to purchase a print or license an image please visit www.JonathanAlcorn.com

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Violence Erupts at Protest of Fatal LAPD Shooting



Things got heated in the Westlake section of Los Angeles again Tuesday evening as a protest of the fatal shooting of Manuel Jamines over the weekend. Police dispersed an unruly crowd off of 6th Street then moved into the surrounding neighborhood and fired non-lethal bullets into apartment buildings where projectiles were being thrown at officers.

4 comments:

Luis Gomez said...

Great shots Jonathan!

Anonymous said...

JA: I saw this. This harkens all the way back to the Eula Love shooting by LAPD, which caused a big uproar. That was back in the day before tasers, OC, etc. Even a grandma with a butcher knife can br deadly.

There's an interesting concept in... police/LE training circles (I used to be a reserve deputy here, and train with an LE firearms trainer now). There's a drill called the Tueller Drill, named after the cop who invented it, which demonstrates that a man with a knife within 21' of you can get to you and fatally wound you before you can draw and fire your weapon and stop him. Some experts have increased this range to 30', and I agree. Many people just have NO clue how deadly and dangerous a trained or enraged person with a knife can be at contact distances or close range (and 21' is close range)... deadlier than a man with a gun. Multiple stab wounds, especially stab/slash wounds with a good sized knife, will cause you to leak out so fast that nothing will save you. The survival rate for wounds like that is much much lower than handgun wounds.

So, with too many people having watched tv shows, when something like this incident occurs they say or believe "You could have shot the knife out of his hand!" Not. Using your firearm is use of deadly force, and "shoot to wound" isn't the policy, but rather shoot to stop the threat (whoch doesn't mean kill, just "put them down). Not to say it hasn't been done. There was an incident where a guy was threatening suicide, or trying to get the cops to shoot him ("suicide by cop") and he kept putting the handgun down and then up. When it was down, a police sniper shot the gun from his hand. In a perfect world that would work each time, but it doesn't.

This doesn't address using less than lethal (LTL) tools when you can, and I assume that many LAPD cops have tasers and some may have beanbag rounds for their shotguns. This is a great idea when it works. I don't know the specifics of this case, but if the guy was too close to other people, he could still have killed/maimed someone after being tased...it's not 100% effective, and you can miss with the tasers too. I don't know the facts of what LTL was available or considered.

And let's close with the notion that you have all the time in the world to weigh your options in a situation like this, as the responding officers. Sometimes you don't, and based on your training you have to decide RIGHT NOW whether to make use of potentially deadly force to stop the threat, and then someone dies. You also may have saved innocent lives in the process. Don't forget that the whole thing started with the dead man picking up the knife in anger. He set the stage for what followed.

If police work was easy, everyone would do it. It's not like being the mailman with a gun. Cheers, Pat Downs

Anonymous said...

responding to the previous comment, this would be taken into regards IF the man that was shot was a HUGE monster raging and just being psychotic. We're talking about a man shorter than 5'5 who wasnt even in a completely conscious state, being a GIRL, i would've taken him down. All he needed was a good taser shot or a hit with those sticks LAPD is known to over abuse. LAPD just thinks they have the right to get away with the death of a man. Innocent or not, someones life is not something to play with. There are people that have done worst than brandishing a 6 inch knife with a 3 inch blade on the streets that are still alive. This is one argument to the story. Another angle this sad story takes is racism, BUT considering the officer is hispanic, it seems kind of silly. BUT at the same time, there is always that superiority LAPD officers seem to have over normal people. Does the officer feel justified in the killing of a man? It seems irrational that there are times in where LAPD spends HOURS trying to negotiate with suspects but this time, a deadly shot was the end to a mans life. How hard would it have been to tell the people to step off and to tell the suspect to refrain from his actions?
Ever heard of backup?
RAMPART STATION IS LIKE RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!
Poor man, at least his death wasn't taken in vain.
I HAVE LIVED IN THE WESTLAKE AREA FOR 10 YEARS AND OVER THOSE YEARS THERE HAS BEEN AT LEAST 5 CASES OF FOUL PLAY FROM LAPD!
its all coming from a rotten bureacracy.
and you know whats the best part of this?
I AM AWARE OF ALL OF THIS AND MORE AND IM NOT EVEN 17 YET.
SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, OPEN YOUR EYES!
and no, im not a bad person, i just have a strong opinion and intelligent views of societies crap, i aspire to become someone who can change all this.
WE CAN ALL USE SOME PEACE!
and less hypocrisy, please(:
there, done with my rant, thank you
LAPD, STOP FEEDING US BS!

Anonymous said...

responding to the previous comment, this would be taken into regards IF the man that was shot was a HUGE monster raging and just being psychotic. We're talking about a man shorter than 5'5 who wasnt even in a completely conscious state, being a GIRL, i would've taken him down. All he needed was a good taser shot or a hit with those sticks LAPD is known to over abuse. LAPD just thinks they have the right to get away with the death of a man. Innocent or not, someones life is not something to play with. There are people that have done worst than brandishing a 6 inch knife with a 3 inch blade on the streets that are still alive. This is one argument to the story. Another angle this sad story takes is racism, BUT considering the officer is hispanic, it seems kind of silly. BUT at the same time, there is always that superiority LAPD officers seem to have over normal people. Does the officer feel justified in the killing of a man? It seems irrational that there are times in where LAPD spends HOURS trying to negotiate with suspects but this time, a deadly shot was the end to a mans life. How hard would it have been to tell the people to step off and to tell the suspect to refrain from his actions?
Ever heard of backup?
RAMPART STATION IS LIKE RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!
Poor man, at least his death wasn't taken in vain.
I HAVE LIVED IN THE WESTLAKE AREA FOR 10 YEARS AND OVER THOSE YEARS THERE HAS BEEN AT LEAST 5 CASES OF FOUL PLAY FROM LAPD!
its all coming from a rotten bureacracy.
and you know whats the best part of this?
I AM AWARE OF ALL OF THIS AND MORE AND IM NOT EVEN 17 YET.
SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, OPEN YOUR EYES!
and no, im not a bad person, i just have a strong opinion and intelligent views of societies crap, i aspire to become someone who can change all this.
WE CAN ALL USE SOME PEACE!
and less hypocrisy, please(:
there, done with my rant, thank you
LAPD, STOP FEEDING US BS!
p.s. no one said it was easy but correct me if im wrong, isnt their motto to PROTECT and to SERVE?
not to KILL and BURDEN the public?