Maybe the problem as they see it isn’t so much that there is a black on black crime problem (if they didn’t have access to guns…;o)) but that the US police appear to withdraw their guns and fire them for the simplest of reasons. They are almost like a toddlers security blanket – something to grip on to when there is a scarey problem. Worldwide there will always be a lot more interest in a story with a video of a cop shooting a man in the back for running away from a traffic stop, complete with the false claim that he had made a grab for the officer’s weapon, which makes police all over the world look like they were in on the lie. Man shoots other man outside a bar happens all the time, but the cops being caught out and seen to be caught out is newsworthy.
In Britain armed police are supposed to yell ‘ARMED POLICE’ before using their weapons; obviously there will be occasions when the situation makes that impossible, and there have been times when no witnesses heard those words being called although all the police insist they heard it despite the fact that the requisite video either never caught the warning or was mysteriously either not working or the video itself ‘disappeared’. The man in Indianapolis coming out of his garage wouldn’t have seen the police and they were apparently behind cover anyway so there seems to be no reason not to shout a warning that the suspect was covered, any problem after the warning could allow the shooting to have happened without the bad PR for the cops. Under these circumstances the man would – hopefully – have heard the warning, lowered his gun to the ground and all would have been sorted out. Had he been a bad guy and levelled his weapon they could have shot him, or if he had lowered it in surrender they could have arrested him, but to just fire at someone because he had a gun and without verifying his intentions is, essentially, stupid and always going to lead to bad publicity for the police one way or another.
The boy ran; he believed himself to be in trouble and like all kids would do his best to get away. The cops hit him once and he surrendered – so what the hell was the point in firing at him after his hands were up? The door was locked, the boy was wounded, there were three officers and the only reason that makes any sense is that they were upset that he had made them run and one of them wanted revenge. Shooting whilst running might keep the boy from slowing down, for fear of being shot, but – in the eyes of the officers – also stop him from trying to fire back, yet not only was the boy given incentive not to stop but others who see this video and hear about the story will have second thoughts for fear that if they do stop they will still be gunned down: it could be said to be the same option as surrendering to Isis and getting shot (beheaded, burned alive, gunned down by kids, etc) or keep on running and maybe getting away.
Wasting my time telling you this, but the others who read it can make their own minds up so don’t forget that when slinging racial stereotypes around…
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