Castille didn’t help himself by carrying while being too stoned to understand simple commands...
From the dash cam video:
“Sir I do have to tell you I do have a firearm on me”
“Don’t reach for it [then?]”
“don’t pull it out!”
“don’t pull it out!!!!”
Bang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ac7Zblqyk
How would a “reasonable person” have responded to the above directions given by the cop? By the 2nd ‘Don’t’, he should have stopped moving - but he didn’t. Too stoned to think.
I once was in a very similar situation to that of Castile. The police mistakenly suspected me of just having broke into a house. When the cop wanted an ID, I like Castile, was trying to cooperate when the cop started to yell at me not to reach for my back pocket, but the innocent, non-combative mind has a hard time switching immediately from the fulfillment of one instruction to another and I completed pulling out my wallet. Thankfully in my case, the officers were well-trained and had a much more stoic demeanor than the officers who shot Castile and Damond or I would not be here either.
Have you seen a drug screen on the victim in this shooting? What if there is pot in her system; will you think the officer probably acted correctly?
From the dash cam video:
“Sir I do have to tell you I do have a firearm on me”
“Don’t reach for it [then?]”
“don’t pull it out!”
“don’t pull it out!!!!”
You forgot that in between the two "Don't pull it out" both Castile and his girl friend told the officer that he wasn't pulling the gun out or going for it in any manner. Yet the officer shot him anyway.
Bang
More like "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
How would a “reasonable person” have responded to the above directions given by the cop? By the 2nd ‘Don’t’, he should have stopped moving - but he didn’t. Too stoned to think.
I like to think I'm a reasonable person, and if I assure someone twice that I'm not doing what they tell me not to do then I'm going to assume that they are a reasonable person as well and believed me. But then again I don't run into panicky cops very often.
Marijuana mellow meets steroid rage