I watched the video and I felt it was poor procedure.
The officer knows there are four people in the car. Any one of them could have a gun. To pull the weapon and begin firing must have scared the piss out of the *other* guy in the back seat. But it was stupid. No cop can watch four people in a car.
If you have multiple suspects in a car, you get backup first. You isolate the individuals and then you proceed with the interrogation. No matter how argumentative or belligerent the suspect is, you have to consider both the safety and the potential danger of the other three people in the car.
Shouldn’t have been a cowboy. He needed to wait for help to arrive before approaching the car.
That wasn’t poor procedure, it was MURDER!
I watched it too: It was unbelievably bad procedure, and there was no reason for the cop to force the issue. Back off and get backup...
You mentioned the important problems in police procedure.
In a situation where a lone officer has to act on a car with four people, any of whom might be armed and dangerous, because backup is too far away, a handgun doesn’t cut it, you need a shotgun, even if it requires you to open your trunk.