Cops: handcuffed man shot self

eldritch

Terrible luck, that. Ranks up there with falling down an evelator shaft onto a handful of discarded bullets.

Protect and serve…

boingaddict

and they wonder why are people afraid of pigs….shit like this

Tommy Timefishblue

He’s been suicided.

EH

I prefer “Arkansas’ed” (“Arkansawn?”)
- http://profiles.google.com/greeneggsandsamuel Sam Archer
  
  Many of my relatives are from Arkansas, and I’m nearly offended… But I think Awkansawn works much better. =P

fuzzyfuzzyfungus

Is there anything those potheads won’t do to besmirch the reputation of our defenders of public order?

eldritch

Those darn african american urban youth and their uppity undermining of the proud boys in blue! This is almost as bad as when those meddling altar boys started sexually assaulting priests and ruining their lives! Won’t anybody think of the children? …I mean, the privileged authority figures?

OldLb

Re minds me of the fighter pilot training.

First cadet, you get an engine out light, what do you do?

Hit the reset, and see what happens

Good

Second cadet, you’ve hit the reset button, what do you do?

Hit the engine relight, and see what happens.

Good.

Third cadet, engine relight doesn’t work, what do you do.

Turn away from built up areas. Continue hitting the reset button until 1000 feet, then eject.

Good

Forth cadet, the eject doesn’t work, what do you do?

Undo harness, drop trousers, stick joystick up my arse.

What? Why the hell would you do that?

Lets face it, I’m a gonner, I might as well give the board of inquiry something to think about.

http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

Eject the canopy and trim for full nose down, while pulling in up elevator. Undo the harness and let go of the stick.

http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

It could have been an accident: After the officers missed the gun in the search, 21-year-old Chavis grew worried it would be found at the end of his ride, so he rolled around a bit to get it out of his pocket and somehow it discharged. Yes, that’s far fetched, and without seeing the scene, a lot of arm-waving speculation, but possible.

eldritch

He was already in the back of a police car. The gun was (supposedly) with him. What the hell was he going to do with it once he got it out from where ever he supposedly had it hidden?

Throw it out the windows? No, the windows are closed and covered with metal grating, being that it’s a cop car. Hide it somewhere? No, the back “seat” of a cop car is pretty much a wooden board, there’s no where to hide anything. Eat it? Why not! Seems more plausible than shooting himself in the head with a gun he had no reason to possess, that the arresting officers “somehow” missed, while handcuffed, and without any rational reason to be taking it out from hiding if it actually WAS there and actually WAS missed by the police.

You get handcuffed with your hands behind your back, right about at the small of your back, just above your arse. The only possible place you could pull a gun from in that position is from the back of your trousers. Typically, the kind of person who stashes a gun down their pants does so with the barrel pointing downward, so they don’t have to turn the gun around in order to put a hand on the grip and be ready to use it. So if he managed to get a hold of the supposed gun, it would be in his handcuffed left hand, pointing down and away from him, which is pretty much exactly opposite of the direction of his head.
- Aaron Harmon
  
  Why would he be unable to turn the barrel upward? And he may have been trying to push the gun in between the seat cushions so that no one would find it. It could be an accidental shooting while trying to hide the gun.
  - http://instantaneousinstances.com/ Spieguh
    
    I’ve never seen a police car with cushions in the back seat. It’s all formed hard plastic, no seams, nowhere to hide anything.
    - http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
      
      That has not been my experience of sitting in the back of a police car. At least some of them have relatively normal seats.
      
      I think the “fumbling with the gun and accidentally discharged” hypothesis is at least plausible. Ask Plaxico Burris.
ZikZak

It’s also possible that the officer in question was actually Time Cop, and had travelled back to our present to fake this kid’s suicide in order to prevent a future where terrorists destroy the Olympics.

Far fetched? Maybe, but the important point is that cops would never do anything wrong. So the most likely explanation for anything which might seem like misconduct is that they’re actually vigilante heroes from the future.
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  That explains everything bad. Well done.
LogrusZed

Right, cops executing someone and lying about it is speculation but a handcuffed guy having a wrestling match with his own pistol and shooting himself in the dome with his hands cuffed behind his back with a gun that somehow missed detection from two searches of his body and with a bullet that managed to travel from behind him to his temple while missing the entire torso, which is normally between your lower back (the place where your hands reside when they are cuffed behind you)and your head, only to find its way to his temple.

That’s some damn fine police work there, Lou.

How many of these magical curving bullets can you find stories about compared to ones about police officers murdering people and covering it up?
- IamInnocent
  
  One such story comes to mind…
  - LogrusZed
    
    Back and to the left?
    - IamInnocent
      
      Down the molehill first.
- OgilvyTheAstronomer
  
  Perhaps that police body armour can deflect Occam’s Razor…
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Why would you even bother to outline this scenario? Honestly, it’s people like you who make lying cops’ jobs easier. Go and sin no more.
voiceinthedistance

I’m guessing the shot originated from the grassy knoll.

http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Did you ever do this thing when you were in grade school or middle school where one kid would say, “Pow! I could have hit you really bad just now. You’d be down on the floor crying.” Second kid says, “No I wouldn’t, because I would have blocked like this, then I would have kicked you behind the knees before you could react, and then I’d go like this and this and it would be all over without a scratch on me.” First kid says, “But I’d block you like that and that and then I’d–” You get the picture.

I seem to remember Damon Wayans doing something similar in a standup act or on In Living Color. I picture the cop doing something like that to explain how this happened. “First he moved his hand like this, then he craned his hand with the gun around his side, then he bent his head way over so his left hand behind his back would hit his right temple…”

Brainspore

Oscar Grant, sans cell phone cams.

danegeld

if he was cuffed with his hands behind his back… seems tricky to shoot himself in the forehead. I’d want to see forensics on the gun and the bullet. but equally why would the cops want to execute this guy and make it look like suicide? It seems a little far fetched that they’d plug him if they’d already got him cuffed in the back of the squad car. If there was some kind of fight it would have surely taken place before they had him cuffed and in the car? Then it would be the cop with the powder residue, blood droplets on his clothes, some evidence of moving a body, etc. It seems a bit of a stretch to imagine that the cops would just execute someone in the back of their squad car for the hell of it. I guess they’re entitled to a presumption of innocence here, but it needs to be investigated thoroughly.

http://twitter.com/trempls tré

”It seems a bit of a stretch to imagine that the cops would just execute someone in the back of their squad car for the hell of it.” Not if it’s a young black male arrested for drugs.

Aaron Harmon

Imagine that the gun is held in his hands behind his back near the bottom of his spine where you would expect your hands to be when handcuffed. Imagine that his head is back and turned to the side, as if he is trying to look at the gun, perhaps to see what he is doing with the gun. Imagine the gun going off and firing vertically into the right side of his head. I can see how it would happen, especially if he was one of those kinda skinny kids. Now if the shot is in his forehead, that is another story. I wonder just where on his temple the bullet hit.

MB44

Where is the gun? Lost?

Mister44

I don’t know what happened and won’t speculate – but cops do miss weapons all the time during frisks. (Just like the TSA)

I recall on video I saw where after this guy was brought in for shooting at a cop, the sat him in an interrogation room. The man calmly drank some water, resealed it, pulled out a FULL SIZED hand gun and shot himself.

Now was this the case? I have no idea. If not, then I hope they don’t get away with murder.

David Hall

I served on a high-profile murder trial.

We (the jury) found a gun and a bag of weed in the victim’s clothing in the jury room. Those clothes had been processed at least twice!
- Mister44
  
  This was evidence already booked? And they missed it? Wow. Doesn’t inspire confidence, does it.
  - David Hall
    
    A lot of prosecutors start their jury selection now with a speech about how the real world of police work isn’t like CSI, yadda yadda yadda…
    
    But when shell casings get entered into evidence as stamped “wwb”…
- Brainspore
  
  Riiight. Those must have belonged to the victim. (Eyes David Hall suspiciously.)

eccentricintelligenceagency

Gee, what “great” timing; just posted a compilation of police-insanity today: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/police-saving-peace-for-rainy-day.html — I’ve no way to know what happened in the event described here, but there are certainly too many other instances where the police were very very naughty. I honestly believe it’s a rising trend, contrary to what might be reasonably assumed in this new (one way?) surveillance-society. But perhaps it is just a curve before hopefully dipping more deeply than ever. I, however, have doubts.

Surely cases such as Terrance Yeakey were not suicides, despite the final reports.
http://www.corbettreport.com/episode-140-requiem-for-the-suicided-terrance-yeakey/ — But that’s the FBI, and they have such a sterling reputation.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=557683737 Adam Greenfield

If they wanted to just murder him then it would have been easier to cover it up by shooting him outside of the car and claim he pulled the gun on them. Don’t most police cruisers have cameras in the back seat now anyway? Or recorded audio and a camera facing front at least?

“Marsh says he returned to his car to find Carter badly wounded in the backseat with a small caliber handgun by his side.”

If this is true they should be able to hear a gunshot when the officer was away from the car, or if it sounds very close to. I think its a little too early to assume its murder.

eccentricintelligenceagency

I think you make much sense and are probably entirely correct, and I really do hope so. Fumbling with hands cuffed and behind the back, …it would be easy to make an error with a handgun. It is also possible that the actual details of the story have not yet been accurately presented.
- Tribune
  
  like his back was broken allowing an easy shot to the temple from behind his back?
benenglish

“…they should be able to hear a gunshot…”

You might be surprised. Don’t ask me how I know this, but it’s possible to have a negligent discharge of a firearm in the bedroom while people in the living room, one wall away, don’t hear it. I would not expect to hear a small firearm discharged inside a car while standing away from the car if there were any traffic noise present.

Oddly enough, this is part of what makes me doubt the account of the officers as it is presented in these articles. A “small” handgun typically would not create a “loud thump” when fired inside a car. Something doesn’t add up here.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=557683737 Adam Greenfield
  
  “I would not expect to hear a small firearm discharged inside a car while standing away from the car if there were any traffic noise present”
  
  Exactly my point, because the voice recorder is on the cop himself, if you hear a loud shot while the cop is off camera than you can begin to think it is murder. If you never hear a shot or only hear a distant shot while he is on the dash cam he could not have done it. There is really too little evidence to say anybody here is doing anything else but speculating.

Ryan_T_H

Not sure what the left-handed bit is supposed to contribute. I’m not particularly ambidextrous, but I’m pretty sure that I’d be capable of shooting myself in the head with either hand if necessary.

Tribune

he is sinister
velvethammer

This, for example:

http://forums.officer.com/t176135/
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Are you suggesting that the victim in this case unlocked his cuffs, shot himself in the head and then re-locked them?
  - travtastic
    
    Somehow since reading the comments, that seems to have become the most reasonable explanation that doesn’t involve cops.
  - BillStewart2012
    
    How many times did he reload?
  - Mister44
    
    The article doesn’t say if he was still cuffed or not. It isn’t unheard to bring cuffs to the front. In short, the details don’t give me enough information to condone or condemn anyone.
    - Brainspore
      
      In short, the details don’t give me enough information to condone or condemn anyone.
      
      Seems to me the only possible explanations are:
      1. Incompetent cops + dextrous crook
      2. Homicidal cops
      So I’m gonna go ahead and condemn the cops until someone gives me a third option.
    - Mister44
      
      re: “1. Incompetent cops + dextrous crook
      2. Homicidal cops”
      
      Why is one more likely than the other?
    - Brainspore
      
      @Mister44:disqus : My point was that either of those scenarios call for condemnation of the cops involved. The only question is whether they should be condemned for gross incompetence or for murder.
knappa

It’s the combination of left hand and right temple which you are supposed to notice.
- Ryan_T_H
  
  It says that he was left handed and was shot in his right temple. Doesn’t say (or even really imply) that he was shot in his right temple using his left hand.
  - ldobe
    
    What it implies is that: If the kid actually had the gun on him, and was left handed, and could reach it from a hand cuffed position, it would most likely have been in the back waist of his pants, and being left handed, the handle & trigger group would have pointed to his left for logical access.
    
    Of course, if he was an avid shooter, he might have found out his right eye was dominant, and known that a right handed stance would be more accurate, thus he put the gun in a right handed position. With handcuffs, it’s extremely unlikely that a lefty with a gun placed in his rear waistband in the natural lefthanded position barrel down would be able to point the gun at his right temple. Unless he was very flexible, he also would have had to shoot himself *through* his right shoulder.
    
    The most likely scenario is that he didn’t manage to shoot himself in the side of his head with his hands cuffed behind him. A more likely scenario is that someone shot him, or that he wasn’t handcuffed at all. Since the officer claims that he couldn’t find the gun after two searches, then it stands to reason that the incompetent cop just threw him in the back seat with zipties on him, or didn’t bother to handcuff him at all.
    
    The story also said he was “double locked” which could mean that the handcuffs were locked to prevent them from getting any tighter, or it could also mean he was also cuffed to the seat, which would make it even more unlikely that he could have even managed to get the gun’s barrel turned upward at all.
    - Ryan_T_H
      
      Or it could just mean that the way they cuffed him he could only get at the gun with his right hand.
      
      Or more likely the cops shot him. I just thought ‘left handed’ was an odd addition.

Hakuin

the cop shoved the gun to his head, and asked him if he was scared. The kid said fuck you and the pig pulled the trigger. Too unlikely?

http://twitter.com/trempls tré

No, I’m definitely still gonna go with the whole “magic bullet” thing. All those cops are just so nice, I can’t see this happening.

arp

I’m curious what the two other people in the dead guy’s vehicle saw and heard. It’s not like cop was out there with no one around. Also I wonder if there was a dash cam and what it picked up.

Rock Trueblood

If you read the article, there were two other people in a pickup truck who had been riding with the suspect. Question: why haven’t either of these two people gone to the press to claim the police officers murdered their friend? And why would police officers murder a handcuffed man in the back of their car and not the side of the road or away from two witnesses?

I’m with the people here who think it more likely the suspect was trying to get rid of his un-discovered pistol and while squirming in the back seat, he was turned around trying to see maybe where he might hide the gun and because of his twisted fingers and torso, the gun went off and shot directly into his temple.

I don’t buy that a police officer took a gun, shot an un-armed man – who was handcuffed behind his back AND shot him in the police car while two witnesses were up ahead in a pickup truck. That would seem like career suicide to me.

Antinous / Moderator

Question: why haven’t either of these two people gone to the press to claim the police officers murdered their friend?

You must lead a rather sheltered and privileged life. Most likely, they are in fear of their lives or freedom from the police.
disillusion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKy-WSZMklc

I can believe it.
http://twitter.com/trempls tré

If nothing else, most cop cars are so tinted that if it did happen in the car, no one in the pickup saw.

Palomino

Limberized

http://plagmada.org Tim H

Fiddling around with hands behind back, I did this:

Get imaginary gun out of back of pants/back pocket. Have the gun fall to the right as you lose control of it. Move hands that are behind you all the way over to the right. For me, this was the important realization: I was peering down behind me as hard as I could to see the imaginary gun, chin pressed against right shoulder and head pushed as far past it as possible. My right temple is now has line of sight to the gun, or vice versa. Fiddle with gun, it goes off and it’s not unreasonable to be shot. Fiddling with gun factor is increased in importance if you think about the small pistol falling down into a possible gap between seat cushions, hook trigger guard with finger to pull it out…

Seriously, try it.

Other option:

Policeman finds gun on suspect, seats him in car, handles gun improperly (incautious/taunting suspect/inspecting pistol) and accidental discharge kills suspect. Whistles and walks away.

Other other option:

Like above but policeman does it on purpose.

http://plagmada.org Tim H

Oops, Aaron Harmon already imagined my scenario above.
CSBD

Option two sounds pretty likely… death by cop stupidity. Not execution by cop or accident by contortionist.

Dylan Wilson

Blah Blah Blah, do a gsr test, case closed.

social_maladroit

Time will tell what actually happened.

In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out who would be the bigger contortionist: Chavis Carter, if he actually shot himself, given the facts, or some of the posters above trying to explain how he did it.

CSBD

There are very few guns that he could hide on his person that cops would not find… some sort of .25 raven (style auto) or maybe a .22 NAA revolver.
I have had things missed by searches before (but not by cops)

a .22 raven would be hard to accidently shoot yourself with (have to cock the hammer), but a small automatic would be easier to shoot yourself with if you were rolling around in the back seat trying to get it out of your underwear (hidden in the front where searchers are less likely to want to spend a lit of time rooting around)

a very small caliber like that would also explain why he was still alive for a bit after being shot in the temple.

I think it is unlikely that the cops shot him (especially in front of witnesses)… its not like he was some arch fiend that they would have been able to brag about killing later.

Now, if he was just found dead on the side of the road or dead in his car, yeah the cops probably did it… but not in their custody after being searched a few times. THat paints them as at least being idiots… and they dont tend to like that.

anankesf

I find the way that the singular and plural number of police involved seems to switch depending on context quite odd.

From the article at:

http://wreg.com/2012/07/30/handcuffed-man-shot-in-back-of-police-car/

1st plural cops are at the scene:

“Somehow minutes later police say THEY heard a thumping noised, turned around and found Chavis dead, shot in the head, in the back of the squad car.”

Later in the same article, only one cop:

“THE OFFICER involved is on leave while they investigate.”

I also find it interesting that when the cop is interviewed in the same article he lists some items that have been missed during searches (and his mother said they searched him TWICE). The items the cop lists, up until mentioning guns, are small and/or flat: drugs, knives, razor blades. I didn’t notice any mention of what type of gun he supposedly used to shoot himself with – after:

“As protocol he was handcuffed behind his back and double locked, and searched”, said Sergeant Lyle Waterworth, Jonesboro Police.”

Too many important unanswered questions.

bryan rasmussen

I never even knew Mr. Fantastic was depressed.