Timex
2790
The cop was already putting himself in danger by chasing an armed suspect… but I do not think that it’s reasonable to require that cops allow people to face them with drawn firearms like this.
It’s not a movie where you will have a tense standoff for the cameras. Once someone has a gun in their hand, and it’s pointing in your direction, you can die instantly. I don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to require our police officers to do.
So how does one surrender to a cop if putting your hands up is justification for being shot?
More often than not it seems to be pretty reasonable and work out with no-one dying - when white dudes have the gun.
Timex
2793
I’ll have to watch the other video footage they found, because I did not see a situation where the kid was clearly putting his hands up in a case where that would have been recognized. I was under the impression that he was shot immediately while turning around, and when he started that turn, he still had a gun in his hand.
As I said before, you’d throw the gun away before turning around. Probably just stop, throw the gun away, and not turn around at all.
And I realize that we’re talking about a stupid kid here, so he’s not thinking things through clearly anyway. I understand that thinking things through to the best course of action probably wasn’t in the cards.
He threw the gun away, and turned around with his hands up and no gun!
To be fair, how does the policeman know that his person hasn’t practiced shooting behind his back? I mean who knows, he could have. He could be an expert marksman. Best to shoot first and ask questions later. Should’ve shot him before he even turned around. No use taking a risk.
Timex
2796
How much time passed in this sequence of events that you laid out here?
From watching TV, I’d say stopping, hands up with your back to the cop, let the gun visibly drop from that position so the cop knows where it is at.
All this is, of course, really, really tough in a high stress situation. A difficult situation, all the way around. Chasing after an armed suspect in the dark is really tough. It’s easy to arm chair quarterback the cop, but I do think that this meets the “reasonably in fear for his life” test, if that’s the standard for use of deadly force by the cop. Whether that should be the standard for used of armed force is another matter, but it’s tough.
This is the civilian office of police accountability website, the first video is the shooting officer it also links to all the other videos they have. Again he did have a gun in his hand and in the process of turning to give up he tosses it and is unarmed as he turns with his hands going up. It is split second and again they train for this. It’s even a joke in movies when they show target practice. And again Chicago is rough, working at a south side hospital, this stuff happens all too often but again being a criminal does not mean an automatic death sentence.
COPA
Timex
2799
So, I just checked again. In the body cam, this is what you see.
In the video IMMEDIATELY prior to the kid getting shot, he has a gun in his hand, it then passes behind his body, and then his hand comes up empty. But, when you see the video, you see his hand coming up empty is literally ONE frame, which is simultaneous with him getting shot.
Saying, “Well look, he obviously has his hands up!” is working with the benefit of you watching a video with no real danger to yourself.
The period of time between the gun being behind the kid as he turns, and him getting shot, is a single frame. It’s hundredths of a second.
For reference, you can watch the video take place here, and the part in question is slowed down.
I mean, sure, you can freeze that one frame, and show it to people and say, “Look, his hands were up!” but in the actual video, it’s a single frame. And in the real world, we aren’t given the chance to pause things on each frame and analyze them when making our actions.
First you need to make sure mommy and daddy were of the right color.
KevinC
2801
The cops knew he had a gun. So if this is an excuse to shoot the kid I go back to my original question: why not just shoot him in the back, then? The kid was running, the cop issued an order, and the kid complied and was killed. So if compliance is going to result in the cop being in danger, why not just execute the kid immediately?
Nesrie
2802
This is just a friendly reminder that is someone’s thirteen year old child in that video, killed by a cop. I mean we can skirt around that fact so others can play forensic scientists , but that’s someone’s baby, and he’s gone forever.
I have a really strong aversion to that aspect of this thread, not gonna lie.
Timex
2804
I already answered this, right?
The cop isn’t shooting him for non-compliance.
The cop shot him because the kid turned on him, and the cop believed he was still armed.
And this belief is extremely reasonable, as we see in the video that the kid was definitely armed hundredths of a second prior to him getting shot, as he turned to face the cop.
I mean, I guess you’re saying, “The cop said show me your hands”, so that means he wanted the kid to turn around… but the reality is, you can clearly see in the video that as the kid starts to turn, he still has the gun in his hand.
The “correct” move is to drop the gun, in a way that makes it obvious you don’t have it any more. I know that this is just more mondaymorning quarterbacking, and that the kid was just as pumped full of adrenaline as the cop, also he’s a dumbass kid.
But that’s the answer.
The thing is, while tragic, a 13 year old kid can just as easily kill you with a gun as an adult can.
KevinC
2805
He’s a thirteen year old not trained for this situation. The cop is a grown ass trained adult whose job it is to handle situations like this without killing children, if possible. Damn, man.
Nesrie
2806
I don’t know how many kids you are acquainted with, but I know zero 13 year old boys I would expect to behave in the exact same logical manner as a grown man who was trained.
This is a tragedy. That family devastated. I don’t see any consideration for that here. You might as well be talking about fully grown man.
That cop killed a baby, and maybe, maybe that’s still important. This does not happen in every other country.
I don’t care. We shouldn’t care. If they’re not capable of making that decision correctly the vast majority of the time then they should change tactics.
This is what changed the police handling of gun crime in the UK. It used to be that uniformed officers with some firearms training were issued weapons when there was a crime in progress that might require an armed response. After a series of messed up police shootings which were essentially the result of poor tactics putting officers in dangerous positions where they had no time to think, the police forces made changes. So almost all armed response these days is handled by specialist armed patrols who have a lot of tactical training as well as firearms training. Despite the stringent gun laws there, there are still several thousand gun crimes a year. But the number of suspects shot by police is in the low single figures.
I’m not arguing that the individual officer in question should be crucified, and describing the incident as a murder is objectively wrong. Many or most of the failures were systemic; I’d guess at poor training, bad department culture, racist assumptions built into the response to crimes, and poor tactics. But we’ll never address the systemic or cultural issues if there are always people willing to pipe up with “it was a split-second decision” or “he feared for his life” defences. And fundamentally, that officer should still be held responsible for his own actions. If he’s chasing an armed suspect in the dark and is so concerned about his own safety that the suspect has no way of surrendering, and will still be shot even if he obeys instructions, then maybe the solution is to stop chasing.
None of these are true. He clearly raised his hands, and they were empty. The cop shot him while he was doing that, after his hands were well above his shoulders.
Timex
2810
Absolutely, this is why I said, “he’s a dumbass kid”.
Not that he was ESPECIALLY dumbass, but rather that I think we are all dumbasses when we’re 13.
Nah, the cop didn’t kill a baby. The cop killed someone who turned on him with a loaded firearm.
Like I said, I can appreciate how tragic it is for the family, but I can also appreciate the situation that cop was put in. It wasn’t as easy for him as it is for us watching a slow mo video, or single frames of it.
And unlike some piece of shit like Chauvin, that cop immediately jumped on that kid and started trying to keep him alive, bandaging his wound and doing everything you’d expect as a first responder. He didn’t want that kid to die.
