irreversible

Here is the link for this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2nSBnpbT2H4

As suspect tried to run away from the police officers, he was shot and killed. Critics claim that the suspect posed no threat to the officers and there was no justification for shooting him. The court ruled that officers acted in self-defense. Do you think their actions were justified?

Clete

It seems to me like they acted in self defense, but I don't know the whole story and it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in the video. There are certainly a couple spots near the end where it looks like the truck is lunging at some of the cops though.

WCH

That video mainly made me curious why he didn't give up... should they have used their weapons when he became dangerous to them and refused to surrender even when surrounded and threatened? Yeah, maybe. Should they have shot him 30 times? Well, no, once in the arm would have been plenty. So, I'd go with excessive force, but clearly some force was necessary.

Fr. Gottisttot

I think they were right to make some attempt to stop him, and self defense is certainly reasonable here... but 30 shots is a bit excessive. Seems like they could've thrown a smoke bomb in the back of the SUV or some other nonlethal method to stun him.

(By the way, I know this is off topic, but who is the narrator? I've been trying to track down the owner of that voice for years.)

variant 13

It appears that they shot him right after the point they stopped the tape and started to repeat it - if so then it looks like he was moving towards two of the officers with no where to escape to if he had continued.

If that is the case then I would say it was self defense.

30 times is quite a lot but an easy number to reach if 3 or so all first at once - they would not have had time to decide who should shoot. An officer did try to break a window at one point, but couldn't - firing a shot to break it would have scared the suspect and lead to problems.

Mikael

officers didnt do nothing wrong.

WCH

Double negative... intentional?

30 shots when three fire at once means each shot him 10 times, which is pretty clearly excessive. If he'd been shot, say, five times, I'd buy the excuse that they only meant to shoot him once but they all did so at the same time. 30 requires several of them to sustain fire long after it became obvious both that he was A) pretty clearly fux0red and B) other people were shooting him too. Hence, excessive.

Were I investigating this incident, based on what I know of it, I wouldn't charge any of the officers with anything or fire them or anything like that (unless something damning came up in the investigation, like say one of them emptied his entire clip in the guy's face and had a history of excessive force), but I would check how many rounds were discharged from each firearm, and put anyone who fired more than three shots on an excessive force watchlist, make them aware of such action, and then take disciplinary measures if it keeps coming up.

Clete

Four officers fired, so it would be 7-8 shots each. With the driver obstructed by glass and metal and in motion, it doesn't really seem all that excessive.

Loren Pechtel

Note: My main machine died, I'm in the process of rebuilding it but for now I'm using one with no audio and thus I didn't hear the commentary.

The guy is driving towards officers who have no good escape route. That's a potentially lethal attack, lethal force is justified.

As for the number of shots that doesn't surprise me one bit. Since he's in a vehicle and sitting it will not be clear when he's out of it--at most he's going to slump over the wheel and behind bullet-shattered glass that won't be all that obvious. They are going to keep firing until they are sure the threat is neutralized--for every officer shooting to empty his gun would be no surprise.

show_no_mercy

Why would he keep trying to escape in an enclosed space when there are like 5 - 6 officers pointing guns at him?