BamaD
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Joined: 2/27/2005 Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: WhoreMods quote:
ORIGINAL: BamaD quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML She had a knife in her hand and seven bullets in her body. She weighed 100 pounds but two burly policeman said they were in fear for their lives. Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother killed by Seattle police in her apartment in front of her children, was shot seven times, including twice in the back, according to an autopsy released on Wednesday. The medical examiner’s report on Lyles, 30, who was killed after she called 911 to report a burglary, classified the death as a homicide and noted that the bullets cut through her uterus and hit her fetus, estimated to be 14 to 15 weeks old. Lyles’ death sparked national outrage and reignited debates about law enforcement’s disproportionate killing of African Americans and officers’ treatment of people with mental illness. The two police officers have claimed that Lyles was holding a knife when they killed her on 18 June, but her family has questioned law enforcement’s narrative and justification for using deadly force, noting that she was 100lb, 5ft 3in and not a threatening person. Lyles was shot twice in the abdomen, twice in the back and once each in the chest, arm and hip, according to the report. “Did they shoot her as she fell to the ground? Was she running away?” said Katrina Johnson, Lyles’ cousin, in an interview on Wednesday. “How did she get shot in the back? I still don’t know that and understand that, but any which way, it was excessive force. Seven times for her little pregnant 100lb self was out of control.” The 14-page King County medical examiner’s office report, released by a family attorney and published by the Seattle Times, raises fresh questions about why the officers, Jason Anderson and Steven McNew, used lethal force and fired a round of bullets at the woman at close range. The officers had arrived at Lyles’ apartment door less than an hour after Lyles dialed 911 to report a burglary, when she discovered her Xbox was missing. After roughly two minutes and 30 seconds, police fired at her from about five feet away as her one-year-old and four-year-old children crawled nearby, police records revealed. Her 11-year-old son was in another room during the shooting. It’s unclear how the encounter escalated, with police audio recordings capturing a conversation that was initially polite and cordial. In department interviews, the officers claimed that at some point she had a knife on her and that they feared for their safety. The officers didn’t have Tasers on them, even though one of them was supposed to be carrying one. The official determination that two of the bullets hit Lyles in the back has further fueled the family’s claims that it was excessive and unjustified when the policemen, who are both white, decided to shoot her. One of the bullets entered her back near her spine and “extensively” lacerated her lungs, ribs and inferior vena cava, which carries blood to the heart, the report said. She was hit on the right and left sides of her back, and two of the bullets hit her uterus. “How can someone be shot in the back if they are coming at you with knives?” said André Taylor, a local police reform activist assisting the Lyles family. The toxicology report also found no drugs or alcohol in Lyles’ system when she was killed, the Seattle Times reported. An investigation into the shooting is continuing. Seattle police declined to comment on the autopsy. When will this madness stop? If you are mentally ill or your skin is brown maybe you ought not call the cops around when you need help because the help you get may be the death of you yet. Nobody would be injured being stabbed by a 100 pounder. Obviously: they can put seven bullets into the hundred pounder before she has them in stabbing range. We are back to the cops can't shoot till wounded. The Untouchables only a dumb person brings a knife to a gunfight.
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Government ranges from a necessary evil to an intolerable one. Thomas Paine People don't believe they can defend themselves because they have guns, they have guns because they believe they can defend themselves.
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