Even by American policing standards, this is outstandingly nuts:
A 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police officers who responded to his home in Salt Lake City after his mother called for help.
Linden Cameron was recovering in a Utah hospital, his mother said, after suffering injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, his intestines and his bladder.
Golda Barton told KUTV she called 911 to request a crisis intervention team because her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was having an episode caused by “bad separation anxiety” as his mother went to work for the first time in more than a year.
“I said, ‘He’s unarmed, he doesn’t have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming,’” she said. “He’s a kid, he’s trying to get attention, he doesn’t know how to regulate.”
She added: “They’re supposed to come out and be able to de-escalate a situation using the most minimal force possible.”
Instead, she said, two officers went through the front door of the home and in less than five minutes were yelling “get down on the ground” before firing several shots.
"A 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police officers who responded to his home in Salt Lake City after his mother called for help."
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing happened in Australia so many times. I didn't have a sound diet and the time and I tell you it made me, in all likelihood, clinically depressed.
There are gun advocates but there are gun nuts also. And our cops inherited this wicked idea that you ought not keep a live witness. Once you touched your weapon you had to draw it and keep shooting towards the centre of body mass until the person was dead. This was a full-blown ideology and I couldn't react to it like a normal human being at the time. Over at Catallaxy they would say I was crazy. Well in this case they would have a point.
What on earth are you talking about Graeme?
ReplyDeleteI remember being beaten up by cops back in the day. The same Policeman I had trouble with shot a fellow five times from behind and still got off. Police shootings and deaths in custody were happening with depressing frequency in the late 80's and early 90's. It was like a pandemic.
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