Posted on 10/12/2019 5:35:50 PM PDT by Drew68
A white Fort Worth officer fatally shot a black woman inside her home early Saturday after police were called to the house to do a welfare check, according to police and the neighbor who called them.
The woman who was killed was Atatiana Jefferson, 28, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Police released a statement Saturday afternoon saying officers responded at 2:25 a.m. to a report the front door of a home was open in the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue. James Smith, who called a non-emergency police number, said he saw the doors were open and the lights were on, which struck him as unusual. He knew Jefferson, his neighbor, was home with her 8-year-old nephew.
Police parked around the corner, so the woman couldn’t see them, according to Smith, 62. About 15 minutes later, he said, he heard a loud bang and saw several more officers rush inside.
Body camera video released by police on Saturday shows two police officers using flashlights to check the perimeter of the home, inspecting multiple doors that are open with a screen door closed. In the back of home, one officer appears to see a figure through a dark window, and he quickly twists his body to the left.
“Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” he shouts through the window, his gun drawn. He then fires a single shot through the window.
He does not identify himself as a police officer in the video.
Police said in the statement that the officer, who joined the department in April 2018, saw a person standing inside the home near a window.
“Perceiving a threat, the officer drew his duty weapon and fired one shot striking the person inside the residence,” the statement said.
snip...
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
There is no doubt about the woman’s welfare, she’s dead.
Where are those "good cops" speaking out against the bad ones?
This cop needs to be charged with murder, convicted, and executed.
Exactly. After all, they were called for a welfare check, to see if the woman living there was all right.
Welfare check. Not a burglary in progress. Go to the front door first. Jeeze.... Not good....
Probably cause her phone was dead. That’s the reason for most welfare checks. Probably by someone who “cared for her”.
“Was this woman a known menace in the neighborhood?”
If someone cared for her enough to call in a welfare check, then she had at least one friend and was not that menacing or they wouldn’t care.
But I suppose you are right, it’s acceptable to take out any neighborhood menaces without question or the benefit of the doubt. Can’t take any chances with a known menace, shoot first and ask questions later.
“I am seriously beginning to wonder if there is anything police officers do not perceive as a threat.”
Nope, At the “Officer’s discretion” everyone and everything is a threat to them now. No balls and pure self preservation at all costs is the priority. Everyone is guilty until they prove their innocence after the fact.
“Perceiving a threat, the officer drew his duty weapon and fired one shot striking the person inside the residence,”
= = =
Cop shows up quietly in the middle of the night. Prowls around outside the house. Sees someone inside the house.
Perceives a threat?????
If the cop is going to feel threatened by that, maybe he should have stayed back at the cop shop.
Feels kind of like he created the whole ‘alleged’ threat situation himself.
And he sure cured it, yep he did.
... saw a person standing inside the home near a window.
Apparently she did not respect his authority.
= = =
Maybe if she heard ‘show me your hands’, she thought the command was for some perp outside the house, not her. From inside a lit house at night, you cannot see what is outside; it is black.
I am seriously beginning to wonder if there is anything police officers do not perceive as a threat.
= = =
They had better not look in a mirror.
Blam Blam, Captain we are going to have to get another mirror for the squad car.
Well, the officer got to go home that night. that’s all that matters according to a log of folks.
Pretty much standard these days.
There is no such thing as a ‘good cop’ if they in any way respect the ‘thin blue line’ and cover for the bad ones.
If an unidentified person starting strolling around my yard in the middle of the night with a flashlight, I’d pick up a gun before going to investigate. Doesn’t mean the cop has any right to kill me.
And “Put your hands up! Bang!” within one second? No one could comply with that order.
This looks like 2nd degree murder to me.
You are correct.
We shall she what the Tarrant County DA decides.
And a Tarrant County jury will be more lenient than they are in Dallas County.
As far as I have learned, they are not. The police feel threathened
the cop culture must change......THEY SERVE THE PUBLIC....THEY ARE NOT JUDGE AND JURY....
and we wonder why blacks don't rat each other out..
pretty soon we're going to have to call the fire dept instead of the cops....
its the attitude since at least Ruby Ridge that the cops can get away with shooting first and thinking later....
for all we know this cop could have been a normally nice guy but that cop culture of shooting people to death rather then helping them or simply stopping them takes over....
Listen to the link at post #59.
Following the rules and never hiring a KNOWN psychopath would all by itself vastly reduce the problem.
A consistent pattern of suing the living crap out of all their PERSONAL net worth of anyone who violates this rule for all damage that the KNOWN psychopath they hired does will very quickly cut the supply of fresh blood-lust pouring into police departments everywhere.
They pay. The taxpayers don’t pay for their failure to follow the REQUIREMENTS in hiring practice.
The hiring manager, the individual who signed off on the bad hire is the weak link. Break that link at every opportunity.
Word gets around. As soon as intrinsically cowardly career bureaucrats realize they PERSONALLY will suffer a bad hire, they will fall back to the protection of following the rules.
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