Sure, but he wasn't attacking the cops.....and honestly I didn't see him move on the video before they shot him. Unless another angle comes out that shows him moving around going for a gun these cops are in DEEP trouble.
If the facts on this change, I'll change my mind as I did with Mike Brown...but this is (or seems now) as clear as day man. How did he do things the hard way? He was pinned to the ground by two men and they shot him according to the store owner, 4-5 times. That's execution. The guy wasn't a clean character, obviously. He's selling CDs on the street. at 37 years old. If you tell me a 37 year old is selling CDs on the street it's probably safe to assume he's made some dumb life decisions. I'll give you that, he has a criminal history, but this isn't how the law works or supposed to work. We can't have cops flying around the place killing people for their criminal history. Yes the officers have a right to defend their lives but this man has a right to fair trial (and life) as long as he's not resisting. Even if he was resisting they clearly have him in a spot where he can't resist any more. The number of shots also doesn't help.
Good guy or bad guy is irrelevant. Cops should not be judge and executioners. But they have been given guidance and authority that makes them think they are.
Here's the store front. How was the store owner able to see what he was doing? Was he the guy's chaperone? Spoiler
To play devil's advocate here, there is evidence that he resisted at least at first, I mean, the cops used a taser on him and he still wouldn't go down. That's how the video starts. So yeah, there's at least some evidence that he was doing things "the hard way".....still no excuse to shoot him unless he really was going for a gun and so far there's no evidence of that other than the cops saying it.
Is this a joke? Video shows him being restrained on the right side of the yellow striped line. Clearly a direct line of sight from the door which have windows. What a weird argument to make.
It's a ****ing sick exercise in mental gymnastics. Embrace the anonymity of the board and say what you really feel instead of trying to justify this by analyzing the sight lines from a convenience store's outdated Bing maps image.
Please, show me where in any article it says he threatened the individual within a line of sight of the store owner inside the store, or stfu.
Louisiana cops are some of the most corrupt of all, so I've heard. Stems from New Orleans. The cops there are notoriously shady.
Saw your earlier post responding to my "no history of violence" and wanted to clarify that what I meant is that according to the store owner he had never had any violence at the store. There had never been a confrontation that he had seen. To respond to your post here... Again, according to the store owner, the guy took offense to being challenged by police and may have gotten hostile at being restrained which led to him being thrown against a car. That is certainly a poor decision on his part, but I struggle with this mindset that people have that says (not saying you said this) if you resist you deserve to get shot. Being in agitated state is something that can happen if you feel like you are being wrongly harassed. You should control your temper for sure and if you don't there are consequences, but we shouldn't be ok with one of those consequences being death unless your temper tantrum was actually posing a danger to the life of the cop. Just getting mad and thrashing around should not be enough for us to say "Oh well, got what you deserved!"
In fairness though, there's good reason for the store owner to come out and say glowing things about the deceased, in the past situations like this have led to stores being vandalized and looted so it would make sense if he was trying to get out ahead of that.
What's even funnier is that the people who say this stuff tend to have this cognitive dissonance/compartmentalization going on in their head where on the one hand they are scared-to-death of the nanny state and picture themselves as freedom fighters. Yet when the police bust a cap in a guy for resisting, meh, his own damn fault, amirite?
Yeah but an issue is that if you're a big guy and you resist cops, you're going down hard. That's just the way it is. If you resist cops and you have a gun on you, there's a good chance you get shot right or wrong. I'm leaning towards this being an unjustifiable murder, but that doesn't change the fact that if you are a big guy and you are armed, you can't give cops any trouble without consequences.....but those consequences shouldn't be them shooting you while you are laying on the ground not moving. If another video surfaces that shows him moving his arms around in the direction of his pockets, that'll change everything but so far we don't have that evidence.
Hey look a reasonable and rational opinion. Get out of here. You don't belong in the D&D. I don't know what to believe on this one but right now these officers don't look so great to me. I also flipped my opinion on Michael Brown and a few others. With so many people having ridiculously polarized opinions (gotta stick up for your team on EVERYTHING) and most media sources having an agenda (one way or another) it is hard to navigate towards the truth.
Wouldn't his statements also put him at risk alienating the local police force, with possible harassment from police or slower response to emergency calls? It's not exactly a win/win for the store owner to side with the "thug" either.
Yeah possibly, but the larger and more immediate threat is "protesters" looting and destroying his store. Now I'm not saying that's for sure what happened because there's no evidence of it, but it would make sense. Maybe this guy and the store owners really were buddies, it could happen.
This is ridiculous and unfortunately is becoming the norm. You cannot tell me that these well trained cops were fearing their lives at the hands of this man. He wasn't "Selling CDs" he was allegedly waving a gun around, that's what the 911 call said. Yet when the cops showed up he wasn't doing that and they literally held him down and shot him. Transcript after they pin him to the ground: Officer 1: He's got a gun! Gun! Officer 2: (takes out his firearm and points it at suspect's head) Hands off! (?) You ****ing move and I swear to God. Officer 1: He's going for the gun! Officer 2: Shoots suspect twice. I usually defend cops because it is a tireless profession but not in this case.
Yes, we really don't know what happened before that. LIke I said, I don't think the cops just were looking for some random guy to shoot. They were called for a reason and when you go to convenience stores and see people hanging around them it tends to make people uncomfortable. The fact that the store owner allows this likely means he knows the man. With all that said, the video is pretty damning. Too bad the officers 'Lost' their body cams because if they were in the right here we'll likely never know.
I have no problem with them "going down hard" in the sense that if you are physically resisting detainment a cop has the right to get you the ground and secure. If your resistance means you end up thrown down on the ground and a knee in your back, again, that's a consequence of your temper tantrum. However, at that point even having a gun is not cause for the cops to shoot you. We are in agreement. New evidence would have to be pretty damning though for me to believe a man on the ground restrained posed any threat. Even his arm moving in the direction of a gun wouldn't be enough as a cop could easily have stopped his arm. I'm thinking a cop panicked when he heard "Gun!" and shot him.
Agreed with that last part, those body cams are likely the only thing that could save these cops if for whatever reason they were telling the truth. Without further evidence, I'd vote to convict them of some kind of charges possibly even murder for the triggerman.
