Poll of the Day > US Cops Shoot Deaf Man After he Failed to Comply With Orders

(+) Yeah! (+)

His neighbors tried to tell police that Magdiel Sanchez was deaf.

"He can't hear you!" they yelled, as two officers -- one armed with a gun and the other with a Taser -- gave Sanchez verbal commands to drop the metal pipe he was holding in his right hand.

Minutes later, 35-year-old Sanchez was shot dead by one of the officers. It's unclear whether either officer heard the neighbors' warnings. Police said later they had confirmed with the victim's father that Sanchez was deaf.

A neighbor, Julio Rayos, told CNN affiliate KFOR Sanchez was deaf and nonverbal and would communicate with hand movements.

"That's how we communicated with him," Rayos said. "And he was actually -- I believe he was trying to -- he was frustrated trying to tell (the officers) what was going on."

"Myself and my daughter were actually screaming ... that he was deaf, that he couldn't hear anything. And they proceeded on shooting him," Rayos said.

The officer who shot and killed Sanchez on Tuesday night, identified by authorities as Sgt. Christopher Barnes, has been put on paid administrative leave pending a criminal investigation by the homicide unit, police said. That is usual department protocol, according to Oklahoma City Police Department spokesman Capt. Bo Mathews.

The other officer, Lt. Matthew Lindsey, deployed his Taser and has not been placed on leave, Mathews said.

http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170921122542-police-shoot-deaf-man-oklahoma-city-trnd-medium-plus-169.jpg

"Fake news" found here
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/21/us/police-shoot-deaf-man-oklahoma-city-trnd/index.html

Witnesses state they were roughly 15 feet away from him.

Yellow posted...

The officer who shot and killed Sanchez on Tuesday night, identified by authorities as Sgt. Christopher Barnes, has been put on paid administrative leave

the worst punishment a police officer can receive

Well that's unfortunate. I wonder what is the standard protocol to handle situations where the person can't understand or hear the commands of the officer(s)

Blightzkrieg posted...

Yellow posted...

The officer who shot and killed Sanchez on Tuesday night, identified by authorities as Sgt. Christopher Barnes, has been put on paid administrative leave

the worst punishment a police officer can receive

I wonder if it's because of the whatever union exist among police officers that paid leave when you're being punished or investigated is the norm.
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Blightzkrieg posted...

the worst punishment a police officer can receive

He's probably going to go right back on the force after his paid vacation.

Some judge will brofist him for shooting a Mexican and send him on his way.

It's not "unfortunate," it's murder. The other officer used a taser. If the police had tased a developmentally disabled deaf person who wasn't doing anything I would call that police brutality. Shooting that person is murder.

if a cop is pointing a gun at you... drop whatever weapon you are fucking holding. you don't need to be able to hear to understand that.
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

if a cop is pointing a gun at you... drop whatever weapon you are fucking holding. you don't need to be able to hear to understand that.

Bam

Someone completely disregarding common sense. You are actually everything wrong with this country... well, the fact that you can vote at least.

Yellow posted...

Krazy_Kirby posted...

if a cop is pointing a gun at you... drop whatever weapon you are fucking holding. you don't need to be able to hear to understand that.

Bam

Someone completely disregarding common sense. You are actually everything wrong with this country... well, the fact that you can vote at least.

so it's common sense to keep holding a weapon while a cop is pointing a gun at you? the cop is %100 to blame here.
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1) It was a lead pipe, he was fifteen feet away and not moving any closer
2) He was deaf and being hassled, so there's very little leniency for him to even understand what's going on
3) His neighbors were screaming at the cops trying to tell them he was deaf and couldn't hear them
4) Nothing will be done of this because half the country will go into apologetic mode for our shitty police force that they worship.

Cops are trained as soldiers and not civil peace officers like they should be, but that won't happen because police brutality apologists make up half the country and will rationalize every time something like this happens no matter what. Remember the kid that was shot for answering the door with a wii remote? I guess he should have taken into account he lives in an apparent war zone.

So wheres the context?

why were they there in the first place and why did he have a pipe?

If cops could just stop, you know, shooting everyone in sight, that'd be real cool.

InfestedAdam posted...

Well that's unfortunate. I wonder what is the standard protocol to handle situations where the person can't understand or hear the commands of the officer(s)

The problem is there's really no way of knowing that without the the disabled person being able to respond.

CaptainHammer posted...

It's not "unfortunate," it's murder. The other officer used a taser. If the police had tased a developmentally disabled deaf person who wasn't doing anything I would call that police brutality. Shooting that person is murder.

Except it's really not. It's a killing to be sure, but to be a murder requires it to both be unlawful and done with malicious intent.

Yellow posted...

Krazy_Kirby posted...

if a cop is pointing a gun at you... drop whatever weapon you are fucking holding. you don't need to be able to hear to understand that.

Bam

Someone completely disregarding common sense.

...what?

Yellow posted...

well, the fact that you can vote at least.

Sounds racist.
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Yo, what happened to that cop in MN who shot and killed that woman from Australia? I remember it being a big deal a couple months back. There was no explanation as to why he shot at her. She called the police because someone was getting sexually assaulted.
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Yellow posted...

1) It was a lead pipe, he was fifteen feet away and not moving any closer
2) He was deaf and being hassled, so there's very little leniency for him to even understand what's going on
3) His neighbors were screaming at the cops trying to tell them he was deaf and couldn't hear them
4) Nothing will be done of this because half the country will go into apologetic mode for our shitty police force that they worship.

Cops are trained as soldiers and not civil peace officers like they should be, but that won't happen because police brutality apologists make up half the country and will rationalize every time something like this happens no matter what. Remember the kid that was shot for answering the door with a wii remote? I guess he should have taken into account he lives in an apparent war zone.

Are you seriously claiming he was being hassled for being deaf? Like the cops just saw a deaf guy -- who they knew was deaf because.... reasons? -- and decided, hey, let's hassle this guy?

Plus if an officer has a gun on you, it's *pretty* easy to understand what to do. The guy is deaf, not stupid.

As for the officer, he'll probably be fired and afterward face a wrongful death suit (which may or may not be settled by the city). While I'm not sure how well they'll be able to argue that the warnings were heard, the distance will definitely be a factor.
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Yellow posted...

Krazy_Kirby posted...

if a cop is pointing a gun at you... drop whatever weapon you are fucking holding. you don't need to be able to hear to understand that.

Bam

Someone completely disregarding common sense. You are actually everything wrong with this country... well, the fact that you can vote at least.

except no.

police do not fuck around if you're holding a weapon.. even a fucking deaf person should have the common sense to drop the weapon. as it is now, i'm fairly certain this was suicide by police.
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Is a man holding a pipe an imminent threat?
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YahooPoster posted...

Yo, what happened to that cop in MN who shot and killed that woman from Australia? I remember it being a big deal a couple months back. There was no explanation as to why he shot at her. She called the police because someone was getting sexually assaulted.

Was that a few months ago? Seemed a lot longer. At any rate, the last update is that they're considering charges against the officer

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-minneapolis-police-shooting-justine-damond-20170912-story.html
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stupid cops think a man 15 feet away with a melee weapon who is not walking forward is a threat somehow

Tezlok posted...

stupid cops think a man 15 feet away with a melee weapon who is not walking forward is a threat somehow

Well, they are a threat... but a minimal one, this is not proportionate response.

This is like nuking someone who sends you erectile dysfunction spam
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Tezlok posted...

stupid cops think a man 15 feet away with a melee weapon who is not walking forward is a threat somehow

Uh, he WAS walking towards them...
As Sanchez approached the officers, Mathews said, both discharged their weapons -- Barnes, his gun, and Lindsey, his taser -- at the same time. Sanchez was still about 15 feet away, Mathews said.

He was also gesturing at the time, including with the weapon apparently (neighbors mention gesturing, captain mentions weapon was brandished). Additionally, they were there investigating a hit & run, so it's not like they just saw a guy with a pipe and decided to shoot him.

Coincidentally, the fact that Yellow claims he wasn't moving near the officers means he either didn't read his own damn article or he's purposefully distorting its contents.
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I like how people want to try and argue their point without even reading the article first.
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Dreaming_King posted...

I like how people want to try and argue their point without even reading the article first.

I like how people ask me for citations when they aren't gunna read them anyways
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Also this is a pretty serious problem:

Neither officer was wearing a body camera at the time of the incident, Mathews said. One of the officers was a supervisor and the other was in a senior position on his shift, Mathews said, and the department does not yet have enough body cameras for every officer.

That SHOULD be a spending priority in this day and age, considering the number of wrongful death claims.
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There are people in this day and age who don't own video cameras and carry them literally everywhere?
That's far more surprising news than another case of police murdering someone for startling them.
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HellHole_ posted...

police do not fuck around if you're holding a weapon.. even a fucking deaf person should have the common sense to drop the weapon. as it is now, i'm fairly certain this was suicide by police.

A pipe is not a weapon! He was 15 feet away! He wasn't threatening the police! He was deaf! The neighbors were screaming at them! What if he was autistic or retarded? He would have died because the police were paranoid schizophrenics! How are people accepting this?! How is this planet so stupid...

I should stop coming to PotD because it just depresses me. It's obviously even worse on Facebook... and everywhere.

Yellow posted...

A pipe is not a weapon!

Pro wrestling would beg to differ.
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Yellow posted...

A pipe is not a weapon! He was 15 feet away!

A pipe is most definitely a weapon. As for the 15 feet? 15 feet is next to nothing. It takes what, four steps to cross that distance when running?

There's a bit of informal doctrine used in the police force called the "21 foot" rule. The origination of the 'rule' stated that an offender with an edged weapon within 21 feet of an officer could make it to that officer and kill him before he had a chance to draw and fire his gun. So the rule of thumb in situations within 21 feet, with a perp with a weapon, means that it's a potentially deadly situation.

Whether or not you believe that is up to you. But they've done a lot of testing on this. Still, this was obviously not an edged weapon (though one hit to the head with a lead pipe could easily be lethal), and the officers already had their guns drawn. The perp however was well within 21 feet. So there's a little bit of nuance here.

That said, I would think this officer will likely be fired (and should be) and be at the end of a wrongful death suit. Between the multiple officers on the scene, a taser probably would have sufficed.

As far as I'm concerned, the part about him being deaf is irrelevant. It wasn't that he was following commands incorrectly, it was that he wasn't complying at all. Deaf people can be idiots too.
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Zeus posted...

Are you seriously claiming he was being hassled for being deaf?

How did you get that from the bolded sentence? Nothing about it should have given you that conclusion.
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Yellow posted...

A pipe is not a weapon!

So Colonel Mustard was innocent the whole time.
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

if a cop is pointing a gun at you... drop whatever weapon you are fucking holding. you don't need to be able to hear to understand that.

This. Deaf or not. Unfortunate yes, but fair.
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Dreaming_King posted...

I like how people want to try and argue their point without even reading the article first.

I like how people argue when he had a weapon and would not drop it and must have been threatening. So the dumb person was shot.
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Yellow posted...

A pipe is not a weapon!

Interesting.

Yellow posted...

A pipe is not a weapon!

This has gotta be trolling at this point... Like a pipe is a textbook improvised blunt weapon.
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Yellow posted...

A pipe is not a weapon! He was 15 feet away! He wasn't threatening the police! He was deaf! The neighbors were screaming at them! What if he was autistic or retarded? He would have died because the police were paranoid schizophrenics! How are people accepting this?! How is this planet so stupid...

a pipe is a weapon, 15 feet is not that big of a distance, and it does not matter that he was deaf. he was not complying, period.

even a deaf person should know that when cops have their guns pointed at you, to fucking stop and get on the ground.
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Tezlok posted...

stupid cops think a man 15 feet away with a melee weapon who is not walking forward is a threat somehow

Do you know how fast someone can close 15 feet and cause lethal damage with a melee weapon?
Much faster and much easier than you think.
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Lokarin posted...

This is like nuking someone who sends you erectile dysfunction spam

Well, when you put it that way...

Fair, next.
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As Sanchez approached the officers, Mathews said, both
discharged their weapons

nobody paying attention to this because it doesnt fit their narrative

he approached a cop, who had his gun drawn, with a fucking weapon, and got shot

fair, next
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shoot someone and get a paid vacation, lol
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People act like these cops don't have any emotional turmoil over shooting someone. They also have to have counseling when they discharge their firearm and kill someone.
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Jen0125 posted...

People act like these cops don't have any emotional turmoil over shooting someone. They also have to have counseling when they discharge their firearm and kill someone.

Yeah, people tend to dehumanize police for some reason. Like they're putting on their belt everyday hoping to shoot someone.

I'm pretty sure no sane human being wants to kill another human being.
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dioxxys posted...

So wheres the context?

why were they there in the first place and why did he have a pipe?

They were looking for his dad in a hit and run investigation and showed up at his house

Peterass posted...

Much faster and much easier than you think.

Citation needed.
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i mean they were right to shoot him. deaf people walk ultra fast as is, so running would definitely be much faster than a normal human being. plus who knows if he was slathered up in grease making him even harder to apprehend.

(not taking a stand really but that post was a joke! a joke!)

Revelation34 posted...

Citation needed.

This isn't a thesis paper but there are plenty of demonstrations and police training videos out there that show how quickly a seemingly harmless individual can close in and inflict serious damage..I would not want to be a police officer, especially today, with all the hate for them.. It's a dangerous enough job without all the recent waves of dummies with iphone cameras trying to get internet famous.
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Yellow posted...

3) His neighbors were screaming at the cops trying to tell them he was deaf and couldn't hear them

The cops were deaf too. What a twist.

Sometimes I wonder if people like TC just feign outrage at stories like this bc it's the cool thing to do

Peterass posted...

Revelation34 posted...

Citation needed.

This isn't a thesis paper but there are plenty of demonstrations and police training videos out there that show how quickly a seemingly harmless individual can close in and inflict serious damage..I would not want to be a police officer, especially today, with all the hate for them.. It's a dangerous enough job without all the recent waves of dummies with iphone cameras trying to get internet famous.

Weird, I never seen any of those police training videos in Police Academy

If you let someone close in 15 feet with a pipe, you're not good at your job. Those dummies with the cameras are the reason that we can catch these improperly trained officers so this won't be as prevalent. Unfortunately, we live in some sort of cartoon world where it's okay to unjustly kill someone as long as you have a badge.
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So the guy just stood/sat there and mentally undressed the cops?
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Peterass posted...

Revelation34 posted...

Citation needed.

This isn't a thesis paper but there are plenty of demonstrations and police training videos out there that show how quickly a seemingly harmless individual can close in and inflict serious damage..I would not want to be a police officer, especially today, with all the hate for them.. It's a dangerous enough job without all the recent waves of dummies with iphone cameras trying to get internet famous.

Yet you can't even link a single one apparently.
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