Killed over a hair brush

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DaveC

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Police shoot, kill man holding hairbrush, witnesses say

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Officers shot and killed an 18-year-old man who they believed to be armed, New York police said, but witnesses said Tuesday he was only holding a hairbrush.

Officers in New York early Tuesday guard the scene of a police shooting that left a teen dead.

The Monday night shooting followed a 911 call from the man's mother. Police described the situation as "a family dispute with a gun."

After officers arrived, the teen refused to halt as he approached police, prompting them to open fire, The Associated Press reported.

Police told The New York Times they believed the teen, Khiel Coppin, had a gun, but after five officers fired 20 shots they realized he was holding only a hairbrush.

"The boy didn't have no gun, he had a brush on him," said Andre Wildman, a neighbor who told CNN that he saw the shooting.

Another neighbor, Wayne Holder, said police should be required to see a weapon before opening fire on a suspect. "At least see a gun before you start to discharge it," Holder said. Police "don't even have to see it, [if] they think you got one, you're going to get shot."

The AP reported that the teen had a history of mental illness and his mother had tried to have him hospitalized earlier in the day.

A bystander who said he saw the shooting told CNN affiliate WABC-TV that the man was unarmed. "He dropped the brush," said the bystander, Dyshawn Gibson. "He put his hands up. Police just started firing."

As the teen approached officers, police ordered him to stop, police spokesman Paul Browne told AP. The teen refused and continued to approach, Browne said, prompting police to open fire.

An initial police statement given to reporters Monday night said the man was seen earlier pacing around the apartment.

"He began screaming from the window at his mother and the police," the police statement said. "At some point, the male climbed out of the window and began crossing the sidewalk toward the police."

That's when police began firing, a police spokesman said.
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The police spokesman said officers were called to the apartment building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood at about 7 p.m. by Coppin's mother who said she was having a dispute with her son.

According to a statement, police said Coppin's mother reported that her son was armed. But The New York Times quoted police who said Coppin himself was overheard on the mother's 911 call threatening to kill her and claiming "I have a gun."

CNN's Jennifer Rizzo and Alina Cho contributed to this report.

Wonder if this would have happened in Greenwich Village...?

:|
 
Geez, his mom called the cops and they ended up shooting him...she must feel like crap :(

Fucking trigger-happy pigs :mad:
 
let's relax and take a step back, shall we?

there are conflicting reports from witnesses, one of which states that he was holding the hair bursh under his shirt, sticking it out as if it were a gun, and did not stop approaching when told to do so by the police. on top of that, the suspect was heard saying on the 911 call that he had a gun.


and yes, i would imagine officers would be more on edge about a reported gun in a high crime area such as bed-sty as opposed to in a neighborhood with realtively little to no crime such as greenwich village.

so would you, so would i.
 
Sounds like one of those lose-lose, hindsight is always 20/20 situations to me. Why didn't the kid just stop when they said so? :(
 
I'm thinking the history of mental illness might have had something to do with it. Ugly situation either way.
 
If you're going to pretend to have a gun and not do what the police tell you to, I don't feel real bad for you if you get shot.
 
let me just make myself clear in that i'm not saying the cops are innocent. and i'm not condeming this kid who obviously had serious problems. all i'm saying is that there are conflicting reports as to what actually happened, and that we should wait for a full investigation before we start labeling the cops as "trigger happy pigs."
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
the police are investigating the possibility that it was a "suicide by cop" situation.

That was the first thing that came to mind when I read the article. But, like you say, it's not really clear just based on this article. Sad situation either way.
 
When officers arrived at the home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, they could see the 18-year-old, Khiel Coppin, pacing inside. His mother was outside.

The teen began screaming from a first-floor window at his mother and officers before climbing out of the apartment window and crossing a sidewalk toward the officers holding a black object in his hand, police said.

The officers backed up and ordered him to stop, Browne said. When the teen refused and kept approaching them, they opened fire, he said.

Police said it was not immediately known how many of the 20 bullets struck Coppin, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Investigators later discovered the object the teen was holding was a hairbrush, Browne said.

sad, indeed.
 
[q]41 shots and
Lena gets her son ready for school
She says "on these streets, Charles
You've got to understand the rules
If an officer stops you
Promise me you'll always be polite,
that you'll never ever run away
Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight"
[/q]
 
Irvine511 said:
[q]41 shots and
Lena gets her son ready for school
She says "on these streets, Charles
You've got to understand the rules
If an officer stops you
Promise me you'll always be polite,
that you'll never ever run away
Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight"
[/q]

This came to my mind when I first read this, as well.

But yeah, let's wait for a full on investigation because no matter what the outcome, it is a sad situation.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
let me just make myself clear in that i'm not saying the cops are innocent. and i'm not condeming this kid who obviously had serious problems. all i'm saying is that there are conflicting reports as to what actually happened, and that we should wait for a full investigation before we start labeling the cops as "trigger happy pigs."

I agree with you.

This is a terrible situation for all involved, we really should wait until more facts come out before we make some judgement like that.
 
I can understand if they fire a shot over the kid's head to show 'em they're serious, he keeps coming at the police, and THEN the cops open fire.

But to fire 20 shots at someone with no warning other than "stop" because they are walking towards you is trigger-happy, yeah.
 
for 4-5 persons to unload 20 shots would take about 2 seconds.

put yourself in the situation...

you're in a neighborhood with a high crime rate. it's night time, visability is low. you're told the person in question has a gun. he's acting very strangely. he approaches you either with something in his hand or something hidden and pointing at you under a shirt or jacket that appears in the dim light that it could be a gun, yelling and acting highly unusual. you tell the person to stop. they keep coming at you. you have a split second to decide wether or not this person is a threat to send you home to your wife and kids in a box. if you choose not to shoot and it is a gun, you or your partners die. if you choose to shoot and you're wrong, you're a "trigger happy pig."
 
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^ yup.

these things are a tragedy on many, many levels, and vastly more complex than anyone, on either "side," would ever want to give it credit.
 
:shrug:

That's as may be, but like I said, fire a shot in the air or one shot into his leg to put him on the ground. Even better, because that way you stop him from coming, you'll know right away if he's got a gun or not, and you can arrest him, rather than kill him.

Any way you slice it:
20 shots at one 18 year-old kid = itchy fingers.
 
DaveC said:
:shrug:

That's as may be, but like I said, fire a shot in the air or one shot into his leg to put him on the ground. Even better, because that way you stop him from coming, you'll know right away if he's got a gun or not, and you can arrest him, rather than kill him.

you've seen one too many movies, my friend.

a) if you fire a shot into the air, eventually it has to come down, thus putting innocent bystanders at risk of being killed.

b) do you understand how difficult it is to hit a moving human being in the leg with a revolver? these are regular beat cops, not the swat team.


odds are more than just "stop" was said by the officers before opening fire. probably more along the line of "stop and put down your weapon or we'll open fire."
 
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DaveC said:


Any way you slice it:
20 shots at one 18 year-old kid = itchy fingers.



i agree that that's how it looks, but keep in mind that you had 4-5 policemen, and their guns are capable of firing of several shots in the span of half a second.

having spent a good amount of time working with cops over the past year, i think it's the rare cop who goes out looking to shoot someone, but i think many cops are very much on edge in particular neighborhoods and with particular groups of people. they are likely to be more trigger happy investigating a domestic disturbance in the South Bronx than they would be on the Upper East Side.

is that "right"?

it kind of doesn't matter, even though it does. there are some unpleasant realities to life in cities, and some of those unpleasant realities aren't ones we necessarily want to admit that are true, because they play into destructive stereotypes.

take Washington DC.

DChomicides.jpg


if you were an officer in SE, don't you think you'd be just a little bit more on edge than if you were in Georgetown?

the problem is much, much deeper than just nervous cops who've only dealt with the most negative elements in any given communities.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
odds are more than just "stop" was said by the officers before opening fire. probably more along the line of "stop and put down your weapon or we'll open fire."

Considering he didn't have a weapon on him, it's pretty tough for him to comply with an order like that.

Most likely he was thinking "weapon? what the hell are these cops talking about?", and reached into his coat to show them he didn't have a gun, and never got that far.

I'm not saying that the cops are criminals, or murders, or that they did the wrong thing (I have no idea about the situation beyond CNN's report). I'm just saying it sounds to me like the whole scene was handled very badly by the police and unfortunately someone had to die as a result.
 
Irvine511 said:



it kind of doesn't matter, even though it does. there are some unpleasant realities to life in cities, and some of those unpleasant realities aren't ones we necessarily want to admit that are true, because they play into destructive stereotypes.

take Washington DC.


Or Detroit, for that matter.

We had a case similar to this earlier in the year. And I can tell you right off the bat, the dude wasn't from West Bloomfield (or any other wealthy suburb of Detroit). Actually, if I recall, he was a homeless black man. Which of course threw even more fuel into the media fire.

Anyway, none of these cases can be judged all in the same breath. I'd be interested to see how this one plays out.
 
DaveC said:
But to fire 20 shots at someone with no warning other than "stop" because they are walking towards you is trigger-happy, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I just can't fathom why on earth five cops fired twenty shots. Why five? One cop with a gun will still do the job. I can only understand multiple policemen opening fire when they've been fired upon first.

That said, I come from a culture where the police don't even carry guns (and it's not a problem).
 
Axver said:
Yeah, exactly. I just can't fathom why on earth five cops fired twenty shots. Why five? One cop with a gun will still do the job. I can only understand multiple policemen opening fire when they've been fired upon first.

That said, I come from a culture where the police don't even carry guns (and it's not a problem).

Why do you hate freedom?
 
Whether or not the cops were trigger happy (there should certainly be a full investigation), it clearly sounds like they are not properly trained to deal with certain types of situations. This is particularly true if the victim was mentally ill. You can't make sure every police officer is also a board certified psychiatrist, but there are training programs that can familiarize them with the way people react in those situations. Sad story.
 
Suicide by cop...why drag other people into your personal issues like that?

This is just another example of why I could never be a cop. I can't imagine how they manage to deal with situations like this day in and day out. I agree with anitram's post, keep investigating the situation and work at dealing with this sort of stuff better, but there's blame to go around on many sides here.

Angela
 
DaveC said:



Most likely he was thinking "weapon? what the hell are these cops talking about?", and reached into his coat to show them he didn't have a gun, and never got that far.


Mmmmm, I disagree a bit. I think it's pretty common knowledge when you are in the middle of a domestic dispute and a cop says "stop, get down!" you DONT keep walking forward and reach for something in your pocket.

Once my dad got pulled over (long story, but the car behind him thought my dad had hit them and run, called the cops on a cell, and they came to pull over my dad) on his way home from a painting job and had to come out with his hands up and get patted b/c there was a paint scraper on his front seat and I guess that counts as a concealed weapon. When the cop came over, my dad reached for the glove compartment to get his insurance and registration for the car and the cop thought he was reaching for the object on the seat. But, instead of continuing to reach for said object when the cop told him to stop, my dad stopped, and then realized that he thought there was a knife.

I'm not defending those cops or even cops in general, but enough cops have been killed when someone flipped out, reached for their weapon, and open fired, that it is a very REAL possibility. Even normal folk like you and I can get a little psycho when they realize they are cornered and likely going to be arrested. I can name a few cops who have been shot dead this way and I don't even live in a big city or area known for crime.
 
He went back into the house, up to the first floor, came out and walked toward the officers with something easily disguised as a weapon and not listening to warnings.
It's not unreasonable to see that as an immediate threat.

Well, and here his comments and his having a knive definitely eliminated the last doubt.

Twenty bullets nevertheless seems a bit much, and as the last article indicates it seemed to be one officer who continued firing after the others stopped.
 
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