Well, if a concealed weapon is not concealed and is seen, there are actually rules about CCW not granting you the right to âopen carryâ in areas that specifically prohibit it. Negligent CCW holders get busted for this all the time.
If this area is not a legal open carry area, then the police definitely do have âReasonable suspicionâ and âprobable causeâ to investigate the reported gun.
If it is an open carry area (and bless my lazy heart, Iâm too fucked tonight to google it), then youâre entirely correct that the police have no right to investigate the sighting of a gun openly carried, unless the carrier is brandishing it or otherwise violating the law.
This was a guy that the police thought had a weapon, who chose to run away, and may become a danger to others. I donât know about you all, but if a cop confronts me with my âplayâ weapon, I would actually stop instead of making it worse. Makes sense, doesnât it?
Unless you panic. When the fight-or-flight hardwired response goes from zero to eleven, all the âmaking senseâ goes down the drain.
Why does it make sense? How do you know how youâd react in such a situation? Why do you think a guy who was unarmed and who hadnât done anything wrong ran? He did run. Why do you think he did? Have you ever considered it from his point of view, rather than your own cushy point of view from behind your computer or mobile screen?
I love the creative journalism of this site.
Knowing that the readership is into sci-fi and comics they describe the subject as a cosplayer. I viewed the video and the subject does not appear to be in costume.
Here, let me try my hand at this:
Background: John Wayne Gacy ate fried chicken.
Headline: âKFC Customer Executed by Republicansâ
This is called priming, by the way.
Iâm reminded of the story of the woman who was arrested for âprotesting drone strikesâ As if to imply that she was arrested for protesting.
PS. I want to add the headline as it appears as of this writing: âNew video emerges of black cosplayer running for his life from cops who then shot and killed himâ
So, weâre going to speculate about what happened. Sounds fun. Iâll play along.
He was forced to run away because the police provided no instruction and, instead, repeatably shouted âIâm going to kill you!â
Prove Iâm wrong.
Make certain you only carry your 2.5 foot fake sword when you are properly escorted by a white person and you will never have to worry about the police confronting you. I suspect a white little old lady will work best.
âMay become a dangerâ? Based on that logic every single person on this planet will have to be gunned down.
No.
âMight endanger someone laterâ is not legal justification for lethal force. The only way the police would be justified in using lethal force is if he was posing an immediate deadly threat.
Which is of course what the cops claimed he did do, until the new video evidence showed their story was a load of crap because he was running away rather than charging them as previously claimed.
Does a subject who brandishes a deadly weapon in a shopping center qualify as an âimmediate deadly threatâ?
Clearly he posed far less of a threat than the people chasing him.
Also, again: open carry state. White people can walk around shopping centers in Utah carrying semi-automatic rifles.
Immaterial.
If a white( how does that matter? ) person, upon encountering the police, flees, and then when trapped brandishes his open carry weapon⌠yes, police should use force to stop this person.
There is another possibility. A rather obvious possibility. I wonder what your failure to include it in your list says about you.
Red shirt. Check. Black pants. Check. Short sword. Check. Long black hair. Check. Cocky stride. Check.
Oh, now I get it. You believe the officers gunned him down because his costume was not good enough. Without those sandals it just isnât Mugen.
If, heaven forbid, one of your family was injured or killed would you accept the explanation from the police that their hands were tied because the suspect was a cosplayer?
The question is irrelevant. There is no point in the video when the 2.5 foot fake sword was brandished. If you have any doubts, watch the person causally walking very close behind him starting at 0:16.
The video did not show the shooting, you and I do not get to know what happened at the time of the shooting.
The testimony of the police officers( conviently left out of the article ) states otherwise.
Also, If I swing a sword at you are you going to pause to make sure the sword is real?
Mildly irrelevant. Because he didnât attack a certain person he is no danger to anyone else?
His skin color matters because [young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than young white men.][1] This is an uncomfortable fact for people who wish to believe we live in a colorblind society, and it calls for extra scrutiny when examining the officersâ judgement in this case.
We have only the world of the police that he threatened them after they chased him. (And why did they confront him in the first place if he didnât break any laws?) I, for one, am not ready to accept that word at face value since theyâve already had to change their account of what happened after the video evidence contradicted their original story.
[1]: http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/10/young_black_men_21_times_more_likely_to_be_shot_dead_by_police_than_whites.html
Oh dear. A surprisingly weak straw man. The wind will blow it over in good time.
If weâre bringing grieving family members into this discussion then how about considering the feelings of the completely non-hypothetical family who actually lost a son in this non-hypothetical incident.
Missing from the debate: Young black men are MUCH ( orders of magnitude )more likely to be killed by another young black man than a police officer( of any color ).
OK, now, describe to me how this applies to this case.
Are you suggesting that two white cops were hanging out at the Top Stop convenience store prowling for a black guy with a sword to kill⌠just for the hell of it?
Oh dear, another person who does not understand what a strawman argument is.
