Shoot first, ask questions later

Is it just me or is Tom Coburn recommending a policy of shoot first ask questions later for our borders?

The patrol’s deadly force rules were questioned at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing concerning the conviction of two agents who shot a fleeing, unarmed drug trafficker and covered it up.

“Why is it wrong to shoot the [trafficker] after he’s been told to stop?” asked Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma.

A new low for Coburn.


Comments

  1. Don’t you think that US nationalism should be protected by force? What’s more important here; the integrity of the border (and what that border represents — the values and laws) or the life of some unarmed brown person? There’s billions of them, but if you keep raping Miss Liberty, even just a little bit, she won’t be a virgin no moe. You shouldn’t even rub against her perversely. (Note: Mark what’s that term again? The one for sexual gratification through rubbing? I lost my WOTD.)

    It’s thinking like this that’s watering our very high, and very right standards into some touchy-feely human rights question worthy of eurotrash. Damn good thing we don’t sign up for the ICC because our nationalism would be among the first casualties.

  2. Re Coburn

    What’s even more disturbing is that Senator Coburn is a physician (is also an anti-abortion extremist). As is usual with the born-again holier then thous, aborting a 1 month old fetus is murder but shooting somebody in the back is okay. One can only quail at the patients subject to the administrations of this man.

  3. spartanrider

    Ted,
    I think the word you are looking for is frottage. This has been developed to a high art form by certain Japanese males while riding crowded Tokyo subways.A certain subset of Japanese porn seems to bare this out.

  4. Yes frottage or frotteurism is the psych description.

  5. Reality Czech

    In the interest of complete information rather than cherry-picking facts (which I’m sure that all readers here would oppose), there is more to the Ramos/Compean case than Mark suggests (and probably more than he knows, given that he seems to be a fair-minded person):

    • Aldrete was acting very suspiciously.
    • Aldrete’s van was full of drugs.
    • Aldrete was so lightly hurt that he made it all the way back to Mexico on foot.
    • Aldrete was given immunity for his testimony, and a visa allowing him free travel between the US and Mexico.

    In short, a crook was given carte blanche in order to prosecute two persons whose error was being over-zealous in enforcement of the law.  Had Ramos and Compean been DEA agents on a no-knock warrant (even of a dwelling with no drugs at all), they could have killed Aldrete and received no penalty.  This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

    (NB:  Apparently, the “HTML allowed for style” here does not include bullet lists.

  6. RC,
    There is an argument for prosecutorial excess in this case, and I think even DiFi in this story suggests that the penalty against these officers might have been excessive.

    That is besides the point however, I think Coburn’s statement stands on its own as being somewhat remarkable.

  7. Mark P

    Cops shooting unarmed people is not unusual. What’s unusual is that anyone noticed and did anything about it.

  8. 1. Define ‘suspiciously’. Does that definition include the necessary amount of perceived danger for police to justify firing their weapons?

    2. The fact that he had drugs doesn’t matter in this. The question, as I see it, is “Did he pose a violent threat?”

    3. The fact that he wasn’t badly harmed is irrelevant. If he had been, say, paralyzed for life or killed would that change anything?

  9. Inhofe and Coburn. Aren’t just blessed to have those two as our Senators? Add to that the “Worst Newspaper in America”…and yes, these things are connected. I’ve come to like Oklahoma, but there are things that just make you want to tear your hair out. And Coburn is high on that list.

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