Yet another case where the general public reacts based on passion rather than fact. And of course, the mainstream media, as usual, is doing its best to cover up as many facts as possible in an effort to spin it in the way they want it to be spun.
The left wing part of the media has a history of spinning stories and evidence to support their left wing agenda (NBC for example edited the 911 call of the guy who killed Trevon Martin).
There are several facts that were released right after the incident that are conveniently being left out now that it has gathered more attention. The first is that the 911 caller stated that someone who appeared to be in his 20s was holding a gun and pointing it at people and basically scaring the shit out of everyone. Now, he did say to the 911 operator that he thought the gun MIGHT be fake, but he wasn't sure. The 911 operator did not relay this information to the responding officers.
I don't think this would have made a difference. Even if the officers were told the gun might be fake, they would not have assumed that it was fake from the start, they would only act as if the gun was fake once they can tell for sure that it was in fact fake.
Looking at the video I can see two things that would definitely put me on edge if I were a cop. One, the kid definitely did NOT look 12. Second, as the cop car is pulling up, the kid starts walking toward the car and lifts up the front of his shirt to show/grab the gun. Now, I am no police officer, but I have had tactical training in the military. It is a fact that in situations like this, cops/military have to make split second decisions based on what limited facts they may have and from an immediate survey of the scene/situation. And having someone walking toward the car like that will always be treated as a threatening gesture.
The kid was only escalating the situation by doing this. I would like to know who taught him to act like that.
People are saying the cop was too hasty in his shooting of the "suspect", but I am sure in his mind he was only thinking of protecting himself and his partner from what at the time seemed like a life-threatening situation. Cops are shot and killed by armed suspects all of the time. It's funny how there's never a public outcry when that happens. Newsflash! Not all cops are hate-filled bigots whose only purpose in life is to kill as many innocent people as they can.
agreed
What's wrong about the cop's behavior as shown by the video is this.
Police are told about a possibly armed guy, one police car drives right up the the suspect and the cop gets out. The suspect waves what might be a gun around a bit, then the cop shoots him.
Huh? The car drives right up to the guy and the cop gets out?
No precautions? No concealment or cover? Just drive right up to him?
If this had been a real encounter with a bad guy, I rather doubt the cop would have gotten out with his life. So what the video shows is poor judgement, poor judgement, and then panic when he decided - wrongly - his life was in danger.
What this in turn shows is flaws in the training of police. Yes, they are trained to shoot if there is something that looks like a gun barrel pointed in their direction. This does not adequately handle the problem of kids with toys and/or mentally deficient adults with toys. There are large numbers of examples of the end effects of these policies.
By the way, there's absolutely no logical reason to translate talk like mine into "anti-police" or "Anti-LEO". Police who act more like "assault officers" than "peace officers" need to be reprimanded, retrained or retired. The reason is that they are our employees, we don't need "assault officers".