Audio, Video of Ryan Frederick Police Interviews Taken Shortly After Deadly Raid

Radley Balko | January 31, 2009

Ryan Frederick is the 28-year-old Chesapeake, Virginia man facing murder charges for killing a police officer during a drug raid (see this wiki for more on Frederick's case). My prior coverage of his trial here.

I'll put up a series of posts today and tomorrow wrapping up the testimony portion of his trial. Closing arguments are on Monday.

For now, check out these two interviews with Frederick that were played in court last week. One is only audio of an interview taken a half hour after the raid. The other is video of an interview done a few hours later.

The prosecution fought like hell to keep these interviews from being admitted into evidence. And with good reason. They're damning to the state's case. The prosecution, remember, said in its opening statement that Frederick was "stoned out of his mind" and "in a blind rage" the night of the raid. The prosecution then elicited testimony from police informant Steven Wright and jailhouse informants Jamal Skeeter (who has since been thoroughly discredited) and Lamont Malone that portrayed Frederick as a cold, calculating killer, who was boasting to fellow inmates about bringing down a cop, and even disparaging Det. Jarrod Shivers' widow.

In the videos below, a frightened, repentant Frederick weeps and shakes. At one point, he vomits after contemplating that he'd just taken a life. According to the Virginian-Pilot, in one portion of the video not depicted here, Frederick "curled himself up into a ball and cried" when the detectives left him in the room alone. The audio interview in particular is incredibly wrenching.

It's worth panning back a bit here, and restating what caused all of this. Det. Jarrod Shivers his dead, his wife is widowed, and his kids are without a father.  Ryan Frederick, a man who had no prior record, and had a good job and a fiancee, has had to spend 23 of 24 hours every day for the last year locked up in a jail cell, and may spend the rest of his life in prison, because he mistakenly thought the people invading his home were criminal intruders who had come to kill him. This all happened because the police got word from a shady informant with felony charges pending against him that Frederick was growing a harmless plant in his garage. What an incredible waste.

Comments

|1.31.09 @ 4:15PM|#

I couldn't finish the audio, it made me sick listening to it. Fuck the state, fuck this stupid drug war, fuck them for using such a shady informant. I know that is not the most productive comment, but after hearing part of the audio that is all I can think of to say

ktc2|1.31.09 @ 4:19PM|#

After hearing this video the fact that they can still go forward with murder charges proves sufficently in my mind that they, the prosecutors and police involved, are all completely soulless, conscienceless suckers of Satan's cock.

VM|1.31.09 @ 4:21PM|#

"What an incredible waste."

QFT. Thank you again, Radley for your reporting on this terrible, horrible, sad story.

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 4:23PM|#

The prosecution, remember, said in its opening statement that Frederick was "stoned out of his mind" and "in a blind rage" the night of the raid. The prosecution then elicited testimony from police informant Steven Wright and jailhouse informants Jamal Skeeter (who has since been thoroughly discredited) and Lamont Malone that portrayed Frederick as a cold, calculating killer, who was boasting to fellow inmates about bringing down a cop, and even disparaging Det. Jarrod Shivers' widow.

I've always has a somewhat irrational hatred for prosecutors, but I can't say I've ever wanted to kill one.

Until now.

bruce|1.31.09 @ 4:25PM|#

i respectfully dissent from the proposition that the loss of detective shivers is an incredible waste. he didn't seem like a very nice man, and he wasn't doing very nice work. the two dead black labs that belonged to the mayor in maryland represent a greater loss than detective shivers.

i hate to go all language pedant here, but ryan frederick did not have a fiance, he had a fiancee. his fiancee had a fiance, whose name was ryan frederick. this point would not apply if mr. frederick had been engaged to another man, but i'm sure we would have heard about that by now.

Radley Balko|1.31.09 @ 4:27PM|#

i hate to go all language pedant here, but ryan frederick did not have a fiance, he had a fiancee.

Fixed, thanks.

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 4:58PM|#

i respectfully dissent from the proposition that the loss of detective shivers is an incredible waste. he didn't seem like a very nice man, and he wasn't doing very nice work.

The death of even a bad man is a waste because his death forecloses the possibility, however slight, that he would be able to reverse course. A dead bad man remains bad forever, whereas a living bad man could become a good man.

|1.31.09 @ 5:07PM|#

Before we organize a lynch mob to tar and feather a few prosecutors, remember that Skeeter was exposed partly because another prosecutor stepped forward and did what was right. There are good and bad prosecutors just as there are defense attorneys.

Rather than lather ourselves into a hatred of the profession, let's take stock of the incentives they face. In VA, a new Commonwealth's Attorney graduates from law school with six figure student loans and gets paid about 42K a year. The only way to advance is to rack up wins and prove yourself. I know, from first-hand experience, that getting a conviction in a drug case is like hand grenading fish in a barrel. Is it any wonder that such a system would produce the kind of amoral man we seeing trying this case?

bruce|1.31.09 @ 5:10PM|#

tell me, lmnop, what quantum of community interests are you willing to sacrifice just on the off chance that detective shivers might have reformed? how many criminals recruited to burglarize innocent homeowners, how many doors broken down at night, how much terror for how many occupants, how many dead dogs, how many dead civilians before you say "whoa, enough!" whether he meant to or not, ryan frederick spared these interests by his actions, and these are valuable interests.

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 5:15PM|#

bruce,

You do not need to kill someone in order to prevent them from doing bad things.

There are good and bad prosecutors just as there are defense attorneys. Rather than lather ourselves into a hatred of the profession...

I did mention my hatred was irrational. You are right that many of the bad acts of prosecutors are incentivized by the structure of larger systems (the educational system, the justice system, etc.).

My reaction was a visceral one, to the tape and audio. If you catch me in a more reflective mood, I'll probably be more reasonable.

Kolohe|1.31.09 @ 5:18PM|#

bruce-
Pick up a gun and start shooting the nearest friendly neighborhood agent of the state. Or put a rest to the internet tough guy routine.

|1.31.09 @ 5:18PM|#

After hearing this video the fact that they can still go forward with murder charges proves sufficently in my mind that they, the prosecutors and police involved, are all completely soulless, conscienceless suckers of Satan's cock.

From my observations, the police have descended into a level of tribalism extreme enough for them to think "it's them versus us". This results in being completely desensitized to the suffering of non-cops.

Ryan Frederick is an outsider who killed one of them. He must pay.

Do you really think people who are capable of arresting and destroying people's lives over a plant would hesitate to destroy someone's life for killing a cop?

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 5:30PM|#

Do you really think people who are capable of arresting and destroying people's lives over a plant would hesitate to destroy someone's life for killing a cop?

No, but then I think you are mistaking the psychological distinction between "a plant" and *Marijuana*. To them (and many human beings), it isn't "just a plant" anymore than Christianity is "just a religion" or Guinness is "just a beer". It signifies much more than its simple status as a plant.

bruce|1.31.09 @ 5:42PM|#

kohole, you're just gonna have to love me the way i am - or not.

BakedPenguin|1.31.09 @ 5:47PM|#

Off topic, but sometimes it's good to have a reminder that not all cops suck.

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 5:54PM|#

Off topic, but sometimes it's good to have a reminder that not all cops suck.

For certain. For my part, though, I must say that that fact has provided less and less solace as time goes by.

|1.31.09 @ 6:04PM|#

Again I must pen thank you Radley Balko for your tireless efforts.*

Yeah, there are good people who are cops. Not the majority of cops are in the category, but some are. Like most Americans, most LEOs have drank the War on Drugs Liberty kool-aid. Jerrod Shivers was a low on the totem pole participant in an evil exercise who likely had been propogandized into believing that he was protecting society when he went on that raid.

If you can't see the difference between him and the cops who murdered Kathryn Johnston, it is time to be fitted for some moral spectacles.

|1.31.09 @ 6:39PM|#

OT: seen this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/washington/31scotus.html

Remember the thread about the decision narrowing the exclusionary rule? Justice Roberts, as a White House lawyer, advocated for throwing it out altogether.

|1.31.09 @ 6:43PM|#

bruce,

how many criminals recruited to burglarize innocent homeowners, how many doors broken down at night, how much terror for how many occupants, how many dead dogs, how many dead civilians before you say "whoa, enough!

These precise words could have been written by someone advocating the death penalty for drug dealers.

Be careful when you set out to hunt monsters.

|1.31.09 @ 6:48PM|#

No free man should tolerate the presence or actions of people like these police and prosecutors.

This should be brought, in all its ugly detail, to the state legislatures for legislation to prevent these abuses of power and hold the perpetrators personally accountable.

If it is too late for new bills to be submitted this year, it should be at the top of the list for next year.

Call your state delegates and senators.

Lets put an end to this.

cunnivore|1.31.09 @ 7:02PM|#

I'm curious as to what the prosecution's ostensible reasoning for excluding the interviews was. Obviously they couldn't have argued openly that the interviews showed that their entire case was based on a pack of lies, and I'm not sure what other reason they could have offered.

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 7:08PM|#

I'm curious as to what the prosecution's ostensible reasoning for excluding the interviews was. Obviously they couldn't have argued openly that the interviews showed that their entire case was based on a pack of lies, and I'm not sure what other reason they could have offered.

"I OBJECT!"

"Grounds?"

"It totally destroys my case!"

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 7:09PM|#

Damn you, HTML.

|1.31.09 @ 7:15PM|#

How awful. This whole affair is like being punched in the stomach. What a waste of human life, all because of some irrational need on the part of some in government to stop people from getting high.

The fact that the prosecutor thinks that anybody who was "stoned out of his mind" would even be able to muster the energy to become a crazed killer shows either that the prosecutor is profoundly ignorant about the actual effects of marijuana, or that he's willing to lie to get his way. I'll bet on the latter.

Thank you for your reporting on this awful story, Radley.

HTML at Nuremberg|1.31.09 @ 7:20PM|#

Damn you, HTML

It wasn't my fault, I just did what I was told to do!

|1.31.09 @ 7:23PM|#

the cops know that ryan had no idea it was police coming through the door...you can tell in the tone of the first audio. the cops knew they were wrong that's why he kept repeating "you know it's wrong to shoot blindly through a door" he had nothing else to say.

for real...put yourself in his shoes.

i hope for the very best for you ryan.

Anonymo the Anonymous|1.31.09 @ 7:25PM|#

Nthing the thanks to Radley, despite the fact that every word he writes makes me pray for a catastrophic extinction event.

miche|1.31.09 @ 7:33PM|#

The death of even a bad man is a waste because his death forecloses the possibility, however slight, that he would be able to reverse course. A dead bad man remains bad forever, whereas a living bad man could become a good man.

Elemenope,

That was actually beautiful. Thanks.

|1.31.09 @ 8:11PM|#

we have more cops than we need and too many corrupt prosecutors who want to hang an innocent man for their mistake.i would have done the same thing as out of control cops don't identify themselves any more.most of them belong in the unemployment line.

ktc2|1.31.09 @ 8:13PM|#

bruce101

No, most of them belong in jail.

|1.31.09 @ 8:51PM|#

joe sez Justice Roberts, as a White House lawyer, advocated for throwing it out altogether.

Was that in the context of also eliminating qualified immunity? If so, I got no problem with that. If a cop fucks with me, I'd like to have more leverage then just "you can't prosecute me with that illicitly-collected evidence". I want the fucker's badge.

As for Ebert, my best guess is that he wants to be known as the Mike Nifong of Virginia.

bruce|1.31.09 @ 8:53PM|#

first of all, i am not "bruce101", that's somebody else; i am the original bruce on here.

neither am i hunting monsters, i'm retired from that. what i do in my spare time is mostly garden, fish and make local trouble, frequently for the managers of my electric cooperative, who are not monsters, just fools.

neither am i an "internet tough guy". if dylan thomas can refuse to mourn the death of a child by fire in london without being called a tough guy, i can surely refuse to mourn detective shivers. i don't do false piety or hypocritical genuflections, i prefer the mark twain approach "i didn't attend the funeral, but i sent a nice letter saying that i approved of it."

j sub d, i agree that there are some good cops. i don't have enough facts to agree that there's a moral difference between detective shivers and the cops who murdered kathryn johnston; it seems more like a situational and tactical difference. if ryan frederick had waited another two seconds for the cop to come through the door and see him pointing a gun, he would have ended up like kathryn johnston. it is better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

Ramsey|1.31.09 @ 9:39PM|#

I seem to remember that there was someone arguing that Ryan fired from his front door and hit Shivers in the yard. If that was an official statement someone should lose their job.

I agree that qualified immunity should be scrapped if the exclusionary rule is overturned

|1.31.09 @ 9:55PM|#

Was that in the context of also eliminating qualified immunity?

I'm pretty sure it wasn't. The editorial he wrote was pretty straight up "law and order," post-60s conservative stuff.

Dave W.|1.31.09 @ 10:06PM|#

Tossing the exclusionary rule is a gr8 idea. Careful what u wish for John Roberts. The exclusionary rule certainly isn't helping Ryan Frederick, even though PC was clearly lacking in his case.

Ramsey|1.31.09 @ 10:09PM|#

I also love how they lecture Ryan on the dangers of defending his house. Everyone of the cops there was packing a gun for protection, but when one of the "civilians" does it they get awful defensive.

There needs to be a systemic shift in the dynamic between cops and the public before I trust the police again.

Jennifer|1.31.09 @ 10:24PM|#

The death of even a bad man is a waste because his death forecloses the possibility, however slight, that he would be able to reverse course.

It also forecloses the possibility, considerably greater, that he will be able to continue to inflict harm upon other innocent people. That matters far more to me.

SIV|1.31.09 @ 10:34PM|#

Oddly, I am in full agreement with Jennifer.

a new Commonwealth's Attorney graduates from law school with six figure student loans and gets paid about 42K a year

Waaa! waaaaaaaaaaa!

They have the choice of an honorable useful trade.

Elemenope|1.31.09 @ 11:18PM|#

It also forecloses the possibility, considerably greater, that he will be able to continue to inflict harm upon other innocent people.

Not true. He can, through his death, reinforce the foolish human notion that we may righteously destroy those we dislike. Nothing is more corrosive to the moral integrity of a person than self-righteous violence.

That matters far more to me.

Of course. We are just self-interested monkeys, aren't we?

Oddly, I am in full agreement with Jennifer.

Color me shocked.

Sun Tzu|1.31.09 @ 11:29PM|#

They have the choice of an honorable useful trade.

Understanding the dead motherfucker doesn't mean we must sympathize with him, but it does make it more likely we will defeat others like him in the future.

"In order to achieve victory you must place yourself in your opponent's skin. If you don't understand yourself, you will lose one hundred percent of the time. If you understand yourself, you will win fifty percent of the time. If you understand yourself and your opponent, you will win one hundred percent of the time." - Me

squarooticus|1.31.09 @ 11:30PM|#

and may spend the rest of his life in prison, because he mistakenly thought the people invading his home were criminal intruders who had come to kill him.

"Mistakenly"?

The only mistake he made was in assuming the thugs breaking into his house were not agents of the state, and therefore above the law.

|1.31.09 @ 11:54PM|#

"See, this is the problem with handguns."

No, officer, this is the problem with thugs busting into innocent people's homes while they sleep.

bruce|1.31.09 @ 11:55PM|#

i too am in full agreement with jennifer.

i am unwilling to sacrifice the life of just one more innocent, friendly black lab, to say nothing of an innocent human, waiting for detective shivers to have his saul/paul "road to damascus" moment. what you see as self-righteous violence, i see as self-preserving violence.

you're damn right we are self-interested monkeys. we're the monkeys that talk, drive cars, use computers and can have sex with our opposite-gender monkeys 365 days/year. we're the monkeys that have gone to the moon. of course we have altruistic components, we evolved in small groups, bands, tribes to cooperate with one another toward a common objective, and the bigger, stronger monkeys among us are hardwired to defend the smaller monkeys in our group when an outsider attacks one. that is how we became the most competitive, most dangerous, and also most successful species in the world.

i am a monkey.

|1.31.09 @ 11:59PM|#

I really don't believe that Ryan Frederick is lying. He sounds like an average joe that is probably not calculating and smart enough to put on a facade and repeat the same lie over and over again without inconsistencies.

If this were a just world, I would say that this might be leading to an acquittal. In the world we live in, I hope that it is at least leading to a lesser charge.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 12:22AM|#

i am unwilling to sacrifice the life of just one more innocent

Unless you are the duly appointed protector of all innocents, that is a deeply unimpressive statement.

First, you must arrogate the power to objectively judge guilt and innocence, and then you must assert the right to use force to enforce your "judgments".

Unless you are a deity I submit you lack the practical capacity to do either, and even if you were a deity I submit you would lack the moral right to do the second.

And considering you seem incapable to even use capital letters when you type, I'm going to go ahead and guess you fall a bit short of Godlike wisdom. Unfair? Perhaps, but being unfair in this way doesn't have the consequence of killing people if it's wrong, so I'll happily live with the possible error.

bruce|2.1.09 @ 1:29AM|#

i am not the duly appointed protector of all innocents. my comments are solely for explanation, it is entirely up to you to take away whatever impression you will.

i do not arrogate the power to objectively judge guilt and innocence. someday maybe i'll explain to you why there is no objective reality. within my local sphere of influence, in furtherance of the welfare of myself and my favored group, i do indeed assert the right of force to uphold my subjective judgments.

i am not a deity. it would be quite a jump from claiming monkeyhood to claiming godhood in just one post, wouldn't it? perhaps we are all fragments of primordial divinity, but some of us came from the head end, and others broke off from the other end. i cannot imagine that i would ever be impressed by any submission regarding my moral rights that you could possibly make.

unlike archie the cockroach, i type in small letters by choice, not necessity. i can work the shift key when i want to, as when i make the $.

|2.1.09 @ 2:03AM|#

the foolish human notion that we may righteously destroy those we dislike.

Like or dislike has nothing to do with the matter at hand. Ryan Frederick shot at someone trying to invade his home, and he was right to do so.

-jcr

|2.1.09 @ 2:06AM|#

The facts would illuminate this case far better than assertions. Why have the police informants been discredited? What is the criminal background of the man who shot the policeman. Is he what one would call a choirboy or what one normally associates hanging out in ghetto schoolyards?

Does he have a criminal past? Did he associate with the Shriners or with the Crips and Bloods?

While I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to people who defend themselves against these type of raids, especially where RICO might be a factor, I will not cast the police in a poor light without knowing more.

This sounds too much like the buildup given to that well known choirboy Rodney King.

|2.1.09 @ 3:20AM|#

I thought we were apes, not monkeys. No prehensile tails.

|2.1.09 @ 3:23AM|#

The facts would illuminate this case far better than assertions. Why have the police informants been discredited? What is the criminal background of the man who shot the policeman. Is he what one would call a choirboy or what one normally associates hanging out in ghetto schoolyards?

So you haven't read any of the old articles I take it?

And are you implying that unless someone's a saint they deserve to be stomped, even after they are unable to defend themselves?

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 3:48AM|#

Like or dislike has nothing to do with the matter at hand. Ryan Frederick shot at someone trying to invade his home, and he was right to do so.

I agree. That's not what this side argument is about. I was not taking exception to the notion of self-defense, but rather this moral insect's assertion that this world is clearly better off with this police officer dead than one in which he is still alive.

I'm arguing that he cannot know that to be the case, and that in order to act as if it were the case requires unacceptable moral compromise.

i do not arrogate the power to objectively judge guilt and innocence. someday maybe i'll explain to you why there is no objective reality.

ROFL. I would deeply enjoy you *training me* about reality.

I thought we were apes, not monkeys. No prehensile tails.

Monkey is rhetorically punchier. Hey man, long time no read! How goes it?

|2.1.09 @ 4:58AM|#

Meh. I hate being in Iraq.

|2.1.09 @ 5:00AM|#

I will add that I agree with your arguments in this thread 100%.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 5:38AM|#

Meh. I hate being in Iraq.

I can't imagine. Stay safe!

|2.1.09 @ 5:52AM|#

Thanks. I'm a total FOBBIT, which helps.

|2.1.09 @ 6:08AM|#

@Thomas Jackson

First of all, think about the type of person who becomes an informant. Most likely either

A) A person who is genuinely interested in reforming him or herself or in taking down a criminal enterprise, hopefully for the good of society

or

B) A straight up rat. A person who will say or do anything to get paid or to get off with a lighter sentence. One of the lowest forms of human life


Type B is dangerous for any number of reasons. Type B is clearly still a treacherous criminal.

I'm sure a good detective takes this dichotomy into account when using informants. Incompetent or corrupt LEOs? Not sure they care.
From what I've seen, the informants in this case are type B, the kind of criminal who would put an innocent person in harm's way for their own benefit.

|2.1.09 @ 6:10AM|#

And maybe the "war on drugs" keeps creating morally dubious prosecutors and type B informants.

|2.1.09 @ 7:15AM|#

Kinda sucks though...without Weigel there seems to be no Politics 'n Prog or Weekend Political Thread. Dammit, Weigel, you couldn't've given your blessing for another editor to continue these traditions?

|2.1.09 @ 8:27AM|#

Did I miss an announcement about Weigel not being here full time anymore? It just dawned on me the other day that he wasn't posting regularly.

Fluffy|2.1.09 @ 8:59AM|#

I don't hate Detective Shivers.

The legislatures made the drug laws.

And, perhaps more importantly, the courts decided that practical necessities of enforcing those drug laws overrode Constitutional protections and common law traditions dating back hundreds of years.

Detective Shivers is just a tool of those legislatures and those courts. Blame them, not him.

He put himself at their disposal, true. And that's the morally dangerous aspect of being a law enforcement officer - if the people you sign up to enforce for are bad people, you are putting your flesh and blood on the line for their bad cause. But there's no gain for anyone in having something bad happen to Shivers, especially when you consider the fact that the state will just replace him.

If the courts had ruled that search subjects must be given the opportunity to read the warrant, and that if that meant that evidence was occasionally destroyed that was just too damn bad, Shivers would still be alive, and everyone else injured or killed in a no-knock raid would still be alive.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 9:04AM|#

But there's no gain for anyone in having something bad happen to Shivers, especially when you consider the fact that the state will just replace him.

Fluffy with the practicality win. Even if you don't buy my moral arguments against the "rightness" of Shivers being killed, nothing whatsoever is gained by his death.

One could even argue that there is a measurable practical loss, as each police officer death in the war on drugs radicalizes anti-drug warriors and causes them to press for even more oppressive tactics.

|2.1.09 @ 9:11AM|#

Personally, I think the dude should be given a Medal! Stupid cops come bursting through someones door and into a persons home deserves to be shot! Last time I checked, getting shot at comes with the badge. If you dont want to be shot at, dont be a cop!

RT
www.internet-privacy.us.tc

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 9:22AM|#

This seems so very appropriate.

BakedPenguin|2.1.09 @ 9:45AM|#

...each police officer death in the war on drugs radicalizes anti-drug warriors and causes them to press for even more oppressive tactics.

There was a great line in one of Stephen King's Bachman books. A guy was trying to buy explosives from a mobster, and the mobster replied "you know why that's a stupid idea? Because every time someone blows up a courtroom, they build two - one to replace the original courtroom, and another to convict all the mad bombers."

Mad Max|2.1.09 @ 9:47AM|#

Usually, f the defendant made a videotaped statement in the police station, it's the prosecution that wants to get the defendant's videotaped confession in evidence, and it's the defense that wants to keep that video from the jury.

Here, it's the *prosecution* that doesn't want the jury to see the defendant's videotaped confession. Very interesting.

'The death of even a bad man is a waste because his death forecloses the possibility, however slight, that he would be able to reverse course. A dead bad man remains bad forever, whereas a living bad man could become a good man.'

An excellent Catholic sentiment.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 10:01AM|#

An excellent Catholic sentiment.

Well, I was coming at it from a Buddhist head-space, but I'd definitely say it's a fine universal sentiment. Catholic, of course, means unive...oh, you sly boots! :)

|2.1.09 @ 10:01AM|#

the cops know that ryan had no idea it was police coming through the door...you can tell in the tone of the first audio. the cops knew they were wrong that's why he kept repeating "you know it's wrong to shoot blindly through a door" he had nothing else to say.

That's the part that stands out in my mind too. Sure, I guess it's wrong to blindly shoot through doors. But when someone's busting through that door, I don't know that I'd call it shooting "blindly".

Maybe I just don't know the protocol. Do you have to wait until two panels are knocked in? Do you have to wait until the person is actually inside the doorway? Do you have to first ask "Is it okay if I shoot now?"

|2.1.09 @ 10:48AM|#

The conditions that must be met to justify a self defense shooting depend on how the laws are written in that state. It may very well be that everything Frederick says is true, but he is still guilty of firing inapropriately under Virginia law.

Jennifer|2.1.09 @ 10:55AM|#

He can, through his death, reinforce the foolish human notion that we may righteously destroy those we dislike. Nothing is more corrosive to the moral integrity of a person than self-righteous violence.

No, it reinforces the non-foolish human notion that we may righteously destroy those who are currently in the act of trying to kill us. Ryan Frederick wasn't toting a gun and cruising the streets looking for vicious cops to kill; he was minding his own business at home, a couple of days after criminals broke into said home, and then his home was invaded again while he was in it. He didn't shoot from a notion of "self-righteous violence," but of the normal desire to defend himself.

I read a story a few months ago about a woman somewhere who shot a would-be rapist in her home. I'm sure as hell not clucking my tongue about how sad it is that she robbed the rapist of the chance of future redemption.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 11:09AM|#

Jennifer --

You are guilty of *not reading carefully*.

I'm not poohing upon the notion of self-defense. Intrinsic to the notion of self-defense is a sense of immediacy and snap judgment; in these cases, it is forgivable to err. It is unreasonable to expect an organism not to act to preserve itself in the immediacy of a moment of extremity.

What ticked me off was bruce's notion that to kill a man deemed 'bad' is something to be celebrated, encouraged, replicated if possible. Part and parcel of such a notion is the implication that it is possible to *consider* a person bad in an absolute sense, and on the basis of that consideration condemn them to die.

Hidden underneath this is the fact that we desire and seek vengeance not because it rectifies something in the world, but merely because *it makes us feel good*.

[Sigh.] Early yesterday I commented after watching/listening to the tapes that I wanted to kill the prosecutor. However, I am well aware that if I were to *actually kill him* that would make me a bad person! Where is the circuit in some people's brains that's defective such that they think indulging those feelings is somehow righteous instead of evil?

What we do to criminals says very little about criminals. It speaks to who *we* are. Are we the same? Or are we different?

Jennifer|2.1.09 @ 11:25AM|#

Hidden underneath this is the fact that we desire and seek vengeance not because it rectifies something in the world, but merely because *it makes us feel good*.

You can say the same about acts of charity as well. Volunteering for a homeless shelter is not, in the grand scheme of things, going to do a damned thing to solve the overall homeless problem, and if you feed a hungry child today there will still be hungry children tomorrow. But doing these things makes me feel good. It also makes me feel good when I do something nice for my friends and see how happy it makes them. Should I twist myself into a Mobius strip of neurosis, agonizing over whether I'm doing these things for selfless reasons or from a selfish desire to feel good about myself? I don't bother. I have no time to indulge in spiritual hypochondria, and so choose to worry about outcomes more than motivations.

And yeah, I felt damned good when I read about that rapist being killed. My thoughts at the time were a variant of "That son of a bitch will never hurt another woman again," and I'll freely admit this rather than parrot pious platitudes about how no man is an island and the rapist's death diminishes us all. Humans are social animals and all of us -- save for the sociopaths and psychopaths -- are wired in such a way that we get pissed off when we see innocents suffer, and get a sense of satisfaction when we see those who MAKE innocents suffer come to an end. Stop trying to twist empathy into a fault.

And I don't agree with those who talk about how Shivers was just a guy doing his job. Had this event happened because, for example, the cops thought they were going after a serial murderer, only somehow they got the wrong address on the warrant, I'd agree that it's a tragedy all the way around. But no -- Shivers drank the Kool-aid that told him deadly force is appropriate to stop a guy suspected of using an intoxicant other than alcohol. I don't give a damn that he twisted his brain into the right pretzel-shape to think he was being righteous and acting for the common good; the Communists who murdered kulaks and stuffed the gulags full of people had also convinced themselves they were doing good, ushering in a happy utopia where nobody would ever be poor or hungry or cold again. But their good intentions don't matter for shit. Motivations don't matter; results do.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 11:37AM|#

You can say the same about acts of charity as well. Volunteering for a homeless shelter is not, in the grand scheme of things, going to do a damned thing to solve the overall homeless problem, and if you feed a hungry child today there will still be hungry children tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure it matters to the child you fed.

Stop trying to twist empathy into a fault.

You can't be serious. You're the one who's arguing that it's righteous to get off on killing certain people and calling that "empathy".

But no -- Shivers drank the Kool-aid that told him deadly force is appropriate to stop a guy suspected of using an intoxicant other than alcohol.

You must be confusing this case with another, as the only person who fired a weapon was Frederick. Shivers did not use "deadly force". This elision of the facts indicates to me that it is likely you are driven more by "hatred of the pigs" than a consideration of the actual situation.

Should I twist myself into a Mobius strip of neurosis, agonizing over whether I'm doing these things for selfless reasons or from a selfish desire to feel good about myself?

When you're feeding a starving kid or telling your friend a joke? Probably not. But when your actions will result in the death of a human being? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say that would be a good time to start considering your motivations.

feminazi|2.1.09 @ 12:06PM|#

dead men don't rape

Jennifer|2.1.09 @ 12:14PM|#

I'm pretty sure it matters to the child you fed.

And the death of a rapist matters to the women he didn't attack, even though those women likely never knew what would've happened to them in an alternate universe where he didn't die. But you seem more concerned with the fact that in our universe, the rapist died before he had the opportunity to redeem himself (assuming he ever would).

You're the one who's arguing that it's righteous to get off on killing certain people and calling that "empathy".

No, I'm the one arguing that it's understandable to rejoice, or at least feel relieved, when someone who regularly harms innocents can no longer do that. I never spent a second mourning the deaths of Jeff Dahmer or Ted Bundy, either. I do, however, feel damned sorry for their numerous victims.

You must be confusing this case with another, as the only person who fired a weapon was Frederick. Shivers did not use "deadly force".

Only because he was killed before he could. He forcibly broke into a man's home while carrying a weapon; are you seriously going to argue that Shivers never had any intention of using it? Ryan Frederick's life was indeed in mortal danger from Shivers and his colleagues.

This elision of the facts indicates to me that it is likely you are driven more by "hatred of the pigs" than a consideration of the actual situation.

Have you considered "the actual situation?" Here, let me refresh your memory: a corrupt police force used corrupt testimony from a burglar and thief to justify a home invasion with the intention of destroying the life of an innocent man who never harmed a soul, but might possibly have been using intoxicants other than booze.

But when your actions will result in the death of a human being? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say that would be a good time to start considering your motivations.

The death of a human being who was in the act of threatening another, I hasten to remind you. Why do you keep ignoring that factor? Why do you deliberately overlook the fact that Shivers would be alive today if he hadn't belonged to a corrupt organization that uses lies solicited from thieves to justify home invasions against innocent people? Ryan Frederick's house had been broken into mere days before, the police knew that, they were (in fact) in cahoots with the burglar, they broke into Frederick's home anyway, and yet you seem to think it was a violation of their rights when the naturally jittery homeowner felt threatened and shot to defend himself?

|2.1.09 @ 12:18PM|#

Shivers did not use "deadly force".

That's true. That makes me wonder as well, why didn't the cops breaking down the door shoot Frederick into Swiss Cheese after he fired? I'm curious, but I'm lazy and didn't read everything about this case. Did the cops fire back?

Wasn't there a story here recently about a little old lady that got ventilated during a raid on the wrong house? I think she shot at the cops during the raid and it didn't end well for her. How is it that Frederick isn't dead?

|2.1.09 @ 12:27PM|#

LMNOP, can the righteous bullshit. There is no moral issue with killing someone who is attacking you. NONE. Frederick was under the impression that he was being attacked. Even though it was the cops, what is important--morally--is what he thought was happening.

If you decide to prank me and bust into my house wearing a Saw mask and bearing handcuffs, and I shoot you, you fucking deserve it. No, there was no true threat, but if you think I will feel guilty about it, you are insane. People are responsible for their actions. Shivers included. DON'T RAID PEOPLE'S HOMES OVER PLANTS.

Maybe I'm a cold mother fucker, but I have zero issue with killing people who threaten my life. Zero. I make no pretensions to caring and feeling bad if I were to do so. I don't want the fake "moral credit" that would get me from many people. Honestly, I'm surprised that Frederick barfed about killing someone.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 12:27PM|#

Jennifer --

For a person who thinks "only results matter", you have the most bizarre obsession with counterfactual subjunctives. "The people he would have killed if he wasn't stopped." "The women who will never know they were saved." etc.

Like you can see the future. And into alternate universes.

Wow.

Ryan Frederick's house had been broken into mere days before, the police knew that, they were (in fact) in cahoots with the burglar, they broke into Frederick's home anyway, and yet you seem to think it was a violation of their rights when the naturally jittery homeowner felt threatened and shot to defend himself?

Reading fail AGAIN. You really suck at this English thing, and I'm getting kind of tired of being polite about it.

Read this extra slowly:

I. Am. NOT. Faulting. Ryan. Frederick. For. ANYTHING.

I am faulting YOU and bruce for *delighting* in the fact that a person you deem "bad" and "corrupt" was killed.

Ryan Frederick wasn't delighted. I'd invite you to listen to the tapes. He's got a helluva better moral sense than you.

That's true. That makes me wonder as well, why didn't the cops breaking down the door shoot Frederick into Swiss Cheese after he fired?

This fact in particular is why I am disgusted with Jennifer and bruce. If the cops had gone in guns blazing, then they could call them murderers and be a bit more justified in the "good riddance to bad rubbish" schtick. But they didn't, which just means that they hate cops and that's where their brain process halts.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 12:32PM|#

LMNOP, can the righteous bullshit. There is no moral issue with killing someone who is attacking you. NONE. Frederick was under the impression that he was being attacked. Even though it was the cops, what is important--morally--is what he thought was happening.

Epi, normally you are better at reading than this. I have said, repeatedly, BELABOREDLY, there is no moral issue with a *person* defending *themselves*. Ryan thought he was defending himself, it was a reasonable belief, end of story.

There IS a moral issue with people getting off over it, delighting in it, wanting to see it happen more, feeling somehow justified by it.

For the sake of whatever it is you think roots existence, read the fucking posts in this thread carefully.

|2.1.09 @ 12:41PM|#

For the sake of whatever it is you think roots existence, read the fucking posts in this thread carefully.

My apologies for attributing incorrect motivations too you. However, I think you are wrong about delighting in the death of oppressors. Would Kim Jong Il's death at the hands of a North Korean citizen make you sad? Of course, Shivers was not a monster like that. But he participated in a monstrosity that oppresses us all. If people aren't responsible for what they participate in, what are they responsible for?

I do not "delight" in Shiver's death. I do, however, feel that he got what was coming to him, exactly as I would feel the same way about any common thug breaking into someone's house and getting shot. His official job is irrelevant.

|2.1.09 @ 12:51PM|#

as the moral insect in question (february 1, 3:48 a.m.), i can easily make the case that the world is a better place without detective shivers. detective shivers was leading a violent, unannnounced home invasion, armed with special weapons and tactics (swat) and protected (he thought) by the uniform and badge of the state. the only reason this case went down the way it did was due to ryan frederick's high level of alertness, ironically caused by a criminal informant's state-sanctioned break-in several days earlier. even a moral insect can recognize that terroristic, violent home invasions are bad. it does not matter to me that detective shivers remains a bad man forever now, only that he won't be doing any more bad things.

i was mistaken about one thing. i thought lmnop's perspective might have been informed by a judeo-christian notion that humans are somehow exalted over other species, but now he tells us that he's a buddhist. well then, take comfort in the fact that detective shivers will soon be reincarnated, perhaps as a worm at first, and that he will have the opportunity to work his way up the species totem pole in the next few cycles, perhaps to become a good man next time. take comfort also in the fact that his carbon footprint is gone now, and the burden of his resource consumption upon the fragile harmonic balance among earth's various forms of life. see lmnop, in order to be a successful buddhist, you have to develop detachment from the parts before you can experience the nirvana of unitary whole.

oh, and jennifer sounds like my kinda gal.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 12:59PM|#

Would Kim Jong Il's death at the hands of a North Korean citizen make you sad?

Probably not. But, I don't think it would make me happy, either. And another thing again, "regicide" (or whatever we call killing leaders these days), is a different sort of animal than "murder". Lest you think I think this is because leaders are somehow special or better than other people, it isn't, but the moral and political landscape of such an act is undeniably far more complicated. (Let's say our enterprising NK citizen kills Dear Leader. Would you be shocked if the leadership or some crazy element within it used the ensuing chaos to lob a few nukes at Seoul and Tokyo?)

As to the more general point, no, I don't generally cry over rapists or murderers getting killed. But I think it is morally efficacious to be circumspect about how feelings drive us after those situations arise. We have some decent experience with the spectacle of the state acting as proxy for our vengeance, and that has done all manner of untoward things which in turn have (probably permanently) damaged the public attitude towards the humanity of criminals generally. We allow our prisons to be abominations and shit-holes primarily because we loves us a good revenge, and that has creeped in to the very fabric of our system of laws and justice.

I would hazard to say the single greatest psychological stumbling block to us ever getting anywhere with drug policy reform is the general public attitude towards criminals as a class of person, and the moral erosion prefigured by their denigration.

If people aren't responsible for what they participate in, what are they responsible for?

That's the rub, isn't it? I agree that responsibility is the primary lynch-pin of any nation of laws. The problem is that the poison or revenge is so widespread in the system that responsibility is no longer the primary object.

|2.1.09 @ 1:00PM|#

jennifer sounds like my kinda gal.

I second that. Jennifer, are you single?

-jcr

|2.1.09 @ 1:00PM|#

Thomas Jackson

The facts would illuminate this case far better than assertions. Why have the police informants been discredited? What is the criminal background of the man who shot the policeman. Is he what one would call a choirboy or what one normally associates hanging out in ghetto schoolyards?

Perhaps you missed where Radley Balko reported,

Police didn't find the marijuana grow they claimed on the warrant they would find, and prosecutors now concede that two men-at least one of them police informant Steven Rene Wright-broke into Frederick's home three nights before the raid.

and

Frederick, who had no prior criminal record,...

In fact it appears you haven't bothered to read any of the voluminous reporting from Radley Balko on this story. All of which has been substantiated by all the public sources available.

The answers to all your questions are in the links are all in the original post.

Paul|2.1.09 @ 1:02PM|#

I've always has a somewhat irrational hatred for prosecutors, but I can't say I've ever wanted to kill one.

What, Nifong didn't fill that role?

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:03PM|#

i was mistaken about one thing. i thought lmnop's perspective might have been informed by a judeo-christian notion that humans are somehow exalted over other species, but now he tells us that he's a buddhist.

This is apparently everyone's bad reading day. I didn't say I was a Buddhist. I said that the sentiment I was expressing comes from a Buddhist thought-process. You are familiar with the notion that valuable thoughts and methods can come from traditions which are not your own, right?

But while we're on the subject, yes I do believe that humans are "special" from most species (I wouldn't use the word "exalted"). But since you seem to be on the moral relativity trip of a lifetime, please explain to us all how humans and earthworms are morally equivalent.

Paul|2.1.09 @ 1:04PM|#

Oh, and long live the second amendment. Long fucking live it.

|2.1.09 @ 1:09PM|#

Oh, FUCK THAT CLOWN at the end of the second video. "This is the problem with people having handguns"? No, you goddamned pig-ignorant drug-warrior asshole, this is the problem with Barney Fife in a flak jacket going out to botch paramilitary raids on innocent people in their homes.

If those boys weren't so fucking high on testosterone and adrenaline, they could have just gone to Ryan's home in broad daylight when he was AWAKE, and served him a warrant. The man has a clean record, no reason to think he'd be violent even if he HAD been growing dope in his garage.

Of course, the snitch who made up the story should be looking at some pretty serious legal consequences of his own, since his lies led directly to loss of life.

Oh, BTW Bruce: I concur that detective Shivers was committing a crime. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt as to his motives, but the fact is that he was violating Ryan's fourth amendment rights while seeking to enforce an unconstitutional law.

-jcr

Jennifer|2.1.09 @ 1:13PM|#

Jennifer, are you single?

Nah, I've been in one of those boringly stable domestic relationships for a few years now.

By the way, I *would* rejoice if a North Korean mob killed Kim Jong Il. I *did* rejoice when the Romanians literally put Ceaucescu up against a wall. Kim is and Ceaucescu was a monster who used the authority of the state to terrify, torture and murder innocent people. The difference between them and the late, unlamented (at least by me) Shivers is a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

For a person who thinks "only results matter", you have the most bizarre obsession with counterfactual subjunctives. "The people he would have killed if he wasn't stopped." "The women who will never know they were saved." etc.

And you seem to suffer from the bizarre notion that a person's past actions -- actions in the recent past -- should have no bearing on how you suspect that person will behave in the future. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that if Jeff Dahmer or Ted Bundy had never been caught, they would have continued killing people. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that a serial rapist will continue raping people if he isn't stopped. If a person repeatedly lies to me, I don't feel I owe them the benefit of the doubt next time they say something. And if Shivers hadn't died in the process of forcibly invading a man's home, I'm sure he would've continued going on home invasions.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:14PM|#

What, Nifong didn't fill that role?

Nifong was a douche, but he got pwned.

Oh, and long live the second amendment. Long fucking live it.

Word. The right to self-defense and the means to exercise it are always crucial, but only more so when the state itself is arrayed against you.

Paul|2.1.09 @ 1:16PM|#

Oh, FUCK THAT CLOWN at the end of the second video. "This is the problem with people having handguns"?

Roger that with highly polished brass knobs on. This is the reason we have handguns. To protect us from the state. Not to maintain a vibrant sporting industry.

"When you point a gun at someone, that bullet's going to go somewhere".

Yeah, no shit, sherlock. When you kick in someone's door in the dark of night for the strict purpose to disorient and confuse the residents, there are consequences. Everything has consequences you vile turd.

And yes, it is a very unfortunate and sad situation for everyone involved. An unfortunate and sad situation that your corrupt, lying organization caused.

Cops...pfffff...

|2.1.09 @ 1:16PM|#

Would you be shocked if the leadership or some crazy element within it used the ensuing chaos to lob a few nukes at Seoul and Tokyo?

Irrelevant. Other people's actions are not your responsibility.

I would hazard to say the single greatest psychological stumbling block to us ever getting anywhere with drug policy reform is the general public attitude towards criminals as a class of person, and the moral erosion prefigured by their denigration.

It's good to see you conflating cops and criminals. Seriously. Because that's what the cops have become.

You are correct that the bloodthirstiness of the general public causes many problems, but that is still to be blamed on political leaders. If weed were not illegal, then its users and sellers would not be criminals in the first place, and would not be treated by the public as such.

People get stupid about making people pay. This is much less of a problem when people only pay for things like murder, fraud, theft, kidnapping, etc.

|2.1.09 @ 1:17PM|#

so now **i'm** on the moral relativity trip of a lifetime? dude, you're the guy who called me a moral insect at 3:48 a.m. this morning. you're the guy who claims the summit of mt. morality on this thread, i'm just the monkey, remember? when you claim higher morality, you assume the burden of producing evidence in support of your claim, and i doubt that you can carry this burden.

you believe that "humans are 'special' from most species." while this belief is woefully short of specificity, i'll go along with it in part. we're the species that invented nuclear weapons, viagra and hello kitty.

if jennifer is single and from the pacific northwest area, she should gimme a shout.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:19PM|#

And if Shivers hadn't died in the process of forcibly invading a man's home, I'm sure he would've continued going on home invasions.

Better to kill 'em now than have more doors broken down later, eh?

That sounds, uh, fucking disgusting.

If you want a criminal enterprise to stop, you don't kill the grunts; there are always more where they came from. In this case, you should work to change the law: reject qualified immunity, reinstitute the exclusionary rule, end the drug war, etc..

But no, you wanna feel good crushing the grunts' balls.

I *did* rejoice when the Romanians literally put Ceaucescu up against a wall. Kim is and Ceaucescu was a monster who used the authority of the state to terrify, torture and murder innocent people.

Read the history of the French Revolution. Pay particular attention to the great way that worked out for them.

|2.1.09 @ 1:24PM|#

oh boogers, jennifer's taken. jennifer, the man in your life is a real lucky guy, and you can show him this comment to support the proposition.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:28PM|#

Irrelevant. Other people's actions are not your responsibility.

They are if you can predict them as following from your own.

"If you shoot my friend, your daughter's dead!"

[Bang!]
...
[Your daughter's dead.]

Is your daughter being dead partly your responsibility?

you're the guy who claims the summit of mt. morality on this thread...

Nah, just the foothills of "let's not throw a party when a person dies". Something I thought most civilized people could get behind, but you continue to surprise.

i'm just the monkey, remember?

Research "sarcasm".

when you claim higher morality, you assume the burden of producing evidence in support of your claim, and i doubt that you can carry this burden

It is, of course, impossible to demonstrate any moral claim to a person who is a moral relativist/nihilist, so I'm not going to waste the time.

Jennifer|2.1.09 @ 1:32PM|#

Better to kill 'em now than have more doors broken down later, eh? That sounds, uh, fucking disgusting. If you want a criminal enterprise to stop, you don't kill the grunts; there are always more where they came from. In this case, you should work to change the law: reject qualified immunity, reinstitute the exclusionary rule, end the drug war, etc..

And in the meantime, expect the likes of Ryan Frederick and Cory Maye and Kathryn Johnston to meekly accept their status as eggs which must be broken for the drug-war omelet? What I find fucking disgusting is your readiness to grant special privileges to criminals who happen to be wearing a badge when they commit their crimes.

And I'm still baffled by your outright refusal to look at the actual circumstances of the case. Anyone who read your comments without knowing the back story would think Ryan Frederick was some vigilante who took it upon himself to go gunning down cops whom he deemed immoral. No. We are NOT debating the morality of vigilante killers; we're debating how much sympathy is owed a man who died while doing unjust things to enforce an unjust law.

Read the history of the French Revolution. Pay particular attention to the great way that worked out for them.

Read the history of the Romanian revolution. That's the one I'm talking about. They're a hell of a lot better off than they were under Ceaucescu, and if I ever met the guys who shot that SOB, I'd clap them on the back and buy them a drink rather than lecture them about how they should have worked peacefully within the system to bring Ceaucescu down.

|2.1.09 @ 1:34PM|#

Is your daughter being dead partly your responsibility?

Absolutely not, and I'm surprised at you here. In your example, someone is threatening the daughter's life. They are the end all and be all of responsibility. Your actions in no way force them to kill the daughter--they do so of their own volition.

None of us are responsible for the actions of others, if you are not forcing them to act. EVER.

|2.1.09 @ 1:34PM|#

Nah, I've been in one of those boringly stable domestic relationships for a few years now.

Mazel tov, and my congratulations.

. I *did* rejoice when the Romanians literally put Ceaucescu up against a wall.

One more thing we have in common. Of course you're spoken for. Sigh.

On a related note, I consider it a great injustice that Papa Doc Duvalier, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Ferdinand Marcos, and far too many others who truly deserved to be torn limb from limb by a mob were able to die of old age instead. That scumbag Mugabe will probably die in bed, too.

-jcr

|2.1.09 @ 1:37PM|#

Nifong was a douche, but he got pwned.

Nifong got a slap on the wrist. He should be behind bars for as much time as his victims were facing.

-jcr

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:45PM|#

...readiness to grant special privileges to criminals who happen to be wearing a badge when they commit their crimes.

What special privilege would that be?

I said that Frederick was right to fire at the invading officers, didn't I?

Not once, not twice, but THREE times. Here on this very thread.

I'm saying that it is *counterproductive* to focus on the grunt. You just wanna kill 'em all and couldn't care less that it moves you further away from, not closer to, your goal.

Read the history of the Romanian revolution. That's the one I'm talking about. They're a hell of a lot better off than they were under Ceaucescu, and if I ever met the guys who shot that SOB, I'd clap them on the back and buy them a drink rather than lecture them about how they should have worked peacefully within the system to bring Ceaucescu down.

Funny thing about that: once the people had him in their power, if they had not killed Ceaucescu, but instead done any number of other things (like, you know, try him in a court, or just locked him up, or exiled him), they'd still be as well off as having killed him. So, wow, you really bolstered the case for "it's great that they killed him" with that one.

I personally wouldn't berate them or clap them on the back, as it's not my society and so not my business. But since I'm (very unfortunately) stuck in a society with you, I feel plenty justified in being concerned about the effects that your gung-ho bullshit will have on my life and the life of drug users and just plain citizens the nation over.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:46PM|#

Nifong got a slap on the wrist. He should be behind bars for as much time as his victims were facing.

I agree, but the question was why he didn't make me want to *kill* him.

Pendulum|2.1.09 @ 1:47PM|#

What an interesting debate. Best Hit & Run thread I've seen in a long time.

Determinations of moral fault are difficult. I think we all agree that sometimes, subjective moral judgments are valuable and useful, and that people ought to be held responsible for the consequences of their actions. At the same time, practical reality shows any keen observer that most people with 'good' instincts are responsible through catastrophic things (ie Iraq war), either through ignorance, weakness, or selfishness.

Indirectly, of course, the vast majority of American voters permit the drug war through their support of it, so ought they be blighted from the Earth due to the pernicious consequences of their ignorant decision-making?

That's all I have.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 1:47PM|#

In your example, someone is threatening the daughter's life. They are the end all and be all of responsibility. Your actions in no way force them to kill the daughter--they do so of their own volition.

Absolute horse. In the example, their threat is *conditioned* on your action.

|2.1.09 @ 1:48PM|#

they'd still be as well off as having killed him.

Not hardly. Killing him made the rest of the commies in Romania throw in the towel. It was not only morally, but also tactically and strategically the correct thing to do.

-jcr

|2.1.09 @ 1:53PM|#

the french revolution worked out just fine. sure they had some very rough patches along the way, but now they're a stable, democratic ally providing us with haute cuisine, avant-garde cinema, intriguing women and world-class bordeaux, burgundy and rhones. as a morally relativist monkey, i support these things.

speaking of intriguing women, jennifer, do you have any single sisters who think like you, are age-appropriate for a 53 year-old retired lawyer, open to the rural lifestyle and are not allergic to cats?

|2.1.09 @ 1:55PM|#

You're insane, LMNOP.

Let's try this again; here's my threat to you:

"If you punch Jennifer in the twat, I will kill your girlfriend."

You punching Jennifer in the snatch does not force me in any way to kill your girlfriend. I have decided to do so for some reason, but that decision is all mine. You would not have killed her; I would have.

How can you claim that you are in any way responsible? By the way, if you want to get rid of your girlfriend, this is only hypothetical and if you slug Jennifer in the vag I won't be going to Newport* with a gun.

* I'm merely speculating

Kolohe|2.1.09 @ 2:06PM|#

So a rapist, Kim Jong Il, and a Virginia police detective walk into a bar...

"If you shoot my friend, your daughter's dead!"

[Bang!]
...
[Your daughter's dead.]

This reminded me of Friday's BSG. (no more lest additional spoilers. But best episode of the season so far)

Kolohe|2.1.09 @ 2:11PM|#

Not really too much of a spoiler, so I will say this: in fact, the moral calculus being discussed here pervades this last episode.

|2.1.09 @ 2:17PM|#

I think eveyone is missing the point about killing the cop. I agree with Bruce and Jennifer on the topic Elmnop sounds like he has never been victimized to me.

But really what about Shivers taking some damn responsibitly for putting his own ass on the line in the name of the WoDs? No one forced this guy to be a cop and to continue to work once assigned to the NARC Unit. He could have thought with his own mind. Hey is it worth my life to kick in this door? What would Shivers have done had it been his door being kicked down after being robbed 3 days prior?

I think Shivers has to take his place in all this regardless of the fact he is 6' under because of what HIS ACTIONS. His actions were what led to his demise no different than any burgler risks robbing someone's home.

Otherwise all you can say it Shivers thought his mission was rigtheous enough that if he fucked up it might cost him his life. No different then some Adrenaline junkie hucking himself off a tower hoping his canopy opens and all goes well. Think that guy has not considered it could be dangerous to my health to jump off this tower?

No one forced Shivers to do this job. If no one would do the fucking job you know the pussy politicians sure as hell won't be out enforcing their BS laws on their own!

I will say it again and as a writer here once said Again, this time with Passion.

IF YOU, (you - meaning a cop or any human in general) take it on yourself to go kicking in the door of another humans home unannouced and PURPOSEFULLY at a time such as to create maximum confusion. Then YOU DESERVE TO BE SHOT, PERIOD! Only a MORON would do such a thing and not take his life ending into account. So I guesss cops are about as smart as your common house burgler after all since they are the only ones that don't seem to mind risking their lives to break into someone's home.

Bill|2.1.09 @ 2:24PM|#

"On Thursday, prosecutors tried to focus attention on Frederick's weight, hinting that the beefy 29-year-old might have kept thin in the past by abusing drugs that cause weight loss. The prosecution posed hypothetical questions to an expert witness about whether cessation of methamphetamines or cocaine might result in rapid weight gain."

I remember thinking after I heard the initial reports of this that the prosecutor was just setting more grounds for appeal if Frederick is found guilty of anything. To suggest that a defendant had been using hard drugs, without any evidence whatsoever, is completely inappropriate. I've worked in the criminal justice system for years. People DO gain weight when in jail/prison. It has nothing to do with the use of illegal drugs. The prisoners are fed high starch foods because it is cheaper. And if you are confined to a cell you can't get much good exercise in.

Jennifer|2.1.09 @ 2:31PM|#

So I guesss cops are about as smart as your common house burgler after all since they are the only ones that don't seem to mind risking their lives to break into someone's home.

I don't know about Virginia, but in Connecticut it's a plain fact that cops aren't very bright; look up the case of Robert Jordan vs. New London and you'll see that Connecticut courts ruled police forces have the right to reject a candidate with a 125 IQ as being too intelligent to join the police force. The idea is that someone with such an "above average but nothing worth bragging about" level of intelligence will get bored with police work, and quit.

So yeah, the only way a smart guy can be a cop is if he's smart enough to play dumb during the entrance exam.

Kolohe|2.1.09 @ 2:39PM|#

I wonder if those of you who think Det Shiver's is culpable (in part or in whole) for his own death also think the 4000+ US servicemen dead in Iraq are culpable (in part or in whole) for their own deaths.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 2:41PM|#

Elmnop sounds like he has never been victimized to me.

Wrong again. I have been assaulted, and I have been burgled.

Let's try this again; here's my threat to you...

Moral responsibility follows the material conditional. You seem to be confusing legal reasoning with moral reasoning.

Where you are especially getting hung up on is the distinction in responsibility between the proximate and the ultimate agent in the example. If someone tells you that if one event occurs another will necessarily follow, and you have reason to believe that they are serious, then if you decide to undertake an action that will lead to the antecedent event *with the full knowledge of what will result*, I have a hard time absolving you of *all* moral responsibility for what transpires from there.

-------

On an entirely different note, I'm curious how all you who are in love with murdering leaders who oppress are willing to carry through with your bullshit.

So, tell me, would it have been hunky-dory for some American to have shot George W. Bush? Heck, he lied us into a war, right? He was responsible for all the bad things the Fed did during the last eight years, right?

What about Obama? Let's say he instituted a "mandatory youth volunteer" program the way the wackier of you think is probable. Is it OK to shoot him then? Or would you have to wait till he banned AK-47s? Or raised your taxes?

|2.1.09 @ 2:48PM|#

I wonder if those of you who think Det Shiver's is culpable (in part or in whole) for his own death also think the 4000+ US servicemen dead in Iraq are culpable (in part or in whole) for their own deaths.

Did they sign up before or after the attack on Iraq was a foregone conclusion?

The military is a different case, to a certain degree. Soldiers and Marines have zero discretion over what they do--they are given orders and must follow them as best they can. Cops have tremendous discretion over what they do--they can let a guy with a joint off with a warning or arrest him and charge him. Shivers could have chosen to not participate in the raid, or tried to talk them into knocking during the day, etc.

I suppose at the end of the day, if you join an organization that engages in violence, you bear some responsibility over whether you die in violence.

|2.1.09 @ 2:52PM|#

Moral responsibility follows the material conditional. You seem to be confusing legal reasoning with moral reasoning.

You seem to be confusing my moral reasoning with yours. If you threaten someone's life, that is not my responsibility. Just because you try to tie it to me through making the threat conditional on my actions does not make it any more my responsibility.

You are talking as if it is my moral responsibility to acquiesce to blackmail (because what you have described is blackmail). Sorry--no dice, chief. Refusing to give in to blackmail is perfectly moral.

Kolohe|2.1.09 @ 3:00PM|#

Did they sign up before or after the attack on Iraq was a foregone conclusion?

Per this 30% of those killed were under 21. The median age of a casualty is under 24. So, yes a good chunk did, at least a numbering over a thousand.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 3:01PM|#

Refusing to give in to blackmail is perfectly moral.

If your refusal leads to a (foreseeable) death, it is not as clear cut as you make it sound.

Kolohe|2.1.09 @ 3:02PM|#

I suppose at the end of the day, if you join an organization that engages in violence, you bear some responsibility over whether you die in violence.

I do not disagree with this.

|2.1.09 @ 3:11PM|#

If your refusal leads to a (foreseeable) death, it is not as clear cut as you make it sound.

Yes it is. Threatening to kill someone is immoral. Refusing to be controlled by that threat is moral. I'm not saying you have to refuse--you can choose to do what the blackmailer wants in order to not have the person killed--but refusing to do so is perfectly moral. None of us has any duty to follow coercion.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 3:29PM|#

Epi --

Does the prospective leverage-victim of the blackmailer have any moral claim against you as to restraint from an action that will result in his/her death?

|2.1.09 @ 3:43PM|#

Does the prospective leverage-victim of the blackmailer have any moral claim against you as to restraint from an action that will result in his/her death?

No. Just because they are under threat of force does not obligate you to also submit to threat. You would obviously consider it, but you have no moral obligation to do so.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 3:52PM|#

You would obviously consider it...

That's intuitively absurd. Morality is the set of all true normative statements. If there was no moral obligation whatsoever, you would have no reason to "consider it" at all.

|2.1.09 @ 3:59PM|#

If there was no moral obligation whatsoever, you would have no reason to "consider it" at all.

We consider plenty of things that have no moral obligation.

Let's say the blackmailer wanted a ham sandwich in exchange for not killing the person. Then lets say the blackmailed wanted the codes to fire a nuclear missile in exchange for not killing the person.

I'd give him the ham sandwich even though I had no moral obligation to do so. I wouldn't give him the codes, unless he promised to fire it at Worchester. Plenty of considering going on.

Elemenope|2.1.09 @ 4:05PM|#

Plenty of considering going on.

And what I'm telling you is those considerations are by definition moral.

Hume sez. Nyah-nyah-nyah! :)

But seriously, what definition would you give morality if not "the set of all true normative statements"?

|2.1.09 @ 4:24PM|#

That's a perfectly good definition as long as we realize that normative varies from person to person. But that makes it kind of pointless except to yourself.

BakedPenguin|2.1.09 @ 4:33PM|#

If your refusal leads to a (foreseeable) death, it is not as clear cut as you make it sound.

Wow. I just watched this movie again last night.

|2.2.09 @ 11:10AM|#

The interrogator says, "I can't just shoot somebody because I'm scared."

O really? Tell your friends that, would you?

You can't just shoot blindly through doors.

Huh. I'd rather shoot through my door as it's being battered down than wait til it's open and the intruder has a clear shot at ME, thank you very much.

Eddie Van Helsing|2.2.09 @ 12:28PM|#

This is horrible. I feel sorry for the detective's family, but Ryan Frederick doesn't deserve what the government is doing to him. He's suffering enough as it is.

|2.2.09 @ 12:49PM|#

Huh. I'd rather shoot through my door as it's being battered down than wait til it's open and the intruder has a clear shot at ME, thank you very much.

Good point. And it adds another design feature, if I can manage it, to the Hardened RC Residence of the Future - some kind of bullet-proof firing position(s) covering the door(s). Right now, I got nothin' - I'll be exposed in the hallway leading up to the front door, a situation that would indicate firing sooner rather than later is the prudent thing to do.

|2.2.09 @ 2:39PM|#

RC Dean, when you have blueprints, be sure to share them!

Not that I stand a chance in an invasion. Our front door is surrounded by sidelights, so the breaking in process would be way too easy and they'd quickly see me in my bathrobe with my 22 mo or 3 mo son in my arms. The babies would likely be misconstrued as weapons and we'd all be dead or maimed.

Crying at work is frowned upon... I had to stop the video.

cops are out of control|2.4.09 @ 3:13AM|#

This kid is a hero ! He defended his home, good for him. I'm glad that piss ant officer is DEAD.

|2.4.09 @ 9:05PM|#

Wow the people posting here have a whacked sense of whats really going on here. The shooter is a stone cold killer who is only now showing remorse because he knows hes going away for a long time. I have executed many search warrants and everyone on the block can here us announce before we boot the door. So its clear hes a liar when he claims he never heard them announcing their Office. I suggest that until U have done a warrant U cant critique the process. Also remember a states attorney and a judge both have to review the affidavit for search before its approved and can be executed.