Texas Officer Kills Unarmed Bw

meka72

Well-Known Member
Texas police officer shot and killed a woman during arrest attempt
(CNN) — A shaky cell phone video captured the moments before a Texas police officer shot and killed a woman who claimed she was pregnant.

Now people on social media are divided over whether the shooting was justified.

The officer was patrolling an apartment complex in the Houston suburb of Baytown late Monday when he saw a woman he knew from previous encounters, Baytown police said.

A family member identified the woman as Pamela Shantay Turner. In a text message Tuesday, police Lt. Steve Dorris said Turner was not pregnant.

The officer knew the 45-year-old woman had outstanding warrants and started trying to arrest her, police said.

Police say the officer shot the woman after she grabbed his Taser and fired it at him.
A witness' cell phone video showed the woman yelling at the officer:

"I'm walking! I'm actually walking to my house!" the woman screams at him. She later says the officer is "harassing" her.

The video shows the officer apparently trying to handcuff the woman, but she breaks free. The officer then fires his Taser stun gun, and the woman slowly drops to the ground.

A scuffle ensues. The woman keeps yelling "Why?" but the officer isn't heard answering.

As the officer keeps trying to arrest the woman, she flails her arms and yells, "I'm pregnant!"

The struggle continued, and according to Baytown police, the woman "was able to gain control of the Taser and used it on the officer."

In the video, the woman appears to reach for the officer, who stands back and fires five shots toward her.


Why do police shoot to kill?

Baytown police said the officer tried to give first aid to the woman, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Floyd Rubin, who shares two children with Turner, told CNN that police have not shared any details with his family about the shooting.

Turner's sister Antoinette told CNN affiliate KPRC that the woman has two children in their 20s and three grandchildren.

The officer's name has not been released, but Baytown police said he is an 11-year veteran of the department. He is on paid administrative leave as authorities investigate.

"The Harris County District Attorney's Office is on scene and assisting in the investigation, as is normal in these types of incidents," police said.

Police are asking the person who shot the cell phone video to come forward to help with the investigation, Dorris said.

But he said it was "unfortunate" that the witness shared footage of the killing online.

"It's unfortunate that somebody take a tragic incident like this and start posting it on social media," he said. "That's extremely disrespectful for everybody involved."

CNN's Joe Sutton contributed to this report.

View on CNN
 

dancinstallion

Well-Known Member
Texas police officer shot and killed a woman during arrest attempt
(CNN) — A shaky cell phone video captured the moments before a Texas police officer shot and killed a woman who claimed she was pregnant.

Now people on social media are divided over whether the shooting was justified.

The officer was patrolling an apartment complex in the Houston suburb of Baytown late Monday when he saw a woman he knew from previous encounters, Baytown police said.

A family member identified the woman as Pamela Shantay Turner. In a text message Tuesday, police Lt. Steve Dorris said Turner was not pregnant.

The officer knew the 45-year-old woman had outstanding warrants and started trying to arrest her, police said.

Police say the officer shot the woman after she grabbed his Taser and fired it at him.
A witness' cell phone video showed the woman yelling at the officer:

"I'm walking! I'm actually walking to my house!" the woman screams at him. She later says the officer is "harassing" her.

The video shows the officer apparently trying to handcuff the woman, but she breaks free. The officer then fires his Taser stun gun, and the woman slowly drops to the ground.

A scuffle ensues. The woman keeps yelling "Why?" but the officer isn't heard answering.

As the officer keeps trying to arrest the woman, she flails her arms and yells, "I'm pregnant!"

The struggle continued, and according to Baytown police, the woman "was able to gain control of the Taser and used it on the officer."

In the video, the woman appears to reach for the officer, who stands back and fires five shots toward her.


Why do police shoot to kill?

Baytown police said the officer tried to give first aid to the woman, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Floyd Rubin, who shares two children with Turner, told CNN that police have not shared any details with his family about the shooting.

Turner's sister Antoinette told CNN affiliate KPRC that the woman has two children in their 20s and three grandchildren.

The officer's name has not been released, but Baytown police said he is an 11-year veteran of the department. He is on paid administrative leave as authorities investigate.

"The Harris County District Attorney's Office is on scene and assisting in the investigation, as is normal in these types of incidents," police said.

Police are asking the person who shot the cell phone video to come forward to help with the investigation, Dorris said.

But he said it was "unfortunate" that the witness shared footage of the killing online.

"It's unfortunate that somebody take a tragic incident like this and start posting it on social media," he said. "That's extremely disrespectful for everybody involved."

CNN's Joe Sutton contributed to this report.

View on CNN


Thanks.

This was unjustified period!
 

LdyKamz

Well-Known Member
I'm not watching the video but based on the written account did he really need to shoot her 5 times??? Even if she grabbed his taser and aimed it at him it's a taser! You disarm her and bring her down...ALIVE. 5 shots for a taser? Shoot her arm/leg, and then arrest her. So many of these shootings would never happen if these damn officers would just follow protocol. It's sickening.
 

dicapr

Well-Known Member
I'm not watching the video but based on the written account did he really need to shoot her 5 times??? Even if she grabbed his taser and aimed it at him it's a taser! You disarm her and bring her down...ALIVE. 5 shots for a taser? Shoot her arm/leg, and then arrest her. So many of these shootings would never happen if these damn officers would just follow protocol. It's sickening.

Shooting someone in the arm and leg is not the way officers are trained. They aren’t marksmen and they aim at the largest part of the body which they think they can hit-the torso. My brother said shooting an arm or a leg is beyond the ability of a lot of officers.

That being said he didn’t have shoot her 5 times.
 

LdyKamz

Well-Known Member
Shooting someone in the arm and leg is not the way officers are trained. They aren’t marksmen and they aim at the largest part of the body which they think they can hit-the torso. My brother said shooting an arm or a leg is beyond the ability of a lot of officers.

That being said he didn’t have shoot her 5 times.
Yes in my work we have been told by the city almost the same exact thing "it is beyond their ability" but they are not trained to shoot to kill and that is what most officers do. Shooting at the largest part does not have to equal death. And quite honestly it needs to be the way they are trained because they are supposed to do what they can to diffuse a situation with the least casualties as possible. And more often than not it goes in the opposite direction with them escalating and killing people. And this isn't even my opinion from what I see in the news because I've long since stopped torturing myself with watching people die at the hands of police on social media. This is from all of these awful wrongful death/police brutality cases I've worked on in the past 4 months alone! You would not believe some of these cases I see where these things were clearly avoidable.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
Shooting someone in the arm and leg is not the way officers are trained. They aren’t marksmen and they aim at the largest part of the body which they think they can hit-the torso. My brother said shooting an arm or a leg is beyond the ability of a lot of officers.

That being said he didn’t have shoot her 5 times.

Exactly... Officers are trained to shoot to kill. PERIOD! If an officer gets into a situation where he needs to use his weapon, you are pretty much a dead person.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
Yes in my work we have been told by the city almost the same exact thing "it is beyond their ability" but they are not trained to shoot to kill and that is what most officers do. Shooting at the largest part does not have to equal death. And quite honestly it needs to be the way they are trained because they are supposed to do what they can to diffuse a situation with the least casualties as possible. And more often than not it goes in the opposite direction with them escalating and killing people. And this isn't even my opinion from what I see in the news because I've long since stopped torturing myself with watching people die at the hands of police on social media. This is from all of these awful wrongful death/police brutality cases I've worked on in the past 4 months alone! You would not believe some of these cases I see where these things were clearly avoidable.

However, shooting at the largest part of the body will pretty much guarantee they will likely hit a major organ so that means shooting = death 95% of the time! He still shouldn't have shot her five times!
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
Officers are trained to shoot to kill- period. This is coming from the daughter of a retired cop. People need to stop watching TV dramas where the officer aims for the leg to disable the perp. Honestly she shouldn’t have grabbed his taser. I’m not saying he’s right but with these trigger happy cops?! C’mon sis :nono:
 

LdyKamz

Well-Known Member
Officers are trained to shoot to kill- period. This is coming from the daughter of a retired cop. People need to stop watching TV dramas where the officer aims for the leg to disable the perp. Honestly she shouldn’t have grabbed his taser. I’m not saying he’s right but with these trigger happy cops?! C’mon sis :nono:
I don't know if this post was directed at me but my post was not based on "TV dramas where an officer aims for the leg..." I work for an attorneys office and have been doing this work for over 10 years. These are actual questions we ask in cases in which a person came to us because their family member was shot dead or permanently disabled because an officer went wild with his gun. And again we have been told that officers don't have the ability to do xyz and we are always baffled because at this point when they are they going to change procedure as opposed to paying out millions for the same complaints over and over again.

Eta: Came back to add that in criminal cases yeah her grabbing the taser is enough to get him off for her death but in civil cases that argument of "couldn't he have shot the arm or leg" holds up and the family likely wins a hefty amount from the city so yeah that's usually where my mind goes.
 

dicapr

Well-Known Member
I don't know if this post was directed at me but my post was not based on "TV dramas where an officer aims for the leg..." I work for an attorneys office and have been doing this work for over 10 years. These are actual questions we ask in cases in which a person came to us because their family member was shot dead or permanently disabled because an officer went wild with his gun. And again we have been told that officers don't have the ability to do xyz and we are always baffled because at this point when they are they going to change procedure as opposed to paying out millions for the same complaints over and over again.

Eta: Came back to add that in criminal cases yeah her grabbing the taser is enough to get him off for her death but in civil cases that argument of "couldn't he have shot the arm or leg" holds up and the family likely wins a hefty amount from the city so yeah that's usually where my mind goes.

It’s not about changing procedure it’s about the quality and skill level of the recruits. My dad is ex-military who was a “sharp shooter”. The ability to hit targets such as a arm/leg requires natural skill, time, and practice that the average cop off the street doesn’t possess. They aren’t putting the money in the departments to train skilled shooters.

My brother is a correctional officer and basically says the training is to go for a big target you can hit.

If someone wants to spend their own time and effort at the training range to become a better shot that’s up to them. To pass the fire arms portion they just have to be able to hit the target.
 

LdyKamz

Well-Known Member
It’s not about changing procedure it’s about the quality and skill level of the recruits. My dad is ex-military who was a “sharp shooter”. The ability to hit targets such as a arm/leg requires natural skill, time, and practice that the average cop off the street doesn’t possess. They aren’t putting the money in the departments to train skilled shooters.

My brother is a correctional officer and basically says the training is to go for a big target you can hit.

If someone wants to spend their own time and effort at the training range to become a better shot that’s up to them. To pass the fire arms portion they just have to be able to hit the target.

I get this and I especially understand the bold. Really I do. On a recent case we were told a huge percent of officers can go their entire career without ever firing their weapon so I guess on some level I can understand not requiring a specific set of skills like this. All I'm saying is in my line of work we often ask the question "well what can be done since this happens so frequently?" and we get a lot of shrugged shoulders while the sad cases keep rolling in. It's just frustrating.
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
I don't know if this post was directed at me but my post was not based on "TV dramas where an officer aims for the leg..." I work for an attorneys office and have been doing this work for over 10 years. These are actual questions we ask in cases in which a person came to us because their family member was shot dead or permanently disabled because an officer went wild with his gun. And again we have been told that officers don't have the ability to do xyz and we are always baffled because at this point when they are they going to change procedure as opposed to paying out millions for the same complaints over and over again.

Eta: Came back to add that in criminal cases yeah her grabbing the taser is enough to get him off for her death but in civil cases that argument of "couldn't he have shot the arm or leg" holds up and the family likely wins a hefty amount from the city so yeah that's usually where my mind goes.

That comment wasn’t directed at you and I apologize if the tone came across as such. The question of why officers can’t aim for the leg or arm comes up all the time (I even used to ask it as a teenager being a big Law and Order SVU fan) before my father schooled me on the realities of his training. He was a Lt. before going on to Internal Affairs prior to retirement.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
Was she mentally ill?
No, I'm just beginning to think that black women don't take men with guns seriously. At first I thought it was just white men with guns but the sheer number of videos I've seen lately with black women acting like they are bullet proof regardless of who has pulled a gun on them has got me wondering if there is mass mental illness going on.

It's been suggested that I'm acting scary in my old age. While I may have mellowed out, I ain't neva argued with nobody so much as carrying a gun and as a gun owner I wouldn't expect to do too much talking if I was holding mine on somebody.
 

BrickbyBrick

Well-Known Member
Disclaimer: In NO way am I defending this. I am just speaking on the mechanics of firing a weapon in a stressful situation. Sometimes the person your shooting doesn't even recognize that they've been shot and keep moving towards you, especially if the first shots didn't hit anything vital. Officers in many departments are trained to shoot until the threat is stopped.

That being said I watched this with a side eye. Lots of things funky with this shooting.
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
I get this and I especially understand the bold. Really I do. On a recent case we were told a huge percent of officers can go their entire career without ever firing their weapon so I guess on some level I can understand not requiring a specific set of skills like this. All I'm saying is in my line of work we often ask the question "well what can be done since this happens so frequently?" and we get a lot of shrugged shoulders while the sad cases keep rolling in. It's just frustrating.

I guess I’m not understanding the argument of how guns can be used to just disable people/diffuse situations. As explained by my father and this makes sense to me- guns only have one purpose and that’s to kill. So to attempt to use them any other way is illogical. Even if you attempt to shoot someone in an appendage there is a higher chance that you could hit an artery, it could ricochet through the body and they could bleed out or you could cause serious long term damage leading to death due to complications, etc. You could miss or hit some other unintended target. To use a gun for any other reason than to kill makes no sense and is irresponsible unless you intend to kill the target.
 
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Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
That cop has a history with her... he used this as an opportunity to kill her.

Disclaimer: In NO way am I defending this. I am just speaking on the mechanics of firing a weapon in a stressful situation. Sometimes the person your shooting doesn't even recognize that they've been shot and keep moving towards you, especially if the first shots didn't hit anything vital. Officers in many departments are trained to shoot until the threat is stopped.

That being said I watched this with a side eye. Lots of things funky with this shooting.
 

Theresamonet

Well-Known Member
If I were a cop in this situation, I would have shot her too. I’m not going to give you an opportunity to incapacitate me with my own taser. He F-d up by letting her take it from him. Now she got it aimed and trying use it against him. Once he’s unable to move, she or someone else could take his gun, and then he’d be the one taking a dirt nap.

The only thing that I’m questioning here is why he was trying to arrest her in the first place. What’s the backstory? Does she actually have a warrant? And how did he know?
 

itsallaboutattitude

Cancer Support in Health
Every time I see these same white cops talking calmly to armed white men...

But somehow it’s on us to act right

and if only...

Just saw a video of black man being arrested while playing basketball in his front yard with his children.

His crime being a Blackman with dreads.

Officer has a warrant for a Blackman in dreads from a different state and pronounced this dad who never lived in that state a criminal. Calling him by three different names.

Man refused to give the cop his ID. Why?! Cause of how the cop attacked him.

Sean King has talked about the fact that white neighborhoods have the same crimes as black neighborhoods. However they are not policed the same. So these interactions and violent deaths at the hands of the police are happening in our communities because of the heavy police presence.


It is systematic murder.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
Every time I see these same white cops talking calmly to armed white men...

But somehow it’s on us to act right

and if only...

Just saw a video of black man being arrested while playing basketball in his front yard with his children.

His crime being a Blackman with dreads.

Officer has a warrant for a Blackman in dreads from a different state and pronounced this dad who never lived in that state a criminal. Calling him by three different names.

Man refused to give the cop his ID. Why?! Cause of how the cop attacked him.

Sean King has talked about the fact that white neighborhoods have the same crimes as black neighborhoods. However they are not policed the same. So these interactions and violent deaths at the hands of the police are happening in our communities because of the heavy police presence.


It is systematic murder.

Yes... it is on us to act right. Because, as we have seen time and time again, these cops are not going to think twice about killing us. You have to maintain your life and fight another day!
 

momi

Well-Known Member
No, I'm just beginning to think that black women don't take men with guns seriously. At first I thought it was just white men with guns but the sheer number of videos I've seen lately with black women acting like they are bullet proof regardless of who has pulled a gun on them has got me wondering if there is mass mental illness going on.

It's been suggested that I'm acting scary in my old age. While I may have mellowed out, I ain't neva argued with nobody so much as carrying a gun and as a gun owner I wouldn't expect to do too much talking if I was holding mine on somebody.

Thank you.

Further - since we are aware of previous patterns our goal should be to limit our interactions with the police. Make a plan to make your case in court and go on to live another day.

ETA: and make sure your people take their medication!
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
I watched the video up to the point where she said "I'm pregnant". The cop is going to get off on self defense. She didn't let being pregnant stop her from fighting or using his taser but she waited to invoke her pregnancy when she was threatened. That is very rational thinking so the mentally challenged claim goes straight out the window.

Yes, white cops are racist.

Yes, black people are disproportionally messed with.

Yes, it's all unfair.

NO, the words: "You are under arrest" do not translate to "Knuck if You Buck."
 

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
The sad part of all this is that we have just as many examples of black citizens DOING the right thing, raising their hands, not being a threat, complying.. and still getting shot, beaten or arrested for no reason but being black. Who has the answer to that?


^^^ Exactly it’s more like which hill do you want to die on... literally. I understand the point but there are just some days when I’d rather fight those battles through a lawyer and sue my way to reparations.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
The sad part of all this is that we have just as many examples of black citizens DOING the right thing, raising their hands, not being a threat, complying.. and still getting shot, beaten or arrested for no reason but being black. Who has the answer to that?
Do we really?

I've been watching a whole lot of police shooting videos and there are very few where the black citizen is shutting the entire f up and complying in an environment where they know the police will kill them and will get their first paid leave check before the person is buried. What should be is not the reality for black folks dealing with the police. People have to act on how things actually are.
Who has the answer to that?
The answer is more black cops everywhere but especially in black neighborhoods but folks got 50 million reasons why black folks can't do that so black folks go continued to get shot by white cops and the latinx ones who look like their light skinned cousins with 2 black parents.
 

HappilyLiberal

Well-Known Member
Do we really?

I've been watching a whole lot of police shooting videos and there are very few where the black citizen is shutting the entire f up and complying in an environment where they know the police will kill them and will get their first paid leave check before the person is buried. What should be is not the reality for black folks dealing with the police. People have to act on how things actually are.

The answer is more black cops everywhere but especially in black neighborhoods but folks got 50 million reasons why black folks can't do that so black folks go continued to get shot by white cops and the latinx ones who look like their light skinned cousins with 2 black parents.

I don't know... When black men get on the force they see their brothers in blue before their black brothers and sisters.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
I don't know... When black men get on the force they see their brothers in blue before their black brothers and sisters.
I'm not talking 1 black face in a sea of white ones I mean filling police departments with black cops. If your brothers in blue are black and the community you service is black then the odds of racially motivated police murders should be significantly reduced.
 
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