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[Reelya]

It doesn't seem likely to me that she knew him.

The odds of wanting to murder someone who lives exactly 1 floor above you in an apartment building are small. Plus, what, she just happened to be having relations with a black man, and nobody else in the complex noticed that? It's the kind of thing people in Texas notice. Additionally, the whole thing would be a pretty terrible plan for getting away with murder. Even in the best outcome, it's career-ending stuff. If she really knew the guy, she'd have known he was a college-educated accountant and a youth pastor. Hardly the kind of thing that gains sympathy for an officer who shot them down.

From the phone footage shot by a neighbor, the building also has openly visible walkways. If she knew him and visited his apartment before, other residents would have seen it. Plus, they could do forensics in the apartment, to see if any of her DNA is around. The same with her apartment. I think if she knew him they'd either have been seen talking to each other or their DNA would be inside each other's apartments. There's no evidence of this.

She's just a dumbass who made a horrible mistake.

[nenjin]

There's no evidence of this.

Fair enough. It just seems a level of dumbassery beyond comprehension. Which is why I mentioned drugs, because other than extreme emotional distress, that's the only other thing that can leave you that confused. (And the kind of thing that conveniently never makes in to the evidentiary record. The lead investigator went on record saying "she did nothing wrong.")

Also she shot the guy as he was getting up from the couch, once right in the chest. Which means she either entered and fired, or talked to him and shot him as he got up. She tried to claim he rushed her but the ballistics showed that was a lie. She was collected enough to fire her service revolver with precision but not enough to do any kind of other procedure? I dunno. Shit never quite added up in this case, but at least it didn't get swept away like so many others.

[Reelya]

The only plausible explanation I have is that she was running on autopilot, distracted, and thus not noticing her surroundings. She probably noticed the door was unlocked and that put her on alert mode, pushes it open then immediately fixates on "there's a black guy there" rather than "that isn't my couch".

For speculation it would be helpful to have photos of what the inside of both apartments look like from the door.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Cops are both very stupid and very murderous, which really explains the whole thing by itself. You can't imagine how completely fucked this woman's mindset must be, because the reality is so utterly infuriatingly stupid and mundane that you would never truly be able to emulate it in your own mind, just as you cannot realistically imagine what it is like to be a hundred-year old tree.

Given how much she went on and on about how she desperately wished he'd actually given her some cause to hide behind killing him for, it's probably something along the lines of "shoot first, panic second".

[Trolldefender99]

This is why I think white kops should always either wait for a non-white kop to show up or be with one. This would stop a lot of racist killing (even though its illegal, many get away with it in name of duty) among kops. Sure some people may need urgent help, but the vast majority of kop killing is a white kop killing a non-white kop. And racial hatred among white kops is very high, so they should have no business arresting, ticketing or doing anything that promotes their racist hatred.

[Reelya]

That Just made me think of the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates in his own university-provided house. The arresting cops wrote up their version and in it, he was supposed to have said things, including a "yo mama" line, which seems out of place for someone who was one of Harvard's professors of English.

I've had friends arrested by the police, and in the arrest report, the cops wrote up that they used specific phrases from "jail slang". But ... the person who was arrested didn't even know what the slang meant, and had to ask around, let alone actually having said what the reports said. It's actually real common for arresting cops to just stitch together police reports like a Mad Lib from whatever sources they have that they think can make charges "stick". Yeah, so you're a college-educated black kid from some ritzy neighborhood, but in the arrest report they have you using ghetto slang when you were arrested.

EDIT: for the Henry Louis Gates case, it's possible Gates is lying and he did use the language that the cop said he did. However in the police report it also quotes the main witness, and she denies saying what the report says she did, and the 911 call recording also contradicts the police report. The report said the witness said "two black men with backpacks" were trying to break in, whereas the 911 call recording has her saying "I don't know whether they're just having a hard time with their key" and "one looks maybe hispanic, and I can't see the other one clearly". Which is a far cry from saying "two black men with backpack are breaking in". The whole report is a fabrication to cover their asses, and they should all be sacked.

[Trolldefender99]

That Just made me think of the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates in his own university-provided house. The arresting cops wrote up their version and in it, he was supposed to have said things, including a "yo mama" line, which seems out of place for someone who was one of Harvard's professors of English.

I've had friends arrested by the police, and in the arrest report, the cops wrote up that they used specific phrases from "jail slang". But ... the person who was arrested didn't even know what the slang meant, and had to ask around, let alone actually having said what the reports said. It's actually real common for arresting cops to just stitch together police reports like a Mad Lib from whatever sources they have that they think can make charges "stick". Yeah, so you're a college-educated black kid from some ritzy neighborhood, but in the arrest report they have you using ghetto slang when you were arrested.

EDIT: for the Henry Louis Gates case, it's possible Gates is lying and he did use the language that the cop said he did. However in the police report it also quotes the main witness, and she denies saying what the report says she did, and the 911 call recording also contradicts the police report. The report said the witness said "two black men with backpacks" were trying to break in, whereas the 911 call recording has her saying "I don't know whether they're just having a hard time with their key" and "one looks maybe hispanic, and I can't see the other one clearly". Which is a far cry from saying "two black men with backpack are breaking in". The whole report is a fabrication to cover their asses, and they should all be sacked.

I've had a couple friends arrested for protesting, but none of the other protestors were arrested and they weren't doing anything different except they were african american. Ever since then (this was before trump) never liked cops. Lost my trust in them at that point. Even though my post above may seem like a radical idea to some (probably mostly trump fanatics), I truly think white cops should not arrest or interact or do anything to a minority. This would force them (legally without facing prison time) to stop their bigotry and hatred and racial discrimination. Another example is many white cops pull black people over just because of their color, so them not being able to (legally) would help prevent their racial hatred and targeting minorities.

[scourge728]

It's stuff like this that makes me feel robocop would be a massive improvement

[Reelya]

It's nice as a thought experiment, but wouldn't be workable in practice.

Only having black cops in black areas doesn't solve the core underlying problems facing most black people. If anything, dead black kids may stop making the news when they're only shot by black cops.

One thing is that it's important to adjust for other factors, so you can see the root causes of things. For example, black males are 2.5 times as likely to be shot by cops as white males. But, that data doesn't actually tell you that just replacing the cops with cops of a different skin color is going to help: you need data that white cops are more likely to shoot than black cops if you think changing the skin color of the cops will help. Data about the skin color of people who are shot doesn't tell you that.

Also, you need to adjust the results for things like socioeconomic background and poverty to see whether this is solvable through police training, or by just replacing white cops with black cops, or whether poverty is a bigger factor in this outcome.

[itisnotlogical]

It's stuff like this that makes me feel robocop would be a massive improvement

If the code could never ever be modified by the department or officers in any way, sure. But there would probably be nothing stopping them from training their new six-foot-tall steel cop to arrest blacks more frequently than whites, or to never arrest a human cop.

[scriver]

That Just made me think of the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates in his own university-provided house. The arresting cops wrote up their version and in it, he was supposed to have said things, including a "yo mama" line, which seems out of place for someone who was one of Harvard's professors of English.

I've had friends arrested by the police, and in the arrest report, the cops wrote up that they used specific phrases from "jail slang". But ... the person who was arrested didn't even know what the slang meant, and had to ask around, let alone actually having said what the reports said. It's actually real common for arresting cops to just stitch together police reports like a Mad Lib from whatever sources they have that they think can make charges "stick". Yeah, so you're a college-educated black kid from some ritzy neighborhood, but in the arrest report they have you using ghetto slang when you were arrested.

EDIT: for the Henry Louis Gates case, it's possible Gates is lying and he did use the language that the cop said he did. However in the police report it also quotes the main witness, and she denies saying what the report says she did, and the 911 call recording also contradicts the police report. The report said the witness said "two black men with backpacks" were trying to break in, whereas the 911 call recording has her saying "I don't know whether they're just having a hard time with their key" and "one looks maybe hispanic, and I can't see the other one clearly". Which is a far cry from saying "two black men with backpack are breaking in". The whole report is a fabrication to cover their asses, and they should all be sacked.

I've had a couple friends arrested for protesting, but none of the other protestors were arrested and they weren't doing anything different except they were african american. Ever since then (this was before trump) never liked cops. Lost my trust in them at that point. Even though my post above may seem like a radical idea to some (probably mostly trump fanatics), I truly think white cops should not arrest or interact or do anything to a minority. This would force them (legally without facing prison time) to stop their bigotry and hatred and racial discrimination. Another example is many white cops pull black people over just because of their color, so them not being able to (legally) would help prevent their racial hatred and targeting minorities.

I love it when people try so hard to not be racist that they show just how racist they are.

You realise there isn't one "non-white" group, right? "Non-whites" isn't one denomination, it's several. It's a lot. Hundreds. And they're just as racist as white people. Asians of all kinds both east, south, and southeast, Hispanics and north africans/middle easterners (because I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume your definition of "white" is arianised so much as to exclude them), all the Pacific nations, and the American natives. A Korean or Azerbaijan or Indian descended cop is going to be racist against afro-americans the very same way euro-americans are. So I suggest you think this over and start thinking about people as "white people, and then all the rest".

[MetalSlimeHunt]

10 years for Guyger with a range of 5-99 years or life. Jury suggested 28 years with the verdict. Judge has to apologize to the boys down at the station somehow, I suppose.

Disgustingly, the judge and the victim's brother hugged Guyger and sympathized with her in court which probably contributed to the sentence. The brother forgave her on behalf of the man she murdered in cold blood in the hopes she'd give herself to Jesus. "Christian love" strikes again. I was expecting a shitty sentence but getting your boots licked by the brother of your victim as you go to prison is next level shit. Like I said a few posts ago, you can't imagine the dumbest outcome ahead of time.

[Rolan7]

I considered making an argument for why it was manslaughter but decided not to, and obviously not because I shy away from an internet fight.  She shouldn't have been armed, she shouldn't have drawn or fired.  She shouldn't have murdered him, she should have run.  I empathize with her a lot and she should have run, not chosen to kill.

I had doubts, and this video helped me along.  Interesting channel.

[hector13]

We’re all viewing this situation with 20/20 hindsight. I understand the position she placed herself in, and think it was her training that was a significant factor in what happened.

She was coming off a long shift, and, to put it in context I use, probably just wanted to sit down. She is in the mindset she was at her apartment. That being the starting position in her mind, her training kicked in, and instead of noticing the clues that would have lead her to realize she was mistaken, this lead her to believe an intruder was in her home. I think you would kind of have to assume in that situation said intruder was armed, however wrong we know she was.

Police training is all kinds of fucked up if it goes from possible-intruder-is-man-eating-ice-cream-on-sofa to killing said person.

I have heard the phrase “it’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 4” in reference to how police train cadets, and I don’t know how true that is, but even if it’s half-true there is something horribly, horribly wrong.

[Rolan7]

That's exactly why I feel so much empathy for her!  I would freak the fuck out if I saw a shadowy figure in "my" home (particularly a year or two ago when I lived alone).

But the point made is that drawing on someone is a very deliberate action which you shouldn't take in a state of confusion.  Which is terrifying as a potential victim, but that's how it has to be unless you're willing to kill people by accident.

She shouldn't have drawn, and she went on to fire.  The youtuber I linked to talks about conditions for proper engagement - time, distance and cover.  And de-escalation when possible, but let's agree she was terrified.  That's why I say she should have fled *first*, then re-evaluated in a more secure position.  With time, distance, and cover.