Nor was he posing a threat. To her or anyone.
Ever hear of the saying better judged by twelve instead of carried by six?
Do you agree that her actions should be dispassionately judged by 12? Or was it a good shoot and she should be freed?
So I guess the cop should have waited for him to pull out a gun and start shooting before returning fire? Like Dinkheller did?
I'm sorry, walking towards the car gave both cops concern, and he must have made some significant movement because both cops fired - one a taser, one a gun.
Do you agree that her actions should be dispassionately judged by 12?
I have been saying that consistently. But to claim the target did nothing wrong is ludicrous. Failing to comply with the directions of the officers to stop walking towards the vehicle jacked up the situation. And the cop that fired the taser is not facing disciplinary action that I am aware of. So the question is not that force was justified - more that was the level of force justified?
Trailerpark Badass has very ably addressed the reasons that anyone, cop or otherwise, would have been wise to treat that suspect with great caution. But, something that no one has brought up yet, is this. These officers are almost certainly guilty of only one thing: poor tactics.
They let the suspect control the encounter, and though they tried to deploy less lethal (Taser), they didn’t use it soon enough, waiting until the suspect reached into his car. (At least it looked that way to me on the tape.) Not that the Taser is all that reliable with a PCP user anyway, but at least they had the thought.
But, considerwhat the cops knew, and what they didn’t. They knew, or at least had the reasonable suspicion that the was high on PCP (She was a DRE). They had at least the warrant returns, and possibly the prior assault conviction if he was still on parole.
They did NOT know if he was armed or not. They did not know why he wanted back into the car so badly. They did not know why he was ignoring their (lawful) orders. And most importantly, they did not know what would be in his hand after he reached into that front seat.
So as to your assertion that he posed no threat, many would disagree: given the totality of the circumstances, trying to reach into that car was most definately a threat to everyone present. Granted, in an ideal world things would never have gotten that far, and it’s fair to ding the cops for that, assuming they had proper training (many smaller departments don’t).
The suspect is dead, in short, because of his actions. He chose to ignore the officers lawful orders. He chose to return to his car, and he also chose to take an action that any reasonable person could construe as an attempt to arm himself. It’s very easy to not get shot by the cops. That narrative keeps getting lost. Yes, the police has a positive obligation to follow the law and use only objectively reasonable force. But people also have the obligation to themselves follow the law. Our entire legal system rests on that cooperation. When that goes, you get a very different kind of society.