The Minneapolis police shooting.

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Does anybody want to discuss the incident in Minneapolis, where an Australian traveler was shot fatally by a policeman after calling the police? I've just read a little about it yet.
It is terribly sad, of course, no matter what the eventual story may be found out to be.
That said: When I first read of it, minus a picture of the woman shot, I wondered if she was white ~ Was she an Aborigine Australian? She was not, she was white.
Then, I saw that the cop was black, and an immigrant from Somaila named Mohamed, with open complants against him. Hm.
Do you think the policeman's union will throw him under the bus ?

Well the whole thing certainly seems very odd. Apparently the woman was a white Australian, yes. She was not a traveler but in fact was settled and living with her American fiance. They were going to be married. She was a yoga teacher and reportedly well liked in the community. This was an established legal immigrant who happens to be a white woman.

The police officer who shot her was apparently a legal immigrant too -- how tragically ironic is this.

The part I don't understand is that she was witnessed standing talking to the two officers in their car, when the one just got out his gun and shot her. They had responded to her call for help in an apparent attack on her in the alley by her home. Yet she got shot while speaking to them.

I'll have to read more. But there's too many "over-reactions" by the police these days. When there's metal gleaming near a person, for example, they assume it's a gun.

Well that's pretty scary....

I wonder what they will let the officer off with, since you know they don't charge police with murder...the worst he'll get is probably manslaughter if even that and either be able to remain a cop or get retirement. But yes it is stories like these that make me very, very hesitant to ever call the police for any reason.

But in reality I guess it is no more scarier than an incident in my city a while back where a teenage girl was killed when police decided to open fire on an allegedly stolen vehicle saying they charged him with the vehicle. However the evidence found was not in line with that, the vehicle was apparently shot from the side....if the kids in the vehicle had charged the police officer the bullet holes would be from in front. Also it is questionable how 'stolen' this vehicle was...sounds more like teens taking the family car without permission. Stupid...but certainly not an offence worthy of being shot.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 19 Jul 2017, 7:09 pm, edited 3 times in total.

True, it seems very likely it may have been an over-reaction to something, like if he thought she was armed.

It's scary to think that if you call the police for your own protection, just standing there telling them what happened can get you shot. . .

@Sweetleaf, yes, it's scary as hell! Makes a person not want to call them if you can wind up being the one shot at.

Well I'd think there might be other options of addressing that, not pulling out the gun and shooting a person just because you have a fleeting thought of 'oh they might be armed, better shoot and ask questions later.' I mean sure maybe if the target is a suicide bomber that may be more appropriate...but yeah not the case here.

Police need to remember, more often then not they are interacting with regular citizens not hardened criminals.

I know, they seem to be what could almost be called "over-trained" to react or rather, over-react. Like some of them lose the ability to hold back and gauge how this is just a regular citizen not a terrorist or a gang member.

I guess we don't know all the details of this case, but at the moment it seems crazy that this woman, apparently a very non-threatening, non aggressive person, could have caused this cop to think he had to shoot. Scary as ffffffuuuuu....

Weird thread title. I get that a pretty white woman matters more than Philando Castile, but is hers the only MN shooting that matters?

Police unions don't exactly throw black policemen under the bus, but juries do convict them at a higher rate.

...It's the most recent one, that's why I chose that header.







ote="jrjones9933"]Weird thread title. I get that a pretty white woman matters more than Philando Castile, but is hers the only MN shooting that matters?

Police unions don't exactly throw black policemen under the bus, but juries do convict them at a higher rate.[/quote]

jrjones9933 --no, a "pretty white woman" DOES NOT "matter more" than someone else.

But any case in which the person is clearly unarmed and has all the appearance of quite possibly NOT being a perpetrator of a crime reported, but gets shot anyway, is cause for outrage, and yes that should include other races and genders to -- and it does. There has been rightful outrage about others also.


It's not about who "matters" more.

It's about how there isn't even a lot of reason for that cop to think she was the rapist in the alleyway . . . she was reporting hearing a woman being attacked.

She was unarmed and wearing pajamas.

If it had been a black teenager wearing pajamas and unarmed I would be angry and shocked about that too, and thinking it "matters."

So stop making this all about the difference in a "pretty white woman."

It's more about surprise since all indication point to her looking and seeming completely harmless, and ANYONE can look harmless even if they're not "pretty and white."

My outrage would be the same. Stop assuming racism and preference where there is none.

ANY "shoot first ask later" incident is shocking and unacceptable.

American police must be the worst by far of any first World country, and probably inferior to many non-first World countries' police.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -countries

What's worse is their staggering incompetence filters into the minds of people in other countries and creates unwarranted distrust in their own excellent police forces. Incidents which would be national scandals in other countries, appalling the whole population and in the news for weeks if not months, happen routinely and regularly in America.

Individual police should get better training in how to react to adverse situations.

Most cops don't have that "bunker mentality," where it's dog-eat-dog and every situation is assumed to be potentially lethal until proven otherwise.

But some do. And those are the ones who are murdering all those civilians.

We shouldn't assume all cops are bad; most are good. It's the bad ones, though, who are making it bad for the rest of them.

If cops protect the bad cops from justice, they share in the badness.

ASS-P and Bird,

Subtle biases fly under the radar all the time. Taken individually, they appear differently than when taken as a pattern. My only comment about your motivations would be to examine them in the context of a society where it's statistically clear that white lives matter more, especially cute white women.

...I was COMMENTING. Being kind of " ironic ", too, if that's the word - Of course, we Aspies are supposed to not be very good at that, aren't we?
Well, that's, I've often thought to myself, one " Aspie trait " that don't quite reach me (being bad at irony/sarcasm )...





ote="jrjones9933"]ASS-P and Bird,

Subtle biases fly under the radar all the time. Taken individually, they appear differently than when taken as a pattern. My only comment about your motivations would be to examine them in the context of a society where it's statistically clear that white lives matter more, especially cute white women.[/quote]

Commenting seems worthwhile.