The account you quoted describes the police pulling out their guns before he got into the car at all. Evading arrest is not a capital offense and they don't mention that he had a weapon or that they believe he intended to harm anyone, so it's hard to see how pulling their weapons is justified.
It doesn't make sense to use the fact that he hit some stuff while fleeing from the men with guns to justify drawing the guns. In fact, provoking panicked flight seems like a pretty foreseeable outcome of drawing a gun on someone. If I had a gun drawn on me I might very well flee in a panic, potentially hitting cars with mine. They drew the guns before he did any of that and it's reasonable to think them drawing them made those outcomes more likely.
Edit: Here are the NJ deadly use of force standards [1]. My reading of the standards would not allow the use of deadly force in this situation. The rules also state that officers should only unholster their weapons when "circumstances create a reasonable belief that display of a firearm as an element of constructive authority helps establish or maintain control in a potentially dangerous situation." It's hard to see what was "potentially dangerous" in this situation before the guns were drawn.
I would imagine that guns are for those immediately life threatening emergency situations where there really is no other option. If an officer could make it back to his car, grab his gun, bring it back again and face the suspect, my guess is that would not qualify as the sort of immediately life threatening circumstance that warranted the use of deadly force
These are attacks on people in custody. How is that remotely relevant? None of these people had the opportunity to open carry a gun when those attacks happened.
Regardless, I am not saying he should not be allowed to do it. It's not boot-licking. I am wondering, practically, about the motivation.
Drawing a gun in a police station is a death warrant. Even looking like you're going to pull it could get you shot or arrested.
I don't normally go around wearing something on my belt that could get me killed if I move my hand near it. I would only do so for a very good reason.
So I'm looking for a better reason than "because I can". I don't see one in your response.
>>When a man being chased by police stops his car, gets out, takes cover behind the door and starts pointing something that looks remarkably like a gun at police, he should be shot.
How often does this happen?
A much more common occurrence is when someone sees a suspicious-looking dude walking down the street, calls the cops and says "I think he is armed!" and the cops arrive and shoot him without first verifying if he's actually armed with a real weapon.
Continuing to chase and shooting RB in the back contradicts the claim of self defense. At any time, the officer could have stopped the immediate chase and ended the confrontation. This would have been the prudent thing to do, given that they had his ID (and his car), and the two officers hadn't recovered from being overwhelmed.
This is a good example of why responding officers shouldn't carry firearms or even tasers on their person - they're too quick to keep escalating like they see on TV. If a suspect violently escapes arrest, then send in a larger armed crew with a deliberate plan.
re your addition: Seems like a decision that enables bad policing. Nothing about the situation makes it seem like RB was actually a danger to the public, but the police will push that justification all day long to legitimize what was essentially a personal ego escalation.
I think the biggest problem is with the way he was approached in the first place.
Most places with unarmed police, more officers would have been sent, and the first step would have been to tell passers by to step away, while officers would have kept their distance from the suspect.
Once he is attacking the first officer I agree the shot was probably justified, but that police officer should not have approached someone who was wielding a weapon that way in the first place.
A deadly weapon is only deadly if you allow officers to get into range without adequate protection.
I think this is a large part of the problem with weapons use for US police: They have a lethal weapon as easy backup, so they're taking risks that would be downright stupid and against every instruction for someone who has to go back to their car to unlock a sealed box to get at their firearm, or call for backup from a specialist firearms squad (depending on country).
Having your weapon drawn right from the get go is not a good thing. It tends to make calm people nervous. As far as getting out of the vehicle most police don't like surprises so if things go step by step according to the person with the gun things go much better.
If you stay in the car you have a much easier time dealing with a person who can't easily get into your personal space and limiting the options you have to protect your self.
The only thing the man could've pulled was a pistol from his waistband. The police were across the streets behind cars already aiming guns at the guy. They should be trained to wait until the person actually raises the pistol to fire before discharging. At that distance and with the cover they had I don't see how the guy could fire a shot and hit a cop before they could. I don't see how anyone can argue the cop was in any danger even if the guy had a pistol. Unfortunately, the cop only has to say he felt threatened and he thought the guy had a gun and he'll get off on any charges.
Drawing a firearm as a deterrent can get you arrested for brandishing. If you wouldn't have been justified in shooting, you wouldn't be justified in drawing.
Not sure if that's "negligence" on the part of the officer. Non-facetiously, I'd expect that police officers are trained to draw their weapons on people who absolutely will not comply with police orders / commands. I believe we've stopped using "reasonable man" standards for police officers a long time ago, so it's not relevant what a reasonable person would believe was egregiously negligent.
Idiocy on the part of the officer, perhaps. Negligence on the part of the department training, perhaps. But I do believe it's customary and normal for police to draw weapons on non-compliant citizens, regardless of threat level.
I see people making similar arguments quite a bit. In this case it's important for everyone to consider that the instruction, “stay away from the gun" does not mean:
"do not move", "do not look for your license", "keep your hands were I can see them", etc. Philando likely was complying with the instruction he had been given, the officer unfortunately wanted him to do something else.
Its all cops, we had guns pulled on us when our car matched a stolen car. Pulling a gun out should be last resort. Unless you intend to kill the someone, guns shouldn't be pulled out. Accidents happen as we seen in SF when guns are pulled out.
Risk mitigation seems to favor police officers even though they picked their occupation with the known risks. An innocent person didn't chose to have a gun pointed at them in order for the officer mitigate risk to themselves.
I was under the impression you don't point guns at someone unless you're ready to fire, so I'd assume that if I had made any sudden movements it could have been fatal.
Was this hyperbole or honesty? Drawing a firearm is a deterrent and is employed in order to prevent things to escalating to a point where an officer has to fire.
Clearly the cop doesn't have self-defense as his top priority, or he wouldn't be in that situation at all. He'd make sure he was somewhere else when the possibility of violence manifested itself. Like, say, I would.
Police officers shouldn't be shooting people on the off chance that a suspicious bulge might be a gun, but it seems pretty unreasonable to expect police officers to put their self-defense as the very lowest priority and wait until bullets actually come out of a gun-like-object being pointed at them before shooting.
Yep, definitely the important details are not present in this picture. However, firing even one shot at the police who's trying to arrest you justifies use of whatever force necessary to subdue the attacker.
The guy was holed up with a rifle and had just been using it to kill people. He was refusing to surrender. Why would the police think that no one was in imminent danger? At any moment he could have started firing at police again. And granted it was unlikely they would be hit before killing him, but should they have to take that risk? Most people would answer no, the police shouldn't have to take that risk.
>He made the decision to draw his gun in the first place already knowing
Which is different from the gun being drawn. You can clearly see the officer pass his tazer from his right to left hand and then reach for his gun prior to the tazer shot.
>And regardless, it's not like the moment that Brooks fired the Taser was the first opportunity the officer had to calculate how many shots it had left.
Having a second potentially valid argument doesn't change the accuracy of the one made.
It's not clear at all that he posed a non-imminent threat. He had a weapon, had just been using it to kill people, and at any moment could have started trying to kill people again. The cops shouldn't have to risk their lives in this situation.
It doesn't make sense to use the fact that he hit some stuff while fleeing from the men with guns to justify drawing the guns. In fact, provoking panicked flight seems like a pretty foreseeable outcome of drawing a gun on someone. If I had a gun drawn on me I might very well flee in a panic, potentially hitting cars with mine. They drew the guns before he did any of that and it's reasonable to think them drawing them made those outcomes more likely.
Edit: Here are the NJ deadly use of force standards [1]. My reading of the standards would not allow the use of deadly force in this situation. The rules also state that officers should only unholster their weapons when "circumstances create a reasonable belief that display of a firearm as an element of constructive authority helps establish or maintain control in a potentially dangerous situation." It's hard to see what was "potentially dangerous" in this situation before the guns were drawn.
[1] https://www.nj.gov/oag/dcj/agguide/useofforce2001.pdf
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