No, not at all. But here we have the dangerous hour of the night, a man in the age range of active criminality, who hopped out of the car, grabbed something and perhaps stooped down behind or beside the truck with that object. We have no indication of what the cop said, I assume, but we also don’t know what the kid might or might not have said by way of explaining what he was doing. Had he stayed in the truck and explained that he didn’t trust his park gear when the cop came up to the vehicle, it probably would have been a minor inconvenience (with maybe a ticket for driving a truck out of compliance) rather than this tragedy.
My point is that time of day or night it should never make a difference in protocol, or excuse things like this. Many law abiding people work and travel at night too. This would be guilt before innocence. Are we no longer presumed innocent before guilty? At any time day or night? Or only during the day?
> Had he stayed in the truck and explained that he didn’t trust his park gear when the cop came up to the vehicle, it probably would have been a minor inconvenience... <
Agreed. But here’s the thing. Most civilians don’t have crisis training. They haven’t gone through multiple drills covering every possible situation.
So when a civilian is stopped by the police, there is no crisis training to kick in. Instead that person is confused and scared. And so it’s quite reasonable to expect him to make a stupid mistake.
Now, who does have that crisis training? It’s the police officer, of course. That’s why in a situation like this one, the officer must be held to a higher standard of conduct.
Had Ashlee Babbitt not tried to climb through that window then she'd be alive and working on a plea deal, right?