Police brutality, suicide by cop, or a bluff gone wrong?

[dynaflow]

I just saw this last night.Â* It's a pretty intense watch.Â* I'm torn.

The last minutes of Deandre Brunston: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=25540566ca

Â* Â*:?

I would have put this in the video section, but since the guy dies in the end (sorry to spoil the ending for you), it qualifies as a "Non-MDS Death."Â* I haven't been able to find a MySpace account for this guy, so he won't get submitted as an official death unless somebody else can find something.

What do y'all think: police brutality, suicide by cop, or a bluff gone wrong?

[FemmeFatality]

dangit, that video is not working well with my bf's laptop, I'm coming back to this later.

[Just Me]

Didn't they shoot him like 50 times?

[Anti Social]

eh

[iamisis]

You'll love this UnfortunateMonkey; choice line relating to suspect's rights:  "Ya'll can't kill me until I reveal my gun."

This video's coming up on the 6 minute mark (20+ minutes runtime) and thanks to noodleboy's spoiler, I'm bracing myself.  [@Noodleboy:  I'm being facetious.]

~ ~ ~ SPOILERS BELOW ~ ~ ~









It's actually quite trying to keep an open mind all the way through, b/c right now I see the suspect making various demands and cops attempting to appease.  I see the very real threat of a firefight resulting in both the suspect's and cops' lives lost.  I see a suspect who's clearly agitated and unable to cope with the reality of a life-sentence in prison after living "on the run" for the past three years. 

Yes, it's clear he's afraid of the dog and thinks the minute he turns over the gun the cops will send in the K9 unit.  The ideal compromise would be to tell him to wait and then stick the K9 in the back of a squad car.  (Maybe I'm dead wrong, but I can't imagine that the suspect would then come out guns blazing b/c the dog's gone.  It's not like the animal's a RoboDog.)  Then again, this guy reminds me a lot of my ex:  nothing's ever good enough.

The suspect clearly wants to have a camera present during the standoff.  While he acts as though his demands for a camera stem from his desire to document potential brutality claims or to buttress a claim of cooperation w/ local authority, his insistence seems to bely his intention of having an audience for a suicide.  The cops don't give him the exact location of the camera (at one point they tell him it's behind a car):  could these officers have intuited the suspect's death wish?

What's the deal with him "knowing [his] rights" in reference to having a camera documenting the standoff?  Is that the norm in CA post-R.King?  I really would like to know.

And what exactly constitutes "bluffing" during standoff negotiations?  If a suspect demands a getaway car and $1million before giving himself up, and the negotiator says "Sure thing!" just to lure the guy out to arrest him, does this constitute entrapment or some 'bluff' defense?  And why doesn't law school teach you any of these things? 

----

I don't think the cops screwed up too much.  There was confusion once the shooting started, and the guy did toss the gun when he saw the dog running towards him, but he had been threatening to shoot the dog and cops for the past 20-tension-filled-minutes.  They should've used the beanbags, or even blasted the alcove w/ a shock grenade.

ETA:  I don't think the cops realized he'd tossed the gun . . . they hold back from rushing in after firing, shouting "Wait!  Wait!  He's getting up."

[Anti Social]

[quote author=Just Me link=topic=3291.msg117817#msg117817 date=1166285144]
Didn't they shoot him like 50 times?
[/quote]

I also have a min pin, theyre such wonderful dogs

[Just Me]

[quote author=Apathetic link=topic=3291.msg117833#msg117833 date=1166288179]
I also have a min pin, theyre such wonderful dogs
[/quote]

I have had my little guy for just over a year. I got him from a rescue where he was abused by some asshole. So he is a little afraid of males.
I am his 4th home but I don't know why since there is nothing wrong with him (other then not liking males. Well he likes them it just takes a while to warm up). I also have 2 labs and he thinks he is as big as them. :)

He is a great dog and I am glad that I got him even with his problem.

[Anti Social]

Aww..Well im glad he wasnt killed by the jerk who was abusing him. I'll never understand animal abusers.

Ive had mine for about 3 yrs and he is the best dog ive ever had.

[Just Me]

[quote author=Apathetic link=topic=3291.msg117898#msg117898 date=1166300007]
Aww..Well im glad he wasnt killed by the jerk who was abusing him. I'll never understand animal abusers.

Ive had mine for about 3 yrs and he is the best dog ive ever had.
[/quote]

I can't understand animal abusers either. I mean come on this dog is 12 pounds. What the heck can he do that deserves abuse?

same thing with kids..They are innocent and don't deserve it

[dynaflow]

Watching the video again sober, I noticed a couple of things:

The video and audio aren't sync'ed properly.Â* The video layer lags about a second and a half or two seconds behind the audio layer.Â* You can see this most clearly in the amount of time between when you hear shots being fired and when the wall behind Brunston starts cratering.Â* If you don't notice the loss of sync, it looks like Brunston suddenly starts to stand when the shots start.Â* However, if you account for the sync'ing error, it is the police who respond with gunfire to Brunston's sudden move.

Why Brunston's sudden move, then?Â* In the minutes immediately preceding the gunfire, you can hear the police dog getting more and more excited/jumpy in the background -- perhaps sensing its handler's increasing level of nervousness.Â* You can also see that the dog is rearing up and straining at its leash from the shadow it casts in one of the spotlights projected at Brunston.Â* The dog arrives in the frame simultaneously with the cratering effect in the wall behind Brunston, which means it left its handler a couple of seconds before, at almost the same moment as Brunston suddenly tries to get up.

Here is what I think may have happened.Â* The dog may have broken away from its handler spontaneously and started to rush across the yard at Brunston.Â* Whether it was an intentional release or whether the dog snapped its leash or pulled it out of its handler's hand, I cannot tell from the video.Â* Brunston started to stand up, because if you're being attacked by an animal like a dog, your instincts tell you to try to stay upright.Â* If you go down to the ground, you're pretty much at the critter's mercy.Â* The standard instinctual reaction to being shot at, on the other hand, is to flatten.Â* This shows that being attacked by the dog took priority on Brunston's threat board over the possibility of being shot.

The trigger fingers of one or more of the police officers present were inside of their trigger guards, rather than outside, as would be dictated by proper shooting technique.Â* Someone instinctually panic-squeezed the trigger when Brunston started to move suddenly in a way that, given all of his talk over the last half hour of dying there and taking a cop or two with him, would have been immediately interpreted as hostile (you can see that the first shots went way high and weren't carefully aimed).Â* Once the first shot went off, everyone else opened up because, at that point it was do or die.Â* There was no choice after even one person present had made the decision to fire.Â* Whether or not the first shooter's decision to open up was correct or not is the crux of whether this was a justified or unjustified shooting.

The guy repeatedly told the police that he would start shooting at them if a dog was released; and combined with repeated statements to the effect that he'd rather die than face prison again, you can see the logic working in the first shooter's head: "Dog running + self-proclaimed armed guy jumping up = about toÂ* shoot at us, therefore kill him before he kills one of us."Â* I've read in a couple of places online that Brunston was "unarmed," but the video clearly shows something that looks an awful lot like a pistol flying out of his hand as he is shot.Â* The "unarmed" assertion may arise from the fact that he had not "shown" his weapon prior to receiving fire, but that is pure bullshit.Â* If you claim to be armed, you are armed until proven otherwise.Â* The police aren't obligated to give you the benefit of the doubt; they value their own lives as much as (or in this case, more than) you value your own.

In the final analysis, the police may have made some missteps, and they might have been able to bring Brunston in had everything gone perfectly, but the blame for Brunston's death ultimately lies with Brunston alone.Â* His decision to get into an armed standoff with the police could have had one of two outcomes: his being arrested and going back to jail (to which he repeatedly said he preferred death), or his dying either at the cops' hands or by his own.Â* Constantly demanding things of the police that they did not seem to be able to produce, and every now and then implying that he'd try to kill as many of them as he could before they killed him, regardless of what they did, all but guaranteed him a violent death right there on that stoop.

[curious_kitten]

utter fucking bullshit!  IF he was white that never would have happened!!!!

[dynaflow]

[quote author=Shilger link=topic=3291.msg118155#msg118155 date=1166389529]
utter fucking bullshit!Â* IF he was white that never would have happened!!!!
[/quote]

Utter fucking bullshit:

http://mydeathspace.com/article/2006/12/15/Ashley_MacDonald_(19)_was_shot_and_killed_by_the_p olice_after_she_turned_a_knife_on_them
http://mydeathspace.com/article/2006/10/25/Jordan_Laird_Case_(20)_was_high_on_Mushrooms_when_ he_was_shot_to_death_by_Police

If he hadn't been telling the police he was going to shoot them, that never would have happened.  !!!!

[Nicole]

I cant believe so there are so many people confused on such a simple concept:

"If it looks like you are about to pull a gun on a cop, he will shoot you, often aiming to kill."


now about this video, it very much looks like the guy is going for the suicide by cop thing. he kept talking about how he was going to die by the bullet right there, and besides the guy didnt seem like he was of sound mind either.

[death becomes her.]

Well, after watching the video, i am going to say that he was probably on some kind of drugs... clearly not in his right state of mind. 
I am going to have to agree with everyone who says that his intention was suicide by cop...he kept on demanding things and than after almost all of his statements he said he is either going to die here or kill the dog/cops.  Although, when he actually gets shot, (the quality of the video made it hard to tell for sure) he looks as though that is not what he wanted... he looks scared.  I mean I guess everyone would be scared in that situation but, the way he kept going on and on about dieing right there and that he would rather be dead than going to prison... you would think that is what he wanted.  I don't really know what to say.  I honestly don't think that the police were wrong in this case.  Also, I think that if someone else.... of any other race... was acting the way that he was acting than the same thing would have happened to them as well.  If you act like a crazy crackhead and threaten the police and police dogs... you will get shot... bottom line.

Did the wounded dog end up dieing?  or did he make it?
does anyone know?

[the lurker]

I also had problems telling exactly what happened at the end due to the poor quality of the video, but regardless, the police gave this man multiple chances to surrender, and he didn't. Instead he chose to make demands, threaten to shoot them, and tell them he'd rather die than go to prison. He wanted a camera there for the simple fact that he knew he'd die that night, and he wanted it on video, just so this circus could happen.

Search his name online...all you find are websites proclaiming police brutality. Even the video noodle linked is tagged with "pigs". It is ridiculous that anyone could accuse the police in that video of not trying to bring him in peacefully. They attempted to appease him. Whether or not they were looking for his "bitch" or "woman with his child in her stomach," as he so lovingly referred to her, is beside the point. They wanted the gun out of his hand. And I don't blame them.

If he was white, there wouldn't be as many articles on Google proclaiming his innocence and shouting about police brutality...

[Karalicious]

[quote author=Shilger link=topic=3291.msg118155#msg118155 date=1166389529]
utter fucking bullshit!  IF he was white that never would have happened!!!!
[/quote]ugh. no way. Him being black had nothing to do with it. He kept repeatedly saying, kill me right here, i'm gonna go to jail for life for murder anyway. He was being stubborn and threatening the cops (saying that if they released the dog he was going to shoot at them)..I think the fact that the waited 20 minutes for this moron is good enough. hell. I don't think it's really suicide by cop because I don't think he truly wanted them to kill him. He was just saying that to try to use that as leverage to let him talk to his girlfriend. His color had nothing to do with it here, his stupidity did.

[andrea0121]

That was mad intense.

You can hear all the kids and people yelling in the background.

Man.

I reckon the dog is probably gone too.  He/she doesn't move at all, sounded kinda like it whimpered when the cop picked it up, but probably just part of the video. 

So sad.

You couldn't pay me enough money to have to deal with that kind of stuff.

[kris]

[quote author=Nicole link=topic=3291.msg118204#msg118204 date=1166398626]
I cant believe so there are so many people confused on such a simple concept:

"If it looks like you are about to pull a gun on a cop, he will shoot you, often aiming to kill."


now about this video, it very much looks like the guy is going for the suicide by cop thing. he kept talking about how he was going to die by the bullet right there, and besides the guy didnt seem like he was of sound mind either.
[/quote]

That's my main concern with it, he didn't seem of sound mind, I don't know if it was simply a mix of hysteria and fear (of both prison and dogs) or if he had serious developmental issues though

[the lurker]

[quote author=Karalicious link=topic=3291.msg188481#msg188481 date=1171470109]
ugh. no way. Him being black had nothing to do with it. He kept repeatedly saying, kill me right here, i'm gonna go to jail for life for murder anyway. He was being stubborn and threatening the cops (saying that if they released the dog he was going to shoot at them)..I think the fact that the waited 20 minutes for this moron is good enough. hell. I don't think it's really suicide by cop because I don't think he truly wanted them to kill him. He was just saying that to try to use that as leverage to let him talk to his girlfriend. His color had nothing to do with it here, his stupidity did.
[/quote]

I couldn't possibly agree with you more!! That's why he wanted the camera there so badly...to catch him dying. I couldn't believe the cops were that patient for 20 minutes.

[JustGretch]

[quote author=Shilger link=topic=3291.msg118155#msg118155 date=1166389529]
utter fucking bullshit!  IF he was white that never would have happened!!!!
[/quote]

You can't be serious?

NINETEEN minutes - Shit, OVER nineteen minutes this guy had to surrender.

I am sorry - the cops were 110% in the right in this instance, and I am shocked that this case is not more clear cut.

You're already wanted on several other charges, you've already served time, you're on the run - fuck you AND your girlfriend - shoot, and shoot to kill.

Don't break the law, it's so painfully easy.

Didja ever see Liar, Liar where Jim Carrey can't lie, and he has to defend some piece of shit - his advice - STOP breaking the law, asssssshoooole!