We’re not discussing how big an a-hole the dead guy was.
We’re discussing the a-holeness of the cop. Let’s assume the dead dude said/did some very rude things while under the influence. Irritating and angering, quite reasonably, the cop.
The problem is that irritation or anger, however reasonable, do not provide legal justification for killing.
That is limited, quite reasonably IMO, to protecting your own or another’s life, at the moment of the shooting, mind you, not some theoretical future or actual past offense.
I suggested a while back somebody come up with a reasonable scenario by which, under the law, this shooting would be justified. Nobody’s done so, or really even tried, IMO.
I’m left with the sad idea that defense of his actions is based on knee-jerk defense of a cop, or even more sadly, of a white cop.
Look, I understand that cops have a hard job. I also understand that for fairly obvious psychological reasons, people who like to dominate over others are attracted to police work, much as pedophiles have a reason to be attracted to jobs where they work with kids.
The problem we have, and it’s a big one, is that good cops have developed an unhealthy sense of brotherhood with bad cops. Also that US cops kill people at a rate of 40x+ those in most advanced countries. Heck, the UK cops recently went two years without killing anybody.
I realize UK is not US, and the population here is 5x. But come on. 1000 or more dead Americans in two years vs. zero dead Brits!
We’re not THAT much more criminal than they are.
Why don't we go a step further and assume (without firm evidence either way at this point) that the dead guy did/said something *dangerous*.What next?
That's the point I've been trying to make...possibly badly.Nobody....not *you*...not *me*...nobody on this thread has *nearly* enough info to reach any firm conclusions.All we have at this moment is a dead guy,two short snippets of film (without audio IIRC),a story (which may or not be true) that the dead guy was discharged from the Coast Guard because of drug use and a story (which *also* may,or may not,be true) that he could have been facing more jail time for non-support.
Remember...a couple of days after the Gentle Giant case hit the news all we had was "he was running away with his hands up",a photo of GG in his graduation gown and stories of what a fine,gentle role model he was.And a couple of days after Reverend Al's arrival in Florida all we had was a cherubic photo of 12 year old Saint Trayvon and the claim that he was gunned down for the crime of buying a package of Skittles.
Maybe everyone should wait for a while before declaring the shooting either justified *or* cold blooded murder.