Thanks for the lecture. Your version of the events is exactly what the NYPD officers have asserted. If you think that the police can be entirely trusted in situations like this, it is you who are in a fantasy land. They know it was a big screw-up and are protecting themselves and their fellow officers (to what extent remains to be seen).
The fact (which you gloss over) is that the officer was undercover and that the group of individuals did not know that. Were they fleeing because they thought he was an p/o or a thug? If it was the latter, was that reaction unforeseeable and what was the plan if it happened? Can they really expect someone fleeing for their lives from criminals to stop if someone out of uniform says "I'm a police officer"? The fact that 50 rounds were fired at a car full of innocent and unarmed people tells me that there was a lack of critical thinking before the operation started.
The fact that 50 rounds were fired at a car full of innocent and unarmed people tells me that there was a lack of critical thinking before the operation started.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
And don't say "innocent until proved guilty" as a defense because you have already pronounced a judgment on the officers' honesty -- as a principal of determining facts and not as a conclusion based on the facts in this case.
An officer says he displayed his badge of authority and announced himself to be "police". It's not clear, therefore, that the individuals did not know that they were dealing with the police. As you say, there are two (actually more) possible explanations for the (alleged) attempt to ram the officer and the other vehicles. One is that it was because they thought they were police. This kind of touches on the "innocent and unarmed" allegation.
And, I say again, while stipulating that some officers play fast and loose with the truth (at least around here, if they get caught, their career in Law Enforcement is over -- for one thing, judges won't believe them any more.) another issue that is overlooked in the face of conflicting stories is the affect, increasingly well documented, of adrenaline and all the other stress hormones on perception and memory.
It does intrigue me that "innocent until proven guilty" is so rarely applied to the police in these conversations. I happen to know some guys who really are committed to telling the truth, but on FR a popular if not pervasive assumption is that ALL cops lie.
If you think that, what are you as a citizen doing to improve or solve the problem? This is, at least notionally, a republic, and you have responsibilities. If the cops in your community are morally corrupt as you evidently know them to be, have you spoken to your representative? Have you run for office? I hope so. It would be good to have principled thoughtful people addressing the problem.