Bystander shot in head as New York police tackle fare-evader

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 396 points – Bystander shot in head as New York police tackle fare-evader
bbc.com

New York police have defended their actions after a bystander was shot in the head as two officers tackled a fare-evader armed with a knife in a busy subway station.

The man was in critical condition after the shooting at Sutter Avenue L station in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon. Three others, including the suspect, were wounded.

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Wait so did they find the knife? I was reading reports they couldn’t even find a knife.

Edit: yup, no knife

The police said on Sunday that a knife had been recovered and posted a picture on social media. The next day, however, it posted another message saying the knife had been taken from the crime scene by an unidentified man

I will point out that the story has a body cam screenshot showing the knife, presumably in the suspect’s hand.

The clothing in the picture doesn't match the clothing the suspect was booked in. So it's still in question.

You mean the NYPD would just go out there on the internet and tell lies?!?

Yeah, not surprised.

bystander was shot in the head

Police shot innocent bystander in the head.

FTFY

The reporter actively chose to give the police a pass by using passive voice here. "Bystander shot in the head" sounds like something that just happened or was unavoidable when we're really dealing with "Police shoot innocent bystander in the head while subduing fare evader." I mean, fuck, how hard is it to have basic police accountability?

Hey, it’s their fault for being in the path of that bullet traveling at 1200 feet per second. They had 0.0133 seconds to move out of the way. They made the decision to keep standing in a dangerous spot

(/s in case that wasn’t clear)

I mean, fuck, how hard is it to have basic police accountability?

Almost impossible

I think "Police shot innocent bystander in the head by accident" accurately captures the situation. The police were the ones who did it, but they didn't do it on purpose.

"accident" is a bad descriptor for something that keeps happening constantly and for which those responsible violently oppose accountability

The passive (or exonerative) voice in that article is infuriating. Police tackle the suspect, but the bystander was just "shot in the head". By whom? Hard to say when you're licking boots.

Sometimes headshots develop spontaneously. It's a rare condition, but convenient. Some claim John F. Kennedy suffered from this condition.

Getting shot for the crime of someone else jumping a turnstile, classic

“You saw him - he had a gun”

"Make no mistake, the events that occurred... were the results of an armed perpetrator"

No, your idiot cop shooting someone in the head was the result of your idiot cop shooting someone in the head.

Yeah, 100% the cop's fault. If a person feels it's better to shoot an innocent bystander in the head than risk being stabbed, then they're in the wrong line of work. Get out and let someone with better judgement have a go.

Public transit should be fully funded and free and accessible for all to use.

I would also accept a "pay what you want" system. Wasting money on enforcement of $3 fares is idiotic.

IME this is largely the stance that the LA Metro buses* take, as long as you're not causing trouble. A lot of the time I get waved on for the card not reading quick enough (resulting in a free ride), and I've literally never seen a driver tell someone to leave because their card won't scan or they don't have the money for it.

Which, when you think about it makes sense. The $1.75 or so they're 'losing' from the passenger not paying (the bus will be going that route anyway, regardless of whether they board or not) will be FAR exceeded by the cost of paying a bus driver to sit there with a bus out of commission for however long it takes cops to get there and force someone out, PLUS a literal bus full of now pissed off people who may be missing connections because some bus driver had a stick up his ass. It absolutely doesn't make sense unless the fare-evader in question is either a chronic problem causer or an immediate threat.

* trains/subways are a different matter, they have cops checking randomly onboard there to fine people

Wish framing were different. Not "innocent bystander", but a more specific version of "father of 3 on way home from a long day of work", or whatever.

Ahh yes clearly the only sensible solution to a man taking the tube ‘riding the subway’ without paying for a ticket is to pull out your Big Gun™️ and shoot him some poor fucking random guy in the head fuck my life bro holy shit

was shot

We need to rename "passive voice" to "police voice".

"executed by state personel without trial or due process" is more accurate. We should just call police "government agents" .

ACAB

fucking apparently ACABS (all cops are bad shots - fucking stormtrooper arse muthafuckas over here)

In before the fare-evader is charged with murder

Of course, through transitive properties the fare dodger shot the gun <- us legal system

New York police have defended their actions after a bystander was shot in the head

This.

This is the problem already. Instead of "something happened, the officers in charge are temporarily on hold until we have fully investigated this incident" it's immediately defending the indefensible.

I'm all for unions but fuck the police union with an umbrella. Defending workers rights is great but this is defending psychopaths, defending no and bad training, defending violence, defending an abusive system that by now has killed thousands over decades.

STIO DEFENDING THIS SHIT

At this point I feel more threatened by cops than I do by whatever they're supposed to be "protecting us" from.

A corrupt-mayor-hiding-body-cam-video-evidence says what?

Also: "New York authorities have made reducing crime on the subway and buses a top priority following a series of violent attacks, robberies and murders. A crackdown on fare evasion is part of that push."

One of these things is not like the others.

They died as a hero in the war against fare evasion.

They also shot each other. Previously I would have been like maybe they should be better at conflict de-escalation and equipped with more efficient non lethal weapons (apparently multiple shots from their tasers did not work). Now I am down to more basic training, like maybe they should get better gun range training accounting for close quarters situations with bystanders?

Shooting bystanders is particularly an NYPD issue. To stop so many negligent discharges they mandated an 11lb trigger pull weight, this is about double the pull weight of normal pistols. This makes if significantly harder to shoot accurately without intense training that cops also don't get.

I watch a lot of high speed police chase videos, kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's fascinating stuff. One thing I've noticed is that while the State Troopers seem to have a higher level of training, when approaching a vehicle local PD will often just run up on all sides with guns out. So, you hear a lot of "watch the crossfire!" from the troopers. On the side of the road bystanders are rarely a hazard, but the same lack of positioning would surely be a hazard to bystanders in different circumstances. So yes i definitely I agree that police officers need more situational awareness training before they can use lethal force- especially in somewhere as packed as a subway station.

More training won't help. US cops are trained to aggressively protect their own, individual safety above all else, and are trained specifically that everyone and everything is a threat to them. The result is they're terrified of everything and everyone, and are encouraged to shoot first.