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“The video, captured by a police car dashboard camera [just released by the MI ACLU], appears to show six police officers gunning down Milton Hall, 49, in broad daylight, during a tense confrontation in a Saginaw parking lot,” huffingtonpost.com reports. “Hall was armed with a penknife and appears to be standing at least several yards from the nearest officer. Officers fired at him more than 45 times.” Of which 11 shots found their mark. Anyway, the incident resembles nothing so much as a firing squad. And I’m not hearing any attempt at less lethal de-escalation. But what do I know? The Department of Justice ruled that “this tragic event does not present sufficient evidence of willful misconduct to lead to a federal criminal prosecution of the police officers involved.” [h/t DG]

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183 COMMENTS

    • Good grief is right.

      With that many cops there, how in the fuck could nobody tase him? Some of them didn’t even have their arms pointed at him before firing. They were obviously not afraid for their lives. What. In. The. Fuck.

    • Oh yeah – I just rewatched the video and noticed that at least 2 officers had fucking rifles. The mind boggles. There are so many things wrong with this video and situation I am not even going to list them.

    • And THIS is what Ferguson should have been about – a hideous shoot, by a bunch of pathetic panty-waists who have no business being Paul Blart, let alone sworn officers. There is nothing that could be hidden from the video to make this a good shoot with 6+ coppers on the scene. Trigger happy pathetic filth all of them. Had this made the nationals, maybe we’d clean up some of the thuggery, instead, we have a different group of animals who want cops not to protect themselves on those incredibly rare days when they actually do face a threat. Which makes normal average people let the obscenity of a shoot like this slide.

      That the sad excuse for coppers didn’t release their ‘hero dog’ and decided to just execute the human instead is to me the most disgusting part. I love my dog, but if I have to sacrifice him to save a human, I’ll have to live with it. Not to mention, since the dog is considered a ‘sworn officer’ it’s job is to give it’s life in defense of justice and the rule of law.

      But I’m sure, the vast majority of ‘good cops’ in that house, are going to deal with these outlaws. Likely by throwing them a party.

    • And they continued shooting not only after he stopped (which was IMMEDIATELY after the FIRST shot), but even after he was down.

      • No, he didn’t stop after the first shot. The first five shots missed.
        I watched this video yesterday on BA and boot licker Bob Owens flat out lied describing the incident saying”he backed up then charged the K9 closing to 5 yards”.
        Sorry but the video doesn’t lie. He walks back the steps to the right.
        I am convinced that what sets off these barrage shootings is one ND by a cop indexing the trigger.
        Here is the biggest issue: he was identified as a homeless man who had skipped his meds. Who the hell prescribed meds to a homeless man?! Why is he not in a padded room?

        • This reminded me of the homeless guy on hillside surrounded by cops and a k-9, in Albuquerque.

          http://www.abqjournal.com/372844/news/video-camper-turning-away.html

          Maybe someone in a K-9 unit can explain: why do you repeatedly let the dog close in, without release, and NOT expect a scared person to react defensively. Its instinctive, to put out hands, crouch, etc. How do you expect him tk hear put down the weapon, or lay down, over the barking?

          Seems like you should either back waaayyy off, or let the dog go and do its job.
          But keeping it close and snarling is the worst. Its baiting the guy to make a move, so you can shoot him.

        • Brandon, St, Ronnie took away all our (new) legal machine guns, among his huge multitude of unforgivable sins.

          Letting all the ‘tards and the psychos free was a Raygun trademark, he started this nonsense by signing off on LPS in the late 60s as Cal Gov.

          Reagan was Satan, not a saint.

    • That was murder by a police firing squad. What – no pepper spray? no Tasers? Hell, if any one of us had shot a man that was “threatening” us like that from 5 yards away, we would be arrested and indicted for murder. And I don’t think it was caused by a ND from one cop – did you see how they were all carefully pulling back from the semi-circle to clear their lines of fire?

    • A whole lot of “it was just a pocket knife, why didn’t they just jump on him and subdue him!” How many of you would do that? Waiting for a show of hands how many would want to be cut with a razor or pen knife….. if you were being robbed by a guy with a knife would you wrestle with him over the knife or would you shoot?

      A taser, pepper gas, ot baton is not a replacement for deadly force. A person threatening with a knife is a deadly threat.
      In the video he was definitely doing that. Also, Distance from the video angle is hard to determine.

      • I’ve disarmed people without drawing my weapon before. I recall at least two incidents; one was a screwdriver and the other was a hammer. I did deploy and discharge my firearm when a person had a good length of black iron pipe though. Heck, I wasn’t even being paid to be an agent of government. While on duty, cops operate on privilege. If they don’t want to operate under that privilege then let them turn in their badges.

      • “A person threatening with a knife is a deadly threat. In the video he was definitely doing that.” Have you actually watched the video? The guy was more like a cornered rat trying to protect himself from the dog. The cops just kept escallating the situation until they could get their testasterone release. Again, no one is saying that this was a good guy, let alone an angel, but when the police start acting like the judge and the executioner all in one, I am concerned with what happens to any person that the government at some point decides needs to be eliminated or “reined in?” And the cops obediently and happily follow orders and an example of their superiors and control us all. Memories of the Gestapo, anyone?

      • bgreenea3, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Sorry they removed your testicles.

        A guy with pen/buck/Bowie knife? You seriously think he’s a real threat 6 on 1? 1 on 1 with a stinkin’ baton the guy is almost zero-risk. 6 batons? Are you kidding? He’s only holding them back from lunch for 10 minutes.

        Cowards at most generous.

    • I see no ‘forward’ and definitely no ‘charging’.

      That is nothing a fire hose or taser could have done without killing him. What the actual fuck.

    • No, he didn’t “charge” at all. When I “charge” someone I run at him . This guy was walking. That’s got to be the lamest attempt to justify all that shooting on the whole thread.

    • My uncle is a Sheriff in Miami-Dade. He had to take down a man who was attempting to light a gas station on fire. He was slashed with a knife, stabbed with a screwdriver, and bitten severely before finally having to shoot the man.
      While my uncle would have been ‘justified’ in lighting the guy up from the word go, in general I think cops need to show some balls and try to not kill people who barely pose a credible threat.

  1. The Department of Justice ruled that “this tragic event does not present sufficient evidence of willful misconduct to lead to a federal criminal prosecution of the police officers involved.”

    You have GOT to be sh1tting me.

    And I skipped over the distraught mom’s kiddie picture show and didn’t listen to the audio.

    • Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder is only interested in protecting the government, not the civil rights of young black mentally impaired men.

  2. The audio is really bad but they are constantly shouting at him in the video, so I’m not sure it’s fair to say they didn’t try to de escalate.

    • “Constantly shouting” is a form of de-escalation? Really? Especially when you’re dealing with a man whose noodles are not all there?

      • That’s been the training for the last 10+ years. Everybody screams commands like a psycho, preferably ones that are contradictory so the perp has no chance of actually “complying”.

        This is (until recently) almost impossible to tease out of even decent quality audio, so was taught as a way to provide cover for whatever the cop wants to do, because the defendant was “resisting”.

  3. 45+ rounds fired and 11 found their mark… .24% effective……a couple of yards away…trust your LEO’s and government kids THEY ARE THE BEST hahahah……there has to be a MRAP close

  4. Why couldn’t they go “less lethal”? Tasers and bean bag shotguns might have deescalted this pretty quick!

    Just saying!

    • Cops don’t carry beanbag shotguns around with them everywhere (looks too intimidating, don’tcha know) but I wonder about the Tasers. Not every department has them… if they don’t, you can bet they’ll be getting them soon.

      If they did have them, I don’t understand why one of them could not have tried to use it.

      • It actually looked like one of the LEO’s actually did put away his gun and pull his taser 5th from the right at about the 1.18 mark.

        • Hey, how many people get an opportunity to be part of a firing squad? It’s a chance of a lifetime, for a murderer or psychopath…

      • Hannibal, In all seriousness, where have you seen a Dept without a Taser (or other brand) zapper? Especially in CA?

        I haven’t seen a cop in 10 years+ without one, even podunk munis and seriously BFE rurals. Every major metro I’ve been to has had them for forever, especially with all the free money from Uncle Sugar to pay for such stuff. Even more so because as cop toys go, they’re almost free.

        I remember the early pushback to un-joybuzzers from the guys who just wanted to kill everything. I guess I know where they all moved to.

      • Yeah I think they had enough people there to have one person try pepper spray and/or a tazer and the others could have still stayed on standby with their guns in case they needed them. I didn’t see him charging anyone, so they could have at least given it a try just to try to get him to drop it.

        • If utah ever goes back to a firing squad they may want to bring these guys in to train the co’s, when it comes to quick lethal executions these guys seem pretty capable and willing…. dog, taser, hit him with their car….they literally chose the only option that guaranteed not only submission but certain death. The victim wasn’t an angel, but after this video it’s clear nobody present wearing blue is either.

      • If we have dashcam footage, doesn’t that mean there was a patrol car with a trunk on scene? Why no beanbag shotgun in that trunk?

  5. Like I said before, fear the police for they will kill you!

    There was no reason for this. The bastards should all be in jail for a long time.

    Taser him, bean bag, etc. Obviously mental, not really dangerous. . . . . A penknife?

  6. Concealed carry citizens, like myself, are held to a very high legal standard as to when we can use deadly force in a potentially lethal or dangerous confrontation. While police are far more likely to be in such a situation, they should be held to the same standards as we are. Seems to me that this situation did not warrant the violent response exhibited.

    • AFAIK, those with a license to conceal a handgun are held to the exact same standard as everyone else (except agents of government, of course) when it comes to use of force. A permit or license to carry concealed is nothing special in relation to justified use of deadly force.

      • I think the point is; if a CHL/CCW holder was filmed doing this shooting it would be 20-life for them. Police= No grand jury investigation/trial/conviction. (Disclaimer; CHL holder and 2 brothers that are cops.)

        • Oh, I got the point and I don’t disagree with it. However, his statement included something highly misleading! Just because someone has a signed note from Mommy government doesn’t mean that they are held to any standard higher than anyone else.

          “Concealed carry citizens, like myself, are held to a very high legal standard as to when we can use deadly force”

          (Non-disclaimer: I’m an activist and am in cops’ faces with regularity these days. FTP!)

      • Cops are held to the same standards accept they do not have a duty to retreat even in stand your ground states and they may instigate force
        And still claim Self
        Defense.

        That said this is pathetic. Try need to shoot everyone of those cops. And the dog first ! We need to end the use of police dogs for ANYTHING other than search and rescue. Drug sniffing dogs are a joke way to let cops around the 4th amendment. And police dogs attacking a person are just not needed and wrong in current situations. Maybe in an active shooter scenario I can see that, but in most others there is a dog attacking somebody who then gets charged with ( stupidly) a crime if he uses force to keep from being bitten. I’m a dog lover but that’s nuts. This guy had every right to use that knife to protect himself from that animal. How could he know it’s training, intent or temperament ?

        • “Cops are held to the same standards…” Are they? Can a citizen talk to a cop the same way that a cop talks to a citizen? The same standard? Whom are we kidding?

        • @Cuteandfuzzybunnies: Cops are given a pass on a lot more than the rest of us. Other than that, I pretty much agree with your comment. Except for search and rescue, dogs have no legitimate place in American law enforcement.

  7. I don’t know what’s scarier…the fact they MURDERED that man…or that only 11 out of 45 shots found their mark…these are cops…they carry guns for their job…because of their job they have the right to carry ANYWHERE in the US. They NEED a proficiency in firearms…the fact that I could do better blindfolded yet don’t have the right to shoot people who look threatening without posing a real threat or carry anywhere in the US is horrific. These cops may get by our “justice” system…but they’ll answer to God…forgiveness can be obtained by anyone…and it’s between them and God. My condolences to the family…

    Had i done that, I’d have a hard time living with myself after that realizing it was unnecessary…

    • Had you done that, you’d not have to live with yourself for long.

      You or I’d get the Chair; they get a pay raise and a voucher good at Krispy or Dunkin’.

      • Pretending there is a god, he never gets his hands dirty down here. He let Hitler, Stalin, and Pol-Pot (to name but a mere few in only the last 100 years) do as they pleased until us ‘mortals’ put an end to it.

        As soon as the magical sky daddy regrows just one amputee’s limb, I’ll believe that there’s something that is real other than us humans. Until then, I’m more concerned about what happens in this plane of existence, as it’s the only one that’s proven to matter. I’m not going to rationalize away inhuman behavior in some naive hope that “they’ll get theirs really soon”.

        • Straight out of the book of Jewish fairy tales as you would probably describe the bible, it says that God helps those who help themselves. When we as a people have chosen to respect criminals more than righteous men, it is exactly like choosing to spare Barabas over Jesus. We would rather have evil men among us and rule us than to stand up for what is right. The examples of mass murders that you gave is in direct relation to that of Barabas the murderer being saved over Jesus we have chosen evil over good. Amputees get new limbs everyday created by men who are created by God. Now some of us have chosen to meet evil men with a flashing sword of righteousness unless those evil men have color of authority over us, then we drop to or knees and beg for mercy for going against their assumed authority or get executed. As far as only caring about this metaphysical plane is your decision and I choose to have faith so that we are not just acting like animals.

        • Some of us don’t NEED to think we are being watched over in order to do the right thing.

          The contention I constantly hear from people who believe in god that if you don’t think he’s watching you’ll just act like an animal, says more about them than it does about whether god exists or not.

      • Yeesh what is up with atheists and having superiority complex? A person makes a rather generic comment about God and forgiveness and a bunch of you jump all over it like a fat kid on ice cream. But hey, free will and all…

        • Too many evils have been overlooked, or at least not resisted, because too many people kid themselves that the evil men will pay the price eventually. If you want the evil to stop, if you want the evil men to pay the price – stop them now, in this lifetime, and don’t shelve the responsibility onto God, whether you believe in God or not,

    • “or that only 11 out of 45 shots found their mark”

      If you study real world gunfights and not the wannabe hero forums, magazines and blogs, you’ll find that is actually quite in line with what is normal.

      It’s become one of the quickest ways I have found to identify someone that has never been in a high stress situation involving guns and moving bullets…the ole “marksmanship sucked” genre of comments.

      What such a low number does do, however, is give great lie to the anti’s claim that cops are somehow ‘better’ at this stuff than the rest of the population. FBI study a year or two ago says otherwise…in cop shootings, cop marksmanship was actually worse than thug marksmanship.

  8. Put down your weapon! You ave thirty seconds to comply!
    •••
    Twenty seconds!
    •••
    Blah blah blah
    •••
    50 rounds o’ fifty cal…

    But it’s just a glitch, so it’s just dandy.

    For what it’s worth, a fly-by-night “college” that’s shopping around for pupils is running adverts proclaiming a growing job market in policing.

    Yeah, a police state needs cops. Ja, you betcha.

    As an aside, should a bloke with IFR use “fly-by-night” as a pejorative? Hmmm.

  9. Quote from the article

    “Even if the officers were mistaken in their assessment of the threat posed by Hall, this would not establish that the officers acted willfully, or with an unlawful intent, when using deadly force against Hall”

    So if officers are mistaken and take a life, then it’s ok. Seems they willfully pull triggers until he was dead.

    • it is not that it is ok so much as there is no accountability. None for shooting up 2 old ladies delivering newspapers, beating Kelly Thomas to death, flash banging a baby, for the IRS, or for fast and furious. We are now a nation of laws for thee but no for me. The me being government. We are a nation without laws, meaningful laws and therefore we have no justice. Can vigilantism be far behind?

  10. This is worse than anything I’ve seen in Iraq.
    They murdered this man under color of law. It looks some of the officers are advancing on him and firing on him after he’s down.

    To claim “sovereign immunity” and “good shot” is a farce.

    This is a disgrace on so many levels. This is a complete betrayal of what our country is supposed to be about.

    The only difference between this crew of fanatics obsessed with power and ISIS is they didn’t give the victim the chance to convert before they murdered him.

  11. I often end up defending cops – sort of playing the devil’s advocate. But this? Um, unless there’s some other camera angle (or witnesses) that show something radically different (which does happen – you can find shootings where one angle shows a totally unjustified shooting, but another shows the go pulling a gun), this doesn’t look justified AT ALL. If me and my wife did this we’d be in jail for SO long.

  12. Well, at least these cops were smart enough not to form a circle around the man before opening fire.

    • Why didn’t they get the dog out of there when it’s clear the man was terrified of it? He pulled his little pocket knife to try to protect himself from the dog. He was mentally ill and afraid. Get the dog out of there. I’m appalled.

      • That is an easy question to answer. The state sanctioned killers just wanted to earn the paycheck that we provide and get a hero medal for it. Sorry that is not accurate it is obvious that state sanctioned agents no longer work for or serve the public that they have murderous contempt for. It was obvious that the man was trying to protect himself from a trained dog. He just couldn’t comprehend due to his mental limitations that the real imminent threat was from the blood thirsty two-legged beasts not the four legged one that he was terrified of.

      • My thoughts exactly Zach. The dog just aggravated the situation. The victim probably pulled the knife , or didn’t drop it when ordered, from fear of the dog.

    • my first thought also. Let the dog take down the suspect. Didn’t they have a taser available. It looks like they had plenty of time also. What was the rush. Maybe at least one of those cars should have had a been bag round available for this situation.

  13. There was a threat- he wasn’t going “sideways” (except from the POV of the camera) he was going towards the officers (left side of the screen, near where the dog is) while brandishing a knife. The old saying still applies (knives and gunfights) and it’s his fault for not heeding it… though I suspect this was suicide by proxy.

    But that doesn’t mean all is justified here. Most of all I’m disturbed by continued firing after the threat is ceased. When someone with a knife is on the ground I’m pretty sure they’re out of the fight- or at least take a moment to see. But then you have contagious fire.

    You can’t expect cops to all carry around an arsenal of less-lethal weapons, but I wonder if the department issues Tasers, which can be carried on a belt. It is a completely inappropriate weapon to use when faced with a knife threat without backup, but with that many officers I would think there would be plenty of coverage. One officer doesn’t even draw his sidearm until seconds before everyone opens fire. I wonder what he could have been doing in the meantime.

    That said, the state should be the one deciding on charges, not the federal government.

    • A real simple test is appropriate here – if a person were to threaten you, as a private citizen, with a penknife, and you and half a dozen of your friends were to shoot that guy with rifles and hand guns and continue shooting for a while (kind of a shooting frenzy…), where do you think you and your friends will be spending the rest of your lives?

      • Or even if it was just one civilian with a Glock 19 defending against a knife wielder. If he emptied his magazine and fired shots after he was down, I’m sure the prosecutor would have pressed charges.

    • i just read a frank serpico article this morning and he said something about the old way used to be “fire 2 shots then evaluate”, not this dump the mag BS.

      • Yeah, but what does HE know. Poser.

        (/sarc)

        The “old school” of policing is near death if not dead. Something very dramatic has changed in the last 15-20 years.

    • “There was a threat- he wasn’t going “sideways” (except from the POV of the camera) he was going towards the officers (left side of the screen, near where the dog is) while brandishing a knife.”

      Wrong! I will give the cops credit for one thing. Early in the video one of them sees cars at the other end of the parking lot so he has the firing squad…I mean line of police rotate so that when all hell breaks loose, there will be a less chance of bystanders getting injured. So this new position makes it more clear on the video that he walked backwards then to his right, parallel with the line of nervous “marksmen”.

  14. WTF!!!
    A bunch of cops with rifles, against a pen-knife wielding “perp”, a dog on the scene, and they wind up with 45 rounds fired against “the threat”?
    That is cowardice and incompetence.
    At most, the police might have had to rush him, and used those rifles to buttstroke or barrel smash him into submission. Firing on him was unjustified from all I saw on that video.

  15. Everyone of these cops are not only murderers but cowards. A single male with a 2″ knife who was obviously disturbed in a open parking lot with no citizens around him, only police, and they had to open fire over 40 times hitting him with the usual cop shot and hit rate of less than 30%? Why? Because they can get away with it, and once a group of cops gets together in this situation the blue wall of BS turns them into followers and the leader or ranking officer or one with the biggest penis or most testosterone basically commands them with his or her action of taking the first shot and purposely with intention executes this man and any man or women for almost nothing. I know a ton of folks including myself that would of tried to approach this man and defuse the situation through talk or non-lethal force, with the last resort being a shot or two to the extremities. This reminds me of footage I saw early on during the last Iraq war where groups of extremists from one side or the other would surround an innocent and shoot them until they were soup. This is disgusting and it’s already the norm all over our nation. For citizen gun incidents with criminals the average rounds shot are one at an average of 5 feet, why is it that police need an entire mag and 20-30 feet?I I don’t care that he is black, this could happen to anyone who cannot make the right decision at the right moment while under distress from whatever they are suffering from. This is like an execution squad for the mentally ill. Can one imagine what the police mentality would be if they got their way and had every machine gun and armored vehicle and every toy they wanted? Can one imagine what a national police force, which is what Homeland Security is and what most local police will eventually be, can one imagine the rights they will trample and the lives they will take? If I saw a cop in need I would help, if I saw police about to execute someone like this I would step in between them, if I saw them executing someone like this I would probably want to execute them. It’s like a combo of aggression and stupidity and fear, along with untrained and unfit men and women, both mentally and physically, that should not be allowed to possess a firearm let alone be a LE. While some of these shootings are justified, the many that are straight up executions and the legit ones that are covered up with secrecy are a trend that will only cause disorder and chaos. It’s almost like they want us to fight them back so they can pull out the big guns and new rules.
    I’m starting to feel anti-cop like I did when I was a youth. You grow up and learn the law is the law and you should respect police and realize they have a tough job, but in reality many police are just thugs with a badge. The standards for hiring police has deteriorated much like many other things in our nation has. I fear police again as I’m sure many others do, and this should make them afraid because if I was ever put in a similar scenario or they ended up killing someone I love over nothing they would pay in blood ten fold. At some point when you see something so wrong you have to react no matter what the consequences.

  16. Well let us see; you have six cops with guns drawn yelling at the guy with the knife to drop it and get on the ground, then the guy starts moving directly at one of the cops. If I was one of the cops the guy was coming at I would have to assume he is seriously intent on hurting or killing me since he is advancing in the face of multiple drawn guns.

    I would shoot to stop the threat.

    Also, once the shooting starts, it is very common for the person in that situation not to remember how many shots were fired, by him or anyone else.

    • Would it ever occur to you that the man may have been deranged? Executing him on the spot? Is this a Banana Republik or do we have Gestapo loose on the streets?

      • in a banana republic, there is usually arms aplenty. This one qualifies as a Gestapo execution, he and the crowds were decidedly unarmed

      • Yes, that’s more than likely. But what’s your point? A deranged man can still stab you death.
        So what are you going to do if a man is coming at you with a knife in hand while your pointing a gun at him and yelling for him to stop? Let him stab you to death? Or shoot him?

        • Seriously? Six cops, with a plethora of equipment (tazers, batons, rifle butts, for that matter) and a dog can’t put down one average size individual without making mince meat out of him? Realy? So, next time you get pulled over, make sure to spread yourself on the ground pronto, do not say a word back that maybe interpreted as argumentative and, for good measure, hand the cop a stack of $100 bills, just to please him. And, if you CCW, when a person with a penknife approaches you, make sure you unload your magazine in him and, when he’s down, re-load and do it again. Good luck!

        • Seriously. I did private armed security for a number of years, I am still certified to carry a weapon if I wanted to do security in the future.

          We were trained, and I believe cops are the same, you don’t put yourself with in arms reach of a man with a knife. A knife can easily penetrate a bullet resistant vest, cut a jugular, put out an eye etc. That’s the point of gun.

          So no, the cops were following procedure in this situation.
          There is some times a cops actions is unacceptable; no knock warrants and all of the thugs of the BATF, as an example. But in this situation, no.

        • The cops were 40 feet away from the man, and he was not running at them. That group of cops was not in danger or in fear for their lives.

          Do you honestly think they were in fear for their lives?

        • Well Danny Griffin.the angle was difficult to see, which is what this is all about.
          But it looked like the cops on the left side near the dog was much cliser . Twenty feet or so. That well within the zone a man with a knife is clear and present danger.

          People keep talking dissmissively about a pen knife. A blade 3″ long can still kill. If you don’t think so, let yourself get stabbed with one and find out.

        • Call me foolish.

          I have stopped the advance of a riot with my voice.
          I have stopped gang attacks (plural) with my voice.
          I have made thugs retreat from attacking my family by using my voice.
          I have disarmed a knife wielding idiot while I was unarmed. I never got cut.
          I have wrestled a PCP user to the ground and restrained him until police arrived. I only skinned my knee.
          I have NO TRAINING beyond high school wrestling.

          What a fool I must be for not shooting the above perps to death.

          I work in an environment that is frequented by angry, and sometimes drunk, people. So how is it that I have spent so many decades without police style conflict training (that apparently is designed to kill an aggressor rather than subdue) but I still haven’t needed to shoot anyone? The grace of God? He must like peacemakers.

          This was not a firing squad of peacemakers. You cannot convince me that these officers were right to kill this man. Shooting a suspect simply because he advances is weak. There are many ways to deal with aggressive people before resorting to a gun, much less a firing squad.

          This is self evident.

    • @ThomasR…..

      I grade your boot licking a solid 7 out of 10.

      If you wore your snappy red armband I would have given you a 9.

      • As for you doesky2, and all of your sycophants, I have nothing but contempt for people like you.

        You want to make a discussion about our differences, so be it, but if you want to use derogatory and demeaning and disgusting assertions that I am some type of “bootlicker” to the powers that be because I don’t toe the party line of “hate on the cops” well, you and your followers show what you truly are.

        You are enemies of freedom, of rational thought, of respect for honest differences of opinion. You are like all of the left that attack and demean all those that they see as also not toeing the party line.

        You and the left are as one in your tactics and methods of trying to silence dissent. which just makes you and the left tyrants, which I will not abide.

    • Try this mental exercise: Imagine they are not cops, but ordinary people like you and I. Would you still support this?

      • That is exactly what I am doing. If a man was advancing on me with a knife in hand after repeatedly being ordered to stop and drop the knife, I would have shot him.

        Why people here think the coos should have done differently is bizarre.

        • Perhaps. Not all cops carry bean bag shotguns. To use their tazers they have to get less than 20 feet, well within the lethal range of a man with a knife.

          Try to surround him and then they get in the kill zone of the other cops guns.

          It is not a simple “the cops are evil” . There were extenuating circumstances, this is my point.

        • Thomas R.
          That is a good point.
          Usually I back cops.
          But if they had let the dog lose he would still be alive and perhaps run up and tased or maced him.
          Too many guns drawn imho.
          A single shotgun aimed low would have put him down, alive.
          And when your gun is drawn, and the knife is 20 ft away, you still have 15 ft of safe zone.

          I don’t like this shoot.

    • ThomasR–If you are such a coward that when protected by body armor and armed with a gang of other cowards at your back you can’t engage one man with a three inch blade maybe carrying a gun is your best choice. If you are just a state sanctioned thug supporter wipe your mouth and get off your knees. As an American who would have just witnessed the murder of another I would have tried my best to citizens arrest his killers, hopefully they would comply.

  17. Grew up in MI and spent quite a bit of time in Saginaw. I don’t remember the police being cowardly killers, but times change. If it was one cop by himself, it could be justified, but when a cluster of them can’t take down one guy with a pen knife that is pathetic. What a bunch of brave men, shooting him after he was down.

  18. Ridiculous period.
    All those cops should be fired and jailed….
    Not a one between them had a Taser or pepper spray??
    He posed no danger what so ever at that distance with a pen knife.

  19. There are increasing numbers in society with mental health issues including returning servicemen. The police need to have better strategies for these situations. Everyone screaming and threatening does not defuse things. I saw no leadership in this situation.

  20. What we see happening here is called “group think”. The cops collectively defined the situation and, once that happened, nobody in the group wanted to appear disloyal by questioning the decision or suggesting a different approach. When group think takes over the pressure to conform, to show loyalty, is intense; so much so that many people will follow the group’s direction even though they are deeply conflicted about doing so. All it would have taken to save this man’s life was for one of the cops to step forward and demand that the other cops change their definition of the situation. The reason that didn’t happen and usually doesn’t happen lies in the tribal nature of police culture. Once the collective decision was made to prepare to shoot this man, any officer who suggested otherwise would have been instantly ostracized as not only being disloyal but most likely as being a coward. Significantly, once one officer began to fire the dynamics of group think forced all of the officers to fire on a mentally challenged man holding a penknife.

    The only way to effectively change police culture is for LEOs to begin criticizing this kind of behavior in conversations with their colleagues. But doing this often challenges closely held beliefs that are institutionalized in most cop shops so the only officers who can safely bring this stuff up are those with management status or those with enough years in service to prevent people from calling them cowards. Changing organizational culture is always hard and, all too often, dangerous to one’s career.

    • Agree with your group think and demonstrates police follow orders. Same culture happens in the business world as well, although lives are not at stake. I firmly believe people no longer have the ability to think through problems. Man has knife, draw gun, yell commands, no comply, shoot. Crew is safe, mental guy is dead, paperwork, overtime, head home.

      Same group think killed a mental mom using a painted drill in San Jose. 80 feet away and bang, had to save my peeps. Frankly I think the collective brain power of cops is on the decline.

  21. The man was forty feet away. There was no threat to the officers’ personal safety, yet they killed the guy knowing they wouldn’t be held accountable.

  22. But but but he sceered ’em. All those brave fat-a## cops. Riot over THIS . My pepper blaster would have taken him out. What a bunch of psychopathic p###ies…

  23. When you have a week or two of continuously clear, blue skies; the day a storm rolls through ends up being more memorable than the days previously. For each thing, there is its opposite. It’s a shame that there are good cops out there, altruistic individuals, whose image becomes marred by the actions of thwir incompetent counterparts. This is the way things are. An entire departments off duty crew could regularly go and serve the community, volunteer at homeless shelters, help the eldery, infirm and those less fortunate. Any and all manner of community service you can conjure up, whether it be a weeks, months, years or decades worth, can be undone by one, let alone eight, man or womans poor decision and defame a departments, state and nation wide, good standing. Cops need specialized training that a good number of recruits get in boot camp/basic training; stress inoculation and problem solving. I’m not talking about ‘militarizing’ the police. I’m talking about teaching them to better utilize and rely on their software, ratner than default to inadequate training and their hardware. I’ve served in the army as an infantryman and now I serve my community as an EMT-B. In no way am I afraid of dying or death in general. What I’m terrified of now is living. Therfore, I am cautious of my words, my actions and their affects. I think before I act rather than react and reflect. People need a refresher course in the principles of cause and effect. Thermostats effect change, not thermometers. Should the officers be subject to punitive action? Of course, everyone aught to be held accountable for their actions. Now I ask what of the men who trained these officers? Should they be held accountable for the programming they uploaded to these officers sofware? Why stop there. Do we indicte those responsible for approving the training curriculum before its implementation? Or do we forgive them and redirect them? Any LEO’s take note, it is ultimately up to you all to be the change we all, yourselves included, need to see.

    • Blah, blah, blah.

      When you let your ‘brother’ commit crimes that you would arrest everyone else for, you are no better than the criminal.

      Everybody knows very when who the nut-job of the platoon or squad is. Nobody ever arrests him until he does something that can;t be buried.

      • So then the solution may lay in a reduction of police officers civil liberties, right? Arrest the nut job BEFORE he does something wrong. Provided there is evidence that said nut job intends to commit a crime, sure. But what if the necessary evidence is nonexistent? Go Gestapo/KGB on him? That’s a slippery slope to tread blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. You could be onto something there though, beating fascism with….more applied fascism…… Establish some brown shirts to let loose on the black shirts maybe? Shit rolls down hill and whoever it is that establishes LEO’s SOP’s are just as guilty as the nut job who commits a crime would be.

        Lets pretend that a cop arrests a cop for committing a crime such as what takes place in the above video. How long would that cop be in jail for? Probably as long as it would take before his supervisor found out and ordered his release. In all likelihood, the arrsting officers career would then be in jeopardy. Though a romantic notion, cops aren’t going to arrest cops when they’re operating within the scope of their training and SOP’s. What needs to happen is reform on the administrative and implementation level. Let’s face it though, the police work for the municipality and the state, they have no obligation to serve us as pointed out by Warren vs District of Columbia. They don’t work for us. As long as their SOP’s are what they are, then they will not be held accountable for the things we are. I dunno, what do you think?

        • A fair point. However, if one shouldn’t arrest the nutjob before he does something bad because that would violate his rights, he COULD be laid off and asked to turn in his badge since his temperament isn’t right for the job. He doesn’t have a right to be a police officer.

      • Obviously you don’t know any cops, aren’t related to any cops, and have no idea how this is actually supposed to work.

        The ‘platoon nutter’ is well known because he pulls shiite like this all the time.

        I am connected enough to know who I should call to save my ass when officer crazy decides to light me up, because he’s, well, effen crazy. Until he shoots his (cop) girlfriend in the parking lot of the apartment complex she lives in playing Russian roulette with semis (while cheating on his wife with an oz of blow, a few grams of H, and assorted script drugs is his duty bag) he gets covered for. That’s being a cop in any major metro.

    • Cops need to know right from wrong. Yep I know there’s a few good ones. And YES I believe racism played a part here. Manyyearsago I worked in a mental health facility where I and others(including women) regularly subdued large black men. No guns,knives,batons ,tasers or pepper spray. NO justification for not-so-secret PO-leece.

      • OK,
        that’s bs. I worked in an institution and we didn’t even have the *real* bad ones. A small man can go off on a toot and really hurt bigger health care personnel. I have seen it many times.

  24. So all of these good cops I keep hearing about are planning on mass protests and other actions against these murderous bad few, right?

    *crickets*
    *crickets*
    *crickets*

    Yep… Thought so. 🙁

  25. Reminds me of that AZ shoot where the homeless dude was squatting on public lands iirc, they began to shoot him with less lethal and release the k9 after he was on the ground bleeding from a few rifle rounds…

    This kind of thing gives me real doubt that the us vs them mentality will ever be rectified without a significantly traumatic series of events on a national level…

    I want to have hope for America but sometimes it becomes very difficult.

    • Yeah, I thought of that one, too. Lot of parallels.

      One difference, though: the AZ guy was already “down.” He was on the ground. I also remember quite a number of folks screaming “good shoot” after that one.

      Part of the problem with BOTH instances is a lack of patience. I’ve been on ‘stand-offs’ that took HOURS…and seem some take all night or longer. I recall one dude justifying the AZ shooting with, “Well, the cops had already been there a while and he still was not complying” or some such.

      What seems to be dying fast in LE circles is the desire to not take a life. I know this is an exaggeration, but it sure seems like the trend is, “Oh, ball game is coming on in an hour; I don’t have time for this. BANG.”

      Cops sure seem to be forgetting the job is not about their convenience. Or comfort. Or them at all, really.

  26. Sick, just plain sick. So ashamed of American law enforcement. As a former police officer this makes me want to puke. Chicken shits.

    • “So ashamed of American law enforcement. As a former police officer this makes me want to puke. Chicken shits.”

      Ditto. A thousand times, Ditto.

  27. Queue “El Mac” describing the deadly weapon (2″ pen knife) justifying execution by firing squad in 3… 2… 1

    • …and the cops ended up being late for dinner that night so they changed the ROI to the new rules demonstrated at the top to post.

    • Totally different approach – these are cops that used their Heads – not their Donut Eating Stupid Brian’s!! That many Stupid Cops hooting a mentally retarded man Pisses me off! ARE THEY NOT TRAINED HOURS AND HOURS ON SHOOTING – and NOT ONE STUPID COP their COULD SHOOT HIM IN THE LEG AND TRY TO DISARM HIM??? Aghhhh!

  28. Lot of cop haters out there. The lesson here is NOT to threaten police, or anyone else, with a WEAPON. A penknife jabbed into an artery is a BAD thing for anyone.

  29. I live in Saginaw and know the TV reporter who covered this story and arrived just after this video was recorded.

    Milton Hall had assaulted a woman previously to this incident. His knife was more the size of a buck knife… not a penknife. He used that knife to slash the hood of the responding police car and told the female officer inside he was going to kill her. That’s when backup was called in and this video was taken.

    The dash video is not new. It was released shortly after the incident and was used in the many investigations… local, state and even Federal. None of those investigations found any wrong doing by the officers.

    Until this incident occurred none of Milton Hall’s family wanted anything to do with him. He was mentally unstable. A substance abuser, petty thief and had been in hostile confrontation with these officers many times in the past. In the video he refused multiple orders to put down his weapon. The officers held their fire until he began moving toward the officer with the dog.

    • Kevin, no one is saying that this guy was an angel (well, except Sharpton and Jackson, of course). But have we gotten to the point that the police now have the right to execute the bad guys?

    • lets review reasons for the 6 man firing squad:
      slashes the hood of a cop car. ( not sure exactly what that means But im sure the car sensationalized it )
      screams at a woman locked in her cop car.
      Mentally unstable,
      substance abuse user,
      petty thief.
      unable to follow orders ( probably the mental thing played into that)
      His family didnt like him.

      sound about right?

    • Who cares if the guy was on drugs or his family didn’t like him.

      The guy has a small knife. There’s a ton of officers with guns. He wasn’t within striking distance. There’s a *TON* of officers. Some guy standing their screaming doesn’t mean a huge gang of cops get to execute the guy.

      Are you telling me they couldn’t have surrounded the guy and whacked him a few times on the arm with one of their batons to get him to drop the knife, tackled him, tazed him, whatever.

      The other disturbing thing is they appear to fire after he’s already down and is zero threat.

      It’s not like he was charging at them with a machete or something. The guy has a small knife and is clearly psycho, but isn’t up there stabbing away at anyone. Being crazy should not be a death sentence.

      It would be understandable if there was one cop vs the guy and the guy charged the officer or something. But in this case there’s so many cops…if they cannot manage to subdue this ONE GUY with a small knife they should all be fired imho.

      • 5 of your friends plus you are confronted with a whack-job. Let’s pretend he even had a frakkin’ machete. Is anyone going to seriously suggest shooting this malfunctioning human? Really? You and your friends can’t pull your collective shyte together enough to disarm this one man? All 6 of you? Pathetic if you can’t figger it out.

        Christ, I’ve dealt with threatening nutters more than once. When you have them outnumbered 2 to 1, let alone 6 to 1, there’s no excuse for shooting them, despite the fact that solving the situation peacefully might actually cut into your tee time.

        • The point here is that he did not obey the commands of Gods, therefore appearing to challenge them, therefore had to be immediately executed.

        • You mean swaggering, overbearing tin plated dictators with delusions of godhood. (To quote “Classic” Star Trek.)

  30. This is appalling! I don’t know which is worse, the fact that seven or eight Cops and a K-9 unit could not subdue one mentally impaired man with a pen knife without shooting him to death, or the fact that the Federal Government found no wrong-doing in what happened.

  31. He moved towards a cop with a knife, death wish granted, If cops pull a gun and u pull a knife your stupid, drop the weapon.

    I don’t aways with the cops but i was a unarmed security officer and i was checking a building and was attacked by someone with a knife you have no time to react to it. lucky i have a vest on, Only 2 knife stabs got me only reason im alive was my vest.

    So if you never had anyone attack you with a knife you have no clue how dangerous it is.

    21 foot knife rule https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9vGCxfOtoY 4 of 5 times the cop get stab before getting a shot off

    • The so-called “21 Foot Rule” applies when a guy with a knife charges a person with a holstered firearm. It means that the knife guy can cover 21 feet or so before gun guy can pull his gun and shoot. Once the gun is out of the holster and on target, the distance that knife guy can cover before he’s shot is exactly squat.

  32. Seems like a plethora of bad decisions. Less than lethal options? Nah, no time for that. Call in a shrink? Nah, no time for that. Send in the dog? Nah, he has a family to go home t… err, he’s too expensive to train. (But they are there for situations too risky or spaces too confined for an officer).

    Due process does not stop on the street. You do everything possible to apprehend the offender. Killing another human being is an absolute last resort. Too risky you say? Get over it. Your job is to apprehend suspects for prosecution, not gun them down because you didn’t want to get hurt.

    The impatience of our law enforcement is becoming a huge problem. If they have hostages, you can wait them out and wear them down. A lone perp? Screw ’em. I fear if this happens too often, you are going to see officers targeted by those getting fed up with their murder, theft, extortion, and kidnapping under color of law.

    “Good” officers need to start speaking up, and going to the press. If you do not, things are only going to get worse.

    • +1

      I used to believe that it was probably “only a few bad apples.” Since I don’t see large groups of “good” cops out protesting or doing something visible and major to speak out against incidents like this, I can only conclude that policing in this nation is rotten at the roots. Congrats, cops… there is now one more yelling FTP!

  33. Where to start…..
    1…….The cops were in some kind of bizarre line. That is not a tactic I have ever seen used in an open area.
    2. ……Why didnt they use any type of less lethal? Im sure they had something. There are still some anti Taser departments out there, but they must have had something.
    3. They had enough officers to contain the guy. They could have literally thrown a heavy blanket over him or knocked him down with a couple riot sheilds.
    4…Cops are not required to use less lethal when confronted by a deadly threat. The deadly threat consists of three elements that must ALL be present. Ability, Opportunity,and Jeopardy.
    Does the person have the ability to cause death or serious bodily injury.?
    Did the person have opportunity to do so?
    Was the officer or others in Jeopardy?

    I just dont see why they took the action they did. There was so much more they could have done.
    Look at they area behind the target. Where did all those rounds go?
    Simple. Failure to train. Failure to supervise.
    Legal shoot? Maybe. GOOD shoot? Not a chance.

    • Bad training, bad supervision? Perhaps. But whatever happened to the individual’s ability to think for themselves and to be able to determine right or wrong? If it’s not covered in the SOP, there is no responisbility beyond it? My buddies start shooting, so I join the shoot? Those are not Law Enforcement Officers – they’re thugs in uniforms.

    • Maybe you can explain something for me, Patrick. Earlier in this thread I described the behavior in the video as “group think”. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Given your knowledge of police work, what do you think would have happened if one of officers in the video and tried to defuse that rapidly deteriorating situation? What would have happened if one of of the officers there had stepped out and told the others to back off, holster their guns, even get back into their cars and wait a bit? My take is that, by the time the video started, a collective decision had been made and none of those present felt empowered enough to try and change it. It appears to me that if someone’s marginal, deranged, behaving badly and the police are called there is a likelihood of that person being killed just as we’ve seen in this video and others.

      • If someone, be it a supervisor, or any officer had took charge instead of a mass of officers reacting….the result would have been far less tragic.
        There was other options. There often is. The cops were in combat mode. They didnt deescalate. They were focused on a threat and probably didnt notice each other. They weren’t communicating. They were faced with a small bladed weapon. Any weapon can most certainly kill, but the threat level is different. At distance a rifle is more dangerous than a handgun, a sword is more lethal than a knife.
        In this case the threat was not such that they couldnt try less lethal options.

        I keep seeing reports that show the number of shots cops fire in these incidents. “Police shot 15, 20 50 times”.
        That is how the human mind works in deadly force encounters. Be it cops, citizens or soldiers in combat.
        How many shots doesnt matter as much as should they have shot at all.

  34. This was going to be an execution from the beginning – they simply waited long enough to get something they could call provocation, before shooting. If you’d intended to apprehend him you would have surrounded him, not line-up on one side, like a firing squad.

  35. Why do cops even have tasers if not for this situation? It seems the only time they use them is against people who are already subdued and not a threat. No reason to kill this dude like that.

  36. 46 shots, 14 hits. Sounds like 32 changes of reckless endangerment and 14 charges of manslaughter for the cops involved. Don’t even know how it is possible to miss at such short range, but these cops screwed up big time

    • “14 charges of manslaughter for the cops involved.” Manslaughter is for unintentional killing. Having 6 to 8 rifles and handguns discharged into him, including when he was down, is hardly unintentional. Murder 2nd degree would be more appropriate. But don’t hold your breath…

  37. Based on facts presented by the video, it appears the officers may have stepped outside of bounds of immunity (in my opinion) when they made the serious and final act of making lethal shots to a person who was not posing an imminent or immediate threat in the circumstances as they were. They had him surrounded, he was not advancing, and many non-lethal methods could have been attempted first. Or even a rifle shot to a limb attempted. They seemed to have overstepped their authority.

  38. Someone ought to create an organization that’s sole purpose is to make sure that this video follows each of these cops around for the rest of their lives. On social media, etc.

  39. Well at least they did not shoot the dog. I just wonder where all the bullets bounced off to after hitting the concrete and asphalt. parking lot surface. Looks like one of the vehicles in the background was in the line of fire. Looks like a murder party to me.

  40. My way of looking at these situations is like this:

    Do doctors refuse to treat contagious patients for “doctor safety”?

    Do firefighters refuse to rescue people or put out fires because they don’t want to inhale smoke or risk getting burned?

    So why is it OK for cops to shoot and abuse people for ” officer safety”? You’re supposed to be there to help, not just use excessive force. Don’t like it, don’t be a cop. Your job is to put yourself in harms way so that society doesn’t have to.

    I haven’t watched this particular video yet cuz I’m at work, but this is my logic as it applies to these kinds of situations.

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