Dallas police Officer fatally shoots a black man in an apartment she thought was hers

[Platapus]

If a common subject were to enter someone else's apartment and shoot them, would the police allow them to go home? Most likely not.

People are getting tired of the double standard, especially when it comes to killing people.

I know that all I expect is simple personal accountability for poor decisions.

I wonder how long will it take for this police office to claim that the apartment resident "aggressively" opened his door and that the police officer was "in fear of her life"?

That seems to be the get out of jail card of choice.

[Jimbuna]

Good grief!!

[Eichhörnchen]

Bugger!!

[Cybermat47]

... Christ.

The fact that he’s dead makes me think that the officer might have had a shoot first mentality. Not exactly what you want in a Policeman.

[Sean C]

Amber Guyger, whom authorities say fatally shot a black man last week...

Hall said the officer, who is white, shot the black man after mistakenly entering his apartment...

Why does the media feel the need to mention race in this situation? What purpose does it serve? Is it really relevant to what happened?


Frankly, it seems silly to me. They might as well write something like: "The officer, who is left-handed, shot the bilingual man after mistakenly entering his apartment..."


I think there is a reason they're doing it, though. Just not a good one.

[GoldenRivet]

not making excuses

but i’m sure, after a 12 hour shift, her fatigued mental state played a role in eroding her situational awareness and decision making.

i agree she should be jailed in the very least for manslaughter perhaps.

unfortunate situation

i know i have certainly got off on the wrong floor and walked “on autopilot” to a hotel room or apartment that i thought was my own. more than once in my lifetime.

it’s possible this is exactly what happened to her. she fumbled with her keys assuming she inserted the wrong key in the door, suddenly it opens and there’s a strange man in your home... i’m almost always armed, but i would not have drawn a firearm on the guy straight away.

EDIT:

i love how the media plays the race card here. and in many similar reports. the race of the officer and the victim are irrelevant.

blacks shoot blacks more than anyone else shoots them... yet you never hear “black man shoots unarmed black man.” instead you hear “one shot in tragic drive by shooting in low income neighborhood”

[GoldenRivet]

the officer has been arrested and charged with manslaughter

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

i know i have certainly got off on the wrong floor and walked “on autopilot” to a hotel room or apartment that i thought was my own. more than once in my lifetime.

it’s possible this is exactly what happened to her. she fumbled with her keys assuming she inserted the wrong key in the door, suddenly it opens and there’s a strange man in your home... i’m almost always armed, but i would not have drawn a firearm on the guy straight away.

Me either, and I think that's simply because we are men and we're not prone to instant fear of physical conflict the way most women are. I open the door and there's a strange dude standing there, I might freak out but I don't think my first reaction would be to put two in the heart without a moment's hesitation. I think I would say Hey man, who are you? What are you doing here?

I think there is something else here going on, this whole set up sounds fishy.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Nathaniel B.

Why does the media feel the need to mention race in this situation? What purpose does it serve? Is it really relevant to what happened?


Frankly, it seems silly to me. They might as well write something like: "The officer, who is left-handed, shot the bilingual man after mistakenly entering his apartment..."


I think there is a reason they're doing it, though. Just not a good one.

When the police start shooting people because they are bilingual, I am sure the press will start reporting that.

Besides, when a Black person commits a crime and the press does not report the race, the press is accused of covering such things up.

[vienna]

It used to be a very common practice, almost a journalistic standard, to include the race of a person in the course of a news report; this was most common in print news, e.g., daily newspapers and wasn't really even considered unusual at all. I recall, growing up in San Francisco, how you could read about some incident and the papers would print something like "Mr. Bob Jones, Colored, was involved in an automobile accident yesterday." or "Miss Jane Wong, Oriental, had her purse snatched." Interestingly, given that SF had very large populations of Irish and Italians, I don't recall news reports of persons of those races or nationalities having their race/nationality specified or, at most, they would be lumped under the specification, "White", along with other subcategories not Asian, African_American, etc. The specification of race or ethnicity as a matter of course faded out in the early 60s as the Civil Rights movement grew in the US. I do recall one situation involving an observation by an African-American friend of mine: when the news stopped the racial specifications, he was pleased since he said if a 'Bob Jones' was in the news, it would be neutral and not possibly reflect badly on his race as whole; he then began to fume over the Black Liberationists who adopted African names instead of their birth names; as my friend said at the time "You might not know if 'Bob Jones' is Black or White, but you sure as hell have a good idea what race "M'Butu Kawami" might be..."...

BTW, some of the detail in news reportage may seem odd to some people, like the need to put a persons age in a report where it isn't relevant or giving a person's full name, middle name included; it used to seem odd to me, but several decades ago, I raised the question with an acquaintance who was a news reporter and he told me a lot of that detail is CYA by the news organizations. If they report a crime or otherwise potentially embarrassing occurrence, particularly if there is even the most remote possibility of mistaken identity, the more specific the report is the less chance some poor soul with the same name will be painted with the same brush as the suspect/offender and the lees chance the news organization will face suits for defamation, libel, etc. ...














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