An officer in upstate New York shot and killed a teen fleeing while pointing a replica gun, police said Saturday.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17056255

An officer in upstate New York shot and killed a teen fleeing while pointing a replica gun, police said Saturday.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    I was going to resist saying that you were racist, but it seems like you say the same racist thing every time a black child with a toy gets killed, so it’s pretty obvious that you are a racist person.

    It’s pretty easy to just not shoot children, especially when they haven’t even shot at you. An adult with a gun is potentially just exercising their constitutional rights, so we can’t just kill gun owners on sight. A child with a gun is vulnerable, we can’t apply a stricter code to children than we do to adults!

    I don’t care how realistic the gun looked, they certainly had no reason to think that they were being fired upon. They fired the first shot, because the gun the child has isn’t even capable of firing a round or even simulating the sound of a real gun.

    If you support the “shoot first ask questions later” strategy for policing, you’re a fucking fascist. If you are indifferent to children being slaughtered for playing with toys, you’re a fucking monster.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Well, that just shows how little you actually pay attention to what I say. I’ve only talked about 3 different kids, in 3 different decades who’ve been shot by police. One was white, one was black, and one was asian.

      So, explain this “it seems like you say the same racist thing every time a black child with a toy gets killed”.

      Every time? Every one time? Tamir Rice did stupid things. Ultimately I place the blame on a poor communication between the dispatcher and the police, and his mother. But also a bit with him, since 13 is old enough to know NOT to play with toy guns in public. I was taught that lesson when I was 4, because my PARENTS saw me doing that in the front yard. They called me in, and explained how doing that in public is a bad idea. They explained that someone could mistake it for a real gun, and it would scare people. This was before the threat of being shot by police for having a toy came into the picture. This was the 80s. My parents were making sure I didn’t scare the neighbors, because they were thinking of others thoughts. The idea that I would be shot didn’t cross their mind.

      Now, the boy in California from the 90s, his parents didn’t teach him that lesson. That’s why he’s dead. Tamir Rice’s mother didn’t teach HIM that lesson. There are other factors at play in his case, so it’s not strictly on her. However she could have prevented the situation from even happening. It’s the same reason I don’t skydive. Sure, it’s the instructors job to make sure I’m safe in knowing how to operate the parachute…but I’d still have to trust the parachute to work. I’d have to trust the pilot to safely operate the plane. I’d have to trust the plane to not malfunction. I’d have to trust the birds not to fly into the planes engines, or into my parachute. I’d have to trust the other skydivers to know what they’re doing, and not collide with my parachute mid-air.

      Sure, you can blame all the things individually that go wrong…or you can prevent the whole situation, and not skydive.

      Don’t want the police to have a misunderstanding of toy gun vs real gun? Don’t wave anything resembling a gun around. You can either live in the world you wish were real…or you could understand the world you DO live in, and work around it’s limitations.