If You Take An Officer's Taser In Fight With The Officer That You Started, You Deserve Getting Shot

We don't have the benefit of CSI "enhance" on command, but slowing the video down shows this to happen virtually simultaneously.

Either way, Rolfe freeing up his dominant hand in case he needs to draw his weapon on a fugitive who has assaulted him and taken a weapon is not exactly a wrong move IMO.

 

Was he even drunk driving? He was sleeping in his car. Just because he was drunk and sleeping in his car isn't proof he was drunk driving. They don't know what his alcohol level was before they found him sleeping.

 

I think drawing (or at the very least unclipping) your gun as a response to someone aiming a taser at you is perfectly reasonable.

Before what exactly? Rolfe does not attempt to unholster his firearm until Brooks begins aiming the taser at him.

 

The other officer said he did.

 

Someone (I believe Jayzers) pointed this out already but in many states merely being in a car drunk with your keys accessible constitutes drunk driving.

In this case he was in a drive-thru with his own vehicle running, so, yeah, drunk driving.

 

the other officer can't know that either

 

Yes it is a wrong move if you know you are not in imminent danger from that weapon.

If he felt his life was in danger why was he pursuing so closely?

Once Brooks shot the Taser Tolfe could have broke of contact if he felt threatened but he continued to chase and fire.

It's troubling that because Brooks assaulted the officers this is somehow an excuse if he wanted to actually harm the officer he could have fired the taser as soon as he got control of it.

If these were both civilians and brooks had a taser and Rolfe chased him and shot him it would still be murder, how the hell is the cop not held to a higher standard.

 

Neither officer can count?

Really WTF dude.

 

Right and maybe they’re trained more extensively on that than I’m thinking. My “expertise” only extends as far as how a defense lawyer might paint the scene lol. We have cops in our office daily so I’ll ask them about it soon. My hunch is the training is geared toward how to disarm someone if they’re close range and just took your gun...different ballgame when there’s distance and assessing how much of a threat the taser is to your life in this situation

 

He was sleeping in his car....


In the drive thru line. Which means he feel asleep while driving. I could understand if he pulled over in a actual parking spot and fell asleep. But nope, he literally passed out while in line and the entire drive thru line was frozen up because of him hence why the cops were called on him by the employees I believe.

 

So you think if you fired a gun and killed somebody because they fired a stun gun at you while running away you would be found innocent?

 

Not all of us are like Archer dude. Now I never handled tasers but majority of the time I wasn't keeping track of how many rounds I had left in my magazine right in the middle of an engagement.

These high stress environments, it's hard to keep track of these things. It's easy to keep track in hindsight.

 

If both where civilians how do you see this playing out in court.

Could a civilian say he felt in danger for his life when chasing somebody and they fired a Taser at them?

 

Yes. Because the running away part is irrelevant once they turn around and aim that weapon. And I can see a civilian being especially scared if they are armed with a firearm on them knowing that if they are locked up from a potential taser successfully connecting on them, their firearm is free to nab by the person about to tase you.

 

I disagree but it is probably better we just disagree. Because then we are arguing about which movement counts as pointing it or was part of running etc.

 

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/o...-brooks-case-and-lawyer-speak-out-85378117694

https://www.thedailybeast.com/atlan...rooks-was-friendly-and-his-death-is-a-tragedy

One of the two Atlanta cops involved in the fatal arrest of Rayshard Brooks called the Black man’s death a “tragedy” and said Brooks was “friendly” and “respectful” before the encounter turned deadly. Interviewed alongside his lawyer on MSNBC on Thursday, officer Devin Brosnan was asked if he had a message for Brooks’ family. “I think this is tragic event, and it’s a total tragedy that a man had to lose his life that night,” he said.

Brosnan is charged with aggravated assault and violation of oath because he didn’t render aid for two minutes after Brooks was shot and initially stood on the shoulder of the dying man. Former colleague Garrett Rolfe is charged murder for shooting Brooks in the back. “My initial encounter with [Brooks], I felt he was friendly, he was respectful, I was respectful to him and I felt like he was someone who potentially needed my help and I was really just there to see what I could do for him, to make sure he was safe.” Brosnan declined to say if he considered letting Brooks—who was found intoxicated and asleep in his car in a Wendy’s drive-thru—walk home.

Lawyer Don Samuel said Brosnan will cooperate with investigators by describing what happened on that night but the charges against him were “preposterous.” Brosnan, who was concussed when Brooks hit him with a Taser, hid behind a car when he first heard gunshots, Samuel said. He didn’t know Brooks had been shot and initially put his foot on Brooks’ arm “for seconds” to make sure he was not armed. He then ran to get his first aid kit and started CPR on Brooks in less than two minutes, Samuel said. “And he gets charged with failing to render aid when all these other police officers are just standing there,” he said.

 

This is 3 shots at most it's nothing like rounds from a gun.

If it was such a highly stressed situation was the officer chasing him and not going for cover?

If Brooks actually had a gun do you think Rolfe would have been chasing him so close?

You can't have it both ways either he thought his life was in danger from the Taser or not, if he knew the Taser was still loaded is irrelevant.

There was no need to fire the gun he could have just stopped chasing if he felt the situation was to dangerous.

 

Not an easy call to make in the moment.

Because that's his job?

I'm not sure that not instantly shooting the taser absolves Brooks of any reasonable assumption that he means anyone harm going forward. One of the reasons you don't fire a taser in CQC is that anyone touching the tased person will also be shocked, fyi. Additionally, if Brooks' taser had not been fired twice I believe that means it would still be armed/capable, no? That plays into the narrative that Brooks was still a threat.

 

I'll let people run away for fake 20 dollar bills.

The cops allowing someone to run away who was caught drunk driving and had enough of an irrational mindset to tackle armed cops and steal a weapon of theirs would not be an advisable action. This person needed to be detained.

He was a threat to the public.

 

A Taser is classified as a less lethal firearm in Georgia. Rolfe is not wrong to unholster his pistol.

Fine, Brooks had a loaded Taser that he fired on Rolfe.