Video of Police shooting man 30+ times

[Mr. Laz]

Video captures Michigan man's shooting by police
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/mic...ing/index.html

From Jason Carroll and Sheila Steffen, CNN
updated 10:12 AM EDT, Fri August 17, 2012

Man killed by cops, shot multiple times

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Milton Hall was killed in a confrontation with police in Saginaw, Michigan
• "It appeared to be a firing squad dressed in police uniforms," his mother says
• Prosecutors and state police are investigating Hall's killing
• His family says he was mentally ill and questions why the probe is taking so long

Saginaw, Michigan (CNN) -- Three days before Independence Day, Milton Hall died in a fusillade of police gunfire outside a strip mall.
He had been arguing with officers in a parking lot next to a shuttered Chinese restaurant when he was shot, in full view of passing motorists and while he was holding some sort of knife. Saginaw County Prosecutor Michael Thomas said later that the squad of police confronting him opened fire "because apparently, at this point in time, he was threatening to assault police."

Thomas' office and the Michigan State Police are investigating Hall's death. Saginaw Police Chief Gerald Cliff said Hall was "known to be an assaultive person" with "a long history" of contacts with law enforcement, "not only with police from our department but with the county."
Hall's cousin, Mike Washington, acknowledged Hall had been jailed for minor offenses like vagrancy in the past, but, "He was not violent." And Hall's mother is growing impatient with the probe and questions why police opened fire so furiously on her son, whom she said was mentally ill.

The chart blog: Mental health

"It appeared to be a firing squad dressed in police uniforms," Jewel Hall told CNN from her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. "There was another way. They did not have to kill him. He had not done anything. He was not violent. He was not a murderer. He was not a criminal."
Jewel Hall said her son had once trained as a civil right activist, been an avid reader and played football. He had lived in Saginaw for 35 years and received Social Security disability payments for a mental illness, but, "He knew his rights."

"Everybody knew him. The police knew him well," she said. "So that's another question: they knew him, so why? Why did they kill him?"

WJRT: Community questions police shooting

The July 1 shooting happened in a parking lot on West Genessee Avenue, a busy commercial strip on the north side of Saginaw. In a video purchased by CNN, shot by a motorist from across the street, the 49-year-old Hall is seen arguing with a half-dozen officers. For more than three minutes, he walks back and forth, and at one time appears to crouch in a "karate stance," according to the man who captured the scene.

Police said Hall had just had a run-in with a convenience store clerk. On the video, he tells police, "My name is Milton Hall, I just called 911. My name is Milton, and I'm p---ed off." When an officer tells him to put the knife down, he responds, "I ain't putting s--t down." He appears unimpressed by a police dog, telling officers, "Let him go. Let the motherf---ing dog go."

Finally, he turns to the left of the frame, where another officer had moved out of view a short time earlier. It's then that the police open fire with a reported 46 shots in a five-second hail of bullets.
"I'm stunned that six human beings would stand in front of one human being and fire 46 shots," Jewel Hall said. "I just don't understand that. It's a lot of pain in that because it only takes one shot, so the question is why?"

She questioned why none of the cameras in the police cars at the scene recorded the shooting -- "none of them work."

"So that's the question I have and the community has is, what's taking so long?" she said. "Why is not being transparent?"

Lou Palumbo, a former Long Island police officer, told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" that the video is "a perceptive nightmare" for a police department and could reflect a lack of training by the officers.

"This wasn't a scenario where he was discharging a weapon in their direction," he said.

But Palumbo added that the shooting may yet be determined to be justifiable. "One of the things the public has to understand, an individual wielding a knife at you at about 20 feet can be on top of you in a split second," he said. "The public doesn't know this because they don't do this for a living."

Neither state police nor the prosecutor's office would comment on the investigation. In a written statement to CNN, the state police said, "Our focus is on conducting a complete and thorough investigation, rather than a hasty one."

But Saginaw City Councilman Norman Braddock, who also has criticized the pace of the investigation, said the probe should be a "top priority."
When CNN showed Braddock the video, which he hadn't seen before, he said, "This is disturbing."

"I can see what people are traumatized at, looking at something like that," Braddock said. "We need answers."

Jewel Hall said her family is conducting its own investigation into the shooting, "and at the end of that investigation we will decide what next steps to take with our legal advisors."

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Lzen

That's some BS reasoning right there. They are supposed to be professionals trained to deal with these situations. They are supposed to protect and serve. They are given that power to be trusted, not to act like a bunch of thugs. Deadly force is supposed to be a last resort. I don't believe they were at that point.

So, you think they aren't human?

They gave this man plenty of time and options to obey their lawful order. He chose badly.

[petegz28]

SAGINAW, MI — As part of a segment that aired on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” one former police officer offered his analysis of video footage that showed six Saginaw police officers on July 1 shoot and kill Milton S. Hall, a man who reportedly acted aggressively with a knife.

The video went public on a national stage Thursday after CNN purchased the footage from an amateur videographer.

Soledad O’Brien, who was filling in for an absent Cooper, in one segment interviewed former policeman Lou Palumbo, director of Elite Group Limited, a private firm that handles security for events such as the Golden Globes.

Palumbo appears both critical and defensive of what the video shows. O’Brien describes the video as showing police at “a reasonable distance” from Hall.

“This is a perceptive nightmare for law enforcement agency and, tragically enough, could clearly be a lapse in training,” Palumbo says at one point. “It’s a very good question why it would require 46 shots from a group of law enforcement agents to neutralize one individual armed with a knife. This wasn’t a scenario where (Hall was) discharging a weapon in their direction.”

Palumbo later appears to try to explain the perspective of the officers and the danger they faced.

“There’s a couple of separate issues here,” he says. “One is if the shooting is justifiable, and they may find out that the shooting is justifiable.

“The second issue is the amount of rounds fired at him. One of the things the public has to understand is that an individual wielding a knife at you at about 20 feet can be on top of you in a split second. The public doesn’t know this because they don’t do this for a living.”

Palumbo, though, remained critical of the officers.

“The other issue is the number of rounds that were fired,” he says. “There’s probably a little bit of a training issue here.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/in...t_analyze.html

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Donger

So, you think they aren't human?

They gave this man plenty of time and options to obey their lawful order. He chose badly.

Crazycoffey isn't.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Donger

Sure I will. They are human, and they were forced into a split second decision by the actions of the man with the knife.

No Sir, not going to fly when trying to justify why a trained officer continued to fire their weapon on a suspect who was clearly incapacitated.

[petegz28]

Donger, again it's not the fact they shot him. It's the fact they continued to shoot a man with a knife who was already down. There was absolutely no justification whatsoever to continue shooting a person who is already down and is not in posession of a firearm. He is no threat at that point.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by petegz28

No Sir, not going to fly when trying to justify why a trained officer continued to fire their weapon on a suspect who was clearly incapacitated.

So, what's your explanation, Pete? Why'd they keep shooting?

[DJ's left nut]

I think some folks see police training as the equivalent of army training.

Army training is an extensive process of breaking you psychologically to the point that you can be re-built into a machine and weapon of war that simply reacts to stress rather than spends that extra second of thinking about it...and dying.

That is not police training because police are asked to serve a far wider array of roles. They aren't designed to be used primarily in warfare and killing zones. Their training leaves a significant amount of the human element in them and it's that human element that led to this.

I'm confident that if this was 6 Army Rangers, it would've been 6 shots and a dead man. But police officers serve a dual role and as part of that their 'humanity' is left intact and as a critical component to their training.

Sometimes it gets in the way, but more often it does them (and the community) a great deal of good.

Sure they're trained, but they're still human and still subject to human frailty. More often than not that is a good thing.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Crazycoffey isn't.

Yeah, I want that ****er out in Denver. I might even hire him to patrol my neighborhood. RoboCoffey. SuperCoffey. Especially on trash day.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Donger

So, what's your explanation, Pete? Why'd they keep shooting?

He's not going to answer this question. He's just going to keep calling 6 people of varying backgrounds, genders, etc... murderers.

Just really bad luck for that poor schlub.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Donger

Yeah, I want that ****er out in Denver. I might even hire him to patrol my neighborhood. RoboCoffey. SuperCoffey. Especially on trash day.

Why trash day?

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Donger

So, what's your explanation, Pete? Why'd they keep shooting?

Because they were ****ing stupid, that's why. They ignored their training. I will lay money on it and experts have already come out to say such. I bet you could search every state's law on excessive force and not find one bit that would justify 6 cops continuing to shoot a suspect that was already down and not posing a threat.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Why trash day?

That's when we open the gates and all the "other people" invade along with the trash trucks. They try to get ahead of the trash trucks to get "dibs" on the trash that we put out. For example, one of the wife's cats pissed on my ****ing loveseat recently and ruined it. So, it's going on the curb on Sunday evening. It will be gone before the trash guys get here on Monday AM.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Because they were ****ing stupid, that's why. They ignored their training. I will lay money on it and experts have already come out to say such. I bet you could search every state's law on excessive force and not find one bit that would justify 6 cops continuing to shoot a suspect that was already down and not posing a threat.

That's possible, or it's more possible that their reaction was a result of adrenaline or some combination of the two. The FACT that only 20% of the shots hit target tells me that the adrenaline was flowing rather heavily. Disagree?

Are you backing off your "murderer" accusation now, by the way?

[crazycoffey]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

He's not going to answer this question. He's just going to keep calling 6 people of varying backgrounds, genders, etc... murderers.

Just really bad luck for that poor schlub.

Just to entertain some of the comments in this thread, what's your thoughts on 6 civilians with clean records, and concealed carry permits, are at this strip mall when a nutjob pulls a knife and runs toward an innocent bystander. Said CCW holders all pull and shoot the nutjob in a span of 6 seconds and 46 rounds. No stray bullets hitting other innocents, but each person shoots 6 or 7 rounds.

Personally, I'm on board with city commendations for the civilians, but what do you think from your experience and back ground?

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Donger

That's possible, or it's more possible that their reaction was a result of adrenaline or some combination of the two. The FACT that only 20% of the shots hit target tells me that the adrenaline was flowing rather heavily. Disagree?

That's the entire point of their training, Donger. It doesn't matter how many shots hit him. What matters is they kept firing after he was down. That's where they ****ed up. Adrenaline is not going to be a valid excuse. It wouldn't be for you and it won't be for them.