Unarmed Man Is Charged With Wounding Bystanders Shot by Police Near Times Square
An unarmed, emotionally disturbed man shot at by the police as he was lurching around traffic near Times Square in September has been charged with assault, on the theory that he was responsible for bullet wounds suffered by two bystanders, according to an indictment unsealed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday.
You read that right. Crazy guy, hearing voices, can’t quite decide which car to throw himself in front of. Cops come along to round him up. He makes a furtive move, or scratches his ass or something, I don’t know, and the cops shift into “officer safety is paramount” mode. No report of how many shots are fired, but it is known none of them hit their intended target. Instead the cops take out two innocent bystanders, who now have the effrontery to sue. In what I sincerely hope is the weirdest liability defense ever raised by a municipal governing body, the city of New York is charging the crazy guy with assault on the two wounded “civilians.”
You sure the NYT didn’t plagarize this from the Onion? My effin’ dog, if this is true then it’s like the kid blaming the cat for pulling its tail. I’m gonna go hide now.
Reports have it that the
cops firedunarmed guy was responsible for three shots, hitting two>innocent bystandersunindicted suspects; which Ken White at Popehat notes, “represents unusual excellence in marksmanship for the NYPD”. Pretty impressive fire discipline, too, for a department that routinely pops off dozens of inaccurate roundsatin the general direction of anything that might possibly be mistaken for having the potential capability to move in someone’s fevered imagination.I have not seen the videotape, and this is NYC, so it is liable to have gone down just as you say, but let me point something out here:
If I am committing a felonious action that causes you to draw your gun and shoot at me, anybody you hit goes on my tab, because you wouldn’t be shooting if it weren’t for me. This is the reasoning behind “felony murder” and it goes back to English Common Law.
It’s why when the guy hit a bystander here in Indy it wound up getting put on his assailant’s tab.
http://twowheeledmadwoman.blogspot.com/2013/08/eeediot-goes-bang.html
But hey, NYPD, amirite?
IANAL, yada yadda yadda… (but check out the above Popehat link for a matching opinion from a real lawyer, both defense and former federal prosecutor):
Sadly, the video is now “unavailable”, so I can only go by the reports. I think it’s interesting (and makes a mockery of the assault charge) that when arrested for “lurching around traffic” Broadnax was only booked on MISDEMEANOR charges of menacing, drug possession and resisting arrest. Not felonious traffic lurching (which doesn’t seem to be in the NY criminal code… yet). Not even misdemeanor assault.
“Felony murder”, the doctrine being [mis]applied here, requires that a person so charged be engaged in the commission of a felony (under modern interpretations, an “inherently dangerous” one). This is how armed bank robbers get charged with murder when the job goes bad and their partner gets shot by an aging bank guard. The only felony being alleged here is felonious assault for the the shooting of the two bystanders by the police. So circumstances lack 1) an original felony, 2) which is inherently dangerous, 3) by the accused.
It’s also worth noting that Broadnax was supposedly subdued though less-lethal means (Taser). After the bystanders were shot. That suggests that… just maybe… lethal force with firearms wasn’t justified to stop a…. misdemeanor.
Something else worthy of consideration is the venue. If this happened in… Lyndeborough for instance, I might be inclined to wonder if the cops were justified, since our local PD isn’t noted for gunning down the wrong grooms, witnesses, dogs, flower pots, sidewalks, et cetera, on a regular basis. The NYPD is noted for exactly that.
Personally, I suspect that this BS assault charge is meant only to deflect lawsuits against the city by the victims.
The YouTube video linked from article is gone, but I found another one.
Ray Kelly, the NYPD commissioner very specifically stated that Broadnax reached into a pocket and pretended to draw a firearm and pretended to point said firearm at the officers, at which point the two officers shot two innocent female bystanders. Feel free to draw your own conclusions but when the first sounds, I see Broadnax’s hands down at his side and slightly forward. Definitely not extended as if aiming a firearm at the cops.
Edited: “…when the first shot sounds…“
Obviously if they weren’t justified in shooting, then the caveat I opened my comment with applies.
They had to shoot (at) him to save him.