Absolute nonsense. From the earliest common law standards, the use of deadly force only requires a reasonable belief that one is facing imminent death or serious bodily injury. Whether for a law enforcement officer or a private citizen, the standard is never that you must “positively” identify what someone is threatening you with as a weapon, Even in Communist California.
The standard California jury instruction contains the following language:
“Defendant’s belief must have been reasonable and (he/she) must have acted only because of that belief. The defendant is only entitled to use that amount of force that a reasonable person would believe is necessary in the same situation. If the defendant used more force than was reasonable, then the [attempted] killing was not justified.
When deciding whether the defendant’s beliefs were reasonable, consider all the circumstances as they were known to and appeared to the defendant and consider what a reasonable person in a similar situation with similar knowledge would have believed. If the defendant’s beliefs were reasonable, the danger DOES NOT need to have actually existed.”
That last sentence might be hard for you, but it means that the standard is reasonable belief, not positive identification.
Here is the classic example of this:
This video isn’t used in Use of force classes for law enforcement and non-law enforcement alike. The first video looks really bad for the officers. The second and third video show what they actually saw and what they reasonably believed at the time.
The object the suspect was hold was not a gun, it was a cell phone.
The officers had no obligation to verify what it was that the suspect was holding. The belief they had was REASONABLE.
You really should stop practicing law without a license. ;)
Yes the ‘reasonable and prudent person’ concept has been trashed over the years by ‘police procedure’ reasoning that allows the ‘snap decision’ version. If you and I shot someone holding a cellphone we would go to jail. That is, unless we were an illegal in California.
I don't give a crap if legally they don't have to positively identify a weapon. That's their damn job. We don't as a society expect our peace officers to shoot and kill someone anytime it's by legal definition ok to do so, that's not protecting and serving.
Now in this situation the officers could not see very well at all so when the first cop yells gun he simply saw something in the guys hand. Merely seeing and object in someones hand at night when little detail can be made out and ASSUMING it's a gun is NOT REASONABLE. That is exactly what happened here. In fact with virtually everyone carrying cellphones and other electronics the likelihood that object was not a gun was the most reasonable conclusion as it in fact was not. The police were responding to someone possibly breaking out windows with a crow bar or similar tool. From that point they really had no reason to believe the person they saw was armed with a firearm. He certainly could have had a firearm but seeing a object in his hand is not enough to justify deadly force.
It's becoming nearly a weekly occurrence where we have cops shooting people with video game controllers, cell phones, MP3 Players, BB guns, Makeup cases but more often they end up having nothing at all in their hands. I can't believe how many people think this is acceptable. When I was younger if a cop shot someone and it turned out that person was unarmed there was no excuse even in the minds of the officers themselves. The last thing a cop back then wanted to ever do is shoot and kill someone who ultimately was not a threat. Today the only thing that seems to be of any concern at all is can it be classified a "good shoot". As long as it can be said they appeared to be armed and or the officer felt threatened then it's ok to pump a 15 round mag into a unarmed citizen and call it a day. Then I come on here and see so many posters think this is okay. It sickens me. I don't know what has happened to reason. Please do not take this as saying all officers have no concern about shooting the wrong people, I know many many do. That being said it can't be denied we have way to many shooting when there is simply no justification whatsoever. It can't be denied, the police have a major use of force problem that needs to be corrected and fast.