Well here is the video.  Hardly graphic but it clearly shows that one cop got out of his car and just started shooting.  4 minutes of padding as the car drives through Chicago streets.  Ultimately the car that took the video ended up behind the car containing the killer cop.

It is certain that the deceased did not "lunge" at the cop.  In fact, he was walking away.  Even in Chicago, "walking away" from a cop is not a capital crime.

Bad situation and bad judgement in that video. The guy was high on PCP and armed, but he is clearly angling away from the officers. The guy had a knife so the officers were in their rights to respond with lethal force if the guy posed an imminent threat. Dude was clearly walking away though so no imminent threat. Officers should have tazed him since he was walking away, but that's not what happened.

Even if he had a knife and was moving towards the cops, I wouldn't say lethal force is justified. That's supposed to be why they're issued tasers and pepper spray, right? That is if they don't just taser the poor guy to death anyway.

Yeah, the cop has been charged, but so what? We all know that juries are as much the problem as the cops themselves. The cynic in me says that he will skate.

Predictably, his lawyer is claiming that you can't believe your lying eyes and what is on the video is not what happened as far as his client is concerned.  Maybe his client was the one who was high?

(November 25, 2015 at 11:13 am)Chad32 Wrote: Even if he had a knife and was moving towards the cops, I wouldn't say lethal force is justified. That's supposed to be why they're issued tasers and pepper spray, right? That is if they don't just taser the poor guy to death anyway.

Officers are supposed to escalate force to a level above that of who they are dealing with. If the guy was charging them with a knife then, yeah, it is totally justified. Unfortunately, that was not the case here.

As to why they have tasers and pepper spray, those are alternatives to when lethal force is not necessary. The guy in this situation had a knife but was walking away, hence a less lethal option was warranted.

Just reported on CNN that this cop has 18 civilian complaints including some for racial bias.

Officers are supposed to deescalate a situation. Not escalate it. That keeps people from getting killed. If you have a means to take someone down nonlethaly, then you have no reason to use a lethal weapon. This is part of why officers use the buddy system. One guy with a knife should not require lethal force to capture.

"De-escalation" does not seem to be in their vocabulary.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523

Quote:Why do US police keep killing unarmed black men?

I think that's the root of the problem. They're not being trained to deescalate. They're acting like they're the ones in charge, instead of the ones protecting and serving.