Cleveland cop shoots 12-year-old boy Two Seconds after Pulling Next to Him

[Sovereign]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/u...bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=141977352200&_r=0

 

[Clayton]

You know, I don't think I want to watch a video of a kid getting shot, thanks.

 

[Sovereign]

You know, I don't think I want to watch a video of a kid getting shot, thanks.

You don't see anything. You just see him pulling up.

 

[Jiang Winters]

That's tragic.

 

[Raydo]

This is sad. I hate how everything is being connected to ferguson. With the reality of mass shootings in this county, it is more important than ever for parents to teach the seriousness of even playing with firearms (whether they be real or fake) when someone reaches for what an could be a weapon esoicially after being addressed by an officer the likely outcome will be use of force. In an occupation where 2 seconds and 2.2 seconds is the difference between seeing your family after work or a body bag, I sympathize with the officers. Tragic on all sides.

 

[Liam]

Very sad to hear.

 

[Blaxican]

Extremely sad- my heart goes out to the family.

Here's what the toy gun looked like, for those for not in the know.

Spoiler

There are supposed to be orange rings painted around the barrel of toy guns to make it immediately noticeable to police that they're faked- obviously, this one was painted over deliberately to make it appear real.

I'm a bit surprised that the NYT article didn't have a photo of the gun (unless I missed it), but then again the title and wording of the article makes it obvious that the author is pushing an agenda.

 

[Vulpes]

Extremely sad- my heart goes out to the family.

Here's what the toy gun looked like, for those for not in the know.

Spoiler

There are supposed to be orange rings painted around the barrel of toy guns to make it immediately noticeable to police that they're faked- obviously, this one was painted over deliberately to make it appear real.

I'm a bit surprised that the NYT article didn't have a photo of the gun (unless I missed it), but then again the title and wording of the article makes it obvious that the author is pushing an agenda.

As far as I know, most states have the "orange ring " rule for airsoft and nonfiring toys. Airguns fire a metal pellet in contrast to the plastic ones airsoft fires. Chances are, It didn't have one in the first place since airguns aren't toys like airsoft. They're capable of killing, granted only small furry creatures. Just trying to clear that up a little

Tragic though.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

then again the title and wording of the article makes it obvious that the author is pushing an agenda.

I agree. We really need to get the "cops should stop killing people" bias out of our news media.

 

[Blaxican]

As far as I know, most states have the "orange ring " rule for airsoft and nonfiring toys. Airguns fire a metal pellet in contrast to the plastic ones airsoft fires. Chances are, It didn't have one in the first place since airguns aren't toys like airsoft. They're capable of killing, granted only small furry creatures. Just trying to clear that up a little

Tragic though.

The more you know. Thanks for telling.

I agree. We really need to get the "cops should stop killing people" bias out of our news media.

The article should have just been titled "Police Sacrifice Helpless Black Child to the Blood God in Drive-by".

Think of the sales, Brandon. Think of the sales.

 

[Jiang Winters]

Several years ago, around 2010-2011, I met a young boy in 7-11 as I was on my way home from an airsoft game. He was carrying an airsoft sniper rifle - one of the off brand generics, but it looked realistic enough and the orange ring had been removed. (Up close and personal it's pretty easy to tell a cheap spring gun from a real rifle, but from about ten or fifteen feet it looked convincing enough.)

I stopped him and had to take a minute to convince him that town ordinances prohibit airsoft in the city limits, and that the weapon would be cause for alarm with the police. Ended up talking him into taking off his hoodie and wrapping the gun up in it, and explained to him very clearly what to do if he was approached by a police officer. (Slowly set the weapon down, keep your hands in plain sight as you step away, tell the cop it's not a real weapon.)

From everything I've seen, there's a lot of young people (and some grown-ass people) who just haven't been taught how to handle weapons or an encounter with authorities while you're carrying weapons. What's 'common sense' to gun owners is often not instilled in the folks who purchase replica/airsoft guns, and shitty, terrible things like this happens as a result.

I just don't feel it's the kid's fault at all, but I have got to question the wisdom of his parents for giving him access to a replica firearm of any flavor. This goes back to the ridiculousness of American gun culture I touched on ages and ages ago when Cricket rifles came up (Here's a link to my rant then)- a lot of people have a warped perception of firearms and just don't see anything wrong with handing a replica of one to a little kid. Yes, there are parents and children who can handle that, I know some myself, but it seems like so many Americans have just completely and utterly forgotten the burden of responsibility that comes with carrying a gun - even a replica of one.

All that being said, I don't blame the kid, I don't know enough to blame the cops, and for all I know his parents could've done their best to teach junior how to handle his replica (if he even got it from them in the first place). I'm just chalking this one off as the most tragic of cluster****s, and a pretty sad thing overall.

Spoiler: orange tips

Also, to contribute a bit more to the talk about airsoft guns and orange tips, it's a federal law that all imported replica firearms have a 1/4" inch blaze orange tip on the muzzle. Nearly all airsoft guns are imported from Asian manufacturers, which is a part of why orange tips are pretty universal on unmodified airsoft replicas. As for local laws, state law sometimes prescribes an orange tip as well (I believe), and I do know it's required for shipping purposes, but otherwise it basically boils down to whether or not your county/city has specific ordinances pertaining to airsoft weapons. (North Bend/Coos Bay, here where I live, specifically prohibits airsoft guns from being discharged in the city limits.)

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

Very well spoken, Jiang. In the report and the video the kid is said to have gone for the gun and in my mind that was to toss it to the ground or get it away from himself as quickly as possible. The officer obviously interpreted it as a threat or the kid trying to draw on them.

The only thing I question is responding to someone with a gun and then pulling right up to a person with your car. It was said the dispatcher hadn't told the police the gun may be fake (which is a huge fault on their part) so it is possible they also didn't relay it was a kid and they thought they'd pull up and ask the kid a few questions/get out of the area. Then, like Jiang said, it could have been just a series of extremely unfortunate accidents.

I am interested to know how many shots were fired. In too many police shooting reports when an officer is questioned they always seem to say they don't know how many rounds they fired. I can see in the middle of a life threatening incident you can reasonably lose track, but in many cases it is an officer firing at one or two suspects and they nearly empty their magazine. Bullets don't work like they do in the movies where people neatly fall down after being shot, but it seems more like these officers fire until their target is on the ground with some reckless abandon.

Officers are trained and drilled to do something that some of them will never do and that is to draw and fire their sidearm. I know I am going on for two paragraphs about a possibly unrelated subject, but the officers in said situations seem wholly unprofessional which lends itself to the argument of police disarmament in varying degrees (which I see the merit in, but ultimately don't agree) or at the very least we need a much better trained (not better armed) police force.

EDIT: Jiang, reading your linked post now and, again, very well spoken.

 

[BLADE]

It's weird to me, looking out across the office sometimes and seeing a pink-the-color-of-curdled-sweet-and-sour-sauce building go up in one of my old haunts.

Five Points. Sun Valley. Ferguson. All these places are tucked away. Ignored. Avoided.

At least until a concrete rococo bonbon of a building goes up and signals gentrification. Sometimes I drive by there and see residents milling about. Waiting. There's always tension when there are police around. Especially now.

And why wouldn't there be? The area I grew up in, calling police the enemy wasn't far-fetched. It wasn't even wrong. Just a fact of life. Like salting the sidewalk for snow, or dumping out water in spring to prevent mosquitos spawned. And oh how they spawned.

Don't misunderstand me. The area I lived in, was, as I have noted before, a family area. People live, laugh, love, and die there largely without issue. It wasn't a dystopia. It wasn't even a goddamn Spike Lee movie. But for the thinness of the Fucco --our portmanteau on the false stucco that our block was garlanded in-- and the lack of AC (Denver summers were not forgiving to those without central cooling) we would never have even heard the occasional (and I must stress occasional) pitter-patter of gunfire. All too often, the police were involved in that gunfire. For good or ill? Who can say. But still the resentment built.

For my group of friends I had the great equalizer: white skin and the sort of diffident politesse of someone who didn't really stay there their whole life. I couldn't be categorized based on pigment. I was an ambassador whenever we were out a bit late at night (if you consider seven to be out late for a group of teens with not that much to do.) Translating:

Q'est que c'est what are you boys doing out here?
Are you up to something?
Get the **** out.

And so it went. I still get an itch at the base of my neck, the sort before I get tension headaches whenever I'm around policemen. I'm an attorney now. I live in an area where there are more hydrangeas than firearms per capita. My wife's uncle is one of the loveliest people I've ever met, and a detective with the force for over twenty-seven years.

But the itch remains. Fainter perhaps and with less urgency, but I guess it's because on some level I realize that every single time a police officer stops a black person on some level it's a warning. Know your place. Reproduce the supremacist system. Get the **** out. Can we really ask people to be supine in a system like this? Should we? Why can't we speak to police officers as what they are? We are the authorities surely, not they.

Can I or any white person, no matter our experiences ask those under the heel of what is essentially an occupying force to resist in our way? I can't answer that either. Not when every year at a place that's more like Wisteria Lane than Sun Valley makes the burnt asphalt and crackling heat fade away. And still the itch grows fainter.

I don't know if the answer is because it happening to a black kid isn't immediate enough for us. I don't know if asking police to disarm in a culture awash in guns and petty resentments is a reasonable answer.

All I know is that every time I hear a story about this sort of thing, the itch travels down my neck. Stronger. Insistent. I bite back bile and rage. I say horrible things to myself and then repent immediately. I think of my daughters. One sleeping fitfully in her cri and two on the way. And I vow to myself never to get off the sidewalk for a bully in uniform with a gun --whatever hue he or she may be. But is it an empty vow? And if it is for me, then what about those with darker skins and bleaker outlooks?

On Monday I'll be going back to work. I'll look at people shuffling down the street and I'll see police. I'll never be in a conflict with them, in all likelihood. My station in life and my class forbids it. But I wonder every time I see a group of black or brown (or yes sometimes poor and white, because class is the great transubstantiator of race) kids pulled over for the silliest things. How do they feel? Do their necks itch too?

And if that neck does, what can I do to save it? What can any of us do?

I am invisible understand, simply because people refuse to see me
- Ralph Ellison

 

[Loco]

From everything I've seen, there's a lot of young people (and some grown-ass people) who just haven't been taught how to handle weapons or an encounter with authorities while you're carrying weapons. What's 'common sense' to gun owners is often not instilled in the folks who purchase replica/airsoft guns, and shitty, terrible things like this happens as a result.

I just don't feel it's the kid's fault at all, but I have got to question the wisdom of his parents for giving him access to a replica firearm of any flavor. This goes back to the ridiculousness of American gun culture I touched on ages and ages ago when Cricket rifles came up (Here's a link to my rant then)- a lot of people have a warped perception of firearms and just don't see anything wrong with handing a replica of one to a little kid. Yes, there are parents and children who can handle that, I know some myself, but it seems like so many Americans have just completely and utterly forgotten the burden of responsibility that comes with carrying a gun - even a replica of one.

That's essentially my thoughts on the subject. It's not any one persons fault, just a long series of small mistakes on all sides that eventually led to a kids death. Best case scenario lessons were learned, but the officers and even the dispatcher, along with the kids parents are going to have to live with this. I think most people here know I'm a shooter and gun owner, and sometimes even gun advocate- but it still appalls me how cavalier some are when it comes to disregarding simple safety steps when it comes to handling weapons, real or fake. I'm at an advantage I know- I've been around guns since I was maybe 6 or 8, somewhere in that time frame, on top of carrying a gun to work more often than not now- so things like don't point it at anything, don't put your finger on the trigger, always treat it as loaded, etc come second nature to me and really just seem like common sense, but for many people it's not. That doesn't even address interacting with the police while armed.

If you're going to let your kid have an airsoft or paintball or even just a cap or water gun, you need to lay down some of these ground rules, and for god sake stop spray painting everything black- those bright colors serve a purpose. People have become so hypersensitive to the threat of active shooters that you can't be so flagrant about carrying anything even resembling a weapon as you could even just 20 or 30 years ago. It contributes to situations like this.

I am interested to know how many shots were fired. In too many police shooting reports when an officer is questioned they always seem to say they don't know how many rounds they fired. I can see in the middle of a life threatening incident you can reasonably lose track, but in many cases it is an officer firing at one or two suspects and they nearly empty their magazine. Bullets don't work like they do in the movies where people neatly fall down after being shot, but it seems more like these officers fire until their target is on the ground with some reckless abandon.

As far as pulling up on him like that, I can't say what happened. It may have been anything from a simple tactical mistake, maybe they didn't identify him as the suspect until the last second, maybe they had a plan that just didn't work out, maybe they couldn't stop further away for whatever reason, or maybe they didn't think they had the right kid at all until he went for the gun- there are infinite possibilities, and it's impossible for anyone to really know except the guy behind the wheel. Regardless of circumstances, hindsight shows it was probably a mistake, but I don't think it was in any way intentional or malicious.

As far as shooting, that's something I can speak on. People have a lot of misconceptions when it comes to shootings, whether self defense or officer involved or what have you, and it goes beyond just what happens when somebody actually gets shot. There are a lot of things to consider that, unless you have the training or are part of that world, are sometimes difficult to understand.

The biggest thing I see regularly is people harping on officers for the number of times they fired. As much as I hate to bring it up, the Michael Brown shooting is a good example. People seem to be under the impression that shooting getting shot six times is a lot- it's not. I don't remember off hand how many rounds Wilson fired, but I do remember thinking that he was remarkably accurate because;

Shooting under pressure is HARD. Like, really really, really hard. Adrenal response is anathema to good shooting, because what happens? Your hands get shaky, your vision narrows, your breathing picks up, your senses sharpen but they're hard to consciously focus, etc. All of these stack up, and if you've ever shot a gun you'll notice they are all things that directly interfere with your ability to aim and fire at a target. And since most people have a hard enough time shooting at a stationary target, imagine that it's moving now.

Time; It does not take very long to fire a gun. I can draw from the holster and fire three rounds in under two seconds- I've done this drill more than a few times with a shot timer. If you're already aiming at the target, it's not hard to put out a dozen or more rounds in just a few seconds. So when people say things like "why did they shoot that many times?", most of them don't realize that all of those shots probably happened in the span of a handful of seconds, because to a layman who shoots one round at a time at a target on a range it does sound like a lot. I remember once emptying an entire 30 round rifle magazine so fast that it took me a few seconds to realize I was still repeatedly trying to pull the trigger on an empty gun. You can shoot much much faster than your brain or even your targets brain can register the effects the bullets have had, which leads us into a point regarding training;

Police officers and soldiers, along with anyone who has taken a good civilian concealed carry class or the like, are taught to shoot until the threat is no longer a threat. Generally speaking it's pretty hard to gauge in the heat of the moment whether or not someone is still a threat until, dead or alive, they hit the ground. Keep in mind you're shooting this person for a reason- whether they're rushing you or have a weapon of their own, stopping for a few seconds between shots to see if they're still trying to attack you is almost certain to end in your death. So yes, most cops and most soldiers are going to fire what seems to many to be a disproportionate numbers of rounds at a target. In many cases with a handgun at close range it is not in any way unreasonable to empty your magazine attempting to stop a threat- you can assess the threat again while you're reloading.




That barely scratches the surface of shooting incidents (We could go all day on training alone), but it's getting a little long winded. I'll caveat that none of the above is meant to suggest that the officers were in the right (or wrong) in this incident or any other specific incident- it's just to provide a little professional insight.

 

[Clayton]

You're in my top ten, Loco. My thoughts exactly on the whole "why did he shoot that many rounds?" thing.

 

[TweedPawn]

My husband applied to be a police officer in a small mid-west town. He's currently in the stage where they are looking into his background. They'll find that his great grandfather was a detective for the New Orleans city police in the 1930's. They'll find that his great uncle was on the motorcycle patrol during the 1950's. I'm actually jealous of the sweet ride his great-grandfather had. Also, according to the photo, gas prices were .35 cents a gallon.

So, Topher will be next in line for a family tradition of police officers. My grandmother worked for Law Enforcement Commission under Buddy Caldwell. Her job was to go to schools. She would talk about all the terrible things that can happen to kids in a school and how the police will help save you if you follow their simple plans. My grandmother is the reason my school had mandatory clear-packbacks, couldn't draw skulls, and got paranoid about "vampire kids".

I have met many police officers in my life. When I had to bring someone to court, my grandmother brought me to the police officers she knew the best. Had me testify. The police officers decided that my verbal testimony was more than enough to continue on to the next step of the legal process. When I read statistics about my situation, I feel guilty. Less than 2% are brought to court. I remember hearing one of the officers say "we can tell she's not faking". I'm not even sure how to take that.

I know how corrupt police officers can be. I heard many spew horrible racist filth. But, I knew a few that were okay. They seemed nice. Probably because of my Grandmother. I worry that my husband will become like the officers that continue the status-quo of New Orleans. He's always tried to do the right thing. He has ministered in prisons, the violent areas of New Orleans, and tended to the needs of the homeless. For some reason, the thought that my husband would become like the police officers in New York or Ferguson scare me more than someone deciding to injure him.

Am I worried about the wrong things?

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

Police officers and soldiers, along with anyone who has taken a good civilian concealed carry class or the like, are taught to shoot until the threat is no longer a threat. Generally speaking it's pretty hard to gauge in the heat of the moment whether or not someone is still a threat until, dead or alive, they hit the ground. Keep in mind you're shooting this person for a reason- whether they're rushing you or have a weapon of their own, stopping for a few seconds between shots to see if they're still trying to attack you is almost certain to end in your death. So yes, most cops and most soldiers are going to fire what seems to many to be a disproportionate numbers of rounds at a target. In many cases with a handgun at close range it is not in any way unreasonable to empty your magazine attempting to stop a threat- you can assess the threat again while you're reloading.

I also have a background with firearms. While I doubt I have as much experience as you (I believe you have stated you served in the military and own firearms); I personally fire guns at most a handful of times throughout the year recreationally and don't personally own a firearm. I am pursuing a job in law enforcement (education wise I am in my fourth year as a Criminal Justice major after switching majors from a year in History at Iowa State University).

The firing drills for officers I have observed or watched have always been about precise sparsed shots. There are the occasions where an officer may need to consecutively fire their sidearm, but it is always treated as a scenario to avoid until absolutely necessary. I get the need for military training to include such operation, but the police are not the military and they shouldn't be trained or treated in the same manner. Police officers are civil servants and not soldiers, such a fatalistic mantra of "shoot until the threat is no longer a threat" or "you can assess the threat again while you're reloading" for law enforcement is actually pretty disgusting to me. It's one of the reasons I can see the point people make about wanting to disarm patrol officers of their firearms.

While the wording was off in my previous post I didn't mean solely cases where an active shooter is present or the police are using lethal force on a criminal I meant cases where the shooting wasn't justified such as the case from a few months ago in South Carolina. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4GSehYkt8Y (Note: The video shows a man being shot at from a police dashcam so a warning to who click it if you are sensitive to such a thing)

 

[BLADE]

Police take on the risk of death by becoming police officers. And as I've pointed out before, being a cop isn't even the most dangerous job in the world (neither is being a soldier, but the military's own nonsense is beyond the scope of this post.) One of the better arguments for not disarming the vast majority of police is that the public in this country is pretty violent and racist.

I think white people --both conservatives and liberals-- want either Wilson to be a hero (so he can be praised for shooting an unarmed black teen) or a monster (so it's obviously nothing to do with the system) when the truth is we have a military, a police structure, a government, and a society which worships death. Bloody, stupid, mindlessly pointless death. That's what a gun is in McLuhanite terms. That's all it is.

So like I said. I dunno if better training will make a difference because when someone like Officer Wilson who may think he's not an overt racist but who sees a larger than average black person as an unstoppable threat ("a demon," "the Hulk," etc.) what kind of training would stop him from taking however many shots it takes to kill that black person?

 

[Loco]

The firing drills for officers I have observed or watched have always been about precise sparsed shots. There are the occasions where an officer may need to consecutively fire their sidearm, but it is always treated as a scenario to avoid until absolutely necessary. I get the need for military training to include such operation, but the police are not the military and they shouldn't be trained or treated in the same manner. Police officers are civil servants and not soldiers, such a fatalistic mantra of "shoot until the threat is no longer a threat" or "you can assess the threat again while you're reloading" for law enforcement is actually pretty disgusting to me. It's one of the reasons I can see the point people make about wanting to disarm patrol officers of their firearms.

What you're looking at is drills. I mostly just do those same drills, with one to three precise shots at a single or multiple targets. There are a lot of reasons for that, the main idea being to build the muscle memory of draw-aim-fire. Most target practice is not meant to simulate a shooting in the same way dribbling a ball through cones is not meant to simulate a soccer game- they help build your base skill level so that you don't have to consciously try to apply it during the real thing.

(Also, can you imagine the dramatic increase in training costs if every firing iteration was a mag dump? It could bankrupt most small cities)

And I agree with you that officers should be trained to de-escalate and use lethal force as a last resort more so than they are now (of course, that means people need to stop suing the shit out of them when they use non-lethal force) and I agree that cops are not soldiers, and shouldn't be trained to treat all situations as such. I think cops have been conditioned over the last couple decades into an Us vs Them mentality that hinders them from doing their jobs and makes their job more dangerous than it already is (and both sides are at fault for that).

Where I'll disagree is the training that anyone, not just cops or soldiers, should receive when it comes to the actual application of deadly force because at that point you are training for the exact same thing regardless of profession. If you are shooting at all then you are shooting to stop an immediate threat. Use of deadly force is use of deadly force- there are no varying degrees. If the situation has degraded so badly that you feel the need to fire your weapon, you shoot to kill- anything else is negligent and unsafe. If you do not feel like you are in a position that you really have to kill someone, then you shouldn't have fired in the first place and maybe shouldn't have drawn a weapon at all- and that is where I believe the difference in training should be. It's not about how many shots you fire at a threat, it's whether or not you fire at all.

Spoiler: Long Winded Personal Anecdote = Optional

Actually, I have what I think is a good personal anecdote that happened this last year that illustrates the point I'm trying to make. Without going into too much detail, my current job in the military involves me supporting several domestic law enforcement agencies, and assisting in certain types of investigations and warrant services. This particular incident was during a type of warrant service in a very rural area, and I was basically in a very low speed pursuit (I chased this guy for the better part of three hours on foot, soooo many Legolas jokes were made). As a side note we had already recovered multiple weapons from the initial site, so we had every reason to believe this guy was armed and it wouldn't be the first time if he decided to try shooting his way out if cornered. He had pretty much lost us in some really dense brush when I stumbled across him; he peeked up out of a bush about twenty feet away and we made eye contact, and I could see that he was carrying something, but with as much brush as there was between us I couldn't be sure what it was. I drew my weapon and yelled at him to get on the ground. He looked me in the eye, looked to both sides, and took off laterally from me (not directly away). In that very brief moment I had to decide whether or not to shoot this guy. On the one hand I've got this- he's possibly armed, he's not responding to commands, and he's moving in a way that someone would who is possibly looking to engage you (moving laterally can be a good move in a gun fight, whereas running away would have made his intent to flee clear). On the other hand I CANNOT be sure that he's armed or if he's still trying to just run, and that's what ultimately made my decision for me- I didn't shoot. I tried to chase him, got hung up in some brush, and he got away. I'm still alive and as far as I know he is too, so I think I made the right choice.

If we'd been on a deployment in Afghanistan instead of shuffling around in bum**** California and I had shot him it almost certainly would have been justified, and I might possibly have chosen to act differently- not because I thought I could get away with killing, but because it's a different environment with a different enemy, and my job as a soldier would have been to fight that enemy. Acting domestically as a law enforcement officer you should never be automatically regarding anyone you have contact with as an enemy, because fighting an enemy is not your job- serving and protecting the community is (ostensibly). I didn't choose not to shoot him because I thought it was too big a risk of being found unjustified and getting me in trouble, but because I didn't think of him as an enemy. I thought of him as a suspect in a criminal investigation who deserved to be captured alive and be tried appropriately unless he gave me absolutely no choice. Since I couldn't 100% confirm his intent or if he was armed, I still had a choice. And, again, that is where the difference in training should be. Deciding when exactly you have no choice but to take a life.

In either case if I had decided he was an immediate threat to my life, my partners life, or anyone else's life, I would have shot until he was clearly no longer a threat, which almost certainly would have meant his death. Lucky for all of us...

Edited: mainly for matters regarding use of the English language, but also to clarify that I'm not saying you HAVE to mag dump on every target or even that the person HAS to die- you can certainly live through deadly force, and if you take away the threat within the first few shots then good for you. The point is to shoot until that immediate threat is gone, whenever and however that may be.


Edited Again to Add:

While the wording was off in my previous post I didn't mean solely cases where an active shooter is present or the police are using lethal force on a criminal I meant cases where the shooting wasn't justified such as the case from a few months ago in South Carolina. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4GSehYkt8Y (Note: The video shows a man being shot at from a police dashcam so a warning to who click it if you are sensitive to such a thing)

This video is actually a very good example. I get why the officer shot him- it wasn't because he wasn't wearing a seat belt, it was because of the sudden way he ducked back in for his license/reg. It would have been a very sketchy move to make if the officer hadn't just asked him for his paperwork. Where the officer went really wrong though was his choice on when the use of deadly force would have been appropriate. He shot the guy because he might have been a threat in a few seconds, not because he had actually identified him as an immediate threat. Very bad decision.

There was another almost identical incident like this just a couple months ago, with pretty much the same result.

 

[BLADE]

(of course, that means people need to stop suing the shit out of them when they use non-lethal force)

Police brutality is a real thing. It is also very hard to prosecute in civil proceedings. It is also endemic.

Aside from that you're pretty much making the argument that most police should be disarmed. The only real question, as I've noted is what kind of burden that puts on the rest of us and our own viciousness and arsenal hoarding.