With no probes it’s a contact only arc. Someone running away is clearly not shooting at you. The person trained on tasers clearly knows this, despite not being competent enough to maintain control of his own equipment.
Obv it’s complicated and the incompetence of two officers not being able to restrain an unmarked suspect or keep control of their equipment is another problem entirely.
Should he have ran? Should he have made a spark with a taser? Both no’s. But is that a capital offence warranting a death sentence of being shot in the back while running away? That’s a different question with potentially different answers.
You see a spark and what seems like potential probe deployal. Once that happened, there were no probes and it was contact only. He was shot in the back AFTER the taser was rendered impotent. Even before that, the officer was voluntarily running (potentially) into the taser range. If he feared his life from his taser, he could have instead easily maintained an adequate distance – the suspect was NOT charging towards him. They had already searched the guy and knew he was unarmed (no gun). What is your alternate assessment of the situation?
It’s pretty far off of the original discussion which is more about proper de-escalation.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone arguing that the guy should have taken the taser or tried to use it. Just because someone did something (or multiple things) wrong doesn’t necessarily justify their execution.
It’s a bit of a silly statistic. For whites it’s ~81% are murdered by whites. I guess white on white violence is also a problem. Murders are usually people who know each other and/or are related. It makes sense they’re often the same race as the victim.
There’s also a strong economic correlation with violent crimes.
Not to take sides here but it’s a little surprising to me how the gentleman reacted at being arrested. It’s hard for me to understand that sudden change in demeanor, from being friendly and cooperative to resisting arrest, running away, turning and activating the taser he had wrestled from the cops.
BTW, the ruling of a homicide IMHO is a predictable reaction given the riots in the last couple of weeks. It’s better to give the cops a day in court than to risk seeing more businesses ablaze in Atlanta.
Camden NJ had a terrible crime rate. They “defunded the police” and put money into social programs instead, crime rates have dropped by half. Now their cops do things like host neighborhood bbqs.
How best to prevent the initial escalation (and determining if the execution/lethal reaction was justifiedrequired) are separate issues from “did the guy do the wrong thing”. Likely everyone agrees the guy did wrong things. People disagree on how to address the other issues.
There was no indication at all that there would be an escalation. In any case, if you’re a cop, you’re there to enforce laws, not to decide that “person A belongs to race XYZ, therefore the laws won’t be enforced”. Let’s remember that the gentleman was indeed drunk and drove his car to Wendy’s. If I’m caught drunk behind the wheel, I’m sure I’d be arrested.
This has a lot to do with who you are and where you are. If you are white, in a nice car in a nice neighborhood, I think you’ll be offered a courtesy ride home.
It happens where I live. I’m not talking about DRIVING under the influence. I’m talking about a person in a car in a parking lot just like the subject of the recent situation. I know the manager of a local restaurant / bar. Standard procedure is for the bar to call the cops, cops come out, no breathalizer – just talk it over and see what’s up. 95% of the time determination is made that the person is not fit to drive and the offer is made for a courtesy ride home.
If the person resists (which is extremely uncommon), then a breathalizer is administered and things start going south for the driver.
In my state, being in a car with keys (car doesn’t even have to be running) in a parking lot is basically the same as being on the road – so under the influence is a crime there. Cops routinely try to avoid the big mess by just offering a courtesy ride home.
