TMF

Is it possible that sometimes bad or unfortunate things happen and there just isn't anyone to blame? Could it ever be that the undesired outcome was the result of the very best intentions and a decision made in a timely manner with limited information? Or do we need the pitchforks? It does make everyone feel better when we get to burn a witch.

The soundtrack in your head for the rest of the evening brought to you by yours truly.

Oh, so your extensive interaction with law enforcement has been with your hometown PD, which has allowed you to condemn the whole of law enforcement in the US (or at least half... actually 90%, since you claimed 40% of that "good" 50% would allow the dirty ones to do bad stuff). So then, based on your superior mathematic and statistical analysis skills, we can make the "reasonable" assumption that only 10% of police are the good guys. I'll have to share this with my father who was an LEO for three and a half decades. He'll think it's cute.

No, actually nearly mean the same thing. In fact, they go hand in hand. For example, when a jury "doesn't have enough information to make a determination" what do they normally do? Hmmm? Do they: A. Convict the accused? B. Give them the benefit of the doubt? C. Do the Safety Dance?

Ummm, well, when there aren't any facts to assert that wrongdoing took place then you have to give the benefit of the doubt. That's just how that works.... ya know, since there isn't evidence there exists doubt, and the benefit of such doubt goes to the accused party. That is what "benefit of the doubt" means. I thought it was self evident. Is there anything else I can help you with?

I didn't come to her defense. I'm simply giving her the benefit of the doubt because the situation sounds complex and I wasn't there. For all I know the officer was foaming at the mouth to taze the first naked 11 year old she could find that night. What I find so comical in your statement above "coming to the defense of an officer with no proof" is you're making a person who is saying "I wasn't there so I'm not passing judgement" sound more unreasonable than someone like yourself who says "I wasn't there but I know the officer is guilty." I'd hate to be the one to break it to you, but for someone to be guilty of something there has to be proof, not the other way around. You're essentially saying "prove this officer didn't do something wrong", as if disproving a negative is how debates are done. Go back to the drawing board on that for your own benefit.

Okay, I'll play this game. I never make assumptions either about gun owners, but 50% of them are trigger happy vigilantes. This is based on my experiences, of course, so I need no evidence to back this up. After all, most of my family owns firearms, so I know how those people are. Oh yeah, and half of all white people are racists too.

Never said anyone said it. No, you didn't. You made the assertion that I held that opinion. I simply was asking where I said it so that I could reference whether or not you were stating a confirmed fact or just talking out your ass. So then law enforcement should be considered guilty of abuses until proven innocent?

Who the f*** said that? I never accepted ANYTHING as infallible truth. I'm just giving the officer the benefit of the doubt due to a lack of information and obvious dire circumstances, such as a life and death situation for which the officer had very little information. Oh yeah...... baaaaahhhhh.

Bloomtard is having a bad year.

  No one ever seems to acknowledge this.  Folks seem to think they can just go to the woods and live off deer meat in the event of a SHTF.  Well folks, you won't be the only one with that plan.  If SHTF you can bet that white tail will be extinct in a matter of months along with many other critters.  There's a lot more people in this country then there was when people were living off the land.  The reason so many folks survive right now is due to the way we are able to farm and transport chow.  If SHTF some folks will be watching endless seas of corn rot in the sun while other parts of the country are murdering each other over a kernel.  You think there will be anything on four legs left after a couple months of that?

I'm all for judging a person who names their kid something stupid because their ego is so large they consider their child to be nothing more than an accessory item. I once worked with a girl whose parents were hippies. They named her Polly; her middle name is Esther. What kinda person makes a joke out of their kid's name? Yeah, I'm all for judging them because they deserve to be judged. However, it's none of the government's damned business.

Just like I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the officers, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the parents. I have two nephews who are on the extreme end of the autism spectrum. While their parents have yet to experience something as dramatic as this, I can imagine as the children get older new challenges will present themselves. Although this girl may have been low functioning, she is still in the body of an 11 year old. She is stronger, faster and likely has better motor skills than a three year old. I can't imagine how difficult that would be to prevent every possible danger to that child. These parents have to sleep at some point. Perhaps they have an alarm system to detect the child opening doors. For all we know the power went out, or a battery died. I don't know. What I do know is that bad things happen to even the most responsible people who do their best to plan for every possible scenario. I know there are members here who have children that are somewhere on the spectrum. This right here must be the worst nightmare for parents who have one or more children who are considered impaired to the point of requiring constant care and supervision. I think folks, like myself, who don't live that life should have a hard time judging those parents.

Sounds to me like there is a common denominator in your equation. I've encountered bad cops before, but that was the exception, not the rule. You seem to be letting on that you have had many encounters with law enforcement and they were all poor. Based on your personality I can assume there is a reason for it. If you're a dick to a cop they have every right to be a dick back to you. I assume the reason they took a heavy hand is because you were being extremely cooperative and not being a belligerent ahole. I'd like to know what PD this was so I can send them a case of beer.

No it wasn't.

You weren't there, so you don't know. They were inches from the road where cars are going 80 mph. Not only that, they believed that she was on drugs since she was stark naked, unresponsive and evading them. You may feel they did wrong, but you don't know the full situation to judge. I have two autistic nephews. If a cop chose to chase them next to a road like that they would not know better than to run out into traffic. There is a good chance that if this cop tried to grab her the child would be a stain on the highway. Why is that so hard for folks to wrap their mind around?

Clearly a case of abuse by police. The officer should have let her get hit by a car instead. Obviously that cop was just driving around looking for autistic children she could taser, and she found one. I'll tell ya, if it were my kid I would I would want that officer to do anything within their power to stop my kid from being hit by a car. If that meant tasering them, I'm all for it. Obviously this cop did not know the situation. If she thought this kid was someone high on drugs, she did the best thing she could do. Would you want to wrestle a person on drugs only inches from where cars are going 80mph at 4 am? I doubt it. If your answer is "yes" you are so full of sh** it's comin out your ears.

You're dodging the question I posed Robert. It's okay, I understand why.

Thanks for posting this, as I'm sure it's informative to folks.   In my experience, however, bullets will make holes in people, and they won't like it when you do.  The hollowpoints in my 9mm and .45 might not be the "be all, end all" for every situation, but I can assure you they will make holes, and they will hurt if not kill a person.  There are only a few places you can hit on a person's body that will instantaneously take them down.  I might try like hell to hit those places, but the reality is when your adrenaline kicks in and you are not lined up perfectly with a stationary E-type from 7 meters, you probably aren't going to have perfect shot placement anyway.  Realistically it is a race to put as many holes into the bad guy as quick as you can before he makes you dead. 

  Get your permit.  Yes, it is important to be accurate with your weapon, but it is equally important to be able to protect yourself.    I would strongly suggest finding a good day or two pistol course where you can get some instruction.  No reason to break the bank on it with some sooper dooper whiz bang doorkicker course.  Any reputable trainer can get you to the 80% solution in no time.  It's the fundamentals that you need to focus on, and it's difficult if you don't have someone there to show you what "right" looks like.  I shot pistols for 15 years before I learned how much I didn't know in a single day of instruction.  Once you have those fundamentals you can build on them yourself, but the best starting point is having an experienced instructor guide you through.    I'd equate it to a recent skill I've acquired which is fly fishing.  A member here was nice enough to take me out and show me what right looked like.  I sucked.  But I learned the fundamentals and was able to build on that since on my own.  If I had just jumped into it on my own with no guidance other than YouTube videos and suggestions from people on a forum I'd have given up a long time ago.

    I guess I'm a little confused.  You defended, or at least that is how I interpreted it, Zimmerman's actions of getting out of his truck and following Martin to the point of ridiculing people who said he should have stayed in his truck.  In another thread, however, you said that the manager who followed a man who had just taken his property by force under threat of death was wrong.  Now, I don't recall Zimmerman ever claiming that Martin had done anything other than look suspicious and run prior to their altercation.  It would seem perfectly appropriate for a person to want their property back after having it stolen, unless there is some law I'm unaware of that says you absolutely have to let an armed man take your stuff.    Let us add to that scenario that the manager followed the armed man outside to see which way he was going when the man turned and pointed a weapon at him, to which he responded with deadly force.  Are you telling me that Zimmerman, doing the same thing to Martin who, up until that point had committed no crime we're aware of, was MORE correct in his actions than someone who just had a gun in his face and was relieved of his property? 

Just thinking through what I would do if I was a terrorist. Jamming communications of those who would respond would be on my list of things to do. Based on what we have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan we know that this new generation of monkey has some tech savvy folks. They could easily acquire the tech to jam what they needed to during an attack to slow the reaction and effectiveness of responders. Since we know these guys always make trial runs prior to the main event, you'd figure that'd be some important stuff to keep eyes on. I dunno, maybe it isn't that big of a deal. Just seems like a real easy and cheap thing to detect and react to.

Well that's silly. I figured that would be a standard measure for places that don't want their signals jammed, such as airports, certain gov buildings and most of DC. It wouldn't be anything to keep three or four DFers running that are linked back to an operations center in a mapping application, hopping frequencies they operate on. That's a drop in the ocean compared to all the other BS DHS expenses.

The swing to the face is totally me at the park. Never actually been hit, but close.

The stuff the gov has to DF such signals is expensive, but quick and effective. If the stuff they have at the airports is anything like the stuff I've seen, it would take them only the amount of time it takes to walk to this guy's car to determine where the signal is coming from. If they have this stuff running all the time, which I'd like to believe they do, they should be able to pinpoint the location on a mapping application the moment it starts jamming. If the location is covered by surveillance cameras it wouldn't matter if he just turned it on and then immediately off; he would be caught. I have no sympathy for idiots like this. They should be fined max amount to keep them from doing it again.