missamberj

First of all, if you are legit -- props to you for being a Redditor and willing to answer questions like this. From a perspective of someone who has written about families affected by OIS, I have two questions:

1. In your gang unit, was it a common occurence that the deceased after an OIS was not in fact armed -- but considered a threat otherwise? In the area I live, an individual has to be known as dangerous and not necessarily be armed for an OIS to be justified by the DA. This is something that is happening here more than before and I have reason to believe (from second hand info) that it is rookie officers trying to prove themselves out on the field. What do you make of this?

2. You speak about 19 year olds on blogs writing about trigger happy cops. In my experience, more often than not, it's the families of the deceased who are the ones expressing their opinions and organizing protests. How would the dept view the family members of those who died as a result of an OIS?

I thank you for your time.

Thank you for your response. Nice to get a perspective from someone who's been inside a gang unit. You're absolutely right, the totality of the situation is what's looked at. However, the "main" justification ends up being the individual's criminal history, their gang tattoos, shaved head, etc. I once saw in a report that an officer said the individual "looked like he could be a felon" because of his tattoos (it was a white guy that was shot, btw). There were other factors of course, but the officer shot the guy in front of his own house where he was allegedly stealing mail. The guy was unarmed and survived but was arrested, DA justified it, case closed...this is just becoming something that's happened more than an OIS occuring during a dangerous foot and/or car pursuit or in the middle of an armed robbery, etc.

No doubt an OIS is traumatic, but many are left to wonder why there are officers in a certain gang unit who have been involved in more than one shooting with unarmed suspects in a short period of time (we're talking within two to three year span) Some are saying corruption, others are saying incompetency, and a few in LE are saying it's a increasingly dangerous field they are working with so things like this are bound to happen. Whatever the case may be, the trend should be alarming to both LEO's and civilians.