On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Commission ruled—in agreement with the investigation by the LAPD—that the fatal shooting of Guatamalan day laborer, Manuel Jamines, was within the law.
Jamines was brandishing (or at the very least, holding) a knife at the time he was shot last September 5.
The shooting triggered days of demonstrations in the Westlake community of Los Angeles, where some residents felt that Jamines,
a community resident known to many, was drunk and disorderly, but not a lethal threat when Officer Frank Hernandez, a 13-year department veteran assigned to a bicycle unit in the Rampart Division, shot and killed him.
One onlooker disputed the claim that Jamines was holding a knife at all, while most witnesses supported the police officers’ description of events, which included telling Jamines in both English and Spanish to drop the knife.
Many questioned why officers couldn’t have used a stungun, or some other less-than-lethal weapon to subdue Jamines who was reportedly drunk to the point of staggering when officers arrived on the scene in response to a complaint about Jamines.
That question—which is one of judgment, not of law—is still worth asking.
Yet, it is not any easy question to answer.
OFFICER SAFETY
Those split second calls are undeniably tough ones that we who have not had the experience cannot easily judge. And no one wants to see another police officer harmed. In 2010, 162 police officers nationwide were killed in the line of duty, a substantial increase over 2009’s 117 deaths, when there had been a 2-year drop in officer fatalities.
This year looks as if the numbers will be as bad or worse. As of today, there have been 44 officer deaths nationwide in 2011, as opposed to 40, last year at this time.
(To keep things in perspective, despite unhelpful alarmist headlines about A War on Cops, 2010 was lower than many years in the 80’s and 90’s, and the same or lower than the average yearly numbers last decade.
It is also important to note that only a percentage of those officers died at the hands of another. More die in traffic and motorcycle accidents each year than are killed by suspects.)
Still those who protect and serve the rest of us have a very dangerous job.
As LAPPL President said in the press release that followed the commission’s decision: ” If you don’t want to get shot by a police officer, don’t try to stab one with a knife.”
A demonstration protesting the commission’s decision has been planned for 5 p.m. in the MacArthur Park area. Let us hope it remains peaceful. Officers have reportedly been deployed to the area.
Joel Rubin at the LA Times has more, as does
(Photo from LA Times via the San Francisco Bay View)
Answering The Question Says:
September 8th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Lapd Chf says “we don’t train cops to take knives away from people” but promises a fair review of shooting.
Translation:
“We train cops to shoot drunks with knives. The cops will be cleared because they did what they’re trained to do. Talk to Mayor V if you’ve got a problem with it”.
As predicted.
“To keep things in perspective”..What total bull shit. I decided to take a look to see if you ever addressed the issue I spoke of and you finally have, though only apparently because of this ruling by the police commission. It’s apparent it’s really no big fucking deal to you, what a shock.
You still don’t get it Celeste and you can state other wise and your friends can defend you all they fucking want but you obviously care more when one of your gangster pals gets what you believe is a raw deal than any cop getting murdered. It’s like you have to soften what should be an absolute defense of cops by muddying the waters so your leftist cop hating pals don’t get mad at you. Or maybe it’s just your true feelings, how sad either way.
The fact that you try to down play the amount of them killed with your ratio of those who die (the word is fucking murdered by the way) at the hands of another as compared to those who die in traffic accidents (which by the way is mostly when in route to assist other officers or civilians in emergent situations) shows that without any doubt.
To get this “perspective” how many years do we have to go back, 15 to 30? Who gives a fuck what happened in the 80’s and 90’s? Look at the last two years alone and you’ll see a dramatic rise in the amount of officers gunned down by the slime you worry so much about.
By this time last year 16 officers were killed by gunfire, we’re sitting at 21 as of today for 2011. More than half of those this year have lost their lives to the hands of another, or in your incredibly heartless words “only a percentage”. In all of last year 59 officers were killed by gunfire, only 40 in 2009.
I realize this is a cop hate board, realize it now more than ever so I’ll do the math. Almost 50% more were gunned down in 2010 than 2009 and at the current rate that might happen again this year. I’m glad you’re not alarmed but I can tell you without hesitation that officers are paying attention to this trend.
I know we’re not at the top of your list of people who matter to you and your friends Celeste, past comments and your writing tells me that all to well, but to post as you did on what’s going on is shameful.
Thank God there are other blogs and people who get it right and put out the info in a more realistic and caring manner. Though I’m sure some of your usual idiots will point to the NRA or conservatives as being the root cause behind this it simply doesn’t matter and when you look at weaponry involved it doesn’t speak to the facts. Bottom line, more cops are being “murdered” and it rates only a side note here….fucking pathetic. Thank God a bunch of gangsters weren’t killed in one fell swoop, wouldn’t hardly be space for any Alex Sanchez updates.
Don’t worry, this was a one time visit.
SureFire, for the record, I started out the second half of that post intending to write about the spike in the murders of police officers.
However, as I wrote, I kept researching and found that the numbers were different than what I’d originally thought and what various news articles suggested. When I looked at ALL the numbers provided by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (an organization that I assume you would consider to be credible), while the 2010 and 2011 numbers are hideously high by any measure, they don’t represent a spike in the statistical sense.
In looking at the last 10 years, I saw that the outlier stats were the officer deaths in 2008 and 2009, years in which officer deaths dropped, with the total officer deaths in 2008 at 138, 2009 at 117.
Then in 2010 officer deaths jumped to 162, with 2011 on track to be tragically higher—all of which looks like a spike, until you look at all those numbers in the context of the whole decade.
2000: 162, 2002: 157, 2003: 148, 2004: 164, 2005: 162, 2006: 154, 2007: 185. Of course, 2001 was the biggest outlier of all at 240 because of the officers who died trying to save others in the world trade center.
Other than 2001, the year in the last decade that one could best describe as a spike was 2007 when 185 officers died. Yet it was still lower than a number of years in the two decades prior.
So what does all this mean? Certainly it means that too many police officers are getting murdered and, looking at the numbers, that has been the fact of the matter for the last 30 years. We can and should talk about that. But when we do, we need to use real numbers.
Look: I care very much when a police officer dies, as I do when a firefighter dies, because that person has died trying to protect the rest of us.
But I also care about the injustice done to the people who are the most conveniently despised in our culture.
I have room in my heart and mind for both. Why don’t you?
PS: I used “died at the hands of another” because I don’t know the circumstances of all those shooting deaths. For example, three of the officers killed by gunfire thus far in 2011 were killed by friendly fire. I am merely trying to be accurate, not to minimize the tragedy of their deaths.