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I had to watch the video several times. One cannot focis on all three involved people’s biomechanical movements and listen to the voices/commands....and digest them all at once.

After watching it several times...both with and without audio...it is clear to me that the officers arrived on the scene of a call we’re at a minimum they knew someone had stated the suspect had a gun and then threaten them with it.

Note that on every single police call..no matter what the call is..... the very first thing an officer is trained to do is to render the scene safe for everyone. This could be parking a patrol car to block vehicle traffic because a power line has fallen down or it may be physically controlling a person until all the facts are known.

On this call I think the following occured.

They contact the suspect who turns away from them and begins to move away from them. This is not what a compliant suspect does. Turning away is also known to be done by suspects just before they attack and is a prime pre-attack indicator.

They believe they have a non-compliant suspect who is possibly armed with a gun. Turning away is either an attempt to flee or an attempt to conceal his right side where we eventually see as a gun in his pocket.

These would be red flags for beat officers with more than a year of street level contacts with suspects in areas with significant street crime issues.

That scenario appears to be consistent with what we see next...an officer charging the suspect from behind and attempting to do a take down and get control of a suspect who they believe is armed and fleeing or concealing.

The confrontation moves to the grouns. Even with 2 officers in semi-mounted positions the scene is not yet safe. The suspect’s hands are not controlled and he has not yet been searched for weapons.

The suspect has full control of his righ arm and hand for bearly the entire ground confrontation with a breif moment when one officer has the right hand trapped. But that officer is not in a good position to leverage against a joint or keep control of the hand and susoect frees it.

This can be seen with the shoulder and elbow movements of the suspects right side.

At this time you hear commands and communications where one officer is telling the other thatthe suspect has a gun. This may mean he has a gun in his pocket or his hand...or he has his hand on the gun which is in his roght front pocket.

That is not clear based upon the video.

This is a bad scenario for all involved.

I believe I hear ine officer telling the other officer to shoot by saying something like “do it.”

Shots are fired by at least one officer and possibly by the other officer and/or the suspect.

I have heard elsewhwere that the recovered firearm from the suspect was a hammerless revolver. That type of firearm is easily fired from within a pocket.

We will have to wait to find out if the suspect’s hand and/or pants shows signs of the suspect firing a firearm and whether the susoect’s handgun was fired during the incident.

It should be rmemebered that it is not required that a police officer wait for a suspect to grab point and fire a gun at her/him before shooting.....no more than if a guy winds up to throw a punch at you that you sre required to wait until the punch lands before you act.

Thanks... Great synopsis...

I don’t have the patience nor the eyeballs to do what you did...

Thanks again...

We will have to wait to find out if the suspect’s hand and/or pants shows signs of the suspect firing a firearm and whether the susoect’s handgun was fired during the incident.

There audio was relatively good, better than the video and the poor video angle of the suspects right side. I never heard a shot prior to the LEOs weapon being discharged. There could have been, but I certainly did not hear it.

One big question is whether or not the officer on top of Sterling drew his own gun at the same time as the second officer, the one closest to the camera.

The officer on Sterling puts his hand on his own weapon at the five-second mark, but it isn't clear whether or not he actually drew it. It makes sense that he did, though, since Sterling has a gun and seems to be trying to draw it, and Sterling's right arm is unrestrained, so the officer would be his prime target and only a foot or so away and needs to defend himself.

Then, too, it appears that it is the officer on top of Sterling who fired the first shot at him seconds later and it seems his gun was drawn before that point.

So if the officer on top of Sterling also had his gun drawn while continuing to struggle for a few second with Sterling, he then only had his own left hand to fight Sterling with, which is why, apparently he can do no more than grab Sterling's right hand for a moment with his left hand, as seen at the 6-second mark image.

If he had both hands free, he most likely would have been able with two hands to subdue Sterling's one free hand.

But if he drew his own gun because of the imminent threat of being shot by Sterling, he then risked having Sterling wrestle for his gun and having it discharged at either himself or his partner.

How do you, after all, wrestle with someone when you have a loaded gun in one hand? It's a very dangerous situation.

So the conclusion would seem to be that if the officers shot Sterling because the threat to themselves became too great, especially once Sterling continued to resist and apparently to go for his gun, and the officers could only struggle with him hand-to-hand with one hand, which was too risky to continue.

And something else to note is that the officer closest to the camera actually starts to draw his gun, then stops, then actually draws his gun. So the police weren't quick to pull their weapons.

http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/07/06/officers-shot-alton-sterling-wont-charged-crime/