[lbo-talk] Shot dead in London

[andie nachgeborenen]

In US law there is a rule in cases like this called
qualified immunity -- essentially it says that if the
officer was wrong, but reasonably so, he cannot be
held civilly liable for violations of constitutional
rights (like deprivation of life without due process).
The cops get a lot more slack than I'd like on matters
like this, but you see the point of the rule, what to
do in situations like that often involves
split-decision guesses where lives (the cops', the
victim's, other people's) are at stake, and it's hard
to put the courts in the poistion of second guessing
what the cops should have done. I have lots of friends
who make a living collecting from the city on police
misconduct cases, so it can be done.

--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:


> > ok, then what about the fact that ...
> 
> Where are you going with this?  Are you
> second-guessing this guy?  Ok, 
> whatever: I bet he wants the decision back to make
> it over again.  But 
> in the mean time, what purpose is this line of
> thinking serving?  Is it 
> so difficult to believe that through a series of
> mistakes (some 
> forgivable, some not) these guys got themselves into
> a position where 
> one of them made a decision that this guy was the
> kind of threat he'd 
> been cleared to kill?
> 
> I guess for you it is.
> 
> > why did they not stop him from boarding the bus?
> 
> We've already established that these guys made
> mistakes.  What more do 
> you want?  There's my answer: they let him board the
> bus because 
> someone made a decision that, in hindsight, might
> not have been the 
> right answer.  Usually they let people go in
> situations like this 
> because they think the rewards -- usually having the
> tailed take them 
> someplace that increases the value of the tail --
> outweigh the risks.
> 
> How about this: maybe they didn't think he was a
> suicide bomber until 
> he ran?  Unfortunately, when two people aren't
> talking and each are 
> reacting to the other's hidden motives, the
> probability that they are 
> both wrong goes way up.
> 
> /jordan 
> 
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