They honestly didn’t know what to think, because the customer who called the police told them it looked real, but Crawford himself said “It’s a toy” when he was told to put it down. He should have just put it down, and let the officers determine it was a toy. He would be alive and the customer who led the police to believe it might be real would be the man in trouble.
It seems to me toys should be packaged in such a way that they cannot be removed from the packaging at the store, to eliminated such confusion. That’s what we would all be discussing had Crawford been white.
“He should have just put it down, and let the officers determine it was a toy.”
Without question.
I don’t, however, think more regulations are advisable.
I think the answer is to give a Marie Laveau shriek, sing “Another moron done gone,” and move on.