Cops are thugs, and need to be disarmed

In their pursuit of a fugitive ex-cop, at least seven officers opened fire on what turned out to be a mother and daughter delivering newspapers on a quiet residential street, law enforcement sources told The Times. It was "a tragic misinterpretation" by officers working under "incredible tension," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Friday in an interview with The Times. Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were the victims.[...] around 5 a.m. Thursday in Torrance, police from nearby El Segundo saw a pickup truck exit a freeway and head in the general direction of the Redbeam Avenue residence of a high-ranking Los Angeles police official, which was being guarded by a group of LAPD officers. A radio call indicated that the truck matched the description of Dorner's gray Nissan Titan. As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the back of the truck. When the shooting stopped, they quickly realized their mistake. The truck was not a Nissan Titan, but a Toyota Tacoma. The color wasn't gray, but aqua blue. And it wasn't Dorner inside the truck, but Carranza and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.[...] "How do you mistake two Hispanic women, one who is 71, for a large, black male?" said Richard Goo, 62, who counted five bullet holes in the entryway to his house. Glen T. Jonas, the attorney representing the women, said the police officers gave "no commands, no instructions and no opportunity to surrender" before opening fire. He described a terrifying encounter in which the pair were in the early part of their delivery route through several South Bay communities. Hernandez was in the back seat handing papers to her daughter, who was driving. Carranza would briefly slow the truck to throw papers on driveways and front walks. As bullets tore through the cabin, the two women "covered their faces and huddled down," Jonas said. "They felt like it was going on forever." Hernandez was shot twice in her back and is expected to recover. Her daughter escaped with only minor wounds from broken glass.

• The cops are rushing around, trying to make nice, but we know if the same thing happened tomorrow, they would open fire in the exact same way.

• The chief talked someone into donating a truck and visited the women to "present" it to them and apologize for the fact that the completely lawful bullets hit them.

• Even if the vehicle had had the person they were chasing, it is not the job of police to act as judge, jury and executioner. How is any of this lawful? They made no attempt to ascertain who was in the vehicle or whether it was possible to apprehend the person.

• Cops are just government enforcers, worse than mobsters.

• Wow They probably won't have to deliver papers any more. They should get a nice quiet settlement and then go to some nice cheap South American place.

• Ugh, this is HORRIBLE

• It takes is just one nervous cop to fire the first bullet and the rest do it reflexively

• True.

• Clearly, the 47% is responsible for their own misfortune. No other way to misrepresent the cuntiness of the fraidicat cunt officers who are willing to lay down the lives of their neighbors for their own good. Especially when they were shooting out neighbors front doors, windows and car radiators. Their cunts will not be forgotten.

• Huh, R9?

• And in a perfect Libertarian society, people would police themselves, and crime would magically disappear. (rolls eyes) Please, do continue with your circle jerk.

• R11, your ignorance is exceeded only by your arrogance. Typical of people like you. If you understood liberty, your head would explode.

• [quote]If you understood liberty, your head would explode. That explains quite a bit about your pathetic attempts to explain the bizarre alternate Libertarian universe.

• R13- Please elaborate.

• Here's to hoping they get an enormous settlement out of this. The coverage on this ex-cop has been nonstop here in LA but the story of these two women was on the air for about 15 seconds. Gee.. wonder why...

• Can't even begin to tell you how many cops tried to hook up with my goldigging self. I've had to call the cops on the cops. Most are crazy but nothing exposes them like a gorgeous female from the higher classes.

• R13- I hope you never end up on the other end of a legal battle with the cops. They will lie, cheat and harass. Actually, for someone like you, I hope the cops do arrest you and persecute you.

• THE COPS LIED, AND NEED TO BE SENT TO JAIL! Michael Premo was found not guilty of assaulting an officer after video evidence contradicted police testimony. In the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest, Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges yesterday after his lawyers presented video evidence directly contradicting the version of events offered by police and prosecutors. Premo, an activist and community organizer who has in recent months been a central figure in the efforts of Occupy Sandy, was one of many hundred people who took part in a demonstration in Lower Manhattan on December 17 of 2011, when some protesters broke into a vacant lot in Duarte Square in an attempt to start a new occupation. After police broke up the action in Duarte Square, hundreds of protesters marched north, playing a game of cat and mouse with police on foot and on scooters, who tried to slow and divide the column of marchers. At 29th Street near Seventh Avenue, police finally managed to trap a large number of marchers, kettling them from both sides of the block with bright orange plastic netting. After holding the crowd in the nets for some time, a few people managed to escape, and police rushed in to the crowd with their hands up. In the commotion, Premo fell to the ground and attempted to crawl out of the scrum. (Covering the march, I was also kettled on this block for a time, though I only witnessed Premo's arrest from a distance. In the police version of events, Premo charged the police like a linebacker, taking out a lieutenant and resisting arrest so forcefully that he fractured an officer's bone. That's the story prosecutors told in Premo's trial, and it's the general story his arresting officer testified to under oath as well. But Premo, facing felony charges of assaulting an officer, maintained his innocence. His lawyers, Meghan Maurus and Rebecca Heinegg, set out to find video evidence to contradict it. Prosecutors told them that police TARU units, who filmed virtually every moment of Occupy street protests, didn't have any footage of the entire incident. But Maurus knew from video evidence she had received while representing another defendant arrested that day that there was at least one TARU officer with relevant footage. Reviewing video shot by a citizen-journalist livestreamer during Premo's arrest, she learned that a Democracy Now cameraman was right in the middle of the fray, and when she tracked him down, he showed her a video that so perfectly suited her needs it brought a tear to her eye. For one thing, the video prominently shows a TARU cop named Bosco, holding up his camera, which is on, and pointing at the action around the kettle. When Premo's lawyers subpoenaed Bosco, they were told he was on a secret mission at "an undisclosed location," and couldn't respond to the subpoena. Judge Robert Mandelbaum didn't accept that, and Bosco ultimately had to testify [Correction: Bosco didn't take the stand; he had to appear at the District Attorney's office for a meeting with Maurus and prosecutors. Judge Mandelbaum accepted that Bosco would likely say on the stand what he said in the meeting, and didn't require him to testify.] Bosco claimed, straining credibility, that though the camera is clearly on and he can be seen in the video pointing it as though to frame a shot, he didn't actually shoot any video that evening. Even more importantly, the Democracy Now video also flipped the police version of events on its head. Far from showing Premo tackling a police officer, it shows cops tackling him as he attempted to get back on his feet. After watching the video, the jury deliberated for several hours before returning a verdict o

• Funny how the Libertarian Idiot Troll(TM)'s kneejerk hatred of cops is only exceeded by his kneejerk hatred of Paul Krugman.

• R19 Non-sequitur.

• BTW- If libertarians are so wrong about Paul Krugman, why does every thread critical of him get deleted?

• And why was the thread about the DHS buying 1.6 billion rounds of ammo deleted?

• R21: because obsessively posting the same repeatedly-disproven bullshit over & over & over & over & over again a. doesn't make it true; b. is annoying? Just a hunch.

• [quote]THE COPS LIED This isn't unusual. If they tell the truth, that should make the headlines.

• Try being an attractive woman. Thug cops will pull you over or target you in public just to get to meet you. If they view you as the type of woman who would reject them in social situations you might just be getting arrested. Anyone know what I'm talking about?