How anyone can defend how these cops handled this situation is mind boggling..they had that situation completely under control. If they Slowly walk over and cuff him, that mans children still have a father.
What the officer did was unconscionable, but there's a more fundamentally important question that needs to be answered: how on earth did he ever get to the point where he and his colleague think that this was the appropriate response? It wasn't a rogue cop by himself - he had a partner with him. He had a video camera. He knew his actions would see the light of day. He wasn't making an effort to conceal anything. He responded to a situation and he acted. He and his partner were obviously led to believe that this was how to respond to the situation, and that's the scary part.
Based on this incident, it seems that these officers weren't trained in any way to assess the threat until they could first be absolutely, 100% sure that the threat was completely eliminated. The classic "Shoot first and ask questions later" line of thought. It seems that "I was afraid" is actually a professionally-sanctioned justification for using deadly force against citizens and it's a pretty effective defense against blatantly criminal abuse of civil rights. The scary part is that there's no real accountability. A department can simply distance itself from its actions by blaming the individual officer in question, but what changes in terms of training and changing the behavior of other officers? It's disturbing enough that this officer got away with killing a man for no reason at all, but what's potentially more disturbing is that perhaps nothing changes. What, then, is preventing this from being repeated?
I have absolutely no problem in theory with a jury being instructed to see things from the police officer's point of view - that's valid application of the law. What's utterly invalid are the standards of behavior and protocols of assessing a threat that are being judged, that simply moving your body the wrong way can be interpreted as a mortal threat. This goes back to training, and I'm afraid that without specific statutes and oversight, we will continue to see more of these incidents. The standard is that simply being afraid, being startled is a legal defense for officers killing civilians. It's yet another byproduct of our creeping authoritarian society, with the emphasis on public security over individual rights.
What the officer did was unconscionable, but there's a more fundamentally important question that needs to be answered: how on earth did he ever get to the point where he and his colleague think that this was the appropriate response? It wasn't a rogue cop by himself - he had a partner with him. He had a video camera. He knew his actions would see the light of day. He wasn't making an effort to conceal anything. He responded to a situation and he acted. He and his partner were obviously led to believe that this was how to respond to the situation, and that's the scary part.
Based on this incident, it seems that these officers weren't trained in any way to assess the threat until they could first be absolutely, 100% sure that the threat was completely eliminated. The classic "Shoot first and ask questions later" line of thought. It seems that "I was afraid" is actually a professionally-sanctioned justification for using deadly force against citizens and it's a pretty effective defense against blatantly criminal abuse of civil rights. The scary part is that there's no real accountability. A department can simply distance itself from its actions by blaming the individual officer in question, but what changes in terms of training and changing the behavior of other officers? It's disturbing enough that this officer got away with killing a man for no reason at all, but what's potentially more disturbing is that perhaps nothing changes. What, then, is preventing this from being repeated?
I have absolutely no problem in theory with a jury being instructed to see things from the police officer's point of view - that's valid application of the law. What's utterly invalid are the standards of behavior and protocols of assessing a threat that are being judged, that simply moving your body the wrong way can be interpreted as a mortal threat. This goes back to training, and I'm afraid that without specific statutes and oversight, we will continue to see more of these incidents. The standard is that simply being afraid, being startled is a legal defense for officers killing civilians. It's yet another byproduct of our creeping authoritarian society, with the emphasis on public security over individual rights.
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