He was swinging a “toy” gun around. But the real issue IMO was the 911 caller claimed it was a rifle and he was loading it and pointing it at children.
I don’t get where people think the Police are at fault here. You put yourselves in their shoes; they are going into a store where they are told a guy is loading a rifle and pointing at kids. For all they know it is a crazy guy with a fully loaded assault rife with kids all over the place. You don’t get a second chance if this crazy guy starts spraying bullets down an aisle with kids. I put more of the blame on the 911 caller.
This right here I can agree with...the first sensible comment in this thread and the Grand Jury came to the same conclusion regarding the cops. Arm chair after the fact QB immediate cop haters would have you believe that when placed in this same situation they’d have addressed this in a calm manner. Tragedy yes...guy was asking to be shot? Hell yes...grand jury indictment for the 911 caller? I pray it happens
I do think that 911 caller was at fault too, BUT...the police had time to scan the area, see no children or other potential victims, due diligence. Nope, they just walked up and shot a (stupid, thoughtless) man down where he stood.
The cops are supposed to be professionals. They are supposed to look at the whole picture.
So now any 911 caller can say anything, get the cops to do anything, and the cops can just say, "hey, the caller made us do it".
That's BS. Every one of the cops involved in this incident, all the way up to the top brass, deserves to be fired, at the very least.