4 Officers Shot Dead By Snipers, 7 Wounded in Dallas Protest Against Police Violence

[Brian37]

I would agree. Sort of. I don't feel comfortable, nor will I ever, with police officers being allowed to shoot a person they've got pinned down on the ground.

I'm sure we'll hear more details in the coming weeks. All I'd say is I think there's situations where there would be a justification to shoot someone you have on the ground. Bear in mind this guy was big, he was on his back (so he could see the officers), he was struggling, and he had a gun. If he were on his front, I would completely agree that the officers likely had no justification for shooting him, but you can do a lot more when you're on your back than you can when you're on your front.

Rodney King, Trevon Martin, Eric Garner, the lady who got out of her car with no weapon, died in police custody, The guy in Baltimore who they let die in the back of the wagon was handcuffed.. The kid in the park shot with a BB gun, and this recent guy who was reaching for his LEGAL gun permit. 

You can make it all about individual cases all you want, but it still remains because of lack of budget, and lack of non lethal training, it seems that it does not matter if a black person is resisting or not. 

I once as a kid had a toy full sized  replica 38, or 9mm, not sure which one I was playing with, it was a cap gun, no red nose. Someone called the cops on me, because they didn't know it was a toy. Cop drew his gun on me, I didn't die. Another time I got pulled over for speeding, I was angry for that, because I had left work because I felt sick, threw my wallet at the cop, it hit her in the chest. Once again, I didn't end up dead.


Better training would be distance and de-escalation, and non lethal options, like tazers and bean bag shotguns , not close combat. 

In both the BB gun case  and the Micheal Brown case, the approaches were close quarters and sudden. That says to me, the training is to be quick and dominate quickly. It is absurd to expect even two cops to handle a potentially dangerous situation up close and especially with no non lethal options. 

I bet the guy with the CDs would have survived if the cops kept their distance and talked him down or used a tazer or bean bag shotgun. Point being I don't see enough training in far too many situations when these things happen to blacks, I've seen too much of this and blacks know this, that it doesn't seem to matter if they obey or resist. And it seems that lethal force happens at a far higher rate to blacks than to any other group.

Nobody should die over CDs, BB guns, cigars or cigarettes or die in custody even after they are handcuffed. Nobody should die reaching for their wallet or gun permit. Both the Colorado shooter and Roof murdered several people, and made it to court ALIVE.

It is NOT in the heads of blacks. Cops using lethal force may be legal, but it seems to be too much of a default position and not a last resort which it should be.