One officer is seen standing at her door and repeatedly telling her to “get out of the car”.
    “For what?” she responds twice, adding: “I’m not going to do that.”
    One officer seen in front of the car has his left hand on the hood, his gun drawn in the other hand.
    “Are you going to shoot me?” she says moments before a single shot is fired and the officer quickly moves out of the car’s path.

    The cop who killed her was in no danger, and has time to casually stroll out of the way of the vehicle.

    What he doesn’t have is a name or a face — as often happens, the police haven’t been named, and their faces have been blurred in the video.

    Why?

If they weren’t cops — if they were just a pair of random dudes killing a black pregnant woman, and there was video footage — would their names remain secret, their faces blurred?

  • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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    Even if she committed a crime, cops are not judge jury and executioner.

    A judge with a conscience would give them the death penalty for this

  • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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    Both officers, who have not been identified, were in the parking lot for an unrelated call.

    Footage shows officers attempting to question her for alleged shoplifting.

    So they are there for something completely unrelated. Then just decide to question pregnant woman about shoplifting and fucking shoot her??? That’s not even why you’re there!!! What the fuck happened and I’m sorry stolen property, especially corporate property, should not warrant taking a life.

    Oh wait sorry but SA survivors, even children, can’t have an abortion, and they are willing to take doctors to court for it. Because life is precious. Until it’s taken by a cop.

  • Ton@lemmy.world
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    Look at the ‘related’ links at the bottom of that BBC page…

    No charges for officers who fatally shot black man Published 17 April

    Black man was shot 46 times by US police - autopsy Published 15 July 2022

    Ohio black man shot 60 times by police, video shows Published 4 July 2022

    I think it’s no wonder she tried to get away. Her fault was to not step on the gas HARD.

    • Ken Oh@lemm.ee
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      I kind of had this. I’m in the US and my company has a foreign travel advisory. When I went to Norway this year it literally said I’m safer there than at home.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      I don’t think their commands were illegal, rspecit if she was a suspected shoplifter. Then again, even pulling out a gun for a shoplifter is something you only really see in america, this is insane

    • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
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      This guy is a murderer. What they were doing before that was 100% legal. If someone broke into your house and stole from you and cops happened to be right outside, she couldn’t get away with it by just not opening the car door and driving away straight into a police officer when the cops came over. If she were innocent and complied, bonus! She could’ve probably successfully sued the store and the cops. Instead, she refused and started running over one of them with her car.

      I was pulled over once for driving the speed limit with a car full of family. The cops asked for my license and our names, asked what we were doing and we gave them everything. They apologized and explained that everyone speeds on that street and they’d found that road to be used for stolen cars. That was it. 3 minutes and we drove away. If I had refused to give them anything and started driving away while a cop was in front of my car, I’d have at least gone to prison. That cop should be in jail. Her behavior was terrible.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        You’re misrepresenting what happened here. She pulled the car ahead, yes, but only moved forward at a speed less than the speed the cop could walk backwards. So characterizing it as “started running over one of them with her car” is a little inaccurate, don’t you think?

        And the cops were beside the car and then for some reason, one guy moved around in front of the car. I suspect he did this because she started the engine or in some other way indicated she was going to drive away. If that was the case, the cop put himself into a dangerous situation over a shoplifting accusation. So that means any argument that he was afraid doesn’t fly with me because he made the mistake of putting himself in that situation.

        And yeah, I’ve never had problems with police because I don’t break the law either. But after seeing enough videos I’ve come to realize that I don’t have problems with police because a) yeah, I don’t break the law, but also because b) I’m white. That second factor that can’t be ignored in all of this. If it were a white woman would this situation have gone down the same way?

        And the cop feeling threatened (because of a situation he put himself in) also applies to the woman. Was she trying to drive away because she was afraid? I suppose she can’t give testimony now, so that’s convenient for the cops, isn’t it?

        The cop fucked up by putting himself in front of a running car, and then murdered a woman for slowly moving that car forward. None of their actions are defensible.

        • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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          It’s a strategy so commonplace that I suspect it’s part of police training:

          If someone doesn’t step out of a car immediately on command, an officer stations him/herself in front of the car’s headlights, with gun drawn. Not in front of the car, but in front of a headlight. This allows the claim that, holy smokes, the cop could be run over if the car moves an inch, but it leaves the officer ample time and space to jump out of the way even if the driver floorboards the accelerator.

          It’s bogus, but such a well-practiced maneuver that even people who recognize other police misconduct tend to believe it. Well, I guess they had to kill this particular perp — she was trying to run him over!"

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            Yeah and I’m thinking if she drives off, they have her license plate, right? And it’s someone accused of shoplifting not a mass shooter. Of course if it were a mass shooter they’d be holding back and assessing the situation to avoid being put into danger.

        • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
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          It’s possible for both people to have been in the wrong. That woman wasn’t a murderer, so let’s remember degrees of wrong, but she definitely wasn’t innocent. One of cops’ literal jobs is to catch criminals who don’t want to be caught. That’s why they approached her and probably why he stood in front of the car. They weren’t accosting some rando on the street. What they did wrong was drawing a gun, pointing it at a person, and pulling the trigger when not in mortal danger.

          I don’t appreciate that in these situations, everyone lines up on one side or the other and whomever we’ve decided to defend could have done no wrong. The wrongdoers were wrong in every possible way. It’s mob mentality. And then we wonder why those on the other side can’t see things our way. Hyperbole helps nobody.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            So the cops didn’t take down the license plate? The job of the police is to maintain law and order. Escalating a situation so they can gun someone down in a parking lot is the exact opposite of maintain order. Instead of of doing the sensible thing of allowing the person leave the parking lot and then arrest the person in a less dangerous situation, they continued to escalate it and then shot and murdered a person in the middle of a busy parking lot.

            I don’t appreciate that in these situations no one has any regard for the bystanders that had nothing to do with the situation put at risk by murderous cops. These cops are greater danger to the public than a woman slowly moving her car forward.

          • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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            That woman wasn’t a murderer, so let’s remember degrees of wrong, but she definitely wasn’t innocent.

            “Innocent until proven guilty” is a fine principal, quickly forgotten by most, and a punchline for police.

      • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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        Instead, she refused and started running over one of them with her car.

        That line is such tired cop propaganda, and untrue.

  • TimoBRL@lemmy.world
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    I am so glad I’m not in America. It literally looks like everybody is at risk to get shot all the time, everywhere.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      Only when cops are around. Or when you set foot on a stranger’s property in a red state. Or if you piss someone off. Or…ok, you have a point.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        At work someone was visiting from overseas. When asked if he wanted to do anything in particular, he asked if he could see our guns and maybe go shooting.

        We explained that contrary to stereotypes, we didn’t all have guns, and in fact no one in the room had a gun.

        Later while walking outside to lunch he asked what all the loud bangs were. It was the gun range across the street that we had all just kind of forgot about and ignored.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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      It’s really not, but doom scrolling sure makes it feel that way. The human mind simply does not understand mass statistics as applied to individual risk.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        While true (over four decades without seeing a gun used against a living target in the US here), the statistics are still pretty bad here per capita.

        Someone in my school growing up killed their sibling (accidental shooting). A guy that did some work for my family couldn’t finish the job because he shot his wife’s boyfriend and went to jail. There was a spree shooter within half a mile of my home once. I’ve never seen anything personally, but have more “close calls” than people in a lot of countries wouldn’t believe.

        Of course, I’ve known more fatalities from cars or cancer or heart attacks. But still our statistics on gun violence is not great, just not to the point of it being quite as ubiquitous as reported on the media.

    • kitonthenet@kbin.social
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      ALLEGEDLY shoplifting! The store worker could have been confused and it could be as simple as that, we don’t even know if she did the thing

      • Artificial Human No. 20@lemmy.world
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        This is one of the reasons I refuse to shop at my local Meijer stores. Their fucking registers are quick to accuse you of stealing something, and you’re treated as guilty by the employees even if you try to prove that the machine is wrong.

        I know more than one person who has had this experience, chiefly my sister who already has severe social anxiety. She won’t step foot there again.

        One has been banned since the first time she went because the employees confused her with someone that actually shoplifted. They called in the cops, who told her should be trespassed if she came back.

        Fuck these systems.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    “This was a tragedy. Ms Young’s family is understandably very upset and grieving,” Blendon Police Chief John Belford said in a statement on Friday.

    This wasn’t just a tragedy, this was homicide and a attempted cover up by shitty cops.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      I find that completely appalling that they called this a tragedy.

      A tragedy implies two things, a lot of small things happening at once that add up to an unpreventable misfortune A wave of bad luck striking at the right time for the wrong person

      This wasn’t a tragedy, this was murder. “Luck” wasn’t involved, nor the “Will of God”, it was a man who’s pp only gets hard when he takes the lives of the innocent.

    • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
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      Who attempted to cover it up? The first I heard was the release of the video and announcement that the cop with the gun was removed from duty while under investigation. I’m honestly asking because I’m not aware.

      • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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        I wouldn’t have used the word ‘cover-up’, but it’s accurate. The announced story that she was driving her car into the cop is a falsehood designed to cover up what actually happened.

        Also, any cop anywhere who shoots anyone under any circumstances is always removed from duty while under investigation. It’s not indicative of openness and integrity; it’s merely pro forma.

      • hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world
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        If they only release footage with the faces and badges blurred, how do we know the guys punished are the ones in the video? Why blur their faces if you are going to hold them responsible?

        • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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          “Spot on,” as the kids say these days.

          They blur the cops’ faces to prevent holding them responsible, of course.

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    I don’t see the need to immediately gun someone down. She’s in a car for fuck’s sake, note down the plate and visit her when she’s calmed down.

    • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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      With that kind of thinking, you’ll never make it as a cop — a high compliment indeed.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        Then let her go, because the alleged crime isn’t worth escalating the situation to the point where someone could be harmed. Follow the car if you need to, but in this case you probably don’t need to. The cops had no need to escalate the situation, but they enjoy it.

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    On the blurring and name thing; as a general rule all crime suspects should always be treated like that. Even convicted criminals.

    Think about it. If you publish “first name last name is suspected of molesting children” with a face, then that person’s life is destroyed, even if it turns out they’re innocent.

    In the other hand if they’re found guilty, you will want that person to serve their time, rehabilitate, and then come back into society and continue a normal life without causing more trouble. If you publish names and faces, that’s no longer possible.

    Even in cases like these.

    Then again, in countries where they do do this, these police officers would likely already have been arrested for homicide.

    Edit: exceptions to these criminal privacy laws exist, mostly for when there are extreme circumstances, for example when a suspected crazy killer is on the lose and people need to avoid and report them

    • ZzyzxRoad@lemm.ee
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      There are still those mugshot websites that post all the booking photos from the sheriff’s departments daily. They always have the disclaimer “for entertainment purposes only, all suspects are innocent until blah blah” but you have to fight with them to get them taken down because it’s public information. You can go to your local jail or prison’s website and look up someone’s name to see if they’re in custody, regardless of whether they’ve had their day in court. Some of them have inmate rosters so you end up seeing everyone’s names alphabetically.

      It just makes it even more gross when they extend this privilege to cops but not the average person, especially innocent people whose cases go on to be dismissed, but they had their mug shots posted online. Yes, criminal privacy laws would make sense, but in the US everyone is guilty until proven otherwise.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        Yeah those sites should be illegal. Entertainment purposes my ass, these are humans, human lives you are destroying. Fuck all of that.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    I’m surprised all the bootlickers I saw in the other thread about the body camera footage aren’t in here defending the cop, claiming their life was threatened, aren’t in here. What bullshit that was.

    • WhipTheLlama@lemmy.world
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      I’d argue that any accused criminal should remain unidentified until proven guilty or if there is an important reason why their name should be released.

      • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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        I understand the sentiment, but down that path are secret trials — nobody knows you’ve been arrested, and then nobody knows you’ve been convicted and sentenced. I do find the American fascination with mugshots troubling.

        More pertinent to this, let’s have one standard. If anyone but a cop shot and killed a pregnant black woman, that person’s name and face would be all over the evening news.

        • Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
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          There is a big difference between secret trials and posting peoples mugshots and what they were arrested for before they’re convicted. It can haunt you as much or more than an actual conviction. Like all those mugshot websites that charge money to remove a mugshot even if the charges were dropped.

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            The solution would be to make the activities of those mugshot sites illegal.

            Making arrests non-public also means wrongful arrests are non-public as well.

            Yeah making trials public has problems, but the alternative is worse.

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      Did you even read the Wiki page you linked? First paragraph says multiple states, including Ohio, enacted similar laws.

    • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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      Big-money right-wing groups have a habit of basically buying state-level legislation, like “Marsy’s Law,” and then photocopying it and buying virtually the same legislation in other states. “Marsy’s Law” is the law in half a dozen states, last time I looked into it, and probably more by now…