Here is a link to the video:
http://gawker.com/u-of-cincinnati-cop-indicted-in-traffic-stop-shooting-1720875741
The shooting takes place at ~45 seconds in the linked video. Now, please tell me what possible justification the officer had for using deadly force.
Thanks
OK, saw the video. With sufficient sound, it makes more sense.
Cop & driver converse at length over whether the driver has a driver’s license. Apparently he didn’t, because they spent time discussing the matter instead of just handing it over as any driver with one would.
Cop tells driver to take off his seat belt.
Driver instead starts the car.
Now why would a driver, pulled over for a traffic violation, start his vehicle when the cop begins telling him to get out of the car (starting with “take off your seat belt”)? If you can imagine a good reason, tell me; I can’t.
Oh, and don’t forget the bottle of gin.
So driver’s actions are starting to add up:
- pulled over for an actionable (albeit trivial) vehicle violation (no front plate)
- aforementioned violation is the kind of thing a cop acts on to investigate suspicious activity (we’ll have to wait for the cop to elaborate on his reasoning for the stop)
- a bottle of gin is revealed in the front seat area and handed over. Could have merely been a purchased bottle taking it home, quite possible open container violation and/or DWI (cop has to get driver out of car to evaluate) which would explain the aforementioned investigation of suspicious driving
- fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, driver starts vehicle - presumably to escape - when told to “take off your seat belt” implying next command of “get out of the vehicle”
So a very reasonable (but not complete/guaranteed) scenario is the friendly “Terry stop” (or some such) was about to turn into probable jail time for the driver.
I am NOT _justifying_ what the cop did next, but examining the objective evidence and concluding this was NOT a case of “blew him away for absolutely no reason”.
Driver, after showing an escalating list of probable crimes unto felonies, performed a furtive movement - and the cop instinctively [over-]reacted.
Tensions for both were obviously rising very high, and the fear of being dragged was a distinct possibility.
Shooting the driver was likely not warranted. If it was, the evidence occurred between a very few frames of video, and may not have been visible/audible.
Thing is, given the objective evidence we see so far, it’s quite clear that it’s not just “cop just up and shot the guy for no reason”.
The cop will, AFAIK at this point, be easily convicted of manslaughter.
So far I don’t see justification of using deadly force.
But the situation came d@mn close to it, close enough I can understand (but not approve of) it.
It’s hard to see...the officer could have thought the driver was reaching for something. Driver should have just taken off the seat belt and removed himself from the car. You are not going to win if you sit and just ask the officer why, why, why.