He tried to go around the road block while fleeing the first stop where he sat for 4 minutes. The only braking effort he made was to give him self a second to decide which way to go.
He was trying to avoid colliding with the vehicles in the road. Mr. Finicum’s brake lights come on as he comes around the curve and sees the roadblock. They stay on “all the way in”. There was not enough distance to stop, esp. if he (Finicum) had a moment of indecision as he rounded the bend.
Negative on the laying on the ground. Finicum would be at least a foot “in” the snow. If I intended to shoot, that’s exactly what I would do. Dive or fake-fall into the snow so that the LEO’s can’t see what I’m doing with my hand, and come up shooting.
Also, as has been discussed on other FR threads, FWIW, if you carefully watch the guy on the left (woods), Finicum appears to have kept his hands up until he was tased. When the 1st bullet hit Finicum is anybody’s guess: There are slight gun motions that MIGHT be recoil before Finicum’s hands drop. The video seems inconclusive to me. Maybe some expert can analyze it further.
OTOH, speculation here: Let’s say Finicum reduced his speed from 60 mph to 30 mph before he hit the snow. We can see the PU got slightly over 1/2 way past the road block. Also, as has been commented many places, no road spikes were used.
Now consider the likely result if Finicum had gunned it. Stopping distance roughly squares with speed, and I believe that in the first order, and somewhat depending on it’s compaction, etc., the snow would act as a linear braking force. (There would be some “piling up” of snow in front of the PU, etc., but there’d also be some additional forward energy if Finicum had good tires (likely) and kept his foot on the gas pedal.)
My best guess is that in this scenario, IF (big if!) Finicum can keep control of the vehicle, he successfully runs the roadblock. There’s also a VERY good chance he kills the idiot who ran out in front of him.
The best case I can make in favor of the LEO’s is that in everything except for marksmanship, the officer training here is abysmal. Next best is “shoot first, ask questions later” (still with many LEO mistakes made.) Worst case is that the LEO’s were looking for any reason they could find or manufacture, to use deadly force. If that is true, they were pretty efficient.
The whole thing just makes me sick. It did not need to happen this way.
The entire group was on their way to a “discussion’ for a peaceful resolution & they all had been PROMISED SAFE PASSAGE.
Another example of how this administration treats citizens.