Miami Police shoot, kill man carrying toy gun

reply to post by InnerTruths


I didn't catch that air soft part but i'm understanding you now.
In either case i sell them both and can tel you with certainty that both paintball guns and air soft guns being sold have the red tip.The second pic you showed wasn't a fair representation of these guns.

If it was a standard toy gun as per the source then the officer was at fault.If the red tip was removed then the victim was at fault and it would have been in the report.

It's a very sad story, but in my opinion the ones to blame are the victim's family. Why would they let him out without any supervision if he's mentally disabled.
The cop just acted the same way that most people would, he saw a "gun" being pointed at him and he defended his own life. It's a tragic story but this time the blame doesn't go to the police.

Originally posted by Flow101
It's a very sad story, but in my opinion the ones to blame are the victim's family. Why would they let him out without any supervision if he's mentally disabled.
The cop just acted the same way that most people would, he saw a "gun" being pointed at him and he defended his own life. It's a tragic story but this time the blame doesn't go to the police.

He saw what he perceived to be a gun.
Everyday people see toy guns and they dont start calling the cops or killing people.
The blame is on the police for not training him enough or for giving him a job.

Police have to assume that every gun is real, it is simple protocol. I have seen some replicas and they look the same, make with metal, wood, etc and have a 1:1 weight ratio to the real thing. More facts will come out so maybe we should wait until then before stating cops are blood thirsty, and that we live in a police state. Remember, newspapers run headlines based on hearsay and not facts, give it sometime and I am sure the truth will come out.

Let's be honest here. No ne knows exactly went down.

the question I have is how should it have gone down. i will give my views, maybe some officers can interject exactly what protocol would be.

Reports said several units responded. I think it would have made sense that they likely parked at each end of the street. I think it would also have made sense that they sought refuge behind their squad cars and made the first attempts of contact through a PA system, bullhorn, etc. i would think having the squad cars between them and the potential shooter would make the chances of being shot pretty minimal. If they approached the subject on foot I think that would be very bad protocol.

So they should be communicating at a distance with loudspeakers of some sort. After a short time of doing this it was pretty likely that neighbors would have intervened and let the police know that this guy was actually just mentally disabled. Or the guy would have finally realized what was going on. It is not far fetched and since the police should have been in a protected position they really should have zero reason to fire upon this man. After all the reoports did not say he shot a dog, he simply pointed what looked like a rifle at it. If he had shot the dog. then i would be looking at this differently.

All in all Ithink the police must have had bad protocol and thus I blame them for this incident.

Ona side note the item in the bag did not look like a rifle, toy or not. It looked more like a piece of pipe. Note the absence of a sight. Cops were in the wrong here in my opinion.

Did you watch my video?
Airsoft guns are required to be SOLD with the bright orange tip, thats federal law, once owned, you dont HAVE to keep the tip orange, most come with a replacement tip to replace the orange one

A 6 mm minimum orange tip must be present on the barrel end of the airsoft gun (or clear/transparent body) to identify it as such for any commercial sales.[15] Once sold, local laws may vary on whether or not the orange tip must be kept. In many places no laws exist restricting one from removing or replacing the orange tip, but one should check the local laws before making such a modification.

en.wikipedia.org...

Most airsofters like me, carry a bright orange plug for the barrell for transporting the AEG's to and from the field, like this:



noone would be stupid enough to get caught WITHOUT one

Gun looks pretty real to me. They told him to drop it and he pointed it at them. I would have shot him too.

www.wsvn.com...

reply to post by wasco2


Well all you armchair LEOs, here's your evidence, the cops shooting him, as far as I am concerned, is justified:




you point something like that at me, youre going down, if its found out to be a toy gun later, oh well, i'm not gonna stop to look and ask if its a toy gun or not. When it comes down to it, if its possibly my life or his, youre damn sure I will be the one going home at night.

It's not just law enforcement culture which needs reviewing. It's the hiring policies, and training as well. Every aspect is a mess, and it's just become a circle of idiocy.

Does anyone have any confidence in law enforcement hiring the right people for the job? Does anyone have confidence in the training provided once one is hired? And this doesn't even touch on culture, which is the worst of the three.

reply to post by HomerinNC


Thanks for posting that picture and for adding simple logic into this thread. I tried earlier but gave up

The guy clearly removed the stock of his Daisy BB rifle for a reason. concealable and portable. The modified stock looks like that of a sawed off shotgun/ghetto gun.

I stopped reading through this thread many pages ago and I just wonder if anyone posted a thought or two on how the police officer involved in this shooting may feel. This officer will have to live with this for the rest of his life. All because this nimrod brandished a weapon, pointed it at a dog, and didn't follow simple instructions from the police.

This officer was forced to make a quick and critical split second decision. This is not the first time someone armed with a toy gun was shot by the police. That's why we have the orange muzzles and bright orange cap guns these days.

Here's a case from recent memory. It is very similar to this topic of this thread

On May 5, two Sheriff’s Deputies and one Syracuse Police Officer responded to a report that an armed man was behaving erratically and appeared to be drunk while carrying what appeared to be a .357 Magnum tucked into his waist band.

When the officers located Benjamin Campione in the RTC parking lot, they told him to show his hands. Instead, the man crouched in an aggressive manner and brandished the gun, which detectives would later find out was a realistic looking pellet gun.

The officers believed Campione was about to fire on him, according to the DA, and they responded with deadly force, hitting him four times.

The Grand Jury reviewing the incident heard evidence of the man’s mental history, including the fact that he had stopped taking his medication.

This guy was carrying a Crosman co2 pistol that looks like a .357 he brandished it and got himself killed.
www.9wsyr.com...

and another case from last september involving a bb gun that's a dead ringer for a Glock. He was shot by the police multiple times and survived. He was lucky.
www.kron4.net... egedly%20Pointed%20Toy%20Gun%20at%20Them/Default.aspx?&dnnprintmode=true&SkinSrc=[G]Skins%2F_default%2FNo+Skin&ContainerSrc=[G]Containers%2F_default%2 FNo+Container

You brandish any weapon regardless of its capability you are likely to get shot if you don't comply with the police. Period. The police are merely doing there job in situations like this. They don't have time to play 100 questions with an armed suspect.

reply to post by HomerinNC


Thank you for finding this picture. With evidence like this, there should be no more argument.

Please, if you can, post the link to where you located this so that people can independently verify that this is the toy gun in question.

It is clear, the gun could easily be mistaken for a real rifle by the police when they encountered him.

Dare I ask, what possible argument can anyone come up with to say the police were wrong in this situation? It is not a challenge or a dare, what rational, logical argument is still present?

This is a tough one. A Video, or some non Cop witness would help, Without that, how can you question the Police actions.

reply to post by areyouserious2010


I pulled it from Wasco2's link in the post just above mine

reply to post by HomerinNC


I apologize. I didnt catch it.

Good work to both you and Wasco2.

Finally, people are coming to their senses! I had to step out of the thread for a while because of how low some people's IQ are... Frustrating!

It's clear that when we are faced with a situation where we are confronted with an armed man (men usually have 2 arms but I'm talking about weapons here ) there is no way of telling if it is real or not and it's way too dangerous to get close enough to find out.

Ultimatel, it becomes the suspect's decision whether he/she gets shot. We always give them a chance to give up, we always tell them what we want in a clear and concise manner (unless they just blast bullets away before we can even speak!)... If they choose not to listen and they take action on their own such as point a weapon, real or not, at people or us, the police, well too bad, they decided that they will be seriously injured or die.

The dang barrell is bent and is rusted as hell. Thats why it looked like a stick in the evidence bag. Any officer close enough to actually be in danger should have realized that if this gun was a danger, it would likely only be a danger to the shooter, as it would likely blow up in his face.

I insist the police must have handled this situation completely wrong.

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical

Any officer close enough to actually be in danger should have realized that if this gun was a danger, it would likely only be a danger to the shooter, as it would likely blow up in his face.

This video sums up all that I want to say...