After a self defense shooting, a common citizen can expect to be arrested on the spot.
They can expect to need to front a large sum of money to make bail.
They can expect to spend further large sums to hire an attorney to navigate the legal system to show that they were justified in using deadly force.
What if you're a cop?
You get 24 to 72 hours to consider and think about the shooting to formulate your story at home. Further, they're not prevented from coordinating with others at the scene and getting their stories straight. A common citizen trying this gets hit with tampering with witnesses.
You are very likely to not even miss a paycheck.
You are unlikely to need to hire a lawyer, let alone pay a bail bondsman.
Police are objecting to a system of citizen complaints where they, "could be accused of all sorts of malfeasance without the benefit of
knowing the charges or circumstances and be expected to answer questions
with perfect recall, even if the accusations were total bullshit."
Gee, like us everyday citizens when we're held for up to 72 hours after arrest?
Cry me a river, Officer.
I want some reforms that make you more like me. I think that if cops were MORE subject to the laws that affect the citizens around them, we'd see less of what I'm complaining about in the behavior of the police.
Even if the shooting by a civilian of an unprotected class is considered 'self-defense' at the time of the shoot, if the 'victim' of the shooting is of the protected minority class, the shooter should expect to be arrested down the road.
ReplyDeleteBy some prosecutor who is trying to advance his political career via pandering to the protected class and by pandering, also scoring brownie points with the left spectrum of unprotected class.
Also expect all evidence that blatantly shows the civilian is innocent of any malice at all to be brutally suppressed or lost by the prosecutor's office and by the police.
Dammit, Beans, you've ruined my follow-up post by making it look like I stole the idea from your comment!
DeleteNow I have to rewrite it.
No. You just have to flesh it out in your own Angus way.
DeleteMe? Total Cassandra. People don't listen to me. Seriously. I'll tell someone they're about to fall down or something and they'll ignore me.
You, on the other hand, have a depth of, of, of, character that makes your words resound strongly.
Go ahead. And don't forget to blame me for everything. :)
There should be very few exceptions where the law treats a law enforcement officer differently than it does a regular citizen. And in some cases I think the requirements for the conduct of LEOs should be significantly higher than for everyone else. Because of the powers they have, the potential for abuse is there and needs to be checked somehow.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy how you cut out all the other BS that goes with this (and other) issue and distill it down to simple facts, with just a little bit of snark at the end. This kind of content is why I'm very happy you continue to do the whole blog thing.
ReplyDelete