At 11/25/15 01:16 AM, Bryan wrote:
Obviously there's a real problem with the overabundance of lethal take downs, but seriously how am I supposed to sympathize with someone running away from the police, speeding through private neighborhoods, and carrying a weapon which he refuses to drop and does not cooperate with the police? The cop used excessive force definitely, but it's not murder. Manslaughter perhaps.
Murder:
First: any intentional murder that is willful and premeditated with malice aforethought. Felony murder is typically first-degree.
Second: any intentional murder with malice aforethought, but is not premeditated or planned in advance.
Third: (aka voluntary manslaughter)
Manslaughter:
Voluntary: (aka third degree murder) any intentional killing that involves no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would "cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed". Both this and second-degree murder are committed on the spot under a spur-of-the-moment choice, but the two differ in the magnitude of the circumstances surrounding the crime. For example, a bar fight that results in death would ordinarily constitute second-degree murder. If that same bar fight stemmed from a discovery of infidelity, however, it may be mitigated to voluntary manslaughter.
Involuntary: a killing that stems from a lack of intention to cause death but involving an intentional, or negligent, act leading to death. A drunk driving-related death is typically involuntary manslaughter (see also vehicular homicide, causing death by dangerous driving, gross negligence manslaughter and causing death by criminal negligence for international equivalents). Note that the "unintentional" element here refers to the lack of intent to bring about the death. All three crimes above feature an intent to kill, whereas involuntary manslaughter is "unintentional", because the killer did not intend for a death to result from their intentional actions. If there is a presence of intention it relates only to the intent to cause a violent act which brings about the death, but not an intention to bring about the death itself.
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I think this was first degree murder, premeditated. However, I'm going with guilty of second degree murder because I don't have any faith in the jury's ability to convict or the prosecutor's ability to overlook the fact that he's a police officer.
(1) Officer Jason Van Dyke was pretty fucking eager to hop out of the vehicle. He opened his door before Officer A had even pulled the vehicle up to the final position. (2) He fired upon a boy who was walking away from him. (3) He emptied his entire clip into a boy who was lying on the ground, dying. (4) He then began to reload and had to be told not to do fire any more.
(5) He has 18 prior complaints of excessive force in his 14 year time on the force. If this works in the Public's favor, this might be prosecuted as a hate crime for the following reason:
"We don't have all of Van Dyke's complaints but the complaints of, the misconduct complaints from Van Dyke that we do have in our data tool show by and large excessive force and racial slurs. And he has largely operated with impunity and under a code of silence with the same huddle of officers again and again," said Alison Flowers, University of Chicago's Invisible Institute, a journalistic production company on the South Side of Chicago. --Source
