The thing is, he may have actually remembered it just like he reported it. That is why an impartial observer such as a camera is so important.
Given his past incidents, one wonders if the whole police force got dash cameras or just him in particular.
Clearly youāve not yet heard of Truthful Tuesdays. There are some fed up folk living in SC who wouldnāt be amused by the reference.
Terribly cynical, and irresponsibly misleading, headline. But that is the difference between journalism and blogging.
The officer over-reacted, and his history of over-reacting strongly indicates he needs to find another line of work. The victim was also a bit of a doorknob for not informing the officer that his drivers license was inside the vehicle before reaching inside. Thatās not an excuse for the officerās over-reacting, and itās not intended as victim-blaming.
A few comments here are of the form, āVictim should have moved slower / told the cop what he was doing / whatever.ā
A police officer stopped someone at a public gas station because - from what I understand - he wasnāt wearing a seatbelt. The police officer then tells the man to get his licenseā¦ at gunpoint? Then when the man turns around the police officer shoots.
I agree that when a maniac is threatening you with a gun you should probably be very careful with your movements. But when the maniac shoots you, itās not exactly your fault.
Go to any other country in the world and find a police officer who is talking to someone about wearing their seatbelt and youāll find a police officer with a ticket-book in their hand, not a gun in their hand. Defense of this officerās actions, or attempts to suggest there is even the slightest sliver of blame on the guy who was shot are pure lunacy.
This is why ALL cops should wear button cameras and have dashboard cameras.
To be absolutely fair, from the video, it dosnāt seem like the officer starts with weapon in hand. My impression, especially given the time between when the driver turns and goes for his license and the officer starts firing is that he had to draw his weapon.
If anything, that makes it a bit worse though. For one, the expectation that we treat all cops, actively brandishing their weapon or not, the same way weād treat a toddler playing near the nuclear launch button hasnāt been the expectation, but, more and more, it seems thatās the only prudent call. But also, that means that this guy was screwed more or less from the moment he turned around. The time where he was going into his car, the officer is crossing the screen and drawing his weapon, and more or less fires as soon as he gets a bead on his target (given his accuracy, possibly BEFORE he does). There is no order to stop or do anything else, nor would there have been useful time to obey such an order, before he opens fire. And that isnāt on the individual cop, that goes down to the mentality and training and should be the responsibility, both moral and financial, of the department he serves in.
Iām so sick of this āif you think thereās a possibility of a weapon, fireā mentality. They have a duty to the people they serve to assume the risk of waiting those extra moments to determine the actual threat. If those moments increase the risk to the officer, well, thatās why itās called serving the public. Officer training that puts the safety of the officer above the safety of the public, both the individual he/she is directly dealing with, but also the people downrange of the weapon discharged, which this officer couldnāt possibly have had time to verify, is a dereliction of duty to the public they supposedly serve.
But perhaps Iām just showing my naĆÆvety in presuming these ā¦ people ā¦ are still public servants and bound by anything like duty.
Thatās the concept of traffic violation cameras. The only problem is a great many people are opposed to the idea of NOT being pulled over and getting a citation from a cop.
Not quite sock puppet.
The officer clearly needs to go down for this and may be unstable.
However, I canāt help remembering when I was a kid. It was common knowledge that the worst thing you could do on getting pulled over was to get out of the vehicle without being instructed to do so. Everybody knew that there was little chance of hiding the open containers or joints from a cop who had been stressed in such a way.
The idea was that cops get assaulted, killed and hurt more often that way. Therefore you had created a potential confrontation in the mind of the cop instead of possibly a workable discussion.
It really doesnāt matter who created situations where someone perceives a danger that does not exist. Those situations will continue to exist even if cops are perfect instruction-givers.
What we need is a societal understanding that fear is not a license to kill. I keep thinking some sort of interactive artwork that lets people see themselves as others fear them, so that they can see that having a fear is not a good reason to shoot someone.
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