Unarmed Behavior Therapist with his hands up shot by Police Officer (video)

YouTube ^ | 7/21/2016 | News 7

[Marie]

There is NO way to spin this. This is a very, very bad shoot. It's on video.

[Marie]

So the officer was trying to shoot the man with a child’s mind and not the black guy?

That doesn’t make it better. The officers had plenty of time to gauge the situation and deescalate. The therapist explained the situation quite clearly. (I’ve posted the link four times already. That doesn’t make the shooting all right.) Is it all right to shoot a person with Alzheimers? How about a diabetic in hypoglycemic shock?

The officer chose to shoot.

NOT a good call.

I’m grateful to our small town PD. They’re good men who know their community and take care of us all.

[Faith Presses On]

That’s not the point.

But in every high profile shooting case so far, and even in many other high profile controversies such as the one with Ahmed Mohamed, so much of the public, including quite a few people here on Free Republic, I might add, are entirely willing to judge thing superficially on little information.

AND, in the cases of the police shootings/alleged misconduct, many are willing to jump to conclusions while saying the police are depriving people of their due process rights.

Just take the Alton Sterling video. That is commonly referred to in the MSM as “an injustice” (ABC World News Tonight’s word describing it), while the video clearly shows Sterling’s right arm was free and he appeared to struggle with the officer with it).

Yet in the MSM, in social media, and even here, people were perfectly willing to rush to judgment and call that an “execution.” No thought to possibly ruining people’s lives, and waiting for all the evidence to come out.

WORSE than all these cases themselves is that our justice system is almost being rewritten and people are being tried - and convicted - in the media and on social media. It is conventional wisdom that both George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson were cold-hearted killers that beat the system.

[sport]

Why not?

[Lower Deck]

That’s not the point.

Then what is? You're trying to link it with other questionable shootings when there is no comparison. The police were not struggling with the autistic kid. They had no idea if he was holding a weapon. The eventual victim was telling the police, pleading with the police not to shoot but to let him calm the kid down. The police shot anyway, trying to blow a away an autistic and unarmed kid, missing him entirely and hitting the unarmed victim. How anyone can look at that and say, "Yeah there might be some validity to the police actions" is way beyond me.

[Faith Presses On]

You can hear wind on the audio. The camera might have been able to pick up more than the officer’s could.

I’m entirely willing to consider that the officer might have used poor judgment, even that he is lying after the fact.

But I don’t see why we can’t let the investigations play out, and even if we THINK someone is guilty or innocent, we qualify that with the caveat that there is yet to be a proper investigation.

I sat on a jury once, and our instructions were not to talk about the case until deliberations, and not to arrive at any final judgments until we heard ALL the evidence.

I’m UTTERLY amazed and really disturbed by the fact that we are rapidly becoming a lynch mob society, casually and lazily drawing conclusions about people’s guilt or innocence. Often someone, even here, won’t read a whole story, or follow up on obvious questions, yet they have no problem pronouncing someone’s guilt.

God says He hates that, that He hates both the innocent being improperly convicted and the guilty being allowed to go free.

This leaping to judgments is really a huge problem. And I apologize if it seems I’m directing this all at you, or if it seems like I’m forgetting your concerns that apparently someone unarmed and just lying there on the ground, hands up, was shot. I’m glad you care.

But understand, there are truly many people in this country who don’t care about facts. They are going for how to get power for themselves, and ruthlessly using these cases, whatever the facts may be, to help get that power, is all they care about.

I just posted the other day about CNN apparently altering the Alton Sterling video. It appears it moved up the sound of the gunshots. There is no doubt that the first three gunshots in their version are in a different spot in the video.

They probably played this video over and over on t.v., and no wonder many people thought the officer who wasn’t on top of Sterling shot him in cold blood - which caused so much outrage, that this was an “execution.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3450819/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3450819/posts?page=14#14 (A photo three screenshots - one from CNN, one from CBS, and one from the Young Turks. In each case, I stopped the video right when I heard the third gun shot. All three images should be about the same, but while the CBS and YT videos align, the CNN one does not).

What about the conduct of whoever tampered with the video that way - knowingly, deliberately, with ample time to consider their decision, and doing so apparently to cause unrest and conflict?

[Faith Presses On]

Okay, how about this...why not you say what your opinion is, and just add that it’s a preliminary finding. What would be the harm in saying something like, “I believe the officer is guilty of a crime, but let’s wait until we hear the whole story”?

[sport]

Well, looking at it from the Officer’s point of view, you can see where he has a point. One can do a hell of a lot of shooting with a toy truck. And said toy truck has a lot of firepower that can and will do, in the right hands,a hell of a lot of damage. In fact, if the Servicemen in world War Two had been issued toy trucks instead of rifles and pistols, the war would not have lasted two days. Also, said Officer said he joined up to save lives. And that he did. He saved no telling how many lives. He saved the therapists form getting shot by the kid with the toy truck. He saved the kid. And perhaps he prevented the kid from destroying the City and maybe the entire State with the toy truck. All in all, a good day for the Officer.

[Faith Presses On]

And let me also add, Jesus said this:

“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” Luke 6:38

What measure you use, will be measured back to you.

With social media being like a court, and the MSM following along, how would you like the public to treat you if you were accused of something that got high-profile attention and there was a narrative that inclined many people automatically to presuming you were guilty. Not everyone, but many people.

How much of the evidence would you want people to hear before arriving at a judgment about you? Would you want them to make a judgment if they haven’t even been willing to read one entire story about it? If they just hear a few sentences and jump in with their opinion, and don’t want to expend much energy to looking into the matter, but still want to arrive at some strong opinions about you. Would you want people lumping your case in as “one more example of how something is the matter with this type of person,” or would you want them to start from square one, and with the same mindset of a good citizen who wants to just pursue the truth and justice while sitting on a jury, will carefully try and consider each claim that is made? If any information came out that might make you look bad, would you like that person saying, “aha! I thought so,” or would you like the person to say, “that could be bad, but here’s a possible innocent explanation for that”?

[Marie]

You are correct.

[SkyDancer]

It seems he didn’t evaluate the situation very carefully especially when the therapist was yelling that the guy had a toy truck and that he was there to calm him down. I’m not pre-judging, all I’m doing is going by what’s been reported so far which really doesn’t mean much yet but bottom line, he was aiming for the autistic guy and shot the therapist instead.

[Faith Presses On]

Thank you. God bless you.

[SoFloFreeper]

Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton/Hussein Obama upset: shooting cop identified as Hispanic!

[BigpapaBo]

Must have been a hair trigger for three rounds to go down range.
No excuse. The leo should be relieved of his weapon and in cuffs.
Law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard, and the hair trigger excuse isn’t gonna work.
Keep your booger hook off the bang switch until it’s time to fire.
And the autistic adult had a toy, a TOY TRAIN for cripes sake. No gun involved.

[Faith Presses On]

I agree. I did just hear the audio on t.v. and it sounds like there is the sound of wind. It’s possible the camera picked up the sound but the officers didn’t hear it. And quite possibly they didn’t have a clue that this was a patient with his therapist. I don’t know. I’m not saying he didn’t shoot improperly. But certainly there will be an investigation. I’m thankful the situation didn’t turn out far worse. In one report they say the autistic man was also handcuffed, and then held in a police car for a long time, and is now in the hospital, apparently traumatized by that. Hopefully he’ll mostly recover from this very soon.

I think our country would be in serious peril just from the “rush to judgment” culture being cultivated by the internet, and ruthlessly fed by the media and many politicians. The lynch mob mentality that’s being created could come for any of us, at any time, and it will serve the powerful, just as it is already doing in so many cases.

[Marie]

Wht hurts me on all levels -

1. My dad was a cop and I know how much ‘bad’ cops made his job more difficult.
2. My mother was a teacher for the disabled and I worked as a therapist in a group home. Some of the behavior is bizarre and society must figure out a way to deal with it.
3. My son was a T1 Diabetic and, when he went low, he went insane. Our local PD knew him and were so loving and good to him. They managed his crashes and saved his life. That’s what I’ve come to expect from great cops.

I really do get that cops are called to cope with so much more than the average person. But, once it’s explained, the cops need to use judgement. Shooting is the *last* resort.

In the end, the public needs to trust their police force. It’s vital. They need to know that our cops are wise and restrained. They need to trust the police.

We can’t have that if an informed officer still shoots.

My dad never fired his weapon on duty. Not once. It was an odd situation when it did happen.

Now cops shoot dogs and people every day. In the 70’s, the cops were trained to deal with dogs and trained to deal with the disabled. Cops hesitated.

So much of this depends on where the cop is operating. Our small town is pretty tame. Chicago is a war zone. So we can’t judge all cops by each incident.

But we’ve got to admit when it’s a shoot that reflects on every other officer in the nation. This shoot was NOT good, by any measure.

Yes. We’ve got to wait for the facts to come in, but if there’s any stink on this investigation, it only empowers the left. That is bad for all officers.

[SkyDancer]

From the we be sarcasm news:

"Look, this whole "Police officer shooting the Black therapist who was laying on the ground with his hands in the air" thing is just a big misunderstanding. The cop was TRYING to shoot his unarmed, autistic patient and missed is all. Feel better?"

[Marie]

And I qualified! (sorry! lol!)

[Marie]

And may Gd bless you, too. Sincerely. We’re all fighting for the best for our nation, honey.

[IChing]

Sure looks that way.

[Faith Presses On]

1. My dad was a cop and I know how much ‘bad’ cops made his job more difficult.

I understand that. But keep in mind something where things stand today. People are coming out and having to say that we need cops. Donald Trump said it, that without them we no longer have civilization. And apparently under pressure, some Democrats, including the President, have now started to say the same thing. This is all because the left has been demonizing ALL police.

I have tried to discuss many things and situation with people on the left over the years, particular online (I was actually a Democrat until I got into my 30's). After years of talking to them, now, I've reached the conclusion that they aren't interested in truth or honest debate. While we talk about whether or not a police officer is guilty, or if the officer's actions were justified, and want to look at the evidence, they are twisting the evidence to suit their narrative in order to gain power. 

Believe me when I say this, I did not arrive at that conclusion lightly. I've literally spend years discussing things with liberals, putting in so much effort to carefully lay out arguments for them, and providing links to sources for what I have to say, and it all matters not. I almost never, ever find a liberal online who will discuss things honestly, and concede even the single smallest point, on anything. And my carefully written opinions, laying out facts, have almost always been met by liberals with ridicule, personal attacks on me, refusing to see or admit the point I'm making, as if they somehow don't understand it. The left, atheists, have no hope but this world, and they need to be on top of this world, then, controlling it. Political power is their hope. And nothing can stand in their way.

I have seen this dynamic, too, in every high-profile case involving police. The facts don't matter. The police are demonized and assumed guilty.

So, what I'm saying is to keep in mind that all these controversies aren't happening in the America of years ago, where most people would actually care about fairly looking at what has happened. The left is heavily invested in demonizing police (probably as a way to regain a tight hold on African-Americans for this and future elections). 

3. My son was a T1 Diabetic and, when he went low, he went insane. Our local PD knew him and were so loving and good to him. They managed his crashes and saved his life. That’s what I’ve come to expect from great cops.

I'm glad the police in your area were there for your son.

I really do get that cops are called to cope with so much more than the average person. But, once it’s explained, the cops need to use judgement. Shooting is the *last* resort.

In the end, the public needs to trust their police force. It’s vital. They need to know that our cops are wise and restrained. They need to trust the police.

I agree, but again, think of the climate that I mentioned above. The left isn't willing to admit anything, and when we admit what we should, they only want to capitalize on it. I'm not saying we shouldn't admit things, but realize we can't do so in the same way, assuming the good will of the other side, as we more often could in the past. The left want to simplistically say cops=evil.

While I agree the public needs to trust the police, we also have to remember that the police force is made up of human beings, and neither they or the system are perfect, and that will cause real harm to people, just like the imperfections anywhere in the rest of our world will. We need government, but will never get corruption out of it. We need money, but it will always cause cheating and corruption, too. So, we can't allow the idea to take root that the police force or police officers are perfectable. 

This is not to say that every reasonable attempt to root out corruption shouldn't be taken, just like in every other area of life, but the expectation of perfection shouldn't be there. Instead, we have to do more to, as the reverend who spoke tonight at the convention said, provide more opportunity so that black people aren't inordinately left in poverty, which causes them ultimately to have more conflict with police. 

Yet, as we know, there is talk about even more jobs being lost by our country, and people possibly being given a universal "basic income" from the government because many more people will be unemployed. It is hard to believe, however, that even higher unemployment, even if people are compensated for not working, could be good for our country.

So what I'm saying is that, in any case, we need for the public to trust police, even when there are questionable actions and sometimes even criminal ones on the behalf of a few police.