Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:58 pm

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my hometown of Irving (which is about 2/3 the size of Wichita) could measure up looking positively rosy by comparison. The last time Irving Police were in the news looking like assholes was when they arrested Clock Boy but even then, they managed not to shoot anybody.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Lindvaettr » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:10 am

Kansas has barely had any tax income since 2012, so it wouldn't surprise me if the police funding might be low. If there is any kind of general undertraining, it's not surprising for a state that's been struggling for years.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:14 am

Yeah, all that millionaire tax break money is supposed to be trickling down any day now!
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Absentia » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:35 am

DoglovingJim wrote:
Barriss was arrested in California in 2015 for allegedly making bomb threats to a television station in Glenadale, and was charged with two felony counts of false report of a bomb and one felony count of criminal threats. He was convicted in 2016 and sent to prison for two years and was released in January according to court documents, the Associated Press reported.


Looks like the prank caller is a repeat offender of scumbagness, hopefully for causing the death of this man he can be charged at least with some degree of manslaughter.


Based on my understanding of the facts he could easily be charged with "depraved heart" murder and face 25 years in prison.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:25 am

I wouldn't bet on that, since "intent" is a major factor in pretty much any kind of murder indictment. As I understand the law, in order to use the word "murder," they have to have meant to kill somebody. Since it's not really reasonable to assume that the cops would show up and actually KILL people, I highly doubt he's going to face any kind of crime involving the words homicide, manslaughter, or murder.

Bottom line is, even the dumbest defense lawyer could convince the most cynical of juries that he didn't commit this crime with any real intent for someone to get injured or killed, just total carelessness in regards to the possibility of it. Since he pulled this nonsense from another state, that makes it a federal issue and federal charges tend to be more burdensome than state prosecutions. That's why "don't make a federal case of it" became a saying - because it's serious shit when you piss off Da Feds. Just ask my ex, who got 19 years in prison for posting pictures online. Had he actually raped this same girl and beaten her within an inch of her life, it would have been a "state crime" and as such, he'd probably be out already. Our legal system can be wildly inconsistent, that's for sure! I'm also sure this guy is going to (somehow) pay dearly for his part in this fuckeroo.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Absentia » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:16 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder

In United States law, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is a type of murder where an individual acts with a "depraved indifference" to human life and where such act results in a death, despite that individual not explicitly intending to kill. In a depraved-heart murder, defendants commit an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to a person. If the risk of death or bodily harm is great enough, ignoring it demonstrates a "depraved indifference" to human life and the resulting death is considered to have been committed with malice aforethought.


If the defendant knew that swatting somebody created a high risk of injury or death and did it anyway, that's depraved indifference, which in most states (not sure about Kansas specifically) is charged as second-degree murder.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:28 am

From what I've read, it seems like he'd easily wriggle out of that charge on account of most people not actually believing the cops would literally show up shooting. That seems to be the crux of the "depraved indifference" charge - would the average person have cause to believe that this action stood a good chance of causing someone to die? If the answer is "probably not," then most juries would likely either acquit or deadlock on that charge.

For actual, sitting-in-prison justice in this case, my money is on federal charges. He used a public utility (the phone) to deceive and manipulate another public resource (the cops) from across state lines. I predict a plea bargain getting him 5-10 years in (unreported) exchange for the feds not going creatively nuts just to see what they can make stick.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Absentia » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:41 am

I don't think it's that big of a stretch to say that having police show up at somebody's house looking for a dangerous gunman carries a high risk of death. I can't guarantee that a jury would convict on it, but it's a sustainable charge.

I do agree that a plea bargain for something much lower is the most likely outcome.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Kate » Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:35 am

Wayyyy earlier Lind asked why people don't comply with orders.

People were yelling at this dazed, unsuspecting man to put his hands up. And he got shot for putting his hands up, albeit quickly and after some fumbling.

Cops protect us. Their jobs are dangerous. Still, they need to be held to a higher standard than the people they protect and serve. They go into a situation:

Sober
Trained
Mentally fit, ostensibly
Physically fit
Prepared for confrontation

They are up against people who may be legally intoxicated, are entirely untrained in conflict situations, have unknown mental health status (lots of focus on race with police brutality, People with mental illness 16 times more likely to be killed by police that's a fun read and the title is self explanatory), physically unable to comply with certain orders, and especially in the case of innocent people, completely caught off guard.

There is no reasonable way to argue that the burden of responsibility here lies on untrained civilians to react perfectly to an extremely stressful event like this. Back when I was taking medication that made me prone to seizures, the lights on police cars gave me a seizure once while an officer was questioning me. I seemed hella shady because he couldn't get a clear answer from me because I was going into a seizure. And a cop can't possibly know that. Any and all non lethal means should be used first, not second, because no one can know how capable someone is of following orders perfectly under stress.

This isn't to say cops are evil. They put their lives on the line. They just want to get home to their families. But I do too. I want my husband to come home to me if he goes to the door at night to check on something while tired and confused. I love the man, but when he is exhausted he cannot follow what is going on.

It's frustrating for many reasons, but also because there is some evidence that de escalation training greatly reduces this. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/201 ... story.html


There was a story not too long ago about a cop who was disciplined for not shooting someone who was trying to suicide by cop. No one was hurt, the guy didn't pose a real threat in the first officer's opinion, but because an officer who arrived at the scene later thought he did, he shot the man and the officer originally at the scene was the one who got in trouble. That first officer was a military vet and there is a reason military vets who become cops tend not to shoot recklessly - they have extensive training in combat situations.

This lack of vital training hurts everyone. No police officer wants to go home to his wife and kids and say, "Today, I shot someone else's daddy." This is criminal and allowing it to continue is of no benefit to genuinely good men and women who put their lives on the line. And it's certainly of no benefit to little kids and widows and bereaved parents whose loved ones were slaughtered but who can get no justice because we set our standards higher for civilians than we do for the people who are supposed to protect them.

It is smart to comply and surely there are people who deliberately don't, but a lot of these people are doing their best and just cannot keep up with what is demanded of them for whatever reason.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Wed Jan 03, 2018 6:58 pm

Apparently, the Wichita Police are adding insult to injury by refusing to let the family see the body. This seems fishy, like they're trying to hide something.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby sunglasses » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:59 pm

They're probably waiting for the medical examiner what ever to finish with the body's post mortem. Normally there is only one for so many people and with the holidays just finishing there is probably a back log.

Once the ME has finished their examination, they'll sign off on the body being released to the funeral home of the family's choice.

It looks like in this case, there is a whole division but they service the whole county. Wichita's pop in 2016 was 389,902 and there are already 28 deaths listed today. Autopsies are time consuming when done properly, and run around 2-4 hours each but complicated or traumatic deaths can take longer to document all findings. Viewings are not allowed at most (if not all) coroner's/me's offices. While many places do try to release the body within 24-48 hours, this isn't always the case. In fact, Segwick county is one of the few websites that specifically do not list a return time, which leads me to believe that backlogs may be common there. But you can request a completed autopsy reported via email as its an open record so, email and see if its done if you wish.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:14 pm

I understand that there's a lot of work involved, but none of it is really any excuse to keep his family from visiting his body. What do they think his mother is going to do, plant evidence to frame the cops for... yeah, that's the part that doesn't make sense. I can absolutely understand their not letting anyone haul the body away, or even if they don't want to let anyone be alone with it, but not even letting anyone visit is just cold and dickish, even in the best case scenario.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Ladki96 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:45 pm

Who knows what goes on in a post-mortem? I mean, I don't, but I imagine it's quite yucky. I suppose it's kinder to not let families see the body in such cases, before they have finished their work and made it all better. Yep, definitely don't understand this stuff :P but I just feel like there has to be some reason for not allowing viewings other than just dickishness
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Lindvaettr » Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:48 pm

Obviously, I don't know the actual reasons for not allowing the family to view the body, but it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that they're simply following protocol. Without knowing how legal procedures work in this situation (or most situations, for that matter), it could very well be related to chain of evidence, or some other policy. If it is chain of evidence related, it doesn't matter if they do or don't trust the family, or if they do or don't want the family to see the body. The moment someone outside the immediate next step in the chain of evidence has any access to the evidence whatsoever, the chain is broken.

If it's not chain of evidence specifically, it could be a similar situation. For any unnatural cause of death, perhaps a coroner's report is necessary before the body can be accessed. Doing otherwise may violate some law or another, or may create further legal issues.

I could be entirely wrong, and they might have no good reason at all for not allowing the family to visit the body, but I wouldn't go so far as to call anyone "cold and dickish" until I know that there isn't some legitimate reason for not allowing it.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby SandTea » Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:45 pm

It is frustrating that the family can have their request denied because of policy but if they claimed a religious reason it would not be. Maybe they should grab an E-meter and sign up for scientology? I guess it does makes sense to me that religion often outweighs morality though.
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