Cops Shot Unarmed Georgia Woman in the Head, Admired Their Marksmanship, Prevented First Aid After

[jakeXT]

An awful story in Georgia about a fatal 2010 police shooting as investigated by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News, illustrates many of the structural and systemic problems in policing and police discipline, not just in Georgia but around the country.

35-year-old Caroline Small took police on a low-speed chase that ended with her Buick Century in a ditch on its rims. The two cops who followed her shot her, claiming they feared for her life because she could drive the car, which was without tires now, down the narrow path between her and them . After shooting her in the head, the cops are caught on their cameras talking about their marksmanship. A subsequent investigation of the incident cleared them of wrongdoing but the investigation by the Journal-Constitution found a number of problems:

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Channel 2 Action News investigation of the case found that:

• Glynn County police officers interfered with the GBI's investigation from the start, seeking to protect the officers.

• The department tampered with the crime scene and created misleading evidence that was shown to the grand jury.

• The local district attorney shared the state's evidence with the officers nearly two months before the grand jury convened and cut an unusual deal with them just before it met.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/07/15/cops-shot-unarmed-georgia-woman-in-the-h

[DetlefK]

1. Very simple solution: punish cops harder than ordinary people.

Cops are more likely to get away with a crime. That means, for an equal punishment, they have less incentive to obey the law.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I still say that 'harder' is meaningless unless you can get to the point where

they're punished at all.

If they're not indicted, if they're not tried, if they're not convicted, it doesn't matter if they've got an automatic death penalty for murder.

The problem now is that they never get indicted, much less convicted.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. Full investigative story here: warning... graphic image

http://investigations.myajc.com/caroline-small-shooting/

[frylock]

4. fuck tha police

[Hortensis]

5. Dreadful. And it occurred despite the efforts of another officer who was

reportedly trying to intervene and "diffuse" the situation. He apparently pushed forward to handle it himself but then found himself in the way of their guns.

This man shows that this isn't a "police" problem but a BAD police problem. So much needs to be changed in so many ways, but this demonstrates the need to reform hiring standards on the front end. Hire the right people like him, weed out those less suited in the application process, and continue weeding as unsuitability is revealed on the job. We know a lot now about what to look for.

Oh yes, and set pay at levels required to draw pools of good people to choose from, and to keep them satisfied. Key!