Thread: Police shoot 15yo boy in Melbourne

IMO serve the little **** right for being so stupid

For what it is worth, here is the latest bit of news on this shooting courtesy the Australian:-
"THE 15-year-old boy shot dead by police in Melbourne last night was a member of a nationalist organisation called the Southern Cross Soldiers."

John

Law Enforcement officers are trained to fire until the threat is removed, not 'shoot to kill'. Plenty of people have survived multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, just not this particular kid. Shooting to wound is not a justifiable use of force under Australian law, it could be said that the police could have used other means to disarm the offender.

Whilst this incident is a tragedy, think of the impact that this incident will have on those Police Officers and their families. Not exactly going to have a very merry Christmas are they?

The kid stole the knives in an aggravated state, he resisted 2 cans of OC being used on him, and then obviously was deemed to be enough of a life threat for 3 Police officers to open fire when he tried to stab one of them. The media doesn't help here when they portray the kid as the 'victim'. It's the Police Officers who are the victim here, being forced to shoot a 15 year old criminal.

It's also possible that the police would not have got a decent shot at him with a taser. If anyone here has had to deal with violent armed criminals they can attest to the randomness of some situations and the fact that sometimes there is very little time to react to certain threats.

My $0.02 anyway

Reading the news threads on this incident, not only had the coppers used the OC on the youth. He was now confronting one of the officers who was trying to negotiate with him (despite no formal negotiation skills) and when he was backed up to a flight of stairs with nowhere left to go the other 3 Police on the scene used lethal force to protect the fourth officer.

Now lets watch the bleeding hearts all come out and call for banning of hand guns.

The handgns were not the problem in this case. The weapon in the criminal's hands were bladed, so to be logical lets ban cleavers! *

Diana

* IMHO The banning of cleavers is a rediculous idea, as was the thought of removing long arms from law abiding shooters who had never shot anyone nor were likely to. AND I know first hand the devastation the human body can suffer from ballistic injuries.

Whilst I do NOT know all the relevant facts in this case I would like to make the following observations

1) It is sad that a young person has needlessly lost their life

2) It is sad that the police were forced to resort to using their firearms which resulted in this death

The police officers will probaly spend lots of time wondering what ifs?? Did I approach this situation correctly, could we have avoided using lethal force, why couldn't I talk this kid around, why didn't the spray work etc etc.

I hope that the family do not try to sue the police officers/authoroties concerned for the lost of the kids life. If anyone is deliberately doing a serious criminal activity (imo) they lose a lot of their human rights and should not be able to sue anyone if they get injured during the course of that crime or their apprehension unless it can be clearly shown that unnecessary excessive force was used. In this case I do not think excessive force was used.

Regards


Brendan

Originally Posted by Ralph1Malph

Tragic, to be sure, however also relevent is the legal aspect, 'winging' someone is a legal minefield, lawsuits for rights abuse, lawsuits for grief, suffering, loss of mobility, etc, etc.
Yes, law enforcement is trained to 'shoot to kill', as this is the point, if that is the level of force required, then death is the outcome, but do not for a minute believe that the officers are not 'schooled' in the legal angles of 'winging' as well.

The old saying, 'dead men don't talk' is absolutely true.

Ralph

And the conspiricy (sp?) theorists come out to play yet again....

My uncles a cop, I have several freinds that are cops or have been cops and one of them has had to shoot 2 people on an occasion and he didnt do it because he wanted to or he didnt want to wing them, he did it to save the life of an innocent bystander who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As far as legal ramafacations (sp?) , no court would pay out on a claim against police who used less than leathal meathod to contain a situation like this.

In saying this, I have shot a hand gun, a .38 police issue, and I can say that it is not easy to hit anything so hitting the largest part of the body is the best part to aim at as well as it will retard the bullet if you missed the leg/knee/shoulder etc as a bullet that misses it's target doesnt go back and have another go, it keeps going into what ever is behind it or ricochetes (sp?) off something and may injure members of the public, other police or to a lesser worry property.

I spoke about this in depth with my uncle many years ago and he would like nothing more than to have something like a tazer but even tazers are not infalible, bullets are a last resort though.

Im 100% behind the police on this one, sad but thats what happens when you use drugs and clash with coppers while threatening them with knives.

Shot teen Tyler Cassidy was member of Southern Cross Soldiers | The Australian

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Give it another twenty posts.