This. There is no reason to draw a gun on a person who appears slumped-over (as they themselves described) and possibly unconscious. Hell, if there is a gun on the scene in this situation the most likely outcome is honestly that the person is dead from a gunshot wound already. They are already prepped to shoot before anything else can be determined because they are operating from the perspective of “kill first ask questions later.”
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I see there was a significant purge of posts from yesterday, but I do want to say something about the now unstated point we ought to think more about the gun in his lap. I get why this point seems relevant to some people. Obviously if you have a gun, cops are more likely to shoot you.
But the purpose of emphasizing that detail as opposed to another detail of the story (e.g. how sunny it was that day) is to make the actions of the cops sound more reasonable. It would be saying there are two sides to this and we should look at both of them.
I looked up some numbers last night. In 2015 German police fired less than 100 bullets and killed 9 people. With 270,000 police on the police force, that means they killed a little more than 3 people per 100,000 police, compared to a homicide rate of 1.18 per 100,000.
In America police are estimated to kill about 1,100 people a year. There are about 690,000 police in America. That means that American police are killing at a rate of over 160 per 100,000 cops compared to a general homicide rate of 4.9 per 100,000.
German cops lamentably kill about three times as many people as randomly chosen people do (I assume this comes from running towards danger instead of away form it). American cops kill about thirty times as many people as randomly chosen people do.
American police are in a constant state of overreaction and escalation. To emphasize that he had a gun in his lap like it’s a very important detail that somehow counters, “American police kill an egregious number of people for no justifiable reason” is grossly misleading both-sides-ism.
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And that is precisely why the purge happened yesterday.
The Purge? I didn’t realize America had implemented that yet.
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well. in small batches on the BBS
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I took note of your word
…“YET”.
The click is ticking …
I’m not understanding this point…
If the cops already SAW A GUN
and therefore KNEW IT WAS THERE,
why didn’t they smash the window, get the gun, then try to rouse the supposed
unconscious individual?
By their "explanation’, they thought he was
sleeping/ unconscious.
Wouldn’t they disarm him as a first step?
Or is that too dangerous?
Instead, wait for the guy to wake up,
(not knowing what’s going on)
then blast him as soon as he moves?
This stinks…yet again.
america is weird
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I drive by Vallejo about once a week. I think the Guardian article left out a few things, but then, we were there.
The local papers say the guy fell asleep in his car in the drive-thru lane. 2 cops showed up. They apparently can tell there’s a gun on his lap. They called for backup. They yelled at him to put up his hands. He apparently jolted awake, his hands went out of sight… and the cops opened fire.
A new cell phone video from across the street was just made public.
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Waiting for the cops to highlight that there were drugs or alcohol in his system in a press release. Y’know, something that would warrant the death penalty.
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Welcome to BoingBoing internet person, thank you for that very productive and additive comment.
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Welcome to BoingBoing!
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Damn that was a lot of bullets.
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An execution. I kind of wish I hadn’t watched it now. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been to be shot to death while you’re still waking up.
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I totally recognize the legitimacy of people posting these videos. If the public is going to support this kind of killing then the least we owe the victim is to bear witness.
That said, it’s also a snuff film, and I’m not going to watch that.
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I haven’t seen it mentioned yet - Truckers and other over the road workers who often are forced to sleep at rest stops and parking lots often sleep with a gun visible to deter criminals.
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That’s what the trollish member was trying to achieve in a passive-aggressive manner yesterday.
He had no real point, other than “the victim had it coming.”
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as the victim’s brother said: they could have used a bullhorn from a safe distance. or, my thought: stand near the driver side rear window. from there, in a car, the person couldn’t easily turn around to shoot at you.
police often do not spend the time to deescalate. they want everything done as quick as possible. and they are taught to use “overwhelming force” ( their words, not mine ) to control the situation.
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while speculation is kind of besides the point - the real issue being police use of force - i can’t help but think the guy was probably reaching for his seat belt. 
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There’s this “centrist” narrative that people on the “left and the right” live in bubbles and ignore what the other is saying, and that we ought to expose ourselves to the other side to sharpen our thinking if nothing else.
But in reality the right-wing talking points are usually tedious and foolish, and “debating” them isn’t sharpening one’s reason, it’s just rolling the rock back up the same old hill. So I posted mostly to put a sign at the top of the hill saying we’d been there, lest anyone who reads the topic tomorrow doesn’t know.
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