Nope. Depending on the locality, the situations where a cop is allowed to shoot you and I'm allowed to shoot you are similar, having something to do with the perception of an immediate threat.
♫ Now every month there is a new Rodney [King] on Youtube. It's just something our generation is used to ♫
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Citizens in the US have a duty to de-escalate the situation, a 'duty to retreat', unless they're backed into a metaphorical corner ('castle doctrine').
Police are presently seen as having a duty to escalate - to allow someone potentially hostile to back down and leave without handcuffs is seen as a dangerous failure, extending even to periods when the police officer is off-duty. Meek compliance with 'lawful orders' is the penultimate goal, and people will be bossed around, arrested, tortured (Who the fuck thought 'drive stun' mode was a good idea), or shot for failing to show appropriate amounts of submissiveness.
Assault against a police officer is seen as a crime against the state, whereas assault against a citizen is essentially mandated for a police officer to do their job.
The rules for actual murder are only slightly less assymmetrical.
Examples abound.
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First breaking off civil relations with the citizenry via the drug war and then paramilitarizing our police force post 9/11, and finally having their behavior revealed with Youtube and smartphones, has severely damaged the credibility of the police in this country, good and bad; It's going to take some severe changes to bring it back - changes explicitly designed to "make it harder for them to do their job", as they would describe it.
"Citizens in the US have a duty to de-escalate the situation, a 'duty to retreat', unless they're backed into a metaphorical corner ('castle doctrine')."
From Wikipedia:
"A Stand-Your-Ground law is a type of self-defense law that gives individuals the right to use deadly force to defend themselves without any requirement to evade or retreat from a dangerous situation. It is law in certain jurisdictions within the United States."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law
This is the type of law that allowed Trayvon Martin's killer to walk away as an innocent man.
This is the type of law that allowed Trayvon Martin's killer to walk away as an innocent man.
Please stop. Zimmerman's legal team never even mentioned SYG. It wouldn't have made sense, since their claim was that at the time of the shooting he was pinned on his back and unable to move. In such a situation, no one has a "duty to retreat".
I'm not claiming SYG is good or bad law, but if you'd like to argue against it please do so in a sensible manner.
"The "stand your ground law" was not used by the Zimmerman defense team during the trial, although it was considered at an earlier time. Some sources have pointed out that “Stand Your Ground” was mentioned in the Jury Instructions preceding the trial,[308] however, this is part of the required Jury Instructions in all Florida murder trials in which the defendant claims “Justifiable Use of Deadly Force” as part of their defense."
And:
"The police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest."
Honestly, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that SYG played a role in the jury's decision-making process. But hey, don't take my word for it, what about the reaction of the Governor of Florida (again from Wikipedia):
"Three weeks after the shooting, Florida Governor Rick Scott commissioned a 19-member task force to review the Florida statute that deals with justifiable use of force, including the Stand Your Ground provision."
If that's still to tenuous a connection for you, let's hear from one of the jurors on the case:
"An anonymous member of the jury appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 on July 15 to discuss how Florida's Stand Your Ground law provided a legal justification for Zimmerman's actions. According to the juror, neither charge against Zimmerman applied "because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground"
http://thewabashc3.blogspot.fr/2013/07/timothy-johnson-media...
So yeah, I really do think it's "sensible" to think that SYG helped Trayvon Martin's killer walk away as an innocent man.
I recommend the recent Warrior Cop book by Balco that explain how it got to the point where the police have the duty to escalate and not defuse the citations.
Other parts of the world take the idea of excessive use of police force somewhat more seriously and are weary of it.
There are differences between police and citizens, but you're right that "in theory" they're much narrower than is generally perceived. In practice, however, it seems that possibly-not-really-justified killings by cops are given more of the benefit of the doubt than those by private citizens. (The recent Zimmerman case seems like an exception to this, however. It's probably best not to speculate why.)
