Jury gives 4 cents to family of black man killed by Florida cop

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I don't disagree with you, dude. I'm generally carrying, BUT if I slammed a door on a cop, I'd be doing so with the expectation of giving and receiving some holes.

I don't think he slammed the door, I think he lowered it, being a garage door, but even so, you shouldn't get the death penalty by cop for slamming a door in his face. Here's what happened.

According to a lawsuit from Hill’s family, the garage door opened and “upon information and belief, Deputy Lopez indicated loudly that Hill had a gun and then the garage door closed.”

So, an intoxicated Mr. Hill opened the garage door, a cop yells gun, and Mr Hill quickly closes the door, and shots are fired. He's dead. But, they didn't know that.

The suit said Newman fired through the closed garage door, fatally wounding Hill. The suit also alleged that the deputies, not realizing Hill was dead, called for SWAT team, who kicked in doors and cut holes in the garage door.
"Deputies shot tear gas canisters into the Hill home through many windows while severely damaging the windows and interior of the home and leaving toxic tear gas residue in the home," the lawsuit said.

www.policeone.com...

All that for a noise complaint. What a waste.

a reply to: CynConcepts

I'm sure the guy who was shot said some things that the cop didn't like and closed the door in their faces so the cop's ego was hurt and he went on a power trip and started shooting randomly through the door.

What possible excuse is there to shoot through a closed door blindly multiple times? Obviously the victim wasn't a threat to the cops having put a barrier between himself and the cops so what could have possibly driven the cop to shoot blindly through the closed door?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Seems like a total slap at lawyers, to me. No doubt they took this case on a contingency basis. Since they "won", they can't appeal.

originally posted by: CynConcepts
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I do see where you are going with this. Civil lawsuit after the officer was already cleared of criminal charges is frivolous. Wastes court time and yes, even tax monies simply to process.

I may feel differently if officer was guilty on criminal charges.

Personal note: when it was discovered my daughter was raped repeatedly by a man in his 60s, the suspect offered me a couple hundred thousand dollars to make it go away. I recorded his conversation. No, criminal trial was needed since he pled guilty knowing I had this. Lawyers wanted me to file civil lawsuit too. We didn't. It was best for my daughter to recover and simply break all contact for her and us to move forward.

Lawyers knew they had an easy case and were scavengers not caring about us at all. We were not seeking revenge, simply justice.

Wow. Thank you for standing on principles. I will put your daughter in my prayers...although I suspect that she is doing fine, being raised under that kind of moral environment.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Hmmm..

Being someone who has answered the door in the middle of the night with a firearm, that could have easily been me on more than one occasion.

Would need to see video. It sounds like he saw cops and tried to disengage from them though there is not much in the story.

Firing through a closed door.... my assumption would be if he was going to pro-actively shoot at police, he would not be disengaging. (Not to mention if he had "pulled a gun" on them, why was it back in his pocket?)

Just me maybe but as I said, this could have been me on more than one occasion. Getting shot in your own home is a nightmare.

It should not even be up for debate if the officers had reason to shoot. Since when has it been a crime to carry your own weapon in your own home? Since when was it a crime to close the door in someones face that is on your property (even police unless they have a search warrant). They were in the wrong plain and simple. Not to mention shooting blindly through a door with no way to tell if anyone else was behind it.

As for the judgement the family received in the case. Complete BS. If justice can not be gained through legal means then people will eventually take it into their own hands in the form of retribution. Having "deputy" "officer" or "sheriff" next to your name won't save your ass when it gets to that point. The police need reined in or eventually they will be checked.

Under no circumstances should anyone be justified shooting through a wall. That is a guess at best to where those bullets are going to go.

There was a time during in iraq when rules of engagement where "do not fire unless fired upon".
Not "if they have a weapon", not "they are pointing a weapon at you", but "only returning fire".

What does that say about our country now that the government can kill a us citizen with less hassle than someone in a warzone.

After reading about this I'm surprised the jury came to this conclusion. According to police he pointed the gun at police and the officer fired as the door was closing to protect his partner.

Problem I have is he was shot in the head and dropped to the floor. Yet somehow the gun ended up in his back pocket. I have doubts a man who was shot in the head is going to put the gun in to his back pocket after he supposedly pointed it at police? I'm going to say police lied there story doesn't make sense.

a reply to: Thoren

Decisions like this wont help police killings one bit.

Its hard to feel for the good cops when justice is blocked against the bad ones.

So, they found in favor of the family? That means they believe a wrongful death occured.

So, I don't understand, they're saying "yeah, we believe your claims, those cops were in the wrong, and... that's worth about 4 cents." (reduced from $4)

So, basically, they could have denied the claim, but decided to award them a winning decision, JUST to insult them with the 4 cent check? After their son just died? In order to teach them some kind of lesson about frivolous lawsuits?

WTF??

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I think 9/10 times there is an interaction with law enforcement, its for a reason and the person is atleast partially at fault for what happened.
But in those cases when a cop abuses thier authority or make a bad decision and all the other cops turn a blind eye to it just looking down and shuffling their feet, its like an endorsement of the bad action. I was an MP . Pretty much everyone on my social media feeds is in civilian or military law enforcement. And when obviously bad things, like when that one cop shot the lady in her pajamas across his partner, all i saw is them saying "well people dont know what its like". That thin blue line does more damage than anything else.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You again bring reason to this discussion. The story, as I read it in the Miami Herald, stated his gun was unloaded inside the back of his trousers. Also, he was supposedly shot in the head and twice in the chest through the door. That's some pretty lucky shooting.

Talk about gung ho cops-guess they really took offense when he shut the garage door on them-uh then gain, they said he pulled his gun out-but it was found in his pants, unloaded, not in his hands within the two minutes of his closing the garage door.

So, in his own house, drinking and listening to music and drunk-and he was black. Shoot to kill.

What kind of police state are we living in? And I just moved to Flori-duh-and that's for leos-not the citizens. So I deserve to be killed if I get drunk, play loud music, have a gun in my pants and close my garage door in the cops faces? Oh, and the jury found the cops were justified, therefore, not guilty, and the civil court jury says I'm worthless.

Yeah, sounds like fair and legal justice in the good ole USA.

originally posted by: Butterfinger

But the jury found that Hill, who had been drinking at the time, was 99 percent at fault for his own death.

And he lived in his parents garage at 30 years.

Answered the door with a gun.

Drake.

Middle of the day across from a school that was letting out.

The guy was going nowhere anyway...

Sorry folks, this guy was a loser at life, and lost at life.

Its people like this that make me believe in Natural Selection because thats Mother Nature hard at work right there.

ewww your gross, is that how you feel about everyone you perceive as less than you?

yuck glad I have a better perspective having my entire identity tied to my material assets would be devastating in a divorce, I know I had my entire identity tied to my sport and when I lost the sport I lost the identity

I pray that happens to you and you feel the weight of your philosophy

originally posted by: Butterfinger

But the jury found that Hill, who had been drinking at the time, was 99 percent at fault for his own death.

And he lived in his parents garage at 30 years.

Answered the door with a gun.

Drake.

Middle of the day across from a school that was letting out.

The guy was going nowhere anyway...

Sorry folks, this guy was a loser at life, and lost at life.

Its people like this that make me believe in Natural Selection because thats Mother Nature hard at work right there.

ewww your gross, is that how you feel about everyone you perceive as less than you?

yuck glad I have a better perspective having my entire identity tied to my material assets would be devastating in a divorce, I know I had my entire identity tied to my sport and when I lost the sport I lost the identity

I pray that happens to you and you feel the weight of your philosophy

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
The criminal trial of the officer involved found him not guilty

The problem is that liberals have criminalized guns...just having one is now a crime in many eyes. Cops can shoot and all they need to say is they felt threatened and it is justified. The weird part here is if he was brandishing the weapon at the cops then why didn't they shoot him while the door was still up?

originally posted by: dug88

Jesus #in Christ....what a pathetic cowardly piece of #.....that was nothing but an execution...

I believe I read the guy was actually a worker at the hotel too..

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
The criminal trial of the officer involved found him not guilty

The problem is that liberals have criminalized guns...just having one is now a crime in many eyes. Cops can shoot and all they need to say is they felt threatened and it is justified. The weird part here is if he was brandishing the weapon at the cops then why didn't they shoot him while the door was still up?

Because it took a few seconds after the door was shut for the butthurt to kick in.

a reply to: Xtrozero

It almost feels like both political parties have been engineered so that no matter who wins, we get closer to a police state.
On the one hand you have the left where the ACLU and people say civil rights are being violated and agents of the state are wantonly shooting people, but in the next breath say that the government needs to have more control over the arms that citizens own.
Then on the other hand you have the NRA and people saying we need arms in case we have to protect ourselves against the government, but then in the next breath alot of those same people are saying if you dont want to be shot then you should have followed the governments orders.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, i guess......

Such a sad and needless loss in the USA (Again), yet when in the UK someone is arrested for breach of injunction, the UK is ridiculed at least Mr Robinson is still alive and can appeal his conviction.

The epic rambling threads about the UK and its out of date laws for freedom of speech, DAM you cant even listen to music of choice in US without being put down by the authorities.

a reply to: burdman30ott6


So let me get this straight, your against people carrying a gun in there own property?


Or do you think closing the door on a police officer is worthy of summary execution?


Police should only draw there guns when there lives or the lives of the public are in direct threat ( like every other police force in democratic free society). Closing a door is not threatening the life's of the police!

Why doesn't the USA just abolish the constitutional right to a far trial and allow police to just go round acting as judge jury and executioner, it seems to me what you want?