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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums‘He wasn’t bothering nobody': Witnesses say Miami cops shot homeless man in front of 50 kids
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"The Miami Police Department confirmed that an officer shot a homeless man on Thursday but witnesses insisted that the man never posed a threat.
Miami Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes told reporters that officers were responding to reports of a disturbance at Gibson Park when the man refused to drop a metal object.
An officer responded to this location in response to a violent disturbance of a man armed with a metal object, Llanes said. The officer confronted the subject, and he discharged his weapon.
The police chief would not say if a metal pipe found at the scene was being held by the man at the time he was shot.
As many as 60 people were said to have witnessed the shooting.
He was a homeless man, wasnt bothering nobody, witness Nichelle Green told WPLG. The man walks around, we see him every morning with his stick, the same little stick that he had in his hand when the police officer shot him five times.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/he-wasnt-bothering-nobody-witnesses-say-miami-cops-shot-homeless-man-in-front-of-50-kids/
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Egnever
(21,506 posts)Shooting people is becoming the go to response far too often.
LuvNewcastle
(16,856 posts)I don't know how to go about it, but it seems like there should be an extra step between the public and officers with guns. I think the appearance of a person at the scene carrying a gun, in a way, escalates the problem. Maybe have people who are trained in non-lethal problem solving. A gun has an effect on the bearer, too, and it's too convenient not to be brandished when emotions run high.
brush
(53,871 posts)There has to be another way to immobilize a suspect besides a gun or tazer, which can also be deadly.
Since so many cops seem to be afraid of their shadow, maybe there are deployable net guns that can wrap up suspects something other than just shooting people.
Does anyone else have suggestions, beanbag guns, plastic bullets?
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)And it seems to work fine there. Why we can't try it here, I just don't get.
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)I reached the same conclusion, about most police officers not being fit to have weapons, about 4 cop murders ago!
Logical
(22,457 posts)no one will prosecute them and idiotic grand jurys thinks cops are perfect and don't charge them.
DURHAM D
(32,611 posts)not the grand juries.
uppityperson
(115,681 posts)stage left
(2,966 posts)Another one.
stage left
(2,966 posts)He was black, wasn't he?