That was tragic. At one point I was thinking “What the hell kid, stop moving!” when he ignored directions. The pulling his hand out and getting shot was still bullshit, though.
What’s the source of your info by the way? Are you going solely off the Atlanta Black Star article or is there something else?
I guess all those things carry the death penalty.
But, it’s always good to see the “no angel” trotted out to excuse literally anything police do to black guys.
I’d appreciate it if you don’t lump me into that category - I try to put myself in their shoes and without more facts, I’m not going to jump on the public lynch wagon. Long chase, he’s broken into two houses, not sure if he’s armed or not, kids probably screaming. Hell if the home owner had shot him there probably wouldn’t even be a story.
No one is thinking straight in that situation - the robber, the cops, they are all adrenaline fueled at that point.
I looked at the original story, saw it was in Salt Lake, found a Salt Lake newspaper & tried to look at it from their perspective. What I was pointing out is this was an inaccurate, disingenuous tweet specifically targeted to forming a lynch mob.
It’s not like the police are trying to hide it - they released the body cam footage. And I admit I didn’t watch it, so if there is something there you think puts blame on the police, let’s hear your perspective.
Wait a minute. There are professionals in this group. If they can’t think straight in these situations, they don’t belong in the job.
Let’s keep one thing clear about lynching: when the police start swinging from trees because the locals put them there, it’s a fair comparison. Otherwise what we’re talking about is whether or not there was anything that young man could do, at that very moment, to avoid getting shot if following directions was not it. Because despite what happened ahead of the event, the police are not judge, jury and executioners, and was mentioned above, none of what you said is a capital offense anyway.
This.
The officers told Smith to show his hands 15 times in 24 seconds, Jacobs said on Tuesday.
From the link posted above:
Video shows Smith move from one part of the garage to where he was behind a car.
Smith then put up his left hand.
“Get your hand out of your pocket,” officers shout.
One of the officers was inching around the car, toward Smith, who raised his right elbow while pulling his hand out of his pocket.
I don’t know what a hand coming out of a pocket is supposed to look like - and it sounds like the police didn’t like what they saw. I’m not in situations and not trained to recognize when they are pulling a weapon out of a pocket. It reminded me of when Roy Finicum was shot by the FBI in Oregon when he was trying to yank out his pistol - I don’t recall a lot of people here defending Roy and saying the police should have waited.
When do you know when someone is going to pull out a gun, a screwdriver or their hand? You’re judging the police that they should have known. I am saying that there is not enough information here - only the story we’ve read.
Did you think Roy Finicum should have been shot Nesrie?
I took the dive and watched, but I want to get one thing out of the way: I don’t think anyone here is saying the person deserved to be shot. Tman is saying he can understand how it happened.
Kid says there’s a man in the house. Cop asks if he knows who it is. Kid’s face is blurred, but obviously somehow implied no. He said he’s in the garage. Cops are already loudly announcing their identity.
So no mention of a weapon, but a man broke into a home and ran to an attached garage. Seems like he could be dangerous and might be trying to steal a car to escape (side note; an old fashioned way of stealing a car included use of a drill and a screwdriver). I can understand drawing guns, at least.
Cops rush into the garage with guns drawn while yelling, “Show me your hands, let me see your hands,” over and over.
If I was on the receiving end, I don’t think I could discern what they were saying very well. But I’d certainly know the gig was up.
The man was crouched down, perhaps poorly hiding behind some stuff in the garage or stashing incriminating evidence. He slowly, deliberately came out and then inexplicably kept walking several steps with his arms down at his side while still being shouted at to show his hands.
Again, with all the noise and adrenaline make blood pound through my ears, understanding is going to be difficult. That said, at this point with cops clearly pointing guns at you it’s a no-brainer.
He finally stops walking and raises ONE hand; the hand closest to the nearest cop. The other, his right, stays down at his side and hidden from view on the far side of a parked vehicle. The cops keep yelling at him to show them his hands and get his hand out of his pocket. One cop is up high at the top of a short flight of stairs down to the garage floor, another is a bit down the stairs, and a third has worked their way around to the back corner of the car by the garage door.
Frankly, I don’t know WTF this man was thinking by just holding up one hand. But to everyone’s point, he wasn’t the professional here. He wasn’t the one who most clearly understood the danger he was in by not showing both hands. The cops pretty clearly were worried there was a weapon he was hiding.
The man then seemed be working his right arm out of view, shoving down a bit and then fairly quickly (actually only normal speed, just fast compared to how slow he was doing everything else) pulled his right elbow back while starting to bring his right hand up, briefly pulling up the side of his sweatshirt.
This is when the cop fires three times. From that vantage, if I was in the cop’s shoes, I could have been imagining the worst: he’s got a gun or a knife and is about to try and take the closest cop captive or even kill them.
But this is where the logic seems to break down a bit for me. That closest cop also has their gun drawn. So does another cop. There’s no way such a thing will happen unless everyone freezes. And still, no weapon has been seen. No indication the man was armed. Just weird behavior. I think his right hand was only in view for the tiniest fraction of a second, right before he was killed. You know, finally doing what they were yelling at him to do.
Well, Roy was known to be armed and went for a gun, that he had.
This kid was following instructions and got shot and didn’t have anything.
But totally the same thing.
Also all black people have to be Daredevil, the man without fear, but cops can be Courage the Cowardly Dog and shoot anyone who looks at them sideways while they point guns at them. After all that kid might actually be Daredevil and able to take down 3 armed men with guns pointed at him.
That was an armed militia advertising they were armed and trying to get into a confrontation with the Feds. They had every reason to believe he had a gun on him because… he kept saying he did.
But again, the cops are professionals. You lumped in the cops with the robbers and everyone else around… the cops are supposed to be different, they’re trained and paid to do this work. If they can’t handle adrenaline, go find another job.
He literally said they’d have to shoot him. And they still tried to subdue him only finally shooting him when he went for his gun.
Is it possible to go a week where the police don’t do something that is outrageous?
Well, there’s like 800-900k police offers in the U.S., so there’s plenty of opportunity for problems on any given day.
There are many countries on this planet where the cops don’t kill someone every day for absolutely no good reason. i think we can set the bar pretty high for the armed civilian force designed not as judge jury and executioner but… to protect us.
I am going to assume since the guy was in the shower, he not only didn’t have a gun, he didn’t have a wallet or a cellphone on his person, you know the other favorite scapegoats for sudden attacks from the police.
It would be nice if, like everyone else in the country, they were ever held accountable for the things they do.
They have dangerous jobs, though, and are left in situations where they can easily make mistakes. It’s the same reason we give carte blanche for surgeons to kill patients due to negligence and soldiers wiping out entire towns because they thought someone might be reaching for an AK-47!
Or wait, no we don’t.
Perhaps it’s time foreign states start issuing travel advisories about the US police force and interacting with them. Might increase awareness and save some lives.