Thursday, February 24, 2011

NY Police Shooting Information

It seems the New York City Police have been trying to keep secrets.  I guess you can't blame them.

A Manhattan judge has ordered the NYPD to release data on police shooting incidents that it had been fighting tooth and nail to keep private. 

In a decision made public yesterday, state Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman ruled the cops must turn over two kinds of reports that are filed after every shooting incident involving a civilian to the New York Civil Liberties Union. 

She ordered the NYPD to turn over data dating back to 1997, but said they can withhold information identifying police, victims and witnesses from the documents. 

The NYCLU had been trying to get the two types of reports created after cops fire their weapons at civilians -- one that's done 24 hours after the shooting and the other 90 days later -- since early 2009.
What's your opinion? Does this effort on the part of the New York cops remind you of the concealed carry guys who want their information to remain secret?  Wouldn't transparency be best?

Please leave a comment.

5 comments:

  1. "Does this effort on the part of the New York cops remind you of the concealed carry guys who want their information to remain secret?"

    There is a big difference between those wanting to keep their licenses from appearing on published, public lists and reports of cops shooting people.

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  2. Police officers are public servants. As agents of the government, their actions while representing the government should remain totally transparent and the public should have access to these records for oversight. However, their private life (such as their home address) is their business (although they can and should be held to a higher standard of off-duty behavior than regular citizens by their department).

    PRIVATE citizens who choose to carry a concealed firearm aren't public servants and their actions aren't representing the government. ALL people have a right to privacy in their personal life and there is no legitimate GOOD reason why their private information regarding carrying a firearm needs to be released publicly.

    Simple enough, no?

    ...Orygunner...

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  3. I don't know if there's no good reason. I mentioned somewhere that the reason might be for the folks like me who don't want to be around you guys to know who you are. Maybe we have rights too.

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  4. @Mikeb, your rights can't infringe on ours, and our rights can't infringe on yours. If you think a "right" allows you to control the behavior of others, then perhaps what you're thinking of isn't really a right at all.

    For example, the so-called "right" to feel safe cannot be used to prohibit the free exercise of rights of others in public. You can choose to take whatever means YOU decide to make yourself FEEL safer, but none of those actions can prohibit other people from exercising their rights.

    A good example is open carry - just because it may make someone else uncomfortable, they cannot force someone else to remove their sidearm (unless it's their property, then the rights of private property owners override many individual rights). Thinking your "right" to feel safe gives you control over other's behavior is like claiming that people have a "right" not to see homosexuals kissing in public. Freedom means there's always a chance you may see something that makes you uncomfortable - that's part of the price of liberty.

    Now you DO have a right not to be physically harmed or threatened by another person, but actual harm or threat of harm (not just your perception) must occur before your rights are infringed upon. At that point when another person threatens you with immediate bodily injury, you are within YOUR rights to defend yourself accordingly and appropriately.

    See how that works? What argument do you have against that reasoning?

    ...Orygunner...

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  5. Well, let's see. What if we forget about the 2nd Amendment, which in my opinion has been bastardized and twisted into something unrecognizable. If we leave that out, who's to say your rights to own guns outweigh my rights to live in a safer society.

    I've shown how proper and thorough restrictions can help, you've even admitted as much yourself. I've even shown how those restrictions wouldn't really do much more than inconvience you.

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