I originally posted this as a reply to a comment that Tarheel Dem made on Booman’s recent post A Federal Response to Police Violence. On further consideration, I am now posting it here as a standalone article.
==================
Tarheel Dem asks; I answer:
Is this the moment when the Wall Street media look into the abyss or not?
Not.
Bet on it.
Not the abyss of which you speak, anyway.
This occurrence will only add to the geometric progression of violence in the U.S. that has been fueled by militarily-supported economic imperialism both abroad and domestically. The main job of the so-called justice system here in the U.S. is to maintain order by force in the ghettos in which we keep the low wage earners. End of story. Every ghetto is now a potential Fallujah, and both the controllers and their hired domestic military…the police…know it. They cannot fall back. There is nowhere available for retreat.
This society is coming apart at the seams.
Read on for more.
The fondest dreams of Osama bin Laden are now coming true. So-called “ordinary” citizens have quite plainly seen that terrorist actions work very well to destabilize countries and societies. They don’t need to go to the Middle East to train; they just have to pick up the gun(s) that they own…often guns that they have owned for a long time and if not, available on any bad street in any bad ghetto of the U.S., so stop dreaming about “gun control”…step out of their dwelling prepared to die and start shooting.
This particular snowball is running ever faster downhill, Tarheel, and neither gun control (the left’s so-called solution) nor increased police action (the right’s version) is going to stop it. The old saying “A snowball’s chance in hell” doesn’t seem to pertain in the hellish ghettos of the mind.
Watch.
Only real justice…not currently represented on either side of the dominant centrist political spectrum of the U.S…will slow this snowball.
Buckle up…the rough ride is only going to continue no matter which side of the aisle is in real control, and it will get even faster if neither side dominates.
Watch.
AG
P.S. Do you know the real secret to survival?
Surviving.
By any means necessary.
The ancestors of almost all here who were not shipped over as slaves came to the U.S. to escape the same sort of escalating violence…war, poverty, pestilence, hunger, the whole lot…that we are now witnessing in the U.S.
Now? Now there is nowhere to go that’s even a halfway good bet.
I got yer “globalism,” right here!!!
Watch.
We are all up against that particular wall.
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters?
Riiiiiight….
Frenzied cries of “NAYSAYER!!!???”
Feel free.
I call it like I see it.
Scylla and Charybdis.
The current version thereof.
AG
And you do know what happened to Odysseus’s ship, right?
Riiiight.
All hands lost.
Except of course for the boss.
The bosses always seem to survive.
AG
Scylla and Charybdis. Very apt.
Hillary’s Campaign Song?
History: US Marine, a Veteran of Vietnam War in UT Tower shootings – 1966
From today’s diary – Dallas Horror City [Update].
Violence with all its “subsidiaries” is a very lucrative business. If one takes the logic for enough, this perverted form of capitalism destroys itself.
Indeed.
We have never in human history experienced a society so bombarded by instantly accessed sources that tend to define a culture in a moral…or immoral…sense. If it breaks down, maybe somebody will learn from this.
Right now we have many so-called leaders saying essentially “Do as I say, not what the media tell you others are doing.” But the media are on people like flies on a discarded ice cream cone, while the “leaders” just appear once a day or so with their weighty pronouncements….many of which those leaders do not honor with their own actions.
How HRC can preach “equality” while simultaneously supporting vicious wars…almost all of which are murderously fought in the lands of brownish people…and get away with it is beyond me. How she can appear on the same stage with the architect of the Cambodian carpet bombing and not be dragged out on the street and beaten by her “supporters” is even more beyond me.
I think people are beginning to catch up to this cultural dissonance. Of course…that will eventually produce a dissonance of a different sort.
Remember Watts, burning?
Detroit?
Newark?
Watch.
AG
Many battle wounds are not visible. Often they result in violence to self, other times as violence to others. Uncle Sam taught this man a useful skill and now is surprised that he uses it.
Another sad case from that long history
In the early 1990s, there were a number of books along the general theme of “when society becomes an addict”.
The current political situation seems destined to inspire a flurry of books on the general theme of “when society as a whole develops post-traumatic stress disorder”.
Failure to be honest about 9/11 and the subsequent history since then has made the “common sense” of the US electoral schizophrenic as one party sought the elusive goal of a permanent majority. That schizophrenia has provided an opening to a police state ruled by a narcissist or an imperial military empire ruled by a dysfunctional elite. It is sad when dysfunctional oligarchy looks like the optimal solution.
In further meetings, the Democratic Platform Committee is pressing hard the dysfunctional aspect on campaign-aligned votes. Not smart at all. It puts off the day of reckoning and thus makes the consequences for ordinary people that much more severe and the consequences for society that much more catastrophic.
The march of folly continues.
From the news feed:
Seems to me downtown Dallas has been a crime scene since 1963. Also, now, with execution by drone.
Wasn’t a drone but a robot with a claymore style explosive device attached to its expendable arm. Much easier to control and direct with very little ability for the shooter to fight back.
I used similar robots while assigned to the US Army bomb squad.
It is a drone in the sense that the person whom pressed the button did the killing; just like the ones the DoD and CIA use. Will the Dallas PD release that officer’s name? Will he be placed on administrative leave on full pay until the investigation of the legality of the ‘shoot’ is performed? It is just like a sniper at a hostage stand-off except there were no hostages. Is this how we roll now?
From a commenter at Balloon Juice:
And another from the same commenter:
Those seem pretty substantial arguments to me.
For further discussion:
Would you describe the killing of the suspect as extrajudicial? What was the immediate threat to officers at the moment of detonation that justified deadly force? Were they just pissed off? Their public statements seem to betray emotional bias and mild incompetence during the entire course of the incident. Are we to assume that their decision making suddenly was sound and professional at the point the kill order was given? Did they even ask a lawyer?
No actually the two are very different.
The robot has to be close enough so the shooter can see it. Most probably the police tried to warn him. The reason in this case is the same as the reason I used it, far too dangerous for a human being to approach the dangerous situation, and using the robot limits the human danger to the person trying to resolve a very dangerous situation.
In my case an unexploded usually home made device, in this case a human being how had just murdered 5 human beings shot nine others (seven police two civilians) and was threatening more attacks, and refusing to stand down.
A drone is almost never seen just the explosion from the missile it fired. And in this case inappropriate to resolve the situation with out much collateral damage to the surrounding infrastructure.
Conflating the two for some political point doesn’t make the two the same.
Human being safely presses a button and kills another human being; no arrest, no Miranda, no trial, no due process. Please explain the difference to me again, I’m not seeing it. Seems to me every one wants to sit comfortably behind a barrier of semantics and syntax on this topic, my emphasis:
“No other option?” “…for it to detonate?” Yeah, right, the robot did it. They executed the suspect, wouldn’t you agree? That’s what drones do.
Kinda because the person using the AK-47 to murder people refused to stop and surrender. he also was claiming he had bombs planted, and they found bomb making materials in his mothers house where he lived.
Sorry but you won’t get me to feel sorry for him after he ambushed so many people destroying lives and causing so much carnage.
No they stopped him from further killing after trying for hours to get him to surrender.
HE EXECUTED FIVE PEOPLE. whom happened to be police officers doing their jobs.
HE viciously attacked 14 others.
This isn’t about feeling sorry for him. Really it is not. In fact, bringing sentimentality and tribal affiliations into it is a big part of the problem. Just one big reality TV show for some people. Emotion is exactly the problem.
How many hours of refusing to surrender equals a death sentence, do you suppose? Does it vary from city to city? Is ten minutes too short but three hours OK? Sheesh.
Shooting many people in cold blood, barricading your self and claiming you have explosive devices and want to kill MORE people, how long do they allow him to keep his rampage going not knowing what he was actually capable of doing, and knowing what he had already done.
Sorry but the police were correct stopping him like they did in this case. He could have surrendered, but refused knowing how much lethal force he had already used.
It isn’t the time but what he had already done, and the threats of bombs he made and the continued threats to kill more.
He was given the ability to surrender and stop his rampage but he doubled down, and they didn’t know what he was fully capable of.
Call me old fashioned but the threats you are using to frame the context of this suspect’s execution by the police seems to me exactly the kind of thing that used to be submitted as evidence at an actual trial. Or at least at an inquest into a legally justified shooting. Not just what you heard on CNN overnight.
Everything you have cited beyond the actual casualties came from an obviously frazzled police department in real time; they said plenty of other things that night that proved to be completely false. It seems you are seeking to buttress an emotional position, exactly what I suspect the Dallas PD did when they made the choice to kill this guy rather than apprehend him.
The COULDN’T apprehend him with out putting more police officers lives on the line. And assault against a well dug in person isn’t very easy if they have properly set up their improvised bunker.
Are you OK with more police getting shot and possibly killed because he refused to surrender after he killed five people, just to have a trial?
I am not.
I have enough military experience to know the difficulty of taking him down for arrest if he refused to surrender, given he has barricaded himself in.
Sorry but he chose to murder people then refuse to surrender by barricading himself in. No more police lives need to be put on the line just for a trial given this situation. They aren’t cannon fodder just so he can have a trial.
Disagree if you will, but their lives count too.
Does it not even occur to you that are a number of non-lethal ways to have apprehended this suspect? You are really scaring me. If your attitude represents the majority view then it is trial by cable, death by cop all the way down from here on out.
No, not if he was determined to not be apprehended.
Remember there bare other times where an individual refuses to surrender and force the police to use lethal force to stop what ever they are doing, they even have a name for it;
suicide by cop.
Here is where I am that you don’t seem to be;
He murdered 5 police officers in TEXAS.
He grew up in TEXAS, and knew how they dealt with murders let alone those who kill police.
His best case scenario, was surrender, get a trail and end up in Huntsville prison on death row. He had to know that was the best outcome when he drove to central Dallas and started shooting at the police. His aim was to kill as many as he could.
Do you think he was angling for a trial?
trail… trial
This isn’t about him or his motivations. It is about the rule of law that governs all of us, such as it is.
One of these days a robot might be trundling up your driveway to serve a warrant from a pay-day lender. Or whomever.
But it is directly about his motivations at the time he refused to surrender, and they decided they had to use lethal force to stop him.
Both the police chief, mayor and most probably the FBI were involved in the decision.
It is about the rule of LAW, and his blatant disregard for it and the results of his actions.
You don’t see it but his actions were those of a person at war. he indiscriminately fired upon people he saw as the enemy. Exactly what a soldier is trained to do on th battle field.
He coldbloodedly executed the first police officer he shot. He use a weapon of the battle field exactly for what it was designed to do, kill as many people as he could in a combat style scenario.
Those are his actions showing his motivations. What make you think he changed after getting trapped in the parking garage.
As for your last line very long stretch there.
Long way from mass murder to a debt.
The slippery slope:
It should be noted that Utah is the only state where this information is even made available to the public. Just sayin’.
Drug warrant, most drug dealers have guns and use them.
Probably not a gun but being careful isn’t always a bad thing.
BTW the warrant isn’t a claymore is it?
“It is about the rule of LAW…” You know who needs to follow that rule first and foremost? The authorities.
They did.
he didn’t
…And while this is not the start of “killer robots” taking human lives, it is another example of governments using technology to exert lethal force at a distance. This is a debate we’ve started with military drones and their use in foreign countries. Now, the conversation is domestic as well.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/8/12129348/dallas-shooting-bomb-robot
As tech advances so will its usage, nothing we can do will change that.
But this is not a drone, it’s a platform that was developed to allow less exposure to dangerous situations for people, and I have used it in such situation with IED’s here in the USA.
The usage by the police comes from the military doing a very similar thing in urban combat, which was the situation the shooter essentially created with his actions. To expect them not to utilize the same techniques when faced with a very similar situation, isn’t realistic.
The line when to use this tech as they did isn’t to be crossed lightly, but might have to be crossed from time to time. A gun could as easily be attached and used in a hostage situation when a sniper couldn’t safely get a clean shot.
It’s not the tech but decision when to authorize and use lethal force to end a very dangerous situation, that hasn’t changed. It still will be an executive decision.
Enjoyed the discussion but I’m not buying any of this. We are witnessing the dawning of a new period in American criminal justice and it is not nice. I was always more concerned about institutional aggrandisement of the prerogatives of the state than any threat posed by foreign terrorists and those concerns seem to have been justified over time. Most of our debate on this subject seems grounded in national insecurity, not personal or social confidence. We have lost our belief in ourselves because we’ve been hectored about doom for so long, perhaps. All very regrettable and vulgar.
That’s why the US had a f*cked-up period of 8 years under George Bush of the Texas Rangers. GWB signed away the execution orders of criminals as if he were god almighty. Obama signs the CIA executions orders by drone strikes in much of a similar fashion. Even the f*cked-up pilots flying the drones have troubles with PTSD.
In the Old West a suspect got his day in court (local bar) before the hanging. In contemporary Texas as well in many states, it’s the might of the gun that decides who lives and who dies. Just review the past few years: Trevor Martin, and a long series of executions by civilians and cops.
We have always loved our guns
Guns freed us, fed us, protected us from the dangers of the frontier, and served us in war. In an unsettled land where every man was on his own, they became the ultimate talisman of personal security. The result today is more than three hundred million guns in private hands and individual gun rights–despite thirty thousand deaths a year and the ceaseless run of mass shootings in schools, theaters, and churches–steadily affirmed and expanded by legislatures and courts.
○ Texas Town Makes Gun Ownership The Law, Sort Of
Have to say blowing up a suspect with a robot seems a quantitative leap into a place I don’t want to see us go.
Of course, I am still wondering how we got the the place of giving police permission to shoot fleeing unarmed suspects in the back and kill them.
When a suspect is firing an AK-47 at police from a hardened bunker position what ever it takes to save the lives of innocent civilians and the police from a murderous individual including ex[plosive anti personal claymores is acceptable to me.
That scenario is totally different than the second part of your comment. Also a totally different situation than the Dallas Police faced in that parking garage.
THIS is why the public rejects the Left.
NO just law enforcement officers trying to stop a killer from killing more people.
The simple face he had cold bloodied shot 14 people killing five and was threatening more carnage refusing to stop.
Yes, they found a way to stop a mass murderer with no loss of innocent or police life.
Most probably but the fact he murdered five human beings, and was threatening more, allowed the use of lethal force.
You may not like it, however in this case the police were right in what they had to do. Stop a man who had shown his murderous intent, and refused to surrender.
I think we have a fundamentally different understanding of how the criminal justice system is intended to function. Would you agree, then, that he was executed? Because from your response he was apparently already convicted and sentenced.
NO he refused to surrender, and kept telling them he was going to kill more.
Sorry but if you do that you hand the authorities the right to use lethal force to stop your murderous rampage.
That’s what the Dallas PD said he said, along with snipers on rooftops, at least four attackers, suspects with camouflage carry-alls not to mention a widely circulated photo of a person of interest (suspect to most media outlets) whom happened to be marching innocently at the rally and whom Twitter went crazy trying to protect from death by mistaken identity. So case closed for you?
As far as the individual who was shooting people and holed up in the parking garage, YES.
Did others help him in some way I don’t know, however that is why the Dallas police and FBI will be investigating, The FBI are allowed because this is a mass shooting.
Many things you quote have been cleared up but in the fog of battle many hard to discern facts seem to come along, given time AFTER the situation is resolved the truth can be assessed, which they are doing.
One shooter, however in an urban environment where sounds echo, one shooter can sound like many more from people at different locations, especially using a semiautomatic weapon firing rapid fire.
Been there done that in battle, very hard to get all the facts as bullets are flying.
The subjects with camouflage carry ons have been cleared with in less than 24 hours.
The person whose photo was distributed was cleared with in several hours when other video and photos showed he wasn’t the shooter. BTW he did the responsible thing both surrendering his weapon, something he didn’t have to do, but was smart doing given the situation, and turned himself in so he could clear his name with the police.
The shooter was the only person who the police had to use lethal force to get cooperation every one else cooperated and were cleared.
As far as him, I have NO PROBLEM with how he was handled given his actions. The Dallas Police did a good job sorting out the facts and stopping the rampage.
Seems the only person they had to use force against was a murderous individual.
The Dallas PD spent hours operating in a tactical situation made more difficult by their own mistaken assumptions and emotionally biased conclusions. That the shooters were on rooftops, that there were multiple shooters, that there was a conspiracy… These all adversely affected the ability of officers to respond effectively and raised the difficulty of a professional outcome. How their muddled and contradictory statements seem a death warrant to you puzzles me.
Where was the SWAT team? Why did so many officers storm into a tactically exposed position on the street just as the perpetrator apparently expected? You don’t see a problem here?
Who do you think was running the tactical situation?
they had the blueprints of the building, know where he was barricaded, and looked at avenues of approach, his sight lines ability to fire on approaching officers, and decided they couldn’t take him down with out more causalities.
How do I know this?
Exact same training I had taking down a barricaded sniper in combat training. If the shooter had a good bunker, nothing less than overwhelming force was going to work. In combat we usually use a 40 mm grenade launcher to breach the bunker, and if the sniper survives assault them. In this case they couldn’t get to him, most probably decided using a grenade wasn’t going to be any different them the robot.
If you try to assault with no prep, the shooter/sniper can take off as many as he can fire upon during the assault phase. Given the length of that garage that could very well mean 4-6 individuals. He was firing Warsaw 7.62 rounds that will penetrate police ballistic armor. His national guard uniform shows at least a sharpshooter badge, meaning he has better than normal rifler marksmanship. Not something I would suggest assaulting with a SWAT squad, if alternative exist to keep more police lives out of danger.
To me the robot makes sense given all the facts.
You were trained as a soldier whose job is to murder people, not as a cop. You are assuming the perpetrator was an enemy combatant, not a citizen. This is a good illustration of exactly the problem here. Do you even understand the distinction? A citizen is different than an enemy combatant in a declared war.
You are being as emotional, and confounding as badly your military training with policing, as it seems the Dallas PD were when they made the decision to frag the guy.
O agree. It is one hell of a slippery slope…
System justification is NOT a constructive reaction, imo. It’s too reflexive and not reflective.
That is why we pay police chiefs, and mayors to make those decisions. Sometimes they are necessary, in this case I don’t disagree with them.
NO I am using the tactical situation of trying to apprehend a person barricaded who is using lethal force to kill as many of the people outside his position as he can. The physical situation of a barricaded individual is the same. The police had choices but to minimize their casualties they decided top use lethal force to stop him.
He is a citizen who is shooting at th3e police hitting 12 police officers 2 civilians and wanting to kill more.
That alone justifies lethal force.
Nothing emotional about it. He was trying to continue the mission he gave himself of murdering police officers and they stopped him when he wouldn’t stop and surrender.
BTW they didn’t frag the guy, the used a claymore mine in a remote detonation to stop him from further blood shed. Sorry he didn’t get his trial and stay in Huntsville prison on death row, but he made choices that put him in the situation he was last night.
Now imagine this took place in Germany…
I spent 3 years assigned in Germany, their police carry Uzis and shoot much faster then our usually do when faced with situations like this.
The Polizei do not play at all, they would not have hesitated if faced with a mass murderer who barricaded himself while still trying to kill more..
And do you think they would have sent in a robot to dispatch him in cold blood?
Quicker then the b police in Dallas did. They have dealt with the Red Army factions attacks including assassinated a sitting supreme court judge, in 1977 , 1972 Munich Olympic attacks, and many more terrorist attacks than we have faced over the years.
Somebody walking around with an AK-47 shooting Polizei?
Sorry but that is a certain route to the morgue in Germany.
Use of robot/equipment in barricade situation to arrest subject:
http://www.policemag.com/channel/swat/articles/2011/08/the-jericho-solution.aspx
That was a one story house not a six+ story parking garage, which most probably neither the BearCat nor front loader would fit in. Overhead clearance.
In step with the other fascist state called by HRC as our most coveted ally …
○ Jewish Groups Pay to Send U.S. Police to Train in Israel | Times of Israel |
Previously for the Iraq occupational forces, the US Army used the urban warfare training center of the IDF special forces in Israel’s Negev desert.
○ U.S. military personnel have trained in the Negev desert at Israel’s Adam counter insurgency urban warfare training facility
○ Israeli Involvement in the Occupation of Iraq
Excellent diaries @BooMan, from the archive search ‘Jenin’ …
○ Rogue State: Israel and UN Resolutions by Sirocco on July 28th 2006
○ IDEALS — Rachel Corrie in London Play by Oui on April 22nd 2005
Note: Interesting bit at end of diary:
“Sometimes mentioning Rachel Corrie can get you in deep trouble at dKos — Rachel Corrie and dKos temperament
HRC is so anachronist – outdated with ideals – and so pro-establishment. The Revolution on Inequality will come sooner than later!
…to kill other people. Didn’t mean to imply killing in war was extrajudicial.
War by definition is extra judicial.
What a utter bs – you never hears of the Nuremberg trials? Perhaps in modern day, the ICC here in The Hague?
Problem with the US and sole superpower in a unipolar world, acting with impunity will raise a lot of hell across the globe and rightly so! Same for police officers working the Streets with impunity. The repercussions about to spread will increase the stakes of violence of police with the citizens they vow to protect.
Similar asshole as Roorda, a St.Louis police union spokesperson in the media after the Dallas shooting.
In active combat everything is extra judicial, I know I have been there. Each soldier makes the determination for themselves, and acts accordingly Always been that way and as long as human being continue to use war as a means of forcing their will on others noting will change in th heat of battle..
So you are saying we brought the war home to stay? Welcome to Baghdad. It didn’t have to be this way, you know.
It’s a first. Was no other alternative, like concussion grenade, gas, discussed? Possible?
Killer robot used by Dallas police opens ethical debate
http://www.koaa.com/story/32403855/the-killer-robot-used-by-dallas-police-appears-to-be-a-first
Probably not, the concussion grenade was probably tried, failed. Gas is not applicable if he was prepared for it, IE gas mask, every soldier is trained to use.
A well prepared barricaded individual can take away many normal police tactics, and make the escalation to stop their rampage necessary. His military training would have given him much of the knowledge he needed and the right questions to ask when he prepared for this.
Wait until we see the video from the first killer drone success in the USA.
People pretty much fear death from the sky. So say reports from our various killing grounds in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen… all illegal.