Wow, you have to see the video. The victims were looking for the bicycle they reported stolen, and the cops shoot them. The cops murdered him in cold blood while surrounding him front, back and side. Inexcusable. If the one cop who couldn’t see the victim’s other hand had shown discretion, the other cops who could see both hands would have had him covered if there was any possible reaching for any weapon (which he did not have). He simply lowered his arms after having raised his hands over his head. Not a good enough reason to murder an innocent man who had no guilt in anything. Family got a $4 million plus settlement.
A kid drunk out of his mind and with meth in his blood. Not exactly Opie Taylor.
I think the cops were completely wrong in this case. But drunk, drugged and disobeying legal police orders is a fairly reliable route to a short life.
They also did not have him “surrounded front, back and side.”
The cops were around him in at most a 90 degree arc.
As I’ve said many times on FR, I think American cops are WAY too ready to resort to firing their weapons. But that doesn’t mean the kid shot in this video didn’t behave stupidly.
I have myself been in this exact situation. Except I was sober and not stupid. Or at least I did not behave stupidly.
Had I reacted as the kid did, I’d almost certainly have been killed. In that case, the cops were looking for an escaped murderer, who since his escape had murdered several people, including a cop. Had I even twitched wrong, my brains would have been all over the magazine rack at the convenience store.
The escapee was killed a couple of days later in a shootout with cops. Or at least that’s what the cops said. This was long before dashcams, much less bodycams. It was common back then to shoot a guy and then produce a dropgun to justify the shooting. Or at least there was very little other than personal ethics to prevent a cop from doing so.