Via The Atlantic, we have the story and video of the death of LaVoy Finicum, a member of the Bundy Gang who was killed by police at a roadblock on Tuesday. The FBI has released the 26-minute film of the incident:
The Atlantic’s description is accurate:
But there was a roadblock ahead. As Finicum neared the roadblock, made up of three trucks, he veered left, trying to get around them, but his truck lodged in a snowdrift. (The film shows Finicum nearly hitting an FBI agent.) Once again, police shouted commands to them. Finicum, 55, exited the car almost immediately, with his hands up, and started walking away from the officers. Then he reached for his pocket, at which point a Oregon trooper, from the trees away from the road, shot him.
“On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket. He did have a loaded 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun in that pocket,” said Greg Bretzing, the FBI agent in charge of Oregon. Bretzing praised officers for not shooting earlier, when Finicum tried to barrel through.
Finicum goes around the roadblock at 8:16, gets stuck in the snowdrift at 9:17, puts his hands up, and then reaches for his belt, where he had a gun. He’s shot down at 9:34, but only after reaching for his belt.
There’s no sign here that he was killed in cold blood. I don’t think the officers should have waited any longer to shoot him, as if he’d pulled the gun (and he knew how to use one), he could have started killing immediately. They waited a bit before rendering aid to Finicum, which seems callous until you realize that they were worried the other occupants of the truck might have started shooting.
As far as I can see, then, the police acted professionally, not precipitiously. Finicum should have kept his hands up, and he would have lived. But, as he said, he never intended to let them put him in jail.
He got what he wanted, martyrdom, and now he’s in redneck heaven with his 72 cousins.
But are they virgins?
cr
Instead of stopping the vehicle before the road block, or staying inside the vehicle after crashing, or keeping still with his hands up after exiting the vehicle, he decides to run towards the woods while groping for his burner. He’s lucky he wasn’t gunned down moments earlier while careening towards the FBI in his Murican-made pickup.
I watched the whole thing. You can’t say for certain but it’s possible that actions by the other occupants of the truck might have actually delayed possible life-saving help for Finicum.
I think so, at least in the sense that anyone approaching Finicum to help him would have been vulnerable to attack from those still in the vehicle.
I watched it all too, and I came to a similar conclusion. I wondered why they weren’t helping Finicum until I realized there were still people in the vehicle.
You can just imagine them egging each other on like teenagers to try and avoid the barriers and not be taken.
And that is exactly the point: these people have the intellectual and emotional development of children. They are narcissistic, have no self-awareness or capacity for introspection, and their thoughts, words and actions are a bundle of contradictions and hypocrisies. I spend the summer in a rural part of Upstate New York and am surrounded by people like this. These are people who stopped growing up after high school (assuming they finished high school).
It looked like his point was to move away from the vehicle to spare the occupants from the shooting he intended to initiate, and he was successful in that.
That seems plausible, given his stated mindset before the chase.
Also, it seems a plausible motivation for his throwing his hands up high when exiting the vehicle might have been:
1. To make sure he’d gotten far enough from the vehicle to initiate a shoot out where his compatriots weren’t in the line of fire.
2. An attempt to look more like an innocent martyr for the movement – i.e. by throwing up his hands to begin with, those on his side would be able to say “He had his hands up and they killed him!” (And perhaps, he’d be aware his martyrdom would be recorded, and he wanted to look as innocent in death as possible). This type of forethought doesn’t seem implausible, given his motivations and the fact he already showed he’d thought about such an end to his life.
Life imitates art , sort of. Apparently he wrote a book that ends with the hero in a shootout or some such.
Whatever you do, do NOT read that book. I did. I have sacrificed myself for the rest of you. Started off badly: “Dedicated to God. The Author of Liberty.” Downhill from there. What you would expect, if you’ve followed the news the last few weeks. But, it is free for Kindle at Amazon. The website of his “publisher”, Legends Library, at http://www.legendslibrary.org, interestingly enough expired on 1/24/16.
Yeah, maybe Finicum was moving away from the vehicle in an effort to keep his compatriots out of the line of fire. But I wonder why, if he had any concern for his compatriots’ safety, he had them in his vehicle in the first place — why, in particular, there were two unarmed women in the vehicle, one of whom is just 18 years old.
Human shields. If it’s good for Saddam and ISIS, it’s good for wingnuts.
Or equally likely, just chance and the way things turned out.
We tend to assume these things are all calculated and intentional. I think they’re often just the result of spur-of-the-moment decisions.
Not that I’m looking to exonerate Finicum, he doesn’t need exonerating, he’s dead.
cr
An alternative interpretation is that he wanted to widen the field of attack on the officers, and try to construct a killing ground of cross – fire behind the crashed vehicle.
I saw a person with a long device (non-perjorative) come from the woods, closing off the potential escape routes. That required pre – placement of personnel. That officer (presumed) had backup, for sure.
It’s terrible that plastic soldiers (is GIJoe a plastic toy) who attempt military tactics, have to face professionals who have read Sun Tzu, possibly played Go, and PRACTICED these things.
An idiot expected to be met by other idiots who trained in Hollywood. Predictable result.
I’m trying to remember the Mediaeval Japanese for the play. I thing it’s a “snap-back”, but the Japanese escapes me.
He died for not recognising a millennium – old trap. Boo. Hoo.
@ gravelinspector-Aidan
You mention go (which amazes me) – on the go board the term for snapback is utte-gaeshi or uttegai.
Yeah, I think he was trying to penetrate into the “police territory”, expecting his fellows to also dismount left and right, to secure a connection to their escape route. A stairway of hane so they can get the police roadblock into a crossfire.
Must have been bad news when they discovered there was a hidden “wall” of armed “police” (soldiers, etc) in the woods.
Unlike Go, Life is not a game of perfect knowledge.
sub
still this whole group where treated with kid gloves even here by not assaulting the building with police with the riot gear and or other possible methods, The police did not even fire on the vehicle after it stopped. I can not image that Black America would be treated so kindly!
This whole group was handled well because law enforcement has learned from their past mistakes.
Actually, they fired into the vehicle a lot after it stopped. Please read the FBI transcript (see reference to “less-lethal projectiles”) or watch the impacts in the video (around the 10 minute mark) or listen to the account of the terrified girl who was crouching on the floor of the car at the time.
Like I stated yesterday, the authorities took their time and post analyzed the incident and then presented it in a professional manner, ignoring the media frenzy and the usual conspiracy theory nuts.
Yes, their presentation was professional, they deserve credit for that.
It doesn’t really look like he knew how to use a gun. He was very clumsy and I bet he would have dropped it, but the cops were still justified killing him.
I’m happy for him that he did indeed die so he doesn’t have to see himself being so ineffectual in his moment of “glory”
If his main aim was to not go to jail, the honorable thing would have been to commit suicide, though I suspect Mr. Finicum hasn’t read much Seneca or Marcus Aurelius.
By provoking his killing by reaching for a gun, he enacts a self-fulfilling prophecy that the guvmint will kill him, thus making himself a pseudo-martyr.
There is, tragically, a “thing” called “suicide by cop”, alas. I.e., not the first guy to do this …
There’,s gotta be better ways to apprehend people than just shooting. Haven’t watched any of the clips and won’t but the gun culture breeds trigger happy cops.As they say ‘It is not guns that kill people it is people who kill people’ And the habit of mind that anyone who doesn’t bend immediately to your will is a worthy target is reprehensible. The whole situation is ludicrous and it certainly should be possible to not kill out of hand. People should be able to be smarter than that-to understand more generously and not just nterpret any out of the expected action as a personal threat. Kind of pathetic.
@ CB
That’s a pretty strong opinion considering you haven’t watched the video. Is there any situation where you feel deadly force is necessary?
On rare occasions yes.
Such as?
Well,that is the trouble with reality. You cannot predefine every possible circumstance. Nor do you ever really know what is in another’s mind nor is it ever really set in stone. In other words there is most often a fair amount of space to manoeuvre. The simple possession of a gun tends to put the owner in a tendency of mind to use it. If all you’ve got is a gun then everything looks like a target. Justifying yet another gun killing with elaborate analysis seems off to me. The occupation was nutty IMO and all too predictably it ended in killing. A great shame.
@ CB
I only asked for one.
Cute. Well, if someone had a finger on a big red button. Remember the red button? Then quite possibly.
Cute. In other words, you have no answer.
I gave you an answer! And you didn’t read my first answer either or at any rate bother to try to understand it. Trouble with scientists(are you a scientist?)they think the whole world can be categorized and the categories truly exist therefore makingdecisions is a multiple choice quiz of predetermined answers.My point is that altho’ there are laws and for the most part they should be followed, circumstances are always unique and the cast of mind of the participants determines the outcome a lot of the time.Do you know what the big red button is?
@ CB
“Do you know what the big red button is?”
No, I don’t. I do know that you haven’t given an example of when you think deadly force would be justified. You don’t seem to think it was justified here, so I wondered when you would think it was justified. If you can’t think of an example, fine.
Instead of bleating about what silly people scientists are (I’m not one, by the way), CB, you might look at the unique circumstances picture in that video and see for yourself whether the shooting might have been justified or not. (I have not watched it because I don’t like watching people getting killed, but I am willing to accept the word of responsible that the killing seemed justified.)
‘responsible PEOPLE…’
Well, I guess I was being a bit cryptic. The big red button(if it still exists-I think it likely does) is the button that somebody(POTUS)gets to push when the decision is made to unleash nuclear weapons.Then I might try by force to stop that action.
It seems plain to me that many people are not at ease about the killing at the stand-off. It just seems too predictable and maybe this and maybe that. It is a shame.I won’t watch the video either for the same reason that Tim Harris stated.
And for the record I am a scientist and am all too aware how easy it is to get caught in preconceptions and false categories. Tho’ I haven’t figured out yet how not to do that other than regarding it as a learning experience.
@CB
I’ve watched it. I don’t see how you can form a valid opinion about this particular set of circumstances when there is evidence available (the video) which you won’t examine.
I’m no particular friend of The Law, but so far as I can see he definitely did lower his hands before he was shot. They *could* have waited another second to see if he was taking out a gun, but I can’t fault them for shooting when they did. I’m presuming they were shouting at him to keep his hands up, he chose to lower them. (The video was shot from a helicopter, there’s no soundtrack).
cr
Scientists understand better than most the dangers of discontinuous thinking. Is Tiktaalik a fish or a tetrapod? A little of both – it doesn’t fit neatly into one category. Scientists are educated to be *rigorous* thinkers, not *rigid* thinkers.
CB
So the police are facing somebody who they know owns guns, is most like carrying a gun, has publicly threatened to shoot anybody who tries to apprehend him, and has also publicly stated that he will die before he spends any time in jail and you think they over reacted?
Yes
Were they supposed to wait until after he fired his gun? That’s not how it works. Why should a cop have to die before they can shoot someone?
How about at least waiting until he pulled out a gun? All they knew at the time is that he was ‘reaching toward his pocket’. That’s not sufficient.
While I’m not by any means a gun-nut, I’d be “safety-off” by the time he reaches into the pocket.
Though if I’d been running the site, I’d have been hitting him with the bean-bags, tear gas and glue guns within 3 paces of the door.
What is missing from the video is sound. I guarantee that the police were giving him loud commands to not move and to keep his hands up. He disobeyed those commands and reached toward his pocket and given all the circumstances, the officers had every reason to believe that he was reaching for a gun.
They didn’t even have to wait for him to reach for his pocket if he moved his hands down. You’re nuts to think that the cops should wait till he pulls out a gun before they shoot him. By that time one of them could be dead. The moment he goes for his gun, they’re legally entitled and ethically empowered to shoot him.
Why are cops so willing to shoot first when they could just as easily use tasers?
If you are referring to this specific situation, Lesile, I really do think you are not thinking clearly. Here’s an armed band of criminals who have forcibly occupied government property. They have a history of brandishing weapons to emphasize how they will get their way. They have repeatedly spoken in terms of a big “shoot-out”. This particular fellow said he wouldn’t be taken alive. When stopped by police on the road he decides to drive off at high speeds and, after running into a snowbank leaves the car with a loaded gun in his pocket. He reaches for his weapon, directly threatening the lives of the police on the scene.
But they are at fault for not using a taser? Are you f$$#@@g kidding?
When the authorities know someone is armed, then it is shoot or get shot. The larger problem is the general access to arms.
That too, for sure.And the general sense that having a gun and the readiness to use it proves something about one’s worth. Have you read Noel Perrin- Giving up the gun’?
We are not the only culture to try to deal with this dilemma.
Living here in Chicago, I’ve become accustomed to watching videos of people being shot by law enforcement. This one is an as by-the-book justified cop shoot as I can think. I have no problem with law enforcement doing the dangerous job they do. This guy was on a mission for martyrdom.
Yup.
Here’s a guy part of an armed resistance.
Who resists arrest by fleeing in a high speed chase on his vehicle. Nearly kills an officer with his car. Jumps out and when surrounded reaches into his coat, where he was keeping a gun.
And yet, many people will still paint this guy as an innocent victim of the police.
I’ll admit I’m more of a peacnik than most and willing to have our law enforcement officers take more chances in the line of duty than they currently do. I’d rather that they had approached him and attempted to effect an arrest with weapons holstered, even though that incurs risk for the officers. And I would’ve rather they went quickly to his side, even though (again) that incurs some risk to the officers of being shot by the folks in the car.
Just to put some numbers to it, this article states the number of cops shot during arrests during 2012 was 33, while the number of citizens killed by a cop during an arrest for the same year was about 4,800. That’s extremely lopsided. I think its so lopsided that it speaks to the need to have police take a little more personal risk on the job, in order to truly “serve and protect” us. After all, that guy you’re trying to arrest? He’s part of the population you are charged with serving and protecting.
Perhaps you should consider joining a police force and then waiting for youself to be placed in a similar situation. Will you take your own advice? The level of risk you are asking of police officers in this instance seems unreasonable to me.
So, if your local firefighter has 1/100th of the chance of you do of dying in your house fire, you would say he should not come in and save you? He should not take 1/100th of your risk of death, even though it’s his job to take that risk and not yours?
AIUI, soldiers are taught to value the lives of their charges more than their own. You are saying a policeman should value the lives of his charges a factor of a hundred less than his own. Because, again, that guy he’s trying to arrest? One of his charges. Part of the population he took an oath to protect and serve.
I think you are completely wrong on this one Eric. Firefighters, policeman and soldiers train extensively and employ a wide range of specialized equipment in order to do their jobs as successfully as possible while also reducing the risk to as low a level as possible. In all of those types of professions it is SOP to not allow yourself or people you are responsible for to engage in a situation in which it is evident that you or they are likely to die. In Hollywood movies it may be different. In real life it is very rare that professionals willingly embark on suicide missions.
I said no such thing nor did I imply such a thing. In the case under discussion the risk to the police officer was, I think, considerably greater than the risk you pose in your example.
That’s more like insisting your local fighterfighter rush into your burning building with his own protective gear intentionally disabled.
Believing these cops should keep their guns holstered when approaching a man who is known to be heavily armed and has sworn to never be taken alive, as he is seen reaching for his own gun, requires they assume a level of risk bordering on suicide.
This isn’t a random traffic stop we’re watching here.
You think the police in this case should have “approached him and attempted to effect an arrest with weapons holstered”? Really? This is a suspect for whom they had a felony arrest warrant, part of an armed militia illegally occupying federal property. Someone who was known to be heavily armed, who had recently been recorded on video stating he did not intend to submit to lawful arrest. He had illegally fled from the scene of a traffic stop, leading police on a high-speed chase, ending in his effort evade a roadblock, nearly running over an officer.
And you think the cops should have approached him with their weapons holstered?
This wasn’t a sporting contest or Gary Cooper meeting the bad guy on main street for a quick-draw shoot-out in High Noon.
I’m not sure what your comparison of the raw numbers of cops and suspects killed is meant to establish — or what you’re proposing when you say that the police should “take more risk on the job.” Most of us would like to see fewer suspects killed during arrests. But the way to achieve that certainly is not by giving suspects the chance to get off the first shot, or by evening out the balance sheet by having more cops killed on the job.
Look, I abhor gun violence, and I’m a frequent critic of police misconduct. But I see nothing to fault in the actions of the law enforcement officers involved in this case. I doubt strongly that anyone familiar with police procedures will either.
Okay, tell me an alternate way to achieve it.
And note that in the UK, the police do not regularly patrol with firearms. The same is true in Ireland, Norway, Iceland and New Zealand. Do you see a high police death rate there? No, you do not. I absolutely think that the US statistics on cop vs. apprehendee rates of death during apprehension shows that cops are shooting far more often than they should. That they are making very poor and far too risk-averse decisions about when to shoot or use other murderous force, such as choke holds.
So yes, in a case like this I do think you let them take the first shot. Wear bulletproof armor and protect your head with a riot shield if you need to, and then don’t fire until they do. You do not protect and serve the public by preemptively shooting the public in order to stop yourself from being shot.
If it helps, I will provide an example in the same case where I think the police acted right. When he ran the barricade, nobody shot at the car. They could have, and nobody (except people like me) would likely have judged it a bad decision. An oncoming vehicle is an immediately lethal threat. But they didn’t. What happened? They avoided the police vehicles and ran the car into a snow bank. I’m not suggesting anything more than that the police involved in the personal approach could’ve acted with the same restraint.
The safest way to effect the arrest of an armed suspect in a situation such as this is through the display of an overwhelming potential for force. It is much more likely to convince a suspect to submit immediately to a lawful arrest, rather than to take his chances in a shootout.
Allowing the other guy to “take the first shot,” while it may have been considered the height of chivalry in the days of the code duello, will indisputably lead to greater loss of life — the lives of suspects, of officers in the exercise of their lawful duties, and of innocent bystanders.
@KK
Overwhelming potential for force…? Remember “Shock and awe”? I thought maybe we learned that lesson.
Some of us have. It’s apparent from your comments here, however, that others of us have learned a mistaken lesson from it.
As I’ve said up-thread, I read that as they were “persuaded” into driving into a “killing ground”.
How the ground was set up to persuade them they could drive around the road block, I don’t know. But they took the bait, steered left, found they came to a halt (spaced tree-trunks covered with snow-blower blown snow? You drive, it gets lumpy, and then your wheels are spinning.) … and the targets are sandwiched between two slices of overwhelming force. The irrational die.
Amateurs meet professionals who have hours to plan and prepare. Predictable outcome.
The 33 vs 4800 statistic is meaningless without knowing the details of all the events. Considering that it’s their JOB to confront dangerous people, it’s rather surprising they don’t kill more people.
I think what you propose here is completely unreasonable. Those statistics lead you to think that more law enforcement people should allow themselves to be killed so that the ratio is more even? I have to say I am a bit surprised by that Eric.
I am very critical about the current state of law enforcement in this country. Way to many people that should be on the list of Perfect Examples Of People Who Should Never Be Allowed To Carry A Badge, are instead preferentially accepted into the ranks of law enforcement. In fact, just thinking about law enforcement gets me pissed off.
But I don’t expect law enforcement officers to be required to intentionally increase their risk of death by allowing suspects to make the first move in a potentially lethal situation. Perhaps the number killed by cops could be lower. Correction, there is no doubt it should be lower. But the number of cops killed should be very low in any case. Evening the odds by giving suspects the opportunity to strike first is ludicrous.
Nope. It leads me to think that they think they’re going to be killed far more often than they are actually at risk of being killed.
No offense, but you misread the article. The 4813 number is a total from 2003-09, and only 60% of those were homicides by police, leaving an average of ~400 per year killed by cops.
Eric, I usually agree with you on this sort of topic. As a generality, I think cops are often too ready to open fire (as the death statistics indicate).
But in this specific instance, I can see no reason why the cops should have had their guns holstered. That, IMO, would be asking to get one of them shot – if he was quicker on the draw than they were. Not a risk they should take.
They possibly could have waited another second before shooting him, to confirm whether he was actually going to draw his own gun (which he probably was). But I can’t accuse them of being trigger-happy for shooting when they did.
cr
“I’ll admit I’m more of a peacnik than most and willing to have our law enforcement officers take more chances in the line of duty than they currently do.”
Eric, please, never run for public office!
I know this is completely unrelated to this thread, but I’m looking for a little help (and I’m in a time crunch.) I know that the “regressive left” is characterized by their need to blame the terrible actions of Islamists on anything but religion, and instead on something like colonialism. I know Reza and Glen are trotted out as poster children of this syndrome, but I’m looking for specific quotes or articles in which they lay out the case or blame western colonialism directly. Any links would be appreciated, as I’m not having much luck on Google today.
Don’t have time to directly answer, but have you used the search feature on this website?
Another resource: Sam Harris’s site (search icon at upper right. http://www.samharris.org/
A search on “Greenwald” here or there (perhaps Dawkins’s site too) should lead to some of the more pernicious events.
Thanks, Stephen. I’m still having trouble finding a few “smoking guns,” but I’m still looking.
The only thing in this connexion I’ve come across by Greenwald (whom I hardly ever read – though I certainly admired what he was doing when he first started blogging during the build-up to the war on Iraq)was something about the mess in Syria in which he said that of course Islamism was a pernicious problem but that didn’t mean that we should ignore other factors, in particular meddling in other countries’ problems (and making them worse) by the Western powers. It seemed not altogether unreasonable to me. The article was some months ago, and I don’t remember where.
This is a sad and stupid death, unnecessary and purposeless, but all incited by Finicum. I feel bad for the police officer(s) forced to shoot him. I hope Ammon Bundy and the other leaders of this idiotic episode all suck on their own consciences.
This may be an interesting side bar to the discussion. Below is the (I believe) current Oregon statute covering lawful the use of deadly force by a civilian:
———————-
§ 161.219¹
Limitations on use of deadly physical force in defense of a person
Notwithstanding the provisions of ORS 161.209 (Use of physical force in defense of a person), a person is not justified in using deadly physical force upon another person unless the person reasonably believes that the other person is:
(1) Committing or attempting to commit a felony involving the use or threatened imminent use of physical force against a person; or
(2) Committing or attempting to commit a burglary in a dwelling; or
(3) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force against a person. [1971 c.743 §23]
Hmm, not the best phrased of laws (like many laws). I read that as saying that you are justified in using lethal force against someone wielding a weapon like a craft knife (2cm blade, possibly razor sharp). Granted – you can make a good mess of someone with a craft knife, but it would take an unusual degree of knowledge to be rapidly lethal with one.
The threshold is lower than that.
“Get your car off my lawn or I’ll thump you”!
Right, threatened imminent use of physical force against a person, you can pull out your heater and give him the magazine full.
cr
I have this mental image of making him a cup of herbal tea by burning “Pacifists Weekly Newsletter” in your camping stove. I don’t think that’s what you mean.
Yeah, I’m not sure what are the current slang terms for ‘gun’, (probably nearly as many as exist for that other frequently-deployed male weapon), so I’m reduced to resorting to terms from the pages of Raymond Chandler or Damon Runyon.
cr
Daesh-iell Hammet?
Oh, and 🙂
cr
So I’m reading some of the supportive comments which amount to. “He wasn’t reaching for his gun he was reaching to the to where he’d already been shot by trigger happy cops”, and “he wasn’t moving away from cops he was moving towards the one who was on his side of the vehicle to give himself up”. I figured that’s the type of spin we’d hear no matter now clear the video appeared.
I’ve been thinking that law enforcement surely had other cameras (besides the one in the helicopter) filming the encounter from every angle. I do wonder if we’ll see some of that other footage eventually.
Supporters of those nuts will believe what they want to believe no matter what. If they release more video, and/or audio they’ll just claim the delay was so they could use CGI on the video to make it show what they want it to show.
As the Bundy conspiracy unravels, it’s worth noting that the Hammmonds [pere et fils], whose cause was hijacked by the occupiers, surrendered lawfully to the authorities and are back in prison.
The Hammonds were each originally sentenced to a year or less for burning Federal land and endangering fire fighters, and both served the original sentences and were freed. They are back in prison because their charges carry “Mandatory Minimum” sentences, thereby removing the judge’s judgement. [And I think the trial judge did a good job of making the punishments fit the crime.
The appeal court essentially said, yes it’s an injustice, but there are much worse injustices under this law…
As it happens, there is a real chance for legislation that will reform the US Federal criminal code, and in particular roll back many of the mandatory minimum sentences. This effort has both Repulbican and Democratic support, although there are huge issues to be resolved. [One road block is making it much harder to charge individuals for “white-collar” corporate crime.
The negotiation of the details of this refom is normal politics, but there are also a few senators, notably Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, who simply want to blow the initiative up and maintain the draaconian status-quo.
So, if you’re an American citizen and interested in this reform, it wold be a good time to contact your senator. Particularly if you’re in a Red state.
There are issues with centrally driven sentencing guidelines in the UK too. Largely because it takes away the discretion of the people who actually hear the case. Different legal system, similar problem.
Mandatory minima are not, inherently, unreasonable. It’s the changes in detail that are not reasonable or wildly unreasonable …
A mutually acceptable arrangement could have been reached (and I’m not attempting to pre-judge the case) such as, since father and son had similarly incorrect sentences, that remainder of the sentence could be served in (say) alternating month-long blocks, so that while one was in slammer, the other was looking after the farm/ranch/ whatever. Or substituting the remaining jail time with assitance for the probation service on juvenile rehabilitation … lots of possibilities, other than getting shot in a stand-off.
The problem in the US regarding mandatory minimums isn’t exactly the minimums themselves, it is how they combine with various other aspects of the US justice system, particularly three strikes laws, an overwhelmed public defender system, and systemic racism, to create incredibly unfair and cruel outcomes – such as people receiving life sentences for shoplifting.
I agree about the spectacular three-strikes unfairness, in fact (IIRC) the appeal court, in confirming the Hammonds’ recall to jail, quoted some of those cases as examples.
But I think minimums _are_ a problem in themselves – they are usually legislated in the light of some extreme example (because, if such extreme event hadn’t occurred, there would have been no need to pass a law) and then they end up being rigidly applied to some much lesser instance of the offence.
In the case of the Hammonds, the original one-year sentence was arguably about right. Recalling them to jail for another four years does seem quite unfair.
(None of this justifies the Bundys mayhem though).
” the original one-year sentence was arguably about right. Recalling them to jail for another four years does seem quite unfair.”
I disagree. For one thing, the Hammonds made a deal with the government. Although they were convicted on multiple counts, each of which carried a five year minimum, they agreed not to appeal if they could serve them concurrently, bundled in one five year sentence. I also don’t agree that five years is an extreme sentence for this type of arson. If they had been sentenced to the maximum, which is 20 years, I might agree.
Don’t forget the design of the political system to try to discourage the most affected people from voting to change the system. “José Raven” laws, or something like that.
I find it ironic that this incident was recorded and released within days of the shooting. Perhaps they were afraid of a right-wing backlash, and felt that the video exonerates the officers (which I believe it does).
Then there are the videos which show cops shooting unarmed suspects (the majority being minorities). These types of videos are either released by people who were actually there videoing the incident, or are released by court order.
I think it shows the blatant double standard of two Americas.
Also compare the reactions and monetary settlements between the rich white city of Porter Ranch and their gas poisoning with the poor majority black city of Flint and their water poisoning. It’s a stark and pathetic example of white privilege.
I disagree, since the police didn’t even know what he had in his pocket. Just because somebody reached for a pocket or waistband doesn’t give the police justification to kill them, especially given how quick police are to interpret (and often misinterpret) hand motions as “reaching for a pocket/waistband”.
The police should not kill someone unless they pose an immediate and evident threat to life. They should not kill someone based on a hypothetical. “He appears to be reaching for his pocket and the pocket might contain a weapon and he might pull the weapon out and then he might threaten someone with it” is not justification for killing someone.
Finicum’s apocalyptic manifesto, automotive recklessness, armed “patriot” preoccupation, hatred of all things government, and previous behavior leading up to his suspiciously erratic scampering (after being non-compliant with a strategic FBI roadblock) swiftly moved his threat level from a hypothetical to an inevitable. He was a clear danger to himself and others.
If that were the only context to this event, then sure, you’d have a point. But it isn’t.
It “appears” the primary advocate for an outcome guaranteed to end badly was Mr. LaVoy Finicum and his gang of cowboy freedom fighters. Then again, maybe this was all Obama’s fault.
I am deeply disturbed by the occupation of Malheur and all it represents. Perhaps even more disturbing is my slow-to-dawn realization about the collateral damage inherent in this and all videos of violent deaths that are released publicly (and it is important that police videos be released): This man’s children, who were nowhere near the scene, will be able to watch their father’s terrible mistakes, and his death.
I read about an interview with one of his sons (age 30 or so). While he was in sympathy with his father, he seemed rather ambivalent about his father’s methods.
The protesters’ tactics were none too bright, but exactly what harm did they do? They took over an empty building and made some demands. The fed. govt. could have settled the whole thing peacefully by sending one Marshall — armed with tape recorders, tapes, batteries, reams of legal pads and dozens of pens — to go up to the occupied building and ask the protesters exactly what their grievances were, dates and facts, in detail. The protesters would have been satisfied with an investigation launched into the policies of the BLM (which are in fact quite questionable) and would have gone home with no harm done and no lives lost. Instead, the FBI just had to set an ambush for some of the protesters, and kill one of them, just to flex their legal muscle — to intimidate the protesters’ sympathizers. Now a bunch more fed. cops are heading toward the occupied building, hopefully to kill a few more griping ranchers. And the govt. dares to call the protesters “terrorists”! Doesn’t this seem a little overboard to you?
@ Leslie Fish
“The protesters would have been satisfied with an investigation launched into the policies of the BLM (which are in fact quite questionable) and would have gone home”
Have you followed this situation at all, read any of their demands, read about the damage they’ve caused and promised to cause? There is not a chance in the world that they would have been satisfied with the promise of an investigation and quietly gone home.
I am certain that the paranoid wing of this far right movement are already claiming that this is a staged video. I do think the FBI should have recorded it from the ground, and I wonder why they didn’t. This video (if you are a conspiracy nut–which I am not, but I am anticipating this response) could be of anybody. Thoughts?
I’ll take a stab at this, since I am probably the most paranoid commenter here regarding the FBI (though from a far-left lens rather than a far-right lens, and with experiences to back up my paranoia).
The video is so detailed and fits so well the blow-by-blow verbal account of eyewitness Victoria Sharp that one would have to be insane to think the video is staged.
However, someone might reasonably wonder why they did not release ground-level video with audio (which they must have made, considering they took the trouble to send up a helicopter or drone to take video), especially from when the car was stopped the first time. Victoria claims a shot was fired already then.
And if I were to question any of the police tactics, it would be the idea that terrifying them was a good way to calm down desperate men. After the car was stopped the second time, the occupants were treated to a show of of force designed to terrify (bullets whizzing by, explosions going off), and this gave the occupants the impression that they would be killed if they left the car peacefully (that is what VS thought). Occupants could not distinguish the bombs and “less lethal projectiles” from regular shots. Under those circumstances, under fire, someone might reasonably have decided that the only alternative to death was to try to make a break for it, perhaps with gun blazing. Luckily that didn’t happen. But I wonder if the tactics they used really make sense.
I sure that 99.99% of Americans knew that the FBI wanted this resolved with nary a shot fired. Undoubtedly these clown had convinced themselves that the FBI wanted to shoot them down like dogs for the crime of loving freedom.
You have actually raised a good point there.
Does scaring the shit out of them make them more likely to realise their position is hopeless and they should surrender, or more likely to push them over the edge and make them do something stupid?
If it was me and those thunderflashes went off, I’d probably think ‘if those were H.E. I’d be mostly holes by now’ and desperately looking for something still white to wave.
But then I haven’t been feeding on stories of death-or-glory heroism for months.
cr
I have. I just some Russian-biased documentaries about the Eastern Front. If you are encircled at Kiev, it is better to fight it out and die than surrender.
Yes, the FBI likely did not want this to end violently. I bet that have been apprised of the lessons of the Waco Siege during conflict resolution. I believe the organization sincerely did not want to portray itself as brutal in this instance. (Although how they dealt with the radical left in Cold War is different.)
Victoria may have selective memory, but it is best if there is more evidence confirming her account. However, the available evidence shows that Lavoy apparently was reaching for a weapon. Again, these people were known to be armed.
*saw some Russian-biased documentaries.
Note that I was talking about the rest of the people in the car, not Finicum. After they had just seen their friend shot and killed in front of them, the police and/or FBI began to purposely terrify them by firing flash bombs and “less lethal projectiles”. Victoria quite understandably thought the police were trying to kill her. You would think the same, probably. Now imagine that you have a gun and people seem to be intent on killing you. Even without being steeped in hero myths, you might decide that you have to take a chance and bust out or else be killed.
This particular police tactic just looks like adolescents trying out their new toys. It didn’t make much sense and could have backfired.
I wondered the same thing. The first time I watched the video I didn’t know what all the flashes were, but I read later they were flash bangs and something like pepper-spray projectiles. Those seem like things you do to someone who already has a gun in their hand right before you rush in and try to disarm them: classic disorientation techniques to give you a few seconds of upper hand. For people sitting in the car, though, not in the middle of resisting or pointing weapons (I presume, no one has said they were) it seems to me as likely to backfire as to do any good. It’s not like they can even hear your instructions while that stuff is going down, so you kind of have to wait until they have recovered anyway which puts you back at the same place you started.
Seems as though it did work, though, as they had weapons in the car but surrendered without firing them.
Well, all we can say is it didn’t NOT work. 😉
Whether the occupants would have come out quicker without the thunderflashes, or in fact whether their use actually increased the risk of the occupants doing a shooting ‘last stand’, is a debatable point.
We can’t really run a control experiment to find out.
And it’s very easy to nitpick after the event.
cr
Yes, I don’t presume to know the best course of action here. I’m just describing my thoughts on seeing the film of it. Perhaps the tactic is very smart… perhaps it has been used often before for all I know.
Actually we do know what was going through the head of at least one of the people in the car at the time. Listen to it if you wonder:
Can anyone supply or give a link to a transcript – I don’t speak redneck, and can barely understand a word of what the lady is saying.
I take it that Victoria is not the woman who claimed Lavoy was on his knees, unarmed, with his hands up when he was shotgun ?
That’s right, that was one of the occupiers. (Victoria was just visiting with her family to sing for them.)
I read some of the comments on a news site that posted the video. They ran about 50/50. I wondered what the anti-government commenters thought about Michael Brown et al.
At that range, the cops could just as easily have used tasers. Why didn’t they? Why are cops so unwilling to used tasers or stunners, and so willing to shoot first and ask questions later? If the man had been Black, would all these nice liberal blogs be singing the same tune?
I don’t think tasers would work through winter clothes. And the guy was armed and had said he would rather die than go to jail. I do understand that part of the incident. He saw shouting “Just shoot me. Shoot me now” or words to that effect, according to VS.
>”he WAS shouting”, not “he saw shouting”
In fairness to the FBI, they apparently treated Victoria Sharp very well after she was taken in. They released her quickly, and they didn’t just release her, they drove her to a Safeway so she could get food or something.
If they had been Black more than one would be dead by now I reckon. They have been allowed to get away with a lot , heres the response of one of their Nutcase Members.
“If they had been Black more than one would be dead by now I reckon.”
In the current climate in this country NO WAY. Hell a cop could kill a a breast feeding white baby, and it would be considered unfortunate collateral damage, but cause a 400lb black man with breathing difficulties to overexert himself while he’s resisting arrest, causing him to die, and it’s premeditated murder.
Tasers are known to be imperfect in any number of ways – what’s the state of the art on less-than-lethal weaponry?
“Why are cops so willing to shoot first when they could just as easily use tasers?”
Good grief! Watch the video again. Notice the deep snow that the truck plowed into? Did you notice that the snow was so deep that it stopped the truck? Do you think that anyone might have been wearing a heavy shirt and jacket? How effective are tasers with heavy clothing? (Ignoring the fact that there are situations where tasers are completely ineffective against people under the influence of some drugs.)
There are still people in the truck, could any of them be armed? Did you notice the laser sight spot on the truck door showing that the LEO were still being very cautions by targeting and not approaching the truck? Did you notice LEO peeking around roadblock trucks after Finicum was shot and not rushing the occupied truck?
Did you notice that the first person to exit the truck after Finicum keeps their hands raised high and dropping a handgun? Did you notice that when the remaining occupants get closer to the LEO they have to turn around walk backwards?
Finicum would be alive today if he had just kept his hands in the air and followed the LEO instructions like the remaining occupants of the truck did in the later parts of the video. He elected to get killed by both his words prior to this “showdown” and his actions during the video. He obviously wanted to get shot.