported by the Department of Justice. The role of mental illness in them has not yet been reported.

The full report is available here:
https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org ... ounted.pdf

The report proposes over and over again that mental health services be expanded and that these services either replace cops entirely when dealing emntal health issues, or going with the cops and dealing with a mental health issue.

Several Psychiatric Emergency Response Teams (as they are called) have already been set up in certain places and the report discusses how they have greatly reduced cops killing people.

Which is the whole point.

———————

@SpecialOlympian

I have avatars and signatures turned off. Everyone looks like a random grey NPC to me.
#15111805
Since the cops created the situation that places Breonna Taylor in danger, the police at that time had an obligation to protect her according to the "State-Created Danger" Liability.

See wat0n’s post for further information about "State-Created Danger" Liability.
#15111819
Pants-of-dog wrote:https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/overlooked-in-the-undercounted


    The Role of Mental Illness in Fatal Law Enforcement Encounters

    December 2015


    Enormous attention has been focused in recent years on the lack of complete and accurate official statistics reporting fatal law enforcement encounters. Barely noted in the uproar has been the role played by serious mental illness, a medical condition that, when treated, demonstrably reduces the likelihood of interacting with police or being arrested, much less dying in the process.

    Despite the dearth of official data, there is abundant evidence individuals with mental illness make up a disproportionate number of those killed at the very first step of the criminal justice process: while being approached or stopped by a law enforcement officer in the community.

    Overlooked in the Undercounted: The Role of Mental Illness in Fatal Law Enforcement Encounters surveys the status of law enforcement homicide reporting, examines the demonstrable role of mental illness in the use of deadly force by law enforcement and recommends practical approaches to reducing fatal police shootings and the many social costs associated with them.

    Top Takeaway

    Because of the disproportionate volume of contact between individuals with serious mental illness and law enforcement, reducing the likelihood of police interaction with individuals in psychiatric crisis may represent the single most immediate, practical strategy for reducing fatal police encounters in the United States.

    Fast Facts

    The risk of being killed while being approached or stopped by law enforcement in the community is 16 times higher for individuals with untreated serious mental illness than for other civilians.

    By the most conservative estimates, at least 1 in 4 fatal law enforcement encounters involves an individual with serious mental illness. When data have been rigorously collected and analyzed, findings indicate as many as half of all law enforcement homicides ends the life of an individual with severe psychiatric disease.


    The arrest-related death program operated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics within the US Department of Justice is the only federal database that attempts to systematically collect and publish mental health information about law enforcement homicides. The program was suspended in 2015 because the data available to the agency was not credible enough to report.
    Recommendations to Policymakers

    Restore the mental illness treatment system sufficiently that individuals with serious mental illness are not left untreated to the point that their behavior results in law enforcement action

    Accurately count and report the number of fatal police encounters in a reliable federal database

    Accurately count and report all incidents involving use of all deadly force by law enforcement, not only those incidents that result in death

    Systematically identify the role of mental illness in fatal law enforcement encounters

    Since the Study

    The 21st Century Cures Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in December 2016, included a mandate for the US attorney general to collect and report data on the role of serious mental illness in fatal law enforcement encounters.
    The Bureau of Justice Statistics overhauled its system for collecting law enforcement homicide data and, in December 2016, resumed reporting arrest-related death statistics. Using the new methodology approximately doubled the number of arrest-related deaths that were verified and reported by the Department of Justice. The role of mental illness in them has not yet been reported.

The full report is available here:
https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org ... ounted.pdf

The report proposes over and over again that mental health services be expanded and that these services either replace cops entirely when dealing emntal health issues, or going with the cops and dealing with a mental health issue.

Several Psychiatric Emergency Response Teams (as they are called) have already been set up in certain places and the report discusses how they have greatly reduced cops killing people.

Which is the whole point.

———————


And you are still missing the point: This is the probability that, if a person is killed, the person is mentally ill. The 25-50% range seems to be in line with figures from other countries:

Overlooked in the Undercounted wrote:...

• From Australia: Victoria state police launched five independent reviews to investigate police shooting deaths from 1990 to 2004. The Office of Police Integrity found that more than half the people
fatally shot by Victoria police “were experiencing a mental disorder.”12 Nationwide in Australia, from
1990 to 1997, at least one-third of the 41 people shot and killed by Australian police were found to
be suffering from “a diagnosed mental illness (requiring psychiatric treatment) or depression.”14

• From the United Kingdom: The Police Complaints Authority in 2003 reported that just under half the
people involved in police fatalities in England and Wales had mental health conditions.12

• From Canada: One-third of the individuals killed by law enforcement in British Columbia from 1980
to 1994 were found to have a recorded mental health history, most frequently schizophrenia.38 When
officers’ perceptions of the decedents’ condition were taken into account, behaviors indicative of
mental illness were reported present in half the fatalities.39

...


So even if the US police was like Australian, British or Canadian police, it's likely the percentage of those persons killed by the cops who are also mentally ill would remain the same.

What I'm inquiring about is the probability that, if a person is mentally ill, the person will be killed by the cops. After all, this is what we should be concerned about when deciding if the police should aid medical workers or not. And of course, one should not confuse the inverse here because it could have nothing to do with the quantity of interest.
#15111820
Hindsite wrote:One thing you missed is that the autopsy says that there was no damage done to the neck. So the knee on the side of the neck did not act like a choke hold at all. It seems clear to me that the knee on the side of the neck did not cause George Floyd's death. He was not choked to death.


You can block the airway without physically damaging the neck.

They also had guys with their knee on his back, which would push his chest into the ground.

But the autopsy said he died of a heart attack, not asphyxiation.
  • 1
  • 179
  • 180
  • 181
  • 182
  • 183
  • 199

...Which Hamas refuses and wasn't ordered by the […]

@skinster so you confess that Hamas committed ma[…]

^ Wouldn't happen though, since the Israelis are n[…]

I was actually unaware :lol: Before he was […]