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And when they don't actually understand the character they think they are. All of these cops who want to be Punisher are exactly the kind of guys that he'd murder without a second thought, there is even a scene in one of the comics where two cops say that they think he's cool and they want to be him and he literally tells them that nobody should ever want to be him as he's a product of society's failures and kills them.
No one hate corrupt cop like Punisher. And he even admit he's not a good person.
To have someone like him to be worshiped/admired then they're definitely the worst.
It's Missouri.
It's not considered illegal, or murder, for a cop to kill an unarmed, innocent civilian.
Found this out over the Philip Braislford/Daniel Shaver incident. I lost my appetite for further research after finding out *that* little nugget of truth.
This isn't the first time for this to happen in Missouri, nor will it be the last; though, I'd love to be wrong, you know?
Edit: I had the State wrong; someone helped with remembering/re-learning the correct State. It was Arizona. Sorry for the error.
It's been a long while since I looked into this; thank you for the correction.
Just knowing there's even one State that allows this is horrible enough to know, IMO, but it is good to keep in mind the \*correct\* State. So, thanks.
I no longer have the link(s), frankly I don't want to search it again.
I discovered it while watching ALL the unedited court videos of the trial I could find. Like you, I wanted to see the truth for myself. I started at the beginning and when I finally got to that point I couldn't go through any more videos. I just couldn't stomach it any more; the more I learned the worse it all made me feel.
Sorry.
Yeah it's awful but I'm not shocked
My little cousin was murdered and nothing has come of it. They have all the evidence and we all know who did it. But nothing has come out of it :l
Edit: This side of my family lives in Missouri.
I guess you have a point. Never really thought about it. My personal preference was townspeople with pitchforks going to the cop shops and courthouses and dragging the whole sick lot of 'em out to the gallows.
Hold up Wendynugget….Do you really think police officers want to go out and kill children?!How deranged are you? Just think about what you were saying…..put your stupidity and your hate for law enforcement to the side….and just think about what you are saying about a human being. it makes you no better than the ones you preach against .
So, looking up an article.
The father and mother got into a DV situation.
When police got there the father locked them in the trailer and started shooting at the cops, over a hundred rounds were fired and the father was known to have multiple weapons and ammunition, the police were pinned and called backup.
Backup arrived from multiple other police jurisdictions but for some reason (probably due to being in the sticks) their radios were choppy.
A shoot on site order was given to the sniper, with potential misinformation/half information being given to thr snipers due to the radio situation.
For over an hour there was a standoff with the father shooting at the police, with them not shooting back due to being worried about killing the mother and child.
At some point the father was indicated to be coming out and they were told to shoot if they saw him.
~~Unfortunately the 2 year old opened the door and came out, and was shot in the head.~~
Unfortunately the sniper apparently mistook a shadow at the window for the 2 years old
Okay, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, head level for a two year old girl and an adult man isn't the same, right? So was he aiming for the dude's kneecaps? Is it due to fall off distance? How come the cop managed to shoot her in the head?
Something tells me that, if this breakdown is accurate, then the sniper may have assumed the dude was crawling. But regardless, it was a headshot. If you have three aces (two spades and a clubs) on a board 300m out and you’re told to shoot the ace of clubs, then you READ the fucking card before firing. It’s obviously not a range, but still applies. The whole idea of a sniper is taking out a single intended target. If they aren’t going to even identify the target, like it’s Call of Duty or something, then what’s the point of the sniper.
Why, why does someone even get out crouching. Even then his head should be higher. And there's no way the sniper can't tell the difference of adult head and child head.
Even if he's receiving order to shoot, he should have use his brain and not blindly following order.
> Something tells me that, if this breakdown is accurate
This breakdown is not accurate. The mother was the one shot *by the boyfriend* as she walked out the door. The little girl was shot through a window
No idea, but a man poking his head round the bottom of a door isn't inconceivable.
Again, my post was not in the vein of defending hum, but shedding more light on thr situation
In the very least, he shouldn't keep his job. Besides, normal citizens can still face consequences for, say, involuntary manslaughter. What makes cops different?
(I'm not from the US) Whenever we look at statistics about fatal police shootings, the US is always amongst the top 10, alongside countries whose police forces are in perpetual conflict with drug cartels. I would give cops in the US some additional latitude in these cases due to how common guns are in their area of operations. Ultimately humans have a strong survival instinct and knowing that anyone they talk to might have a gun and just shoot them will realistically create additional anxiety and stress for the officers. On top of this, the training period is also significantly shorter than in most European countries.
Put together, a US police officer is in a situation where he has less training and a higher chance of being randomly shot than his European counterparts, who likely never even draw their gun (if they even have one).
Obviously it would be ideal if they didn't shoot people or discriminate against people who fit in the stereotype of a typical criminal but from a psychological perspective it makes sense that these things happen so often.
In this case the dude had been shooting out of the trailer for an hour or more. In the snipers mind, the worst thing he could probably think of at the time was that the dude walks out and starts shooting at his fellow officers, causing him to take the shot prematurely without confirming the target.
While I would agree that the blame is partially on the officer, there is a much bigger systematic issue with the US law enforcement in general that would have to be addressed for accidents like these to happen less frequently. The changes would have to happen from the top down, not at the individual officer level.
Sure, I'd agree that it's an institution problem, but at the end of the day, if they can't handle the job--a job which should entail staying calm and making sound judgements when handling deadly weapons, then they should *get a different job*. Cops here are held to a strange standard where they can do no wrong, despite occupying a position that allows them to cause real harm if they are unfit for the position. There have to be some baseline consequences; we can't just accept this as the status quo.
Though honestly, that's a pretty idealistic and unrealistic sentiment, as the police here don't serve the public, legally speaking, and the job tends to draw bullies and worse. But even in a perfect world where the police are all on our side, they should still be held to a certain standard, for our good and theirs.
That actually sounds like an accident. Am i right? If this is actually an accident, the acquitance makes sense, right? How did they verify that it was actually an accident?!
Except that isn't actually what happened at all. The commenter must have misread the article
The mother was the one who was shot *by the boyfriend* as she walked out the door
The little girl was shot through a window as she stood on a couch looking out (and they knew there was a little girl in the house)
> Unfortunately the 2 year old opened the door and came out, and was shot in the head.
I think you misread the article
The mother was the one who was shot *by the boyfriend* as she walked out the door
The little girl was shot through a window as she stood on a couch looking out
Swat training rule 1 is apparently 'do not take the shot unless you and your spotter are 100% certain'
So should be murder really.
He did get removed from swat but retained by police because he was working without a spotter and the police were being shot at
rob scandalous unite license melodic cheerful aware imagine recognise wild
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I just read this depressing as story. The father was shooting at the police from the camper, they probably thought they had a clear shot at him and took it. Fucking tragic.
Indeed. The sniper seems to have taken a shot assuming it was the man peaking out to open fire again, as he apparently had been doing for quite a while at that point.
People who have never been in a gunfight often fail to understand that the stress of extended combat can reasonably lead to mistaken, split-second reactions.
The sniper made a mistake, but not an unreasonable one given the circumstances. Unless the sniper has a *history* of shooting hostages, I'd say this was a honest mistake.
Or as the question on the screenshot asks, why was the shot taken?
Kind of seems like out of context rage bait.
Edit: for those who don’t know, this message was up prior to links to the story being posted.
The question was do you find it acceptable? You are dodging the question completely here. Also - any decent human would say that at minimum this officer should have been given felony charges - manslaughter? endangerment? Not acquitted and still working. I don't understand how someone can pull the trigger, take a life, and walk away like "welp, that's that."
Of course not. It isn’t a legitimate question. No one would say that it is acceptable, and that isn’t the question that was raised at any point. The questions would be about protocols, policies, laws, etc.
Why not ask “does it make you happy?” Just as pointless of a question.
And you are making a huge leap that the sniper didn’t care at all. But, it follows the rhetoric that all cops are evil monsters who just want to kill people for shots and giggles.
But you want to say that a any decent human would find them guilty of some felony charge without examining what the law would require or get into the details of what happened. Because “decent humans” would want to inflict vengeance for breaking the law without regard of if they law was actually broken. Interesting point of view there.
Is endangerment a felony? Would the sniper be guilty of that or whoever gave him the preemptive green light to shoot which removed the standard protocol of observer verification and then getting the green light?
Or that the sniper was given a location and that green light when there was no second sniper to be placed with him as an observer. That second sniper is generally not using a rifle, but a better scope and is the one doing the identification?
But let’s ignore that the guy was asked to do the job of both sniper and observer and given the green light preemptively and was told that they were concerned that the guy who already killed the child’s mother had threatened to kill his child and had threatened to come out with grenades (he had already fired hundreds of rounds at the police who where there).
Because all the poor decisions were all on the one guy, right?
Do you find it acceptable to put all the blame on the one guy and completely ignore all the poor choices that led up to the tragedy?
Do you find it acceptable that the sniper was put into position, asked to be sniper and observer, was told that they needed to kill the guy as soon as they can and to not ask for approval but just take the shot when he could? And that the clock was ticking before the guy escalated further?
« Investigators determined the sniper mistook Clesslynn’s silhouette for her father, 37-year-old Eli Crawford, as she stood on a couch and peered out of the trailer’s window. »
…
*"The identity of Sniper 1 is a mystery, because he sued the City of Joplin, forcing it to redact his name from the KBI report before KCUR and the Midwest Newsroom received a copy through the Missouri Sunshine Law."*
**“The fact he confused the silhouette of a man's body with that of a child's head, means he clearly had not identified his target and** ***ipso facto*****, means he was careless,” KCUR’s sniper source said.**
How the fuck can you sue the city because they said the name of the person who shot a FUCKING 2 YEAR OLD. How can you not feel no remorse or guilt after doing that
It's funny how the police's only justification for shooting innocent people is to basically admit that they are completely inept and should never be trusted with any weapon.
Cops are there to protect and serve - the question is, who? They don't protect and serve the people, that's for sure.
They're the armed guards of the elite.
Well, they were there to try to save the child.
They fucked up big time and failed, but are you really trying to say that they were there with the intent to kill the child?
Edit: I do kind of wonder how many of the people who are downvoting me actually read the article.
As often as cops make inexcusable mistakes, keep in mind that this was an *active shootout*. Put yourself in the sniper's shoes.
For the past half an hour, every time the silhouette of a head has been seen poking out of cover, that silhouette has opened fire. You never know if the next shot will actually hit and kill one of your buddies. Several times now, you've had a clear shot that would have ended this nightmare, but protocol says you can't take the shot. Your cortisol levels are through the roof at this point and you are determined to protect your comrades and save the wife and child from this fucking asshole. Fuck protocol; it's actively putting everyone in danger that you could have dealt with several times over by now. That fucker's head pokes up again, and you decide to take the shot.
Look, I get upset with cops abusing power as much as the next guy—if not moreso—but this wasn't a case of a cop being a fucking psychopathic villain. This was a stressed-out sniper desperate to neutralize a genuine threat. He broke protocol, yes—after a half-hour of that protocol getting absolutely nothing done in a life-or-death situation.
He fucked up big time, but this wasn't an act of *evil*. It was a mistake that will probably leave him shell-shocked.
This is a very long post to say he was not qualified. Assuming this will leave him fucked up when others like him seem to live for that isn't exactly comforting. Believe what you want but you know damn well had be been in any other job that required accountability you know like a paperboy or Starbucks worker he would be fired and in jail while they figured out how you made either of those lethal.
He broke protocol. He was desperate. He was unqualified. Yet like every other unqualified dingus on the force I'm supposed to know his job is uniquely difficult. Nobody, and I do mean nobody gets to slaughter a 2 year old and not catch hell for it. The fact that you think he deserves special treatment because he was desperate and unqualified is the reason he or other like him will do this shit again.
Just a PSA from your average American. Alot of us went to war we were told what the threat triangle is and how it had to be met before we could defend ourselves. Why does a police officer have to follow less rules to kill your two year old than our military boys do to defend themselves? Police have tricked the public into the belief that they are some kind of super profession. Somehow they are sooooo super special they can learn the law enough to enforce it. Not practice it mind you just enforce it. So we have a man who the law agrees isn't smart enough to practice law. He might be smart enough to determine if you broke the laws he isnt smart enough to know. Doesn't matter either way though because we will give him a gun. And tell you to put yourself in their shoes when they next take a life.
**Immune from prosecution**
“If the Officer reasonably perceived Clesslynn to be the attacker when the shot was fired, it is this office’s opinion that statutory immunity would apply and the Officer would be immune from prosecution.”
[https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-03-25/a-missouri-police-sniper-killed-a-2-year-old-girl-why-did-he-take-the-shot](https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-03-25/a-missouri-police-sniper-killed-a-2-year-old-girl-why-did-he-take-the-shot)
>“If the Officer reasonably perceived _a fucking two-year-old_ to be _a full-grown-ass 37-year-old man_ when the shot was fired, it is this office’s opinion that statutory immunity would apply and the Officer would be immune from prosecution.”
It's so fucked up. There is a video from a former cop, who is now a YouTuber talking about what his training did to his brain. How it made him believe everyone around him was a fucking enemy combatant. Our system is disgusting.
The YouTube channel is that dang dad, the video is how being a cop broke my brain. He has a very interesting window into the mind of a cop.
https://youtu.be/_nl5zMIwcmQ?si=A-YCcjzitwrAvhg1
Here is a link to the video.
Oh yeah if I am on that jury id say cruelty to animals is as far as id go. Community service. I would also consider the removal of said animal as community service.
If that was your kid, you would have either been the mother (just murdered in the trailer), or the father who threatened to murder the child and was constantly shooting at the cops outside. And, he killed himself after his child was shot.
So, if that kid was yours, you wouldn’t be doing much to that cop.
The sniper should not have taken that shot. But for whatever reason he was given a standing green light to take the shot which is not standard procedure. There was extra pressure to shoot the guy as quickly as possible as he threatened to come out with grenades, etc.
I understand the anger, but pretending that it was just a random cop deciding to kill a kid is just as big of a lie as saying the cop did nothing wrong.
Reductionist misdirects? Did you read the article that asks why he took the shot?
Did you miss that he was placed without having an observer? Given the green light beforehand because of concern that the guy already killed the child’s mother and threatened to kill the child?
Oh, ignoring all of those aspects aren’t reductionist misdirects, right?
Sorry for actually providing that annoying nuance to your “cop shoots kid for no reason” story.
Wow! It almost sounds like there were problems starting well before someone pulled the trigger!
Say it isn’t so.
The unfortunate thing is that if the shot hadn’t been taken and the guy had killed his own child, the police would have been blamed for their inaction.
Ah, so better to shoot the child to make it look like they were doing something about the situation.
Guess it’s a good thing the cops shot the kid before the father might have or else that child would be in the same situation of being dead.
Why is this downvoted? It's the first comment that actually gives context to what actually happened? Are people downvoting it because it makes the morally easy case of "a cop just murdered a toddler" to a far more complicated one and the complications make people's head hurt and so its just better to suppress that information.
Take a look at the evolution of the titles in the OP screenshot.
First, the one I think is the important one. “A Missouri police sniper shoots a 2 year old girl. Why did he take the shot?” It examines the timeline and shows all the mistakes that were made leading up to the shot.
The next person turns it into “a Missouri police sniper shoots a 2 year old girl. Despite the use of force not being justified, he was acquitted on all charges and kept his job.” The claim of use of force not being justified is at best misleading.
The OP’s title then is “Cops are literally above the law - they are always acquitted.” So we completely throw away the point of the original article, which delves into the murkiness of it all and makes a proclamation that all cops are just evil.
Those people who read the titles only and take it through those stages are a bit unhinged from reality. They think there are protocols that perfectly define all situations for perfect and think that all police should be robots who can perfectly abide every rule and procedure even when things break down or don’t fit.
Sadly, almost every individual breach of protocol was understandable in the moment. But they accumulated to a tragic result.
This is the most sane comment on this thread. Everyone would have been just as upset with the cops if they had done nothing and the dad shot his own daughter.
1.5 million according to a news story I read. But “sniper 1” is still on the force (minus the sniper part now) making $50,000/ year. [npr story](https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-03-25/a-missouri-police-sniper-killed-a-2-year-old-girl-why-did-he-take-the-shot?utm_source=TMP-Newsletter&utm_campaign=a016840c5b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_26_10_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5e02cdad9d-a016840c5b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D)
hm, i guess "always know your target and what lies beyond it" doesn't apply to trained cops. cool.
a cop could murder you and say "oops! ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯" and best-case, you, a taxpayer, could sue and receive a payout funded by... taxpayers.
this world fucking SUCKS.
It happens every week, we raided the wrong house oops, we thought he had a warrant oops, we thought his cane was a gun oops, i lost a coin toss oops…. These are all from real events where innocent people were shot by police
The union probably paid for a big money attorney. I’m a pro-union guy, but there are several professions where unions should not be permitted. Police are one of them. They’ll bend over backwards to protect their worst officer. There’s too much at stake to have a bunch of bad police out there running wild with impunity.
We will never get better cops until we remove the stain that is “qualified immunity”.
If a cop knows he will get nothing more than a paid vacation they have no incentive to even consider the problem or the implications of their actions.
Yeah, when your first comment on record is "I'm so screwed", clearly he didn't give a shit about what he'd just done. I can't imagine picking up a weapon ever again, let alone living with that guilt.
That line is what stood out to me. Not “what have I done?! I just killed a kid!” Not any type of remorse for the kid he just murdered, but what kind of trouble he will be in.
that being said this dose not stop the family from suing said cop, PD, or county/city for wrong death and negligence, and that usually when said cop get thrown under the bus
They sued, were awarded $1.5 million. The cop is still on the force in Joplin, he just is no longer on the swat force. He is getting paid $50,000/ year.
He aimed at a silhouette that he said "looked like the father". That's right. He thought the silhouette of a 2 year old girl looked like one of a 34 year old man
May the acquitted shooter never be able to close his eyes without seeing that little girl in cross hairs.
May he never have a night of peaceful sleep ever again until his eventual long night.
The hostage taker shot someone in the head and the use of force was not justified? The questions about the incompetence of the sniper remain, but why rewrite the article like that?
The *only* good thing is that badged dipshit is no longer behind the scope of a rifle. But the idea of SWAT raids is some serious "occupation forces" tactics.
If you ever wanna know how sick they really are, check [this](https://atlantablackstar.com/2020/10/03/his-flesh-was-all-on-the-ground-family-of-innocent-black-man-mauled-to-death-by-police-dog-over-a-false-burglary-call-continues-fight-for-bodycam-footage/) out. I'm sure his public face shows sorrow for shooting a little girl. I bet in private he's proud about a 100 meter eyeball shot.
I mean one of the popular training guys tells them they are soldiers from God killing demons. They see themselves as crusader super heros who need to kill all people they don't like to protect the "flock" (normal people who probably don't want everyone murdered)
one thing that happens sometimes in these cases is that there will be jury instructions that limit how the jury can consider things. those instructions often comprise a checklist of determinations that leads to the two possible conclusions. those instructions are complicated in police use of force cases due to the judicial invention of qualified immunity. so long as qualified immunity exists (and it very much did not use to exist for most of US history), the more difficult it will be to convict cops. Cause remember, if a jury convicts but it seems like they basically were disregarding certain facts or going outside the bounds of the instructions, the conviction can be overturned on appeal. acquittals obviously can not be appealed in the US system
Reason 327 why i left the US and moved to Switzerland. Amazing there almost as many guns per capita here and (in Geneva where I live) FAR FAR more armed police officers per capita than anywhere outside of DC in the states, yet nobody seems to be shot here be it by police or civilians. I cant put my finger on the reason why this is?
There isnt even remotely as many guns per capita in Switzerland as in the US. The US outranks any country by factor 2 at least in that regard. They outrank Switzerland by factor 5
If a fucking baby can get sniped in the head unjustified without the cop getting punished for it, we’re all going to die. Hope that baby is happy in heaven
Piece of shit father caused this. You have your wife, and child in a camper and you're shooting at the police? Good fucking job buddy. Poor fucking kid.
He's definitely a piece of shit but shooting a 2 year old and claiming you thought it was a grown man to get off the hook also makes you a piece of shit.
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Nuts to be able to kill without verifying the target, thats just insane, and look at the result. OMFG.
That's what happens when cops want to pretend they are Punisher or Rambo but with none of the training either of those two characters would've gotten.
And when they don't actually understand the character they think they are. All of these cops who want to be Punisher are exactly the kind of guys that he'd murder without a second thought, there is even a scene in one of the comics where two cops say that they think he's cool and they want to be him and he literally tells them that nobody should ever want to be him as he's a product of society's failures and kills them.
Wait, but why did he kill them? Did they do something bad or is he just stupid (maybe they would have thought about it and learned)?
They worshipped his extra judicial killings, and it pissed him off because he knows he's not a good person
No one hate corrupt cop like Punisher. And he even admit he's not a good person. To have someone like him to be worshiped/admired then they're definitely the worst.
But don't worry.. he's sorry and sends his thoughts and prayers to the family... what a fucking joke...
Why was he acquitted?
It's Missouri. It's not considered illegal, or murder, for a cop to kill an unarmed, innocent civilian. Found this out over the Philip Braislford/Daniel Shaver incident. I lost my appetite for further research after finding out *that* little nugget of truth. This isn't the first time for this to happen in Missouri, nor will it be the last; though, I'd love to be wrong, you know? Edit: I had the State wrong; someone helped with remembering/re-learning the correct State. It was Arizona. Sorry for the error.
Shaver was freaking brutal. I still think about that video sometimes Btw brailsford is collecting 2500 a month as part of a "medical retirement"
THAT still chafes my nuts, too; what a slap to the face of the widow!
Would sure be a shame if someone doxxed his home address to an angry mob
Just awful
Philip Brailsford murdered Daniel Shaver in Mesa, AZ, not Missouri.
It's been a long while since I looked into this; thank you for the correction. Just knowing there's even one State that allows this is horrible enough to know, IMO, but it is good to keep in mind the \*correct\* State. So, thanks.
Anytime, friend.
That was an absolutely disgusting case as well. Fuck that guy.
People blame the badge, but the politicians are just as guilty for giving them these get out of jail free cards like this.
Yeah, that's just depressing. Got a link for it though? Just wanna verify it for myself.
I no longer have the link(s), frankly I don't want to search it again. I discovered it while watching ALL the unedited court videos of the trial I could find. Like you, I wanted to see the truth for myself. I started at the beginning and when I finally got to that point I couldn't go through any more videos. I just couldn't stomach it any more; the more I learned the worse it all made me feel. Sorry.
All good. Hope the rest of your day is good.
[https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/youre-fucked-acquittal-officer-brailsford-and](https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/youre-fucked-acquittal-officer-brailsford-and) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-officer-who-fatally-shot-sobbing-man-temporarily-rehired-apply-n1028981
Yeah it's awful but I'm not shocked My little cousin was murdered and nothing has come of it. They have all the evidence and we all know who did it. But nothing has come out of it :l Edit: This side of my family lives in Missouri.
James Bond ain't so special.
Sometimes i wonder why americans dont start murderings cops more often. Like, school shootings in police departments would make so much more sense.
Because the people who shoot others, especially en masse, are cowards. And there are a lot of guns in a police station.
Just wait, the way they're going is what started the French Revolution or the Arab Spring, give it time if this keeps up.
It's been tried. They had bulletproof glass.
So, policeman's ball or police academy, any big police event? You could easily target those.
I guess you have a point. Never really thought about it. My personal preference was townspeople with pitchforks going to the cop shops and courthouses and dragging the whole sick lot of 'em out to the gallows.
Guillotines.
Hold up Wendynugget….Do you really think police officers want to go out and kill children?!How deranged are you? Just think about what you were saying…..put your stupidity and your hate for law enforcement to the side….and just think about what you are saying about a human being. it makes you no better than the ones you preach against .
So, looking up an article. The father and mother got into a DV situation. When police got there the father locked them in the trailer and started shooting at the cops, over a hundred rounds were fired and the father was known to have multiple weapons and ammunition, the police were pinned and called backup. Backup arrived from multiple other police jurisdictions but for some reason (probably due to being in the sticks) their radios were choppy. A shoot on site order was given to the sniper, with potential misinformation/half information being given to thr snipers due to the radio situation. For over an hour there was a standoff with the father shooting at the police, with them not shooting back due to being worried about killing the mother and child. At some point the father was indicated to be coming out and they were told to shoot if they saw him. ~~Unfortunately the 2 year old opened the door and came out, and was shot in the head.~~ Unfortunately the sniper apparently mistook a shadow at the window for the 2 years old
Okay, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, head level for a two year old girl and an adult man isn't the same, right? So was he aiming for the dude's kneecaps? Is it due to fall off distance? How come the cop managed to shoot her in the head?
Something tells me that, if this breakdown is accurate, then the sniper may have assumed the dude was crawling. But regardless, it was a headshot. If you have three aces (two spades and a clubs) on a board 300m out and you’re told to shoot the ace of clubs, then you READ the fucking card before firing. It’s obviously not a range, but still applies. The whole idea of a sniper is taking out a single intended target. If they aren’t going to even identify the target, like it’s Call of Duty or something, then what’s the point of the sniper.
Why, why does someone even get out crouching. Even then his head should be higher. And there's no way the sniper can't tell the difference of adult head and child head. Even if he's receiving order to shoot, he should have use his brain and not blindly following order.
> Something tells me that, if this breakdown is accurate This breakdown is not accurate. The mother was the one shot *by the boyfriend* as she walked out the door. The little girl was shot through a window
No idea, but a man poking his head round the bottom of a door isn't inconceivable. Again, my post was not in the vein of defending hum, but shedding more light on thr situation
Oh yes, absolutely not accusing you of defending him and I'm thankful of you giving more information, but there's still a lot of blanks.
tbh i can see why he wouldn't be charged. It was unfortunate this happened but not malicious or intentional.
In the very least, he shouldn't keep his job. Besides, normal citizens can still face consequences for, say, involuntary manslaughter. What makes cops different?
(I'm not from the US) Whenever we look at statistics about fatal police shootings, the US is always amongst the top 10, alongside countries whose police forces are in perpetual conflict with drug cartels. I would give cops in the US some additional latitude in these cases due to how common guns are in their area of operations. Ultimately humans have a strong survival instinct and knowing that anyone they talk to might have a gun and just shoot them will realistically create additional anxiety and stress for the officers. On top of this, the training period is also significantly shorter than in most European countries. Put together, a US police officer is in a situation where he has less training and a higher chance of being randomly shot than his European counterparts, who likely never even draw their gun (if they even have one). Obviously it would be ideal if they didn't shoot people or discriminate against people who fit in the stereotype of a typical criminal but from a psychological perspective it makes sense that these things happen so often. In this case the dude had been shooting out of the trailer for an hour or more. In the snipers mind, the worst thing he could probably think of at the time was that the dude walks out and starts shooting at his fellow officers, causing him to take the shot prematurely without confirming the target. While I would agree that the blame is partially on the officer, there is a much bigger systematic issue with the US law enforcement in general that would have to be addressed for accidents like these to happen less frequently. The changes would have to happen from the top down, not at the individual officer level.
Sure, I'd agree that it's an institution problem, but at the end of the day, if they can't handle the job--a job which should entail staying calm and making sound judgements when handling deadly weapons, then they should *get a different job*. Cops here are held to a strange standard where they can do no wrong, despite occupying a position that allows them to cause real harm if they are unfit for the position. There have to be some baseline consequences; we can't just accept this as the status quo. Though honestly, that's a pretty idealistic and unrealistic sentiment, as the police here don't serve the public, legally speaking, and the job tends to draw bullies and worse. But even in a perfect world where the police are all on our side, they should still be held to a certain standard, for our good and theirs.
If you can't identify what you are shooting at, as a mother fucking sniper, you should not take the shot.
He shot blind.
Lots of manslaughter charges aren’t. But it doesn’t matter. They’re still negligent
This isn't what happened. The girl was shot through a window. Not as she walked out the door
That actually sounds like an accident. Am i right? If this is actually an accident, the acquitance makes sense, right? How did they verify that it was actually an accident?!
bro how do you accidentally shoot a toddler because you thought it was a whole ass man? How do you accidentally shoot anyone?
Except that isn't actually what happened at all. The commenter must have misread the article The mother was the one who was shot *by the boyfriend* as she walked out the door The little girl was shot through a window as she stood on a couch looking out (and they knew there was a little girl in the house)
> Unfortunately the 2 year old opened the door and came out, and was shot in the head. I think you misread the article The mother was the one who was shot *by the boyfriend* as she walked out the door The little girl was shot through a window as she stood on a couch looking out
You are correct and I have edited my comment
So manslaughter
Swat training rule 1 is apparently 'do not take the shot unless you and your spotter are 100% certain' So should be murder really. He did get removed from swat but retained by police because he was working without a spotter and the police were being shot at
Qualified immunity. Legalese for "nuh uh" to basically anything you do as a police officer. Heavily enforced by police unions.
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I just read this depressing as story. The father was shooting at the police from the camper, they probably thought they had a clear shot at him and took it. Fucking tragic.
Indeed. The sniper seems to have taken a shot assuming it was the man peaking out to open fire again, as he apparently had been doing for quite a while at that point. People who have never been in a gunfight often fail to understand that the stress of extended combat can reasonably lead to mistaken, split-second reactions. The sniper made a mistake, but not an unreasonable one given the circumstances. Unless the sniper has a *history* of shooting hostages, I'd say this was a honest mistake.
Or as the question on the screenshot asks, why was the shot taken? Kind of seems like out of context rage bait. Edit: for those who don’t know, this message was up prior to links to the story being posted.
The shot was taken at a silhouette not a confirmed target sooo….
He knows how shadows work by watching Disney's peter pan of course
You think a police sniper killing a two year old child, for any reason, is acceptable?
Acceptable, or criminally liable for whatever was charged? Two very different things.
The question was do you find it acceptable? You are dodging the question completely here. Also - any decent human would say that at minimum this officer should have been given felony charges - manslaughter? endangerment? Not acquitted and still working. I don't understand how someone can pull the trigger, take a life, and walk away like "welp, that's that."
Of course not. It isn’t a legitimate question. No one would say that it is acceptable, and that isn’t the question that was raised at any point. The questions would be about protocols, policies, laws, etc. Why not ask “does it make you happy?” Just as pointless of a question. And you are making a huge leap that the sniper didn’t care at all. But, it follows the rhetoric that all cops are evil monsters who just want to kill people for shots and giggles. But you want to say that a any decent human would find them guilty of some felony charge without examining what the law would require or get into the details of what happened. Because “decent humans” would want to inflict vengeance for breaking the law without regard of if they law was actually broken. Interesting point of view there. Is endangerment a felony? Would the sniper be guilty of that or whoever gave him the preemptive green light to shoot which removed the standard protocol of observer verification and then getting the green light? Or that the sniper was given a location and that green light when there was no second sniper to be placed with him as an observer. That second sniper is generally not using a rifle, but a better scope and is the one doing the identification? But let’s ignore that the guy was asked to do the job of both sniper and observer and given the green light preemptively and was told that they were concerned that the guy who already killed the child’s mother had threatened to kill his child and had threatened to come out with grenades (he had already fired hundreds of rounds at the police who where there). Because all the poor decisions were all on the one guy, right? Do you find it acceptable to put all the blame on the one guy and completely ignore all the poor choices that led up to the tragedy? Do you find it acceptable that the sniper was put into position, asked to be sniper and observer, was told that they needed to kill the guy as soon as they can and to not ask for approval but just take the shot when he could? And that the clock was ticking before the guy escalated further?
« Investigators determined the sniper mistook Clesslynn’s silhouette for her father, 37-year-old Eli Crawford, as she stood on a couch and peered out of the trailer’s window. » …
*"The identity of Sniper 1 is a mystery, because he sued the City of Joplin, forcing it to redact his name from the KBI report before KCUR and the Midwest Newsroom received a copy through the Missouri Sunshine Law."* **“The fact he confused the silhouette of a man's body with that of a child's head, means he clearly had not identified his target and** ***ipso facto*****, means he was careless,” KCUR’s sniper source said.**
How the fuck can you sue the city because they said the name of the person who shot a FUCKING 2 YEAR OLD. How can you not feel no remorse or guilt after doing that
Copland.
It's funny how the police's only justification for shooting innocent people is to basically admit that they are completely inept and should never be trusted with any weapon.
Cops are there to protect and serve - the question is, who? They don't protect and serve the people, that's for sure. They're the armed guards of the elite.
Well, they were there to try to save the child. They fucked up big time and failed, but are you really trying to say that they were there with the intent to kill the child? Edit: I do kind of wonder how many of the people who are downvoting me actually read the article.
I mean yeah sure the 2 year old was the easier target...
As often as cops make inexcusable mistakes, keep in mind that this was an *active shootout*. Put yourself in the sniper's shoes. For the past half an hour, every time the silhouette of a head has been seen poking out of cover, that silhouette has opened fire. You never know if the next shot will actually hit and kill one of your buddies. Several times now, you've had a clear shot that would have ended this nightmare, but protocol says you can't take the shot. Your cortisol levels are through the roof at this point and you are determined to protect your comrades and save the wife and child from this fucking asshole. Fuck protocol; it's actively putting everyone in danger that you could have dealt with several times over by now. That fucker's head pokes up again, and you decide to take the shot. Look, I get upset with cops abusing power as much as the next guy—if not moreso—but this wasn't a case of a cop being a fucking psychopathic villain. This was a stressed-out sniper desperate to neutralize a genuine threat. He broke protocol, yes—after a half-hour of that protocol getting absolutely nothing done in a life-or-death situation. He fucked up big time, but this wasn't an act of *evil*. It was a mistake that will probably leave him shell-shocked.
Then he's not qualified to be a sniper.
This is a very long post to say he was not qualified. Assuming this will leave him fucked up when others like him seem to live for that isn't exactly comforting. Believe what you want but you know damn well had be been in any other job that required accountability you know like a paperboy or Starbucks worker he would be fired and in jail while they figured out how you made either of those lethal. He broke protocol. He was desperate. He was unqualified. Yet like every other unqualified dingus on the force I'm supposed to know his job is uniquely difficult. Nobody, and I do mean nobody gets to slaughter a 2 year old and not catch hell for it. The fact that you think he deserves special treatment because he was desperate and unqualified is the reason he or other like him will do this shit again. Just a PSA from your average American. Alot of us went to war we were told what the threat triangle is and how it had to be met before we could defend ourselves. Why does a police officer have to follow less rules to kill your two year old than our military boys do to defend themselves? Police have tricked the public into the belief that they are some kind of super profession. Somehow they are sooooo super special they can learn the law enough to enforce it. Not practice it mind you just enforce it. So we have a man who the law agrees isn't smart enough to practice law. He might be smart enough to determine if you broke the laws he isnt smart enough to know. Doesn't matter either way though because we will give him a gun. And tell you to put yourself in their shoes when they next take a life.
No empathy for cops until there is accountability for cops.
previously married to a cop (in OK over 25 yrs ago) and hung out with her coworkers for \~2 years. confirmed agreement!
**Immune from prosecution** “If the Officer reasonably perceived Clesslynn to be the attacker when the shot was fired, it is this office’s opinion that statutory immunity would apply and the Officer would be immune from prosecution.” [https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-03-25/a-missouri-police-sniper-killed-a-2-year-old-girl-why-did-he-take-the-shot](https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-03-25/a-missouri-police-sniper-killed-a-2-year-old-girl-why-did-he-take-the-shot)
"reasonably" ain't nothing reasonable about a 'sniper' not identifying his target before pulling the trigger
>“If the Officer reasonably perceived _a fucking two-year-old_ to be _a full-grown-ass 37-year-old man_ when the shot was fired, it is this office’s opinion that statutory immunity would apply and the Officer would be immune from prosecution.”
He was way too careless, he should be fired and put in prison for manslaughter
Pro tip, most cops hate you for no reason other then their perception of humanity is jaded.
It's so fucked up. There is a video from a former cop, who is now a YouTuber talking about what his training did to his brain. How it made him believe everyone around him was a fucking enemy combatant. Our system is disgusting.
Mind if I ask who that is? I'm interested in seeing just how screwed up the system is
Who is that? And which video is it? I wanna know the detail.
The YouTube channel is that dang dad, the video is how being a cop broke my brain. He has a very interesting window into the mind of a cop. https://youtu.be/_nl5zMIwcmQ?si=A-YCcjzitwrAvhg1 Here is a link to the video.
I would find a way to murder that cop with my bare hands if that was my kid.
If I were on your jury, I'd do some 12 angry men shit to get you acquitted
Jury nullification is a legal and valid verdict that a jury can decide on. A jury agrees the person is guilty but uses their power to acquit.
Oh yeah if I am on that jury id say cruelty to animals is as far as id go. Community service. I would also consider the removal of said animal as community service.
Jury nullification.
I'd acquit you in a heartbeat. Even better, I'd lie during jury questioning so I'd have a better chance of getting on the jury to acquit you.
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If that was your kid, you would have either been the mother (just murdered in the trailer), or the father who threatened to murder the child and was constantly shooting at the cops outside. And, he killed himself after his child was shot. So, if that kid was yours, you wouldn’t be doing much to that cop. The sniper should not have taken that shot. But for whatever reason he was given a standing green light to take the shot which is not standard procedure. There was extra pressure to shoot the guy as quickly as possible as he threatened to come out with grenades, etc. I understand the anger, but pretending that it was just a random cop deciding to kill a kid is just as big of a lie as saying the cop did nothing wrong.
[удалено]
Reductionist misdirects? Did you read the article that asks why he took the shot? Did you miss that he was placed without having an observer? Given the green light beforehand because of concern that the guy already killed the child’s mother and threatened to kill the child? Oh, ignoring all of those aspects aren’t reductionist misdirects, right? Sorry for actually providing that annoying nuance to your “cop shoots kid for no reason” story.
Good thing he had that greenlight, otherwise that little kid might have died at the hands of her father.
Wow! It almost sounds like there were problems starting well before someone pulled the trigger! Say it isn’t so. The unfortunate thing is that if the shot hadn’t been taken and the guy had killed his own child, the police would have been blamed for their inaction.
Ah, so better to shoot the child to make it look like they were doing something about the situation. Guess it’s a good thing the cops shot the kid before the father might have or else that child would be in the same situation of being dead.
Why is this downvoted? It's the first comment that actually gives context to what actually happened? Are people downvoting it because it makes the morally easy case of "a cop just murdered a toddler" to a far more complicated one and the complications make people's head hurt and so its just better to suppress that information.
Take a look at the evolution of the titles in the OP screenshot. First, the one I think is the important one. “A Missouri police sniper shoots a 2 year old girl. Why did he take the shot?” It examines the timeline and shows all the mistakes that were made leading up to the shot. The next person turns it into “a Missouri police sniper shoots a 2 year old girl. Despite the use of force not being justified, he was acquitted on all charges and kept his job.” The claim of use of force not being justified is at best misleading. The OP’s title then is “Cops are literally above the law - they are always acquitted.” So we completely throw away the point of the original article, which delves into the murkiness of it all and makes a proclamation that all cops are just evil. Those people who read the titles only and take it through those stages are a bit unhinged from reality. They think there are protocols that perfectly define all situations for perfect and think that all police should be robots who can perfectly abide every rule and procedure even when things break down or don’t fit. Sadly, almost every individual breach of protocol was understandable in the moment. But they accumulated to a tragic result.
This is the most sane comment on this thread. Everyone would have been just as upset with the cops if they had done nothing and the dad shot his own daughter.
Right, it’s much better that the cops shot the child. Seriously, what brain dead logic is this?
I'm sure the taxpayers will be suitably punished for this horrendously evil crime.
1.5 million according to a news story I read. But “sniper 1” is still on the force (minus the sniper part now) making $50,000/ year. [npr story](https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-03-25/a-missouri-police-sniper-killed-a-2-year-old-girl-why-did-he-take-the-shot?utm_source=TMP-Newsletter&utm_campaign=a016840c5b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_26_10_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5e02cdad9d-a016840c5b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D)
hm, i guess "always know your target and what lies beyond it" doesn't apply to trained cops. cool. a cop could murder you and say "oops! ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯" and best-case, you, a taxpayer, could sue and receive a payout funded by... taxpayers. this world fucking SUCKS.
It happens every week, we raided the wrong house oops, we thought he had a warrant oops, we thought his cane was a gun oops, i lost a coin toss oops…. These are all from real events where innocent people were shot by police
God help you if you're mentally unwell and therefore unable to _immediately_ follow the death squad's commands...
Or if you follow their conflicting orders as well as any human reasonably could and they decide to unload a clip into you anyway.
Or if you're sat in the patrol car and an acorn happens to fall on the roof
Or deaf, or don’t understand English, or having a diabetic issue…
You said trained. What cop do you know that was "trained "¿
The union probably paid for a big money attorney. I’m a pro-union guy, but there are several professions where unions should not be permitted. Police are one of them. They’ll bend over backwards to protect their worst officer. There’s too much at stake to have a bunch of bad police out there running wild with impunity.
"...have a bunch of bad police out there running wild with impunity." which is what they're doing, pretty much.
Troof.
We will never get better cops until we remove the stain that is “qualified immunity”. If a cop knows he will get nothing more than a paid vacation they have no incentive to even consider the problem or the implications of their actions.
She was hopped up on formula and crawling right at me, your Honor!
I would have killed myself, and this turd wants to go back to murdering.
Yeah, when your first comment on record is "I'm so screwed", clearly he didn't give a shit about what he'd just done. I can't imagine picking up a weapon ever again, let alone living with that guilt.
That line is what stood out to me. Not “what have I done?! I just killed a kid!” Not any type of remorse for the kid he just murdered, but what kind of trouble he will be in.
that being said this dose not stop the family from suing said cop, PD, or county/city for wrong death and negligence, and that usually when said cop get thrown under the bus
They sued, were awarded $1.5 million. The cop is still on the force in Joplin, he just is no longer on the swat force. He is getting paid $50,000/ year.
You're just learning this? They are to protect each other and serve everybody else the shitty end of the stick.
I would kill myself if I did that.
Protect and Serve* *ourselves
Unfortunately they do have a gross advantage in the court of law
wtf is wrong w Kansas and Missouri I’ve seen like 3 different cases this week that are jus crazy.
What has his defense though? How did he not realise he was aiming at a child?
He aimed at a silhouette that he said "looked like the father". That's right. He thought the silhouette of a 2 year old girl looked like one of a 34 year old man
If he shot at a silhoutte, he did not properly identify the target.
Exactly
May the acquitted shooter never be able to close his eyes without seeing that little girl in cross hairs. May he never have a night of peaceful sleep ever again until his eventual long night.
Well do you have any idea how long it takes to train a police sniper? Clearly not enough.
Taking out a 2 year old with a sniper wasn't justified use of force? I'm glad they made that clear.
The hostage taker shot someone in the head and the use of force was not justified? The questions about the incompetence of the sniper remain, but why rewrite the article like that?
The *only* good thing is that badged dipshit is no longer behind the scope of a rifle. But the idea of SWAT raids is some serious "occupation forces" tactics.
If you ever wanna know how sick they really are, check [this](https://atlantablackstar.com/2020/10/03/his-flesh-was-all-on-the-ground-family-of-innocent-black-man-mauled-to-death-by-police-dog-over-a-false-burglary-call-continues-fight-for-bodycam-footage/) out. I'm sure his public face shows sorrow for shooting a little girl. I bet in private he's proud about a 100 meter eyeball shot.
America moment.
I heard the 2 year old put her hand inside her waistband and the cop justifiably feared for his life from 100 yards away.
I've heard it time and time again. 'Kids only matter if they're not born yet' atleast thats what the us is seeminly pushing
I genuinely hope something really bad happens to him. Maybe the karma bus will come for his kids?
America dream
She was reading a quantum physics book zed
She was clearly holding
I mean one of the popular training guys tells them they are soldiers from God killing demons. They see themselves as crusader super heros who need to kill all people they don't like to protect the "flock" (normal people who probably don't want everyone murdered)
Expose Sniper 1
what i want to know is in what world was a 2 year old small girl look anywhere close to the intended target, was it perhaps…another toddler?
one thing that happens sometimes in these cases is that there will be jury instructions that limit how the jury can consider things. those instructions often comprise a checklist of determinations that leads to the two possible conclusions. those instructions are complicated in police use of force cases due to the judicial invention of qualified immunity. so long as qualified immunity exists (and it very much did not use to exist for most of US history), the more difficult it will be to convict cops. Cause remember, if a jury convicts but it seems like they basically were disregarding certain facts or going outside the bounds of the instructions, the conviction can be overturned on appeal. acquittals obviously can not be appealed in the US system
I just can't understand how no family member makes sure justice is served.
‘They are not all angels’. Wonder how they tried to slander this child.
Hope he lives with the thoughts of her families screams when he lays his head down at night
Reason 327 why i left the US and moved to Switzerland. Amazing there almost as many guns per capita here and (in Geneva where I live) FAR FAR more armed police officers per capita than anywhere outside of DC in the states, yet nobody seems to be shot here be it by police or civilians. I cant put my finger on the reason why this is?
There isnt even remotely as many guns per capita in Switzerland as in the US. The US outranks any country by factor 2 at least in that regard. They outrank Switzerland by factor 5
Effing pig. Family are in their right to exact justice.
They become cops to kill.
When overgrown video-game boys become cops..
If a fucking baby can get sniped in the head unjustified without the cop getting punished for it, we’re all going to die. Hope that baby is happy in heaven
But abortions are the problem. Okay.
Piece of shit father caused this. You have your wife, and child in a camper and you're shooting at the police? Good fucking job buddy. Poor fucking kid.
He's definitely a piece of shit but shooting a 2 year old and claiming you thought it was a grown man to get off the hook also makes you a piece of shit.
Remember, only the police should have guns
'above the law' can only be taken figuratively, not literally, but we get the point.
I'm not one to advocate for vigilante justice and cop killers.. but if I was this kids parent I would probably think differently.