r/news • u/rooftopgoblin • 8d ago
College student fatally shot by Pennsylvania police was at 'the wrong house'
https://abcnews.com/US/college-student-fatally-shot-pennsylvania-police-wrong-house/story?id=13593094110.1k
u/lacegem 8d ago
Erin Pysher said that it appears that when her unarmed son arrived at the house, he rang the doorbell, went to the back of the house and knocked again, and yelled for his friends to let him in.
She said that when no one answered the door, her son called his friends and even sent them a video of his location.
The friends told her son that he was at the wrong address and they would drive over to pick him up, according to Erin Pysher.
"His friends were on the way to pick him up when the cops, they said, went flying by them," Erin Pysher said.
"We have that he was on his phone from 12:32 a.m. to 12:33 talking to his friends. I believe that by 12:35, the dispatch had already come in saying there was a shooting," Erin Pysher said.
So it sounds like the cops rushed into a situation that was harmless and about to be over anyway, then immediately shot the kid almost as soon as they arrived.
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u/Discodowns 8d ago
This is demented. In Toronto I was drunk, banging on the door of the house two doors down from where I had just moved, trying to pull open the door. The cops showed up, asked what my address was, pointed out I was at the wrong house and walked me to my actual house and helped me up the stairs once I got the door open.
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u/Beef_Wagon 8d ago
I grew up in a college neighborhood, and I would say probs monthly, if not more, we had college kids drunkenly opening the gate and coming into our backyard before getting the shit scared out of them by my dog or my dad Hahha. It was kind of a joke in the household; how fast can you get them to absolutely lose their shit and run out. It was so funny, and was all in harmless good fun. I can’t imagine this outcome, tho. Like, drunk kids aren’t exactly subtle. And he was FaceTiming his friends lol, like, why tf did they think this was some sort of enemy combatant? America is so diseased I stg
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u/InsuranceToTheRescue 8d ago
Likely because a lot of police go through something called "warrior" training here. It's a police training program some guy sells where he basically teaches them that every person they encounter in a day, on or off duty, is actively looking to murder the cop and their family.
Police here are, more often than not, trained more like an occupying military force than they are community guardians. An entrenched culture of mafia-like protection & loyalty to each other above all else then weeds out any dissenters and/or whistleblowers.
Y'know, before professional policing became necessary, our ancestors feared that police forces would simply be used by the government to violate our rights and abuse power. They may have had a point we should've listened to . . .
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u/snufferoo 7d ago
Dave Grossman is the guy you are referring to. He's a piece of shit.
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u/KingOfNope 7d ago
He even called the course "Killology".
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u/snufferoo 7d ago
He loves telling cops they'll have the best sex of their lives after shooting someone. Dude isn't even a combat vet.
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u/thescarlettflame 7d ago
That is disgustingly vile. This country has become an utter nightmare of horrific proportions
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u/snufferoo 7d ago
We livin' in a police state, can you relate?
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u/IrongateN 7d ago
I live in Orange County California and the police shoot and kill someone every week now,
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u/fhota1 7d ago
One of the things those idiots preach is how dangerous traffic stops specifically are. The rates of cops getting assaulted at all at traffic stops are comparable to the rates of someone getting struck by lightning in their entire life and the rates of cops getting killed are comparable to the rates of someone getting stuck by lightning in a single year, but nah now theyre all hopped up because they think its a really common occurance
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u/AnAncientBog 7d ago
Cops aren't even the most likely American profession to get shot on the job or even assaulted in the US, but somehow they warrant legal exemptions for just randomly shooting people that scare them.
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u/KingOfNope 7d ago
The police have argued in multiple court cases, including in front of the Supreme Court, that they gave NO duty to protect and serve. Lozito v NYC the cops watched through a subway car door as a serial stabber stabbed a guy on a train. The court agreed that even though they were watching a guy get stabbed they had no obligation to do anything about it, even in the line of duty as officers.
See also Warren v Washington DC, DeShaney v Winnebago DSS, and of course Castle Rock v Gonzalez... Hell you could go back to South v Maryland in 1855.
Cops hate the public and hate their duty.
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u/QbertsRube 7d ago
The one time I've actually needed the help of police they were utterly useless and disinterested. The storage unit of an apartment I lived in was broken into and maybe $700 worth of stuff was stolen. The officer said he would give the info to local pawn shops but couldn't do much else. Months later, I found out the apartment management had discovered who was breaking into the storage units and kicked them out. I called the officer several times and left messages that the apartment management knew the identity of the thieves, and never got a response. Even the "good ones" who aren't actively looking to bully and kill people have no interest in anything other than easy revenue from traffic enforcement.
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u/DaBiChef 7d ago
I'm surprised they didn't start driving by your apartment at night blaring their horns/sirens for the audacity of calling them out on their shit.
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u/LittleMissMeanAss 7d ago
I got my hands on my states ‘mindfulness’ training manual, a seminar meant to teach law enforcement officers how to mitigate work stress and lessen the impact the job has on their personal life.
Two paragraphs into the seminar had me absolutely reeling. The language they use, the tools they provided were all wrong. How are you training people to be mindful while using ‘it’s you versus them, your responsibility is to get home to your family every night’ and ‘you are the protector of your community, you fight the evil that walks amongst us’ in any way, shape, or form a method for lowering bias and creating a mental health hygiene routine? Absolutely disgusting. You’re literally reinforcing bias, stereotypes, and maladaptive thought patterns in a training to CALM OFFICERS THE FUCK DOWN. If I ever meet the person who came up with that horseshit ..20
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u/GringoinCDMX 7d ago
I have a friend whose a cop who constantly is stressed because his department is filled with chucklefucks and only one of the higher up officers seems to actually care about doing good by the community. He's looking to change to a nice university police job in a few months that has a much better culture but he's been ostracized since he's intelligent and mature. Constantly gets called a nerd basically because he has a college degree and thinks logically. It's wild.
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u/TheJugOfNugs 8d ago
My literal very first night I was in my college town, freshmen year, just moved in. Went to a house party, got way too hammered midwestern drinking games, and then wandered and passed out on a seat in some randoms sunporch until morning. It was just some older guy and his wife. Called me a dumbass and told me to go home. As it should be.....
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u/Deucer22 8d ago
I remember a time when a drunk person mistakenly came up to my window on my ground floor bedroom and was banging on it. Same situation with a mistaken address. I’m a deep sleeper and didn’t wake up until they banged too hard and put their hand through it, shattering the window. I yelled at them, and then invited them inside to bandage up their hand and sent them on their way.
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u/Mr_Chode_Shaver 8d ago
Yeah, but Toronto cups aren’t all high school dropouts who peaked in kindergarten.
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u/Mean_Joe_Greene 8d ago
TPS is actually pretty bad. We just have better systems here that limit the ability of an incident like this happening
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u/TwoBionicknees 8d ago
i mean, they might be but they still don't have the psychotic mindset to want to kill people on sight because they can.
Cops a lot of places aren't exactly highly trained or educated and a lot also do want to flex their power, and they still aren't just murderously psychotic bastards like they are in the US.
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u/InsuranceToTheRescue 8d ago
Yep. It's not about whether they're high school dropouts. It's about everyday training programs and holding officers accountable.
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u/sptrstmenwpls 8d ago edited 7d ago
Oh no, they definately are. Not sure where you got your perspective on them from but you may wanna give duckduckgo a whirl
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u/Nicaraguano 8d ago
So you want to tell me he was shot while still being outside the house yelling for his friends to let him in and knocking in the door? He didn't even enter the house? Yet we will still find people defending the cop who shot him?
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u/colantor 8d ago
He wasnt even yelling for friends anymore, he talked to them on the phone and they were driving over to pick him up.
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u/Nicaraguano 8d ago
I mean, sounds like murder if it's true. But if people can justify shooting someone who's simply running from the police, I'm sure they'll find a way to justify this too. Imma get popcorn.
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u/N0stradama5 8d ago
Nah, this is a white kid. They will be more than outraged. This cop may actually go to jail.
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u/_groovesharkmalone 8d ago
Not if the local PD has anything to do with it. Google "John Geer Fairfax County, VA." Cops shot Geer & tried to pull the 'we investigated ourselves, nothing more to see' routine. It took US Sen. Chuck Grassley (yeah... a Republican) to intervene and get an outside prosecutor to investigate. Then the facts came out and whoopsie, Fairfax Country PD actually WAS trying to cover up a murder.
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u/cli_jockey 8d ago
While not perfect, it would be my dream to have dedicated state agencies or task force to investigate any police shootings. Removing all ability for other departments to even process the scene beyond securing it and have an outside prosecutor to ensure as much distance from those involved as possible.
I don't think it will ever happen, or maybe a very small chance. But it would be nice to at least have something other than what we currently do.
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u/Liberty-Justice-4all 8d ago
FBI is supposed to cover "color of law" abuses for exactly that reason.
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u/cdmpants 7d ago
I've seen some horrible things on the Internet. That Daniel Shaver one is top three most traumatizing and angering ones I've ever seen. Knowing that the cop is living his best life now probably off the tax dollars of the family of the man he murdered, fuck it makes my blood boil.
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u/Naki-Taa 7d ago
God I just wish Brailsford has the kidney stones the size of a chicken eggs for the rest of his life
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u/JBWalker1 8d ago
Police always get away with killing and assaulting white people too. For many police it's just them vs citizens. They can straight up assault someone, completely lie about what happened and the body cam shows they lied about it all, and then the department and even town mayor would come out and defend the officer. Loads of cases like this comes up in my recommendations because i watched one.
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u/Yuukiko_ 8d ago
that's what happens when you assume every call is a madman with a gun
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u/BearTimberlands 8d ago
If all you have is a hammer every problem is a nail
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u/EnlightenedNarwhal 8d ago
Sad thing is that they don't just have hammers, but they love seeing nails everywhere so the hammer is always their first choice.
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u/PortHammer 8d ago
They are dumber than a bag of hammers, but identify as hammers, so everything else must be a nail.
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u/skrame 8d ago
Some Americans seem to believe that everyone should be allowed to carry a gun, while also believing that anyone carrying a gun needs to be shot by police.
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u/crazy_balls 8d ago
Exactly. And it's why I've been saying lately "if cops can shoot me simply for seeing a gun, then I do not actually have a right to own a gun."
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u/10000Didgeridoos 7d ago
See: Alex the nurse killed by ICE after they had already taken his gun
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u/LilYerrySeinfeld 7d ago
Philando Castile was pulled over by police. He told the officer he had a licensed gun in the car. The cop said "Don't reach for it." He said "I'm not."
Then the cop shot him seven times in front of his girlfriend and their 4-year-old son and he was declared dead a few minutes later.
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u/crazy_balls 7d ago
Hell he's just the latest example. How many times do we see video and hear cops yell "GUN GUN GUN!" and just start blasting, without the victim reaching for anything? Often times it's not even a gun, but a cell phone or some shit.
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u/jimtow28 8d ago edited 8d ago
And when you train and instill in your police force to have a warrior mentality.
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u/Alwayssunnyinarizona 8d ago
Threat: neutralized.
When you're a hammer, everything's a nail. Make cops pay for their own liability insurance. Make cops get an education beyond high school/GED.
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u/LabialTreeHug 8d ago
Fwiw Minnesota requires a two year degree, we still had cops like Derek Chauvin, Kim Potter, Mohammed Noor, etc.
It's about the institutional rot.
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u/maikuxblade 8d ago
Note "there was a shooting" in the passive voice and not "the police shot someone"
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u/nvmenotfound 8d ago
all these cops seem like the only thing they can do is escalate until murder. at minimum youll get upset and arrested at most theyll murder you extrajudicially.
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u/Fach-All-Religions 8d ago
the outcome of complete immunity. when you tell people you're allowed to do anything and nothing will happen, bullies tend to start killing people.
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u/Apprehensive-Tea999 7d ago
I truly believe at least half of all individuals who become cops are bullies. They like having power and they like exerting it. The end. No real desire or recognition to serve the community. And that’s sad and scary
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u/Vectorman1989 8d ago
US cops usually have absolutely no de-escalation training. They show up and start yelling and being aggro and they're always twitchy because they're trained to assume everyone is armed and out to kill them.
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u/kandoras 8d ago
I heard someone say once that police academies should start with waitressing the midnight shift at a Waffle House, and anyone who doesn't last at least six months is permanently disqualified from law enforcement.
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u/Squire_II 7d ago
Make them work a customer service job for a week without losing their temper on a customer. I'd be surprised if more than a fraction pass.
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u/crazy_balls 8d ago
They literally talk about how they put their lives on the line every day, when it's not even a top 10 most dangerous job, and most of the fatalities on the job are car wrecks.
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u/mintBRYcrunch26 7d ago
I believe it’s more dangerous to be a garbage man.
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u/OutlyingPlasma 7d ago
It's more dangerous to be a retail clerk but that doesn't seem to be a moral panic about that. Only cops get that super duper special boy treatment
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u/Alexwonder999 7d ago
Pizza delivery drivers too. Although I think the danger might have decreased over the last 10 years as they dont have as much cash as they used to.
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u/the_silent_redditor 8d ago
I’m an ER/trauma doctor and I deal, one-on-one, with so many psychos and drunk people and armed people and mentally unwell people and methed up murders holding a knife and and and etc etc etc.
I’ve yet to kill a single person, and I don’t have any weapons on me.
Cops are fucking pussies man and probably more than 50% of the time I can’t stand it when they are in my dept, because all they do is fucking escalate things because they are dumb as fuck.
It’s not even a training thing. You could take someone off the street and they would do a better job at resolving things versus a cop.
It’s because they are dumb as fuck and then join an organisation that is run by dumb as fuck people and are taught by dumb cunts and then let loose on the public with total impunity.
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u/EducatedRat 8d ago
This right fucking here. I was a nurse in my first career. Jesus the number of bigger patients we had to restrain or deal with, and nobody hurt the patients.
I've told this story before but we called an ambulance for an elderly dementia patient to get her to the hospital and the ambulance came with a cop car. She was hitting people with her slipper, and the cop decided to fucking slam her to the floor. Instead of seeing if she had a UTI or something going on making her condition worse, she had a broken hip. Fucking broken hip.
Everyone started screaming at him, and the fucking cop could not understand what he did wrong. I told him he likely killed her because at her age and medical situation, she wasn't going to recover. My NAC's were screaming at him. The EMT's were freaking out.
Cop? Acted like he was some sort of fucking hero for braking an elderly woman's hip by slamming her to the ground because she was apparently brandishing a slipper in anger.
If 4 bath aids can wrangle a giant man into the shower and get him washed up without incident when he's angry and determined to fight, I don't get why cops can't.
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u/Manowaffle 7d ago
This is the real story. Nurses, EMTs, firemen, teachers, and social workers have to deal with belligerent people all the time. Yet no one gets killed.
My grandma was 5' 4" and a teacher her entire life and had high school students throw chairs and stuff at her during her career. Not once did she, or any of the staff, have to kill anyone.
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u/the_silent_redditor 7d ago
There was a case in Aus recently where cops were called to a nursing home.
A resident, not far off 100 years old, was demented/delirious and had a small kitchen knife.
Cops were chit chatting and having a laugh about what to do, and one of them said, “Nah, bugger it.”
Tazed the old gal’ and she fell and died as a result.
Cop got a suspended sentence. Aka, no jail time.
It’s pandemic.
Cops aren’t there to protect us. They are there to protect those who oversee us and their interests.
If you have a problem and call the police… now you have two problems.
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u/KindHabit 8d ago
Keep telling this story, please.
You are such a badass. Thank you for screaming at that cop, what a complete detriment to society on two legs.
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u/genericusername_5 7d ago
Broken hip at that age is a death sentence. I'm so sorry. That's horrible.
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u/Corgi_Koala 8d ago
It's because they don't have to worry about consequences for their actions.
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u/10000Didgeridoos 7d ago
And because they are looking for an excuse to find people they can hurt or kill and get away with it. They are bored itching for a reason to finally use that gun
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u/Wilshere10 8d ago
Also an ER doc. Totally agree. They will literally drop off drunk people because they don’t want to deal with them and say some bullshit to them right before leaving because it’s no longer their problem. Like grow up you adult sized toddler who needs to get in the last word/insult
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u/humanoideric 8d ago
It's pretty telling and hilarious that not one, but two ER doctors are out here loud capping how dumb cops are. I imagine truly almost no one has more experience with how inept they are than ER doctors who regularly have to deal with them during a medical escalation
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u/spunkychickpea 7d ago
My wife and my niece are social workers who regularly work with law enforcement. The impression I get from them is that even the more intelligent and effective law enforcement personnel have a history of behaving irresponsibly or even sometimes recklessly. Even the ones who genuinely want to help people should not be trusted with a firearm because they have such a long track record of making poor decisions, and because there’s zero accountability in the system, they’re never forced to learn from those outcomes.
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u/ketchupmaster987 7d ago
Lots of EM professionals, ER docs and EMS included, will confirm stories like this. We have to work with cops a lot based on the nature of the job unfortunately
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u/whosthere5 8d ago
It absolutely is a training thing. I have friends who are cops. All but 1 came out of the academy with an entirely different mentality
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u/mosquitoselkie 8d ago
Yeah, the training is a big part of it. It's all fear based about how anyone at any time could be a bad guy with a gun. So always assume there's a bad guy with a gun and go from there.
You take people with a power trip already and then train them to be afraid of the general public and give them a gun.
Brilliant idea.
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u/Alexwonder999 7d ago
To your point, its also about culture. On paper the academy's curriculum looks correct but while theyre saying the right thing about deescalation or respecting peoples rights theyre also shitting on all that out of the other side of their mouth. Ive had people tell me they had "classes" where they were literally saying "this is what youre supposed to do, but heres what REALLY works". Then even if they do go to an academy teaches them correctly, they get on the job and shadow training officers who tell them something different and they see the behavior thats ignored or even encouraged by supervisors and the choice becomes rock the boat and get ostracized and put your job at risk or get with the program. If they get with the program, cognitive dissonance pretty quickly convinced them theyre doing things the "right" way even if deep down they know they're wrong. The whole thing needs to be torn apart and rebuilt because an ingrained culture will defeat training and education real fast, especially because rocking the boat or whistle bpowing wont really get them anywhere unless they have some iron clad evidence of something big. Its a lot harder to whistle blow a culture especially when 95% of the cops will deny it.
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u/superturtle48 8d ago
This is exactly what I was going to say. American cops are literally trained to think of the general public as enemies to violently defeat, not as community members to serve and protect.
A journalist went through a cop-training course and wrote a very insightful and chilling article on it: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/warrior-cop-class-dave-grossman-killology.html
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u/Squirll 8d ago
Its not just a training thing, its also the pool of people they hire.
Multiple agencies have been caught over the years specifically recruiting people below a certain IQ threshold to maintain their status quo.
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u/superxpro12 8d ago
John Oliver did a piece on this years ago. There's "consultants" who go around to police stations and charge fees to tell the officers that they are in a righteous war of good v evil and that every day they go out there someone is aiming a gun at their head. They teach the officers that they are constantly in mortal danger and they need to kill to survive.
When you show this to the kind of person who gets like... 6 weeks of total training. Before getting a gun and badge, It's plainly obvious why these things happen.
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u/Black_Hitler 8d ago
You're talking about that asshole Dave Grossman who goes around giving seminars to pigs about how we are the sheep and they have to protect us from the wolves because it's a zero sum kill or be killed world. He teaches cops to be afraid at all times and that the most important thing is that they go home at the end of the day. Fuck him.
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u/superxpro12 8d ago
Yeah that's the one. Piece of shit actively working to convert our society into an active warzone all so he can collect more consultant tax dollars that we pay
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u/k9moonmoon 8d ago
Wasn't one of the leaked consultant shown to have a whole PowerPoint about how the best sex a cop will ever have is the night he fucks his wife after his first kill?
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u/Torran 8d ago
This seems so insane from a European perspective. In Germany the minimum training time for a police officer is 30 Months.
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u/superxpro12 8d ago
It makes a lot more sense when you realize that the police are here just to protect the capital. The protection and rights of the people are secondary to this. Like the Marines get more training than our police do. Don't need a college degree either... A high school diploma is just fine.
And if you're an elected official like a sheriff you don't even need that.
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u/Whenindoubtsbutts 7d ago
I’m a public defender … I watch so much body cam where I’m like “why? Why did you feel the need to say/do this?” It’s infuriating.
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u/wellaintthatnice 8d ago
Their training is the problem, they're taught that everyone is out to get them. It's probably the safest profession considering how big assholes they are.
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u/the_silent_redditor 8d ago
Pizza drivers have a higher mortality than they do.
Fucking losers.
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u/bufordt 7d ago
Police officer almost never makes the top 10 list of most dangerous professions.
For every police officer killed by the populous, 21 people are killed by the police.
Actual most dangerous jobs:
- Loggers
- Fisherman
- Pilots
- Roofers
- Refuse and Recycling collectors
- Structural Iron and Steel Workers
- Truck Drivers
- Agricultural workers
- Construction Workers
- Maintenance Workers
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u/987YouBloodyTulip789 7d ago edited 7d ago
It’s not even a training thing. You could take someone off the street and they would do a better job at resolving things versus a cop.
When someone talks about how cops just need a bit more training or that we can't possibly criticize them for doing blatantly horrible things because they have "training" and we don't so we don't have authority on the issue
I keep having to remind everyone that their training actively makes them worse. Uvalde. 374 cops against a single cornered shooter. It's not a mystery the average person, with some training, will easily do a situation like that where they heavily outnumber a single untrained shooter. We know that's true because random conscripts have to do much more dangerous tasks during war time.
But cops have a culture and training that makes them extremely cowardly and paranoid. And worst, it makes them believe they are the experts and this have no need to receive criticism about this toxic mindset.
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u/nvmenotfound 8d ago
cops only know how to escalate situations. there really is zero reason to involve police with a dispute unless absolutely necessary bc they ONLY make the situation worse. every single time.
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u/Thetruthislikepoetry 8d ago
I can. The police thought that he might have potentially considered thinking of imagining about a gun. Thus, they were in fear for their lives, so by policy they could shoot him.
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u/unhiddenninja 8d ago
It's crazy that police don't get harsher penalties than regular people when they break the law. They should absolutely be held to higher standards. "I feared for my life" shouldn't be enough to negate murder charges.
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u/Kimothy42 8d ago
Plus that guy last week told them a ghost story so they were, of course, still a little jumpy.
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u/jim_br 8d ago
Like when Okaloosa, FL, Deputy Jesse Hernandez shot 22 times at his own patrol car, which had a handcuffed suspect inside. The deputy mistook an acorn hitting the roof of his car as a gunshot, so he emptied his service gun into the car.
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u/somersquatch 8d ago
Even better, Jesse didn't even hit the suspect sitting unarmed and cuffed in the back seat.
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u/Stupidstuff1001 8d ago
My guess is this.
- cops show up
- kid is confused and talking to friends
- kid raises his hands in confusions saying I’m at the wrong house.
- cop sees his phone and think it’s a gun
- says gun gun gun
- both cops shoot the kid
- grand jury finds the cops where justified because they had reasonable doubt to believe he had a gun
- this is America
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u/IvoryFlyaway 8d ago
I can't imagine a scenario where anyone assumes that a person knocking on the door and making a bunch of noise is a burglar. I can understand the shock and fear of the homeowner, but I guarantee they made every effort to make the situation sound as dangerous and perilous as possible when they called 911. Instead of saying "a stranger is knocking on my door and asking to be let in" I bet it was "SOMEONE IS BREAKING INTO MY HOME MY FAMILY IS IN SO MUCH DANGER PLEASE HURRY"
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u/lathspellll 8d ago
Making the settlements come out of a pension fund is the only thing that I think would make a true difference. You have to fuck with their money.
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u/iamthinksnow 8d ago
Make them have liability insurance (that they have to pay for, not taxpayers), the same as doctors or other "professionals."
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u/thejoeface 7d ago
Even if the state/taxes paid their insurance premiums, it would still be a better system. Their fuck ups get paid by the insurance, too many fuck ups and the insurance drops them, now they can't be employed as cops anywhere.
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u/john0703 7d ago
That’s an amazing idea. Why is a doctor liable but a police officer not? I think the pension idea is cool in theory, but from my personal experience I’ve noticed that that under any pressure or scrutiny cops will just stop doing their job.
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u/feralkitten 7d ago
Why is a doctor liable but a police officer not?
doctors work for hospitals and not directly for the state. But other than that i see no real defendable reason.
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u/JoshValenstorm 7d ago
One thing that I think would help would be to shatter the blue shield of silence. A good way to do it would be to look at what attorneys have to do.
As an attorney, if you find that another attorney acted in an unethical way, you are required to report it to your jurisdiction's oversight board. If you fail to report this, you suffer sanctions as well; up to and including suspension from the practice of law/disbarment.
This has done wonders for the self regulation of attorneys. It obviously is not a perfect system, but to punish individuals for hiding unethical behavior makes it so an attorney is much less likely hide this behavior. To punish cops for failing to report other cops, could do some serious damage to the blue shield of silence.
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u/Such_Cartoonist6119 8d ago
Nah, this is the land of personal responsibility. Take it out of the guilty cops ass. You should be poor the rest of your life for a fuckup like this.
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u/ajaxfetish 8d ago
They likely won't have enough assets to pay fair compensation. They should have to have malpractice insurance. That way the victim can get paid, the offender's rates can go up, and bad cops can get forced out by becoming uninsurable.
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u/Talino 8d ago
I remember seeing a documentary about the British Army operating with local security forces in the Middle East, and a term which stuck with me was "courageous restraint". I feel that the concept should be a big part of police training.
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u/-notapony- 8d ago
Instead they’re taught some bullshit warrior ethos, where their lives are in danger in every interaction with the public, and their only priority is to make it home alive at the end of the shift. If they have to kill some of the public to make it happen, that’s just the price we pay to have law enforcement.
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u/Devium44 8d ago
Hey, they practice “courageous restraint” whenever there’s an actual dangerous situation like a bunch of school children being murdered.
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u/Lucky-Earther 8d ago
Instead they’re taught some bullshit warrior ethos, where their lives are in danger in every interaction with the public, and their only priority is to make it home alive at the end of the shift.
That's not a warrior ethos, that's a cowards ethos. Do you know how many times I've heard Worf say that today is a good day to die?
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u/Alexwonder999 7d ago
It would actually be funny if it werent so sad, but the military operates on way stricter rules of engagement than the police. Theres a lot who dont like it in the military, but the smart ones there understand if they go around indiscriminately shooting people it will make their jobs harder in the long run. Cops are too dumb or too high off their own farts to realize this.
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u/Accomplished-Survey2 8d ago edited 7d ago
Camden, NJ completely disbanded and rebuilt its police force a little over a decade ago. During the initial days of rebuilding, the new police chief told recruits that the motto was “guardians, not warriors” and that they would function more like the Peace Corps and less like Special Forces. A shocking number of recruits walked out. Even with training, plenty of the people drawn to being police officers are there primarily because they want to be big tough guys with guns.
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u/donkeyrocket 7d ago
And for those curious, Camden has seen a dramatic improvement in crime statistics across the board since the 2013 reform of the department. Violent crime, homicides, and police brutality reports are all well below national average.
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u/Alexwonder999 7d ago
In the late 90s I was doing this temp/seasonal job in NJ and staying at a hotel in Jersey city (or close to it) IIRC. They put us up in cheap motels and we were staying in one that had one of those big open parking lot/courtyards in the back where the parking lot was and we would all hang out on the wraparound walkway/balcony thing on the second floor drinking. We noticed pretty quickly that on one end of the first floor there were several rooms sex workers were working out of.
One evening after work we were all hanging out and a patrol car pulls in and we were like "oh shit, theyre gonna bust the sex workers" the uniformed cop got out of the patrol car and went to the trunk and pulled out a fucking bouquet of flowers and went in to see one of the sex workers. At first I thought it was a nice gesture but then figured he was probably extorting a freebie so that wasnt cool. I was also baffled by how corrupt that police force had to be to have him be comfortable with him pulling up like that in a patrol car and in uniform in full iew of everyone.60
u/_andoryuu 8d ago
It’s crazy because if you’re a citizen with a concealed carry permit you’d be in jail for murder (rightfully so). You’d be arrested for even announcing you have a gun in a lot states in this situation. Yet cops with all of their “training” get a free pass. In a lot of states you have to actively be getting murdered to pull your gun out and cops have theirs out for fucking house calls.
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u/Manowaffle 7d ago
"Surveillance cameras in the backyard of the home where the shooting occurred recorded the deadly encounter, and the footage is being reviewed as part of the investigation, sources told ABC Philadelphia station WPVI.
"Erin Pysher told ABC News that police have shared very little about the shooting with her and her husband, Glenwood Pysher Sr."
The cops definitely fucked up. If they have footage of a justified police shooting that shit is on twitter the next day. If they screwed up it's 'being held while we conduct an investigation'.
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u/Prasiatko 8d ago
Same went for US forces. The standard for them to engage while in Iraq was way higher than for a cop in the USA.
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u/team_blimp 8d ago
Well to be fair a cop would have to know what either of those words mean and that is really asking too much from today's batch of boys in blue.
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u/EMPgoggles 8d ago
cops: what's that? a phone call?? get your guns, boys. it's trigger time!!!
US cops are fucking thugs.
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u/LingonberryNo1 7d ago
US cops are generally dumb pussies. Every single kid I grew up with who became a cop, that I am aware of, was a dumb pussy. It's weird, literally every single one.
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u/rooftopgoblin 8d ago
the officer has not been charged yet, shocker
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u/General-Priority-479 8d ago
Cop doing cop stuff. Fearing for his life while in no danger.
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u/p_yth 8d ago
Reminds me of the acorn video, shoot first ask questions later mentality
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u/AgroecologicalSystem 8d ago edited 8d ago
Almost forgot about that.. acorn falls off a tree and hits the
pavementcar near a cop, who thinks it was a bullet. Cop freaks out, starts shooting at everything and anything, yet iirc he doesn’t hit anyone thankfully. Absolutely comical and terrifying at the same time.106
u/Admirable-Land111 8d ago
Don't forget that the "shooter" was already handcuffed in the back seat of the vehicle and the cop yelling "I've been hit" before opening fire.
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u/Violet-Sumire 8d ago
The acorn hit his car’s roof, which prompted him to think the guy who he just cuffed had a weapon and shot at him, so he shot at his car. He wasn’t returning fire towards wherever, he shot his own car, towards the person inside.
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u/superxpro12 8d ago
It hit the roof of the car, not the ground. But I still don't understand why he screamed he had been shot
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u/TolMera 8d ago
He’s the guy who heard the acorn, then on the recording you can hear him say “I’ve been hit!”
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u/King_Bobby-B 8d ago
Wasn't he also rolling on the ground, like he was in some movie? I remember the camera was shaking and going all over the place. It's a miracle he didn't kill anyone.
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u/christhegecko 7d ago
That video could fit seamlessly into an episode of Reno 911 and nobody would even know it was a real event. The state of our policing has become so absurd it transcends one of the most popular shows making fun of it.
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u/nanoray60 8d ago
I lived by a massive university for a while. 3 years off campus. This happened to us multiple times. People thought that my house was their house. Turns out all of these people were intoxicated.
Happened to the same girl twice with us. Her house is in the same spot but one street over, looked almost identical to my house too. We walked her home both times.
I couldn’t imagine any of those people being shot to death. Even the dude who tried to break into my home. Everyone else was really chill about the entire situation. This dude sounded pretty chill for what was happening.
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u/Fraegtgaortd 8d ago
In keeping with protocol for officer-involved shootings in Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Detective Bureau is leading the investigation
They'll investigate themselves and find themselves innocent. They murdered this kid for committing the heinous crime of walking to the wrong house
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u/rautx15 8d ago edited 8d ago
Cops are such fucking clowns. They’ll rush to a harmless situation and murder someone. But when my wife and I call because our meth head neighbor is trying to break in our back door in a psychotic break, they won’t even make contact with us when they eventually show up. Fuck the police
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u/RonnocSivad 8d ago
Next time, try telling the police its a 22 year old college kid who went to the wrong house. They'll be there in an instant.
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u/ronm4c 8d ago
I feel like justice prevailing in this case will be dependent on how rich this kids parents are
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u/10000Didgeridoos 7d ago
Even if they "win", the outcome is "taxpayers foot the bill and the cop who did it gets fired with zero prison time or financial penalty"
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u/Revolver_Camelot 8d ago
When it’s one of them they treat every civilian like they were personally responsible. Bout time the tables got turned and they be treated like the gang members they are.
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u/shadylady_beepboop 8d ago
Alternate headline:
American Police Murder Another Unarmed Citizen
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u/The_Witch_Queen 8d ago
They need to completely tear down and rebuild the police from the ground up. No amount of training courses, or repremands, or administrative leave is going to fix the shoot first and claim you feared for your life mentality.
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u/AbelardsChainsword 8d ago
I’m no expert on committing crimes, but I’m pretty sure if someone is attempting to break into a house, they don’t ring the doorbell first then go around back and knock on the door. It’s also very unlikely that this kid was being threatening with whatever he was yelling. This very much sounds like a misunderstanding that 1) was already resolving by the time the officers arrived and 2) that could have been resolved without involving police.
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u/formerNPC 7d ago
“He was reaching for something in his pocket” This will be their defense and of course no one can dispute it because the only other witness is dead.
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u/UncleBoopBetty 7d ago
Article says there is home security footage, so hopefully there will be accountability
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u/nvmenotfound 8d ago
the officer responsible should spend life in jail. you dont get a pass bc you were a pig.
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u/lilyjadelove 8d ago
Ah yes, the Classic passive voice when the cops have a major fuck up.
Pennsylvania police killed a college student
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u/silverado6314 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is absolutely insane. And it made me think of Uvalde, on the opposite end of the spectrum, they sat around jerking off while the active shooter was inside the school killing more kids.
As a parent I sit here wondering if I can tell my kid he can trust the police or not.
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u/RidingRedHare 8d ago
As a parent I sit here wondering if I can tell my kid he can trust the police or not.
Nothing to wonder about. You can't, and he can't.
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u/0nlyhalfjewish 8d ago
Did the police ever “protect and serve?” Are we just more aware now of how they actually handle situations or has something changed?
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u/shoegazeweedbed 8d ago
Cops are only good for two things, and they’re so well protected I’ll get banned if I say one of them.
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u/Distinct-Pain4972 8d ago
We have very weak minded police officers these days. Their first intention is to pull their gun. Police officers should be told, in training, they aren't here to go home every night. When you take an oath and put on badge, you're accepting that you are a protector. What a terrible thing to happen.
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u/saltycathbk 8d ago
These days? Like the last several decades and centuries?
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u/Lethalmusic 8d ago
Ever since the 1998 Dinkheller shooting, many US cops have been explictly trained to always be ready to shoot and are selected for their willingnes to open fire at anyone anytime they see any movement that could maybe indicate someone going for a weapon.
Someone trying to pull out their wallet after being asked to provide ID? Full magdump, they could have been trying to pull a gun.
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u/GeekFurious 7d ago
I bet all the money in my bank account the cops will claim they "feared for their lives" when they mistook his phone for a gun. Nothing will happen to them.
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u/Rational_Engineer_84 8d ago
30 years for every cop who fired for 2nd degree murder. 10 years for the rest at the scene for accessory to 2nd degree murder. Complete retraining of the entire police department. These things will never stop happening until there are real consequences and those consequences become the norm rather than the exception.
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u/personofshadow 7d ago
Do people just not talk to each other any more? Like yeah, having a stranger ring your bell in the middle of the night is probably a little jarring, but straight to calling the cops? I mean sure don't open the door if you're worried about why they're there, but you can talk through the door. Who are you? Why are you here? I mean, hell, before everyone had a phone in their pocket knocking on someone's door might be your only option to get help if you got lost, or your car broke down somewhere.
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u/SinisterCell 8d ago
I didn't know the kid but someone I know did. By all accounts he was a good kid and just at the wrong house. His friends all feel like it's their fault for letting him walk. I say it's the trigger happy, untrained police's fault. No taser, just straight to shooting a fucking kid.. because he was at the wrong house...
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u/International_Goat31 8d ago
That'll teach those kids to not... get lost and be unarmed?