William J. Lewinski Trains Police To Shoot First And Let Him Handle The Fallout
BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 3 months ago
NYT:
The shooting looked bad. But that is when the professor is at his best. A black motorist, pulled to the side of the road for a turn-signal violation, had stuffed his hand into his pocket. The white officer yelled for him to take it out. When the driver started to comply, the officer shot him dead.
The driver was unarmed.
Taking the stand at a public inquest, William J. Lewinski, the psychology professor, explained that the officer had no choice but to act.
“In simple terms,” the district attorney in Portland, Ore., asked, “if I see the gun, I’m dead?”
“In simple terms, that’s it,” Dr. Lewinski replied.
When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, Dr. Lewinski is often there to defend their actions. Among the most influential voices on the subject, he has testified in or consulted in nearly 200 cases over the last decade or so and has helped justify countless shootings around the country.
He has appeared as an expert witness in criminal trials, civil cases and disciplinary hearings, and before grand juries, where such testimony is given in secret and goes unchallenged. In addition, his company, the Force Science Institute, has trained tens of thousands of police officers on how to think differently about police shootings that might appear excessive.
[ … ]
Many policing experts are for hire, but Dr. Lewinski is unique in that he conducts his own research, trains officers and internal investigators, and testifies at trial. In the protests that have followed police shootings, demonstrators have often asked why officers are so rarely punished for shootings that seem unwarranted. Dr. Lewinski is part of the answer.
Dr. Lewinski said he was not trying to explain away every shooting. But when he testifies, it is almost always in defense of police shootings. Officers are his target audience — he publishes a newsletter on police use of force that he says has nearly one million subscribers — and his research was devised for them. “The science is based on trying to keep officers safe,” he said.
[ … ]
A former Minnesota State professor, he says his testimony and training are based on hard science, but his research has been roundly criticized by experts. An editor for The American Journal of Psychology called his work “pseudoscience.” The Justice Department denounced his findings as “lacking in both foundation and reliability.” Civil rights lawyers say he is selling dangerous ideas.
Hmm … let me see. He got his doctorate from a diploma mill (you do the research), engages in pseudoscience (which has as its stated outcome keeping cops “safe”), trains cops, always testifies in their defense, and by virtue of the fact that he is the one being called as an “expert” witness, becomes the one who is called to testify as an “expert” witness in future cases, a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy.
Yea. You know what else might become a self-fulfilling prophesy? People knowing that police are going to discharge weapons as a matter of first recourse, and then act accordingly.
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On August 4, 2015 at 7:22 am, UNCLEELMO said:
Hmmmm. ‘Got his doctorate from a diploma mill’ and deals in ‘pseudoscience’. Sounds like the ‘expert’ hired by the California Air Resources Board to tell them what they wanted to hear so they could Go Green and destroy the state’s economy.
Funny how these ‘experts’ are always paid with taxpayer’s money to extol their wisdom on the unwashed masses. They remind me of the mortician’s joke- “We make money while you go in the hole” (literally and figuratively).
On August 4, 2015 at 7:54 am, Fritz said:
Ain’t nothing better than a Professional Witness and Secret Juries!
Lordy lordy
On August 4, 2015 at 9:59 am, Bobbye said:
And it works almost every time.
On August 4, 2015 at 11:06 am, dan said:
he is the poster child for ‘MURDER FOR HIRE’…..there is NO ..defense for KILLING an unarmed citizen for a traffic stop….NONE….imho
On August 4, 2015 at 2:12 pm, Billy Mullins said:
I disagree, but it ought to be an affirmative defense wherein the burden of proof falls upon the defendant. ANY TIME a cop shoots a civilian, it ought to require the cop’s defense to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the shooting was justified. I suspect that a goodly number of cop related shootings are justified, but I suspect that a lot of them that squeak by under the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard would fall flat under a “by a preponderance of the evidence” standard.
After all, aren’t THEY the ones who are “highly trained” and thus more trustworthy?
On August 4, 2015 at 9:22 pm, Paul X said:
Actually, if things were the way they ought to be, the fact it was a cop doing the shooting would be withheld from the jury, and the defendant would be having the same hard time of it as the rest of the peons do with the criminal “Justice System”. But, things aren’t the way they ought to be. Things are the way they are. The System works for those in it, not for justice.
On August 4, 2015 at 6:54 pm, Veritas said:
Really, so when a 6’4″ unarmed monster attacks an armed 5’8″ cop who is sixty there is no defense? I’d love to see what you’d do if this happened to you. I think we all know what would happen.
On September 1, 2015 at 2:36 pm, JohanBock said:
Cool story, bro.
On August 4, 2015 at 1:24 pm, Jack Crabb said:
Wow, a Copsucker of the highest order. Fuck him and all of those like him.
Herschel’s last sentence sums it up best.
On August 4, 2015 at 2:52 pm, TSA_TheSexualAssault said:
As Robert Heinlein suggested, cooperate with the police, up until that moment when you have to kill him. There’s no middle ground and no “proportional escalation of resistance”, just those 2 ways of dealing with police contact. He is the most dangerous version of a man people are likely to encounter in their lives, much more dangerous to a civilian than a professional soldier in a war zone.
On August 4, 2015 at 5:13 pm, MadMagyar said:
This will escalate to the point of civilians shooting ALL cops on contact . . . and letting God sort them out. HE knows which ones killed civilians without provocation.
On August 4, 2015 at 6:22 pm, ToddsMonster said:
First, he trains a police officer in a manner which will produce a desired outcome (e.g., questionable shooting).
Then, once the questionable shooting occurs, he is paid a handsome fee to undo the damage.
This guy sounds exactly like Planned Parenthood.
First, tell the public that promiscuous sex is normal, healthy, and a basic human right.
Then, when the promiscuous sex results in conception, they are paid a handsome fee to undo the damage.
On August 4, 2015 at 6:52 pm, Veritas said:
Sounds like the usual Obama expert. Perhaps we can have some more expert Ferguson witnesses tell us about how the cop gunned down an innocent choirboy who had his hands in the air or another young man who was shot without caused by some savage white hispanic.
Let’s hear it for the author and his experts. Cop haters have all the experts. That’s why we have gun free zones, experts know.
On August 4, 2015 at 9:25 pm, Paul X said:
Explain to me again why I should be grateful for this boot on my neck? For some reason I’m just not getting it.
On August 5, 2015 at 8:24 pm, DAN III said:
So Veritas, tell me why myself or anyone else NEEDS police ? Just tell me WHY I need them in my life ?
On August 7, 2015 at 7:37 pm, DAN III said:
Chirp.
On August 4, 2015 at 10:25 pm, L O said:
When the public accepts this as policing, they have surrendered.
On August 5, 2015 at 6:23 am, Seerightthere! said:
Lewinski? Any relation to Hillary’s husband’s girlfriend?
On September 1, 2015 at 2:36 pm, JohanBock said:
Dr. Murder.