What gave the police officers cause to believe he was carrying a gun?
I mean, c'mon, the police are responding to a "shots fired" report, they are cruising down the street at 35 or 40 miles an hour (conservatively), they see this guy walking down the street and say to each other, "That guy has a gun. We can't see the gun, we don't have anyone that says he's got a gun, but we know, he has a gun.", they come to a screeching halt and tell him to take his hands out of his pockets.
Something doesn't look right here.
Either they saw something that gave them pause or this is right out of Minority Report.
Did he fit a description that had been given? Was he known to the cops? I highly doubt the officers just decided to pick on this guy...
They stopped because they believed he was carrying a gun, the chief said. What gave the police officers cause to believe he was carrying a gun?
- The article doesn’t say. We do know that (1) there was a report of shots fired and (2) he was in the vicinity of it. Anything else is an assumption by the reader of the article.
they are cruising down the street at 35 or 40 miles an hour (conservatively),
-Made up fact. Their job was to go to the area the call was reported and look for people who might have fired the shot. Why do you believe they would do it a 40 mph?
they see this guy walking down the street and say to each other, “That guy has a gun. We can’t see the gun, we don’t have anyone that says he’s got a gun, but we know, he has a gun.”
- Made up fact. From the article, it could be read that he had his hand in his shirt. Perhaps he was sweating, out of breath, matched a description, had a bulge under his shirt, the gun was partially visible, he turned away when he saw them, acted suspiciously, etc. The point is that we don’t know, but you make up out of whole cloth a conversation between the cops leaving capriciousness as the only explanantion. Whatever it was that piqued their suspicion, they were RIGHT. He did have a gun.
, they come to a screeching halt and tell him to take his hands out of his pockets.
-Exactly as they should do. Him not complying is where this goes wrong for him.
Something doesn’t look right here.
Either they saw something that gave them pause or this is right out of Minority Report.
-Either they saw something that gave them pause.... Exactly. Either the cops saw something that gave them pause, or they happened to coincidentally stop someone who coincidentally had a gun coincidentally in the vicinity of a shots fired report who coincidentally refused to comply with their instructions to show his hands, and coincidentally pulled the gun out on the police. Which version is more likely?