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

Sorry turned off the sarcasm button lol

 

This is not how the law works. A fleeing suspect can not be shot unless the officer fears for his life. Given the suspect was running to escape arrest for a drunk driving charge they could have just let him flee and caught up with him at his home resident - they had his car after all. There was no need to shoot him three times when they knew he only had a taser.

 

Not when there are other cops near by the and the suspect is running the opposite way, intoxicated. If you look at the video, he wasn't going to hit anything he was aiming at.

1. There is zero chance he would hit the cop.
2. Even if he did hit the cop and managed to incapacitate him there is zero chance he could have approached the cop, and grabbed the cop's fire arm while there were other officers present and able to prevent him.
3. His intention was to get away, not to kill. I'm very comfortable with that assertion watching the video. If a cop has had proper training they should be even more certain of his intent.

The police department failed the officer in giving him appropriate and sufficient training. The officer needlessly shot a victim who was not armed with a lethal weapon.

 

We've seen what happens in multiple cases when black suspects or detainees follow all of the instructions. They are still killed by the police. We don't know if that would have happened in this case or not, but it is reasonable for him to have a fear that it would.

 

Can you give statistics on how many people are killed by police? Usually when i see these videos most of them have the same problem of resisting arrest and escalating the issue.

 

I do not know. I know that we saw it happen to Floyd. It happened to Castile and any other number of instances.

The problem is that we shouldn't be arguing that because that is a separate issue. Yes, he resisted police. That doesn't mean he should be shot. The officer was wrong to shoot him despite him resisting arrest.

It is a problem when we say, well if he hadn't have made a bad choice the cop wouldn't have made a choice, and forgive the officer for making his bad choice.

The officer was supposed to be a trained individual give authority and held to a higher standard than a drunk civilian who may be in fear for his life.

It is possible that he would not have been killed if he hadn't resisted and followed directions. But he didn't do that. Even though this civilian made a mistake, it is wrong to excuse the officer for the mistake that he made.

 

Clint Eastwood doesn't play that.


People forget about Clint Eastwood in the movie dirty Harry.

 

From what I've seen so far I'm not going to jump to a conclusion whether this the shooting was justified or not.

From the videos I've seen they don't show the exact moment of the shooting. I read the NYTimes description and it says that the LEO Rolfe shot Brooks while he's running. In the video you do see Brooks shoot at the LEO with the taken taser. Just before Brooks shot at Rolfe he switches the taser to his left hand and appears to be reaching for his pistol with his right. Rolfe avoid the taser shot by running into a car. According to the timeline which I've not seen on video is Rolfe drops his taser and then draws his firearm and shoots Brooks. From what I can see there it appears that Rolfe had already decided to switch to lethal force before Brooks shot at him. This is an important question about when the decision to use lethal force was decided and this is an area I would actually like to hear from both LEO's. Another question where was LEO Brosnan at the moment of shooting and what position was he in to respond if Rolfe had been hit by the Taser..


On Tasers while they are often referred to as "non-lethal" that isn't quite true and "less than lethal" is a better description. The same with things like CS gas and rubber bullets. They can cause heart attacks and permanent damage but that isn't considered a common occurrence but is definitely something to be considered in the use of them. Another factor is that tasers are only about 40% effective.

One thing we can say is that Brooks clearly intended harm to LEO Rolfe. We have no idea what level of harm as no idea of what was in his mind. LEO Rolfe decision in that moment is how much did he feel Brooks to be a threat worth lethal force. Was it in his mind that the Taser was potentially lethal towards him or others?

Right now for me the most telling evidence is that LEO Rolfe is already going for his firearm before Brooks even shoots at him. That tells me he's already made the decision to go to lethal force before Brooks fires at him. Even as Rolfe is still holding his taser. That said I would like to hear more before making my own conclusion.

I will say again re watching the earlier part of the video where they fail to restrain Brooks to me looks almost incompetent on the part of the LEO particularly Brosnan who get's his weapon taken from him. As a grappler I understand it is difficult to restrain someone who is struggling but how they approached him was done very poorly with little coordination between them and with Brosnan holding his weapon very poorly. I don't know if this poor training or poor execution. At the minimum they should be disciplined for how poorly they handled that.

Finally I think emotions are running very high and I don't think the Atlanta chief should've resigned over this. My guess is that a statement needed to be made quickly and the leadership of Atlanta felt a big statement needed to be made. Whether she chose to leave herself out of guilt over the situation or was forced out I don't know but I think she is being unfairly blamed for this.

 

The Atlanta incident is clear

He took taser from officer

He shot at the officer

He manhandled two officers

The risk is high, don't know if shooting him was the best decision but I can understand why it happened. Don't think this is a very complicated situation.

 

This case , I'm not mad at the cop for discharging his weapon .... not at all.

This guy had shown he would resort to violence to escape and in the process committed multiple felonies in assaulting the officers , taking the taser , fleeing a felony and pointing the taser at the cop.

If he was willing to do all that , there's a good chance he would have resorted to other violence A) had he hit the cop with the taser - taken his weapon B) had the cop given up pursuit - maybe he jacks a car or some other act.

That was a decision by the cop to protect not only himself but potentially others .... I don't think he would be fired or face charges in any other point in time. There was too much potential for he or others to be injured - he may have thought the guy was pointing a real gun at him , not the taser .... not saying the guy got what he deserved but he did bring that result on himself with his actions.

 

Were you able to locate the cellphone video of this one ? I saw it on the news where he was fighting with the cops but haven't been able to locate it on the web to evaluate it other than the very short clip.

I've seen the Wendy's security camera's view and the body cam view online but not the cellphone view.

 

He shot over his shoulder as he was running. He was not going back for that gun.

 

I sympathize with the police officer here. They are trained to shoot in that situation (being charged by someone with a potentially deadly weapon). I think a white guy charging a police officer in this manner could expect the same response.

Edit: So he didn’t charge the cops? Just shot the taser from a distance? That might hurt the cops’ case.

 

But he wasn't charging the officer. He was running away from the officer. As he was running he aimed the stun gun backwards. The gun was supposed to be aimed at the cop but was aimed nowhere near. He was still running the whole time. The cop wasn't in danger of being tased let alone killed.

 

My mistake.

 

He definitely didn't have to die. It shouldn't have gotten to the situation that it did. If he's running away, you don't kill him.


Why not take Biden's advice and shoot him in the legs in this situation? If you're truly threatened by him...

 

That dude's father failed to teach him how to properly accept the consequences of his actions. That failure was the catalyst of his death.

This situation, like many of these police shootings, are a bad mix of two people who can't handle adverse situations. One refusing to accept responsibility for his actions and the other making mistakes in high-pressure situations.

I can't imagine the type of training required to test yourself in similar situations. Good luck developing a psychological evaluation that doesn't disqualify most of the police force.

Brooks did not give a f... about himself. He was ready to die. Which is sad. May he rest in peace. The cop could have legitimately believed that he was a threat to innocent people based on his actions.

You are right if you believe the officer didn't have to shoot, but shooting him was an option at that exact moment in time. It might not have been the best option, I do not know, but it was an option.

The solution for regular citizens is to not put yourself in these situations. Encourage that. Don't defend people who demonstrate that they don't care anymore. I understand Arbery and Floyd, and even accept that POC are disfavored in this society, but the behavior of Brooks's in this situation needs to be admonished not defended.

There are good people trying to figure out what to do with the police, I wish them well, in the meanwhile let's use our good judgment when these types of situations arise. There will be more.