We recently discussed the decision by the Los Angeles district attorney not to charge officers who shot up a vehicle of an innocent man because they were acting in “an atmosphere of fear and extreme anticipation.”Officers were on edge in the search for cop-killer Christopher Dorner (right). We now have a decision in the shooting that proceeded the McGee case where eight Los Angeles police officers fired over 100 times. Margie Carranza, then 47, was cut by flying glass while her then 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez was shot in the back. You guessed it. No one will be fired or even suspended.
Let’s recap what these officers did and will now only be required to take a little more training. Police were searching for Dorner. Two women happened by the police delivering newspapers in a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. (Dorner was driving a charcoal Nissan Titan pickup truck). Without clear identification and without any appearance of a weapon, the police fired 103 times at the truck.
A Commission has now completed its investigation of the officers and found that the officers were not at serious fault in trying to kill two innocent unarmed women and unleashing a wall of lead on a vehicle.
The Commission found that the officers did find that eight officers violated Los Angeles Police Department policy. However, a violation that results in gunning down an innocent elderly lady does not appear to be a firing or even suspending act of misconduct.
Chief Charlie Beck insisted that this shooting was simply the result of “a tragic cascade of circumstances that led to an inaccurate conclusion by the officers.”
Of course, these women were hit by 103 “inaccurate conclusions.” Both could easily have been killed but that would not have changed the result.
The decisions in these two investigations will only reaffirm view of many that police are beyond increasingly beyond accountability while police powers are on the rise in our society. I find these decisions to be perfectly otherworldly. Both opinions tend to justify the actions on the basis for the fear and anticipation that existed at the time. However, police are supposed to be professionals trained to deal with such pressure. It is also worth noting that, if this were Dorner in the truck, it would have been highly questionable as a justified shooting since no weapon was present or shown to the officers. None of that seems to matter. It leaves a chilling message that police are at greater liberty to use lethal force (without positive identification or appearance of a weapon) when searching for a cop killer.
It is also worth noting that citizens are regularly charged when they shoot at officers by mistake under the same chaotic circumstances. They have also been cleared in shooting citizens who appear with a weapon in response to commotion. In the meantime, we have seen officers cleared and even honored in mistaken raids or shootings (here and here and here and here and here and here).
The increasing police powers in the United States and the absence of serious deterrent over misconduct or mistakes by some officers makes for a deadly combination. What is fascinating is the relative timidity of citizens in the face of even the most egregious abuse as we discussed recently with regard to New Mexico police officers. Likewise, there was no outcry recently with the incredible decision by the Dallas Police Chief that officers will no longer be allowed to give their accounts of shootings for the first 48 hours after officers were found to have lied in past cases. They will now be allowed to get their accounts straight before going on the record.
The final conclusions from the Dorner investigations sends a message to officers and citizens alike that even the most outrageous and potentially lethal misconduct by officers can be forgiven.
“The decisions in these two investigations will only reaffirm view of many that police are beyond increasingly beyond accountability while police powers are on the rise in our society. I find these decisions to be perfectly otherworldly.” – JT
Indeed.
Men are from Mars, Women from Venus, and these cops are straight out of hell.
I can certainly see the officers having a high level of alert, considering they were guarding someone Dorner was feared to want to assassinate and a similar truck as Dorner’s pulls into the place. If they drew their pistols I could see that as being a precaution given the danger Dorner made but I disagree with the conclusion the officers should go unpunished. They still had an obligation to make certain who it was they were shooting at and if there was a real threat, which there wasn’t in this case at all.
It often happens when several officers are in a situation such as this as soon as one fires all of them start firing and it can get into a feedback loop. Yes there is training to avoid this, but it does happen and it is not always right, it happens in the military as well. That is why “cease fire” is yelled out to stop this. The more amped up the officers are the more this happens. And this sounds macabre but I can’t explain it any other way. Firing a hundred times, nearly a magazine for each officer, and only one hit? Unless it was suppressive fire for an active shooter it sounds more like a panic than anything. Panic of the officers was what I think lead to this outcome. I don’t agree with the commission report given the facts available to me.
I don’t quite agree with the statement that even if it was Dorner in the pickup truck the officers would not have been justified in shooting him if the situation was exactly the same but without the newspaper people and Dorner instead. If Dorner pulled up and made ANY furative movement or repeatedly did not show his hands I would have considered that a justified shooting, that is if he was 100% identified and such. But that would have to be after some reasonable, even if rapid, decisions were made that there was not a situation where they just opened up on any vehicle and luckily for them Dorner was inside. But given the extreme lethality he presented, he wasn’t a “run of the mill” dangerous person. But some precautions need to be maintained.
Kraaken, BONUS! I’m an Amazon Prime member and it’s FREE on kindle.
Bread: It’s all own by Mexicans…. Including Canada….just sold to them…..
Kraaken, Thanks for the book recommendation. I will kindle it. The next book on my list is White Bread: A Social History of Store Bread. It sounds silly but sliced white bread in quintessentially USA.
Many of us old enough to remember recall the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, AL on March 7, 1965. Peaceful demonstrators were being beaten by Police. The action by the Police could attributed to the Red Neck attitudes of the Deep South.
Then we saw the Police beating peaceful demonstrators in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention. Four people are shot dead by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State on May 4th 1970.
Back when I was in Army in Vietnam we had recon by fire in a combat zone. Today, our para-military police has brought Recon by Fire into the streets of America.
@Bankster yes, there is definitely an Orwellian doublethink aspect to law enforcement these days.
Stop making me oppress you! Stop resisting! Stop beating your face against my fists!
Could it be that standards for becoming a police officer have sunk to a ridiculously low level?
I don’t know which is worse, their unprofessional conduct or their unprofessional marksmanship.
An earlier article:
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/02/04/report-beck-finds-8-officers-broke-lapd-policy-during-dorner-manhunt/
Excerpt:
The city ultimately reached a $4.2 million settlement with the women last April in addition to a $40,000 settlement for the loss of their pickup truck.
While the Police Commission panel initially recommended the officers be cleared of wrongdoing, Beck overruled the findings.
However, by Monday afternoon, the commission announced its official conclusion that the eight officers had violated policy, the Associated Press reported.
“I certainly empathize and understand the conditions and circumstances that led to this particular officer-involved shooting. I hold our police officers to the highest standards,” Beck said at the subsequent press conference Tuesday.
KCAL9′s Randy Paige reports the chief said he could not go into detail on the nature of the discipline.
The panel did uphold the actions of two other officers who exchanged fire with Dorner earlier the same morning while they were on a protective detail in Corona. One of the officers suffered a graze wound to the head, and the other was sprayed with shattered glass.
KNX 1070′s Claudia Peschiutta reports attorney Glen Jonas, who represents Carranza and Hernandez, expressed shock at the panel’s initial conclusion.
“You have two small Hispanic women as opposed to one large black man that you’re looking for,” Jonas said. “How can you say that it’s within policy to put 102 bullet holes in that truck and approximately 30 to 40 bullet holes in the neighboring garages, windows, and houses?”
Indeed.
This has probably been going on for a very long time, but we only really hear about it now. My cure for this ill is an idea I’ve had for about 10 years – Citizen Review Boards. Constituted much like Grand Juries, they would be created in jurisdictions and be open for any citizen, at any time, to submit a claim of corruption or incompetence about any employee of government. If the jury rules unanimously in favor of the complaint, then an entirely outside agency is given special prosecutor powers to investigate and, if necessary, charge the offending government employee. It still wouldn’t be perfect, but if all employees of government know that at any time they can be brought up on charges on the denunciation of just one citizen, they might be more careful.
M. Noonan – your starting to think outside the box; good for you. I have been proposing something similar for the judiciary, at the appellate level. Most however are unwilling to buck the system, especially those that have the most to loose and sadly, they are the ones who we need the most, such as attorneys, Law and Constitutional professors, retired Judges, economists, etc.
SJE,
See Tennessee v Garner….. Worked on a project for the civil rights commission…. My conclusion after surveying requirments for training officers and shooting accuracy requirments for officers to carry…. Was that it’s a human rights violation rather than racial issue….. Just an FYI I know of a person that got in a shoot out while driving with the ATF, DEA and other multiple LEO and Agencies… More than a 1000 rounds were fired and no one got hit….. It was a high speed chase late in a major city that thankfully had little traffic that night….
Once again, the scandal is what is legal.
The other scandal is that we supposedly train and arm these people, yet they not only don’t know when to shoot, but cannot shoot their target. This is no small matter: cross fire and ricochets are dangerous.
Kinda off topic but apt I think…
Orwell was hailed a hero for fighting in Spain. Today he’d be guilty of terrorism
The International Brigades are acclaimed for bravery. But British citizens who fight in Syria are damned. If only they did it for the money
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/10/orwell-hero-terrorism-syria-british-fighters-damned
another reason not to trust cops or the law. the law is only to destroy and ruin the middle class. the true criminals run free to destroy and leach off of society …. regardless of their economic level
We live in a police state – it just hasn’t formally declared itself yet. And I say this as supporter of law enforcement, having been a career prosecutor who spent almost 25 years as a federal prosecutor after having been an assistant D.A. Our police need to be reined in nationwide.
Funny you should mention the police corruption in the LAPD, Nick. I just finished a book by a former LAPD officer called ‘LA Secret Police: Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Division’ by Mike Rothmiller. It’s well worth the read if you want to get into the ‘mind’ (and I use the term loosely) of the LA cop. Although Mr. Rothmiller served under Daryl Gates (he of the Rodney King beating) it’s a good index of the way things are done in the LAPD and why incidents like this happen.
All it takes is for some law officer to say he felt ‘threatened’ and they can get away with murder.