{"id":838,"date":"2009-10-31T16:09:15","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T14:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=838"},"modified":"2009-10-31T16:09:15","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T14:09:15","slug":"death-in-detroit-at-the-hands-of-the-fbi-or-just-due-to-stupidity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=838","title":{"rendered":"Death in Detroit at the hands of the FBI or just due to stupidity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has an excellent article<\/a> about the case of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who died in a shootout with the FBI in Detroit on Wednesday.\u00a0 Mr. Abdullah was apparently well known by the FBI, had a past criminal record, and wasn’t known for being a shrinking violet.\u00a0 It is possible that he also died of terminal stupidity by firing a weapon in the presence of law enforcement.\u00a0 As the Times and other papers report it, the FBI confronted Mr. Abdullah in a warehouse where he was housing stolen property.\u00a0 Once they confronted him, it’s possible there was no way for them to have avoided shooting him, given that he fired shots.<\/p>\n

\"Luqman<\/p>\n

I wonder, however, if they confronted him in the right way.\u00a0 To be sure, this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but in my experience, that is how we learn.\u00a0 Sometimes it is possible to request that people turn themselves in.\u00a0 This avoids any violence, at the risk that the individual will flee.\u00a0 Was that a reasonable risk to take in this case?<\/p>\n

Once they decided that they needed to arrest him, would it have made sense to do so in another venue?\u00a0 Certainly there is a risk to law enforcement when they arrest someone at home, as that person may be hiding weapons in the house, and certainly knows the layout better than the cops.<\/p>\n

Would it have been better to nab him on the way out of his house?\u00a0 He may have been on parole.\u00a0 Could his parole officer have requested him to come in?<\/p>\n

My point: it’s not clear cut to me that the FBI did the wrong or the right thing.\u00a0 We’ll probably never know, but hopefully someone asked and answered these questions before the they confronted Mr. Abdullah in that warehouse.\u00a0 Otherwise maybe it could well be that police\/siege mentality contributed to this man’s death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has an excellent article about the case of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who died in a shootout with the FBI in Detroit on Wednesday.\u00a0 Mr. Abdullah was apparently well known by the FBI, had a past criminal record, and wasn’t known for being a shrinking violet.\u00a0 It is possible that he … Continue reading “Death in Detroit at the hands of the FBI or just due to stupidity?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4],"tags":[291,290],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-politics","tag-criminology","tag-fbi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}